Travel Log

On day one of my trip to NM and while i've been looking forward to the trip for work, i've been dreading it for family reasons.  Silas is so needy right now and has episodes of not being able to seperate from me at all that thought of having to leave him come Monday morning had me really worried.  But just to make sure it's clear that i don't have the blueprint, when i mentioned it was time to get my coat on, his eyes got a little watery but he just gave me a big hug and asked who i was meeting on my trip. 

He and Henry bid me a fond farewell and i just skeddadled out of the house.  Then he got dressed and put on underwear with Oma.  Sounds like it was a great day all around.  So curious to see if the trend continues, but glad for all our sakes that it went well today.  Henry just kept keeping on.  I promise more updates on him to come-- i know they've been Silas centered lately.

Dry little Piggies

Silas surprised us again today on the potty training front.  After my last post the thrill of underwear seemed to wear off, or for some reason he just didn't seem to want to wear it.  No biggie.  Someday he'll potty train, i know that.  Then this morning we were talking about when and if we needed to get dressed and Silas was giving us a little bit of static about needing to get dressed before some friends came over to play.  I told him he could stay in his pajamas until just before they got there.  Then surprisingly, around 9 am he told me he wanted to get dressed.

I hopped up, headed straight for his closet and as we were going to change his diaper he announced that not only did he want to get dressed on his own free will, but he wanted to go potty, and then pick out underwear.  And we did.  And he picked some underwear with pigs on it and was very happy to show and tell everyone that he was keeping his underwear warm and dry.

He resisted the 30 minute timer i set to go potty but wore his underwear all day-- even when we went grocery shopping, and didn't have an accident.  Could this really be something?  I'll keep you posted.

Brotherly Love-- the real world

Silas is in his normal spot rocking in the chair outside my bathroom while i get ready in the morning.  Henry was upstairs for at least 15 minutes before Silas came up and not a mention of the rocking chair.  As soon as Silas comes up and starts to make a beeline for it, Henry says loudly-- "I want to rock."  Which of course makes Silas wail because this is part of his routine, and you just don't get between Silas and his routine (he doesn't care much for your routine though, thank you very much.)

I point out that Henry hadn't given the chair the time of day until Silas wanted it.  Henry chose not to engage on that one but offered a solution-- why didn't we bring up the child's rocking chair from downstairs.  Hey good troubleshooting kid, i'll be back in a jiffy.  I bring the chair up and after i've gotten the hairbrush through my hair twice i look back as more screams are breaking out.  Henry is rocking in the chair i brought him, but only if it's going to be right in front of Silas' chair, bonking into it with every rock.

And that about sums up the state of brotherly love in our house right now.

Train Underwear

I may go back to more frequent but "vignette-type" postings for a bit.  I'm finding it difficult to craft more of an essay-type blog post.  But enjoy sharing the boys' going-ons with folks, and documenting them for myself in an online type of journal.

Silas first started showing some (limited) interest in using the potty months ago (i think it might have even been late summer).  His interest clearly waned and i haven't pushed much at all because well, this is Silas and you just don't push unless you have to.  Two nights ago he found a pair of Henry's old Thomas underwear and got completely excited.  He demanded he put it on right away and talked and talked about keeping it dry and using the potty.  He jumped up and down and clapped and did keep his underwear dry.  So now we're sending underwear to daycare and intend to see how he does there, before we try this at home.  He's been more willing to use the potty regularly at daycare which is why we're trying this approach.  We'll see.  It sure would be nice if he decided to fully move out of diapers in time for preschool in the fall!

Good Night Ceremony

I was just re-reading my post on planting the seeds of tradition and thought a nice spin-off post was needed.

I've been doing more and more reading about Waldorf approaches to childhood. They are big into simple and ceremonies. Part of simplicity is embracing nature and natural materials and going for authentic experiences. So they're big on marking celebrations with candles. After the experience celebrating the winter solstice with the candles the boys got to where they wanted to light a candle each evening that lived on the dining room table. They loved it!

I had read about a bedtime ritual that embraced lighting a special bedtime candle and was intrigued by the idea. But couldn't quite play out a scenario in my head where i'd be in the room with both boys that didn't end with them fighting over the candle leaving us all out on the curb, homeless.

But really. I shouldn't have sold them short. I decided to try it one night and here's how we do it in detail in case someone else is wondering how on earth this could work with two kids.

They have to be in bed with all requests already submitted (in writing, in triplicate). If you ask for more water or another book after the candle is lit we don't do the candle the next night. You have to be in your own bed and "settled down." This is a completely subjective call by me.

I light a small candle, kneel in the space between their two beds and we sing a few quiet songs. I'm not musical nor good at remembering the words to things so right now we sing "rock a bye baby," "twinkle twinkle" and then a song called "thank you" sung to the tune of Happy Birthday in which we take turns thanking people for all the good/helpful stuff that happened during the day.

Then we all blow out the candle together and i depart.

They truly love the candle and there is a reverence that comes over them in the presence of fire that i didn't expect. But what makes this account different from all the waldorf "inspirational" reading i do is this truthful account of the "other details." In my house there are nights that immediately after blowing out the candle Silas jumps out of bed and demands water or jumps into Henry's bed and starts yelling "wrest-a-ling, wrest-a-ling," or generally shows that he is not planning on sleeping anytime soon.

Basically sometimes the candle works magic and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes we don't have time for a book and a candle. So this act hasn't transformed my house into a peaceful beautiful night-time tableau, but it is another way of connecting with the boys and something that they love and that we use as incentive and a way to ground us at night. And i try to think we're laying seeds for when Silas is no longer 2.

Halloweeen?

Today we scored a pass to the museum of science and industry and i took the boys on the first ever big outing solo, with no stroller! All was amazing. Some shenanigans getting out the door but nothing major, two boys that did awesome in a very over-stimulating museum, just enough to see and do, and then lunch in the car ride home. Awesome. And naps which went smoothly for the first time in a few days. I didn't bring the camera, but thought i'd share a write-up of the outing so it was fixed in my minds eye.

After some web research and recommendations from friends, we decided to focus on seeing the full-size Sub, the Zephyr train you can walk around and go on, the enormous model train area and the airplane area above the trains. We had some incidental contact with other exhibits, but we focused on those. We probably could have skipped the airplane one because by then Silas was getting a tad overwhelmed, but really i couldn't have asked for a more fun outing.

We started by exploring the outside of the Zephyr train and found out they offered free tours inside the train every 15 minutes. I told Henry we could do it on the way out and we all agreed we go off in search of the submarine. It's a pretty meandering path through some other exhibits, but we made our way to the Sub are. Silas says "submarine" but it sounds just like "halloween" and i kept getting confused when he'd talk about the big halloween.

There are all these movies and mini exhibits about the war on the way to the submarine. Henry wanted to stay put and watch each old black and white newsreel but a) i'm not sure wartime newsreels are the best "screen time" for him and b) Silas was not interested and a little scared. But we finally made it down to the enormous room where the full-size submarine is kept. You walk down and around and get to see and do lots of little exhibits along the way. Henry found some more videos and Silas found buttons (which come to think of it is exactly how we spent our museum day a year ago). Henry and I started having a pretty big conversation about war at the tail end of the exhibit and he revisited the topic as i was tucking the boys into bed. I answered a few questions and told him we could talk more today. But his brains all stirred up and hopefully won't beset by too many bad dreams.

Next up was the enormous model train exhibit. We spent a long time there, checking out all the different aspects of the model train country. Silas finding all the buttons, Henry scanning for the built-in steps to stand on for a better view. Silas' favorite part of the museum was here, where you could push a button near the Sawmill vignette and listen to "TIMBER" and the crack of a loud tree falling. We did that many, many times.

Upstairs for a quick poke through a big airliner, a bit of getting lost trying to get back down, and then the promised tour through the Zephyr train. Seems it was the fastest train in 1930 and was able to travel 120 miles an hour. It made a special trip between Denver and Chicago for the World's Fair, and a donkey was picked up in Denver, brought on the train, and presented to the train president (i think) once they arrived in Chicago.

All of this to explain why a portion of the tour was led by an animatronic donkey. When the boys were questioning the donkey on the tour i explained it was a robot. But then later i said maybe it was magic donkey. On the way home we debated which was probably right (Henry-- robot, Silas- magic donkey) and Henry told me we'd have to go back and be scientists to figure it out.

Then pb&J in the car, a little belly-aching and some good rest for all our sore legs. Plus we cleaned the house, which i will write about (scintillating cliff hanger) in my next post.

End of Year Festivities

Many of my readers were lucky enough to share either Christmas or New Years with us. We hosted our third year of both families visiting us in Chicago. The boys did awesome and had a ball at Christmas. As per usual they loved having all the family around to play with, read stories with, and generally supplement their already well-loved little lives. Silas has sometimes been overwhelmed with visitors so i was a little apprehensive about the number of visitors.


But actually he did great. Dinners at home were a bit touch and go but blessedly the night out everyone did great. And of course the highlight was Christmas Eve with new Christmas pajamas and Christmas morning with a huge abundance of gifts. We actually got everything opened in one day-- and for the first year ever, before naptime! I think a few highlights of the morning were Silas' new Dora DVD, the dollhouse Silas got and the trucks that you take apart and put back together with tools.


In addition to all the Christmas loot, JT's parents brought with them some toys my parents had saved for me that i thought the boys would appreciate. We've put together the doll bunkbeds and the highchair and along with the new kitchen, these implements seem to have helped the boys imagination take off. I'm trying to stoke the development however i can-- of course without seeming to. Last night they were pretending to go on a trip to see Africa and feeding their baby on the plane.


After we bid adieu to our family we headed out to Michigan City for a New Year's week with 4 other couples and families. The house was absolutely beautiful and the weather was warm enough we pretty easily got the boys out of the house for some gorgeous walks every day but the last day. We also planned art activities each day. This combined with the kids being a year older and generally able to play with each other for at least a bit on their own contributed to a fun and less exhausting trip this year.


As soon as we got to the Michigan house Silas started asking when we were going home. But as opposed to the trauma a trip seemed to stoke in Silas this summer, this time when i just answered "We'll go home on Saturday" he accepted it and seemed satisfied. Now he's been asking about when we'll go back. I bet by next year he'll be a real veteran!

I know i haven't been keeping everyone very up to date. I think i mentioned that i got a promotion at work, which has been great, but even fully staffed i was going to have one less staff person working for me than my old boss had working for him. On top of that, the other FT person quit in September and we're still in the process of replacing him. So, i have my old job to do, the other Research Associate's job, and the new job. It's a lot and i'm busier than i've ever been before which means working many evenings instead of updating all of you.

But, a few quick moments to catch people up. We've had some ups and downs medically with Silas lately. Right now he's got more going on medically than a 23 month old should! He had been referred to an ENT because of persistent fluid in his ears. The next step is tubes-- we have an appointment in 2 weeks to find out how quickly we need to get it scheduled. At the same appointment we found out that Silas has a fungal infection on his head that he got scratched until now it's bacterially infected. So, 10 days of antibiotics and then 8 WEEKS! of antifungal medicine. We also now have to use special shampoo on the bumps.

To top it off, he threw up last night in his crib. I'm not sure what that was about. He hasn't had a fever and has acted normally all day. So we'll keep an eye on him.

Henry is well for now and had another great soccer class. He's getting so good at "trapping" the ball with his foot and generally keeping the ball close to him. I think next week is our last class and then in a few weeks we're going to start a class through the parks district. It will depend what i can get him signed up for but i'm looking at t-ball and a "hit, throw, run" class. Either of which i think he would do well with. He has asked about an art class as well so i'll have to see if that's something i can find for him-- maybe later in the summer.

I'm home for 2 weeks now so i hope to have some pictures sooner or later and some more posts.

Busy Bees

Thanks to all for the well-wishes. I owe several of you a return message but i wanted to get a post out so people didn't start to worry. We're really doing fine. My toe is healing-- at least to the point where it's just achy and not painful and it isn't really keeping me from doing anything.

This past weekend was testament to that. Even though the weather was less than ideal(rainy and 40 or overcast and 40 with strong winds) we had a good weekend and i managed to make some serious progress on my outdoor projects. As i like to say "there are only 2 days in the weekend and 2 hours in naptime," so regardless of the weather i was out there doing crazy things both days.

Saturday i moved the leaf compost pile from the back yard all the way around to the side yard. Last year i didn't get around to blowing/shredding the leaves until the very late fall and i was rushing around because by the end of my leafblowing it was snowing-- hard. I wound up making a leaf pile right next to the ac unit which i knew would have to be moved before we could use the ac this year. Let's just say that moving partially composted, water-logged leaves into a wheelbarrow, then wheeling it 3/4 way around the house through thick soft mud (i just turned over the entire front yard) dumping (and repeat) made me feel not so bad about not getting to the gym during the week.

After that craziness i transplanted some of the hostas from the front to the side and capped off my chores by using a sledgehammer to break apart this strange concrete ring the previous owners made in the garden. It was so ugly and i've been dying to get rid of it. I'm only about 1/2 done but that was more than a good day's work.

I won't go into as much detail on Sunday-- i tried to do lighter stuff that day but i still worked for the 2 hour solid naptime lasted and was EXHAUSTED last night. The only downside to working during naptime is that i come in and the boys are fresh and rested and i'm ready for a bath and bed with 4+ hours to go.

Anyway it was nice to make so much progress. Henry's party is at our house on Saturday and i'm trying to keep my expectations reasonable for what i can get accomplished, but it would be nice to have a few more big projects completed in the front yard by then. We actually have sunny nice weather predicted this week so i'm going to see what i can accomplish during lunchtime.

Henry and Silas are both doing great and are anticipating their grandparents visit this week. Henry knows his birthday is coming and is quite excited about both it and Oms and Opa's visit.

Adapting

You know i'm not a morning person. Becoming a mom did nothing to change that fact. I managed to last three days after JT BROKE HIS WRIST of getting up with him when the kids woke up. After that each day i would stay in bed just a little longer until i was summoned. The other day the summons was particularly memorable. I had dreamily fallen back to sleep after JT got up and went downstairs to the boys. I was awoken by Henry standing, naked, next to my bed saying "Wake up Mommy, Silas has monkey-rita!" He was naked i was trying to make sense of monkey-rita and then it clicked-- of course, Silas had been struggling with a lower-GI thing and must have a terrible diaper, which JT can not take care of one-armed. I set the naked thing aside and focused on getting Silas taken care of. Thankfully Silas' affliction is gone because in addition to calling it "monkey-rita" Henry also referred to it as "margarita" and i could just imagine the conversations at daycare when he was telling Brenda that Silas has margaritas.

Henry has been potty-trained during the day for quite awhile now (a couple months i guess) and he has been pretty consistent about keeping his pull-up dry at night. So, this past Friday, we started putting him in underwear at night and so far so good. I expect to have some wet sheets at some point but i've been impressed that since last Friday he's been dry everynight. He does however wake up and have to go to the bathroom and on Monday after getting his pajamas off to go to the bathroom he just wasn't ready to get dressed yet. Rather than fight him-- JT sent him up to wake me up and tell me about Silas-- even though he was in his birthday suit.

JT and i are doing pretty well. On Tuesday we had our babysitter come over and while she helped out with the boys we made several nights worth of dinners. I think we've almost gone normal house stuff back on track. My toe seems to be healing faster than the Dr. predicted (i'm almost not limping anymore) and JT is getting very inventive at doing things with one-arm. We still have some challenges on the horizon but i think we'll survive-- a more optimistic feeling than when this all happened last weekend.

Calamity Ensues

Let me start with the positive things about this weekend-- i managed to get both kids to take a series of individual and combined pictures in which their hair isn't too crazy and they are actually smiling. That is nothing to sneeze about. We had 60 degree sunny weather for both Saturday and Sunday which is also a blessing. And, i managed to make progress on my outdoor projects-- got the front yard turned over and all the grass pulled out by the roots. I also got about 1/4 of the parkway dug up which is where i hope to transplant the shrubs to once i dig them out of the front yard.

Now for the bad stuff. JT was hit by a car on his way home from work on Friday. The guy stopped which was good and JT only broke a wrist-- clearly it could have been much, much worse. He spent a good chunk of Friday evening in the ER (mostly by himself because i didn't want to bring the boys but thanks to Corey i did manage to get down there to spend about an hour with him) and got a temporary cast on his arm. He goes this afternoon to get a permanent cast put on hopefully for something like 3-4 weeks and not 6 weeks like we feared.

Then-- oh yeah the fun doesn't stop-- i dropped a big piece of plywood on my toes on Sunday afternoon. Here's a safety tip-- wear real shoes when doing any kind of work that might harm you-- house shoes just really don't offer much protection as it turns out. I initially thought they were broken-- and i'm waiting to hear back from my x-rays this morning, but now i'm thinking maybe they're just bruised. Bruised would be infinitely preferable because they should heal in about 7-10 days as opposed to several weeks for broken toes.

So, we're working through various Dr. appointments today and trying to figure out how we're going to make it through the week. We're calling in all the help we can get and our thankfully blessed with amazing friends that live closeby. The Smerry's came over last night and helped us make dinner and watch the kids. Tonight i think we're going to just order dinner and Tuesday our babysitter is going to come over just to be an extra pair of hands for the dinner/bath/bedtime rush.

So, clearly you'll forgive my lack of pictures. In a couple weeks i'll have some great professional ones to share. In lieu of flowers, please send positive thoughts to our family that no one else decides to cause any bodily harm :)

Silas One Year Checkup

We had Silas' one year checkup on Thursday. We mostly talked our Ped's ear off about Silas sleep issues-- great one night terrible the next and checked off the pre-requisite developmental concerns as well. He's smack dab in the 10-25% percentile for weight which he's been since his early baby chubby days. I think he was 19 lbs. 12 oz to be exact and 31 in. long which works out to 75% percentile for height-- long and lean as she said. I guess Henry really was small because Silas looks like a downright sturdy baby to me but i guess he still doesn't hold a candle to those 90%percentile whoppers out there.


I believe i've been remiss in telling you about the onslaught of teeth Silas is suffering. He had 0 for almost the first 12 months of his life and then on the 23rd of March i noticed the bottom two coming in. Then this past weekend we saw the bottom two coming in as well. Dr. P checked them out and said the top right one is really swollen and probably uncomfortable for him. She recommended motrin at bedtime to help him deal with the discomfort and sleep a little better.

Yes the sleep. She said his ear infection is gone-- although he does have fluid still in his ear and wants to see him back in a few weeks when we go for Henry's 3 year appt. Otherwise she said that most likely his freak-outs at night are developmental-- separation anxiety, night terrors- all kinds of things that are "normal" around this age but hard to deal with. She recommended a few concrete things to try and to keep an eye on so i'll let you know in future posts how that works out. We had started moving his bedtime back to around 7:15 on nights he seemed like he could stay up later but we've since decided that was a bad idea and moved it back promptly to 7 and possibly a few minutes before. He transitioned to just one nap a few weeks ago and over tiredness may actually be causing some of the problems.


We've got lots of outdoor projects planned this weekend so i'm hoping the weather is cooperative. I'm also attempting to have both Henry and Silas' photographed tomorrow so you might want to check in on me at the end of the weekend to see if we survived. Happy Spring.

Happy Birthday Silas

Silas turned one last Thursday. We're having a combined party for he and Henry in mid-April, so additional celebration is forthcoming, but we had a little family party for him after school on Thursday evening. Henry was extremely accommodating at opening all of Silas' gifts and was even kind enough to test them all out for Silas. Silas was a bit fussy that night (did i mention he's finally getting some choppers) and after initially grabbing a big glob of cupcake icing and throwing it on the ground-- he decided that this cake/icing stuff was worth temporarily curtailing his screams for.

We have his one-year appointment on Thursday, so we'll see what they have to tell us about his growth and development.

The only concern i really have is that he's babbling away but has no words at this point. I think that's a bit "behind" the curve but probably not enough to worry about yet. We'll see what Dr. P says though.

Easter Recap

Although JT was away, the boys and I managed to really wring lots of enjoyment out of Easter. Henry's memory is now developed enough that he actually remembers hunting for Easter eggs last year and although some of the finer points of the holiday were new to him (and prompted lots of questions), the easter eggs were tons of fun. Last year my parents were visiting the week before Easter and they filled easter eggs with coins so that he could "practice" his egg-hunting skills. This year he put himself in charge of filling all the eggs with the coins i amassed for him. He was very good at parceling the coins out amongst the various eggs with none left over.

Saturday we dyed easter eggs with Corey, Troy and Kerala-- although Silas and Kerala didn't get involved too much in the dying. When we started Henry was talking about using sprinkles on the eggs, but luckily he was assuaged with the glitter that came in our egg kit. Henry's technique turned out to be "just keep putting them into different colors over and over and over." I have to say he turned out some beautiful eggs.


As we were dealing with 30 degrees and snow-covered ground, the Easter bunny visited the upstairs of our house and left an Easter basket for Henry and Silas at the end of the egg trail. Corey, Troy and Kerala all came over and Silas and Kerala brought up the year and had a lot of fun gnawing on the contents of the boys' Easter baskets. The Smerry's graciously invited us all over for Easter dinner at their house later in the afternoon apres naps. The ham was delicious, and it was a raucous time combining lots of little ones, candied sweet potatoes and all kinds of Easter goodies.

Innovation

I think it drives my Dad nuts, but one of the coolest thing about parenting Henry so far has been watching how he "innovates" with his toys. Not only is he often not interested in playing with them the "right" way but it clearly just doesn't occur to him that he's doing anything unusual.

Some of his recent experiments involve "tangling" all the Thomas trains in his basketball hoop

and hooking the very pastel and pretty easter eggs on his dinosaurs-- a new passion by the way:

I don't have pictures, but he's also invented "bowling" with his easter eggs which essentially involves throwing his eggs one by one out of his basket using the motion you use to throw a bowling ball. It's tons of fun-- until one is coerced, cajoled and threatened into picking them all up.

Birthday Countdown

Silas has good hair. Although it's wilder on some days than others, backlighting brings out it's true glory. We're rolling through a single parent weekend here and although it snowed another couple inches last night (on top of about 7 the day before) the sun has come out and it's at least melting off the cars and the cleared sidewalks. We made a quick trip to the library this morning, but our outing to the donut shop was curtailed due to uncleared inches of snow. If you've ever tried to push a stroller and hold a toddler's hand while tromping through snow, you'll know why we skipped that one.

I've tried to plan a lot of activity into our weekend to keep the kids from going stir crazy and me from feeling like the unscheduled hours are just stretching on. After naps today Corey and Troy and Kerala are coming over to help us dye Easter eggs. I think we're all going to order dinner together and then Troy's going to take Kerala home when it's time for bed. Corey and i have a date with Atonement on DVD. We tried to get to the theatre to see it ever since it came out and failed miserably. So, at last we will have a girls' night viewing

Tomorrow we're doing an easter egg hunt and baskets at our house in the morning with the Smerry's and then we're heading over to their house for Easter dinner after naps. Should be a fun day and if it actually warms up mid-week as it's predicted i'll even believe it's spring.

11 Months, 2 Weeks/ 2 Years, 11 Months

As we're nearing our boys' birthdays, thought i'd catch you up on what everyone has been doing lately. I think we're all *finally* well. I can only hope that's the last of the viruses for the winter but i'd appreciate any healthy thoughts you could throw our way. Silas seemed to get worse after he started getting better so we took him in last Friday and it turns out he had an ear infection. I should have guessed that that was what led to the terrible nights-- but it had been so long since he did have an ear infection that i forgot the pattern. Plus, he never does the whole ear pulling thing so it's hard to remember.

One thing about our boys-- they take their medicine with no complaint. It's actually a little scary with Henry because he seems to regard medicine as something akin to a treat. Even the liquid cough medicine he now takes from one of those little cups that smells horrible gives him a big smile. I'm not planning to dampen his enthusiasm, but we're also really careful to keep medicine out of reach and to talk about always having an adult give medicine to children. Silas just takes his medicine and moves on-- no great enthusiasm but nothing like disdain either.

Henry and Silas had two birthday parties to attend this weekend. Silas' peer Kerala (sh's 10 days older than he) had her birthday party on Saturday. Henry and Silas had a great time playing with all of her new toys and the other pint-sized guests, even though Henry had to protect his food from Kerala. On Sunday Henry went to Cary's 5th birthday party. It was led by Carys' dance teacher, and although it took Henry awhile to warm up, he ultimately had a great time dancing with scarves, going around the obstacle course and playing with the parachute.


Silas has gotten a little crazy lately what with all his exploring. He's scooting and actually crawling all over the house now and he pulls up on anything and everything he can (and some things he can't which has led to some tears.) He also puts EVERYTHING in his mouth which is something a little new for us. Henry would mouth toys when he was a baby but i don't remember him trying to eat rock salt. I attempted to sit on the porch with Silas the other day and it turned out to not be all that enjoyable. He was either trying to walk down the stairs, eat the leaves and dirt and leftover salt on the steps, or pull-up on the railing slats which need some new screws to be stable. So, we stayed just long enough to get some fresh air and headed back inside.

I'm looking forward to being outside with the boys doing gardening this spring, but it's become apparent we either need to get an exersaucer to keep Silas in or i'm going to have to pull out the pack-n-play.

Making Choices about Food

I recently finished reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollen. I found it a powerful book (although the last section could have used some additional editing in my opinion,) and it's been generating learning and discussion in our household in myriad ways.

The first section of the book lays out the path of our food system's industrialization from the 20s/30s to the present day. Key turning points and decisions along the way, such as crop subsidies, monocultures, and engineering cattle to eat grain instead of grass help you understand how things used to work and how they actually operate today.

Section two considers what he refers to as the "industrial organic" food system, i.e. whole foods. Pollen is an adept writer and is amazing at taking say, the history of corn and making it a page-turner. The conclusion i drew from the book can be boiled down to: the most important thing is to buy our food locally-- from farmers that we can "inspect" and have a relationship with. This cuts down on the petroleum fueled costs of transporting food across country, circumvents the industrial system of divorcing cattle from grazing and instead moving them to feed lots, and supports farmers that are farming in an environmentally sane way, i.e. merging animals back into the land so that animals fertilize the land and the land feeds the animals. Notice i didn't say organic anywhere in here. Of course a local farmer that isn't using pesticides if even better, but the chapter on industrial organic, or the large-scale organic food producers supplying whole foods-- was an eye-opener on how large-scale organic foods are as wholesome or logical as they might seem.



The book has been producing discussion and stimulating explorations of new skills in our household in a way i deem possible because of the rise of things like Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), local farmers' markets, numerous blogs and other Internet resources devoted to people trying to implement the same principles in their life. In other words, you don't read something that speaks to you and then feel like you have to "go off the grid" in order to implement your ideals.

It seems imminently doable to remain in our house in the city where we don't drive much and have access to public transport-- source our food from local farms (meat, dairy and produce), make as much of the other stuff as we can (i think my new interest for the summer is soap-making), grow some of our own vegetables and use native and perennial plantings in our flower garden (gone is our sorry looking lawn), keep using our cloth diapers and dry as much as possible on the line outside.

I'm not planning on quitting my job or not using electricity, and i'm happy to run my dishwasher when it's full thank you very much, but there are lots of things that help our budget, make us feel better about the food we're eating and nourishing our kids with, and show our support for the alternative suppliers to the industrial supermarkets. It doesn't hurt that it's spring and we get to start working on some of these projects!

At the end of the month we have a day-trip planned to a huge natural plant nursery in St. Charles, IL. I'll be meeting with a garden designer who will help me plan a very small prairie for our front yard. The nursery is an extensive supplier of native plants for the region and hard-picks their seed stock from plants within 20 miles. Other day-trips this spring include a visit to the farm we ultimately pick to buy shares of and source of meat, dairy and produce from.

Yucky Bunny's Adventures

So, we're slowly returning to the land of the living. Yucky bunny came home and the sun came out and warmed the earth above 40 degrees in our part of the world. That's enough to offset the cold i'm now hacking through and the slight return of sickness that Silas seems to be struggling with. I'd be terrible at living in the land of the midnight sun during the no sun months. Even if it's still largely too cold to really go outside, it makes a difference not having to wear your parka. So, with a little spring in my step and a hack in my throat i'll catch you up on our comings and goings.

The primary drama of course is that Yucky Bunny was found and i didn't even have to resort to putting up the posters i made. Just as i was finishing sealing my posters in plastic to keep them safe from the rain, i got a call from Brenda that a deep-clean had turned up the bunny. He had fallen between Silas' crib and the wall. Neither i nor Brenda remember me giving her the bunny, but that's where he was and he made it home safe and sound. I'll definitely be sticking those posters in our scrap book.

I think i mentioned Henry has been going through a renewed "testing" phase. He has been getting time-outs fairly regularly both at home and at school for not listening and calling people mean names. Not to say we accept any of this behavior, but it's so interesting to see how all of sudden he's a total little boy. A lot of the mean things he says are related to fighting "i'm going to bust you up" or "you want a piece of me?" On the one hand sometimes it's hard not to laugh but on the other hand we definitely don't want to reinforce this behavior. I'm trying to channel it towards story-telling which he's getting really into.

Most mornings in the car on the way to school he'll give me a subject (usually a dinosaur or a lion) and a few objects to put into the story. So far it's up to me to weave the drama into things. If you ask him to tell you a story he won't but he often recounts very exciting dreams that are clearly stories. His favorite one to tell right now is about how Jesse Bear (a sweet bear character from one of his books) and a fox were trying to chase him so he had to bust out the window THREE TIMES!

Beyond the interest in busting people up and making these pretend sounds and gestures i can only describe as things little boys do, his favorite activity is to go upstairs after dinner with JT and i and "wrestle." It actually seems to help wear him out for bed and he and Silas have been co-existing very nicely during the night without chattering until all hours.

Silas has been really struggling to get completely well, but otherwise he's moving along physically. He's cruising all over the place now-- moves from one piece of furniture to the other and he also likes to try to push things around while walking. He hasn't quite got the hang of his actual push toy (it moves pretty fast), but he loves to push the chairs around the kitchen while holding on.

We're looking forward to a weekend filled with two of Henry and Silas' friends birthday parties. Kerala has her 1-year party on Saturday and Carys is having her 5 year (!) dance birthday party on Sunday.

Yucky Bunny Come Home!

Everyone knows that Henry has a stuffed pal named Ralph (or Ralphie) and that he's been pretty special since Henry was about a year old. Well, Silas has formed an affiliation even earlier with a little stuffed bunny that we affectionately call yucky bunny. You haven't seen much of yucky bunny because he primarily stays in the crib, and in fact i can't find any pictures of Silas with yucky bunny, but he plays a big part in helping Silas fall asleep and get back to sleep on his own.

Well yesterday he went missing. I'm at a total loss. I think it's possible i put him in my coat pocket yesterday to give to Brenda since Silas had been sick over the weekend and i wanted to ease his day. I don't remember giving it to Brenda and Brenda doesn't remember getting it, but the bunny is nowhere to be found. Last night i was looking in the gutters on our street, Brenda's street, and at the Doctor's office thinking that maybe it fell out of my coat when i was getting in and out of the car yesterday. Nothing. I've absolutely searched the house and just don't have any other ideas on where to look. Silas did okay during the night given the circumstances but he had a hard time falling asleep and when he woke up at 6:15 he couldn't get back to sleep.

I figure at this point i've covered almost all my bases, so i'm putting up flyers just in case someone picked him up. I know i'm a crazy mom at this point but i just want my baby to have his bunny back and to make nighttime pleasant again.