"Maximus Byronius Udallius, the Supreme Commander of Lawton!"

This is what Dad calls Max. He can't seem to get enough of the little guy. I consistently try to guard Max from Brig because he roughs him up and makes him mad... Brig keeps telling me that he can't be a little wuss. Brig thinks that he will giggle if he tickles him and kisses him or that Max will fight back, it just hasn't happened yet - but I can't wait until it all comes back to Daddy. Max is growing fast...

I thought I would just write a few things that we never posted....

First of all, we have to tell this story. As you all know, we wanted to be surprised by the sex of our first child. It was kept from us for 36 weeks... but our doctor accidentally slipped at that appointment. He came in an hour and a half late because of an emergency call and was quite scatter-brained. Usually, he looked over the paperwork beforehand and pays attention to the "DON'T TELL SEX!" at the top of the paper. He didn't do that this time, so during the ultrasound he said to me, "That is a funny looking girl." I didn't have time to react - because I was totally confused, thinking maybe he was trying to trick us or that he was going to tell us. He saw my confusion and quickly tried to ease my mind by pointing to two little round circles on the screen saying, "There's the scrotum!" I quickly replied, "We didn't want to know!" and then I laughed really hard while Brig glared at me. (He was not wanting the doctor to feel bad, the doctor should have just been glad I was laughing and not crying.)

In the end it was ok with us that it happened, since it was obviously exciting and then we were able to plan for a boy. It was hard to continue to act like we didn't know, however (well, at least Brig did - I told every stranger I could).

Some of you have asked about his name. Brig had wanted to name one of his boys Max since he was a kid so he could call the kid "Mad Max." He told me about it when we were dating, and I thought it was ok, but I wasn't as enthusiastic about it as he was. Long story short, we narrowed down our list to three names by the time we went to the hospital. Brig wanted to have a name picked out by the time we left the hospital, but I wanted to have it before we called anyone. I knew what we'd use after we saw him, and...he was definitely a Max! Of course, Brig was pleased...he got his way in the end. Oh yeah, Byron is my maternal grandfather's name.