11 months old... written two days before turning 1!

Miles will be one on Wednesday.  That seems so hard to believe, and this year has gone by faster than I ever imagined.  So before it's too late, here is an overview of Miles' life this past month.

Favorite Things: Playing with cabinets until we ruined everything, pushing his walker, playing with cars, the copycat game (shakes his head and makes noises to mimic us), petting Maggie, watching Maggie pop bubbles, rearranging our chairs.

Favorite Foods: Peas, tamales, ravioli, fig newtons, puffs, fruit puree pouches, clementines, whatever we are eating.

Milestones: Outgrew most 12 month clothes, no more infant carseat, getting molars, had an awful ear infection that would not go away without lots of medicine, started using more sign language ("more" and "please") and shaking his head no, starting to go without pacifier at night.

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11 months has been such a fun age.  We love Miles' silly personality so much!  He often does things that he clearly thinks are hilarious, and his giggles and cackles are infectious.  He is usually a happy kid and content to run errands with us and play with toys, but we do get the occasional body flailing tantrum when he's not allowed to do something important like lay in the dog bed (yes, still a goal), play in the toilet, or chew on our furniture.

Like the rest of the kids in Dallas, he enjoyed a couple of snow days and wasn't too impressed by all the white stuff.  He was more concerned with why he was wearing so many clothes.

 Hat and beard courtesy of Aunt Carly

Miles is also very expressive.  He has started making this fake, exaggerated, angry face when he wants something and isn't getting it.  It's quite lovely... 

And other times, he's just silly...

Or skeptical of chipotle black bean patties (now he's a fan)...

This Saturday we'll be celebrating with a party, so I hope to post an update next week!

10 months old!

Miles turned 10 months old on January 18th, and the tardiness of this post is indicative of how busy life is with a fast-crawling, cruising, into-everything baby.  Miles definitely keeps us on our toes, and continues to be an active, happy kid.

 Pictures of a baby laying on a quilt are no longer possible.

At 10 months, his goals include:  opening and closing all the doors in our house, laying in the dog beds, eating pieces of leaves that get tracked inside, getting his hands on the laptop cords, chewing on our tabletops, and playing in the dog's water.  It's very upsetting to him that most of these activities are not allowed. 

 Mean Mama never lets him eat leaves.

Miles continues to be very mobile - he crawls really fast, pulls up on everything (even our legs and Maggie) and has accidentally stood on his own for a few seconds.  Right now he's getting better at cruising around the furniture, and loves pushing his dinosaur walker or my stepstool (pictured above).  I'm not in a rush for him to walk and wreak more havoc on our house, but I'm proud of him, and think he'll figure it out soon.

Unfortunately, the past two weeks have been pretty rough since Miles got sick and ran fever for the first time.  He had an ear infection in his right ear, and after removing an astonishing amount of impacted wax, started a course of amoxicillin.  Things went downhill from there, as it turns out he is allergic to it (and likely penicillin) and developed tummy issues and a crazy red rash.  Now he's on a new medicine and the ear is healed, but he spent 3 days at home this week due to some sort of virus that caused him to run fever from 99 - 103.8 degrees.  Thankfully, he seems to be over it and has been fever free since yesterday afternoon, but we were sad to miss his buddy John's birthday party.

Feeling better on Jan 30th

Things have gotten a bit difficult on the food front lately, since Miles had to be on a pretty starchy diet while on the antibiotics and a lot of our staple foods are off limits until his tummy is back to normal.  He's very moody at mealtime, and has started throwing food and wants to feed himself but gets frustrated when it doesn't go well.  He still prefers to try what we're eating (except bread - I think the texture confuses him) and drink from his straw cup. 

Penne pasta with ground turkey sauce was a hit (pre-illness)

This month also brought work trips for both me and Nick, so it's been a bit more hectic than usual.  I am always grateful that Nick and I are equal partners in childcare, but I really appreciate him when he's away and I'm trying to make food, bathe Miles, feed myself, and play during the evening.  Thankfully, Miles' best friend Maggie is here to help out... and eat the food he rejects.  (Now she has to go outside or to her bed during dinner because we don't want this to be a trend)

 Thanks for my awesome hat, Aunt Carly!

