milo in 2012

the kid grows by leaps and bounds...

and it's no longer my day-job to document every waking moment of pure adorable.

ok, so maybe that wasn't my previous day job, but sometimes it felt like it.

anyhow, here are some of my favorites from the past 12 months that perhaps i forgot to document in the midst of all the changes that have taken place.  in no particular order.

if you have an "ow" milo will kiss it.  one time, we were playing with his toy cars, and we knocked heads, really hard.  i let out quite an exasperated "OW!" to which milo grabbed my head and pulled it to his face to kiss it better.

milo also refers to snow on his shoes as "ow" - and basically anything that needs fixing seems to be referred to as an "ow".

but he really is very affectionate.  milo LOVES to give hugs and kisses.  when he first started giving hugs, he would grunt.  then, there was a short time when he would say "gweeeeee" (squeeze) because i think there was a day or too when i would nacho libre hug him and said "anaconda squeeze" when i wrapped my arms around him.

sometimes milo comes in for what seems like a kiss to the cheek, and then he licks your face like a golden retriever that has been left alone all day being greeted by its master with rawhide and a bouncy ball.  we had a cat and now a fish, so i truly have no clue where he picked up that one.  and even though it's a lot slobbery and a little unsanitary, it still makes me laugh every time.

milo knows whose shoes are whose.  and he knows we all need our shoes on to go outside.  and he LOVES to go outside (though not as much as he loves trains... i think.)  he will often bring us our shoes.  although sometimes he thinks it's funny to put on a pair of my flats, put my purse on his shoulder, walk to the door and wave as he yells "bye!"  thankfully, more recently, he grabbed his elmo phone and his set of keys before trying to walk out on us.

his vocabulary continues to grow, while his ability to articulate is sauntering, but still, he's moving forward and that's the important part.  exhibit A: the other day ben brought milo with him to cabin coffee, which has a giant fake buffalo head above the kiddie section (genius by the way, wish every coffee house/cafe/keurig came with one).  ben helped milo to say buffalo by breaking it down, and milo managed to repeat it, though it sounded more like "BUH-BUH-BO!"  and he was SO proud.

when milo feels really adamant about what he's saying, he nods his head when he says it. "hot! ow!" while pointing to the lamp that he previously burnt his finger on when i wasn't looking.  (wait, what? that didn't happen. nooooooooo... i'm totally the perfect mother.)

milo sometimes gets duck-lips, especially when he says, "no-no!"

milo calls his mr. potato head "day-doh".

he calls animals by their sounds, not their names.  lions, tigers, bears, dinosaurs and other similar monsters are all "garrrr!"

when i was little, my grandma aloise - the artist grandma - would often tell me the story about one of her students from when she taught art.  he drew pictures with both hands, simultaneously.  one of milo's christmas presents was a chalkboard/easel from my parents.  he'll take a piece of chalk in each hand and scribble away till there's no chalkboard left, and it's comforting to see a spark of aloise living on.

milo is OB - SESSED with trains.  completely.  he loves the choo choo set grandma laura got him for his birthday, and all the subsequent thomas companions he's received since.  over thanksgiving we let milo experience the full greatness of trains.  we took him for a ride on the metra, for which there is a station mere blocks from my parents' house.  (you can hear the trains blow their whistle and chug along the tracks when you sit in their dining room.  at one point after getting to ride on the train, my parents were sitting with milo at the table, and a train blew it's horn in the distance.  milo looked up with a gasp and whispered, "choo choo!")  we ended up riding the train to two stations past our original departure plans simply because that train moves too stinkin' fast.  milo was filled with awe and terror, and with complete sincerity and reverence, i feel like a got a glimpse of what it means to fear God: to be so close to something so amazing, so cherished, and yet finally realizing just how big and loud and powerful that something is.  that's what i saw on milo's face the day we took him for a train ride.

