Happy Halloween 2010!

Well, the day has finally come and gone. It was long, but we loved it. For the first time ever, we went up to Port Gamble to trick-or-treat. It did not disappoint: Way smaller and low key then the crowds on Bainbridge. Each business offered something different: games, "fishing" for prizes, etc. All in a lovely, scenic town. The top two pictures were taken there.
After Port Gamble, we headed for our Midwife's house. Each year she hosts a reunion open to all of the families whose babies she helped birth. We've never gone before, but now think we'd like to make it part of our Halloween routine. It was wonderful to see her and the house that she built, which is only a few miles from the town we live in.

After an all too brief time there, we headed to Bainbridge to drop Drew at the ferry, meet up with Patrick and do some more trick-or-treating. Although I had my camera with me, I stopped taking pictures around this time. I think we were all a little burnt out by this point. We had promised Silas that we'd take him to Bainbridge, so we had to follow through. I think next year we'll skip it. It's become too crowded and hectic. Still enjoyable to see all of the kids dressed up, but not at all fun to push a shy three year old through the masses.

Back at home, Patrick and I took Silas for a brief walk around the neighborhood and then I settled in and passed out a bit of candy to trick-or-treaters. After picking out a few pieces of candy, he set the rest on a table in his bedroom to await the candy fairy, who will take away his candy and leave a present.

The last two shots are from Thursday (costume day at preschool):
The shell that Drew made...Nice, huh?
Did you have a fun Halloween? I hope so!

Peek-a-BOO!

Happy Halloween!
I'll post pictures from the day sometime soon...

The jack-o-lantern post

We finally carved our pumpkins!
Silas says: they are spooky... but funny spooky, not scary spooky.
I think he's right :)
Silas got to test drive his Halloween costume at preschool yesterday. The shell that Drew made looks fabulous. I took pictures and am so tempted to post them, but I think I'll wait until Sunday.

Have a happy spooky Halloween weekend!

The pumpkin post

Alas, the long awaited pumpkin post. The two pumpkins above are the fruits of our labor; our very own home-grown beauties. We'll come back to them. First, let's go back in time to the end of September. Our local farmers' market had a fall festival. The kids in our community all had fun painting and decorating pumpkins. Silas decided to go for a textured look and applied massive glops of paint. It's been almost a month and the thing is still not dry. And our porch, home to our little pumpkin masterpiece, has a multi-colored ring of craft paint on it.
Jump forward a few weeks: Silas and I decided it was time to harvest our pumpkins.
Proud of his pumpkin:
Firefighter Pumpkin, ready to put out any Halloween related fires:
And taking their rightful place next to the painted pumpkin:
We hope to carve them this weekend...
But that's not all! One more pumpkin joined our trio. Silas had his first school field trip...to the pumpkin patch. I went along, and I've gotta tell you, at first I thought it was going to be a disaster. He didn't like the 120 year old barn we stared off in (that's it in the background of the next picture). None of the other kids seemed to notice how spooky it was, but Silas sure did. He refused to jump in the hay with the other children, and I truly thought the field trip was going to be a bust.

But, I finally got him to detach from me long enough for him to run through the hay bale maze.
By the time the group went through the flower trails and the corn maze, he walked along with the other kids and more or less forgot about his parents' existence (for a good 5 minutes anyways).
He picked out a pumpkin,
And the school trip ended with the quintessential class shot. Awe.
That's about it, for now. I hope there are lots of pumpkins in your life too.

Leaf walk

A few weeks ago, Silas' class went on a leaf walk, then put all the leaves up in the windows. The idea must have struck him as a good one because this evening, he asked us to go on a leaf walk with him. The above picture shows the results of that walk. We have a pretty long fall here; plenty of time to add to our leaf collection.

I'm still working on putting together a pumpkin post. It will happen. Soon.

