Dearest Max,

Wow it has been so long since I have sat down to write your birthday letters and even blogged about how much you have changed and grown. You are doing an outstanding job at your new school. You are making friends with so many kids and you are really are making this school a home for yourself. December was a special month at school because your teachers and classmates did the Birthday Celebration for you where I made a poster of all the years you have been alive and told a little about each year you have been around in this world and they read it to your class. You lit candles, sang songs and walked 4 times around the “world” candle in the middle of your classroom. It was a beautiful and amazing celebration. You answered questions about the sun, the moon and all the planets. You did a great job. You were so proud and I was honored to be there with you. I think your favorite part of the celebration was handing out my special gluten free, egg free, dairy free cupcakes with dairy free and egg free icing at the end plus dairy free chocolate chips..the kids and the teachers were so excited. You were helping the teachers put them on the kids plates and all of the kids with allergies could eat them, which made you so happy too.

This is a picture of you next to your proud cupcakes that your Mom makes!

You have been doing a great job with practicing writing letters and Daddy bought you a book that you practice tracing your letters and then writing them on your own. We also started to work on reading at night. We are looking at the letters and then sounding them out and reading the word. You really enjoy this even though it is tough work. You LOVE all the Richard Scary Books right now and Daddy just bought your 3 more because we had read the 2 we own about 150 times already. You were so excited when they came in the mail. You are just growing up. You can put yourself to sleep now all by yourself at night and your hold onto Running Bear, Eagles Bear and Singing Blue Bear. They keep you company.

You are very proud of your room and your books. You are very proud of being an Eagles fan and often ask why everyone is not an Eagles fan. You room has a bunch of Eagles Jerseys hanging up and pictures of the Phillies and the Flyers. You, just like your Dad, are die hard Philly Fans. You an your sister both have your Eagles gear that you wear for game day but the season if over so we will wait for next year!

There is a great playground near us that has these water machines that you can aim at each other and shoot water. We went there with friends from out of town and you had a blast. You were soaked from head to toe but you enjoyed yourself so much. You love to play. You are also really into your imagination Playmobile castle and school. We sit for hours and play. You and your Daddy sit for hours and play with all the figures and just play pretend imagination. You have always been great at playing and you love to just have time to enjoy your toys and cars.

a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/maxsmom/5377217649/” title=”IMG_8153 by Maxsmom, on Flickr”>

You are definitely going through the 4 year old..”I want it my way stage” but seriously you are the sweetest boy with the most open and gentle heart. You may hit here and there when your sister annoys you or takes your car or destroys your castle or messes up your game..but I don’t blames you even though I need to discipline you and your sister for messing things up. You have a HUGE heart and you just want to love. You enjoy playing, baking, cooking, painting, drawing, snuggling and watching Dino Dan. You love to play with other kids and you have really stepped out of your shy shell and taken on your power and your voice.

This year you and your sister painted the most amazing picture in December that is hanging in our living room. You guys worked on it for 2 days. The canvas was 4 by 6 and it was bigger than the both of you but you worked and worked and it is so beautiful. We will have it forever. It reminds me how colorful you are and how much brightness you bring to the world. Don’t ever stop asking questions. Don’t ever stop playing even though I tell you everything is not a game. You teach me so much. Thank you my dear boy.

Love you always,

Mom

Dearest Max,

I promise things are settling down but the last few months have been full of change with our move and I have had to pack two months of your birthday letters into one..this has never happened but I think that is part of being a mom..just accepting that I can’t do it all. So enough about me and let’s talk about you.

First off-you still love life as you always have and for some reason you dig wearing your socks like this! Maybe you thought we moved closer to Miami!

So much has happened. You love your new school. You had a tough time at first and I don’t blame you. You were so comfortable at your old school but you have really grown to like this school. You are in a class where there are 3 to 5 year olds. It is a very traditional Montessori school where older kids help the younger kids. You go to school at 8:30 in the morning and I pick you up at 11:30. Sometimes you stay for lunch and then I pick you up at 12:30 pm but with your food allergies it is much easier to come home and eat your meal here as your school uses a microwave and I have never used a microwave for you in your life. Why start now?

The head of the school came up to me and told me how special you are because you were 5 of 16 kids that offered to do an exercise where you would help a younger child do their work. You thrive when you can show your independence and leadership skills. I was very proud of you as usual.

The biggest thing that has happened is you wear big boy underwear! Yep you heard me. Three weeks ago the school emailed me and said it was time. You had a few pee accidents but that was it and now you wear underwear-I cannot believe it. I am so proud of you!!

