ONE

GUYS. It happened! I survived! Milo turned one and I survived! 

Milo turned one on Thursday (March 5) and we had such a fun day with him. We gave him a ball popper and his cousin Olivia gave him a truck that he's been pushing around all day ever since. We ate donuts (his favorite) and watched Curious George. I feel so blessed to have had him for a year, and I feel so blessed that rather than give birth this year I was able to watch him crawl around and laugh and play and snuggle. People always talk about how the best days of your lives are the days you get married and they days your kids come into the world, and while those days are really really great days that I will always remember, it's so hard for me to call them the best days of my life. For me, every day since having Milo has just been better and better. There are ups and downs of course, but watching him grow has been the happiest and greatest thing I've ever done. 

A more detailed 12 month update is forthcoming, and also a proper birthday party post but I thought you guys could use a little recap of Milo's first year so be sure to click the links down below. :)

Milo's Birth Story

Milo's Birth Story (Livetweet Edition)

"Beautiful Boy" Newborn Video

A couple essays on parenting [1, 2, 3]

a name and a blessing

Milo at 4 months (video)

Milo's Monthly Updates

"Hourglass" One Year Video 

Milo | 12 Months

WELL. HERE IT IS. Milo's very last monthly update. Once again, I apologize for the quality of the pictures but I had approximately 2 seconds between me positioning him and him rolling away with which to snap the picture, and that results in some slightly out of focused, blurry pictures. But I do what I can.

At one year old, Milo is a few ounces shy of 24 lbs. He's 32 inches tall and he still has a tiny head. He wears size 4 diapers and 18 month clothes fit him just perfectly. He has giant feet and giant hands. It can be a struggle to fit his hands through the arm holes sometimes.

Pretty sure I've written it in every. single. blog post. but seriously his current stage is MY FAVORITE. I am obsessed with him right now. He's more and more toddler every day but he can't walk yet, so I still feel like he's my baby. He's starting to understand speech and get such a deeper understanding of language lately, it seems. At the beginning of the month I taught him to say "GO!" and now he says it whenever we're going anywhere. In the car, the shopping cart, stroller, just crawling around and pushing his truck. He switches between "doh" and "go" but the sentiment is the same and it's adorable. He's also said "buh bye" a couple times and waved. He is very stingy with waving. Most of the time if you ask him to say bye or wave he'll just stare at you like you're an idiot. He does give out high fives pretty liberally, however.

He crawls like a champion and climbs up on e v e r y t h i n g. He's able to get pretty much everywhere he wants which I think is a big reason he hasn't explored walking too much yet. He's totally content with crawling. He has started standing up a lot on his own and not using the furniture as much when he's standing. The past week we've gotten him to take a couple steps on his own but he'll either fall down or chicken out and sit down and resume crawling. He's close though! I think within the next month we'll have a walker.

Milo has learned how to open doors and cabinets and drawers. He loves taking his toys and putting them in drawers, then taking them out again. Over and over again. He also loves playing peek a boo. He'll hide behind or under something and then pop out when we say PEEKABOO. He thinks it's just hilarious. His favorite toys lately have been trucks. He's got 3 of them now (thank you birthday!) and he is totally content to push them around the house. He takes them everywhere he goes, to bed, to the bath, outside... He always wants a truck in his hand. He even buzzes his lips as he pushes them around and will occasionally make a noise that sounds like "Ohhh yeahhhhhh" He looooves his trucks.

As far as food goes, he pretty much just wants to eat whatever mom and dad are eating. We can still get him to eat the pureed stuff, but only if there isn't "real food" around. If we're eating real food and he's eating pureed peas, he gets extremely offended. So mostly now we're just feeding him off our plates and cutting up whatever we're having. His favorites are chicken nuggets and mac and cheese, or really any kind of pasta. He also loves drinking grape juice from his sippy cup.

Speaking of food, a couple weeks ago he broke out in hives all over his body. He also had some mild eczema for about a week prior. We took him in to get some testing done and found out that he has a mild peanut allergy. The ped said he'll likely outgrow it and it won't be an issue later on, but for now we should avoid peanuts and peanut products. We hadn't really fed him much, but I had given him bites of my peanut butter toast before and he once snuck an entire Reese's cup when I wasn't paying attention. His eczema has totally cleared up since then so I'm happy we figured out what the problem was before it could get any worse.

