Silas's blog

Joy and Love in the New Year!

2012-01-27T21:31:00.000-08:00

With peacock and hand-made sheep at Ardenwood Farm

My plans for the new year are pretty much the same as for last year:
spend as much time as possible outside enjoying the amazing natural world,
cook and eat delicious and nourishing local food,
resist the urge to over-consume
pursue joyful balance in work and home life and ...
to teach the reasons behind these aspirations to my son.

Hiking in the Marin Headlands

And I will also be trying to follow Silas's example in at least two ways:
strive to learn new things everyday
savor time with the ones we love

the daily morning snuggle in the big bed

Christmas Tidings

2011-12-29T22:18:00.000-08:00

Negative tides on Christmas Eve mean awesome tide pools! Fitzgerald Marine Reserve was very festive with frosty waves, snowy white balls of barnacles, and green anemones.

The Tilden Park Carousel is done up for Christmas in lights and bows, surrounded by decorated Christmas trees, and a Santa outside. Silas was interested in taking a peak but sitting on his lap was not even a remote possibility. But he got to ride a black galloping horse with Mimi!

Silas and I made this winter diorama on the living room shelf. Scraps of fluffy interfacing, a reconstructed cardboard box covered in paper with house details drawn by Silas, branches of evergreens and red berries found on hikes and bike rides in the neighborhood, tiny redwood tree pine cones covered in glue and glitter, and a Japanese made deer from the East Bay Center for Creative Reuse (with a Santa hat added by Silas). This sort of home-crafty-oddity makes me so happy.

The sign says: "Happy birthday Happy Christmas I hope you like your presents Santa's house" (A new holiday ritual this year: you must hold the sign while opening your presents)

A lovely photo taken by Silas of his favorite spot this December: under the tree playing with the presents of Christmas past (trains and crane) and the presents of Christmas present nearby.

Christmas morning. Real joy.

We misplaced Silas after several of the gifts were unwrapped but found him again when we discovered some unopened gifts behind the tree...

He enjoyed opening each and every one of his presents, but there was no way I could sneak a camera on him for each one. So if you sent him a gift or a happy Christmas wish then know this smile is for you...

We had a wonderful Christmas day dinner in San Francisco with Halstead cousins. Palmer (formerly known as baby Palmer) is almost as big as Silas now.

What Silas has learned to do this year (now with video)

2011-12-02T20:34:00.000-08:00

Write a list (in school it was a grocery list, at home a Christmas list)

Draw more than scribble scrabble. This is the solar system; on the back of this page is a cactus.

Ride his pedal-less bike really well down hill from school (and to school, but there's no time for videos at 8:05am)

How Silas likes to have fun

2011-11-28T20:32:00.000-08:00

using the telescope to look at the sun, indirectly of course

Sometimes I go through the photo archives and realize there are tons of great photos I haven't shared because they weren't taken of a major event or vacation. (although sometimes I don't even post those, sorry) But we try to take regular old "in the life" photos of Silas doing his thing. And now that he's more amenable to being photographed we have more to share, or perhaps he doesn't always realize that by taking a picture of something he's sitting next to we get a picture of him too? Oh well. Here's the update on Silas:

Silas is very interested in the natural world. It is motivating us to learn more so we can keep up with his questions. Kevin got a telescope from Grandpa for his birthday and this has prompted a 2nd wave of interest in space beyond just the vehicles and astronauts. Today he brought home yet another space book from the library and proceeded to read me words like "Europa" and "Uranus" (pronounced the modern way). If you ask him what his favorite planet is he might say Saturn or Pluto (... don't even mention the word planetoid to him, he doesn't want to hear it)

We try to get outside as much as possible and recently went on a hike on the Nimitz trail in Tilden park. (side note: he whines every time the word hike is mentioned but somehow he pulls it together to enjoy himself once we start). This trail is paved so it works even after the rainy season has started. We used to come here with the stroller and for years I never made it past the first 1/4 mile. But now we bring a notebook and pencil so Silas can jot down his "obsrvashins". And just for the record this is his idea, not mine. In school he is encouraged to write by sounding out words, and he is into it. No limits.