You love the pool. We swim everyday and sometimes a twice a day. We converted the pool to a salt water pool and it is so nice. You have been taking swim lessons and you can swim about 6 feet wall by yourself and lift your head and kick. You can also jump in on your own and dive down for rings. It is amazing to watch you each week get better and better. We have a lot of thank you’s to Miss Tracy for teaching you how to swim because in the beginning you cried everyday and then one day you said you were going to swim and you did. It was such a classic Max MOVE!

You are just loving our neighborhood. You often ask if we are moving back to our old house but we explain that we have moved and that we have sold that house. I think you kind of get it. You love being outside and we have huge doors that open up to our pool and backyard and so the whole house, since it is also one floor, seems to be one large play room.

You are a great big brother. Sometimes your little sister upsets you but most of the time you are great at helping her and helping me. You are still so stubborn and I am not sure if that will ever change but it is just who you are. You are cracking me up with some of he things you say like, “baby, stop you are giving me a headache or baby, stop you are making me tired.” Oh boy-I hope Ii don’t say those things. You think you are the police man in this house!

Anything Dinosaurs is the new theme in the house. You love watching a new show called Dino Dan and any documentary with Dinosaurs. It is very cute. You still love Kung Fu Panda but you have moved onto the next level of really wanting to watch show that stimulate your brain. You still are awesome with your imagination and playing. It always amazes me when I see you playing and  what you say we should do with all the toys or little characters in your story that we are playing out.

So basically my big boy-have fun-keep dreaming-keep asking WHY-keep exploring and I love you very much.

Love,
Mommy

Dearest Max,

Wow..I am I late this month but so much has happened. We are in the process of moving and not only has it been crazy insane but I also was just trying to finish nutrition school, get us finalized in Philly, pack us up, and shed so many tears..so I am late..very late and I write this post actually from our hotel room in Boca Raton, Florida (your new home town) because I want to write tell you all about how much you have changed and grown this month.

Transition has never been easy for you..I swear you and I have that in common but you have been so amazing. The other day I was crying, as I was working out on my elliptical and you said…
“Mommy, can I talk to you about why you are sad?” I said..yes and you asked me why I was sad and I explained that I was sad because we were moving and I would leave my friends and my family. You asked me the name of my best friend and I told you. You then told me I should write down all the names and give them to Daddy so he can call them and then I won’t be so sad. You also told me they could visit and text me. I started to laugh. Then at the end you said..” Mommy, don’t be sad because we have a pool.” And I said yes sweetie, We have a pool. I should not be sad at all. And you reminded me again that Daddy would call my best friends and have them text me. Where do you get this stuff?

You also told me the other day that you “could not do something because your brain fell out into your tummy”…you also told me the other day that “this guy was giving you a heart attack”. Where do you get this stuff? Cracks me up. Your are too smart for your own good and you always have a story for why you cannot do something when you don’t feel like it-especially saying sorry. But you are a very loving guy I just think you are going through your ALMOST 4 year old stage and this is part of you testing the boundaries.

So yes we moved officially on the 28th of August and it has been tough. You were very excited but I think the change has been a lot for you and mostly because your Dad has been out at the house daily doing stuff and we are living at a hotel and I know there is a lack of stimulation which you thrive on. But you had a great time at camp this summer for the month of August. At camp they had some chicken eggs hatch in your classroom and it was very exciting. There were over 10 chickens and they were so cute. You also went in the sprinklers every day and played with some of your best buddies. It was a great summer. You had a great time with Teacher Brenda and her son Mr Matt. I was so happy that she was there for you in the summer and we were sad to say good bye as she has loved you so much this year.

I am not sure when you started to look so grown up but all of the sudden you do. You are such a great boy and I am so lucky to have you as a son. You make me so proud in so many ways. You have endless love that you show in hugs and kisses constantly. You may be shy at first but without a doubt you will be showing your break dancing moves to that person when you feel like it. I have always needed to let you pave the way for yourself and give a shove when needed..in a gentle way but I have needed to just tell you that it is cool and you can do it and it will be fine and just to step up and well you do it..of course when you are ready..it is just your personality and stubborn as a bull-just like your mommy.

So I love you and always be who you are and I hope you love your new life as a Boca Boy and I hope you love your new Montessori school..and I hope you always reach for the stars and never stop laughing..as you think everything is funny..I love you.

