May 1, 2008 … Milo is 11 months old today. Wow. I can’t avoid the cliché – it is truly remarkable how fast this year has gone.

Still working on uploading some pix and vids from Passover in Tahoe but I should at least report here that Milo finally popped out his first tooth on this trip. For those keeping records the date was April 17, 2008. Milo is very private about his tooth so we’ve had very few sightings – but it is there, albeit more of a little grain of sand at this point than an actual tooth.

We had a fun day. I woke up groggy after just a couple hours of sleep this morning. I’ve had a few near all-nighters this week trying to complete a freelance flash project. Rachel and Milo headed off towards the playground and I went to my favorite Polish bakery for coffee, cheese danish and a couple hours of grading papers.

Then Rachel and I met at the corner of Norman and Lorimer and did our tag-team routine. When did he eat? When was he changed? Okay – have fun, bye. Bye. Peck on the cheek. Rachel heads off to the Youth Channel in Manhattan and I strolled with a sleeping Milo towards East Williamsburg to check out NURTUREart, a friendly non-profit gallery where I’m going to be submitting my first curatorial proposal. Milo is definitely growing up as a city kid. It amazes me what he was able to sleep through just walking down the street – screeching buses, sirens, motley hoards of manic pedestrians …

After the gallery we headed into the city to my Dr.’s office – I had to get some blood work done and wound up holding Milo in one arm while having blood drawn from the other. The nurse and I both agreed that while observing all this, Milo’s eyes managed to get wider than what seemed humanly possible.

From there we trained out to PS1 where we met up with Bridget and Ana, Su-Jung and Philip to see Olafur Eliasson’s latest show. Milo and Ana had a bomb of a time hanging out together – it was one of the first times I really saw them actually interacting with each other. Up till recently they barely acknowledged the other’s presence – at most, maybe to steal a toy that they wanted. But today they were laughing at each other and chasing each other around. We all loved lying beneath one piece that consisted of a mammoth room-filling rotating mirror. But the hands down favorite was part of the WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution exhibition held on the floor below: a room sized chamber composed entirely of dozens of mattresses. I think Milo experienced his version of heaven (well, sans the breast milk). The mattresses were all super springy and piled up at fun angles making for excellent rollicking, rolling, bouncing and exploring.

Finally we headed home for a long overdue nap, reunion with The Mom and sushi dinner ordered in.

Okay – I’ve been completely neglecting my duties on this website lately. Its not for lack of photos, videos or fun anecdotes – just not enough hours in the day. Rachel and I are both running around like mad trying to wrap up projects, classes and other obligations while trying to plan for this next year that I have off from teaching. Very exciting and very busy. We just came back from a super fun long Passover weekend in Lake Tahoe – more on that soon in a different post.

Here’s a little back log of some different videos I’ve take over the past few of weeks – pretty amazing to see the little man go from hesitantly crawling to pushing a little cart around at reckless speed.

ps – I tried posting videos to YouTube this time but I’m not really happy with the quality – They sure make it super easy to get stuff online but I’ll have to futz with it some more to get the videos looking sharper.

Sitting: playing with bark

Bouncing

Lunging

Reckless cart pushing

Piano playing

Teething – I challenge you to display a wider range of emotions in 60 seconds or less!

I had my first intimate experience with projectile vomit a few weeks ago – I’m finally getting around to jotting down a brief account …

It started with a little runny nose. Next Milo produced one of the most giganta poops ever. Then came the quiet. He clearly wasn’t feeling well, but we managed to get him to fall asleep for a bit. But a couple of hours later, Milo woke up crying and miserable. The runny nose and congestion was now in full force. He wasn’t comfortable lying on his back and nothing we did helped him to fall back asleep and stop wailing. We both took multiple turns trying all forms of aggressive rocking and baby voodoo – but to no avail.

“The Perfect Storm” happened to be on tv and we had been idly watching it. So I tried parking Milo next to me in front of the tube and instantly he stopped crying and was fully entranced. So we all tiredly watched the movie for a bit and I was just passing Milo back to mom for a snack before trying to put him back to bed when I was spontaneously deluged by an astonishing volume of gale-force projectile vomit. Miraculously, despite being completely soaked myself, the futon we had been lying on came away virtually untouched.

Milo, not phased in the least, seemed to instantly feel better and began nursing. Rachel, who had already been thrown up on multiple times looked on in amusement and perverse satisfaction. I lurched off in semi-horror to the shower.

Upon request we are now offering an exclusive free Milo ringtone for your mobile phone.

click to listen:
milo-ringtone-1.mp3 [right-click to download]

9-month stats:
22 lbs. and 29 inches

Milo is shrinking!! At his recent 9-month check up, he dropped down into the 75 percentile for weight and height. But his noggin’ is still in the 90th percentile.

Milo is going through so many changes these days. He’s crawling and pulling himself up on everything. But even cooler are these spiderman-like, rockclimbing-esque cruising missions that he sets out on around our apartment. He moves from chair to wall to table to bookcase making his rounds – and all the while making this irrepressible motor mouth sound. A very exciting recent skill is the “art of the descent”. Initially when he learned how to pull himself up he required constant “spotting” as he was prone to spontaneous and rapid wipe-outs. But now he can pretty much get down as well as pull himself up.

Solid food experiences (that I’m aware of):
avocado, peas, apple sauce, pear, banana, rice, oatmeal, yogurt, sweet potato, squash soup, mango, black beans

p.s. – Daylight savings and babies sleep schedules don’t mix well.