Silas' List of Thankfulness 09

I asked Silas what he was thankful for, and the list below was his response. I think it's safe to say that he hasn't quite mastered the concept of thankfulness. The list isn't overly long because after a while, he grew tired of the activity and told me he wasn't thankful for anything anymore. One cannot force gratitude. Thankfully, outside of my asking outright what he's grateful for and expecting coherent responses, he does act grateful and tell us "thanks" even unprompted.

Silas' List of Thankfulness 09

Work (aren't a lot of people these days?)
Bread
Daddy
Nuts
Alphabet (letters l,m,n,o,p in particular)
Blocks
Icky foods
Ambulances
Little superhero man
Toys
Mommy
Icky people
Stinky pie
Horses
Dreams of horses

Thanks...and the House that Si Built

Just one image to share from thanksgiving...
Silas and I have spent a lot of time lately building houses out of blocks. Mainly, we work together, or as is often the case, he asks me to build a house for one of his little animal figurines, and I do so, with his input and additions. But the block house in this picture was built all by Silas with no help from anyone. He was very proud and wanted to share it with you, dear blog readers.

Thanksgiving was spent cooking (and eating of course), and on Friday we had several lovely social engagements. The rest of the weekend should be nice and quiet. Who knows, I may just update this blog again, or perhaps attend to my much neglected knitting blog...One thing that I'm hoping to still get to is Silas' List of Thankfulness 09. We did a list last year, meaning to start a tradition and well, I sort of forgot about it this year. It's not too late, right?

Kin

Back a bit

I was looking through photos trying to find something in particular and realized there were some from September that I'd meant to post, but never got around to. Without further ado, here they are.

Fences are for climbing in Silas' world.
A tree frog on the kiwi vine by our deck. Drew took this one.
Gone are the dandelions and the jacket-less outside playtime.
The rainy season is upon us...

I've got a few more "forgotten" pictures, which I'll post soon.

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...