Max's Likes and Dislikes

A guest blog post from my co-parent:

Max is now more than 1 year old and has clear likes and dislikes.

Max Likes:

• Grape tomatoes—he seriously loves these and will eat lots and lots of them; the other day I think he went through almost a pint
  
• Lettuce, even undressed.
  
• Wiggling his barefoot toes in the grass, which I’ve only let him do once
  
• Being outside
  
• Dancing—“dancing” meaning waving his arms and twisting at the waist when any of his toys make music or other sounds, such as the rumbling of a truck’s engine, when we sing to him, or when we say “dancing”
  
• Waving hello and goodbye to people, cars, animals, and objects—It is very exciting to Max when someone waves back, which isn’t that often because people in cars don’t usually see Max and people on foot are often past Max by the time he waves
  
• Balls
  
• Kissing (often sloppy open mouthed on the mouth), hugging, head-butting and biting (the head-butting and biting seem to be extensions of affection rather than something done out of frustration; I say “no biting” sternly but Max has absolutely no reaction; still working on this)
  
• Flushing the toilet
  
• Nursing—I won’t get into too many details here but the contrast between Max the newborn and Max the little toddler is striking. Max the newborn needed lots of assistance. Max the little toddler seems to think my breasts are sippy cups that he can take with him.
  
• Baths
  
• Climbing his “platform”—An activity table from Heidi with stacking cups provides a platform that Max can climb in and out of and sometimes use as a stool to get to even higher platforms, like the dining room table.
  
• Mandarin oranges—we limit his intake of these because of the added sugar, but I don’t know that Max would ever stop eating them on his own
  
• Hot dogs—Max tried a hot dog for the first time at Ryan and Jenny’s and made his parents proud when he swiped a hot dog from six-year-old Teddy. (We didn’t feel so bad for Teddy who was a good sport and also was on his third hot dog.)
  
• Eating off of our hands, the floor, Max’s high chair tray, plates, toys, etc. like a dog—Max will use his pincer grip to take a piece of food and, rather than place said piece of food directly in his mouth, place the food item on the floor and then get down on his hands and knees and eat off the floor. Similarly he will take a piece of food and put it in our hands and then pull our hands to his mouth. Often the pieces of food have already been in his mouth. This is very cute and very weird.

Max Does Not Like:

• Going to sleep, whether for naps or at night**
  
• Asparagus*
  
• Avocado*
  
• Broccoli
  
• Drinking—Max will only drink milk if it is mixed with juice.
  
• Getting dressed

*Max used to like these things a short time ago.
**Max has never liked going to sleep, which explains much of our early-on (and still ongoing sometimes) exhaustion