milo the monkey, dolphin, etc.

milo has become more and more aware of his own body and what it can do. lately he's been using his feet as a second set of hands to help hold onto the larger toys.  he's also been repeatedly opening and closing his little hands, almost as if he's practicing a new kind of wave, which would be especially interesting as we have not been emphasizing waving or trying to teach him this basic way of greeting and farewell.

he has also started to explore the higher ranges of his vocal abilities... i believe it was either auntie katrina or uncle jonathan who compared him to a baby dolphin. within these high pitched babblings, he sometimes gets multiple tones in one breath; just the other day he gave ben an "i told you so!" melody. other vocal triumphs include repeatedly chanting "mum mum mum mum" which my mom believes he's intentionally calling out my name over and over.  he's also got Bob Loblaw's name down pat.  despite my mom's enthusiasm over milo "knowing" my name, he has yet to convince me that he understands how to use it, or what a name even is.

and for milo's last set of amazing new discoveries, he has begun the army crawl forward. backwards was getting to be no problem for him, pivots and turns he had figured out as well, but the forward function still wasn't fully operational. well he must have been practicing in his crib, because this morning milo surprised us with a very assertive forward scooch.

this next week my parents will be taking care of milo while i spend a girls' weekend with some of my dearest friends from college, and then ben comes out on monday just when they'll be leaving, so that he and i can get some vacation time together... i'm sure we'll see milo on monday, which will break up the 5 days and 4 nights that he'll be with my parents instead of me, but as his mother, that little worry bug starts to creep back in... what if he misses me? what if he's miserable? what if he won't sleep at night?

i know they'll take great care of him, and ben assured me that i'll probably have a harder time of it than milo will. this will be mine and milo's first night - let alone set of nights - apart from each other since he was born... 

but while i worry i should have started out smaller (maybe do one night apart and see how it goes and move forward from there), i know i won't mind when 5:30 rolls around and i'm still sleeping because i'm not the one with the monitor listening to him play in his crib and wondering if he'll go back to sleep for must 5 more minutes. (thanks mom.)