Milo has 6 teeth now and 2 are verrrrry close to breaking through. He's got four on top and two on bottom. I feel like he's always teething, always chewing on something, and always in need of tylenol or teething tablets. Looking forward to this stage of life being over!

His favorite shows right now are Daniel Tiger and Curious George. He still loves Teletubbies but mom and dad needed a break from it for a little while :) He also LOVES watching videos of himself. Anytime he is crying or upset I just put on a video of him and he is immediately laughing and totally content. He watched videos while getting his blood drawn for the allergy testing, and didn't cry or wiggle at all! It was pretty amazing, honestly.

Overall Milo is just the happiest and easiest baby. I feel so lucky to have had him while I'm finishing up school. I don't think I could do it if he were a baby that screams and doesn't sleep and is super dependent on me all the time. He has made being a mom a breeze and I am just so blessed to have him. I seriously can't believe how much he's changed in just a year. He is just so so so wonderful. I can't say it enough.

Love you, Milo Benny. Happy One Year. :)

LIFE LATELY (and iphone pics duh)

UM HI.
I am back from my very much unplanned hiatus from this blogging space. What sparked this sudden inspiration?? HOMEWORK of course! So. Basically nothing has changed.

SO here's a very unorganized list of things that are happening currently. (lists! disorganization!! procrastination!!! everything you could ever hope for, honestly)

Milo has started "helping" me around the house and while it's the least effective thing, it's also the cutest. The other day I was digging through a pile of laundry, looking for something to wear (who even folds laundry anyway?) and he came over and started pulling clothes out and digging through the pile as well. THEN after class one day I was getting ready to put him down for a nap and I had him on one hip and a bottle in my hand and had the water running, waiting for it to get warm. He grabbed the bottle out of my hand and stuck it under the water (not the right way of course. he managed to do it in a way that sprayed water everywhere but i digress) Anyway, it's my favorite thing he does currently.

Speaking of Milo, can we talk about how he will be ONE IN TWO WEEKS? I'm feeling very emotional but mostly excited. Also I made a video with a bunch of clips from the past year and I cried at least 6,000 times while making it.

At the beginning of the year I made the goal to read lots lots more this year, and not only that but I made the goal to only read books written by women this year. I've read like 5 or 6 books so far which is more than I read in all of 2014. Also I'm taking a women's lit class this semester that is probably my favorite class I've ever taken and yeah. It's a cool thing.

I bought a new journal and that's quite honestly why I haven't blogged in awhile. I stopped writing for a year or two because my tendonitis was bad and it super hurt to write, but now I'm doing much better and I just love tangible pages so much better than anything the internet has to offer. Plus, when I started incessantly journaling at 13 I decided I wouldn't stop until I reached 20 journals. And I made it all the way to 14 so I can hardly stop now.

Parks and Rec is SO GOOD THIS SEASON. I mean it's always good, but this season is truly exceptional and I'm going to be very sad when it ends FOREVER NEXT WEEK.

I've been cooking a lot recently??? (I know, I know... I don't even recognize myself these days) But I'm here to tell you that chicken enchilada zucchini boats are WHERE IT'S AT.

(meanwhile Milo's dinners be like)

Basically all I want to eat these days are veggies, grapefruit, peanut butter toast, and tuna sandwiches. And pizza, because pizza. Also, I could pretty much eat squash at every meal. (like I said, I don't know who I am anymore)

I've been running three times a week for like the past month or so and I love it so much. I listen to Serial while I run (please listen to Serial. PLEASE.) and it's one of my favorite things.

Playing this on cello currently, and I will never get over how much I love it. Also apparently the cello girl plays it in If I Stay? ha.

OH and one last thing about Milo. We finally moved him into his own room this week. Don't ask me why we didn't do it sooner. I just like having him around all the time. That said, it's SO nice to have our bedroom back.

And I'm pretty sure he hasn't even noticed the difference. 

OKAY THANKS FOR STICKING WITH ME IF YOU MADE IT ALL THE WAY THROUGH. This has been an incredibly exciting update on my incredibly exciting life, I know. I do what I can.

Annnnnd one last picture to send you on your way. These two are just the best.

Milo | 7 Months

GUYS, I have been such a slacker with this blog thing. Like, really really bad. But the good news is that I have been documenting lots in my brain, and on my phone, and with my camera, so I have lots and lots to say in the coming posts! I just have to somehow find the time to do it. Bleh.