(sorry to end on such a cheesy note, but that's all i got... HAPPY NEW YEAR!)

quite the lady's man

ben, milo and i headed up to rochester MN this past weekend for ben's cousin's wedding.  the church is located in lake city MN, the reception at a golf course in frontenac MN, but scoping out the most wallet-friendly saturday night stay put us in rochester.

the next morning, we decided to scope out a park near the shopping mall.  it has an interactive school bus that milo simply couldn't get enough of...

until a little girl, the same size as milo, and only half a year older, decked out in pink leggings, matching pink jacket, and coordinating pink knitted boots showed up.  then it was run around in delight.

(oh, and also the night before, when all the cousins graciously entertained him by running around the golf course like a heard of sheep, milo bringing up the rear and laughing ferociously.)

they played on the bus together.  they took turns on the slide.  they gave each other playground pebbles.  when it was time to go, we started prepping milo, "okay buddy, one more time down the slide, and then we have to say bye-bye."  he was taking it pretty well, but when we told him to say bye to his new friend eva, he ran up to the playground equipment, scaled the toddler-sized ladder to reach the platform she was on, and they gave each other a hug.

and then he kissed her on the cheek.

poor girl didn't even see it coming.  it was milo's first kiss.  this little girl's first kiss too, probably.  (she seemed to be flattered - but a kiss from milo, who wouldn't be?!)  she was also with her daddy.  and milo didn't even ask please, let alone her father's permission... hopefully he won't press charges ;P

meanwhile, milo's vocabulary seems to be increasing by the fistfuls.

he now says:
nuunuu (noodles)
waaah, waaah? (wash, as he puts his hands out and turns them back and forth; he loves to be clean.)
ahh ben (all better)

and i FINALLY heard  wuh-woo (love you), that one came out on his second birthday

doo (two - we'll ask him, "milo, how old are you?" "DOO! YAAAYYY!!!!" and he claps his hands.  then we'll ask, "milo, are you five?"  "noooooooo."  "are you 13?"  "nooooooooo."  "are you 87?"  "noooooooo."  all with a sing-songy-playful tone and a big smile.)

boon (spoon)
dgee! (cheese, both for cottage and block cheese)
breh (bread)
bob (for Bob the Builder)

the cutest of his newest words is "c'mon!"  which comes out as a high pitched "MONuh!"

he'll also mimic-sing bob the builder's theme song.  doesn't get the syllables right, but the number of syllables, the tune of each syllable, and often the starting sound for the first few syllables are all spot on.  he's such a smarty pants.

and most recently, milo repeated, "okay"... except it sounds like he's saying "a gay! a gay!"

helping hands

we encourage milo to help when we go do laundry... it often takes a little longer, but we want him to be involved in chores while it's still fun, so that later, when he's 16 and ornery, doing chores won't be a new thing to complain about, just something to complain about.

anyhow, he loves putting the quarters into the machine.  i let him sit on the dryer, and hand him the quarters one by one.  he sort of wiggles with delight as he carefully places each quarter in a slot.

if we put all the wet clothes into a basket - or hand him pieces one by one - he'll also help throw them into the dryer for us, as well as take them out once they're done.  hopefully i'll look back on this memory with fondness when we do get to that stage of 16 and ornery, and i'll try not to be snarky as i remind him that he once loved helping us with laundry, and sweeping, and picking up his things.


after we got back from laundry, and i sat down to type this post, milo was playing with the bananas, and i noticed he had peeled off all the stickers, placed one on himself, one on the highchair, and was putting one on me... make that two.  stickers for everyone!

thanks milo  ;P

daddy says...

(aka lessons from thomas the tank engine)



"got that milo?  it's true in the real world, too.  if i am the most really useful at work, i will be rewarded with more work, special work.  but they will not pay me any more, because i am really useful."




