My first born.
3 months old
My feisty one. The one who started screaming before he was even halfway born.
3 months, with cousin Ava.
Milo is blooming. He is always blooming. Moving. Thinking. Imagining. Do-ing. Some things have changed, but not this.
21 months. Jumping off a wall at the DC zoo.
2 1/2 years old. Jumping off the couch.
Nearly 3. Jumping at the beach.
3 years, one month. Jumping off a mountain of hay.
The kid never stops. Some would describe him as spirited. From the moment Milo wakes up in the morning to the moment his head hits the pillow, he is living life the way we all should. Or would, if we had an eighth of his energy.
Barely two.
Newly four, Milo is making real friends. He looks out for younger kids in school and at the same time has wedged his way into the cool world of guy-hood. He plays elaborate superhero games with his friend Max. And then they hold hands while jumping around like schoolgirls. And then they kill each other with imaginary laser beams and become sharks and run around screaming. You know, screaming sharks.
He is learning to write letters. He is suddenly interested in sounds, numbers, rhyming games, and tracing letters and numbers. Milo has always loved reading, and nothing has changed here. It is the only time he will sit still, actually.
Dinner time is a struggle. This is me: “Take a bite, Milo. Take a bite. Take a bite. Turn around and take a bite.” This is Andrew: “Milo, take a bite. Take a bite. Take your hands off your brother and please take a bite.” Good times.
Potty talk is hilarious. All it takes is a randomly inserted “butt” to evoke crazy laughter. As in, “Trash can butt. Ahhahahahahahaha!” Ah.
Milo is exceedingly observant. And literal. He knows the rules and makes sure Oliver sticks to them. He encourages his little brother, and in the next breath tells him “That’s not so cool.” You know, to make sure Oliver knows who is cooler. Milo is.
He is, for the most part, a mama’s boy. He is sensitive to my moods and acts out when I am “off.” He begs me to snuggle him, lie down with him after a bedtime story. He wants me to play with him and look at him and read to him and dry him off and put him to bed and sit next to him and just altogether be with him. Oh, the guilt. I guess for the first two years of his life, it was mostly just the two of us. And we did everything together, had adventures and went places and met people and never stopped moving. Together.
But he is also a team player. Milo and Andrew have a very special bond.
They are, I think, so similar. Both seekers of knowledge, challengers of the “just because,” do-ers. Think-outside-the-box kind of people. Both so smart it’s scary.
I look at Milo and think, “Don’t ever let anyone, including me, break your spirit.” We love you, Milo.
he is an amazing individual
I. LOVE. THIS. POST.
Love you Milo.
This makes me just burst with love for that guy, and my own two, and with envy that I cannot seem to convey things quite as elegantly simple and beautifully as you! I wish for every parent to feel the way you write. Thanks for it.
Aw, thank YOU, Annie! What a compliment!
geez, woman, would you stop making me cry with every post? i think of you guys – and milo, especially, as our little one seems to have borrowed milo’s thirst for jumping. and running and jumping and climbing and nevereverstopping.
miss you all.
You are sooo eloquent, Lauren! What a beautiful post. I hope you are savings all these in paper form in a memory box. Milo will love these one day! And can’t wait to read a similar one for Oliver on his next birthday!
What a great post, Lauren. How fun it will be for Milo to look back on this and to see, in words, what you were thinking of him at this age!
LADY! i’m literally trying not to blink right now. but, my eyes are at capacity with tears. what brilliant posts about both of your two older boys. i will be doing the same in the next few days. thanks for the inspiration/kick in the arse!
because you can’t (sadface) remember/document/record/photograph/file everything.