Bucket Head

Miles has quite the imagination lately. He pretends to feed his toys, he "plays" night night on the couch, and wears his clothes around as "capes." One of his favorite activities is "bucket head" where he puts a plastic bucket on his head and mushes his face around and sometimes jerks his arms and makes robot noises, "beep boop boop beep boop." Thankfully he prefers the clear "bucket" so he only occasionally runs into walls and door frames. 

Little Duke Goes to Art Class

Christina and I signed up the boys for art class at a nearby community center here in Portland. I can't take credit for the idea, it was all Christina, and a brilliant one at that -- the thought of paint in our houses made us want to pull out our hair. So, we went to art class for the first time on Friday and judging by Miles' new "art clothes" it was a success.

Sunday Morning Soccer

Miles was a gracious little guy this morning and let us lounge around in bed until 8am. He stirred at 6:30, I walked over and told him it was still "night night" time and he happily rolled over and hummed and snoozed for another hour. At 7:30 he flung open his door, declared it a new day and joined us in bed for some active snuggling. Active snuggling always ends with him grabbing the dimmer switch over our bed, flinging on the light and then recoiling with horror saying "bright! light! eyes!" 


Jesse discovered that a soccer game was on television and decided to turn it on while we made coffee and started our day. Miles grabbed his Arsenal soccer ball from his uncle Eric and his soccer goal from his uncle Graham and practiced his skills. It was pretty cute. 

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:

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.

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. 

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.

Favorites: 11 Months

Miles has a lot of new favorites this month and continues to develop into quite a character. His new favorite food is graham crackers (but bananas still rock the top of the list). His new favorite toys are trucks. And his new favorite book is All About Me! We read it to him over and over and over again. He loves to wave "bye bye" to the little babies as he lifts the flaps open and closes them again. The last page of the book talks about hugs for teddy and his mom. Every time he hears "I have a hug for teddy," he puts his head to the side and throws out his his arms. It's adorable.

One thing that I seem to indulge is his love for my hairdryer. He totes it around the house and makes "grrrrr" sounds. I'm sure the life of the dryer has been greatly shortened from his rough play, but it seems worth it because he's having such a good time.

Washington Park

Jesse has made a Saturday morning habit of taking Miles for a walk. Sometimes they pick up pastries, but today they ventured to a new park. Sleeping in was great, but I'm a little sad I missed out on all of the fun.

 

 

New Frontiers

We had a playdate at the park this Wednesday. It was awesome. Miles and Leon roamed around and got dirty -- just as little boys should.

Mother's Day

Miles was the model baby on Mother's Day this year. He was cheerful and funny and made it very easy to be his Mom. He was such a good baby that I got to sleep in until 9:30 and Jesse was able to surprise me with flowers and breakfast treats. We then spent the day playing around the house. 

One of Miles' favorite games right now is crawling in, around, and under things. He especially likes it when his dad's face is on the other side.

After playing with his dad, he dazzled me with his balance skills.

And after dazzling me with his balance skills, he sat still long enough for me to give him a much needed Mother's Day haircut.*

*Dear siblings (and certain siblings-in-law), faux hawk still in tact, just tamed.

Chaos? What Chaos?

Ignoring chaos on the couch in favor of saying "cheese" to the new camera -- and showing off the teeth.

Pushing a Box

Miles loves pushing boxes around the room. He also loves to bang on things -- Jesse thinks we should get him a set of bongos. I vetoed a drum set for now.

Here's a video (a little long) of him doing his two favorite things at the moment. Also notice his "ba ba ba's" new sounds of the week. I keep hearing a few "Ma ma's" in there, but it doesn't really mean anything right now. He's not yet connecting names with people.