Stackable Milo

So, the reason I thought of the subject of this post is that we have a million pictures of Milo around our house.  We're with him all the time, but we still like reminders of him.  Even when Ben and I are out alone -- like when we went out to the movies, just the two of us, the other weekend -- we whip out our phones to look at pictures of him, like the purpose of the "date" we're on is not to have alone time, but to miss him together.

At any rate, all these pictures made me think about the fact that Milo already is, and definitely is going to be, about a million kids all at once.  The pictures tell the story.  There are already so many iterations of him.  There's tiny baby Milo and the Milo who started to sleep through the night.  There's the Milo that cries when he wakes up from a not-refreshing-enough nap and the Milo that beams at you when you come in to get him from a night of restful sleep.  There's the Milo that's hungry and the Milo that's tired.  The one with the sweetest little upturned lips and rosy apple cheeks; the one who is overjoyed to handle a new (or even old) toy; the one who takes pleasure in making a very high-pitched squeal when he is excited.

And all of these versions of Milo have the other ones underneath, a palimpsest of Milos that speak to how all of us have this accumulation of selves that make up our self.  And parents get to watch this stuff from Day One.  Which is awesome.