Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Guess who came in to town this weekend for some romping in the sand?These classy ho's - Bek and Mala. These women couldn't wait to get their grubby little hands on Max and spoil him rotten with attention and love. Also, it was a bonus that Caitlin and I were there.

But they didn't just take, take and take like they might do when they come to visit you. No, they gave too. Mala, for example, brought love in the form of treaty heaven. Just to make you wet your pants with envy, she brought four Levain Bakery cookies.OH CRABBITS that's good. I believe Bek, when given her first bite of this cookie, told everyone to "shut their effing mouths" so she could truly soak up the flavor and joy in silence.She didn't stop there. Mala also brought donuts from the Doughnut Plant.Tres Leches, Green Tea, Carrot Cake - WHT WHT WHT? (missing the "A" cause these doughnuts had already kicked our A's forward and backward until they didn't exist).

I'm sure you're curious as to how we spent our weekend after fattening up. Well. I'll tell you. But not today.

More Max Musings

More info on the kid. In this rainy summer season, Max has discovered a growing obsession with water...particularly puddles. This is very much his age and he can't help it. Something about puddles draw new walkers to them. He can't get enough splashing around.I'm cool with it. A child should explore and get wet.He also has a healthy obsession with coloring and stickers. You'll notice the two stickers on his nose. He can walk around with stickers attached to his face for hours.Some things, on the other hand, never change...like Max's disillusion with eating proper nutrition or food in general. Grandma Judes sent us a gift in an effort to curb that issue. Max likes gifts, so he was pumped.The first gift to come out was an amazing block puzzle about transit - trucks, cars, trains, and boats. Max loves transit. He was besides himself.

The kid can already identify every block and put it back appropriately.

And then the kicker - a cool plate with different sections and a figurine spoon. YES!

Life Is Unfair

My mom always said "Life is Unfair." I knew she was right...but I didn't know how right until this week when I got seriously hosed over by mother nature (that skank). I have wanted to be in an earthquake FOREVER and what happens? Colorado and New York/DC get earthquakes in 24 hours. Boo - unfair!

To add insult to injury, the lame hurricane is going to pass like a million miles off the east coast of Florida and totally miss us. Life is SOO unfair!

If there is an earthquake in Chicago next month before I get there I'm going to really get mad. If there is a hurricane and earthquake and tornado at the same time I just don't know what I'll be capable of. Could life get that unfair?

signed - Drama King

Sea World #2: I Never Said It Would Be Easy, Just Worth It

Carrying on with our amazing day at Sea World! After the carousel, we made our way over to check out some other kid rides. I really didn't know that Sea World even had rides...I don't remember that from my visit to San Diego as a kid. Anyway, we found some steel drums for Max and Owen to bang on for a bit - sometimes with a juicy hanging from their mouth.Max has a love for drumming in a big way - particularly since he found his uncle Mike's drums in Papa D's garage a while back.We went on this crazy boat ride that twirls and spins and goes up and down. I was positive it would make me nauseous - and it did. But we had a great time anyway. Guess who else liked it - MAX! Okay, I'm not sure he liked it. I think he was in a heat coma at that point and wasn't really reacting to anything.But man did we react! T.Rex and JayMoo in da hizouse!See Max down by my stomach. He was just drinking some juice and chillin.So after that ride was over we headed into the very cool arctic house to learn about what would become one of Max's favorite animals so far. But first, the Beluga dolphin/whale (what is that thing?)If felt amazing in here. Whoever said it was a good idea to go to Sea World in August in Florida was really fooling themselves.Max and mama, learning about the cold, snow and ice...getting Max ready to go back to Chicago for the shock of his life.Max's new favorite animal!!! WALRUS! Max said there with bug eyes saying "wall reese" over and over and over and over. "More wall reese?" He loved this big tub of lard.Owen and Max, enthralled.Seriously, he couldn't take his eyes of the walrus. He would later say walrus over and over for the next few days.And finally it was Shamu time baby. By now Max was pretty tired, but he still had enough juice (both metaphoric and real juice) to enjoy a 45 minute killer whale show.Yo mama - check it out! Thems whales is crazy!And then he was pretty much done. We gave him the rest of his cheetos to polish off and he collapsed into the stroller. It was raining a bit and we were sure that we'd be leaving.I mean - how do you force a precious face like this into standing around any longer?Well, me and T.Rex - we jerks like that. We really wanted to go on the Manta roller coaster. Right when we got there it closed for technical difficulties and lightening. Before we knew it, we were first in line! How could we leave when we had this amazing chance???With my hair I was BARELY tall enough to go on the ride...another sign that this just had to be!Sorry Owen, you don't quite make it yet. Maybe next year.And then we waited, and waited, and waited, and waited. They said it was for lightening, but the skies were basically blue for 40 minutes while we stood there. We held our ground. We knew the second we stepped out of that line, the ride would start. And that is EXACTLY what happened. But the people were nice enough to let us back in - mostly because we had crazy cute kids running around and wives who had suffered a long time just so we could ride the roller coaster.VICTORY!!!! And we were offffffffffffff!!!!And it was amazing! We got the last row for the mad-G-force and crazy turns. It was super rad and a ride of the century...very much like Superman at Six Flags. You go Sea World.

