A new kind of fun

Max had a breakthrough this weekend. It involved playing, newfound friends and a butt.

It's not every day that I get to say something like that.

We were at a christening luncheon in a banquet room, for our friends' yummy twin boys. It wasn't that crowded, but Max didn't want to come in. So Dave and I took turns hanging with him outside and feeding him in our car and then a friend's car, since Max decided he liked their SUV better than ours.

Max kept venturing back inside and peering through the doorway at what was going on. Finally, a magician did a show and Max stayed in for longer stretches of time.

He got even more intrigued when Sabrina participated

And then: balloons! Including purple ones! Max was all over that. The magician made Max a glorious purple sword. And suddenly, Max was running around with some of the other kids and whacking each other. At one point, they made a sneak attack on a dad's butt (see action photo above) and Max thought that was a laugh riot.

It is one of the first times I've ever seen Max hanging out with other kids like that, with them playing right back, and I was psyched. He giggled nonstop and I stood there and laughed and laughed, too. It felt good to seeing him enjoying a new kind of happiness, the impromptu kind you find being silly with a group of kids...and hitting a dad's butt.