Learning from Dexter

Max and his younger brother Dexter have a very sweet relationship.  They truly love each other.  Dexter is the first person Max says hi to and gives hugs to after school.  Dexter loves to give Max hugs and kisses.  It is pretty adorable.

One thing I never thought was how much Dexter will teach and influence Max.  Dexter and Max are physically very different.  Max is huge and has always been in the 100% or above on all his growth charts.  Dexter has been between 1% and 20% on all his growth charts since birth. 
At 10 months Max weighed 30 pounds and was 30 inches.  Dexter is only 23.5 pounds and 31 but he is 21 months.  So they are very opposite.

 Both boys at 10 months old.  #thebros

Dexter can't fit into the outfit Max is wearing yet.  Ha!

Max and Dexter developmentally are very close in age.  Max is about 2 years behind peers (typical children) that are his age.  Dexter has a slight speech delay, but he is getting some early intervention help.  So they are able to really influence each other. 

Today we got the dreaded call at school.  Max bit another student.  He has never bit someone before.  I was hoping to avoid this.  But, alas, he bit someone.  My heart sank.  Max is such a tender heart.  He cares a lot about others, and is always saying "That ok mom" when I bump into something or get hurt somehow.  So now what?  Where is he learning this from?  Yes, it was the first time, but he never has done it before?  His teacher asked me if Dexter bites.  I said yes, he is teething, he bites everything.  She said, he is watching Dexter.  He is testing out what Dexter is doing.  Ah!  That makes sense.

I can work with this.  He is influenced so much by those around him, and doesn't understand facial expressions well at all, so we really need to talk to him and repeat things over and over for him to grasp a concept.  For example Max used to throw all of his trucks and cars in the sink.  This was such a hard stage.  Because everything would go int the sink.  And he would get SO mad when we would clean it up.  We realized that he was "cleaning" and we were just not seeing his perspective.  When we had dirty dishes we would put them in the sink.  When he was done playing with a car, he would want to "clean up" and put it in the sink.  So in his mind, nothing was wrong.  He was learning a social situation.  We worked with him and showed him over and over what goes in the sink, and about 4-6 months later Max doesn't put all toys in the sink now.  It just took time.

Looking back on a lot of situations I can see how he was being so literal.  Because that is how he views the world.  At this years Easter egg hunt we told him to "Pick up all the eggs" and he did a great job.  But when he came across an egg that was shaped like a basketball, he looked at it and said 'Not an egg!" and threw it to the ground.  Literal thinking.

 

Dexter will continue to teach Max.  He will show him the world better than we can.  I love that I have two boys close in age so they can help each other.  Dexter adores Max, and Max depends on Dexter.  It is a bond that will grow.  I love them to pieces.  

My shy boy and my camera happy boy.  This picture explains them so well. 

Just sing

When you feel down about yourself SING! 
Max is singing all the time.  He doesn't know all the words, but boy does he try hard.  His current favorites are the ABC's, and the opening credits for "Play with me Sesame" on Netflix or on Sprout online. 

We are making some big decisions about Max's education in the next few weeks and I will share with you what we have been learning, and researching soon.

Here are a few awesome videos of Max singing: 
(You can even make out most of the words)

"Are you a hobo?"

Max loves to mimic.  He will mimic anything you say, and sometimes it comes out right and sometimes we get interesting interpretations. 
We have had our fair share of "curse" words come out and Will and I just laugh, and then he repeats it, we correct him.  But to be honest hearing your three year old say "shit" is pretty funny. 

Max mimics almost anything, but his favorite thing is movies.  He can watch a movie once and it is stuck in his mind.  His current favorite is WRECK IT RALPH.  If you haven't seen if then you should, it is a really cute-fun-family-friendly movie.  There is a part in the movie where Ralph (the main character) meets Vanellope (the cutest little girl).  Vanellope asks Ralph "Are you a hobo?"
Here is the clip from the movie. 

Vanellope leans over a tree branch and asks the question.  This is Max's favorite part.  He laughs and laughs.  Max can mimic the whole scene.  He leans over the back of our couch and says "Are you hobo?"  It is pretty cute and he is so proud because he gets a good laugh out of Will and I.

I wish I had a better video of Max, but he turns off the charm once my camera comes out. 
I am loving this movie memorization phase and I hope it stays around for a long time. 

Talking isn't a requirement

Max might not talk much, but boy there is a lot going on in his mind. 
He is very smart.  
He can mimic with the best of them. 
He has the coolest gibberish, and tell us a lot of stories.  We don't understand anything he is saying, but his inflections are spot on. 
If he is in a room of adults and they are all talking and using their hands, he will stand right in the middle and mimic their motions.
He loves to memorize movies.  He memorizes the actions in the movies, and has been doing this since about a year old.  Currently we are very obsessed with Wall-e.  In this clip Wall-e is doing his "job."  He makes trash cubes.  Max will run over to all his toys, collect them in his shirt and then dump them out.  He mimics.  It is his favorite thing to do.

He also memorizes songs.  The beat especially.  He knows all his A-B-C's and can count to 10 without skipping a beat.  They are a formula.  He memorized them.  He doesn't realize they make words, but it is a system. 

He also knows that there are certain formulas in life. For example when we leave somewhere he says "Bye pool" or "Bye Trucks" or "Bye bikes" or "Bye car" because he knows we are leaving.  And he now understands people say "bye" to indicate they are leaving. He is VERY diliberate.  He is black and white, no gray area at all. 

He is very happy or very sad, there is nothing in between.
We are figuring him out.  And I love learning about Max. 

Trucks.  His happy place. His favorite part of life.  When my brother was visiting he said "I don't know if anything makes me THAT happy."  And he is right.  Max is over the moon happy about Trucks.  And it shows.  He is just awesome!

His facial expressions are his way of talking.  And you are see the joy in his face when he sees a truck on the freeway or when the school bus passes our condo.  He doesn't need words, we understand.