making observations on our recent hike in Tilden park

Examples from the notebook:
"Sum trees hav leevs" "Sum tablse hav life" (the table shown above had lichen growing on it) "Sum conifers hav brawn neetls" "sum hoorsis hav tals difrint culr then its botee"

blocking the trail to make important scientific notes about the horse that just walked past

the view from the Nimitz trail in Tilden

Silly Silas on a drive through Marin County, where we go for some outdoorsy adventure

Although before he started full time school we spent more time out hiking and at the zoo, we still try to go on days off or sometimes after school. He still does love all the old places and we're starting to branch out to some new spots. I personally can't wait until his reading skills expand to let him read all the science museum placards. Now when we go he sometimes has me hoarse by the end of the visit from reading all the info to him.

a shy turtle inside his shell at Oakland Zoo

coming out of the shell

boy on a tomato frog

He is making new friends in kindergarten and had some great friends from preschool too but he has a special place in his heart for our neighbors. Even though these 2 moved to San Francisco recently we still think of them as neighbors...

making art while wearing crowns with Jasper and Zimry

Silas, Jasper and Zimry 3 years ago


reading to his friends

He is really getting into holidays this year. Perhaps it's his new awareness of the calendar and the seasons. He was truly into the pumpkins this Halloween.

wearing his Halloween carnival prize headband and posing with his second pumpkin of this year


with his first pumpkin 2006, 7 months old

Joey is included in all lists of family members

Darwin is also family, but ranks lower than Joey (perhaps by weight)

fierce carnival masks from Uncle Chris and Lynette

I noticed this photo the other day and thought it captured the same face he made years ago. Sometimes it feels good to be reminded that he is the same person then and now.

same facial expression from the elf days...

the original elf photo

Happy Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T21:11:00.001-08:00

We did not manage to take even one picture of the food this year. Well, maybe you're still so full from dinner that you wouldn't want to look at more food anyway. But Kevin made another awesome buttermilk pie and I made some cornbread dressing.

I was pleasantly surprised that Silas decided to dress up when I told him that I was going to wear my newly made fancy skirt. He has outgrown most of his dress up clothes from Grandpa and Nana (that he has refused to wear for a few years) but luckily we had this borrowed ring bearer suit from our neighbor and that went along with a button up shirt he got from Nanny years ago that still fits and his red tie from Grandma Jane (he said "And now I'll wear a tie because I'm a male." ok) And of course he wore his fanciest shoes, the ones he wears everyday: his handmade rocket ship Vans from Mimi, they do have glitter paint details on them.

And then he dictated the photography plan: we would each have individual pictures (his would be seated) and one (and only one) group photo. When we tried to take a few extra he freaked out so we aren't totally over the phototaking phobia, but it's a start.

cold enough for Irish pink and white striped knee socks over my tights

Kevin has the longest arms so he took the family picture

Silas felt certain that the mesh-backed fishing hat was the perfect accessory and tucking in the shirt would be way over the top

Silas took this photo of Kevin

Nicole will be pleased to see that Silas likes to take pictures of shoes too

For the second year in a row we celebrated with our friends the Ruckers and their friends and their friends' friends at the Polish Hall in San Francisco. It's a beautiful old character of a space with a stage and tumbling mats from the preschool there. It is a wonderland for children because the party hosting families bring costumes, and it's a wonderland for adults because it's a potluck feast with lots of great conversation and entertainment provided by the costumed kids. None of these photos are of the very large crowd of feasters, but I think there were nearly 100 folks. Or at least... I think I washed 100 forks.

Zimry Rucker in Chinese lion hat (Silas's tush)

Silas just realized I was taking a photo of him with Rudy, so he's preparing to run

Ah the wonderland that is the Polish Hall on Thanksgiving

Phlewtist

2011-11-13T21:55:00.000-08:00

Silas has been taking song flute classes after school this fall. He's really been loving it, and brings his flute and songbook just about everywhere. (After we watched Star Wars a couple of weeks ago, he said , "now I want to play Star Wars," and ran to get his flute and the music so he could play 'Star Wars'). This evening his class played with the Community Women's Orchestra in Oakland. Sorry my videography is so appalling!

