At this time of the roving year

Tomorrow begins another advent, Miles' 2nd ever. Ever. Parents, does it ever blow your mind all the things your kid has NOT experienced? We're working on teaching a few of the basics to our fast-growing almost 17 month old:

Cozy with Grandma on Thanksgiving holiday.

"Can I keep it??" We've been working on coaching him to pronounce the "S" in Santa...

And to help him to understand that Jesus is BOTH the bearded icon in his room AND the baby that will occupy the manger. Our manger is empty until closer to the big day, but I pull the Christ Child out from where the Magi are babysitting him on the other side of the room and show Miles periodically, so he remembers.

Reading through his kiddy Bible.

Finally, I finally caved and cut his hair. The mullet was getting a bit too comfortable here in rural Virginia :-)
Happy Advent, everyone! Here we go...

Cousin Weekend!!

We were delighted to receive as guests the Nicoloff family! Leah, Matthew and Abby arrived on Friday night and we were able to show them all around some of our favorite places in Blacksburg, as we've been longing to do! If you subscribe to their blog, you'll see some repeats. Sorry- but we did have the same weekend :-)

Abby and "Mouse" (Abby's pronunciation of Miles; his new nickname) are fast friends. Demure tub picture? Just after Miles kissed her :-)

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Saturday morning, the library!

For storytime and juiceboxes.

Leah's Christmas gift to Miles: A Noodle Box! He is finally starting to get that the point is not to get as many noodles on the floor as possible! He runs his cars in the rough terrain and feeds noodles, one at a time, to his plastic T-Rex.

What a beautiful family.

At Price House Nature Center, discovering the animals...

... and friendly art supplies. Wish we had gotten a picture of the puppet show Jon and Matthew improvised.

They got a LOT of play in.


After naptime, we had just enough sunshine left for an evening walk.

I live here.

In their Sunday duds. We walked home from church and the kids explored the yard together.

"Look what it does when I drop it!"

Miles is fascinated by the frisbee.

Cousin love in the treetops!

I seem to remember the opposite happening not too long ago...

Yes, there it is. July.

Miles shows Abby one of his favorite tricks.

Another lovely family, I think.

We did a really quick sunset trip to Hand in Hand park on Sunday night. Other than these sparse minutes on the "Chomp-Chomp," their equipment interests did NOT overlap.


I couldn't really help including this one. Best video of the weekend (and yes, there were several). Abby and Miles have a jig-off!

Miles seemed distinctly disoriented this morning. We think he was looking for Abby :-)

Adventures in Ordinary

No special events here, we just blogged to say we love you!

Miles' favorite hobby at the moment is making stacks of things, as well as fetching items, one at a time, from other rooms. Here, he combines the two and makes a stack on Papa:




Miles and Papa engaged in some ritual horseplay :-)

On Saturday, I made Miles some homemade "fingerpaint." It worked pretty well for his purposes, but next time I may buy some. The spreadability of the flour-based paint is a little lacking.

It took him a while to get it.

It was as if he couldn't believe he was actually allowed to touch it.

Sometimes I'm afraid I'm teaching him there's something inherently naughty about being messy. I hope experiences like this will counteract this message...


His 12 month clothes are now his mess-making clothes

Finally, a video. Look out, it's not censored. He's totally nude and in the bath. Just a warning :-D
Look who has a big boy toothbrush!

45 degrees and feeling fine!

Miles models his new cold-weather coat. Well, it's new to him :-)

The yard is looking different these days...

Finally, a video...

For all our family scattered far and near... well, mostly far. We miss you and we're doing our best to help Miles remember your names and faces. He's improving, see?

Halloween for Beginners

There are some who would say that 15 months is too young to go trick-or-treating. I would say that those people don't like candy enough. My kid can walk, he's going trick-or-treating.

He pretty much wore his dragon costume all weekend, first for the party at his daycare,
Then to the trick-or-treating on Saturday in Downtown Blacksburg.

See one of the Harry Potters (to my delight, there were several) behind him?
Local businesses allowed kids to trick-or-treat there between 4 and 5:30... more advisable than after dark in a college town, we thought.

Miles did eventually learn that the idea was to take one of the bright-colored objects from the basket offered by a stranger and put it in his stroller. We had a couple of stops he came away from empty handed because he wanted to give the candy to someone else. He thought we were just having an object exchange.

We did try to give him some! We did! Both Kit-Kats and Milky Ways have been staunchly refused. You know we're just weeping large tears over that, though. :-)

Happy Halloween!


Here is actual Halloween, at the library.

He's figured out how to teeter totter!

At the Blacksburg historic mansion...

"Can I knock on the door, Mummy? They look like they can afford some good candy!"

Had to close with a video because I love the way he trots around in his Halloween uniform.
By the way, we've told him he's dressed as a dinosaur, since he knows more or less what a dinosaur is. Our cat is named Dragon, though, so he gets confused about those... Just don't tell him dinosaurs don't have wings.


Happy Halloween!

A Week of Emergencies

Last weekend came to a close like it was any other weekend, beginning another typical week. We went to the market on Saturday and to the park on Sunday. There's this massive park with three playgrounds, one of which is the CLASSIC WOODEN kind (it's called Hand in Hand; we'll take you there, L & M!).





By the end of the day, though, Mummy could tell that Miles just wasn't himself. She could even detect a bit of a fever.

We went to bed as usual, though. Night night, kitty!

Night night, favorite toys:



In the night, we were wakened by a miserable kid. He was clearly feverish. Papa and Mum made plans to split the day taking care of him.

But by Monday night, he was still feverish (it had then been going on since Sunday afternoon) and at 3am Tuesday morning, our poor boy was at 104.6 and was shaking. Scared, befuddled Mummy and Papa bundled him up and left for the hospital.

At the hospital, we were told it was probably an ear infection, and were given a prescription for antibiotics.

Home and exhausted, we kept Miles home through Wednesday, faithfully giving him the antibiotics. But they didn't have the effect that I thought they should. I began to research other possibilities.

On Thursday morning, Miles' fever broke! And by Friday morning, he had broken out in a dotty red rash. We called him Spot:


This confirmed my growing suspicion that what he really had was roseola. Thanks a bunch, emergency room. They didn't even raise the possibility!

Well, no sooner had we begun to relax on Thursday when we received a phone call that sent us into another frenzy: Miles' caregiver could no longer take him. Her daycare was taking on more children than was legally allowed and she would have to unload half of her clients! Tomorrow!

We got so lucky, though. Not only did Jon not have any classes on Friday, but Lissa was able to spend most of Friday afternoon making phone call after phone call. Finally, a lady who ran a certified in-home daycare right here in Blacksburg got back to me and said she had room for another child! And it was okay if he started on Monday! We're so relieved, and it's been a huge blessing. Miles is so happy there:

Ms. Ana and her Mom, Mimi, are very professional and personable. I've gotten these two pictures sent me and email updates occasionally to let me know how Miles is doing, something we did not get at our previous daycare. And there are pets! Sweet natured outdoor dogs, a big fishtank and a couple of very tolerant cats! And he's got the most diverse group of creative, smart children to play with!
Look, he naps functionally on a cot!


This weekend? We all rested. Except Miles. He's eating again, see, and his energy is WAY back up:



On the phone...

All better!