Currently...

Currently, Silas' Halloween bulldozer is being used by his animal friends. "They're having Halloween!" he says as he pushes them around the living room.

And in other news, Si is only wearing trainers at night. Otherwise, it's all underwear all of the time. Woo-hoo! We switched Si's doctor this week (we're all going to the same family doctor now) and we really like her. Silas weighed in at 31 pounds and was 36 inches tall, which is pretty average for his age.

I know I haven't been updating as much lately, but that's just the way it is right now. I'm in a blog lull. I'm sure things will pick up again at some point. Till then, be well everyone!

ABC Song Duet

Been meaning to post this for 2 weeks now...

G/P/S

Grandma/Papa/Silas pictures...taken with Grandma's camera.
Silas loves the little Ernie boat that Patrick got for him.
Having a good time with Papa:

Silas' banjo becomes whatever instrument he wants it to be. Most often, it's a guitar, but is also a stand-up bass, a cello, or as seen in the picture below, a violin:


The boys, making Si's bulldozer costume:
Making Halloween cookies with Grandma:
And that's that!

November 09 Book of the Month

Introducing Planet Silas' November '09 Book of the Month:
Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall ; pictures by Barbara Cooney.

Winner of the Caldecott Medal back in 1980, this is an oldie (relatively speaking), but a goodie. I picked up a copy at a library book sale recently and thought it might be something Silas would take interest in later on. I was wrong: He was interested in it immediately.

In this look at a farming family in 19th century New England, a father journeys 10 days to a coastal market town to sell the goods and food his family has made and grown over the course of a year. Through the items the man loads into his cart, we learn that the family spent March tapping sugar maples, and April spinning, knitting, and weaving the wool sheered from the sheep. We learn when each of the crops were planted, and that not even the feathers that fall from the geese are waisted. Each family member contributes and creates. When the ox-cart man returns from the market, he is without his cart and even his ox. But he has brought back a few simple items that will make the work that his family does that much easier. They quietly slip back into their simple rhythm: Cooking, candle making, whittling, planting, shearing. And the ox-cart man begins building a new cart for the young oxen in his barn.

As beautiful as this book is, both in words and pictures, I didn't expect Silas to take to it the way he has. He sits there quietly while it is read and studies the pictures. We talk about how the man had to walk because there were no cars or bikes. We talk about the fact that we still do some of the same things that that family does (like knitting and making things and growing food). Silas loves the pictures of Portsmouth the best and has told me that he's been there and in fact lives in one of the buildings pictured.

It is easy for a young child, whose entire day is spent in imaginative play, to place himself in such a book. But the mood of this book extends this sort of immersion to the far more closed and cynical minds of adults too. And it does it without you even realizing.

We will be coming back to this book often.

Trick or treat or, better late than never

Again with the neglectant posting... It's November 5th and I'm finally catching up with a few more Halloween pictures.Trick or treating takes place downtown, where they close off the main street and all of the costumed kiddos gather to rake in the candy. Silas was super excited to wear his bulldozer. He took the whole thing very seriously.Since the costume was a bit cumbersome, we held onto his toolbox and collected the candy for him. There was actually only one item that he was truly excited to receive. And believe it or not, it was an apple (handed out at the grocery store). Nope, it wasn't candy that he begged me for for the rest of the day. It was that delicious red apple, which he got to eat for dessert. He really could have cared less for the several toolboxes worth of candy we collected. Not that he doesn't have a sweet tooth, mind you, but having never had that sort of candy before, he didn't think much of it or seem to care.
That night, we let him pick out three pieces to save and try some other time. The rest of the candy was taken by the Candy Fairy, and she was nice enough to leave him a little present in exchange (she was also nice enough to share a few pieces of candy with Silas' parents :)

Silas' friend O is dressed as a mushroom (hat conveniently attached to the stroller, she is more interested in S's bulldozer at the moment), and her parents went as gnomes:
Halloween wasn't all about trick-or-treating. That morning, we carved the Cinderella pumpkin we grew in the garden this summer.
Grandma, mom, and Silas all helped.
I bought Silas a safety knife and he quickly mastered it...
...with a bit of guidance.
Silas named the jack-o-lantern Spud and really seemed fond of him. On Monday, we asked if it would be okay for us to give Spud to the sheep to eat. I thought he might be resistant, but he said that was fine and, well, that was the end of Spud.

I'll have a few more pictures from my parents' visit, one of these days...

Happy Halloween 09: Bugdozer Man!

Here's the big costume reveal. This was a group effort: I knit the sweater, Drew made the bulldozer, Patrick made the "Bugdozer Construction" logo, and Silas supplied a heaping dose of cuteness. "Bugdozer, by the way, is a character from the Richard Scarry books.

