The bad news is, Milo has been waking up every hour to hour & half at night, crying until I nurse him or bring him into bed with us. There is not very much room there, with two grown adults, a dog, and a baby in a full-sized bed. Although I don’t mind co-sleeping a bit (I only give in at 3:30am or later), I don’t sleep very well with him beside me. I wake up at the slightest movement or noise, afraid that a blanket has crept up over his head and he is suffocating. This is never the case, but I still wake up. Lately, he wakes up more often than he did as a newborn, and letting him “cry it out” only keeps all three (or four, including Proudie) of us awake. So…. against the advice of our old college friend and soon-to-be lactation consultant (sorry Bitsy), we started Milo on his first solids; rice cereal mixed with breast milk. I was going to wait one more month, but I am barely functioning during the day I am so tired, and I’m hoping that this little extra bit of calories will help him sleep better at night. An experiment that I’m willing to abandon if it doesn’t work, but I’m desperate!

The good news is…. Milo took to rice cereal like an old friend!
I think he enjoyed shoving the spoon into his mouth more than the actual food! He did seem to enjoy the new texture, opening his mouth eagerly every time I brought a spoonful close to him. He didn’t eat very much (it was mostly breast milk anyway), but I consider it a success.

Here is Milo with an interesting spoon grip:
And assisting Mom in the feeding process (in case I missed his mouth, he was helping):
Enjoying Mr. Spoon:

So who knows if this will do anything at all, but we’ll see.

Milo is also becoming more mobile. This morning while I was in the shower, Milo rolled over from his back to his stomach and was happily playing with a toy when I stepped out. Quite a surprise to me, 1) that he had managed this maneuver, 2) that he was not screaming because he was stuck on his tummy (still doesn’t know how to roll from belly to back). He has also started doing this funny thing when he is on his back- he just lays there and raises just his head off the ground like he expects to sit up. It’s only a matter of time before he is running around.

He is also beginning the long process of acquiring teeth. He seems to be biting down a lot, and drooling excessively. I thought I felt a little sharp point on his lower gums, but I’m not sure. Is our little guy really growing up so fast? Just in case, I think I’ll snuggle him extra close tonight.

I’m not becoming a huge fan of immunization day. Today was Milo’s 5-month check-up (or 4-month check-up a month late, I think- don’t ask, our pediatrician’s office keeps screwing up our appointments for some reason). He received 3 shots and an oral rotovirus vaccine (which he proceeded to spit out). He did a lot better with the shots, only cried a little, and spent most of the remainder of the visit making a sad face at the nurse. He seemed to say, “I trusted you, I smiled at you, and this is what you put me through?” But the real reason I’m not a fan is the fact that Milo seems miserable and feverish after every bout of immunizations. All he wants to do is sleep, nurse, and cry. Poor little man.
Milo was also weighed and measured: 19 pounds, 25 inches long. The doctor has changed his tune all of a sudden about Milo’s expanding waistline, asking me if I was a big baby, then when I answered yes, told me that it must be in his gene pool. Hey, isn’t that what I tried to tell him the first time, the time when he told me that obesity isn’t genetic, so my former marshmallow baby self had nothing to do with Milo’s current marshmallow baby self? So now he thinks Milo is doing great. Regardless of the fact that he is the size of most of the 7-month-olds in my playgroup. Hm.
I wanted to take some pictures of Milo enjoying his playgym given by Gina-mom, Michael-dad, and Katie & Austin. So, before the aftereffects of the immunizations came on, I took advantage. Nevermind the fact that Milo looks like he is wearing a very low-cut, cleavage-bearing shirt. Yes, that is a 3-6 month article of clothing that is obviously way too small now. Still trying to catch up with this kid!
Please note the look of contentment on his face…
… And about 30 seconds later… losing steam
… And 5 seconds after that…
… Full-fledged temper tantrum, drool included:
Oh, why do I bother?

Really, he’s doing great. Yesterday he rolled over from his stomach to his back for the first time on his own, but I think it was a fluke because when we tried for round two, he seemed to have no idea how to repeat the move. He seems much closer to rolling from his back to his stomach, surprisingly. He takes his legs, throws them over to the side, then his upper body follows. Then, he keeps squirming with the lower body, but can’t quite get the upper to cooperate. Abs of steel, but arms of pudding. He gets that from me. The arms, not the abs.

First of all, I’m sure you figured out that the last post was Andrew’s doing, as I am not quite the stats nerd that he is. However, I did have fun at those sites.

Now I will explain the title of this blog.

In short, our lives are officially over.