BUT THIS. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Milo turned 7 months on the 5th! He continues to be my favorite little person ever, despite the fact that it was almost impossible to get these pictures this month. At his last appointment, about a week ago, he weighed 19 lbs. 10 oz. and was 27 inches long. He actually decreased quite a bit in size, as far as percentages go, but the pediatrician told me not to worry because a lot of babies start slowly down a bit once they become more mobile. So hopefully he keeps a pretty steady pace, even if it's not quite as consistent as it used to be.

Milo is officially a crawler! He still mostly army crawls everywhere, but as of today actually he's started getting on his hands and knees and taking a few steps (crawls??) forward. He's almost there! Now that he's fully mobile he gets into everything. His favorite is our printer. He loves to sit there and pull every sheet of paper out of it and throw them all around until it's a big crinkled unusable mess. He also loves chewing on everything, but especially power cords which is, ya know, not great. Currently we've got our living room conveniently set up so that I can stick him in the middle and he's surrounded on all sides by things that are relatively safe. I have all his toys and books in a basket there and for the most part he's happy to sit there and play with those for awhile. His favorite toys are his cat keyboard, anything that squeaks, and socks. 

Milo is still sleeping a wonderful 11 hours a night. I put him down between 7:30-8 every night and he usually wakes around 7 or 7:30 in the morning. Honestly, that has been the biggest blessing for me because I don't know how I could manage school and being a mom if he still woke up 4 times a night. 

One huuuuge change this month is that Milo has almost zero interest in breastfeeding. I think a big part of that is because he spends lots of time during the day with babysitters and they feed him formula in a bottle. So I think he's more used to bottles now and gets really impatient that breastfeeding isn't as...fruitful as a bottle. Ha. I still breastfeed him every morning and night, but during the day he's too distracted and active to breastfeed. Usually I give him a bottle and he'll drink it over the course of an hour, taking breaks to play and roll around. 

He also looooooves solids. He started eating finger foods this month. I got some banana puffs and berry yogurt bites and he loves them so much. If he ever gets cranky when we're running errands I just give him a handful of puffs and he's good to go.  We've tried just about all the baby foods that walmart has to offer, and then only ones he really can't stand are the green veggies. Peas, green beans, and sometimes squash. Everything else he gobbles up in mere minutes. He's always interested in what mom and dad are eating and always begging to hold and suck on whatever we have. I'm pretty lenient with stuff like that, as long as I'm close by. He's chewed on pizza crust, crackers, pita chips, popsicles... anything he can get his hands on. Yesterday we found a piece of chalk that had been in his mouth for who knows how long...??? We are stellar parents.

I ALMOST FORGOT! Milo has a TOOTH! After a couple terribly sad and clingy days, we finally saw a tiny little tooth pop through, right in the middle on the bottom. Milo handled it well, all things considered (thank goodness for tylenol) and that little tooth sure is a cutie. 

He is growing up too fast, but I sure love that guy. He gets more and more fun every day. He is so smart and charming and happy. Everyone always comments on how sweet he is. Also, he has the most perfect hair/eye color combination. And those eyebrows?? Ahhhh. I got lucky with this one.

Milo | 6 Months

Milo has been around for HALF A YEAR, YOU GUYS. I can't believe it. This has honestly been the fastest and happiest six months of my life.  He grows so much every day and it is so much fun to watch it happen. 

We went to his 6 month check-up and couldn't believe that he was only 18 lbs! All along we've been thinking he was about 20. He's 27 inches long and he still has a teeny tiny head. He's in about the 75% for weight and height, but his head is only in the 35%. 

The biggest thing that's changed this month is Milo's mobility. He can't crawl yet, but still finds a way to get from one end of the room to the other in a matter of minutes. He rolls all over the place, and has figured out how to spin himself in a circle so he can roll any direction he pleases. Let the baby proofing begin! He's so content to play on the floor with his toys and the only time he gets really upset is when a toy is just out of reach and he can't figure out how to get to it. He wants to crawl so badly but just can't figure it out, poor thing. He's getting so close to army crawling and I'm sure as soon as he figures that out, he'll never stop moving. 

Milo also learned to sit up this month! I noticed about a week and a half ago that he was sitting pretty much unassisted on my lap, so I plopped him down on the floor and he sat there for a few minutes before toppling over in search of a toy. He loves sitting up, especially when he's playing, so that's how he spends a good majority of his time nowadays until he falls over, and then it's back to rolling all over the place. 