(being "the most really useful engine" is a big deal on thomas the tank engine.)

you say tomato, i say thomas.

actually, this isn't about that funny, little, blue train on tv.

milo calls everything that goes on his head a hat.

the baseball cap that just barely still fits him.  ben's baseball cap that is adorably too big for him.  yup, those are hats.

his sweatshirt hoodie that i pulled up this morning because it was drizzling, "hat?"  ummm, i guess so...  why not.

when we go for a bike ride, we always wear out helmets, even milo, even though he's strapped in, sitting in the covered trailer.  "hat?"  yeah, okay buddy, technically that's a hat, too.

he also received a plastic fireman's helmet at a church we visited when we were with my parents in door county.  "haaaaat.  haaaaaat.  haaaaat!"  sure, milo, hat.




currently he's shoveling down fistfuls of mac n' cheese with broccoli and peas mixed in...

i love what a healthy eater his is (most of the time).

milo and the muppets

i'd like to preface this by saying we try to limit milo's screen time... movies are not a regular thing for him - just a few nightly episodes of thomas the tank engine, shaun the sheep, timmy time, or a partial sesame street before bed time...

but this morning, milo had grabbed The Great Muppet Caper and was asking to watch that ("ba? ba?"  - please please, instead of his usual "djoo djoo" - choo choo) upon getting up this morning.

so i put it in, and he just sat in front of the screen, mesmerized by these new creatures singing and dancing and laughing.

it's a little spark of joy for me, to see my kid enjoying the very same movie i grew up on, loving and laughing to... i look forward to continuing to share this with him as he gets older and can fully understand what's going on.

precious moments

milo can occasionally be caught singing, if you know what you're listening for... random syllables at various pitches.  one time i was singing "old mcdonald's farm" to him, and after i sang the "ee-i-ee-i-oh" part, he sang back "i-yi-yi-yi!"

he was singing as we were on our way out from target today after running some quick errands.  so i sang back to him "ee-i-ee-i-oh" and he sang back to me "i-yi-yi-yi."

also on the way out from target, i was holding him as i carried our grocery bag to the car, he put his arm around my neck and stated very matter-of-factly, "mine."  made my heart melt...  way cuter than when he holds out one of his toy cars to me and declares "MINE!"  (i'm blaming daycare for his learning of this new possessive adjective.)

other communications he's made recently:

milo was sitting on the couch playing with some of his cars, i was sitting on the floor in front of him and reading.  certainly still giving him all my undivided attention and not going on to facebook... noooo, never.

anyhow, he dropped a car down the back of the couch (for anyone who hasn't seen our place, our couch separates our living room from the hallway, so it's not up against a wall along the back side).

milo then leaned over my shoulder and as i looked at him, he let me know in a very adult sigh, "i get it."

shoes?

this morning milo picked a little grover that my mom has given to him on loan (grover is one of her favorites, too).

inspecting it, he pointed to grover's eyes and announced, "eye!"

"good job milo! those are grover's eyes."

then he starts asking, "dshoo?"  (shoe?)

"sorry milo, grover doesn't have any shoes."

ben and milo decided to bring grover to me, "dshoo? dshoo?"

so i let my artsy fartsy self go into craft mode, and fashioned some shoes for grover.

milo looked pretty pleased that grover now had shoes.  then he pointed to grover's head and asked, "hat?"

"can you hear me now?"

milo is enamored with our cell phones.  ben and i don't ever let him play with our phones, though sometimes he does manage to grab hold of one.  usually he gives it back very dutifully.

but he'll also take just about anything that even remotely resembles a cell phone, hold it up to his ear and say, "he-wah?" (hello) - cars, sunglasses, shoes...

this morning it was a banana.

"he-wah?"

another adventure at the pool...

yesterday we took milo for another trip to the pool.

he loved it as always.  i can't even count the number of times we had to climb the long flight of stairs so we could ride the big slide over and over (which i was perfectly happy with, as i really enjoy the slide, too).

after a little while, ben decided he was going to swim over in the big-people pool, without the squirting/floating/mini-slide/plaything occupied wading area for toddlers.

milo and i went for one more ride, and then he wanted to find dada.

so we get to the bigger pool, and i hand milo to ben, and we decide to try teaching him how to kick when he's on his belly.  one of us would hold him up, superman style, and the other would move his legs in kicking motion, and we would tell him, "kick, kick, kick!"

he never did pick up on the kicking motion, but when we got him on his belly and asked him to kick, he would repeat back to us, "kick, kick, kick."

