Thanksgiving, Birthday, Christmas and New Year

I'm very behind in writing about Silas these days, but I don't want to forget to write about the holidays!  I have plenty of pictures, but one reason I haven't written yet is because it takes so long to get the pictures online that I never found a time to do it all at once.

We drove to Montpelier to visit Grandma Susie, Grandpa Dick and GG (my Grandma Bull) for Thanksgiving, as I mentioned briefly in another post.  For the first time in Silas's life, he was able to withstand the entire car drive!  We did stop at a rest station to feed him some lunch and let him blow off some steam, but we made very good time towards Vermont.  There was a great deal of snow and it was very cold, so we really felt that the holiday season had arrived.  We all had a wonderful time, especially because (unlike our last trip to Montpelier), Silas slept well.  Silas had a wonderful time, and Brian and I got a special afternoon break.  We walked downtown in lightly drifting snow, got hot drinks and pastries together, visited a chocolate shop, toy store, pet store, and a few other cheerful shops before getting 15-minute chair massages at a lounge.  It really was a perfect afternoon break and we felt very refreshed afterward.

(Thanks to a low-appetite phase, Silas threw almost all his special Thanksgiving dinner on the floor and we had to take turns watching him as he roamed around during dinner.  Oh well.)

Silas turned 1 on December 16, 2014!  He slept well the night before, which put us in a good mood for his birthday.  It was a normal school/work day for all of us, but we tried to make it extra special.  We made him his favorite breakfast, including berries and challah (it was the first night of Hannukah as well!).  We got him a toy dump truck, and gave it to him before breakfast.  He was SO EXCITED he carried it to the table while he was eating!  We dressed him in special outer space clothes for his special day.  He had a great day at school, being pampered and fussed over by all his teachers.  We sent him with his favorite lunch (broccoli, fake chicken, cheese, raspberries, grapes and chocolate chips).  We picked him up a bit early, and before we left the school his teachers said such wonderful things about how beautifully he's growing and developing.  At home, we decided to just play with him all afternoon and get Thai food delivered so we wouldn't be distracted by chores and cooking.  Unfortunately there was a bit of a snag when the food couldn't be delivered, so I had to go pick it up, but we did get to spend plenty of time playing with his new truck, and the play silks I got him, and also opening some packages that we were sent by relatives.  There were new books to read, which made the evening routine that much nicer.

On the 22nd (I think?), using the money that Great Aunt Peggy sent for Christmas, we took Silas to buy a balsam fir at the Christmas tree lot.  It was snowing, and the lot owner was unexpectedly jolly and fond of Silas, and it all of a sudden put us in a holiday mood, after weeks of illness, business, stress and very little time to relax.  We got a short, fat tree that we thought would be difficult to overturn, and it worked perfectly in our small apartment.  We decorated it with a few lights and some shatter-proof balls and a paper snowflake - only the most babyproof items!

Our Christmas plans didn't go quite as smoothly, but it still ended up being a good holiday.  Silas got sick on the 20th with quite a high fever, but no other symptoms except for some congestion at night.  Unfortunately, he was sick for 4 days, so I stayed home from work with him while he recovered.  It wasn't a bad illness, and under the influence of Tylenol he was comfortable and happy, but we couldn't send him to school with a fever.  He finally got better on Christmas Eve.  We were planning to spend Christmas Even with some new parent friends we met in the area, but because they were concerned about their son catching whatever Silas had, our plans were canceled.  It turned out that Silas had one of his rare but intense Very Grumpy Days on Christmas Eve anyway.  He was MISERABLE for most of the day, extremely demanding, without much idea of what exactly he wanted!  Before the evening, the best part of the day was listening to the King's College service on the radio, and listening for Grandpa Dick clearing his throat between hymns - but Silas screamed through the entire second half of the service, so I didn't get to hear all of it.  To top things off, Brian came down with Silas's illness, which was especially inconvenient because I had to leave the house to take care of the fish at the lab during the afternoon, and Brian needed rest.  In the evening, we went to the local Unitarian Universalist church service, feeling that we needed some kind of marker to the holiday, and we also really needed to get out of the house, even if we weren't feeling well.  It turned out to be an unexpectedly lovely experience.  Silas was much, much better behaved given the change of pace, the service was very nice (very diverse), and Silas was totally enchanted by the candlelight part.  We also had a very nice dinner, including syllabub, which Silas was very happy to eat.  We enjoyed the meal and were also relieved that Silas's appetite had finally returned after his long fever.  (For several days during the fever he ate only 1-2 bites of solid food.  Thank goodness he was still nursing, because he refused water and soy milk - if he hadn't been well hydrated by nursing we would have had to take him to the hospital.)

On Christmas Day, Grandma Susie and GG came to spend the day with us.  (Grandpa Dick was with Aunt Hannah in Cambridge, England!)  Silas was in a much better mood, we'd all had some sleep, and there were some presents to open!  Big improvement.  Grandma Susie and GG came with all kinds of goodies, and we had made some of our own, so there were plenty of delicious snacks to go around.  We headed off to visit Aunt Julia and Uncle Niels mid-morning.  They served us a very special brunch (of course), Silas actually enjoyed eating (thank goodness his appetite had returned), and we all had some good conversation.  Silas ran around their apartment for a while, and when he started to get a bit rough with Uncle Niels' pinecone collection we all went outside to the playground.  Silas had a good time despite still feeling a bit emotionally delicate.  In the afternoon, Silas, Brian, Grandma Susie and GG all took a nap, and I took a bit of a break!  Then we went for a walk around the neighborhood and drove to the Boston Common to see all the fancy Christmas lights.  We had a dinner of cheese fondue, apples and pickles.  After Silas went to bed, I had to go back to the lab to take care of things, and Grandma Susie and GG came along to watch the process.  It was a very nice day.

After a fun visit to the Children's museum the next day (and more trips to the lab),  we left on the morning of the 27th for Ithaca.  The drive went relatively smoothly, and we arrived in the mid-afternoon.  Unfortunately, by that time, I had come down with a fever as well, but it wasn't as bad as Brian's - he still hadn't recovered.  I drove almost the entire way and both of us felt terrible.  It was great to be in Ithaca, aside from the illness.  Silas had an entire carefully babyproofed house to explore, probably 3 times larger than ours, and endless loving attention from Grandma Marsha and Grandpa Fred.  We had some nice walks on the Commons and at waterfalls, and a special dinner with two of Brian's best friends from elementary school, one of whom came with his newborn son.  I got the chance to take a few naps (and did no chores whatsoever), and Brian did a great deal of resting, none of which he really got to enjoy because he was still so sick.  Silas suddenly hit a major growth spurt and started eating like a truck driver and waking up at night, so we had a few especially exhausted times.  Silas's eye infection from several weeks previously returned, and we had to take him to the urgent care center to get a new antibiotic.  Then BRIAN had to go to the ER on New Year's Eve because he'd had almost 2 weeks of fever.  He was diagnosed with a sinus infection and started antibiotics.  While he was gone, Silas woke up and refused to sleep alone, so Brian rang in the new year with the antibiotics and tests, and I rang it in cuddled up next to Silas in a twin bed so he would sleep.  Not what we had in mind, exactly!  The next day I drove us all home while Brian dozed feverishly in the back seat.  We forgot Silas's food in Ithaca, which meant we stopped at a strip mall hoping to go to an Applebees.  We've never been, but it seemed like it might be toddler-friendly.  Anyway, it had a huge line, so we ended up going to the world's worst Subway, and Silas ran around in the lobby of a mall.  Then later we stopped at another rest area looking for something edible, and found pizza, which I was convinced couldn't be COMPLETELY ruined.  Well, it WAS completely ruined, actually tasting legitimately disgusting.  Silas ran around in the lobby of another rest area and had another tantrum when we stuffed him back in his car seat.  The whole trip took about 10 hours and we were absolutely flattened when we got home.

The good news is that after a couple days the antibiotics fixed Brian up, and although he was congested for a while longer, the acute exhaustion and fever went away.  The day after we got back, Silas went to school and had a nice day playing while we recuperated a bit at home and had lunch out.  Phew!

Silas at 1

Height: 31 inches
Weight: 20 pounds, 12 ounces
Eyes: greenish-hazel
Hair: light brown with hints of red, just like his Mama, and finally long enough to produce seriously cute bedhead
Teeth:  Silas had 8 teeth between 8 and 11 months, and then a molar came in.  Now, a second molar is partially erupted.  Scratch that.  I just discovered that all 3 remaining molars are partially erupted.  Maybe that's why he's been waking up so early...

Health:  Although Silas didn't get sick at all before he started daycare, since then, he has brought home a new cold every 2 weeks.  Each cold has been different and "unique in its own way", and us lucky parents have caught every single one.  Because of this, we have experienced a colorful sampling of nasty local upper respiratory infections.  Silas has sailed through each illness in about 24 hours, seeming slightly lethargic and possibly mildly grumpy but otherwise unaffected, save for a runny nose.  A dose of Tylenol has so far never failed to fix him up completely.  Lucky kid.  We, on the other hand, have suffered through days of fever, pain and a hose of other unpleasant symptoms.  I currently have my 5th cold in the last 2 months, which is more colds than I had in the previous 10 years. (At least THIS one didn't come with a fever!)

Motor skills: He walks!  Silas took his first steps at 10.5 months (between me and the kitchen cabinet, while crying in anger because I could not pick him up while I was draining pasta - I don't think he even realized he had walked).  By about 11.5 months, he was walking all the time, though he fell very frequently.  Between 11.5 and 12.5 months he became much more stable and began trying to run!  He also walks backwards and does an adorable array of toddler "moves", including something that looks exactly like "downward dog".  We called it "baby yoga", and Silas now does it on command, much to our delight.  He also climbs everything he can find, dances to music, runs very fast while pushing his cart, throws balls, chases them, and squats to pick them up, "sleds" on floors using a cushion, and generally finds all kinds of ways to have physical fun.  He LOVES being tossed into a a fuzzy blanket or pile of pillows.

Communication:  As has been the case for quite some time now, Silas understands a great deal of what we say, and has quite a range of options for making his desires and opinions known.  His receptive vocabulary seems to be excellent.  We can ask him to go get an object, even if it is in a different room, and he will go get it and bring it back ("Silas, it's dinner time.  Can you go into the kitchen and get your bib and bring it to the table?").  He will confidently open the correct drawer, cupboard or bin to look for something we ask him to find. He knows all his toys, everyday objects and favorite books by name ("Silas, where's your book 'The Wheels On The Bus'?").  Only two days after he got Duplos as a Christmas present, we asked him where they were and he rushed over to find and open the box, so he certainly picks up vocabulary extremely fast. He knows his teachers, the cats, and of course his parents by name, too.   He can identify quite a few body parts (eye, nose, ear, toes), and is inconsistent with several more.  We can point out objects in the natural world to him much more easily now - he tracks birds, looks for distant objects, and can find animals in trees.  We can use simple phrases to tell him what to expect and what will happen to him, which as made it drastically easier to do certain things, like leave him in his playpen for a few minutes, administer medicine, dress him, or ask him to wait while we get him something he wants.  When we have had to take him to the doctor, or taken longer-than-usual car rides, it has made a huge difference to explain to him what is happening, and why.  We are also able to ask Silas to participate in his self-care significantly more.  He knows how to wash his hands (if held next to the running water), put his arms and legs in his clothes, lie down for diaper changes (he even brings a diaper), hold still for nose wiping and temperature-taking, etc.

Newer developments include using two signs consistently:  milk and more.  He very frequently asks for more of a certain food or drink (it's not always completely clear which one, though he makes EXTENSIVE use of pointing!) and he signs milk while he nurses, or when he expects to nurse.  His SPOKEN vocabulary continues to baffle us, though.  Over the last 3-4 months, both of us have heard him say quite a number of very clear words - in total, 20 or more - but at the moment he doesn't use any of them all that consistently. (The first one I heard was "button", pronounced "tuttih", as he touched a button on my shirt when he was 8.5 months old.)  His words appear only in low-key situations, when he hasn't been asked to say anything.  There were several weeks within the last couple months when he consistently said "bowl", "cat', and a few other words consistently, but now he seems very shy about speaking, as if he doesn't want to perform.  For the moment, we have stopped asking him "Can you say ____?" type questions because we are concerned about making him stressed.  However, at school, he seems to speak more often.  His teachers often report that he says all kinds of words very clearly, even stringing together two words some times.  I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

Behavior:  For several months Silas has been keen to test the limits we have given him.  For example, there is a carbon monoxide detector in our kitchen which, for safety reasons, cannot be moved anywhere else.  It also can't be played with, not only because it's necessary equipment but because it might make an ear-splitting screech if disturbed.  It didn't take Silas long to learn that he wasn't supposed to touch the detector, but it continues to tempt him.  Actually, tempt isn't the right word.  It's more that he knows that if he touches it, a parent will swoop over and stop him.  If he is dissatisfied with the level of attention he is receiving, for example when we are cooking dinner, he will turn to us with a big smile on his face and reach out one finger to touch the detector, KNOWING that it will result in instant attention.  It has been our challenge to address both his need for attention, and our firm limit, without rewarding this kind of behavior.

Silas does sometimes have tantrums.  They occur almost exclusively when he is either very tired or very hungry, and the trigger is always being prevented from playing with something he finds interesting. This is normal, but it's challenging because it's hard for Silas to calm down as he gets more and more hungry and tired!  Our approach basically consists of sitting quietly with him, occasionally offering him an empathetic narrative-type statement like "You're so mad because we took away your crayons, but crayons aren't food.  Now you're crying", until he calms down.  Nursing is extremely effective at stopping tantrums, but we want to keep our options open, so I don't do it every time.

When not testing limits or having a tantrum - which fortunately is almost all of the time!! - Silas is sweet, silly, mischievous, and practically jumping out of his skin with joyful giggles.  He is so much fun!  He is a ham at the dinner table, doing whatever he can to get a laugh out of his parents or grandparents.  He loves to be chased, play hide and seek, roughhouse, and any kind of variation on peekaboo, but nothing makes him laugh harder than adults copying his movements.  He has nearly inexhaustible energy, but is able to focus for increasingly longer periods.  We often find him totally absorbed in some sort of toddlery task like putting a popsicle stick through a tube over, and over, and over again.

Eating:  Silas has experienced some enormous changes in appetite which are apparently normal for toddlers, but alarming for parents!  In mid December, he was hardly eating anything, taking just one or two bites of food at each meal (and almost entirely fruit).  In late December, he was eating everything we put on his plate, no matter what it was, and asking for more until we had given him so much food we had no idea where he was putting it.  He ate more than me!  5 or 6 large meals every day.  In the first week of January he visibly outgrew some of his clothes.  It was impressive.

He eats what we eat, almost all of the time.  There are a few things he doesn't care for, so sometimes we give him fruit cups or crackers that we know he likes, but he seems to enjoy most of what we enjoy, including lots of strong flavors and spiced foods.  He is finally making progress in using utensils!  He now feeds himself applesauce or oatmeal with a spoon, totally on his own, though he doesn't have much success with foods that don't stick to his spoon.  He eats breakfast and snacks at his own tiny table, and dinner with us, in a booster seat.  For the most part, he eats his food off a regular plate, although sometimes the plate gets flung around.  He drinks exclusively from an open cup at mealtimes, and we sometimes give him a sippy-top water bottle between meals.  He has become very expert at drinking from a cup.

Silas is still nursing.  I made it through my year of pumping - promise kept - and on his first birthday I sent him to school with some soy milk.  We now nurse when it's convenient - morning and evening, and whenever he wants on weekends.  So far, this has not resulted in plummeting supply, and I'm proud to say that throughout his entire first year, Silas never needed a drop of formula.  I am very grateful that Silas is still nursing because it is a wonderful way to ensure he gets high-quality nutrition, feed him when he's feverish and doesn't have an appetite for anything else, feed him when we're out and don't have food handy, calm him down, help him sleep (though he doesn't need it any more), and just generally keep the warm fuzzies healthy in our family.

Sleeping:  At 12.5 months, Silas has finally - FINALLY - begun actually sleeping through the night (10 hours without needing our assistance, though we are very aware that he wakes up several times).  I have no illusions that this will continue uninterrupted from now on, but it has been a long, long, LONG time coming.  The first time he ever slept 10 hours straight was right before his first birthday, and this week he has done it a few times.  This morning he woke up at 5:15, however, and couldn't get back to sleep (not even in our bed), yet conked out nursing at 7:00, so I'm not throwing a party just yet.  Still, given that Silas woke up every 45 minutes all night for long, long, long weeks at a time for his first 8 months... We have come so far.  And it's wonderful to see him rested, comfortable and at ease.  When he has "bad nights", these days, it tends to mean 2-3 wakings at most, and I am no longer haunted by constant sleep deprivation.  I get about 6-7 hours of sleep each night, although it's often disturbed a few times by Silas briefly calling out, or the cats, etc.

He may be starting the transition from 2 naps to 1.  When he wakes up at 6:30 or later, he doesn't fall asleep when I walk him to school, so he doesn't nap until around 1:00, when he naps with all his classmates on his little cot (usually 1-2 hours).  If he wakes up before 6:30, he often sleeps for 20 minutes on the way to school, and often takes a shorter nap at school.  On weekends, he tends to take a nap around 10, and another around 3:30, but the second nap is getting so late that it's starting to interfere with bedtime, so I think we may try to nudge him towards a one-nap schedule this week.

He goes to bed at 8:00, after books, songs, a bath, and nursing.  We have not missed a single night of his routine since he was about 6 weeks old.  While each of us has been away from him at bedtime a handful of times, he has never been put to sleep by anybody but his parents, and most of the time, both of us kiss him goodnight. (It's mostly lovely, but it would be nice if we could afford a babysitter!)

School: Silas attends school from 9:45-4:00 every day, and he loves it.  It seems that we were lucky enough to land in a classroom with wonderful teachers, although we have recently received news that a new executive director is coming to the center, which may or may not shake things up.  Silas's teachers have nothing but wonderful things to say about him (they always comment on what PERSONALITY he has! and how willing he is to learn and try out new things), and we are so reassured that he is being loved and appreciated there.  He has learned a lot, he gets worn out each day, and he interacts with other children.  Although the first weeks were incredibly stressful, it has turned out so positively.  And we are so pleased that we are currently able to balance his 6 hours in school with low-key, unhurried time at home both before and after.