Milo talks allll the time. He usually gargles and purrs and he loves blowing bubbles. He's been trying to say "Mama" lately. He'll study my mouth while I'm saying it, and then try to move his mouth in the same way- but he can't quite figure out how to make sound happen at the same time. He loves sitting on our front porch and watching the cars go by and he loves going on walks in his stroller. He's such an observant baby and is always looking around and taking stuff in. Also, I think Milo finally recognizes his name when I call it, but a lot of times he's too distracted to respond (either that or he's ignoring me...) 

This month we sleep trained! It was glorious. Milo has never been a bad sleeper, but after his 4 month sleep regression he picked up a few bad habits- the worst being that he had to be nursed to sleep, which is especially annoying at 2 am. He would wake up and I knew he wasn't hungry, he just couldn't fall back to sleep on his own. So I decided do sleep train. I started him on a bedtime routine: nursing, 3 stories, 1 song, and into his crib with the white noise machine on. The first night I went in after 5 minutes and calmed him down, and then again after 10 minutes and after that he was out for the night. The next night he cried for about 5 minutes and was asleep and it's been that way ever since, for the most part. On occasion when he's woken up for nighttime feedings I always wait 5 minutes before going to him and usually he'll fall back asleep in that time. If not, I'll give him his pacifier and rub his back and then wait another 5 minutes. It's been about 3 weeks since I started sleep training and now he sleeps from straight through from 8 pm - 8 am, usually. He takes 3 naps every day around 10, 2, and 5.  They usually last about an hour and a half. Honestly, when it comes to sleeping, he is a dream baby and now that I've weaned him off night feedings he's sleeping a lot better during the day and wakes up a lot happier. So.. SUCCESS!

As far as solids go, Milo's tried all the basics- and then some. His favorites include: apples, bananas, pears, peaches, carrots, and rice cereal. He tolerates chicken and rice, sweet potato, and squash. He hates green beans and peas. He likes attempting to drink out of water bottles and cups, but it usually doesn't go so well. He loves sucking on ice cubs. Oh, and he may or may not have gone crazy over my ice cream cone at Chik Fil A the other day. I mean... crazy. Like... threw a full-blown tempter tantrum when it was all gone. Definitely taking after his daddy there. I'm pretty easy-going when it comes to trying new foods. I'll pretty much let him gnaw on anything that he can't choke on. He got quite a thrill turning my fortune cookie into a big soggy mess the other day. The kid loves food, you guys.

He still loves his lion, things that crinkle, things that make noise, and things that roll. He looooves books and chewing on them, and sitting in my lap while I read to him. He loves looking at all the pictures and touching every page. He'll play with anything he can get his hands on, which unfortunately includes power cords. Ugh. Baby proofing, indeed. 

I am seriously so lucky to have a first baby like Milo. I remember being so terrified before he was born that he would cry all the time and be really fussy and that has never ever been the case. He's the healthiest happiest little boy and the past six months of being his mom has been the biggest blessing in my life. I couldn't love him more (yet somehow, I think I'm going to).

to my firstborn, while you are still an only child

My little one,

At some point in your life we will welcome a tiny new baby into our lives and you will become a big brother. It's hard for me to imagine you as someday being the older, bigger, braver brother in this house because right now you are so small and helpless. But someday you will become a big brother and someday you will be the head of this household whenever your father is away.  

It's impossible for me to imagine a world in which you are not the sole focus. It's so difficult to imagine another baby of mine who is so similar to you, but so so different too. To me you are everything in this world and it's hard to imagine sharing that space with someone else. 

It's also impossible for me to imagine a world in which you are not a big brother. The thought of only having one child has never even crossed my mind. Your sweet spirit and goofy personality is one that your siblings will grow to love and look up to. Growing up I wished all the time for a big brother, and now I think of my future daughter (we hope) and how lucky she will be to have you in her life. 

Little one, at some point in your life you will be sad and I will not come running like I do now. I will be in the middle of feeding another new baby or wiping someone else's tears and you might feel neglected or even jealous of these new little ones. But I promise that you have nothing to worry about. Before all these other little ones came it was just you and me and everything I did and worked for was just for you. That is something that we will never share with anyone else. Your siblings will never know a world without you, but I will. I will always remember the way you entered my life and forever changed it. You will always be my firstborn, my little one, the first tiny baby to capture my heart. 

love, mom

Milo | 5 Months

Once again, I don't even know where to begin. He just changes so much every single day. Here's the basics: he's roughly 20 lbs, 24-25 inches?, wearing 6-9 month clothing, and size 3 diapers. 

