Milo, Milo, and more Milo

Happy Mother's Day!

Milo got up early this morning to accompany his Mommy to a 9K Mother's Day race. Milo could have joined me on the course, but I was nervous about navigating the crowd with the jogging stroller, so he decided to hang out with Daddy in the cheering section. That was plenty of exertion for Milo, particularly because we had a little bottle snafu that left him milk-less during the race. Here he is about 5 minutes after I crossed the finish line:

And about 10 minutes after that:

After his post-race snooze, he perked up enough to play in the grass with his buddy Sophia, who ran rode the whole race with her Mommy, Lyn:

There were over 1500 women participating in the race today, most of them mothers. It was pretty cool to see all the fit, strong moms out there, running and walking with and without their kids. But for me, the very best part about it was being there with my kiddo, and realizing (again and again) just how amazing it is to be Milo's Mommy.

 

Wiped.

Milo had a great physical therapy appointment on Wednesday. The PT was very impressed with his progress, and she taught him (and us) some new exercises to help him build his muscle tone and work towards crawling. He's going to be so buff (and mobile - yikes!). But all that playing and toning is hard work, as you can see from the aftermath:

Crash!

When Milo's cousin Nathan was about 9 months old, he loved nothing more than helping to build tall towers of blocks. Except, of course, knocking down tall towers of blocks, creating a satisfying clatter and crash. In fact, Uncle Gideon and I enticed Nathan into his first crawl by moving the tall towers of blocks enticingly out of his reach. Remembering this, and hoping to encourage a similar gross-motor development, I bought Milo his very first set of blocks a couple of weeks ago. I tried stacking a few of them up and then helping Milo knock them over, but he was fairly nonplussed by the whole experience.

Until Daddy The Structural Engineer came home, and the block towers got a lot more interesting!

For a while, Milo was still more interested in admiring Daddy's creations from afar than attempting to deconstruct them (let alone move himself from point A to point B for that purpose).

But a few days later, Milo started showing some curiosity about the blocks. First, he explored the box that contains them.

Next, he decided to get a closer look at one of Daddy's structural masterpieces. Once he was within striking distance,  his innate block toppling reflex kicked in, and he knew exactly what he had to do.

Now that Milo has discovered the pure joy of KNOCKING STUFF DOWN, even the most well-engineered block tower doesn't stand a chance.

8 months!

If there was a theme for Milo's eighth month, it would be "this is FUN!" We love this stage so much - it includes adorable, social babbling, boundless curiosity, the beginnings of mobility, exciting adventures with food, toys, books, people, and places, and a whole new level of personality that cracks us up constantly and makes our hearts swell with pride and delight. If we had any lingering doubts that we won the baby lottery, this past month eliminated them.

Among his many new skills, Milo is using his hands to play with toys more deliberately and interactively. One of his favorite activities is playing ball with Grandpa Bill (and it's one of Grandpa's favorite activities, too). Here are two videos of Milo and Grandpa playing ball. As usual, Grandma & Grandpa's commentary is almost as entertaining as the action itself!

Cousins are fun!

Milo's cousins came all the way from Atlanta to spend Passover with him. This was Milo's first meeting with Cousin Ryan, and the first time he'd seen Cousin Nathan since his bris (we're guessing he doesn't remember the meeting, or the bris for that matter). We had such a fun weekend!

On Friday night, Milo and Ryan took a nice, splashy bath together. 

On Saturday, we all went to the Farmer's Market together, and met up with lots of friends - Skyler, Mia, and Finn (and their parents), Geoffrey (and his mom), and Samuel (and his mom). It was a beautiful, sunny day, and we had a great walk from Grandma & Grandpa's house to the market. Once we found a spot to sit, Milo rolled around on the grass, tried to eat wood chips, and enjoyed several hearty licks from Mommy's ice cream. Mommy, of course, forgot to bring her camera.

Saturday night was our big Passover seder. In addition to the Cohen Brothers and Milo, we were joined by Walter, who is just about 2 weeks older than Milo and very cute.

The little guys all did really well at the seder. They especially enjoyed the Plague Puppets, the singing, the no-nuts charoset, and the Manischewitz. Cousin Nathan even sang the four questions! Bowing to their youth, we didn't make the babies wait until the Hillel Sandwich to eat.

On Sunday, we got up very early and drove to Red Rocks park for a family photo shoot (our birthday present to Grandma S-J). Despite fatigue, wind, and illness for poor Ryan, we had a great time and got some great pictures. Here's a non-professional shot from the session (with photo credit to Grandma S-J).

The very best part of the cousins' visit was just watching Milo checking out the big boys - he thought his cousins were pretty awesome! Ryan is 13 months old and can crawl and cruise, and Nathan is four and a half and just about the coolest (and funniest) kid Milo has ever seen.

.

Rolling, rolling, rolling!

It took Milo more than 6 months to decide that flipping over was a worthy use of his time and energy. Even then, he rolled sporadically, and not usually in an obviously goal-oriented way. While we were mostly content to let him achieve gross-motor milestones in his own good time, it seemed he was getting a little frustrated, and having some body-part-organization/coordination issues, so we took him to a physical therapy assessment last week.

