Miles

Miles is growing like a weed.  In just the past two months he has grown at least a couple of inches taller and is fitting into his head quite nicely.  Intellectually he has really taken off.  He loves to learn things--his ABCs, counting, singing songs, reciting phone numbers, and spelling several of family members.  His patterns have really become so mature.  He amazes me every day.  Here are a few of the funny things he's said recently:

While getting into bed and being interrupted by one of his siblings:  "What's your pwoblem?  I'm trying to take a nap!"
While doing his hopping/running after picking up the kids from school, "Get inside!  Quick!  I don't want the tornado to die us!"

After asking me to turn on some "wok n whoa" on Pandora, "Are you ready to rock?  Let's do this!"

Upon discovering that Lila has woken from her nap, "Mommy!!!  Cute Little Angel is crying!"

After Addie began complaining about Grace playing on her phone and Andre playing on his Gameboy in the car, "I not have nothing either.  I not have leapster even.  My leapster is all broken."

And then just a week later, he's adding all kinds of phrases:
"I think I have to take these shoes off now.  Because there is some blood right here. I'll take my shoes off now.  I can put them back on later."

He's super cool about getting his photo taken.  He wasn't mad in these photos.  He just wanted to make this face and these fists when Addie told him she was going to snap the shot.

All of this growing up has not been easy.  I have allowed him to keep a bottle for much longer than I did his siblings.  I always had an excuse--too much change!  That, and because I was lazy.  All I had to do was get him his 3 B's--blanket, bunny, and bottle--put him in his bed and he would go to sleep himself sans complaint.  When we decided to move we knew we wanted bunkbeds for the boys room.  So, we talked to him about it and we sold his crib on Craig's list for enough money to buy bunkbeds from the same site.  I knew that and moving would be tons of change to deal with so I wasn't eager to get rid of his bottle just yet. He only drank water from it at night and he never slept with it in his mouth.  I saw no harm.  Alas, his father one day put his foot down and said, "NO MORE."  Thus is was said.  And thus it is written.  And all this change has been kinda hard for the little fella.  Two Sundays ago he began to cry as we were searching for Sunday shoes at the new house.
"I want to go home!"  He cried.
"I'm sorry sweet boy,"  I tried to soothe.  "We ARE home."  Through out the next week, almost every time we left the house he'd ask, "Are we going to the new house?"  Luckily he soon only wanted to go to the new house.  I think it was a good idea we had him with us all day on the last Saturday of cleaning out the rental house and getting it sparkly clean.  He was able to see that none of our belongings were there and said, as we left, "I want to always stay at the new house."  So...that was good.   But now he's here and he has a big boy bed and we're trying to encourage him to use a little potty rather than his diapers and he is no longer allowed to drink from a bottle.  We've tried a sippy cup but it has only frustrated him.  So, now, each nap time and night he asks me,
"Will you way (lay) by me?" and I do.  I read him some stories and tickle his back and try to get him comfortable in his new surroundings.
Last night he suddenly grabbed my face and asked, "Where's my cwib?"
"We sold it."
"What?"
"Remember we gave it to another Mommy so she could have it for her baby and we got you your BUNK BED!"
"Yeah...I want my cwib.  I want my bottle milk.  And my cwib!"  At that he scrunched up his eyes and pounded down his fist.  "And you took my CWIB!  You TOOK IT AWAY FROM ME!"
"I'm sorry buddy.  Remember how you get to be a big boy now?  You get to be here in this awesome bunk bed!  Its so cool."
His lip began to quiver and I saw tears forming in his big blue eyes. "No.  I don't want to be bigger.  I'm still small."
"Its okay, sweet heart.  Its good to get bigger.  You're such a big strong boy!"
"No," tears welling up now. "I want to be a baby."  And a soft sob escaped from his throat.  I hold him tight and say, "Its hard to be growing bigger.  You can't have a bottle and crib, but I can still rock you.  Would you like that?"
"Yeahhh...." he rubbed his little fist into his right eye.
"Here, see?  This is how I used to hold you.  And we rock back and forth like this.  Is that nice?"  He snuggles his face into the soft space between my chest and armpit and we rock and rock until my sweet baby boy falls to sleep.

Oh...and on top of it all, he had to have his finger poked at his 3 year well-child visit.