So this past month was actually one of the hardest yet. That four month sleep regression everyone talks about is a real and terrible thing. The day he turned 4 months, right on cue, he started getting really fussy during the day, would only nap for 20 minutes or so, and he started waking up in the middle of the night (!!!) This was super frustrating for me because Milo has been sleeping 10-12 hours every night since he was 5 weeks old, so for him to all the sudden be waking up every 3-4 hours was just brutal. On top of that, when he would wake up I'd feed him and rock him back to sleep and the the second I put him down he would wake up and start kicking and giggling. Infuriating, I tell you. But finally, on July 22, Milo rolled over for the first time! And that night he slept for 12 hours and took a 2 hour nap the next day. So I guess his brain was just going crazy trying to learn how to roll over that it just wouldn't shut off when it was time to sleep. We've had our ups and downs since then, but for the most part he's back to a fairly normal sleeping schedule, which I am most grateful for. :)

In addition to the sleep issues, he also started having some gnarly teething pain. He was crying and chewing on e v e r y t h i n g and gnawing my fingers until they were covered in bruises. We bought some baby tylenol, orajel, and teething rings and that has helped a ton. We haven't seen any teeth yet but I wouldn't be surprised if some popped through in the next month or two!

Like I said, he rolled over for the first time! He can only roll from back to front on his right side, but he's working on front to back. The only problem is that Milo haaaates tummy time with a burning passion, but he loves rolling over. As a result I spend most of my day watching him roll over, waiting for him to start screaming, and them pushing him back to his back. It's a real party at the Streeter household, let me tell you.

Milo has become a much more efficient nurser lately. He used to nurse 20 minutes on each side and just take his sweeeet time, but now he does 5 minutes on each side and he's done and ready to play. He also gets so distracted when he's nursing now. He loves Andrew's voice and literally cannot concentrate on eating at all if Andrew is talking. Similarly, anytime music comes on he smiles so big and pauses just to listen to it. It's my favorite. 

Milo discovered his feet this month and loves grabbing them, talking to them, and shoving them in his mouth. He loves his frog pacifier (as usual) his lion, and his duck (chicken? we don't know) rattle. Lately he's been reaching out and grabbing everything. Hair, glasses, shirts, the food off my plate...He's shown such a huge interest in the food we eat lately. Anytime there's food out he stares at it and watches me bring it from the plate to my mouth. I decided to try and give him a little applesauce yesterday, since we had some, and he went nuuuuuuts. At first he wasn't sure what to think but before long as soon as he saw the spoon he would reach for it, grab it, and pull it towards his mouth where he proceeded to slurp it clean. I was worried about giving him solids before 6 months but he did really well with the applesauce so maybe I'll go out and get some more for him. 

He looooves to play and be tickled and to dance to music. When he laughs really hard he'll close his eyes and shrug his shoulders up to his cheeks and kick his legs. It's the cutest thing, really. He loves to talk and he loves having his head rubbed. He loves to watch Baby Genius on Netflix, especially the Carnival of the Animals one, which I think is interesting because I played that in symphony when I was pregnant with him. He loves being read to and sung to. Nothing makes him fall asleep faster than his daddy singing Fleet Foxes to him. He loves to play airplane, blowing bubbles, and staring at himself in the mirror. He gets sweeter and cuter every single day. I can't believe he's going to be half a year old next month! Where does the time go??????

milo's birth story | livetweet edition

Yeah you read that right. The birth of Milo as told through LIVETWEETS.

When we decided to livetweet his birth it was mostly just because we thought it would be fun/funny and most of our friends are on twitter and we wanted to keep them in the loop of what was going on. But looking back on it now, I seriously love the fact that we did it. I think I want to do it for all my kids. It is such an accurate representation of that day and all the thoughts that were going through our heads and the build up that is having a baby. There was just so much going on that day (easily the most overwhelming day of my life) that it's nice to look back and remember everything that happened.
So without further ado, I bring you...

The Birth of Milo Benjamin Streeter: Livetweet Edition

(^tweet of the year. milo was born on ash wednesday)

And we lived happily ever after.