Then we headed home. Max slept the entire way back to Fort Lauderdale. So cute. While we know he will forget this day, we'll always have pictures to prove it when we can't afford to take him later in life. Sucka!

Sea World #1: The Seadoctrination of Mittoo

SEA WORLD TIME! We were there and ready to experience all the Sea World had to offer. I hadn't been to Sea World since we went in San Diego when I was in Jr. High School, so I was pretty pumped. I've always been a lover of things in the ocean - but I was extra excited because Max has an obsession with animals and fishies. It really was a recipe for awesomeness.First stop - Sting Rays. Having just enjoyed a trip to Sting Ray City in Grand Cayman, we thought we'd bring the boys over to try it out. Max was enthusiastic at first to see the water.And then he saw these bad boys and was back in mama's arms pretty quick. In some ways Max can be a real timid dude, particularly around animals. But he loves them. Owen, T.Rex and B.Rex were not timid and were loving the sting rays. I think this is an amazing family picture (well, except Colette is not there). Sometimes you just have to let Mittoo know that everything is okay and he slowly warms up to touching an animal. Here he is completely fascinated by the sting rays and gathering up his courage to touch them. This "shocked, fascinated, mind-blown" face is something you are going to see a lot from our day at Sea World. He eventually got down and touched a sting ray. Good job Max!Fresh of his sting ray experience, Max was ready for more and more and MORE. So we took him to a small dolphin show. Again - transfixed and obsessed. "MOM! Are you seeing this???"So cute.Occasionally the dolphins would splash the crowd and Max would get all excited by the action.And of course they did lots of awesome jumps and tricks the blew Max's mind.Caitlin and Max - loving their lives.Then we headed over to the larger, more official dolphin show because Max was not ready to be done with the dolphins yet. Picture posing time.It was a whole fairy tale show. I have to laugh about this chick in pink. She had to do the most ridiculous stuff, like dance for 10 minutes at a time while the dolphins did tricks. The fact is that she probably was just a science geek who really wanted to interact with dolphins and somehow she got hired by Sea World and ended up being a pink princess + dolphin trainer and she hates her life.But even if she did hate her life - Max LOVED his life. Look at that face. His mind is right in the middle of being blown to goo. Also, those are Cheetos all over his face. He rediscovered his love for Cheetos on this trip.These dolphins could get some serious synchronized air.And do cool flips and stuff. Why wouldn't Max's mind be blown?And Owen's. Let's not forget that Owen was loving his life as well. I won't be surprised if both of these kids have a phase where they want to be marine biologists.And then there is precious Colette. Here she is thinking, "Are you #$%&$% kidding me? You have me out in this #%!& heat to watch @#%#$& fish jump around? What a @*%& joke!" Colorful Colette, but it was hot so I can't blame you for the curse words.The colorful finale with the sun burst.After the dolphin show we needed a bit of a break. T.Rex and B.Rex went on the Kracken roller coaster and we fed the kids some ice cream. Yes, ice cream. That was all we could get Max to eat. We even put ice cream in a thing of peanut butter in hopes he'd eat some PB. Nope. Oh well. Then Max napped for a solid 45 minutes.And so did Colette. She had had enough for a while. Then we went over to the kid's rides for a bit. Max was not really feelin' sitting on the sea horses, but he was 100% down for riding on the bench with Mama. I think we rode this carousel 7 times at a minimum.That was fine with Owen, since he is a carousel fan as well.Dada and Max. Do you love our colorful t-shirts?Sup Caitlin!!!I love this picture of Max and I staring at each other smiling on the carousel. He really was the happiest kid on earth - and it was only 2pm! What would the rest of the afternoon hold for these adorable kids and their parents???