he walks!

he did it!!!!

today, after we got home from a grand day out, my mom was getting the last of our groceries while i brought milo inside.

i put him on the ground to get out some wiggles, since he'd been in either the carseat or a shopping cart for the majority of the day.

he saw the cat and wanted to walk towards her, but didn't even bother holding onto my hands, so i was holding him under his arms, but only just barely.

he started walking towards her, and he seemed so steady and focused, so i let go of him completely, and he did it! he took four steps on his own towards the cat.

he's just shy of 11 months old, weighs in at 21 pounds (i checked him on the wii fit this morning) and he's finally taken his first real steps.

"curiosity killed the cat"

i never understood that phrase growing up.... i seem to remember my brother telling me that when i would go into his room and play with his star wars toys while he was at school, and i remember thinking about it over and over, imagining different scenarios of how cats might die from curiosity, but it still didn't make sense.

and no, our poor cat is not dead, but i've decided it's not worth it to me to keep her right now, and curiosity is the culprit. not her's though, oh no. milo's.

aside from the already established fact that he's obsessed with her, but doesn't know how to show his affection in ways that are appropriate, i've started keeping her in the basement so that she can get to her litter box and food, but with the door closed, she also gets no attention whatsoever. she doesn't seem to mind as much, but on occasion when i let her out and leave the basement door open, then i have to blockade milo from the kitchen.

up until now he had not noticed the basement door, the stairs going down, the fact that there's a whole new world (cue "Aladdin"music) down there to explore.... but then he found it.

i knew he was crawling around in the kitchen. if i'm not watching him, i try to keep a vigilant ear on where he is, and thus knowing what he's getting into without even seeing him. i've gotten decent at it. silence is golden when he's sleeping, but awake, it's a red flag. i looked over to the kitchen area, and there he was, at the basement door, staring at the cat, who was on the step, waiting to get out, staring at him.

so now that he's aware of the basement, i have to keep that door closed all the time. and since blockades work better on the cat then on milo, and it just doesn't seem fair to keep her locked in a basement all day long, and we hope to have another baby or two (eventually), which would mean i'd have to go through this whole charade again?

thanks, but no thanks..... sorry cat, i'll at least do my best to find you a good home.

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

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.

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.

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.

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. :)