Amy and Sarah

While Ellis was here, the boys had this game they played after dinner. It was weird, but it was quiet and not messy and allowed us to get the kitchen cleaned up so we didn't interfere. I had a bin of mixed nuts still in the shell set out on a table as a kind of seasonal decoration, but also because Orrin likes to snack on walnuts and pecans and filberts.
Anyway, after dinner Silas and Ellis would grab a peanut in each hand and run over to the wooden surround of the fireplace in the kitchen. Then they would rub the peanut all over the surface as though they were coloring, or making some kind of hand rubbed finish on the wood. They both thought this was absolutely hilarious and would keep at it for 20 minutes or so. Perhaps the weirdest part of this is that Silas would call Ellis Amy during this little project. That is the only time he would refer to Ellis by this name. What's the significance? I don't know!
He does know a little girl at playgroup named Amy, but he doesn't see her that often, or anything. And as far as I know, he didn't learn this peanut rubbing game from her. So, it's a mystery wrapped in an enigma.
The evening I was in the hospital with Emmet, Rachel and Mom decided to give Silas his own pseudonym; Sarah. And Rachel and Grandma took on the names Richard and Gary. Apparently, Mom was dubbed under protest, "I don't like the name Gary." I suggested Grant when I heard about it, but it was too late, she was already known as Gary.
Silas still sometimes like to referred to as Sarah. I think there must have been a game where he was dropping his silverware at dinner and Mom would say "Oh Sarah!" and pick it up for him. He still wants to play this game, much to my chagrin.

Addiction

You are never too young to experience the benefits of caffeine.

(It's really just milk with a couple spoonfuls of my hot chocolate in it. I don't want to stunt his growth.)

Silas practices modern medicine

Yesterday morning we were all lying around on the floor pretending to be making plans for the rest of the day and thinking about how we didn't want to do much of anything when Silas spied my exposed belly. We've told him a couple times before that there was a baby in Mom's belly, but it never seemed to really stick. But now that there is a bit more of a belly, Silas is a bit more interested.
I asked him if he wanted to listen to the baby. He looked surprised and excited and quickly put his ear to my belly. In a tiny voice I said "Hello Silas!" and Silas turned and said in a whisper "Hello baby!" Orrin went to get the fetal scope that Rachel sent over to see if he could actually hear the baby's heartbeat. Silas had to try this out too. Listening to Mom's belly, and his own baby in his belly, and everyone's heart. After a while he seemed to get tired of the doctor play and we put it away and got on with the day.
Today after playing with the Brio trains for a while he noticed me tummy again. He came over and pulled up my shirt and put his ear to my belly. "Good," he says. Then he pushes my shoulders back and says "Lelax." and brings me a pillow for under my head. Then he runs out of the room muttering something.
I hear a drawer opening in the kitchen, close my eyes, hope it's not the knife drawer, and try to "lelax." He returns shortly with a wire whisk. Pulls up my shirt again and places the whisk in a few key spots around my belly. "Good," he proclaims again then runs back to the kitchen. He returns with a meat tenderizer. "What are you going to do with that?" I ask. Same thing he did with the whisk apparently.
Each time he would proclaim that whatever diagnostic test he was doing was "good" and then run back to his medical drawer. I was blended with a pastry blender, smoothed with a rolling pin, and had my belly button reamed with a juicer before my exam was completed.
I guess the baby and I are still healthy. At least according to Dr. S.

