Max can work it

Our Boy never ceases to amaze me.

He was a champion flyer again yesterday! He slept through the brief first flight from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. We had a window seat and an empty seat between us and a very nice gentleman who also slept the whole flight. The second flight, however, we were on the aisle and from the get-go I could tell that the woman next to us was going to be a bit of a problem. She was obviously less than pleased to see that she was sitting next to a baby as soon as she boarded. Throughout the 2.5 hour flight to Minneapolis she got up not one, two or three times, but FOUR to use the restroom. (Though to be fair, I understand if she was having 'one of those days' and just really needed to use it often.) Max was pretty much wide awake for the flight, but would doze off on my shoulder every now and then, which is (oh so conveniently) when the lady would decide to ask for me to get up and let her out. (I was 'wearing' Max in his totally awesome Ergo Carrier) After the first two times I politely asked her if it'd be easier for me to move to the window seat in case she needed to get up again, but she said no, she was fine sitting in that seat. 'She' being the operative word! I was over it by the third potty break and when she asked for the fourth time I said "Really?". (The answer was 'yes', btw)

At one point I dozed off and when I woke I looked down and saw Max cooing, batting his long beautiful eyelashes and doing everything short of a song and dance number. I turned around to look behind us and he was apparently full-on flirting with a lady down the aisle! (I'm so sure my almost one year old can pick up chicks on a commercial airline!)

Anyhoo, we made it safely to Minneapolis and were greeted by my Dad, the infamous Stu Fu! My brother, his girlfriend and my niece & nephew arrived later in the afternoon and we've been having a grand ol' time since. I'm so thankful that we were able to get back to see him! We hadn't seen each other since Thanksgiving of '07, as we didn't get back for either of the holidays last year due to our new addition to the family.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Max is doing a great job with going to bed at night now. He was bathed, read, fed and in bed by 7:30pm last night. We all watched the Mall Cop movie (or rather, they watched and I fell asleep on the floor- apparently I *might* snore) and then I went up to bed a little before 11 or so. Max immediately woke up as soon as I opened the door and started crying. I thought he might be hungry, so I gave him a bit of a bottle until it was apparent that he just wanted to be up with me. As Michael will attest, this Boy has played me a lot when it comes to bedtime. He will do everything shy of reading poetry and confessing his love and adoration for me to convince me to let him stay up. (And yes, it may work most of the time- at least until I finally bought into the 'crying it out' method because yes, it does work and yes, I will fully admit that it FRICKIN' ROCKS to have the rest of the evening to myself!)

But I digress... so he doesn't want any more of the bottle and just wants to play at 11pm (or really midnight Eastern time). So I laid him back down in the crib and turned out the lamp. He cried. And cried some more... and I then witnessed his thought process when trying to get me to pick him up from his crib. I laid down on my bed and tried to stay as still as possible and watched in the shadows. First, he continued the dramatic crying while standing up in the crib. Then after a few minutes he'd stop and listen to see if I was buying into it. When it became apparent that I wasn't, he cried some more, even more dramatically. Repeat. Then he sat down in the crib... more crying... wait wait wait... cry some more. (Now while I'm sure this is probably something most parents have witnessed, I must note that it just tickled me to no end. During my pregnancy with Max I had many recurring dreams of waking up to see our child standing up in his crib. So yeah, pretty much a dream come true. And the fact that the child of two theatre professionals could cry sooo dramatically and with such feeling made it all the better!) After awhile I couldn't lie still anymore and either coughed or shifted on the bed accidentally, which set him off even more because he. knew. I. was. there! (And how DARE I not pick his adorable self up?!) I could tell he wasn't going to give up anytime soon, so I finally got up and moved to the spare bed in Stu Fu's office across the hall.

And he was out within 10 minutes. Sucker!

Think Momma will be sleeping in the office the rest of the week while we're here...