A house for Hermit Crab

Well, I'm not keeping the identity of my son's Halloween persona a secret this year. He quite firmly decided several months ago that he wanted to be a hermit crab. Actually, he started out by saying he wanted to be a ghost hermit crab monster, but I think we talked him down to just plain old hermit crab.
Have you ever tried to make a hermit crab outfit before. No? Really? Well, neither have too many other people apparently. I basically went out on my own here, designing first the mitts and then the hat.
He likes to pretend to pinch things with his mitts. He will grab on to my hand, and gently press down, and then say "See, I'm a nice crab."
We are still searching for the perfect house (i.e. shell) for this Hermit Crab. I'm leaving that mainly up to Drew to take care of. We have some ideas, and some time. Hopefully it will all come together by the end of the month.

If it's autumn and you love it...

This is my favorite time of year: harvest festivals, crisp cool days, falling leaves, pumpkins, Halloween. We are enjoying all of the above here at Planet Silas. Silas got to ride a pony at the Johnson Farm Harvest festival. He rode the land slide, too, just like last year:
Yesterday, we went to the Fire Station's pancake breakfast, skipped the pancakes, and headed straight for the line to ride on the fire trucks. Unlike last year, Silas changed his mind about 10 minutes in and decided there was no way he was going to ride that truck. He still got a chance to show off his firefighter jacket, however.
On one of our last truly warm days, we had a picnic supper with friends along the Hood Canal.
It was lovely:
I'm planning an Autumn-themed week here on the blog. We've got pumpkins, pumpkins and more pumkins as well as a sneak peak at Silas' Halloween costume. Stay tuned!

Preschool: the continuing saga

We are now in week three of preschool, but let us backtrack to week two. Last Tuesday morning, Silas told his dad that, and I quote "I'm just not interested in preschool." He told his teacher the same thing, several times. When I question him about this, he says that there are no interesting toys to play with there, but will also say that the school bus toys they have are his favorite. When I ask him what he likes to do there, he'll say "nothing" but when I ask him if he had fun doing art he'll say that art was fun. When I ask him if he liked his snack he will answer in the affirmative, and so on. He also talks about several of the kids in his class constantly and I have no clue how much of what he says is real and how much is made up, but at least he's showing an interest in the other children.

On the downside, the teacher mentioned that he seemed sad the whole time. That was a particularly rough day, as was Thursday. On Thursday, he cried at home before leaving for preschool, he cried all the way there, and he cried when being dropped off.

It's the anticipation that's the hardest for him to deal with. When all of this was brand new, he'd wake up and ask if he had to go to preschool that day. I'd say no, and then the subject was dropped. Now, he wants to know days in advance when he will have to go to school so that he can gauge how nervous he should be that day. And he asks over and over again.
Do I have to go to preschool tomorrow?
No.
Do I have to go to preschool after tomorrow (meaning the day after tomorrow).
No.
After that?
And so on. Last week on one of his school days, he woke us up at 4 am to tell us that he didn't want to go to preschool. He reiterated this statement countless times, our patience disintegrating with every repetition.

We have tried many different tactics to ease his separation anxiety. I knit him a little bracelet, which he keeps in his pocket so that it doesn't get lost. I told him that I knit all of my love for him into it and that if he keeps it close, my love will be with him as well. I've read him books about starting school, about dealing with separation anxiety, etc. We got him a little pocket picture album and printed pictures of everyone he cares about, so that he can keep that with him. We try to be very positive. I tell him daily that I think he's a smart, kind, and brave kid.

"Not so brave, " he'll say.
"Brave," I'll respond " because being brave means doing something, even if you're afraid to do it."

We encourage him to interact with the kids and the adults in the classroom. Despite his fears, he did select some shells from the beach last week and brought them in to show Teacher Debbie:
That was week two. We are now in week three: one day down, one to go. Today, and I say this with cautious optimism, was a bit better. He cried, but not so much. I had a long discussion with him about his day when I got home from work. We talked about what he did at preschool (painted a leaf, played outside, played train tracks, etc.) and then I asked him if he felt sad when his daddy left him there.
"Yes," he replied, "I felt sad. But then I felt better." I gave him a big hug and told him I was proud of him and how very brave he was. This time, he did not disagree.