Monday, August 29, 2011

still learning to let go and choose my battles

milo is currently entertaining himself at our in-home movie store: the dvd case. it's basically an open bookcase that's dvd sized. i used to keep them alphabetized, and we had been trying to teach him to not pull them off the shelves.

after trying to put up poster board to remove the temptation (only for him to start pulling and ripping at the poster board) and considering relocating the entire shelf to our bedroom (only to determine that while it would fit, our bedroom is cluttered enough), i'm realizing that the dvds are not a big deal, and i can let go of my ocd desire to have them alphabetized and neatly kept....

what is still a big deal: outlets/wires, the cat, the dvd/vcr/tv, and not eating/chewing on things that are not food or toys (such as people, sticks and those sneaky crumbs that escape my lack-luster effort to keep the floors swept).

i'm still trying to determine whether or not it's worth it to keep the cat in order to help him learn how to be more gentle, at the prospect of tearing him off her a bajillion (okay, maybe only a million) times a day :P

Friday, August 26, 2011

lost in translation

he says "mama" "dada" "nana" and is quite the chatty kathy trying out other sounds, babbling and squealing and sometimes screaming... not crying screaming, just vocalizing louder than i'd prefer...

he's an energetic little fella, there's no doubt about it.

we've been working on establishing which one of us is mama and which one is dada, as he seems to babble "dada" all day long while ben is no where in sight, and then once ben gets home he'll babble "mama" here or there, although he did seem to say "mama" to me earlier today as i bent down closer to him while he was playing in another of the many somethings i wish i could better keep him out of.

we're also not sure if "nana" is for nap, banana, or no. he stinkin LOVES bananas... he'll gladly polish off an entire peel-full even after finishing a meal - definitely still growing. he also is very proud of his "no" head shaking skills, as mentioned in my last post. i doubt it's for nap, but all the same, it's fun to hear him trying out new syllables.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

it's all fun and games...

the "on your head game" led to milo figuring out how to respond to the "how big is milo?" prompt.

we've been playing this game quite regularly for at least a few days now. "how big is milo?" and we don't even do the movement ourselves, he just waves his hands and arms around above his head and smiles triumphantly.

he's also started initiating peekaboo games. when i catch him "hiding" - putting his head down on his high chair tray, holding anything in front of his face, pulling a blanket over his head - and i ask "where's milo?" and then he proudly "reveals" himself, and i act all surprised with an exaggerated "peekaboo!"

we're also pretty sure he understands no - at least to some extent. when i get to the part in his "moo baa la la la" book that goes "no no, that isn't right" he'll shake his head no. and when we tell him "no no" when he's in the middle of doing something he knows he's not supposed to - like pull all the dvds off the shelf, or grab the kitty's fur, or hitting the tv - he shakes his head no. sometimes i'll look over to him about to do one of said offenses, and he's shaking his head no - and smiling of course - in anticipation of us telling him "no."

he's such a cheeky little monkey.

Saturday, August 13, 2011

share and share alike

milo has learned how to open the hutch cabinet doors - they're a push-magnet-type "latch" - push to open, push to close, etc... and he's figured it out. where all my grandma's china is hiding. and my dishtowels. and my casserole dishes. and my fine platters, also handed down from grandma aloise.

so now we have his high-chair - which is also kept in its lowest setting to keep him from scaling it - and one of our dining chairs blocking off the two sets of doors...

we can also play peekaboo back and forth, where he's even holding things up to his face - or mine - and then pulling it off again for me to say "peekaboo!" in full accordance with the rules of this highly complicated game.

and then milo shows the sweetest side of his good natured personality.

the other night, ben was working late, and i was giving milo his final bottle to put him down for the night. his nose has been a little stuffy lately - we went to the dr. to have it checked out after several days of a low grade temperature (between 99 and 101 degrees) only to confirm that his lungs sound fine, his ears look great, and it probably is in fact just teething, or at worst, a mild cold.

anyhow, so i was using his nasal aspirator (fancy wording for "snot-sucker-outer") to clear out his runny nose while he was eating his bottle to keep him from falling asleep. we took a bottle-break and he decided he wanted to play with what seemed like a perfect new chew toy (the bulbous end, of course, not the snotty end).

then, with a gesture that completely caught me off guard, milo holds the aspirator up to me and offers to share his new chew toy for my own pearly choppers.

he also did it with the fridge magnet one day, when i let him into the kitchen and was playing with him at the big white behemoth (note to self: time to buy magnetic letters and numbers). he stood there against the fridge door, putting the magnet on the fridge and pulling it back off, and then he looked up at me, with magnet in hand, and lifted it up towards me, letting me take it from him.

i'm so thrilled to see the little booger learning to share.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

baby steps

milo seems eager to walk, but his balance when doing so is way off. and he tries to stick his foot way out with pointed toes the whole time, almost prancing-pony style.

we've been encouraging him learning how to walk - more so i want him to learn how to better balance himself as a bi-ped instead of a quad-ped. he stands great if he's holding onto furniture, our hands, even a book - as long as he's focused on something other than the fact that he's standing.

