Serious Silas

Silas is my serious boy.
He really takes life very seriously. Tonight he was talking about taking turns.
"Look, Mom, just wait a minute, just wait a minute. Once orchestra is over, (I didn't know he knew the word 'once' before), it's my turn. My turn next. We watch my race car. After my race car it's your turn. Your turn after my race car. You watch on your turn. Okay?"

He's serious about his hat too.

And trains...wow. Nobody messes with him and his choo choo trains.

Silas has great faces.

Trivial Things I'm Thankful For

I've been a little under the weather (i.e. one side of my throat has gone to war with the other side), so I'm trying to take more notice of the things I'm thankful for (to put to death the whiny mood that I get into when I'm sick). Obviously my salvation and God's grace should top any thankful list- but I'm going for the less obvious ones now.

I like my shower. Hot water in general is a big blessing, but I really like my particular shower. In most showers (particularly the one we had before): you get the water hot coming out of the tap, you push the button/turn the knob, and hop to the back of the tub to wait for the hot water to come out of the top, which may take a second or two, and may douse you with cold water if you don't hop to the back of the tub quickly enough. This hop has to be timed perfectly, and you have to avoid the random bath toys your toddlers left on the floor, or risk multiple contusions as you flail your way to the bottom of the tub. (Also, for those smart-aleck people who would just tell me to push the button before I get in the shower, you haven't seen the arrangement of my bathroom. Just running a bath for the kids is a contortionist's job, and it's not worth it for a shower. Essentially, you have to be in the tub to reach the controls.) But - and here's the thankful part- my shower doesn't do that! It doesn't hold any water in the pipe going to the shower head, so there's no cold water to get in the way of the hot water. The water comes out hot right away. I love it! It has solved a life-long problem.

Other things I'm thankful for: we live downstairs, Silas has a new helmet that he really likes, in a minute I'm going to have an orange juice and ice cream float, we live downstairs, I have a good book to read that I've never read before (Ivanhoe), and I have new shampoo. These things are all trivial (except for the living downstairs), but they make me thankful and happy.

I've been thinking about contentment lately. I've decided that you can't aim for 'just contentment' and reach it. In other words, you can't try to be merely satisfied with the circumstances of life, you have to be thankful for those circumstances. It's like aiming to get a 'C' in a class. Inevitably you'll slip and get a D, and fail, and then where will you be? When I aim for merely contentment I tend to slide into discouragement or frustration. But if you aim for thankfulness: a) you tend to be thankful and b) even if you slip a little, you're still content. I'm not sure if this is theologically sound or not, but it's my thought for today.

Curtains and Pictures

It's been very rainy here the past few days, so we've been inside a lot. That's been inspiring us to make our apartment a little nicer. We got some curtains in the beginning of January, and now we printed up some photos to go with our big picture of a Middle Eastern marketplace. It was a lot of fun to go through my photos of Egypt and various places to choose some to go with our big picture. I can't believe it's been almost 6 years since I went there. Woah.

Here are the photos I chose, since they're hard to see in those little frames.



Now that we've hung them up it seems to add a lot of life to that wall. Nathan is much more into decorating/commemorating than me. I'm glad I have him around to encourage this type of thing. Left on my own I'd have plain white walls and vertical blinds until I moved out. Thanks to Nathan we won't be quite that bland. I've been using the colors in that big picture as inspiration for my whole living room - which brought around this quilt and these pillow covers.


These curtains were from our old apartment, and I really like them in our bedroom. Silas just likes to jump on the bed. He doesn't care about all this stuff.


This piece of fabric I got really cheaply in the fabric district of LA. It was going to be a skirt, but my clothing attempts haven't been so great, so I decided to make it a curtain instead. I love orange and blue together and it helps brighten up the kitchen. These are almost exactly the colors of my wedding, too. It's nice to know that wasn't just a fad I was going through. (Not that there's anything wrong with fads or fad weddings, by any means!) But apparently those really are my favorite colors.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Silas' style

I thought today I'd post a little video of Silas' impromptu singing/guitar playing. He just loves his music the last few days, particularly when we read books. His guitar and his recorder are the favorites, with occasional excursions into trombone (two chopsticks held up to the mouth, one slides out), violin, bugle (the bell of my clarinet), piano, and horn (an extension tube from our vacuum).

Our abbreviated book goes like this: A very hungry caterpillar eats a strawberry and a leaf, he takes a nap in the sun, he eats a pear, an apple, an orange, a pickle, and some cheese. Then he spins a cocoon and becomes a butterfly. Silas' vocabulary is extending a little faster than his pronunciation, but you get the idea!

From December

Christmas Ornaments

Last year when Brenden and Carissa got back from Georgia they gave us these wonderful hand-knit baby socks. Unfortunately the little ones were a little too little, and the bigger ones only fit for a little while. (I think our kids must have big fat American ankles, who knew?) However, that means that they're still in beautiful new condition. So I thought I'd make some little matching ornaments for the cousins to have.



It was a fun project that only took one afternoon, which is my kind of project! Plus it was fun to get into the holiday spirit of decoration. I'm sure looking forward to Christmas!

My Ro-Ro and Your Ro-Ro

Silas likes to speak possessively about Rosie. Most of the time she is his Ro-ro. I challenged him on it the other day.

"I'm the Mama, so she's actually MY Ro-ro."

"No, no, MY Ro-ro.

"But I'm the Mama!"

"No......I'm the Mama!" he said. "My Ro-ro!"

"I thought you were Silas?" I asked.

"No...I'm the Mama, you're Silas. My Ro-ro!" Impeccable logic really.

But then the other day we were trying to walk to the park and Rose was being difficult. Silas finally stopped and spread his hands, "Mama! Your Ro-ro running away! Wrong way, your Ro-ro!" He was tired of taking responsibility for her I guess.

He sounds particularly dramatic these days when he says goodbye.

"Goodbye my Dadda, I see you later!" he'll yell across the parking lot.

"Goodbye my friends, my friends, goodbye!" He likes to say things symmetrically for some reason and he says this one a lot. At the park, and when our neighbors in the apartment building leave, or when he has to go inside and they're still playing. "Goodbye my friends! My friends, I see you later!"

Rose isn't saying much yet. Mama, Dada, ruff-ruff, ball - when Silas started saying those things I was completely ecstatic, poor Rose is suffering from being the second child. And a girl. Pictures of suffering below. :-)

Tuesday Thought for the Day

Can you imagine if animals had all the hang-ups that we people do? I, personally (don't you hate it when people say 'I personally'?) verge on social anxiety disorder. Now for me, it's just a matter of pummeling myself into answering the phone (each and every time it rings), and occasionally throwing up in the bathroom when surrounded by large groups. But imagine if one of those emperor penguins from the south pole had social anxiety. "N-n-no, I'm f-f-f-fine guys, not c-c-c-cold at all!" I think that was the real explanation for the dead ones you saw on the outskirts of the huddle (for everyone who saw March of the Penguins), it wasn't old age or sickness, they just couldn't stand the closeness!
Then there's the ADD chimpanzee. He sits in front of his termite mound with a twig thinking, "Just a little closer and - Hey, check out that parrot! Oh, right, termite mound - oooh, a zebra!" I mean, they've got distractions galore. And from what the scientists say digging for termites is right up there with brain surgery. The obsessive compulsive meercat is in bad shape too. She has to emerge and retreat into the tunnel three times before coming out for the morning, when she then must jump over each tuft of grass surrounding the hole in concentric circles - shoot, an eagle. Return to the hole. Begin again.

Okay, glad to have that off my chest. In other news, Silas got some finger puppets that he really likes.