Big Bed

For the past couple nights Silas has been "requesting" the big bed when he goes to bed at night. This means the twin sized bed that is in his room that has been used for the past year as a changing table, a toy and laundry dump, and a place for a parent to crash when Silas needed a little company falling asleep.
The first time he asked I said OK and then he wiggled and squirmed and climbed in and out for 45 minutes before I finally placed him back in his crib. But then he started falling asleep for his naps there. So last night was the trial run of the big bed for the little boy.
We came home from a short hike and had planned to make perogis for dinner. Orrin was craving them and we thought it would be a fun activity for our little family since we hadn't done much else over the weekend.
Silas was having none of it. He was really grumpy and had a little bit of a fever. So Orrin and I alternated cuddling with him on the couch reading Farm Animal Sounds, otherwise known as "Cow Book" and trying to get some dinner on the table. Silas ate nothing but a handful of raisins and four or five strawberries and I wolfed down the potato and cheese and sauerkraut and bacon perogis that Orrin had cooked to perfection. Then I took Silas upstairs, threw a diaper on him and laid him on the bed. Before I was even through half a chapter of Winnie-the-Pooh he had fallen asleep clutching his sippy cup of milk. (I know you aren't supposed to put a kid to bed with milk and we almost always brush his teeth before bed, but desperate times call for desperate measures.)
He slept pretty well, although the potty training might be backfiring, since he woke up at 3 saying he needed to pee. He did. But he didn't fall back asleep for good until around 5 with Orrin sacked out beside him.
This morning I bought a waterproof sheet for the bed, so we'll try again tonight. Our current go-to-sleep routine is Silas "reads" his favorite book, "Construction Trucks" a couple times. It consists of proclaiming "big trackor" and "lello trackor" and "forkliff" and occasionally "track avator" (track excavator- the book is nothing if not complete and specific). Then I convince him to put his book down while I read Winnie-the-Pooh and he rolls around with a stuffed Pooh Bear, before he finally closes his eyes and falls asleep.
It would certainly be nice to have a potty trained toddler sleeping in his own big bed before the new baby arrives, but I don't know if I'll be that lucky.

Literacy

Silas reads Dr. Suess's I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew

"Hi flower! Tune duh page. Rocks! Hi rocks! Geen birdie. Tune duh page. Bee! Fie bee! Camole! Hi Camole! Oh no! Camole! Bubba camole! Bubba. Hi orange! Orange, orange, orange. Nodder page. Nodder page. Waining! Crash, crash, crash. Moe waining. Shh...sweeping. Piwwow, sweeping. Shh. On no! Wadder! Wadder! Tune duh page. Kiddy cat. Kiddy cat. Lello kiddy cat. Wat dat? Kiddy cat! Fish. Twain. Fish, twain. Pink! Lello! Hi pink! Oh no, key! Oh no pink! Tune nodder page. Awl done. Egg? Pease? 'K.

The return of happy birthday

If you compare last year's birthday cake, to this year's birthday cake, you might be inclined to think that by the time Silas turns seven he'll be scrounging the last stale Chips Ahoy out of a package jammed and long forgotten in the back of the cupboard.

But you know, those brownies are from scratch, even if the birthday boy did have to help make them. And I made homemade ritz-y chicken strips, and green bean and potato salad, and avocado hummus dip with tomatoes and feta cheese. And there were stinkin' 16 other kids here today. And I inflated 35 balloons only to listen to said children pop every single last one of them.

So I am not exactly feeling like a slacker Mom today.

Happy Birthday Baby Boy! You are so worth the effort.

Learning Tower in Action

My Mom and sister found this thing called a learning tower and kept talking about how great it would be. Except it was something like $170 for it everywhere we looked. So, using the magic of the Internet, Mom found an exploded drawing of it and when I was home last week we made three of them. All it takes is a sheet of plywood, some dowel rod, and some screws, or if you want it to be collapsible for easy transport across an ocean those tricksey little metal inserts and bolts that are used in knockdown furniture everywhere and require the nerves of steel of my father to drill a 1/2 hole in the side of a 3/4 inch thick piece of plywood.

Anyway, last night Silas was recruited to help make his birthday brownies. (Recipe posted below, yeah there is lots of sugar and chocolate in them, but they are 100% whole wheat and have 1/2 a cup of spinach in them.) In a few more years he won't want to make his own birthday cake, but for now he thinks it's great fun and I still can't think of a better birthday present than eating brownie batter. From the confines of the learning tower, he stirred the cocoa, flour, butter and sugar, cracked the eggs, dumped the chocolate chips in, and spread the batter into the pan, tasting every step of the way. Although he declared the cocoa powder, salt, and flour, were "spicy."

