In which I babble on about my toddler

Still working on Prague and Dresden posts. We had visitors on town as soon as we returned so we were busy with them. And that's all the excuse I'm going to give.

I feel like I need to record something about Silas. He's been so super cute the past couple weeks. He and Ellis were adorable together in Prague. Although there were a few instances of Ellis not following his every command, such as "Go sleep baby!" (Silas, honey, if that worked we'd be millionaires). But mostly they chased each other around, read books together, and hugged and kissed.
Our visitors have a five month old son, which turned out to be the perfect aged playmate for Silas. Old enough to watch him and smile at him and respond to tickling, but young enough to be pretty much immobile if Silas wanted to run away with something.
So, Silas is something like 2 years and three months now. He's been accident free with the potty for the past week, even with all the driving and traveling away from home.
The talking is both adorable and annoying. Today when he had a melt down because the bubble wand failed to produce bubbles I knew it was time for a nap. He had this favorite book from the library called "The little mouse, the big hungry bear, and the red ripe strawberry" which I memorized I read it so often. Anyway, I started reciting that, it went something like this
B: Hey little mouse,
S: No! No lid mouse!
B: What are you doing?
S: No! No what doin!
B: Oh I see
S: No, no, no, see!
B: Are you going to pick that red ripe strawberry?
S: No, no starberry, ok mom? No starberry!
B: But little mouse
S: No mouse, no mouse!
B: haven't you heard about the big hungry bear?
S: No bear! No bear, ok? No bear!
B: The big hungry bear can smell a read ripe
S: No starberry!!
B: No matter where it's hidden...
S: (deep sobbing sigh) Train book, mom?
B: Would you like to read the train book?
S: Ok, train book pease mom.
B: Alright.
Five minutes later he was asleep.

He also has been playing a game known to my family as Encore, which involves signing as many songs as you can that contain a certain specified word. Silas likes to make these requests, "Dog song? Pig song? Car song?" Usually I can figure something out to appease him. But the other morning he said "Juice cow song?" I ended up adapting "I'm a little tea pot" to "I'm a little juice cow" whatever the hell that is. I thought that would be the end of it. But no, today in the car, he starts singing "Juice cow, juice cow, short stout, here handle, here pout, shout shout shout, tip over, pour out!"
So, he's obviously still repeating everything. But at least I've learned to control the swear words a bit better.

Apparently, he has a bit of Italian blood in him as well. He's started saying "my." Which he uses frequently in the form of "my do it" but most amusing to us, he'll say "Thatsa my juice!" "Thatsa my pencil!" We've tried getting him to also say "Mama mia!" but no luck so far.

Far worse, is that only Mom is allowed to put hm to bed these days, or back to bed in the middle of the night or morning. I can't figure out what happened or why suddenly only Mom knows how to get a cup of milk, or brush teeth, or read stories. I'm hoping it's a quick phase and he's over it before the baby arrives. He'll play with Orrin and hug him and is super excited to see him after work. But regarding sleep, only Mom is comforting enough at the moment. So we're going with it right now, and trying not to make Orrin feel too bad about it. I know it hurts his feelings, but he does still get middle of the day phone calls from home, and hear his two year old son say "I love Dad" and escapes the early morning back to bed duty. So he doesn't really have it too bad.

Silas is also obsessed with my belly these days. But Sonja has been harassing me for belly shots, and really, the cuteness needs to be captured on video, so stand by for more.