then we thought we'd try and teach him how to jump in - with us holding onto his hands, of course, so that he wouldn't go under.  we would get him to the edge of the pool, and count, "wuuunnnnnn, tooooooooooh, THREE!" and he would step forward into the pool.  eventually, milo picked up "one" and would say it with us when we started counting... uber cute!


that's it for our escapade at the pool, but milo has picked up a few other cute tricks:
sometimes we'll let milo play with us on our bed, and he'll pat on the bed for us to lay down, and we'll all pretend to snore.  then he'll go to leave, say "nite, nite!" and then put his finger to this lips and say, "shhhh!" as he closes the door.

he's also learned to fold his hands when we pray with him at night and mealtimes.  i believe he learned both of these with grandma laura at her daycare, and i'm so glad he did.  he seems that much more excited when i say, "ok milo, let's pray." and he gets this huge smile and folds his hands together, and waits patiently while i repeat the Lord's prayer - he can interact now, and i know that will just be a stepping stone towards deeper interaction as we continue to show and teach him about prayer.

gotta teach 'em young...

it's been absolutely gorgeous all day today - high seventies, no humidity, bright blue skies, and a little breeze.  so after milo's nap, we decided to take him out to a park so he could run and play and explore and climb.

but first we decided to stop for ice cream at a local coffee shop.

now, in case you haven't seen ben in a while, he's been growing out his beard, since for the last 5 years he's had to keep any facial hair neat and trim (which usually meant a goatee).  along with the grizzly man beard, he's got a full-fledged cookie duster.  so as we were eating our ice cream, ben's mustache would catch some, and he wasn't getting it cleaned off fast enough for milo's liking.

milo was sitting on ben's lap, and i was giving him spoonfuls of ice some from the cone that ben and i were sharing.  i also gave milo a napkin to wipe his hands and face, because he's become a bit of a neat-freak and doesn't like it when his hands get sticky or dirty.

so we're all eating ice cream and loving it, except for that aforementioned bit of ice cream that kept getting caught on ben's mustache.  milo decided to take it upon himself to use the napkin i gave him to wipe ben's face clean.  it was pretty great to watch him with furrowed brow cleaning up after his daddy.  i did happen to catch video of it, but sadly i used my phone instead of my iPod, and i have yet to figure out how to get it transferred.


then when we got to the park, ben grabbed a frisbee from the trunk for him and i to toss while we followed milo around the playground.

milo decided he wanted to join in, so we would through the frisbee out, it would land on the ground, and milo, with great excitement, would shout "i get it!"as he ran after the frisbee, fetching it as buoyantly as any golden retriever, and then run it back to us.  he would try and throw it, but at this point it's more of a flailing drop accompanied by a gleaming little boy proudly throwing his arms above his head.

(i got video of this, too, but again, on my phone.... which - without a data plan - seems to be the fort knox of my videos.  i'll be carrying my iPod or the digital camera with us from here on out.)

at this rate, we're thinking he'll be a pro-frolfer by the time he's ten.

thar she grows!

milo's first two-year-molar has been sighted.  it must have been coming through for the past week (of which milo spent at grandma's daycare again, since ben has been working for his dad, and of course, i'm still in the 9-5 grind... cue dolly parton), because now it's about halfway visible...  it's the bottom left, and my guess is the bottom right isn't too far behind, but no matter how much i try to get him to roar like a lion so i can get a better look, i think he sees right through my games.

book worm.

milo's new thing when we're getting him ready for bed each night is that he doesn't want us to read the book, he just wants to hold it to his chest, arms wrapped around it like he's hugging a dear fuzzy friend, while we recite bedtime stories from memory, and pray, and sing lullabies.

his book of choice is always Grover's New Kitten, which actually belonged to me from when i was a child, and i loved it.

when it comes time to lay him down, he doesn't cast the book aside or want to put it away or give it back to us. oh no sir. (or ma'am.)  he continues to keep his arms loosely cradling its sturdy cover and board-book pages.