so i've started helping him walk along only holding onto one hand instead of both his hands. once or twice, we've encouraged him to take unassisted steps too...

i'm learning the naivety of my wishful thinking that "the more mobile milo is, the more i'll be able to get done in a day because he'll be able to move about as he pleases and not get bored, so he won't need me every moment."

ha! as any mother could have told me (and probably tried to with her looks of concern or muffled chuckle.)

and while he might not need me hovering over his every move - and i do give him time to play alone and unassisted - but if i don't keep a close eye on him, he's pulling the cat's tail, and likely to lose a finger, because i'm really not sure how much longer she's willing to put up with his antics.

or he's practicing his drumming skills with his hands on the tv screen (which remains poorly blocked off by his exersaucer and a laundry basket full of toys to try and derail him from the pure excitement of messing with the electronics).

anyhow, my new hope is that once he starts walking, i'll lose even more weight chasing him around, and my pre-preggo jeans will finally fit.

again, feel free to laugh at my naivety.

okay, so i don't really expect that to be the result, but i just want him to be more stable so he doesn't fall down so much expecting things to be able to support his weight. i suppose that's not such a realistic hope just yet either, but i'll hold onto it for now.

that being said, he took one almost unassisted step the other day to me from the bin that blocks off the kitchen/basement stairs, but before he got to me, he decided to stop trying and fell to his bottom instead.

and the other night, i was helping milo walk to ben, and slyly tried to let go without him noticing, and ben was holding his hands ready for milo to grab on... ben says he wasn't really holding on and that it was totally an unassisted step. i think i'm still holding out for something a little more obvious, but still, it's a start.

so that's milo's baby steps to stepping. he'll get there eventually; from what i can tell, they usually all do. :)

Sunday, August 7, 2011

milo on the move

we decided it was time to move milo's crib mattress to its lowest setting and put blankets and pillows around it after we witnessed some serious climbing skills exhibited by the little monkey this evening. he pulls himself up to standing at the foot of his high chair and plays with the moveable foot-rest on it quite frequently. he's also realized that he can reach the tray from this position, and i've seen him try to pull himself up, and would keep close watch, warning him to be careful and not pull the whole thing upon himself.

but tonight was new.... while holding onto the tray, he started gripping one of the angled legs of the high chair with both his feet, and was slowly creeping his feet up, supporting his weight by hanging on the tray. standing on the ground, milo's arms are fully extended to reach the tray. with this new climbing ability, ben said he saw milo with his chin at the tray, while i was watching milo's feet and readily waiting to catch him when he let his feet go... this boy is getting too good at the climbing business.

his other new trick came from a new game i've started playing with milo involving a bumble bee beanie baby leftover from my childhood collection. i fly the bee around him with a "zzzzzzzzzz' sound of varying tonal ranges, and end on a high note when i touch the bee to different parts of him, like his ear or his belly or his foot. somehow this got to me putting the bee on his head exclaiming "on your head!" which lead to the other new trick up milo's sleeve... ben and i were both playing the buzzing bee game with him, i put the bee on milo's head, it fell off, then milo picked it up and held it to the top of his head, looking at us with a great big smile.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

jaws!

it seems milo has a real knack for biting. especially arms, feet, any skin surface he can sink his teeth into. i encourage him chewing on chew toys, and taking good bites of his food, but i'm really hoping we can break this cannibalistic behavior before he starts getting labelled as "jaws" in the church nursery... and i'm determined to cure him of this obsession before he starts preschool. thankfully time is on my side for the latter.

according to one of my baby books, the correct response is to calmly tell the little piranha "don't bite," and remove the afflicted area from his clenched jaw. to overreact negatively, to laugh, and basically it seems to respond in almost any way, shape or form only encourages it.

sometimes he blows raspberries instead of biting, so i've also taken to encouraging that. i'll blow a raspberry too, i'll laugh when he does it, and when he bites, i gently push his head back and as boringly as possible say, "no biting"...

i figure he can't possibly be trying to hurt me at this point... he has no clue of the repercussions of this action, or why it's okay to bite squishy plastic toys, and crunchy yummy food, but not the people he loves.

but if i'm not paying attention, like the other day when i'm talking on the phone to my mom, and i'm holding him on my lap and he's got his mouth on my arm, i tend not to notice right away that the teeth are starting to clamp down... he left a red mark where he bit me and i may have accidentally let out a squeal. it only lasted the day, but still, not okay, little man, not okay.

Monday, August 1, 2011

in the land of nod...

last night milo slept from 8pm to 6 am. he didn't wake up once. (or if he did, i didn't hear it, because i slept from 9:45-ish(?) to 6 am.)

perfect. i'm really digging this whole "deep sleep at night" thing... waayyyyy better than not being able to sleep.

milo is also getting pretty proficient at standing on his own. ben has noticed that he's a lot better at it if he has something in his hands to focus on, but overall, his balance and standing-stamina are totally priming up for those first steps.

as for walking, he'll walk if we hold his hands and kind of walk him along, although he's well aware that he can get to things faster by crawling, so he often goes straight to that over edging along the furniture... especially when the cat is in sight.