The therapist, Sandy, was fantastic. Milo loved her, loved all the fun stuff she did with him, and spent the whole appointment giggling and grinning (he also burned off enough energy to take a 2-hour nap afterwards, leading us to wonder if perhaps he could go to PT every day). Sandy identified three comparatively minor issues, all of which are contributing to Milo's very slight gross-motor delays. First, he has a mild case of hypotonia, meaning that his upper body muscle tone is weaker than that of his lower body. He also has a mild plagiocephaly, meaning a flatness on one side of his head. And he has a slight torticolis, or tilt in the vertebrae at his neck (please do not hold me to the accuracy of these fancy-schmancy medical terms. I'm a criminal defense lawyer!). In Sandy's opinion, Milo would probably figure out rolling, crawling, standing, and walking without much intervention, but some bodywork and physical therapy would help him get there faster, and with less frustration and more confidence on his part. Fixing the head and neck issues should also help him avoid problems as a teenager and adult.

Sandy left us with a bunch of fun exercises to work on with Milo at home, and he will also start seeing her every couple of weeks for a while. We feel great about this process, and are very happy to be working with such a caring and talented therapist.

In the week since we started doing the exercises with Milo, his gross-motor skills have exploded! He's suddenly sitting nice and straight for an indefinite period of time, and can turn and reach and pivot from a seated position with amazing stability and determination. He's twisting and turning all the time, and standing more stably when holding onto our hands. And really, really rolling, with purpose and direction like we've never seen before.

With this newfound mobility comes a whole new set of challenges for his parents, who have yet to undertake the task of childproofing our deathtrap house. We did get the crib mattress lowered yesterday, at least.

PS: a full report on CousinFest 2008 is coming soon, once I receive photos and videos from Grandma S-J and Aunt Jill. Milo had a fabulous Passover with Nathan and Ryan, and it was wonderful to get all the boys  together.

Two!

That's how many teeth Milo has acquired over the same number of weeks. The first one emerged while he was spending his first full weekend with Grandma S-J and Grandpa Bill. Fortunately for all of us, the tooth emerged with a minimum of pain and suffering. In fact, Milo slept for 12 straight hours each night he was with his grandparents. We think he's working up to ask them for a car when he turns 16.

It's hard to get a picture of Milo's new fang, because he spends a lot of time sucking on it, trying to figure out the weird new thing in his mouth.

While Milo was hanging out with Grandma & Grandpa, Mommy and Daddy were off on a backcountry hut trip. We had a wonderful time skiing. However, because we were staying at 11,400 feet and sharing a sleeping bag, WE didn't get any sleep!

Milo's second tooth arrived on Sunday, right next to the first one (on the bottom). He wasn't too thrilled about it, but we managed to distract him from his discomfort with lots of outings. It was a beautiful day, so we spent most of it outside. First, we went for a run. Milo hated his new sunglasses at first, but warmed up to them once he realized they kept the annoying sun out of his eyes.

Then we stopped at the supermarket and picked up a few essentials. There wasn't quite enough room for everything in the stroller, so Milo helped carry his changing-pad covers:

After a nice, long nap in the afternoon, we walked over to the park (we were planning to play with Julian and Alex, but the mommies got their signals crossed and ended up at different parks - whoopsie!). Milo had a great time playing on the swings, the bouncy horse, and even the slide (with lots of help from Mommy).

As we were walking home from the park, we ran into Grandma S-J! She decided to take a break from all of her Passover preparations and join us for Milo's very first ice-cream cone. Perhaps it was the soothing coldness on his sore gums, or perhaps it was the heady sugar rush, but in any case, Milo gave two sticky thumbs up for ice cream!

Opening Day.

Milo is ready for baseball season! He entered the world just in time to enjoy the Colorado Rockies' exciting and unexpected streak down the stretch, and was as crushed as the rest of us by the team's World Series collapse. But babies have short memories, so he's put the disappointment behind him and is ready to cheer for the Boys Of Purple. Contrary to what you might guess from his outfit - must be time for a trip to the Dugout store!

Tickle-tickle-tickle.

It's hard to resist tickling Milo's chubby little tummy (and all six of his delicious little chins). And even harder to stop, when the tickling produces results like this:

7 months!

Milo turned 7 months old last week, and celebrated by getting a shot in the thigh. He barely flinched! We've been keeping Daddy away from all vaccination appointments, and so far, Milo seems to fall on the opposite end of the needle-phobic spectrum.

This past month was all about food. Milo is discovering all kinds of new tastes and textures, and is eating two or three solid-food meals a day now. In addition to eating lots of yogurt and baby food from a spoon, Milo is learning to feed himself some finger foods.

Recent culinary delights have included bagels:

and apples:

Avocado in the mesh feeder remains a perennial favorite, too.

Milo is now riding in his stroller in the "big" seat, instead of the snapped-in bucket carseat. He loves facing out at the world! He looks around intently, sometimes taking it all in contemplatively,

and sometimes giggling at the silliness of it all.

He's rolling over all the time now, often in the middle of his diaper change. Considering the new and exciting things he's eating, and the corresponding new and exciting things we're finding in his diaper, this could get messy soon.

This week, MIlo's sitting skills really came together. He loves hanging out and playing with his toys from a seated position, although he's not quite stable enough to leave unattended.

Milo still loves to "stand up," with Mommy and Daddy's help, and to lie on his back and kick his feel like crazy. But as he learns how to maneuver himself from a sitting position, so he can grab and manipulate his toys, he's starting to see the benefits of  the whole sitting thing.

Real mobility can't be too far behind, but we're still in denial on that front. Gates? Cabinet locks? LalalalalalaIcan'thearyoulalalala.....