we put him in his crib with a kiss and well-wishes for a good-night slept tight, and he rolls over on top of the book, content.

come morning, the book is usually in some opposite corner, but by evening, he needs it in his arms once again.

such a goof...

milo loves peas (most of the time).  he'll shovel them in by the fistful.  however, he doesn't like the skins.  he's like a bird peeling off the skins on birdseed.  he chews and chews and chews those peas, and when he thinks he's gotten it all, he pushes out the skins and puts them back on his tray (we've had to work on that with him... he used to just spit out the skins onto his lap).

say WHAAAAAAT?!

recently milo's vocabulary has been exploding like a michael bay blockbuster.  here's the most up-to-date list of words he's been saying - most of which around grandma B or grandma Z:

buh (please)
nooooo
all done!
all gone!
go!
dada/daddy
momma
more
vroom (for a car)
gaaaarrrrr! (to roar like a lion)
scrunches his face and snorts (to "oink" like a pig)
uh-oh
ohhhhh
gak gak! (very high pitched, to "quack quack" like a duck)
ga-ma (grandma)
choo choo (for the train)
meuh (to moo like a cow)
hiya! (hi)
tay-ooo (thank you)
i did it!

two's company

along with other things i forgot to post about in my post about things i forgot to mention, milo got his second haircut.  more recently, he has another new freckle, in the crook of his left elbow.

i'm not entirely sure what to make of his two little dots.... they're so foreign, but he will never remember not having them.

also, i got a job, he's in daycare and we're moving (if you know us, you probably knew that, but just in case you didn't... there it is.)

thankfully he's in daycare with grandma until ben's done with work.  which also means he's down from two naps to one.  except on the weekends, because he still seemed to need two yesterday, and i'm hoping he'll want two today.

he makes a lion's roar by going "gaaaarrrrr" and he'll imitate a monkey with high pitched "ah ah ah ah ah ah!"

and every once in awhile, he'll wake up peacefully and simply say "all done."  i love it when he wakes up like that instead of screaming for us.

and how could i forget?

milo had his 18 month checkup on monday. he had his last shot of immunizations and that'll be it till his FIVE! yay! (excluding the flu shot, of course....)

he weighs 28 pounds and is 33.5 inches tall. (almost 3 feet!) the did a toddler autism spectrum questionnaire, all yes or no questions. one of them was "if your child oversensitive to noise?" to which i responded yes, since just the other day when i ran the vacuum cleaner, he started screaming and freaking out. turns out that's a typical sensitivity to noise, and milo's fully on the "normal" side of the spectrum (whatever "normal" means these days...)

and lastly, another new trick i forgot about, he's started blowing on his food, especially if it's how or he sees me blow on it. it's pretty cute how he puts his face mere inches away from the food on his tray, and makes more of a spitty, almost-raspberry, rather than a soft woosh of cool air.

the sniff test

milo's newest accomplishment is smelling things.

he'll sit down, grab his foot, and showing off his great flexibility, put his toes to his nose and start breathing loudly through his nostrils. put that foot down, switch feet and repeat.

he's also picked up a pair of ben's boxers, puts them to his nose and inhales ferociously.

and his shirt. a blanket. my coat. the cat. the boy stops at nothing, he's now a sniff-wiz.

and finally, the other day i asked him to "give mama a hug," since he still didn't seem to connect me with the term mama. we were sitting on the couch and he lunged over to wrap his arms around me in a tight squeeze. totally made my day.

then for kicks, i asked him to "give mama a kiss," and to my great surprise, he put his mouth to my jawline and made a huge smacking "mwah!" i was able to get him to repeat this several times, but he hasn't done it since.

such a goofy little boy.

ben says...