Dear Max,

I know this letter is so over due but these past few months have been hard for me to blog with the big move..I know no excuse but if you know anything about your mom..this is huge for me. But lets talk about you. You are such a big boy. First off, I have to say you also got Hand, Foot and Mouth and you were so sick…huge sores in your mouth and it was awful but you also gave up your bottle and your formula. You decided that you were a big boy and that you now prefer to drink lemonade, apple juice, carrot juice and water. You were a trooper during your sickness with fevers that went up and down and sores in your mouth that made it hard to drink but you still watched lots of movies and had fun at the beach.

I swear you were meant to be in the water. When you started to get ear infections at 9 months and we had to keep your ears out of the water it was hard-I am not sure for you but hard for me because I knew you loved the water so much but now you are a surfer. You just love it and you are really good. Daddy actually pulls you really fast down the beach on your board and you ride the waves and sometimes you fall but your scream for more.

I think one of the things I love about you the most is that you think everything is funny. I love the faces you make. This one is the classic Max face.

Down the shore we stayed in barnegat light and I think it was the 4th time you have stayed on Long Beach Island and it made me sad because I knew it would be a while since we would be back since we are moving to Florida so there were lots of treats and lots of eating. It is really amazing that your body does great when you are really just happy and in the sun so check all of these great pics of you eating your yummy gluten free stuff..

well this one was  not gluten free-but you only ate the icing..lol

Basically you just love life despite the 3 1/2 , I AM DOING IT MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY STAGE YOU ARE GOING THROUGH but I think all kids go through that or at least that is what I am told. I love your curiosity. I love that you have a story for everything. I love that when you dont want to do something you say you are tired or you say your back hurts you or say that the baby hurt you..you have a story for everything..You are great at figuring things out-and you love to help..of course unless you dont feel like it. But really you are a great kid.

As far as speech, your teacher Miss Marlene Belkin says that you are at 80% and that is amazing. I am so proud of you. I can see your personality coming through in your speech and trust me even when you did not have words you could light up a room…you have never lacked in that area.

You still LOVE trucks, cars and now Love Dinosaurs. You are using the potty more and more and wear pull ups. We have some accidents and you do not like to potty at school but you will when you want to and I have learned you cannot be pushed..hhhmmm..wonder where you get that quality from? You are just a great kid and an amazing brother. You love to play HARD. You are so excited to move. You keep asking when we are moving to the house with the pool. I have found a montessori school that I am excited about and your sister will attend for a few morning in January. I am excited for your new life In Boca raton Florida. You will be my little Jewish Surfer Boy. I love my dear Angel!!

My dearest boy,

So much to tell and I have not been writing in my blog with our busy life. First off, let me just say you are so handsome. I am amazed that you get more handsome each day. You love your Daddy so much but I know you love me equally just in different ways. You love to hit and wrestle with your Daddy but when it comes to hurting yourself and needing a good snuggle and love you turn to me. I think if you had it your way you would have the both of us with you every second of the day.

Well school ended a week ago and we headed for the beach. YOu LOVE the beach and love the sand. You actually like to pretend that you are swimming but in the sand. You love the take your clothes off and swim in the sand and the water. It is a delight to watch and hysterical too. You enjoy taking outside showers and you are very good at peeing on the rocks outside while you wait for the shower to get turned on. You still think you can be a dog like Esther. It is quite cute. I had to explain to you that you can pee outside but not  poop. You did not like that nor understand why you could not poop outside like Esther. I am sure this is one of the many conversations we will have in your life where it just does not make sense to you but it happens to be a common rule in life.

Your speech is amazing and this year we chose not to hire a therapist while we were at the beach because you are doing so well. So it is a true vacation. You have no school and no speech therapy. You are talking so much and saying the funniest things and oh gosh-even repeating things like, “Shit” and then your Dad said “put a Lindsay bracelet on Samantha to keep her in check” and you repeated it..so funny. You are doing great. So great that you are the little negotiator..you negotiate the amount of cookies you get for going pee/poop on the potty, car/trucks/lollipops etc. Yes, we are bribing our child to use the potty and it seems to work. LOL. You are wearing pull ups most of the time and sometimes big boy underwear. We are so proud of how hard you are working and if bribing works then so be it.

You love to wrestle with your sister and play lots of games. I think you both have a love/hate things going..one minute you are playing and laughing and next minute you are both crying or one is hitting and the other is crying. You are the best of friends and you are so sweet to her. You refer to her as MY Baby. She loves you so much. And we love you so much. There is not a lack of love in your life and it seems every time I look around you are getting a new gift from one of your grandparents who adore you too.

I love you sweet little boy-and yes you remind me daily that you are not a baby but  a big boy!

Hugs to you forever.-Your Momma