Life with Milo

Jake just said, "dude, you can't afford to poop. Your ass is on fire." That's not exactly about Milo, though. That's more about Jake and Milo. Today Milo pooped the poop of death, or rather, the poop of acidic fiery molten lava, the kind that burns away at the skin. Literally. We changed his diaper and he must have pooped an hour before that or so, and that hour left a burn all over his bottom and his legs. A weepy, red, angry burn. I can't imagine how much it must hurt. It must hurt to have his bottom wiped and it must hurt to have his diaper changed, and I can't blame him for screaming as loudly as he did.

Milo is amazingly good at calming himself even under the most stressful circumstances. Heck, I'd be crying too if I had a nasty, weeping burn and somebody started rubbing it. Milo brings his hands together in front of his chest and holds them close to each other, grasping at himself as he calms down. It looks like a deliberate calming mechanism. Milo purses his lips in a look of sad concentration, clasps his hands, and stares right into my eyes as his cries fade into wimpers, and then into silence. Sometimes he'll then start smiling even as his eyes are still red.


Milo's got some mad skills. He can roll from his belly to his back, and he can reach out and bat at a toy with pretty good accuracy. He tries and tries and tries and tries to grab those toys, and sometimes he succeeds. The best skill of all is one that Milo possesses; he can put himself to sleep. We can put him in the crib drowsy but awake, and he'll go to sleep. That is the gold star of baby skills right there.

Nora likes the mobile and the mirror; Milo likes the soft ball and the soft cube. He can't get enough of touching those toys. Milo also loves his little blue bear that hangs upside down. He'll hold entire conversations with the bear, sharing his little baby secrets in his deep, husky little baby voice.


Milo is a serious baby. He always looks like he's thinking about something deep, and sometimes I swear he's holding his head up with his eyebrows. His whole forehead wrinkles up in concentrated worry. Then, I pick him up, or I sing "Morning Milotown", or I say "Hi Milo man, hey there Milo", and he grins the biggest grin, changing his face entirely. He looks like a different baby smiling that wide, sweet smile. I don't know if I love him more when he looks worried, or when he lights up. Each time I decide I love him more when he's doing whatever he happens to be doing at the moment.

Milo's head is a little flattened on one side and, being the paranoid first-time parents that we are, we took him to the doctor to have her take a look at it. She wasn't worried about it but suggested that we do things to encourage him to rest his head on the other side -- the round side -- and otherwise stop worrying about it. So we've switched the changing table to the other direction, and I try to remember to hold him in my right arm instead of my left, and most successfully we put him to sleep with Nora on his left side. Inevitably Milo will turn his head and sleep facing her, every time. He looks like he's watching over her. I can almost see the child he will become, the man he will become.