"some days i am just not ready for children."

another day another trick... or two

milo is a few days past his 18 month mile marker, and among his already impressive arsenal of infant-to-adulthood-accomplishments, we have now added using a straw and successfully opening the back door (as in: turning the handle while pulling the door open, and cackling with glee).

we have since added a mini eye-and-hook lock to the basement door, just in the nick of time.

oh, and there was also the day we took milo to the park, and he wanted to go on the big-kid swings, so with two of us hovering in case he took a dive, we let him swing a little bit by himself, sitting in the swing, holding onto the chains, and gleaming with pride.

we've also gotten him accustomed to wearing a helmet, and anytime we're in the garage, he now grabs his helmet in an effort to convince us to take him for a ride in his chariot (a two-seater bike trailer for toddlers). it's been too windy and cold lately, but we're hoping tomorrow we can give him another ride.

regarding milo's year and a half milestone, i'll repeat what i posted on my facebook status the other day, "can't believe milo is a year and a half old... walking and talking, and hammering and swinging, and hugging and snuggling, and watching and pointing, and learning and growing. i'm constantly amazed by this little boy that will some day be a giant. can i put these moments in tupperware?"

"please sir, can i have some more?"

the first time milo said "more" i was pretty impressed. he had finished off something during one of our mealtimes, and i asked him if he wanted some more. he looked up at me, nodded and clear as a bell replied "more" - although i suppose it does sound more like "mowrh" with the "r" being almost silent.

he has now gotten into the habit of handing me his empty sippy cup mere seconds after sipping it dry, and says "mowrh" with those inquisitive eyes.

we're still working on "please." (i thought we'd made progress when he had gotten to the point of saying "puh puh puh," but now it's "buh buh buh" and only sometimes.)

should i be worried?

i think i've mentioned the "purse" that milo sometimes carries around in the crook of his elbow (it's actually a black manicure case).

he's also been known to take his chain of plastic rings and connectable toys, and wear it around his neck like a scarf or boa, just hanging down at his sides.

just now, he picked up a necklace - a very glittery, shiny, beady necklace - that i took off earlier and set down on the couch, and has been delighted with himself as he figures out how to put it on over his head, making soft squeals and high pitched hmmms and "aaahhhyyyyyyeeee"s...

this is just exploring, right? ;P

ummm... close, but not quite.

milo has been such a ham lately; he had ben and i in hysterics the other night, and today he's had me giggling again at his antics.

he's started trying to make the piggy-grunty-oinky noises that ben and i make, only he doesn't fully get it. he curls up his lips and scrunches up his face and gets a little bit of that uvula-grunt going, but mostly just breathes heavy through his nose like a bull... his face reminds me of mickey rooney playing Mr. Yunioshi in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and he had us laughing so hard, because he just kept doing it.

i keep trying to get a picture of it, but every time i pull out my iPod or camera, he gets excited and tries to grab it, since i'm holding the device mere inches from his face... hopefully when ben's home we can figure out a way to distract him.

then earlier today, he was holding his hand up to his mouth and waving it away, almost like he was blowing me a kiss. i started mimicking him, and asking him "milo, can you blow kisses?" and showing him how to do it, accompanied with the tell-tale lip-smacking "mwah" of course.

he then proceeded to push his hand into his face, while groan/grunting, and just kept pushing, not flair-filled wave of a send-off.

he's such a little goof.

we're full of it! (and other clichés)

he pulled the rug out from under me

(in the kitchen we have one of those rubber-foamy-mats that help cushion your feet from the hard floor. milo likes to move it around. this morning, while i was standing on it and getting his breakfast ready, he tried to pull it out from under me. luckily for him, i was just stepping off of it. i bet he thinks he's so strong.)

egg on your face!

(while it's hard to realize just how much milo is growing from day to day, it's becoming extremely evident by what he's able to reach that use to be out of his grasp. any item on the kitchen counter, dining room table, or living room hutch must be several inches from the edge. or else milo will see it and grab it. in my early morning stupor of making the usual scrambled eggs for milo, i left the mug of freshly cracked yolks and whites on the counter while i rummaged for ketchup in the fridge. milo grabbed it, and literally had egg on his face. as well as all down the front of his pajamas. and all over the floor. breakfast was delayed while we cleaned up.)

and then he pooped!