I went on to frost them after Silas was in bed, even though Orrin said you aren't supposed to frost brownies. I think if it's a birthday cake, especially for a two year old, you have to have frosting. Although, true to last year, Silas didn't eat any birthday cake or frosting. I guess he had his fill from the bug cakes at the island last week.

Whole Wheat Spinach Brownies

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup frozen spinach, thawed, (finely minced in food processor or use handblender as below)

2 cups packed brown sugar

3/4 cup cocoa

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon espresso powder (optional)

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

4 large eggs

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease a 13 x 9 pan. Melt butter and add sugar stirring to combine. Return to heat, or microwave until hot and bubbly to dissolve more sugar, which gives a shiny top crust to your brownies. Use a hand blender to puree the spinach if it is stringy. Stir in cocoa, baking powder, salt, espresso powder and vanilla. Cool until it feels like comfortably hot bath water. Whisk in eggs, stir until smooth. Add flour and chips stir until incorporated. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 30 minutes until tester reveals wet crumbs but not raw batter. Cool and rack and cover when cool. Brownies are much better after sitting overnight to soften the bran in the flour, if you can wait!

Ah.. the memories

This picture popped up on our photo screen saver this afternoon.

Somehow, it never fails to cheer me up.And as crappy a day as today was, at least I'm not wrestling with a screaming baby, being smeared with avocado, in the middle of packing for a trans-Atlantic move, and being photographed by my mother-in-law.

Observed

I always love it when holidays and special occasions are marked as "observed." We're happy to honor you as long as it's convenient for us and gives us a three day weekend.

Orrin's birthday passed us by over a month ago. We were in Barcelona with his sister. No one remembered it was his birthday until round about lunch time.

So when the package from my Mom arrived exactly one month to the day of his birthday we had Orrin's Birthday (Observed).

We, Orrin's mom and I made Cornish pasties and rhubarb crumble. Orrin opened his present from my mom of stained glass tools and accessories, and homemade t-shirts and extra iron-on transfers.

Silas played with his new toy from his Grandma. Do you think he likes it?

Small and mighty

I said yesterday that the doctor kept apologizing that the baby was 17 weeks instead of 21. What made it so weird is that I kept saying that it wasn't entirely unexpected. My cycles were irregular because I was still nursing Silas, they were irregular even without nursing. 21 weeks was, in my mind an upper limit of how far along I am. He kept re-measuring the femur and saying things like "17 weeks and 5 days is the best I can do." I kept saying things like "The baby's going to be born whenever it's ready regardless of how you measure it, so it doesn't make a difference to me." The bad news is he didn't really seem to listen to me. But he seemed friendly and laid back.
I don't remember seeing the baby's spine with Silas's ultrasounds, it was kind of creepy. But at least we didn't see that weird alien baby face as we did before. The kid is moving though. Like a little womb break dancer, kicking, punching, twisting. I guess the fact that I had just downed a chicken sandwich and fries in the waiting room (did I mention the three hour wait?) got the baby a little hopped up.
I was kind of jazzed about the fact I was 5 months pregnant and had only gained 8 pounds and could still wear my regular clothes. But now that it's only 4 months, I guess it's a little more normal. And now we'll have to think a little harder about whether we'll want to travel home for Christmas with a 1 month old.

Each basson, having its big fat say

You will not be surprised to hear that Silas is as big of a dork as his mother. His new favorite song? 76 Trombones from the Music Man. This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that I was marching around the kitchen, doing high kicks, playing air trombone, and using a stalk of rhubarb as a baton. OK, so maybe Silas is not *quite* as big a dork as his mother. At least not yet.

Feeling sorry for myself until...

I read this. Suddenly one day of solar sickness* doesn't seem so bad. So I'm hoping it will be just one day. He's been sleeping most of the day, albeit only when held in my sweaty arms, so I'm hoping that means he's on the path to recovery.

* my own personal joke to make burning fever, flares emitting from both ends, and not being allowed to look directly at him seem not so bad.

