Fantasy of a Baby-Sized Helmet

I know the kid's gotta learn how to stay upright and move around without crashing into things. And I know he's bound to fall and hit various parts of his body before he accomplishes that. But seriously, did you know that you could get a bruise on top of another bruise? Silas proved that to us just yesterday. I'm not sure how well you can tell from the pictures, but he's sporting a 3 or 4 day-old yellow bruise on the upper right portion of his forehead. On top of that, he has a brand new red-purple bruise. There is a considerable lump there as well. Before he fell and produced the yellow bruise, there was a matching bruise on the opposite side.

Silas hits his head hard on something I would guess a minimum of twice a day, but it's only enough of a knock to his noggin to cause a bruise every now and then. I suppose he's just at the stage where this is to be expected. Still, I can't help but fantasize about him wearing a padded helmet to protect that precious head of his. Hopefully, he will outgrow this clumsiness, though Drew says he's probably inherited it from me. If that's the case, we better get him a bubble to live in :)

Oh, and I can't post this without including how we now deal with these bumps. The wonder cure is Arnica. We applied a hemp bump and bruise salve with Arnica to the new bruise yesterday and today, you can barely tell it was there!

Alias Polar Bear

Silas really wanted to start his own music blog in order to share with you all of the music he grooves to.

So now, I present to you, the Planet Silas companion blog:
ALIAS POLAR BEAR

Do stop by it from time to time. Si and his dad will be updating it with new tunes and music videos for you to enjoy every now and then.

Milo's Birthday

We took Silas to Milo's birthday bash this afternoon. A good time was had by all and the boys (3 of them all born within 3 weeks of each other) were so adorable together. Happy Birthday Milo!

Look Ma, No Hands!

If he can combine what you see in this video with what you see in this video I posted back in February, we'll have ourselves a walker!

April 08 Book of the Month

Announcing Planet Silas' April Book of the Month:
Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes.
Summary: Kitten sees the full moon and mistakes it for a bowl of milk, which she simply must have.
As a librarian who catalogs children's books for a living, I see many picture books, including those who win the big literary awards, such as the Caldecott. When Kitten's First Full Moon won the Caldecott Award a few years ago, however, I have to admit I wasn't totally convinced, though I do like the author quite a bit. Then the reviews started to come in from the school librarians: little kids LOVE this book. Silas adores it as well, and I can now say that I am a Kitten's First Full Moon convert, big time.
This book has what it takes to engage young readers--bold high contrast illustrations, an appealing character, rhythmic, appropriately repetitive text and a simple lightly humorous story. it's quite a fun one to read out loud (and believe me, I've already done so a bunch of times). I've added the baby sign for "milk" when I read that word in the text so that I can convey to Silas that Kitten and he have a common love of milk.
This month's honorable mentions:
Miffy's Counting Book by Dick Bruna. This was Silas' favorite book when he was 3 or 4 months old. Seriously. He couldn't get enough of that book and would always calm down when we read it to him. He's still quite a Miffy fan.
Hairbrushes for Babies with Little Hair by Silas.
no, just kidding.
I Love You Through and Through by Bernadette Rossetti-Shustak. Silas got this book from his Grandma G for his birthday. It's quickly been added to his daily book rotation. He seems to really "relate" to the little toddler and his stuffed bear. I like reading this book with him because it lists things about the toddler which are loved, such as "I love your fingers, your toes...Your happy side, your sad side." These sort of phrases allow for us to point out body parts or make emotional expressions as we are reading the text to Silas. Very interacting and fun!

Hairbrush Demos

Froggy Book in Action

Thanks, LeClair family, for this great froggy book. As you can see, Silas really has fun with it!

Good Day, Young Chap

I find that lately, I miss Silas more, rather than less, while I'm away at work. I think it's because he's becoming such a little boy now. He has so much personality and is developing so fast. I'm sure I miss a lot when I'm away, though I always get the lowdown on Si's day when I get home.

So if any of you want to hire someone with a Library Science degree to work online from home, and you just happen to be willing to pay enough to support a modest family of 3 and provide health insurance, I'm your woman!

Happy Easter!