A recent achievement/challenge for Miles has been learning to put himself to sleep.  Bedtime had gone from an easy ten minutes, to a thirty minute affair full of whining.  We have finally started routinely putting Miles in his crib awake and now he's pretty good about going to sleep on his own after a few minutes of flopping around his bed.  He still goes to bed a little later than most babies (8:30) but sleeps all night until 7:30 most mornings and sometimes even later if we let him.  It isn't typical, but it works for us, and gives us time together in the evenings after work so we're happy.  Unfortunately, he remains a crappy daycare napper, and sometimes comes home having only slept for 45 minutes all day.  Hopefully he outgrows this phase soon.

Another fun change is that Miles really plays with his toys now instead of just watching us with them or exploring the textures.  He figured out how to send balls down his corkscrew slide toy (a favorite) and likes to spin the beads and other movable pieces on his Zany Zoo cube.  He also crawls around pushing his little cars, and throws balls so he can chase them (basically playing fetch with himself).

We're looking forward to Miles' first birthday, and will be having his party on Saturday the 21st at our house.  Save the date! 

9 months old! + A Very Merry Christmas

Miles Dillon is 9 months (and 2 weeks) old, and those are the best pictures I could get because this kid is all over the place!  Our little photo shoot mostly looked like this:

Mobility is pretty much his biggest achievement lately, and Miles takes great joy in quickly crawling around the house babbling to us and the dog, stopping to pull up on all furniture and against doors or walls.  His primary goal is to join Maggie in the dog bed, and overturn the water bowl, but his mean parents never let him have any fun at all.

 Taken on my way to ruin his fun.  We discourage this for Maggie's sake... and because she sheds like it's her job.

Other interests include: closing doors, trying to eat leaves that get tracked in from outside, feeding himself bite-sized pieces of whatever we are eating, petting Maggie, throwing his cup on the floor, removing his socks, clapping his hands, playing with musical toys or anything with pieces that move.

Miles had his 9 month check-up on December 18th, and weighed in at just over 22 pounds (74%) and 28.5 inches long (58%).  His pediatrician is pleased with all of his new skills, which are right on track for his age, and said to keep feeding him table food and start moving away from purees. 

We're glad to have found a doctor who is against "kid food" are looking forward to teaching Miles to love a variety of flavors - except the nuts and shellfish that he can't have until he's older.  Even though there's a new one published every time you turn around, I'm enjoying books and articles detailing how the French teach their children to accept foods that Americans assume they will not like.  Here's hoping we can raise an adventurous eater!

Biscuits and sausage gravy are delicious.

December also brought our annual Christmas road trip, and lots of time with our families.  We exchanged gifts among the three of us on Christmas Eve before we left for Houston, and Miles loves his new activity cube.  He plays with it every day and especially likes closing all the little doors and spinning the beads.  Nick got some shirts, some records, an Xbox game, and grapefruit vodka.  I was happy to get some clothes, and some art prints that I plan to hang in our long-neglected master bedroom.  We decided not to shower Miles with gifts this year, not because he isn't the best baby ever, but because he'll be turning 1 in just 3 months (sob!) and simply does not need lots of new stuff.  Santa brought him a couple of cool books to Grandma and Grandpa's house, and I think everyone else liked the Dog book as much as he does! (Highly recommend it for kids his age and a little older)

 

Wednesday evening, we went to church with the rest of the Dillons and then enjoyed gifts and a big lunch on Christmas Day.  Miles got lots of cool stuff, and had lots of fun crawling around and standing for his audience.

Reading A Charlie Brown Christmas with Grandpa is our new family tradition

On Friday, we drove to Bryan to spend time with the Fergusons and then went to my aunt and uncle's house in Magnolia for our next family gathering.  Miles got so many fun gifts (again) and loves watching all the dogs and older kids running around.

Someone loves sitting with his great-grandma, Nandy

I was not drunk - I would normally crop that face out but the rest of the picture is good so I'm taking one for the team.

On Saturday, we headed back to Dallas and went to my Aunt Monica's house for Christmas with the Moutons.  We were pretty tired and didn't take many pictures, but Miles had more fun with my aunts, uncle and cousins and received even more fun toys and books!

This blurry picture is the only evidence, but we had a good time in Rockwall!

By the time New Year's Eve rolled around, we were all pretty tired and just enjoyed some time at home for the weekend (still in progress).  We can't wait to see everyone again soon, but are hoping for some visitors in Dallas!

Southpaw, and other observations.

When I started this blog, I had grand intentions to record all the little moments we enjoy with Miles and not just a monthly update and picture dump.  It's too bad the whole working mother of an infant situation left me with less free time than I thought I'd have (what was I thinking?), but now that the cuteness is so extreme and our days are so busy, I need to make time for posts like this.

