My Main Man an Avocado Loving Boy

This is Soren Miles . . .
he loves avocados. He also loves soccer, karate, bedtime stories, pasta, gum, movies and his sisters.

The avocados come from a tree in our backyard.

He's been fond of them every since he started eating solid food at the age of 6-months and 1-week old. He loved bananas, strawberries and pasta back then, too. Now Soren is 5-years old, he loves all the same foods. He has a fairly vegan diet as he's never tolerated dairy well and lives in a vegetarian home. Our friend, Kristen, turned him onto turkey subs from Subway but that only happens occasionally.

Soren's first word was "more," which he used at 7-months in the sign language form. It was his first spoken word, as well. Soren's babyhood was tough for our family. He had some health problems that landed him in the hospital, including a PPS (form of heart murmur), questionable craniosynostosis, lagging head growth, and a dilated kidney. To top it off, he was horribly colicky. These days, all that drama is behind him. He's has some pretty gnarly allergies, that have put him back at the hospital, but if we avoid spiders, dust and cheap underwear he generally does very well.

Soren lives at the end point of each pendulum swing. His highs are higher than you can imagine and his lows are sad and mournful. He is very earnest and curious. In fact, he is insatiably curious but not to the point where he would risk bodily harm, only to the point where he would risk one of his parents' ears falling off. And, as it turns out, he's a smart little buckaroo. His teacher says he's functioning well into a first grade level. Ha!

The most common remark we get about Soren is about his big, beautiful eyes. Brown, huge, round, with perfect eyelashes. It's mesmerizing. One of my favorite Soren parts are his ear lobes. I like to nibble on them, he squeals with absolute joy when I do this. He's also our biggest trouble maker and tests our strength as parents. But, despite all that trouble making, he's a boy with a very big heart. He loves to snuggle.

He's fascinated by science. He loves the science of cars, gravity, plants and birth to name a few. He especially loves the science of birth. A while ago, I brought home a video of Guatemalan women birthing in the squatting position. He was absolutely enthralled (where as his sisters disappeared, recoiling from the TV in horror), asking questions and making comments ("ooooh, here comes the placenta") the whole time. He has big plans to attend Ultimette's birth, unless she arrives by c-section in which case he abhors the idea of me having IVs in my arm and knives across my viscera.

When he was 4-years old he went through a fancy stage. He would lay out button down shirts with ties and dress shoes every night. It was his signature look, absolutely adorable. Ties came pouring in from everyone who knew about his wardrobe preferences. These days, he prefers to dress like his Daddy, in baggy shorts and skater t's. Though occasionally, he pulls out a tie and caresses it longingly as though he didn't quite resolve his Fancy Phase.

Soren's biorhythms drive our family to the ends of the earth, or 'orf' as Soren would say. He likes to go to bed early and typically wakes up before 6 a.m. every morning. While the rest of the house sleeps, Soren will grind Daddy's coffee for him on our 100-year old French coffee grinder and then proceed to brew it. He makes himself toast, eats dark chocolate and polishes off all the fruit in the house. He'll flip on the TV to the Food Network to watch our favorite cooking shows. Sometimes he gets sidetracked by infomercials, like he did the morning they were trying to sell a souped up weed whacker on PBS. He came into our room every few minutes, starting at about 5:00 that morning, "Daddy, they said we have to make the call in the next 15-minutes . . . (10-minutes later) Daddy we only have 10-minutes left, we can't pass this offer up! . . . if we buy now, they'll even throw in a year's supply of grass seed -- free! All this for 3-easy installments! . . . (5-minutes later) Daddy, they said we have to buy NOW! (panic in his voice)." The only person who can handle his schedule is his Gramma (my mom), who dotes on him and showers him with all sorts of special attention such as early morning golfing or clothes shopping. Soren misses Gramma terribly and asks frequently when she'll come back to 'live in the Grandma room.' On most nights, by 7:45 Soren is asleep in his bed wearing jammy bottoms and one of his Daddy's t-shirts. He needs the light on with the lamp 6-inches from his face, his special blanky, and some sort of stuffed friend.

Sometimes his Daddy teases him, like in the above photo that Lars took of him while he was sleeping -- Lars is responsible for all of the, er, accessories. But, a little teasing from his Daddy doesn't bother Soren. Daddy is Soren's super-hero.

That's my Main Man's story.