(okay, so that's not a cliché, but it's in reference to the title of this post. so there ya have it.)

i love you, child...

even when you're crabby.

and getting into every. single. thing. you know you're not supposed to.

and only nap for half an hour.

sometimes, though, i really do wish we could speed up to the fully able to communicate and understand each other stage. (does that ever even happen - complete mutual understanding - between parent & child?)

sometimes you get on my every last nerve.

but i still love you.

well that's new

milo has his very first freckle. a teeny tiny little dark speck that wouldn't wash off no matter how much i scrubbed.

he can also now give high fives on command. as well as hugs. and when you ask him for a hug, he smiles, lunges towards you with open arms, and lets out this happy little growly grunt.

cutest thing ever.

how one step backward is really one step forward...

milo woke up at 4:45 yesterday. still not my favorite, but i'll gladly take it over 3:45.

he also took two naps, and woke up at 5 this morning. it seems (i hope) that the transition back to two naps is a lot more natural for the little bugger than trying to do just one nap.

one small step for milo; a giant leap for mama's sanity.

he's an angry little elf

i think it's time i stop posting about any sleeping successes with milo, as it seems whenever i do, he has a major relapse.

we're switching back to two naps - we attempted to do so today, since he decided to wake up at 3:45, and wouldn't go back to sleep except cuddled up on me on the couch... he got another hour and a half in this morning, but has been up since 7:20, and has screamed through any nap we try to put him down for.

i have no clue what his deal is... aside from a slight runny nose, a cough when he sleeps/first wakes up, and those last two canine teeth still coming in on the bottom, and ignoring the fact that he's obviously over-tired, which is making him a lot more prone to temper tantrums when things aren't going his way (i'm talking full on, hit the floor, kicking and screaming... sometimes he tries to throw in some syllables, like maybe if he can figure out our language we'll give him what he wants... at this point, if he were to look up at me and say "mommy, i want a pony" i might just say "okay, but only if you nap.") anyhow, those things aside, he seems fine, so maybe it's just the lethal combo of all those things...

ben's off work today; i'm both relieved and feel badly - neither of us have really gotten a break since milo got up. although ben did let me go back to sleep and then brought me breakfast in bed. what a keeper.

before i forget...

these are all things that have happened in the past week/month, and i keep meaning to write about it, but it's so easy to get sidetracked with such a busy little boy.

he's sleeping now, and ben's watching some swamp-logging show on netflix, so now's as good a time as any.

- on a recent playdate with some mops moms from my table, milo was the youngest one there. two boys were about 3 or 4 (i think?) and then there was another little girl who's probably 2-3-ish (i've never been good with guessing baby ages, and with milo being abnormally ginormous for his age, he was bigger than her, but i know she's older, because she talks and she's potty trained.) anyhow, she was sitting on the floor, playing with some cash register thing, and milo was sitting across from her, and he was totally playing footsie with her.

- milo's canine teeth, both top and bottom are coming in. i may have already mentioned this? but there it is again, just in case i haven't. all he has left is two more set of molars. boom. teething round 1 almost done, and it didn't really ever seem to phase him, other than a slight temp from time to time, and the runny nose thing, which i hear is common... he makes up for it by still insisting on waking up at 5 am. however....

- we're transitioning to one nap. milo has been waking up at 5:15 or 5:30. i'm hoping once we're fully adjusted he'll sleep till 6. it'll be nice to sleep in again (ha! but seriously, i would love to be able to sleep in till 6. 5 stink in 30 is just wayyyyy too early). anyhow, along with going from a 10 am nap and a 3 pm nap to just a noon-nap, the first day i kept him up past his usual nap time, the poor thing crawled up on the couch, got into his sleeping fetal cuddle pose, and had some major droopy eye going on. i felt badly keeping him awake. at another point, this time sitting on the couch, and he kept falling asleep, sitting up. aside from carseat-sleeping, he'd never done that before... it's possible he's not ready, but we're going to try it for a week and go from there.

