Keys!

Miles loves keys. I think it's great. However, every time we walk down the hall he yells "KEYS KEYS KEYS" as if finding a door somehow entitles him to unlock it (or try to at least). This unlocking session was interrupted by a giant fart. As I found out, there's only one thing more than keys. Flatulence. 

Little Chef McElroy

Miles loves to help out in the kitchen. Unless given direction (and tied down to a chair), his version of helping consists of emptying drawers and cabinets. Mornings are always hard, since Jesse and I are usually tired (given our son's unsavory habit of waking up at 5:30am) and Miles is itching to sieze the day. Luckily, we've all developed our routines. Miles sits on the counter and helps out with the coffee. Even though he's done it more times than I can count, grinding the beans is always exciting. 

After coffee, Miles helps his grandmother make tea and toast that they then share. Miles has taken to eating his buttered toast with two plastic forks, one for each hand. As soon as Mary Ann steps out of her door, Miles runs down the hall yelling "tea! tea! tea!" He gets indignant when that doesn't happen right away. No time for showers. Tea! TEA! TEA! 


Some mornings, I spend the last few minutes before Mile's first nap prepping for dinner. On the menu this week was bean soup. Miles gladly helped me out with prep work:

Chatterbox

From the time Miles wakes up until he passes out in the evening, he's a chatterbox. He chats to himself, to anyone in the room who will listen, and even to his teddy bear at nap time. In addition to the list of words from a couple of weeks ago, he's added a few more:


Grandma: Munga Munga (not sure how that happened, but he's consistent)
Toes: "Dooos" while pointing to his feet
Teddy: "Teddy" he'll even identify teddy bears in photos
Door: "Do" loves closing doors when they're open, that goes for cabinets too
Thank you: "tanku" only repeats when you say it to him
Ouch: "owwch" says it when he hits you (not super helpful, but he knows it hurts)
Milk: "Muuulk" 
Good night: "night night" says it when he's sleepy
Dog: "doggie" and follows with "roof roof"
Sandwich: "whee wish" points and asks for his almond butter sandwiches
Cheese: "chees"
More: "moar"
Poop: "boo poo" has started to alert me when his diaper is dirty
Hat & Head: "Ha" 
Blanket: "me me" not sure how that one happened, but it's definitely blanket

Some of his words are purely contextual and some are in his secret Miles language that only I (or Jesse) can understand. He's doing a pretty good job at communicating, but there are some days when I have no idea what he's saying and it's very frustrating for us both. I've gotten to the point where I'll sit in the middle of the room while he's yelling and pointing at some unknown thing and tell him to bring it to me. If he can reach, he'll walk over to what he wants and will bring it to me. Hence, how I figured out that his yellow blanket is "me me". Luckily he understands a lot more than he can say! 

Helpful Dude

Miles loves being helpful. He loves cleaning up his toys (for now), unloading the dishwasher, helping to push the vacuum, and pulling laundry out of the washer. I shouldn't have been surprised that he would want to help hang hooks on the wall. It was probably the least helpful thing he could have done during the process, but it was so cute that I had a hard time refusing.

Play Nook

After rearranging furniture to accommodate our new TV, Miles lost one play area and gained another (better) setup. He has his own little corner in the dining room now, fully equipped with a (noise dampening) rug, and Jesse's footrest that he has now claimed as his own. He loves sitting on top to read books, eat snacks, and well, drink from his beer mug while heckling those that dare to ignore him while typing on their laptops. Be warned, it gets a bit rowdy in the play nook:

Wake-up Face

He's definitely my son. Waking up, whether from a nap or in the morning, is always a rough transition. This morning was particularly bad. Miles woke up at 5am and would only sleep if I stood next to his bed and witnessed his sleeping. How do I know this? Because he would peek one eye open to keep tabs on me -- what a jerk. Drama ensued when I dared to walk out the door one last time (about 15 minutes later) and declared us both AWAKE and marched into the living room flinging on all of the lights. I suppose I can't complain about our son's flair for the dramatic, when I so clearly passed that along to him as well. And for your enjoyment, wake-up face:

Blocks!

I think we've hurdled the dreaded wonder week that was tearing through the household a week ago. It seems as though Miles is learning new words every day and has infinite more patience to sit down and do things like read a book, or play with blocks (instead of just destroying things with blocks and eating books).


