Milo: 11 Months! and 12 Months!

Weight: 23.5 pounds // Length: 29 inches //Teeth: 8  teeth, four on the top and two on the bottom, with two more working their way through // Eyes: Blueish-green // Hair: Blondish-brown, long curls at the back of your neck

Milo, we’ve made it an entire year!  In these last two months you’ve really shot from the last bits of baby to the beginnings of a true toddler.  We’ve gone from spending long days together to a routine of work and daycare and weekend outings.  You’ve gone from scoot-crawling and pulling up on furniture to full-speed walking and even running around the room.  You “talk” in long strings of babble and say “bye-bye” as clear as day, pointing and waving to  try to communicate what you want.  It’s amazing to watch you change and grow.

You are so much more mobile now that we had to move all our furniture around and put up some gates.  You love to crawl over to the baskets that hold your toys and books and pick out what you want to play with.  Without anyone really showing you, you learned how to roll cars and trucks on the ground and things with wheels are your favorite toys.  Your love for Thomas has gotten even stronger, and you have so many trains of different sizes.  You still love the G. I. Joes, and you love to carry them around and put them inside things.  You like to bounce when music comes on, especially the theme music from your favorite shows (Thomas and Super Why) and you clap when you’re very happy or excited.

At the very end of August you started going to daycare, and you absolutely love it.  You have lots of friends and get so excited to see them when we go over to Miss. Denise’s house.  Miss. Denise is a wonderful teacher and it’s easy to see how much she loves you.  It makes me really happy that you love her and feel so comfortable when you’re with her.  You do things like go for walks, listen to your alphabet, play cars and toys with you friends, eat snacks, sing songs, and have lots of fun.  I’m so glad that we live on the same street as such an amazing place for you to spend your days.  You adjusted so well to going to daycare and playing with the other kids has already taught you so much.

You have a ton of new tricks.  You love to pick up sticks, rocks, books, puzzles pieces- anything you can get your hands on- and run around, holding them up and presenting them to the people around you.  You figured out how to help me push the stroller when we were in the library one day, and you were so proud. You prefer to eat with a fork and hold grown up cups by yourself whenever we let you.  You’ve also developed a real sense of humor and love to be silly.  You put things on your head and giggle when people put things in their mouths that don’t belong there.

In your 12th month, you finally got sick for the very first time.  For over a week we were constantly taking you to doctors, sleeping next to you listening to you breathe, using humidifiers and all kinds of medicine, all trying to beat a bad case of croup.  It was so hard to know that you weren’t feeling well, to have you out of your routine, and to listen to the doctors tell us so many different things while they tried to get to the bottom of whatever it was that was keeping you sick.  I’m so thankful that you’re healthy now, and we’ll have a better idea of what to do next time that you’re sick.  It was a learning experience, and we’re all tougher for it!

Then the celebration of your birthday finally came around! Lots of people have been showing you love from the time before you were born, and they kept it up for your special day.  You had a presents, friends, love, a balloon, pumpkins, a crown (from Miss. Denise), and a special cake, all for yourself.

You were a spoiled little king for the whole day, and it helped us realize how spoiled we have been for the whole year; spoiled with love from so many people around us, spoiled by having each other as a parenting team, and spoiled with a golden haired little boy who has been our baby for 365 days.  I can’t believe how big you are.  I can’t wait to keep watching you grow.  Thank you for turning me into who I was meant to be.  Love, your Mama.