- i think that's it, goodnight folks, it's already way too late :\

5 AM

milo's wake up call... every. single. morning.

oh except a little while ago when he slept till 5:20. but then this morning, he woke up at 4:20. not even close to balancing the scales. granted i got him to go back to sleep, but i didn't quite get that luxury, though i did try.

he also took a face plant to some asphalt on saturday when we were on a walking path up in the cities near minnehaha falls. now he has quite the scrape right between his eyebrows and on the bridge of his adorable little nose.

plus he's gibbering a whole bunch.

and then when i put him down for a nap this morning, he decided to put my heart through the ringer. i heard him mumbling something, so i went to his monitor and turned it up.

i see him laying there, kind of lazing around, and repeating "mamaaaa" "maaaama" "maaaaamaaaaaa"...

it was all i could do not to rush in there and pick him right up.

count along with me

milo is 15 months old.

he has 14 teeth.

he is 33.5 inches long and 25 pounds, which means we can turn his carseat around to face forward.

i asked his dr. about height predictions, if they can measure his hands or something along that line. i was told that they don't really do that, but he said that the two ways they can project height is to:

1. take the median height of the parents (6 feet 0.5 inches) and add a couple of inches, which would put milo at 6'2.5", give or take.

or

2. you can take the childs height at 2 and double it. so if milo continues on the trajectory of the 96% in height (which has been consistent thus far), then he'll be about 6'2".

he repeatedly reminded me that these are just estimates. theory number one holds true if i apply it to my height (derived from my parents' median), but would not hold true for my brother. i think milo's gonna be taller.

moving on, and away from the number game, milo has decided that his 2012 habit of sleeping in till 6 or later is not a habit, but just a one week gift of bliss.

maybe someday we'll go back there, where birds fly over the rainbow, and life is in technicolor, and getting up before 6 am is entirely my own choice, and not demanded of me.

meanwhile, i count my blessings in footie pajamas. covered feet are slippery feet, and slippery feet have yet to figure out scaling the crib slats. as much as i dread milo waking up before 6 am, i would hate to wake up to the thud and ensuing cries of him escaping from the alcatraz crib.

spoke too soon.

yesterday milo woke up at 4:45, and though i went in to assure him that it wasn't time to get up yet, and laid him back down to sleep, it was a struggle. he maybe slept 20 or 30 more minutes intermittently, and at 5:45, i gave in.

and he only got one nap yesterday after we got back from church.

this morning he woke up at 5:45... better than yesterday, better than 5, but still earlier than necessary, and too early enough that his crankiness shows that "mother knows best" when it comes to sleeping in.

i put him down for a nap at 10, he babbled till 10:15, and he's just woken up again...

i think it's gonna be one of those days.

new year, new tricks

milo has added a "stepping" motion to the dance moves that he uses to bust a groove when there's music playing. (it started as a head bobble, and then moved into a full-body-bounce, and now it's a combo all three.)

both his eye teeth are coming in. at first i mistakenly thought that his eye teeth were the ones next to the two front teeth, but they weren't, and now they're coming in. at this rate, i think this kid is going to have all his permanent teeth by the time he's four.

he's also started making kissing noises, only it seems he's just sucking in his bottom lip. i guess it's really more of a lips smacking noise. in the old year (2011), he was accomplishing this feat with fish-face-lips. now it's the lower-lip-suction-trick. and of course, if we repeat the noise/action, he gets all smiley and giggly.

there's one thing that's been surprisingly consistent since the new year rang in... i don't want to talk about it too much just for it to go away, but suffice it to say that i haven't gotten out of bed before 6 am since 2011. i'm really hoping this lasts...

we did a clean sweep of his hoard of outgrown toys and clothes, and the whole house just feels so much cleaner and more spacious and better organized. with his closest cleaned out of all the old clothes that no longer fit, we finally got around to rearranging things so that his shirts, pajamas and onesies are actually hanging, his pants folded on a shelf, and his socks are in a bin next to the pants. two of his empty dresser drawers are now storage space for his puzzles and legos and some other miscellaneous toys, while the top holds our overflow of dvds. meanwhile, the bottom shelf of his closet holds stuffed animals, and on the floor of the closet we keep his wooden toys and weebles collection.

all in all it's been a good start to the new year.