La La La La - Milo's World!

Dear sweet baby Milo,

The time has come for me to write a post to remind myself how perfect you are. You see, you have discovered the concept of tantrums and (even more distressingly) the joys of whining. Because you are perfect, I know you do not do these things to annoy me. Rather, they are inevitable construction maneuvers in building the city that will someday be the beautiful metropolis of MiloVille. It is a place I am very VERY excited to see and in the meantime, it is an honor to be part of the architecture and city planning committee. At least, that's what I'm trying to remember today as I look around at the house that desperately needs cleaning, the laundry that has gone undone, and oh, wait! What's that? Oh, it's the lingering odor of puke from this morning when I vomited copiously all over the floor before I made it to the toilet. (And Milo wails from his crib where I have unjustly left him for a nap he's convinced he doesn't need)

Building a city is a tiring job. It's hard enough doing it for yourself (as remarked, I am still trying to add annexes to the sanitation department and restaurant district in Emilytown - voters have been unsupportive thus far). But as countless parents who've come before me have observed, it is a downright terrifying responsibility for moms and dads. I want Milo to have a wonderful, amazing, perfect life! I want him to be happy all the time. I want him to be absolutely safe but also perpetually satisfied. I want him to be successful and confident but also appropriately humble. I want everything he loves to love him back tenfold. But...

This is not how great cities are built. Milo would be the man equivalent of Pleasantville. When I think about what I love about the people that I love, it isn't that they're happy all the time (I actually find that kind of irksome in anybody but very small children), or perpetually satisfied, or that they're the perfect mix of confident and humble (still have never encountered that one). To me, great people (and great cities) are great because they've built over their mistakes or misfortunes. "Oh, there's a fault line here? Whoops. Well I guess now I know that this isn't the best place to put the foundation for my most important building." Or "Uh-oh, I spent so much time and energy developing this one small part of the city that the rest of it is getting ignored. Guess it's time to get out the wrecking ball." Of course, usually life provides the wrecking ball before you ask, but you get the idea.

And so, Baby Milo, I cannot force you to be happy. I can only show you the tools that I know about and point you toward people who are smarter than me. This is crushing. I want to keep you safe, but I can't protect you from disappointment and regret. And it would be unwise to try. You can only be satisfied by taking risks and failing sometimes. I'm so sorry about that. So while today it is the incalculable outrage of being banned from playing with the toilet brush, I can glimpse a distant future where you are banned from the baseball team, shot down by a crush, rejected from your college of choice, turned down by a dream job, or dumped by the only person you think you'll ever love. And I won't be able to fix it by giving you a hug, a cookie, your corky, a bandaid, or a nap.

I guess for now, I just need to be grateful that your little city is so malleable - toilet brushes are fun, yes, but toy fire trucks are even better! Yay! For now you really do live in a world where everybody you love loves you back tenfold. You are reasonably safe (aside from the occasional choking scare and the constant lure of climbing up things you don't know how to get down from) and you seem pretty satisfied (except for when you've finished your milk and there's none left or when you want to play with the cat and she wants to not lose all her fur so she smacks you). I love to see you trying new things and when you fail you don't take it personally - you just keep trying. In Milo's World everything is amazing and surprising and the only thing you take for granted is that you deserve to be loved. But you should take it for granted, Baby, because you do! You deserve to be loved - and that will always be true.

Love you, Milo - please sleep for another fifteen minutes! Love, Mommy



(Mont St. Michel in France - a very pretty city. But maybe more the ideal Emilytown than Miloville. Milo can pick his own)