2 1/2

(Our friend O's trike, which she graciously loaned to Silas till she's big enough for it.)

Today is Silas' "half birthday." A book we were reading a while back (the name of which I now forget) suggested celebrating half birthdays with young children because they hit so many milestones and change so much in 6 months time. We decided to celebrate just a bit in order to share with Silas how proud we are of how far he's come since his birthday in March. I brought home a treat (cake truffle) from the bakery near my office which we all enjoyed for dessert. We let Silas pick our meal (hummus and pita with olives, cucumbers, and vegetable juice), and as you can see I took some pictures while we were playing outside. I took a video too, which I'll upload some other time.

I wish I could write a lengthy post about all that Silas has been doing lately, and how much he's changed since his second birthday, but it's not going to happen tonight. Since this is a post about Silas turning 2 1/2, however, I did want to say that we achieved another milestone today. This is a big one and everyone in our little family was very pleased with it. You may recall that we started potty learning in a very gentle way long ago. For quite a while, Silas was consistently using the potty as long as he was sans pants. As soon as you'd put anything on him--training pants, underpants, etc., he reverted. Well, no longer! He's been starting to tell us he needs to use the potty even when he's fully dressed and today, for the first time ever, Silas went the entire day using only the potty. Not one "accident."

I'll post more on language development and other such things soon. For now, happy half birthday, Silas. We're so proud of you!