One Year Letter

Milo love,

Well, it's official.  You're a big bad 1 year old! I can hardly believe it - sometimes I feel like you should be 10 and sometimes I feel like you're still 3 or 4 months old.  As you've been growing up time has been passing in the weirdest way, I can't explain it.

You are really starting my blossom.  Your personality is really shining through and I kind of love it! You love to rough house with your dad and you love to snuggle with your mom. Your brother loves to give you a lot of hugs and kisses, rub your head, and steal your toys.  For the most part you just let him do whatever you want, but slowly you're starting to fight back just a little bit.

You, my little boy, have made my heart increase in size at least ten fold.  You were a surprise from the day we found out we were pregnant with you, the very best kind of surprise! We didn't think I could go pregnant without medical help, but you were ready to come to our family and decided it was your time.  Ever since you were born you've been full of surprises. Some of them good and some of them scary.  But you've been a brave little trooper through all of it.

You are sleeping pretty good at night, but not napping very well during the day.  You wake up in the morning at 6:15AM on the dot.  You nap from 11-12/12:30.  I try my hardest to get you to take a second nap in the afternoon, but you're so stubborn.  You refuse to nap and then you want to go to bed at 5:30.  I try to keep you up until at least 6:30, but sometimes you make it until 7.  I've started letting you cry when you wake up during the night, because you are to old to be still needing a bottle in the middle of the night.  It breaks my heart to hear you cry, but you're getting better. 10 or 15 minutes of crying and you usually go back to sleep.

You're still not crawling or walking, but you are starting to gain more control over your body everyday.  You're starting to be able to pull yourself up to the standing position, but you use your arms to do so.  Which is pretty hard.  Hopefully soon you'll figure out to use your leg strength instead and it'll be much easier.  You are making such great progress dealing with your spina bifida that I just bean with pride when I watch you learn new things.  You're a tough one, little man.

I love you the most.

Love, Mom

Eleven Month Letter

Milo boy,

Eleven months! This is the last month as you with my baby boy.  Once you reach 1 year old I feel like you cross a line into toddler hood. You've been such a joy this last month! Everyone keeps commenting on how you're so happy lately and seem to be making big progress in your development.  I have to say - I agree with them.  I see your confidence building and you're developing likes and dislikes and figuring out how to convey them to me.

We had a major snow storm a few weeks ago and since we haven't had a lot of snow this year I thought that I should take advantage of it.  So we bundled up and went into the blizzard for a bit.  We played in the snow for a bit, but you mostly just sat there. You didn't even try to touch the snow, you just sat and watched it fall. After a few minutes you started acting cold, so I put you inside and you just watched your brother and I. The next day it was 60 degrees and the snow was gone shortly.  So, I guess it was a good thing we seized the day!

You are such a good little eater! You eat just about everything that I put in front of you - which is a nice change from your picky brother.  But the good news is, you are rubbing off on him.  He doesn't like to feel left out so sometimes he asks to try your food.  He rarely eats it, but at least he's trying more veggies and meat.  There was one day that cooper wasn't feeling good and he didn't even touch his toast during breakfast.  I left it a little too close to you and before I knew it, you had the entire slice of toast and you were just in heaven.  The first time you ever had food that wasn't broken up into bite sized pieces and it surprised me how well you did! You didn't choke or gag once, well done boy!

You poor boy, you keep getting ear infections.  It's no fun for any of us.  Every time I take you in to have your ears checked you just scream bloody murder.  You cry every time we walk into the room - it's like you know what's coming.  You sure make the saddest face.  We might go see an ENT to discuss getting tubes in your ears if you get one more infection.

Buddy, I love you to the moon.

Love -

your mama

Ten Month Letter

Milo Love,

You're almost 1! I can hardly believe that in just 2 short months I will no longer be counting how many months old you are, but I will just call you my 1 year old. We will have a 2 year old and a 1 year old in our house! Crazy, chaotic, and exciting times!

You are really starting to interact with and play with your brother more.  Cooper loves to roll all over you and give you non-stop hugs and kisses.  You grab at his face and pull his hair and just light up whenever he comes your way.  Your favorite time to play with him is right when you wake up from your nap.  Cooper loves to climb in your crib and jump around, and you just think it's the best thing ever.

Teething.  Shoot, teething is so not your friend.  But you finally let 1 little tooth poke through and you really cheered up once that happened. You smile and that 1 long tooth just sticks out and it's so adorable.  Now, when you bite my fingers or my toes it actually hurts and you just smile that singular tooth smile and I almost want to let you keep doing it.  Almost.

This month you've started to find a small motivation to move around, but you get really frustrated really quickly.  I put you in the crawling position and you rock back and forth.  It's adorable and your therapist says that it's such a good sign.  Babies that rock in that position usually start crawling soon after.  But you, instead of attempting to crawl you just rock back and forth and then when you decide you're done you calmly put your hands down go back to your belly.  You throw a fit and roll over and keep throwing a fit until I put you back in the sitting position. Someday you'll need to either crawl of learn to sit up on your own.  It's getting hard to keep putting you back up every time you fall over of purposely get on your belly to reach for a toy.

Your laugh.  Oh boy your laugh is the cutest.  However, you kind of refuse to laugh for me! You laugh for cooper and you laugh for your dad...but apparently you just don't find me amusing.  Don't worry kid, eventually you'll get my sophisticated humor!

You're so tall.  It's difficult to find pants that look good on you because you're super skinny and super tall.  Someone even called you lanky and gangly.  Those words are not usually endearing - but you and your cute self make them endearing.  Jeans are so hard to get for you, so you mostly just wear sweats.  I can't wait for the summer when hopefully I can fit you into shorts a little easier!

Little milo boy, I love you so much.

Love, your mamma

9 Month Check Up

9 Month Appointment - 1/2/15

17 Pounds 12 Ounces - 9%

29.6 Inches - 86%