Enjoy the randomness - I hope Miles will, too, one day.

Southpaw
As of right now, one week shy of 9 months, we think Miles might be left handed.  He uses both hands, of course, but tends to feed himself and hold his cup in his left hand.  When I place toys in front of him, he typically grabs with the left, and transfers small things to that hand.  Perhaps he'll grow up to be like his Aunt Carly and we'll just buy special scissors.

What does Miles eat?
What doesn't Miles eat?  After about eight weeks of being careful, we determined that Miles doesn't seem to have food allergies so we declared it semi-open season and started feeding him a wider variety of foods.  We want him to be accustomed to strong flavors and not rely on fruit-laced dishes (or combos of cheese and carbs), so we got to work mixing our own purees (By "we" I really mean Nick 80% of the time) and sharing what we're having, so long as it doesn't have nuts or too much spice.  It turns out that Miles likes to eat:

- Mexican flavors like cumin and onion powder, especially with black beans and chicken or beef
- Yellow curry powder with his veggie and white bean puree
- Yogurt and smoothies
- All fruits, to the point where we sometimes have to avoid sweet things for a day so he'll eat dinner
- Everything he tried at Thanksgiving!
- Whatever we're having, if he can get it in his mouth

You can tell when he likes something because he'll go "Mmmm!" and kick his feet.  And when he's not yet a fan, he'll eat anyway if you let him take lots of water breaks.  It's also funny to see that he's sometimes confused by his cups - he doesn't get that you don't need to tilt a straw cup, and gets frustrated when he's not getting much water.

Turkey legs
Today Miles' teacher asked if we could start sending him to school in sweatpants because some of his other pants are so tight around the thighs that it's impeding his crawling and pulling up.  I wonder which parent he gets that from??


Miles' First Christmas
We're not going overboard on the holidays this year, but I wanted to get a picture of Miles and Santa.  We did not have time to brave NorthPark, and the line at Bass Pro was 3 hours long, so I we went over to Grapevine Mills and waited about 15 minutes to takes photos with this perfectly good Kris Kringle.  I didn't think Miles would cry, but I wasn't sure if he'd smile.  We lucked out, and he wasn't scared, but pretty much kept that finger in his mouth the whole time.

Pulling Up
This past week, Miles has gone from occasionally pulling up to doing it all day long.  He stands up around the ottoman, the couch, and his little activity table - happily looking around in pride.  It's cute, but a little sad for me.  My baby is growing up!

BFFs
We continue to be so pleased by how well Maggie interacts with Miles.  He loves to pet her and watch her run around, and she lets him touch her and lean on her without any sudden movements... while sometimes licking his hands and face.   We're really looking forward to the day when Miles can run with her since that's pretty much her life's dream.

As for Charlie, well, he no longer steals baby toys and stealth poops in the nursery, and basically acts like Miles isn't there most of the time.  Progress!

8 months old!

As promised, here's Miles' 8 month update - almost on time!!

8 months has been another fun time for Miles, and he continues to be more mobile each week.  We can no longer leave him on his blanket and expect to find him in roughly the same spot when we come back.  In the time it takes to get some water in the kitchen, he can end up under the dining table!

He army crawls pretty fast (tummy isn't off the ground) and is very determined to get his toys and check out all extension cords and bits of lint that he can get his hands on.  He is becoming more interested in his toys and how things work, but his blocks and piano are still the favorites.

A few weeks ago I was putting away laundry and put Miles in his crib to watch his musical Nemo toy so he'd be safe while I went in and out of the garage.  I came back to find this:

He can't get himself to sitting up from laying down yet, so we're not worried about climbing out, but he LOVES to pull up whenever he can and trying to walk while he hold his hands.  I wish time would just stop sometimes - he's getting so big so fast!

Miles also experienced his first Thanksgiving, and spent time with both the Dillons and Fergusons.  He ate turkey, cranberries, stuffing, cheesy rice, yams... and pie.  And loved pretty much all of it!

A sweet neighbor of Grandma and Grandpa Dillon gave him a cool car to ride in, too.  We didn't have room in the car to bring it home, but hopefully soon!

We also took a few family pictures at my Uncle Kelley's house, and Miles got to see even more family:

So far it's been a great month, and we're looking forward to celebrating Christmas with out little guy.  I'm sure he's going to love all the wrapping paper.