A Solidly Random Post

I've started this post oh, possibly 18 times.

I have approximately about 194,872 things on my mind. Things I've wanted to share, things I've wanted to rant about, things I've wanted to discuss. Mostly, yes, about Milo cuz #momlife and all that. But first...

HOLIDAYS:

Thanksgiving we flew up to Washington to see my side of the family. Milo's first flight and he was a champ both ways!

Got his wings on the way there! And laughing on the way back (below). Like, really?

Also, no idea why it's flipped here... I'm not even gonna bother figuring that out.

It was the first time my aunts, uncles, and grandparents had seen Milo and he was spoiled so hard. We were up for about 10 days and it was wonderful to relax. I thought it was interesting once married how you suddenly became privy to details you normally wouldn't be... that magnifies a LOT once you become a parent! But I'm so grateful for the relationships that I have with my family.

Now here are some super high quality phone pictures!

Proof of being spoiled!!

Neither are sure what to make of the other...

My cousin Daniel with Milo

Milo and Ila (Daniel's youngest sister), born 2.5 weeks apart. Originally ok....

...then Milo got jealous of Ila's mad tummy skills

4 generations!

Got my haircut! Woot, woot!

Where I wound up finding my kid 99.9% of the time. He never falls asleep in my arms, so I don't know how this happened. Grandma powers, man.

He also slept like this and it was adorable

Grandma and Grandpa Rowley with Milo

Milo wasn't too sure at first about Grandpa

Milo's best Blue Steel attempt

Our 3rd anniversary came and went! We finally tried out Red Iguana up in Salt Lake and it was awesome. The mirachi band came out to perform and Kyle got a bit teary-eyed from the memories they brought. My heart is still a puddle on the ground there.
Christmas we stayed in Utah with the Tuft's. A white Christmas morning came (I WAS THE FIRST ONE UP AGAIN 6 AM WHERE YOU AT) and Santa had delivered his presents, but pirates had stolen them because there weren't any true-believers anymore!

After solving a riddle, we followed the map to four different secret locations. We had found two locations before we Skyped with Spencer (Kyle's brother in Honduras) and Nicole (my sister in Italy). Both are six months into their missions and are doing well :) We ate breakfast/lunch (if it's breakfast at 1pm, is it still breakfast??) then found the two other secret locations. It was a lot of fun and Milo slept through most of it. With most of the family in town we played games, hung out, and played volleyball at the church where I quickly realized that I am sorely out of shape and I SHOULD NOT BE JUMPING. Fortunately we didn't take any pictures of that.

Brian led our quest dressed as a Frosty/Rudolph hybrid ;)

Milo being 10,000% done with holiday cheer

Spencer!

Nicole!

New Year's Eve we had some friends over for games that night. It was a bit last minute, but it was still a lot of fun. Because we're now old, married, and have kids, we ended the party around 11. Kyle and I drank Martinelli's in our pj's and rang in the New Year debating the ethics of the recent Star Trek episode we'd watched. So yeah, it was basically like every other night.

My New Year's resolutions have mostly taken a backseat for 2015. To be perfectly honest... I don't really set resolutions. I have this horrible thing where I don't make goals if I think I'm not gonna reach them, so I save myself the horror of actually failing them. Last year I wanted to cook dinner every single day. Three days in we went to Slab, so obviously that was a good goal. This year I have decided to "just get it on the table". Regardless of how messy my kitchen is, how fancy the food is, how Martha Stewart/Pinteresty the table is, or even how healthy it is. Low expectations are something I can deal with ;) So far, so good. I gave myself 1-2 days off where I don't have to make dinner and that's been realistic for me.



Other things:

Milo will be 6 months old in a few weeks and I'm so stunned it almost hurts. At our last check-up our pediatrician mentioned that we could start introducing him to solids and I just looked him like he'd smacked the side of my head. At first I thought he was just pushing solids prematurely, so I looked up the most "pro-nursing" opinion I could find: even La Leche League agrees that solids can be introduced between 4-6 months. For some reason I'd resigned myself to exclusively nurse Milo until he was a year old? No idea where I got that one. Apparently I was being more granola than the Granolas. I was basically oats.

Mostly just interested in the spoon right now

Anyway. All that to begin the typical mom rant: THIS IS GOING TOO FAST PLEASE PLEASE SLOW DOWN.

When Milo was about 20 hours old, I finally had a chance to sit on our couch and just look at him. Really, really look at him. My heart hadn't gone all Grinch yet (grown 2 sizes, too big), and I was hypersensitive of any sign of post-partum depression, so I decided that if I just looked at him, then maybe I'd get that swelling, life-altering, heart-stopping swoosh of love for this baby. So I sat and I held him, and I looked. I examined every single crease of his old man forehead. The tiny flakes of newborn skin that were just starting to fall off, the nearly invisible strands of eyebrows. The peachfuzz. The veins on his head, the soft, soft fingernails, the closed lips - MY LIPS?! His monstrous palms. Every single detail. Everyone had said it goes so fast so I wanted to do my due diligence and try and appreciate the moments that I had, though at the time, I didn't really understand why. It sure wasn't going fast then. I was actually pretty freaking sore and more tired than I'd ever been. But I wanted some time to freeze-frame this one second of my tiny, tiny baby.

And did that love come? Holy sweet moly. Yes it did.

In that one hour of holding and looking at this baby boy, my life completely altered in every single cliché way. There is nothing I can say to describe the feeling - nothing that hasn't already been said. I am a mom - Milo's mom - and I am at peace about that. It wasn't a swoosh, it wasn't an expansion of the heart, a chain connecting to a new anchor, or anything like that. It was the knowledge that I've held this baby boy before. In another life, another time, another place. I had known him for a lot longer than the 20 hours he'd been on this earth. It was the sweetest reunion I've yet experienced and it's one of my most favorite memories to date.