Patrick and Shannon dyed these eggs for Silas ("Goober" is what Patrick calls Silas). As you can see, I let him handle them a bit. He only smashed one :)

Mom's Birthday & Si's 12 mo. Appt.

My birthday falling just 5 days after the kiddo's means that it is just a tad bit overshadowed. That's okay. Seriously. I did go out to breakfast with my boys before going to work and they threw me a great birthday lunch at work, too. I left the office early so that we could take Silas to his 12 month doctor's appointment. So, here's the lowdown.
Silas weighed in at just about 23 pounds. He is now in the mid 50s in terms of the growth chart (hight, weight, and head circumference compared to other 12 month-old boys). The doctor mentioned that he isn't putting on as much weight now that he's crawling around all the time. She also warned us that his eating may slow down in a few months as it is common for toddlers to get more choosy around 14 or 15 months. Hmmm. We will wait with baited breath for that. So, anyways, size-wise, he is very average and the doctor is happy with his size and overall health.

We thought that now that he has his 8 incisors, we might have a break from teething for a while. However, recently, Silas has been trying to bit us. A lot. For instance, he will crawl up to me while I'm sitting on the floor and crawl into my arms all smiles, then suction his little mouth onto my cheek and bit down with all of his might. Owwww. This is a daily occurrence. So with that, we really didn't need a professional to tell us that he's still teething, but apparently, I felt compelled to ask anyways, and yes, duh, he still is.
Vaccinations. We've been getting them for Silas, but have never felt at ease about it. There's an overwhelming amount of contrary information on vaccinations out there. I'm really not going to go into the arguement on whether or not vaccinations cause autism here (you all know how to use Google if you need more info). Our doctor was really great at not being judgemental regarding our fears or pushing anything on us. Mercury is no longer used in children's vaccinations, which makes us feel much better. We decided to hold off on the MMR vaccination till he's 15 months. I was happy with this decision, since he was already getting 3 other vaccinations today. So far, he's shown no side effects whatsoever. Also, I must note that the doctor observed Silas and immediately said there's no way he's autistic. We know that, but somehow it felt very reassuring to be told this. So, him hitting his head repeatedly with this hand (like he's saying "doh!" over and over again), and also frequently shaking his head back and forth and then laughing ---both normal. It was a good appointment, if only to reassure mom and dad that all is well with Little Bear.

Our Lucky Charm, With Disclaimers

St. Patrick's Day Disclaimer # 1: We are not actually Irish, Irish American, Irish Catholic, Irish Catholic American, etc. The luck o' the Irish is not with us, but Silas is still our lucky charm, and he looked so cute in the St. Patrick's Day onesie that Grandma G. sent to us.

Grandma also sent us this great bib. That's where St. Patrick's Day Disclaimer #2 comes in:
This is not Silas' 1st St. Patrick's Day. He was born on March 16th.
So this was actually his 2nd St. Patty's Day:
But, seeing as though he was only a day old for the holiday in '07, and seeing as though it never dawned on us that it was St. Patty's day due to the fact that we had a day old baby, maybe we'll just pretend that this year was his first. Yeah, that'll do.

And finally, St. Patrick's Day Disclaimer #3: No, Si didn't get that fat lip fightin' over green beer at the local pub (even though he looks like he's been hitting the pubs in this picture. I assure you, he hasn't. Washington State laws are very strict on keeping babies out of pubs). In fact, the fat lip is courtesy of a nosedive he took into our dresser on his birthday. I don't think it showed up on any of his birthday pics, as the wound blended in with the berry juice.

Happy 1st Birthday Silas!

Silas had a great birthday! Here's how our day played out:
In the morning, I gave him the stuffed dog I'd knit for him. Looks like he likes it! He hugged it and patted it lovingly.
We went for a birthday breakfast with Patrick, then came back home to count down to Si's birth moment (11:04 am). Silas celebrated by falling asleep 5 minutes later.

In the afternoon, we had a little party. Everyone had chocolate nut cake. Everyone, that is, except Silas. Here he is enjoying his birthday treat: huckleberries, blueberries, and breakfast Os:



And, some of the party-goers:




William and Jessica took some footage of us singing Happy Birthday to Silas. Enjoy!

Don't forget to watch the tribute we made for Silas and his first year on the planet, posted below.