Silas Jones

Today we tried, Lord we tried, to get Silas to play in the snow. We dressed him in baby ski bibs that I bought at an awesome second-hand children's store in Greenville, NC and we laced up his baby Timberlands, a present from his cousin, A.J.

At first he seemed interested.

Look at the pretty, white snow. It's so fluffy-looking!

I think I might like to go out there.

Hmmm. This...isn't so bad.

Look, this stuff is kind of fun to play with!

And right after that picture was taken, he face-planted directly into the snow. And I had one of those transcedental parenting moments: Should I help my child up or should I take his picture in this humiliating (but hilarious) moment of need?

Y'all, it took everything I had in me, but I put my camera down and picked my screaming baby up. And lo, was he upset.

I finally got him calmed down. With my stash of emergency chocolate.

If you weren't giving me chocolate right now, we would not be speaking, woman.

Hamming it up with a waffle

Sorry about the lack of posting. Now that Silas is so mobile, we rarely have a stretch of time in which to write blog entries. But as I type, Matt is baby-wrangling, so hopefully this will be a somewhat substantive entry. I hope you guys don't mind bullets though.

Things that have happened since we last talked:

Nanny vacation and time with Uncle Haig. Silas's nanny went on vacation to Romania for two weeks and while she was gone, Uncle Haig (my brother) generously offered to take vacation from his job with the Carolina Mudcats to watch Silas on the days that we had to work before and after Christmas. Other than the diaper changes, the contents of which, according to Haig, could have sparked international incidents, the boys had a great time together playing and occasionally watching Sports Center. Silas LOVED having some quality time with Uncle Haig and Uncle Haig now has a remarkable command of baby sign language.

Christmas! We drove down to NC to visit with our families and had a lovely time visiting with folks we haven't seen in a while, including Silas's great aunt Donna (my dad's sister) and uncle Jack, Fran and Rosie (our former neighbors), the Balls, and a bunch of other people I'm probably going to get in trouble for not mentioning. Our Christmas celebration(s) were lovely if exhausting. And Silas has certainly enjoyed all of his wonderful Christmas presents--especially the books. Given the difficulties getting down there and back, however (see next bullet), we're pretty sure we're going to try to celebrate Christmas in Arlington next year.

I think that Santa guy has a lot in common with my Big Papa

Stocking stuffers!

Loving my new T-ball set

Emergency room. Yes, you read that right. On the way down to NC for Christmas, Silas came down with the croup very suddenly and very acutely. It was terrifying. Given he was having so much trouble breathing, we used our GPS to find the nearest emergency room and pulled into Nash County Hospital at 11:30pm on the night before Christmas Eve. 4.5 hours worth of steriods and breathing treatments later, we were back in the car on the way to my parents' house. Silas was exhausted but okay, but Uncle Haig may be scarred for life from the things he witnessed in the waiting room during those 4 and a half hours. Have I mentioned what a good uncle he is?

Weaning. Silas is officially weaned now and I think I'm taking it much harder than he is. We weaned him very slowly to minimize the trauma for the both of us and he's handling it wonderfully, although it seems like he's constantly getting sick (and then giving the crud-du-jour to us, of course). He's still allergic to cow's milk though, so we weaned him to sippy cups of soy milk. Every so often we test out regular milk to see if he's grown out of his allergy, but so far no dice (see diaper contents of doom and international incidents, as described above).

New Year's. We had our good friends Jim and Ginny and John and Heather over for New Year's. I made braised short ribs and goat cheese polenta that were pretty delicious, if I do say so myself, and Heather made delicious molten chocolate mini cakes that would make you slap your mother. We all stayed up way too late, but we really had a great time, as we always do with those guys.

Eating black eyed peas for good luck

Birmingham visit. Last weekend, MLK weekend, we flew down to Birmingham, AL to visit with Matt's dad (Silas's Papa), stepmom (Nana), step-nephew (A.J.) and various other family members. Despite having an ear infection and conjunctivitis and generally looking like Ebola baby, Silas handled the flight down there fine although melted down a little once we got to Matt's dad's house. He love love loved spending time with his cousins A.J. and Kahlen, playing on the trampoline, and being spoiled with kisses from his Nana. Despite the fact that more than half the adults ended up with a terrible stomach virus (including me...on the plane ride home), it was a really great trip and we're looking forward to A.J., Angela's, and Papa and Nana's visit in March.

With my cousin A.J. and his awesome trampoline in the background

Dad and Papa lounging

Talking. Silas talks constantly. Most of it is nonsense, but every so often he throws in real words (used correctly in context) and it blows our freaking minds. He'll bring us his Animals book and say "animos?" Around noon he'll look at us and ask "unch?" He says dog--"dah," duck--"duh," milk--"nilk," outside--"ows-eye," breakfast--"breh-fa," hat--"hat," waffle--"waffa," opposites (the name of one of his favorite books)--"oppos," and lots more that I can't think of right now.

Waffas waffas and more waffas

Walking and getting around. He's walking like a professional these days. He even runs sometimes and although 8 times out of 10 that ends in face-plants and tears, he's definitely getting more coordinated.
Kisses. This is my favorite new development. Silas is a lover not a fighter. He LOVES to give kisses and when the mood strikes--even if he really doesn't know you very well--he purses his lips, makes an exaggerated "mmmmm" sounds and leans in for a kiss right on the lips. It tends to take certain people by surprise, so consider yourself warned. Come to think of it, maybe this is why we're all constantly getting sick.