Silas Update (from September, never posted)

Silas is at that funny age where his memories are starting to form and he is defining his own world around him. He is nearly 3.5 and is a typical preschooler for the most part. A bit more intense than my other two were. And more so than many of the kids around him in preschool. He is intense and over the top, but loving and snuggley and caring.

It is really fun to see his world evolve around him and him act as an independent participant in the world we are not a part of. The Mystery Bag is his thing. What is the Mystery Bag? For sharing in his preschool class the kids get a canvas bag that comes home with a big question mark on it. The kids get to put a secret item in the bag, bring it in and give hints to the class, while the classmates guess what might be in the bag. It is a huge highlight for Silas. He LOVES the Mystery Bag. He gets so excited when he finds the Mystery Bag in his locker and then we all get to practice guessing for him all night before he takes it in. 

Silas is a huge fan of music. He has eclectic tastes in music, and very much goes OCD with one song. So much so that he wears everyone out on the song. He gets the song completely memorized. (Everyone else is forced into complete memorization as well.) He sings the song, he plays it on piano, guitar and whatever other instrument he can find. And is absolutely insistent that no other song can play on the TV, in the car, anywhere. And if you try, he screams. 

I kind of hate to give in to musical preschool terrorist tactics. But keeping the peace is also a priority in the house. 

Silas is also at that age where he is starting to fib and try to get out of things. He wasn't the one who hit someone at school, it was another kid in the class. The reason Skadi was pushing him away wasn't because he was throwing the arrow in his hand at her. "It wasn't because I threw this arrow at her mom." He self-incriminates pretty regularly. And it's always hard to keep a straight face as he tries to get himself out of trouble. 

The big trouble comes from Dad though. He pretty regularly gets in trouble at daycare for something, the teacher tells me, he insists it wasn't him. Then begs and pleads for me not to tell dad. Dad will be "Soo mad at me!" Sorry that AB has to be the bad guy all the time, but we play it up pretty good. 

Silas had his first stitches two weeks ago. He and Leif were playing when Silas slipped on the floor. When he looked up there was blood all over. Split chin. AB took him to the ER and he did great there and was home in record time. Stitches dissolved and we thought all was good.

That was until I was chatting with a friend at the grocery store and Silas was messing around near my feet - slipped and fell. The ER visit that time wasn't so easy. Hours later he came home with butterfly closure and no stitches and one irritated dad. Multiple doctors, multiple injections, doctors constantly pulled away for other emergencies. It sounded awful. And the final doctor slapped some steri-strips on it and sent them on their way. Amazingly the chin has healed, but not without a decent sized scar.

Silas Update

Excuses? It isn’t that I don’t have the absolute best intentions. It’s that I don’t have the time. I have jotted down a gazillion things that I want to record regarding Silas. I want to blog about my work life – because that is crazy. But I just can’t seem to stay on top of things. There’s no time like the present, I guess. My goal over the Thanksgiving holiday is to blog everyday. Maybe this will push me back into the habit? I always take the week of Thanksgiving off - but this year I saw that the Friday before Thanksgiving had no meetings scheduled - and Silas was in need of some mama time - so I extended. Now we are kicking off 10 days straight of "hanging out" (Silas' words). So in theory that would be 10 days of blogs. I have a few days in there we won't be around or connected, so I hope for a few days of double blogs.

So Silas. He is a ball of love, but a superior pain in the rear at the exact same time. Knock on wood – we haven’t had a bad report on him from daycare in a week and a half. Seriously, I would knock on wood.

He is at that phase where everything he says is hilarious. Or completely scary and I worry about my safety at night. But mostly just loveable. He is struggling at daycare. The child does not really like other children. At all. He thinks they are evil or something. I don’t really know. He doesn’t want to be near them, he doesn’t want them to make noise. He doesn’t really want them to exist. If they make noise, say things he doesn’t like, exist in his space, basically – he freaks out. And sometimes (but not always) that freak out entails a more vampire like attitude.

Yesterday Silas was pushed down and bonked his head pretty hard. They decided to keep him up for nap as a concussion precaution. For some reason they sent him off to kindergarten with the 5 year olds. When I picked him up I got rave reviews. He loved sitting there in kindergarten, was not distracting, loved participating. I felt a bit vindicated because we keep telling them to push him intellectually.

Silas is my book kid. I FINALLY GOT ONE!!! After having two reluctant readers, I finally got my kid who enjoys passing his time with a book laying on his bed.

He is freaky smart. He counts above 20, counts objects by rote, he memorizes songs and books completely. He will sing entire songs – “Sound of Silence”, “Lampshades on Fire”… not easy songs. He also memorizes books. AB and I have taken to trying to trip him up. But he catches the slightest word and corrects us. If I say “beast” instead of “bear” in his favorite (and freakishly long) Merida book, he will correct me. It is a LONG book and he can recite it from front to back and doesn’t miss an adjective.

We have thought about taking him in and having him “tested”. Though I am not sure for what. Can they tell if a preschooler is a genius? Or are we just the same as every other parent and shocked at the things that we, as adults, don’t seem to be able to do anymore because we have our brain power devoted to other things?

It’s probably the later.

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Silas' favorites:

Spiderman
Curious George
Captain America
Finding Dory (refuses to watch Finding Nemo)
The Grinch book
Merida book
Too Many Toys book
Buzz Lightyear
Monsters Inc,
Beethoven (our dog)
Lucky (our cat)
Calling people "buttheads" (hanging head in shame - my fault, I call Odin this. Correction, I used to call Odin this.)
Singing
Jingle Bells by the Barenaked Ladies

Cooking - cracking the eggs specifically. Silas calls it "making". When I am cooking dinner he yells, "I want to make with you". He is a hard worker in the kitchen.

He is also my good eater. He eats lettuce! An unknown in my house with the kids. I actually get to send salad in for his lunch.

One other thing that Silas nailed that the other kids still lack is knowing where things are. He remembers. And when he loses something (or Dad loses something that was bought at the Chinese Lantern Festival) he remembers the item months and still holds grudges.

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Me: "You're out of time out. Now what are we going to do?" (I was thinking something along the lines of apologizing to Skadi.)

Silas: "You are going to return me back to the Brother Store where they will put me back in my cage and I will have to wait for another mommy and daddy to decide they want me."

And so now I AM the one who feels like crap.

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Silas: "Mom, when we get home can I have a feather?"
Me: "We can probably find a feather, what do you want it for?"
Silas: "To call it macaroni."

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Silas asked the other rainy day why we didn't have more gorillas as he wanted to take one to school and certainly Skadi would want to take one too.

Tonight while reading to him, I found out that gorilla is umbrella. And his world makes a little more sense.

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Silas channeling my mom: "If you want to make pie, you make pie!"

This is actually a common Silas refrain. "If you want to have a hang out day, we have a hang out day."

Or, "if you want to go to school, you go to school".

He is a very matter of fact kid.