Random baby bullets

• Silas has learned the word hippo this trip. He loves the book Pajama Time. Loves it. Points to all the animals and makes their sound or says what they are, sometimes throws in a little sign too. Points out the moon. That the elephant and moose are brushing their teeth. Somehow I am not irritated by it yet.
  
• Ellis is stinking adorable. He always looks like he has just delivered the killer punch line to the most! hilarious! joke! ever! It's a combination of surprise and joy and it makes you want to gobble him up with a spoon.
  
• They are pretty good together too. Sure, Silas has kicked Ellis a couple times, yes, Ellis thinks all exposed skin is a handle. But on the whole they seem to be pretty good natured together. Ellis is not frightened of the flailing toddler limbs, Silas delivers books and pieces of pear and bread to the baby. Together, Ellis goes for a spin in the walker while Silas acts as both navigator and driver. Silas definitely has a bossy streak and is happiest when Ellis the passenger only. I'm sure there will be power struggles between the cousins ahead, but it is really fun to see them interact and grow up together.
  
• The nice thing about potty training Silas is that I have my own personal cheering section every time I get up from the toilet. Silas hasn't been using the potty at all this week since he seems pretty terrified of the big toilet, but since he can open the door to the bathroom and I don't usually lock it, he lets himself in more often than not. And who doesn't want a little recognition for a pee well done?
  
• Did you know they sell a product called lullaby milk in Ireland? The dairy keeps the first day's milking separated and since it is produced overnight it contains higher levels of melatonin than milk produced by the animal during the daylight hours. I can't imagine this would take off in America because in the US melatonin can be taken as a supplement but in Europe it is regulated as a drug. The first thing I thought about when I saw it though was that it didn't seem to make a lot of sense in that when you are nursing you baby to sleep at night your breast milk has its lowest level of sleep inducing melatonin. But then again, you don't see cows pacing the pasture with a crying calf over their shoulder.
• This isn't baby related but it is exciting: the worlds largest shopping cart! It's located in just the next town over! Can you believe it? Tomorrow we load ropes, grappling hooks, and cameras to document our ascent.
  

yodel-ay-yodel-ay-yodel-ay-hee-hoo

I told you I would detail the Valentine's package contents, and now that the fourth and final package has been received and opened today, it is no longer considered a spoiler to do so. Although now a week later, some of the excitement has worn off, not to mention the sugar high that comes from ingesting a dozen chocolate covered oreos.

Anyway, the package was filled with movies, Kermit's Swamp Years (terrible) and The Lady in the Water (good), a pinwheel, a top, cookies on sticks, paper heart bookmarks, heart garland, chocolate covered peanut butter filled pretzels, shoes for me from Christmas, books, magazines, book making craft supplies, and several candy explosions. The cellophane bags used to hold the candy had all burst which sent Silas diving head first into the box scavenging for jelly beans and chocolate hearts. Clearly the chocolate won out over some stinky old apple.

But by far the star of the Valentine package was the goat puppet. Silas was even willing to share his oatmeal cookie with his new pet. He's enamored with the fact that his mouth moves, feeding it all his most beloved foods, popcorn, grapes, crackers. We've been spared having him sample yogurt and scrambled eggs so far though.

But he likes the goat to chase him around, he likes to have the goat play with blocks and trains. He's even been studying Henson's puppetering daily in order to improve his skills. In the picture below he is watching Julie Andrews on the Muppet Show performing the Lonely Goat song from the Sound of Music. And yes, he has his on little crazy version of yodeling that he does as he pulls on his chin, his sign for goat. So the goat's a big hit, Grandma. And thanks for everything else you sent too. We love you and miss you lots!

Up next- pictures and stories from Belgium.

Who loves you?

Who knew? A baby that can barely speak, yet he spells better than his father? This was the first picture I saw as I was putting the pictures on the computer from the camera. And I thought, "Could he be any cuter?" Turns out the answer is yes. This is the second picture I saw.

Happy Valentines Day everyone!

