Milo Chap, Month 9

And we blinked and nine months with this cutie pie has flown by. We can hardly believe it. Two nights ago, we were in the middle of dinner time chaos... me scooping spoonfuls of sweet potato from Milo's chin back into his mouth, and Matt breaking down exactly how many more bites of pasta Oliver needed to eat in order to get a popsicle... and I caught his eye... this man that I feel in love with almost a decade ago... and I started laughing... Our dinners look so different now than they did then... they are so much louder, so much more food lands on the floor, so many cheerios are spread across the table and are getting crunched beneath our feet... and as overstimulating as some meals (days) can be... we are in the middle of so much that we have been hoping for.

It appears that Milo has survived his fragile days, and is now giving Oliver as much trouble as Oliver gave him a few months ago. If Oliver is playing on the floor, then Milo is crawling/climbing/planking across him. For the most part, Oliver takes it good naturedly... but a brother can only handle so much and Milo just doesn't know when enough is enough. And man, is he tough He can take a tumble without even batting an eye... falling off the changing table, however, is enough to take anyone's (and everyones!) breath away. Not that that happened at our house... this morning... or that we are on concussion watch today.

Milo weighs in now at a solid 20 pounds (58th percentile) and is 28 inches tall (43rd percentile). His head continues to outpace his body (87th percentile). Over the last month, 4 more teeth sprouted (I wish it happened as gently as "sprouting.") He now has a total of six teeth and he knows how to use them. Buddy loves to eat... and can handle small bits of soft food along with his pureed baby food. Bananas and sweet potatoes remain his favorites.

He is an army crawling machine... when properly motivated by a shoestring or a stray cheerio or an open bathroom door. He very rarely gets up on hands and knees, but makes good use of his toes and elbows for scootching (mopping) the living room floor. He loves to climb on anything and everything, and pulls up to stand whenever and where ever he can.

His hair, continues to stand straight up... no amount of combing, wetting, and patting it down can tame those wild hairs. As if we would even want to tame that mane.

Sleeping is going a bit better... and by that I mean, we are no longer up for endless hours with a wide awake baby at 4 am. Not that we've done anything different. Buddy still takes a 10pm and a middle of the night bottle... what a sad day for him it will be when we start weaning him from the bottle in the coming months. This weekend we are going to try again to transition away from one of those feeds... so when you hear a great sadness coming from the South Bay in the middle of the night... its just our house, working through our nighttime issues.

As of last week, Milo has perfected the art of the shrill shriek... we hear this most often at the table, when he wants more or less of something. The pitch of that shriek is remarkable... and my ear drums are near bleeding. We've started working on a few baby signs... hoping to preserve our ear drums and empower this little soul to communicate... however, we have quite a bit of work to do on that end.

Chap, we look at you as a babe and we wonder who you will be as a toddler. We can imagine the wild, bumping, and jumping, jostling bundle of boy... we can't quite see it yet, but we can imagine it. I love this season that we are in, I love the cuddles and sleepy snuggles, and the toting you around on my hip. But I will also love, the busy, creative season of you and your brother in another year. It is my privilege, sweet boy, to rock you to sleep at night, to watch your drowsy eyes give themselves over to dreams. It is my privilege to mother you, to shelter you, to bear witness to your babyhood. You are dearly and deeply loved, son.