In a desperate attempt to keep him occupied for a few minutes while we got some work done this afternoon, Jesse pulled out Miles' block set. We put it away a few weeks ago, because he was less interested in the individual pieces and more interested in standing (precariously) on the box and chucking its pieces at our windows. We held our breath as Jesse unpacked a few of the blocks and witnessed a definite change. He actually stacked them! We both squealed with delight and gave him a round of hearty applause. He spent quite a bit of time stacking and knocking down the pieces and stopping to give himself a round of applause and occasionally "shaking a leg" at his accomplishments.

Words and Moves

Miles is saying a lot of words these days. To date, the ones he uses on a regular basis:


Apple: pronounced ah-bowl
Shoes: pronounced oosh
Boots: pronounced, bootsss
Cow: applies to all cows, horses, goats, and large dogs
Ma ma & Daddy: He finally points to me and Jesse when he says it
Cracker: pronounced crah-kah with this guttural German sound to it
Water: wah-wah
Broom/Spoon/Shovel: pronounced (mauhm) 
Banana: pronounced mah-mah-mah
Baby: applies to all babies, children, and people who are far away (look small)
Nose: pronounced, nooos
Eye: only said when he's pointing directly at it (finger in eye socket)
Teeth: pronounced, tee (also only while he's jamming his finger in your mouth)
Nuk (his pacifier): Nung nung
Car: pronounced, cah 
Garbage Truck: pronounced, Gar-cah
Hot: pronounced, ahhh (used to describe anything that is not room temp)


He has also said Grandma (meh-maw) and occasionally points to his feet and says "toes." He knows where his stomach is and proudly pats it when we say "where's your belly?" Here he is enjoying some apples:



Last night while we were reading one of his favorite books, Shake a Leg, he studied Grover and his pals and lifted up his leg. He's quite proud of standing on one foot and gladly performs his trick over and over again. 

Lunch Train

Miles has been a bit of a stinker lately, as he approaches his Week 64 Wonder Week. He alternates between an incredibly cute 14-month old and a mini tyrant who refuses to eat, yells a lot, and throws things. This weekend out of desperation, Jesse stuck a piece of sandwich on his toy train and pulled it around the apartment. The fact that his food could travel around blew his mind and he gobbled up the sandwich in no time. It's certainly not a long-term solution, but the kid ate and was happy. 

He even took a break from his beloved "maum" (broom) to check out this new way of eating. 

Halloween 2011

This year, Jesse and I didn't have time to make costumes for ourselves or for Miles. He'll probably look back and shake his head because his mom made him wear a generic store-bought costume, but damn was he cute. 


We spent halloween this year with our friends, Anna & Brian, and their son, Elliot. As it turns out, Elliot was also dressed as a dinosaur and Miles admired him even more for it, following him around like a puppy. 

Daring Feats

Or feet. Mr. Miles enjoys scaling large objects -- his crib, or couch, chairs, and even tried the kitchen cabinets the other night. I'm thinking I might start making him wear a helmet while he plays. 

Boxcar Races

Friday afternoon. This is what Jesse and Miles do for fun.

Pluots!

Miles enjoyed a Dapple Dandy pluot from our CSA share that we took over while our friend, Elizabeth, is out of town. We've enjoyed all of the delicious vegetables, but the fruit share has been out of this world. Miles saw the beautiful pluots sitting on the table and grabbed one for himself. I think he was a little shocked because this was the first time he has gotten to eat a whole piece of fruit on his own. 

Welcome Back, Son

I've been lax about documenting Miles' progress after our trip to Chicago. We've been sick, busy, and Miles has been doing some hardcore Wonder Weeking. In short, the last two weeks have been pretty rough. There have been tantrums, whining, clinging, and general woe. All of this was compounded by a stuffy nose and a napping strike. I finally see the light! And Miles has been making some pretty awesome leaps -- both physically and mentally. I'm so happy to have my cheerful little guy back. 

He's really into wearing Jesse's headphones and rocking out to music. This makes Jesse incredibly happy. 

He loves our shared nanny days with his best bud, Leon. They run around, yell, bang on things, and share sippy cups and snacks. It's pretty great. 

After play dates, he crashes pretty hard -- still sleeping like his dad.

And he loves participating in just about anything we're doing.  Welcome back, Miles! We hope you're here to stay.

