M-I-L-E-S

That spells MILES, which is defined as: the sweetest, happiest, dog gone pleasure of a kid we could have ever hoped for or dreamed of.

This was on Dave's birthday-- Miles licking the whipped cream. Or trying, anyway. Did you know Miles is tongue tied? Licking is kind of a toughie, as will be french kissing. We'll just have to tell him to steer clear of the ol' french kiss.

Get ready for a whole bunch of Miles stories.

The day before Dave's birthday we went out for a DAM adventure. In one of the public bathrooms of the day, Dave came out with a funny story and I wish I could have been there. This is how the story goes: as Miles was peering into the urinal, he said, "Holy Moly! The urinal is dirty!" Then he looked around and said, "The bathroom is dirty!" We're not really sure where he got "holy moly" as we tend to be bad parents and say things more like "holy crap," but I'll take it!

It blows my mind at how much Miles is into music. And he listens. Hard core. He points out different instruments like piano, trumpet, guitar, violin, drums, and "bunny (funny) piano" which is a xylophone. For example, this very minute, I have the Sesame Street Radio playing on Pandora. We just heard "You are my sunshine" and Miles said "Mom, I taking your sunshine away?" I was like, "well, hello Mr. I-listen-to-everything-down-to-music-lyrics, NO you don't take my sunshine away!" By the way, this whole encounter was under a teasing pretense. He specifically said he was taking my sunshine away because the song says not to. Miles loooooves to tease about silly things. He thinks it's so funny and cracks himself up. This morning at breakfast, he was teasing about his name... "my name is P! Nooo! That's a letter. My name is cheese! Noooo, that's food! My name is guitar! Nooo, that's crazy!" He loves it and particularly appreciates my participation, which I always give. I love watching himself crack himself up.

A couple nights ago, I put Miles' underwear on his head when getting him ready for bed. It was covering his eyes so he didn't know what was on his head, but he thought it was hilarious something was on his head. I asked him what it was and he took it off, saw it was his underwear and came unglued with hysterical laughter. He got right in my face, pointed his finger at me and said "Silly mom!" through his excellent laugh. It was a good one.

Lately, when Miles will get hurt he'll immediately say, "I'm OK!" even when he's not and then he'll cry. Also when I tell him to do something he says, "OK mom, I will, I will." Or when I tell him not to do something he says, "Sorry, sorry. I will not. I will not again. It was accilent (accident)." He says thank you for everything. Literally, everything. If you say "bless you" after a sneeze, you are guaranteed a "taytoo" from Miles. If I step over a car he strategically parked in the middle of the kitchen, I can count on "taytoo, mom" from Miles. Such a ridiculously good kid.

Last Miles story: A few days ago, we had a super long learning time where I was trying to get him to find a word that started with [insert lower case letter here] out of three different words. We had to talk a lot about the beginning and the start of the word since he'd see the chosen letter in the middle of a word and think he was in like a dirty shirt. So one of the times I was explaining 'beginning,' Miles rattled off the following:

M: Like our blag!

A: Our flag?

M: Yeah, at the baseball game! And then the man sings the song!

I was seriously shocked and awed. He was talking about the Mariners game we went to that we have literally never spoken of since, and how at the beginning of the game, they have our flag and the National Anthem sung. Dang. Moral of the story: Miles likely remembers what I look like naked from the time I let him take a shower with me when he was like 2 1/2 and every naughty thing I ever said and every time I was ever grouchy. No pressure.