(ps. we received our v-day package yesterday and there will be details and pictures tomorrow)

Big Baby News

Not that big. Not that news. Not new baby news. That would technically be very, very, tiny, minuscule baby news. The news is that Silas is, at long last, officially weaned. The last time he nursed was Saturday, January 27th. 18 months and 11 days old.
Of course it's a little bittersweet when he sees me getting dressed in the morning and says "malk" and makes his little milk sign. He's not upset, it's just like he's rekindling a fond memory. It's very sweet to think that he remembers nursing, but isn't frustrated that he can't nurse anymore.
As for me, he'd been nursing only once or twice a day for a while so the transition was painless physically. And, surprisingly there was not much emotional upheaval either. I think if Silas would have been upset at all, I would have been too. But then, if either one of us were upset I guess we wouldn't have weaned in the first place.
I was so sure weaning was going to be so difficult, because it always upset me so much when someone would ask or suggest that I wean him. But I guess when the time was right for us, it just happened without too much struggle.
Which I hope is the case with the potty training, under which we are currently going. Not in earnest really. Silas had a really bad diaper rash in the last week so he's been going diaper-less around the house and occasionally making it to the potty. He is so proud of himself when he does go though, and insists on taking the container to the toilet and waving "bye-bye" to the pee.
OK, I wanted to get some post put up, because I was threatened with arson if I didn't. So there is a London post in the works after this too, but just in case that isn't done tonight, there will be something up.

Dog Poop Miracle

No, no, an image of the blessed virgin did not appear to me in canine fecal matter on the streets of Ireland. But, because it's Ireland there is loads of the stuff on the sidewalk in our walk into town to pick up a surprise package from the post office. It was siding samples from a contractor to repair our hail damaged house in MN- very disappointing when I was anticipating a surprise! package! Oh well, there was a miracle en route.

Silas was careening down the sidewalk and I was maneuvering the stroller with one hand trying to ensure that he didn't step into oncoming traffic, and holding a small squashed red berry with the other hand, because, you know, Silas gave it to me and if I dropped it we'd have to go back and pick another one from the shrubs right outside our house. So we're walking down the sidewalk anyway. And Silas takes a direct heading for a steaming pile of fresh dog dung. And because I am not fast or smart I don't gab him, I just kind of say in a loud panicky voice, "Step around!" And then the heavens open up and his little dinosaur booted feet step on either side of the crap, and he straddles the pile and walks right around it, without even the the slightest whiff of a stench clinging to any part of him.

And that my friends is a fine illustration of why I haven't posted in a week. A week! And all I have is a stupid poop story.

Snow!

This morning as I was facing the baskets of laundry that I had to fold and put away, I looked out the window and saw big fat flakes of snow falling softly to the ground. Eagerly tossing the crumpled masses of clean laundry, I scooped Silas up, put on his pants, boots, and coat grabbed the camera and headed out the door.
I don't think Silas has seen snow since we left Minnesota almost a year ago. So we had a wonderful time stomping around in it and leaving our footprints behind us. Silas kept looking up into the whiteness and tried to catch flakes on his tongue. I didn't even show him how to do it. I think he was just amazed by this cold fluff and when he opened his mouth to show his surprise a few flakes fell in. He couldn't get enough!

I made him a few snowballs, and he tried to make a few himself, but then decided it was more fun tomake the alligator mittens chomp the snow into bits than to make a cohesive ball. I tried to make a a little snowman because the snow was perfect for packing, but Silas wasn't interested and kept trying to take off down the road. So we didn't get any farther than the bottom ball.

He shook bits of snow off the trees and bushes, tried to pick the berries off the neighbors holly tree, and made a snow angel. OK, it turned out as more of a snow blob with foot prints all over it.


Orrin called to say that many of his co-workers were hoping work would be cancelled, although all in all, less than an inch fell. It was coming down very heavily, in huge fluffy flakes. Snow at its very best.


Afterwards Silas and I warmed up with cinnamon toast and pear tea while watching Julie Andrews on the Muppet show.


Now it is almost all melted as the sun has come out, and there is a steady dripping outside all the windows. All that is left are a few patches of white in the shady spots, and the beginnings of a snowman's legs.