Rocking Horse

It's not been my best month for updating Miles' blog. He's been changing at an amazing speed and I've managed to capture quite a few great moments (just have been lax in sharing). So here goes. Miles figured out what to do with that giant wooden horse sitting in our dining room. He was pretty pleased. I had to act quick, so the video is a little out of focus. You get the point though, fun was had by all.

First Trip to OMSI

Miles had a blast on our first trip to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry yesterday. There's a special 6 and under room that has blocks, a sand pit, chipmunk homes, a giant eagle nest, and all kinds of fun games with balls. Miles' favorite was the station that had vacuum tubes and air blowing around to make these light plastic balls shoot in the air and get sucked around. 


He also got a taste of playing with older kids who were not impressed with his speed. I don't think the kid was trying to be mean on purpose, but it got to be annoying nonetheless. Luckily, his attention span was short enough that he moved on to bigger and better things and left Miles alone to experiment. 

New Kicks

Miles had a growth spurt that coincided with his first birthday and his feet suddenly grew half an inch over night. His little heels were hanging out of his sandals, so my mom and I set out to find the kid a new pair of shoes.  His foot was actually just the right size for his the high tops that I bought several months ago at a consignment shop, but the dude inherited his dad's ankles, which prevented me from lacing the high tops all the way up. I was pretty bummed. 

The only request Jesse had when we went out shopping was that the shoe easily slip on his foot, since he's a total wiggle monster these days. My only criteria was that they were cute and allowed him to easily walk around. On a shopping trip to Target, mom and I browsed the kids shoe section and found a ton of adorable (reasonably priced) options. However, Miles' foot is so fat that I couldn't get most of the shoes on, much less fastened. So, we went with the Converse One Star velcro sneakers that are so stinking cute it hurts. They were also twice the cost of most of the other shoes, but I didn't care one bit because LOOK AT THEM! Melting.

We pulled the shoes out of the box and he stuck out his right foot so I could put them on. He grinned, played a bit with the velcro, and I set him on the ground to see if he could walk in them. It took a couple of steps for him to get the hang of it, but in no time he was zipping around the shoe racks and trying to unload the selves. In a matter of minutes, we had found his first real pair of shoes. They have the classic star on the sides, but also little dinosaur bones and footprints that trail around the back. As you can see, Miles sports his converse with pulled up tube socks, just like his daddy. 

Here he is posing with the new kicks just before our first trip to OMSI this afternoon. He ran around the living room and would stop and bend down to  thump the toes and pick at the velcro straps. He's still not totally convinced that the're cool, but he doesn't fuss at all when we put them on, so that must count for something! 

One Year

It's hard to believe a whole year has passed since Miles was born. He's changing every day and his first birthday was pretty awesome. He was excited and cheerful and made me feel lucky to be his mom.

Summer Saturdays

Miles actually slept in until 8am, leaving me so refreshed that I willingly hiked up to Washington Park in the morning (before coffee) to enjoy running around at the giant playground. We stopped at Zupan's grocery store on the way out and picked up muffins for a snack. Miles gladly shared bites of my oat bran muffin, as if he knew that he'd need some fuel for the morning of play. As soon as we got to the playground, he started bobbing in the backpack -- he knew it was fun time. We unleashed him on the play set and he ran around for a good 45 minutes. When he started staring out into the distance at the other kids playing, we knew it was nap time! He made his little sleepy noises all the way home and went down for a two hour nap! Best Saturday morning we've had in a while.

Eating at the Table

Last night we cooked pasta for dinner with a tomato, anchovy, garlic, and caper sauce that was tossed with tuna and fresh basil. I pretty much assumed Miles would opt for baked tofu or some combination of grapes, cheese, graham crackers, and blueberries. However, when I placed the bowl on the table, he practically jumped out of his seat trying to reach. So we got out his bamboo fork and bowl and I cut up the linguine into bite-sized pieces. He liked it so much that he worked his way through two pretty hefty servings.  


Now this is just a theory, but he was in and out of the kitchen while I was cooking and sampled a few of the ingredients during prep time. He loved picking capers out of the jar himself (and ate probably a handfull) and waving around an extra stalk of fresh basil while chewing the leaves occasionally. So, when we presented him with the pasta the ingredients weren't all that foreign. He tried shoveling the pasta in with his fork, but when that got tedious he just dumped the bowl out on his tray and used his hands. Occasionally, he'd let me sneak in "mommy bites" from my fork that had a nice mixture of pasta, tuna, capers, and basil. It was a spectacularly messy affair, but we all had a blast: