Silas at 14 months and the Great Snow of 2015

We are currently in the middle of our 4th blizzard in 23 days.  90 inches of snow have fallen here, more than twice the average amount of snow that usually falls in an entire winter, and the 3rd largest yearly snow total ever recorded, even though it's just mid-February and we had no snow until January!  We've had 7 snow days in the past 3 weeks, our car has gotten stuck in the driveway many times, the snowdrifts are over all of our heads (even Brian!) and it has taken Silas and I up to 3 hours to get to the South End for school/work.  It's been an awesome demonstration of the power of nature to bring a city to its knees!  There is nowhere to put the snow - there are mountains 5 stories high in abandoned parking lots, huge banks at all intersections, and the sidewalks are only 6 inches wide in our neighborhood, although they're much wider in busier areas.  The entire public transit system has shut down completely 4 times now (including today) which is a very great inconvenience for many people, including me, since I depend on it to get to work.  It's also been extremely cold - it hasn't been above freezing in more than a month, and these days it's usually below 5 F in the morning when we leave for work.

Silas has certainly gained confidence with snow - he now walks confidently either on his own, or holding my hand, which he sometimes requests.  Yesterday he walked all the way to the grocery store and back all by himself (except for some street crossings), a total of about 2/3 of a mile.  We had a few diversions to watch diggers at work.  (Silas is so obviously excited about construction equipment that the operators often notice and honk or wave to him!)  After an extensive search for winter boots in size 4.5, we determined that nobody makes practical winter boots for a toddler of his size (just stiff decorative "work boots" no child could walk in, plus the nice-looking ones we already have which actually just fall off his feet), and we ordered some with the help of friends in Sweden.  We're glad they'll arrive soon, because it doesn't look like the snow is going anywhere.  Not only is more snow in the forecast, but record-breaking cold temperatures are, too.  We anticipate having snow on the ground until mid-April.

Silas now says many, many words, most of which are difficult to understand.  The following list isn't exhaustive by any means, but it should give a sense of his vocabulary:  hi, bye, yes, no, "mmm", yucky, cat, truck, digger, eat, more, guitar, up, down, in, out, pizza, pasta, dog, chocolate, cheese, ear, belly, knee, teeth, ball, hug, book, cracker...  He learns new words almost instantly but almost never says more than the first syllable of any word.  He will attempt to repeat everything we say, which makes it hard to say which words he officially "has", and which he doesn't.  He learns new definitions after one demonstration.  He signs eat, more, milk, and all done consistently, points at things he wants, and will drag us around by the hand to wherever he wants us to be.

He understands fairly complicated directions, too.  We can ask him to do the laundry and (provided he's in the mood) he'll go collect dirty cloth items and put them in the machine and shut the door.  he will also get ready to eat by finding a bib and going to his chair.  If we ask him to put his toys away he will often bring them to the appropriate place, one by one.  He shows evidence of planning ahead even on his own - he loves to play with his toy cars by driving them up and down the windowsill while standing in his playpen.  He collects all his cars (he has 4) one by one, throws them into the playpen where he cannot reach, and then asks to be put inside himself.  When he's done playing, he throws them out one by one, and then asks to be taken out!

Silas is showing the first glimmers of and understanding of ethics and morality.  At home, when he gets angry, he sometimes hits us.  We always respond by gently holding his hands down and telling him that even when he's angry, he must never, ever hit anybody.  While he cannot always control himself, he often reaches up to touch us gently or gives a hug after behaving badly.  Interestingly, at school, his teachers tell us that he has NEVER behaved in this way.  He doesn't take toys from other children, or hit anybody, ever.  I'm reasonably convinced that he works hard to be on good behavior in that context, and lets all his feelings out at home.  This isn't to say that he's unhappy at home - usually he's very happy - but he does seem to feel more comfortable demonstrating a full range of emotion.  (At school, he also rarely cries if he hurts himself.)  We think this is good, but we certainly want to help him understand that hitting is never an appropriate way to get what he wants.

It's neat to see Silas interacting with his toys in new ways.  He can now use his shape sorter, or at least half of it - he expertly sorts circle and hexagon shapes, and knows where the squares go, but is bedeviled by triangles for some reason.  As of yesterday, he can do a simple wooden puzzle (matching the pieces with their spots, orienting them, and putting them in the hole).  He can stack blocks very well - both Brian and I have seen him stack 7 blocks without any help, although 5 is more typical.  Recently he has become very interested in the letters and numbers printed on the sides of the blocks and can identify "A" and "B".  He plays with Duplos, and sometimes even puts them together.  His ring stacker, once such a favorite, is old news and too easy for him.  He is much less interested in objects than in driving toy cars all over the house, loading up his wooden cart with items and pushing it all over, and helping with any sort of household task.  He likes any kind of novel container with any kind of lid or closure, and likes putting things in and out over and over again.

He's doing great with motor skills - he walks backwards, spins in circles, dances in several different ways, and climbs on EVERYTHING.  He loves his rocking horse and throwing himself around on our bed.  He throws balls overhand very well, and enjoys throwing anything he can find for the cats to chase.  He scribbles with pens, which he's done for several months now, but doesn't seem to have any purposeful motions.

He is often bruised as a result of his high-energy antics, and he currently has a big bruise on his cheek from trying to climb out of a high chair at school.  Unfortunately, his worst casualty so far is his right front tooth, which he chipped last weekend after slipping on a bathmat and hitting his face against the tub.  We felt really, really terrible that we had allowed him to injure something that can't be fixed, but fortunately, the tooth is not in danger.  (And it wasn't all that preventable - we were both standing within 1 foot of him when it happened.  Feeling guilty and anxious, we haven't yet allowed him to come into the bathroom again...)  The pediatric dentist smoothed it out and told us not to worry.  Silas now has a snaggle-tooth smile, which is as cute as ever, but we do feel like it's a 5-year-long advertisement of our parenting...