mylostone

When Mylo was 17 months old we saw a young boy who looked of a similar age, whizzing around on a scooter at the park. I asked his dad who was scooting along with him, how old he was. He was nineteen months.

A short while after, I ran out and got my boy a scooter.

Since his earliest months, Mylo has been such a physical child. At just three months old, he would grab hold of the tassels on our living room carpet and drag himself forward. At seven months old, he learned to pull himself up holding on to the TV console. So it wasn’t ridiculous of me to assume that my son would take to scooting overnight.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

As most things in our home do, the scooter acquired a name, Ergo. However there was little interest in doing anything with Ergo other than pushing it back and forth from Mylo to daddy or Mylo to mommy, down our long hallway. We would take it to the park, only to have it sit and gain the interest of every child but our own.

I was a bit surprised, not to mention that I felt a little bit defeated, too. Mylo loved to figure out how to make things operate, and the fact that he couldn’t make the Ergo work, was disappointing. I had cast it aside as an $85 house toy that looked good parked next to Jason’s bike in our spare bedroom.

But then it happened, almost overnight. He was two years and three months old. I went to work and came home to stories from Mylo’s goomah (grandma) about him and Ergo at the park. I just nodded and smiled, indulging her tendency to sometimes exaggerate, as doting grandmother’s often do. But she had proof.

I can’t describe what it was like to see this video of my son riding his scooter. I was shocked and amazed but I was also extremely proud and even somewhat relieved. Those feelings were reaffirmed when I took Mylo out on his scooter the next day and watched him ride away with my very own eyes.

The first week he scooted at just the park. By the second week he was out the door with Ergo in tow and scooting down some of Brooklyn’s quiet brownstone blocks. Now Mylo’s even scooting down the busy sidewalks of Court Street and Smith Street, with me chasing behind him.

He’s even gotten creative with Ergo. While at my inlaws’ house in Connecticut for the Thanksgiving holiday, we discovered a solution for our new addition who pulls like crazy on her lead. Mind you, Griffie is an eight pound dog.

Griffie channels her inner husky while pulling Mylo on his Ergo.

A couple of weeks ago Jason took the car and the dog out east to visit friends in Montauk and left me and Mylo home to fend for ourselves. We all met back up in my hometown on Long Island at the beginning of the weekend, which required me and Mylo having an adventure together on his first, real train ride. Subways he already has down pat, but a real choo-choo-type-train he’d yet to experience.

We walked from our apartment in Brooklyn to the Long Island Rail Road’s Atlantic Terminal to embark on a route that I had taken hundreds of times before. Prior to getting a car in 2007 the Atlantic Terminal (called simply “Flatbush Avenue” those days) to Northport, was a trip I knew all too well. I can’t say I’m a big fan of the LIRR and that I miss it one bit, but it was such a pleasure to see the joy in Mylo’s face as we rode through tunnels, sped past trucks and played peekaboo games with the commuters who sat in the seats around us.

A couple of photos from our memorable trip…

My curious kid.

Note to self: Never take a seat next to an Emergency Exit window with a toddler again. Ever.

This Mylostone is long over-due. I don’t know the exact date but it was well before Mylo’s first birthday when he said his first word. And no it was not “mom”. Nor was it “dad”, or any version of the two. It was Ella. That’s right, our dog’s name. It’s true.

The first time he said it he was crawling all over her. He began smacking his hands up and down on her — I know, probably not the ideal that we’re allowing him to hit the dog, but she’s so remarkably gentle and patient when he does this. And then he said it, “Er-ra!” And he hasn’t stopped since. When he’s at my parents house he says her name over and over again and even runs to the door we use to let her outside in the backyard.

A wonderful friendship is developing before my very eyes and I cannot wait to watch it grow. And to watch them grow, together.

Besties.

MyMy playing in the sand with baby James.

For two self-proclaimed beach bums, Jason and I sure took our sweet time introducing our son to the beach.

For the fifth consecutive year, we took our summer vacation in Montauk, a rugged and dreamy beach town on the eastern most tip of Long Island. It was a wonderful vacation and Mylo did surprisingly well sleeping almost-through-the-night in a hotel room in which his crib nearly touched the foot of our bed.

Hackin’ around with the hotel ice bucket.

Each year we make the trip out east with the same group of friends. My best friend’s boyfriend, Jack, came along this year and I was grateful for that. Not just because I like to see how happy he makes my dear friend, but because ever since Mylo was a newborn, Jack has had an amazingly pacifying affect on him.

Jack with Mylo at 2 weeks.

Jack with Mylo at 11 months.

My favorite part of the trip was taking Mylo to Ditch Plains – the beach where we did our maternity photo shoot last year.

I will never forget this time in our lives…

Mylo was 8 months grown in my belly on the very same day last year that he was about to turn 11 months old this year.

…but this has been even more memorable.

A great Mylostone indeed… cannot wait until next year!