Last night, Andrew and I met up with his boss Drew in Georgetown. He chose a nice chic Italian restaurant off Wisconsin Avenue with a trendy bar, open kitchen, etc. that was very nice but also somewhat noisy in the hopes that a 5-month-old baby would not be noticed. Unfortunately, our 5-month-old baby was definitely noticed, and not in the “oh, your baby is so precious!” way. More like the “I can’t believe you are ruining my dinner with that noisy brat” way. I knew as soon as we walked into the restaurant that we were going to have a problem, even more so when I took Milo into the ladies room to change him before we sat down to dinner only to find that not only was a changing table missing, but there wasn’t even a sink to change him on (the sinks were fancy bowls with no counter top). Good old floor had to do. But I digress…

You might be asking, why wouldn’t we plan for this type of situation? Such a plan involving a precocious baby takes strategy and serious thought… which I thought we had covered. For instance, dinner was planned for 7pm, when Milo usually falls asleep. So I made sure to tire the little guy out, make him as comfortable as possible, change him, feed him, and play with him before the restaurant in the hopes that he would sleep blissfully through dinner (as he has many times before) and awaken for another feeding before we set out on the 1 1/2 hour drive home. The plan seemed like it might work, as Milo slept for the first 20 minutes of the meal (just long enough for me to enjoy my salad). Then, all hell broke loose. Mommy’s little monster woke up with a fury and would not have any of it. His face turned red, he squealed with anger. He cried, fussed, and whined so much that I had to retire to the 5×5 square foot ladies room with him for the majority of the meal to avoid the dirty looks from the couple seated behind Andrew, and the party of 3 seated beside us on the other side who kept turning around to glare at all of us. I tried feeding him (in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet… gross, but there was no way I was going to attempt to breastfeed him out in the open- who knows what kind of looks I would have gotten then), rocking him, everything! to no avail. I mean, this was a DISASTROUS night. It was so bad that Andrew and I discussed what he would do if he got fired the next morning. So bad that I fear that was the first and last time we will ever be invited to a social function by Drew. It was so bad that we sat in silence (from exhaustion and utter disbelief) for the entire car ride home. It was so bad that I was in awe of our little man. He was so bad, it was impressive.

Some of you may be wondering why, oh why, hadn’t we just left him with a sitter? Why had we not dropped him off for a couple of hours at Ryan & Kristin’s house and enjoyed a night out on the town with just the grown-ups? We would love to, but he is not making it easy on us. Milo refuses a bottle. We have tried different bottles, different nipples, different techniques, times of day…. he just gags and screams. So, we can’t leave him for more than a few hours. It would be torture to whoever we left him with. Hmmmm… anyone have any enemies out there?

So we have come to the conclusion that our lives are officially over. Only Chi-Chi’s and Don Pablo’s for us from now on. No more swank little restaurants and bars. Gone are the days when we can cart around a sound asleep newborn like he is an extra bag. I plan to write an extensive apology to Drew (who has probably decided to become sterilized after last night). But other than that? I’m not even that upset. I loved coming home and snuggling up to our little guy, feeding him and loving him, putting him to bed. I missed our routine nighttime bath last night, and our story time. Yes, going out to dinner is great, but for a little while, I will enjoy our little monster at home, thank you very much.

Although Milo’s real “first snow” was technically about a month ago, today seemed to be the first time he noticed it. We had our first accumulation of the season today; a soggy wet mess that makes the roads slick and slushy, but does not stick around for too long. But it was very pretty earlier today when it was first falling. Milo was pretty excited, and was content just looking out the window today for a while.
And, of course, Proudie was even happier to do so.
But Milo didn’t mind sharing window time. He and Proudie have become the best of friends. It’s a symbiotic relationship: Proudie gets to snuggle up to Milo and steal his body heat during naptime, as well as lick his feet as soon as his socks come off (yes, our dog has a foot fetish, and even knows the word “feet”), and (I’m embarrassed to say) lick up his spit-up off the floor (hey, isn’t that why you have a dog in the first place, so you don’t have to bend over to wipe up or pick up dropped food items/vomit?)… and on the flip side, Milo gets constant entertainment when watching Proudie play “tug-of-war” with me or Andrew (he can watch this, giggling, for what seems like an hour), to pull on her ears, and someone to talk to (more like screech to). She is a great dog, and I’m surprised at how tolerant she is of Milo’s death-grip.

While we’re on the subject, I might add that Milo has really learned how to use his hands! He now reaches for and grabs everything in sight (including earrings and hair- not that I need any help in that area- I’m still losing enough hair on my own thank you very much). And, as expected, once grabbed, whatever it is goes directly into his mouth. It’s amazing to watch our little man grow and change so quickly. He seems so much more alert and aware of things now.

I’ll post more later, that little man just woke up and is screaming bloody murder… what could possibly be that upsetting when you wake up in a warm, cozy crib?