I'll be back in a day or two with more pictures and details from our day.

Just for the sake of posting

It seems that I haven't been motivated to post to the blog lately. Too much going on right now, I guess. I did want to write a quick post to say that my parents (Silas' Grandma and Papa) are visiting and will be celebrating Halloween with us tomorrow. That's exciting!

Rest assured, there will be a lot of pictures of Silas in costume tomorrow, or in the days following. Till then, I hope everyone who reads this is doing well.

Happy Halloween!

At the Fire Station

Last weekend, we went to the local fire station's pancake breakfast. Silas was very very excited, especially when they gave him is very own firefighter badge and helmet.
But the best part was definitely getting to ride on top of the fire truck. You can't tell from the picture below(it was pretty cramped up there and I wanted to enjoy the ride, so I quick snapped a picture, such as it is), but Silas is standing at the very top back of the truck, and he is having the time of his life. The truck took us around the neighborhood for about five minutes, with two firefighters hanging off of the back, totally old-school.
On our way home, we happened to be behind a firetruck carrying some families. One of the moms had asked the fireman to take a picture and he was balancing on the back with just the strap keeping him from falling off in order to take their picture (why didn't I think of that). For the rest of the afternoon, Silas kept climbing onto the back of one of our big chairs, pretending to take pictures, exclaiming "I'm a fireman!" It cracks us up that that's what he took away from his time at the fire station: Fireman = Photographer.

Farmers Market, Digger, Digger

The last of the digger sweater photo shoots...

Silas is fixated on the live music, that is being played just out view. The music is definitely Silas' main reason for wanting to go to the market on Saturdays. We'll miss it this winter!
I love that our market basket matches his sweater.

There's an old front-end loader in a parking lot that Silas has been given permission to ride on whenever he wants. He's one very happy kid when he's riding that thing, let me tell you.

A few more pictures are posted here.

Boats and Water photoshoot

As promised, here are a few pics from our weekend photo shoot. Silas always asks to go see the boats when we're downtown, so taking a walk to the marina, and the Waterfront Park, is pretty commonplace. Up above: Silas and I are at the end of one of the piers, next to a boat that's named, no joke, "The Knotty Nurse."

Here we are at the Waterfront Park adjacent to the marina.
You probably can't tell from these shots, but this is the hull of a boat that's been planted in the ground and is used as a stage for events in the park.
Silas loves to run around on it. Clearly it's also a favorite of local graffiti artists.We determined that the paint chipping looked like a bat. Silas now requests to see the "bat pictures."
The kid is looking none too pleased in this next image. But it's a decent picture of me, so whatever. I'm posting it.
And a couple more of the waterfront: People dock rowboats next to shore and then take them out to their houseboats, yachts, or even their houses across the harbor.
Out-of-service ferries in the distance (in service ferry is a bit beyond them, but not in view).
I will post a few more from the farmers market and whatnot some other time.

October 09 Book of the Month

Introducing Planet Silas’ October 09 book of the month:

Apples and Pumpkins by Anne Rockwell ; pictures by Lizzy Rockwell.

A little girl travels with her parents to a farm to pick a bushel of apples and to select the perfect pumpkin.

Silas has been requesting this book pretty steadily for just about as long as I can remember. While it is a delightful book to read any time of the year, it is undoubtedly the perfect pick for the October/Autumn/Halloween season. Young children (Silas included) relate to the little girl as she blissfully narrates her time on the farm with her parents, being followed by chickens and geese out to the orchard, picking just the right pumpkin and watching her dad cut it from the vine, etc. When they get home, the pumpkin is transformed into a jack-o-lantern and the (obviously health-conscious) parents pass the apples out for trick-or-treat.

This is a wonderful slice of life book that captures, both in words and pictures, the joys and traditions of this time of year. I trust that we will continue to read and enjoy this story for years to come.

Just the beginning

We did several photo shoots this weekend featuring Silas and the digger sweater I recently finished for him (It will be part of his Halloween costume). I have a lot of pictures to sort through and will post more here and on my knitting blog soon. For now: The top pic is one of my favorites. How did I get such a golden, sunshine child? The bottom pic shows us killing time waiting for D...

So much more to post, so little time. If you are following this blog, beware: you will be seeing a lot of that digger sweater, which he is very pleased with and eager to wear.

And on a side note, we had a lengthy power outage this evening, which is a sign that autumn is truly here. We ate by candle light (luckily our stove is gas), and then took a walk through the forest amidst growing shadows. When we got back to the yard, we watched the full moon rise over the tree tops. The power came on just as Silas was getting ready for bed. All in all, a very enjoyable power-outage (any that last less than a day usually are :)