And then there were two

Mittens that is.

Mom gave me these Stitch and Bitch knitting books for Christmas and and among the super cute patterns was a pattern for alligator mittens. Silas needed mittens and I figured they were small enough that my attention span would last through them. Then after I finished the first one last week, and showed it off to everyone who would listen, I got a little distracted. But this weekend I finished number two and put eyes on them.

Although I couldn't find sew on googley eyes anywhere and the eyes I embroidered on were kind of shotty. Silas loved wearing them so much that the eyes are coming off already, so I do have to figure out a better way to do that. But look how cute they are! They are far from perfect and very wobbly with lots of mistakes, but seeing how I now have to make them for everyone I know, they will get better.

And, just because some of the cuteness of his cousins must have rubbed off on Silas here's a couple pictures from the last week and half since we've been back in Ireland: so tired he can't make it up the stairs to his crib, emerging from his cuboidal egg, and a tribute to the late, great James Brown.

Still here

My apologies, faithful readers. I have not forgotten about you and am still writing here. Or at least thinking about writing here. I have lots to tell you about and lots of posts I've been thinking about writing. Just been busy here.

I've been meaning to tell you about Silas's preferred method of eating now. It is to distribute food along the floor and then lie on his belly and vacuum them up with his mouth. He did it first with the cheerios that I had left on floor following breakfast. Apparently I wasn't fast enough preparing lunch and he was hungry NOW! so cheerios for lunch too. Later instead of eating the cheese or banana set out on a plate for him he decided it would be much more fun and nutritious to eat the hard, dry, uncooked lentils I had spilled near the stove. He discovered there is an end table in the living room that is the perfect height for this mouth vacuuming and spread out popcorn along the edges and walks around the table sucking them up. I was going to title this post "Bobbing for Broccoli," as this was the only way he would eat the broccoli and couscous we had for lunch last week.

I also had a post I was going to write titled "Birthday Presents Unite!" I was going to tell you all about the wonderful presents my family sent for my birthday and how they transformed a dreary, blustery, miserable day into a snug, toasty, cozy day of whole grain baking, classic movie watching, and neck warmer knitting.

And speaking of birthday presents- King Arthur Whole Grain Baking Book- it's wonderful. So far I have made the whole wheat fudge brownies, tortillas, apple cinnamon peanut bars, pumpkin cranberry bars, biscotti, challah, graham crackers (with barley flour), banana crunch cake (with oats), rhubarb coffee cake, Easiest 100% whole wheat bread ever, and pumpkin bread. See, I told you I had been busy. I probably wouldn't make either of the bars again but everything else is definitely staying my repertoire.

Silas is down to nursing only 2 or 3 times a day. It's some kind of Christmas miracle! Although it is making me kind of sad that nursing may be coming to an end soon.

He has been super cute the past week though, He's starting to say more and more "words." I swear he said raisin at breakfast this morning. And when he points to things he asks "Dees ees?"
He learned the dog and baby sign at my sisters house and makes those whenever he hears or sees a dog or baby( or doll or child) respectively. He also will sit down on the floor expectantly when he asks for food and I say OK. He plays with his train set! Actually puts the engine and the car together with their little magnets and pushes them around the track. He hasn't quite figured out how to put the track together yet, but he hands Orrin pieces and directs him where to put them.

I went to a cookie exchange last Thursday and came back with a recipe for really yummy chocolate and nut meringues, called Wasps Nests. This weekend we went for a bike ride, had lunch at a nice pub called Allens and did some Christmas shopping in Kilkenny. Sunday, Orrin went mountain biking in the rain with some friends from work and Silas and I ate pancakes and snuggled. Yesterday I went over to friends house and made buckeyes, those peanut butter and chocolate candies. I love them but I have never made them before. They are really easy, if a little time consuming.

I'm almost done with Christmas shopping and we're flying to Chicago on Saturday! We still have to figure out how to get to the airport and avoid paying the 160 euro for parking the car there. We also have to get tickets to go to London so we can visit Aunt Emily's family.

But I can't can't wait to get home and see everyone!