Dear Miles,

Dare I say it?  Has this really been your most exciting month yet?

You’ve made huge strides this month, literally:  you’ve loved to walk while holding someone’s hands for months now, but over the last weeks you’ve graduated to giant steps (your Skittergramps calls it goose-stepping, but we’re trying not to encourage that particular analogy).  You want to walk up stairs, and you don’t do it the weenie way of stepping up with one foot and bringing the other up to join it.  No, you want to do it grownup style and alternate feet, one step per foot.  You can pull yourself up on the table, the couch, the hearth, and (your favorite) the edge of the bathtub.  You can cruise between pieces of furniture when you’re feeling really ambitious, and when you’re willing to take a break from standing up, you can crawl so fast your dad and I have trouble keeping up with you.

This sudden upswing in mobility has forced us to do some emergency babyproofing, which so far is working out okay; you haven’t stuck any forks into outlets yet, though you’ve eaten many a stray Teddy Poof off the floor.  It’s hard to keep up with the sweeping when the Poofs fall faster than snowflakes in a blizzard.

Speaking of snowflakes, you experienced your first ones this month.  We were visiting Mubby and Skittergramps around Thanksgiving time, and lo and behold, there was a brief storm of fat, fluffy snowflakes.  We took you outside to check it out, and your little face went from confused to interested to delighted.  You laughed as the snowflakes melted on your nose, and you grabbed for the little piles that had gathered on horizontal surfaces.

The cold has lost its charm, now.  You aren’t so crazy about getting bundled up, especially if it means getting wedged into your carseat with all your layers on.  You look adorable in hats but are always trying to get them off.  Mostly we’ve been staying inside the last couple of weeks, save a brief sledding expedition that had about a 3:1 preparation-to-activity ratio.

Thanksgiving was probably the most exciting event of the month.  You got to see lots of relatives, including all your grandparents, dozens of cousins, and Uncle Michael.  Uncle Tyler couldn’t make it home, but you talked to him on the phone (or rather, we held the phone up to your ear and Uncle Tyler talked, and you whipped your head around in confusion, trying to figure out where he was).

You have a newfound fascination with babies, which was well-timed considering your recent hang-outs with brand-new cousin Emma and your contemporary, cousin Anna.  Those names are probably going to be confusing for you in the future, but for the time being, you are crazy about both of them.  You smiled and laughed at tiny Emma and wanted to crawl into her bouncy seat with her, and you wouldn’t keep your hands off Anna’s face.  All eyeballs remained in their sockets, thank goodness.

You still haven’t said mama or dada, but you’ve been saying a lot of baba lately.  It doesn’t seem to refer to anything in particular, but from a linguistic perspective, it kind of splits the difference between mama and dada (d and b are both occlusives, and m and b are both bilabials).  Maybe you just don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings by saying one before the other, so it’s a collective term.  That sounds like you.  You’re empathetic.

You definitely understand many words and phrases, such as “brush your teeth,” “not in your mouth,” and “Miles, did you take off your socky-bock?”  That last one is usually met with a naughty grin.  I cannot keep your socks on you, and you yank them off even though you know it breaks the rules.  So far the only way I can keep your socks on is to put shoes on over them, so you’ve been wearing shoes a lot, even for naps.
We’ve been holding off on quite a few foods for fear that premature introduction could cause allergies (you’re at risk due to your dad’s asthma), but dairy, wheat, and sugar get the green light at the one-year mark.  Rather than introduce you to a host of new things at once in the form of a birthday cake that might blow your little mind and possibly bowels, I think we’re going to start small and give you a little bit from those food groups this month.  I picked out some yogurt for you today.  I bet you’ll like it.  It’s fruit-flavored.  You love fruit.

This also marks the last full month that I’ll be home with you.  It’s wonderful that my employers were flexible enough to let me work from home for the last year, but it’s really becoming infeasible.  You just don’t spend as much time lying quietly as you used to, so it’s hard for me to get any work done.  Plus, you’re getting big now, and it’s time for you to have some adventures with other kids.  You’re going to spend three mornings a week with your friend Jonah and his wonderful mom Jessa.  That means two mornings a week with Daddy, who’s going to use flex time, and every afternoon with me.

It will be good for you.  It will be good for me.

Right?

My boss is a mom, and she’s already told me she understands and that it’s okay if I spend my whole first day crying.  I might have to stretch that to the whole first week.

I’m sort of fond of you, see.

Love,

Mommy