At the pumpkin patch 2007 (the lost post)

2011-11-10T21:35:00.000-08:00

Yep, we started this post in 2007, he's one and half in these photos, with twice the cheek mass.

Pumpkin patch, now

2011-11-10T21:07:00.000-08:00

Silas took this photo at Ardenwood Farm. He prefers pointing the camera rather than being pointed at.

Happy Halloween

2011-10-31T19:29:00.000-07:00

Halloween! Silas has been so excited this year that we carved our Jack-o-lantern a week ago. Then we threw it in the compost yesterday and carved another one.

Due to a postal SNAFU, Si's dragon costume arrived from Mimi at the last minute this morning, but it was just in time for the school Halloween parade.

Silas and his class getting ready for the Halloween parade

Silas and Christine - aka dragon bait

Nice spikes Mimi!

The spookiest house on Parker St. Silas told me, "I think I see a house over there that looks pretty good!"

Marin weekend

2011-10-12T22:59:00.000-07:00

With our friend Jason's fortieth birthday party at Tomales Bay Oyster Company on Sunday, and no school on Monday, we decided to make a trip of it and got some friends together for a campout under the redwoods in Samuel P. Taylor State Park. It was a great opportunity, since Saturday soccer and Christine's random work schedule make it hard to get away for the weekend. Silas's anticipation built for weeks, and he had us packing as early as Wednesday.

Collecting seaweed at Tomales Bay...

...to build a "fishing net" to catch fish when the tide comes in.

Roasting veggie dogs over the campfire at SPT

After the kids went to bed, the raccoons came out. They nearly made off with a leftover birthday cake.

After oatmeal and cinnamon bread in the morning, the wolves came out

After a rain-shortened morning hike, we packed up and headed home - stopping for hot chocolate in Fairfax.

The 28 hour trip absolutely lived up to Silas's expectations, and there are enough campsites within an hour of home that we'll keep a lookout for the next sunny, open weekend to head back out.

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot (Florida 8/2011)

2011-09-28T20:55:00.000-07:00

Yep, we went to Florida in August. Nope it wasn't that bad.
I mean YES, it was hot. But there was the pool, the Weeki Wachee river, the pool, the beach, ice cream, the pool, the hose, the pool, a hurricane and ... the pool.

As usual we relied on other folks to take pictures, and they did, but we don't have those. We have these. Limited, but they hit the high points. (except for Weeki Wachee with Nicole, there was a wet camera incident)

Silas had his first ever full on beach day. Complete with sand castles, salt water in the eyes, and shell collecting. And a little bit of ice cream at the end.

Grandma Jane had us hooked up with shade and chairs and snacks galore. When I asked Silas what he thought of his day at the beach he said "Best day ever!" I think he felt like the shell collecting was akin to fossil collecting, feeding his dreams of becoming a paleontologist. Also the thrill of being in the actual ocean, the very same water that the big fish are swimming in... as thrilling as he hoped.

We had a lot of fun with almost toddling cousin Sophia. Silas is really into his cousins; it is pretty cute. Here he is showing off his new underwater skills for cousin Owen.

Pretty impressive considering he arrived in Florida still afraid to put his face underwater.

He's also into Papa

But that's because Papa can throw a cast net, catch fish, get covered in muck also caught in the cast net, and then lets Silas do this:

He gave Aunt Karen (aka Cookie) a shell from his new collection. A symbol of his love and affection since he cannot seem to bring himself to kiss anyone but his mom and dad. We are worried that might go some day soon too, and then he'll only have kisses for his beloved hammerhead...

Summer round-up Part 2

2011-09-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

Tis the season for birthday parties. It does not rain here in the summer. Really. This is kind of disappointing to a Florida girl who loves thunderstorms but the benefits are all the outdoor birthday parties you can handle. Here's Silas sitting between the two birthday girls, Zimry in tiger paint and police uniform, Jasper in a lovely party dress. These two recently moved from half a block away to San Francisco, bummer. But we still see them quite often since we love them and Silas seems to consider himself part of the family, at least when cupcakes are involved.

And they do have this cool climbing tree in their SF backyard, and this nifty hike near their house. We drove over on the same day as our other neighbors Ali, Gwen and Eddie to form a huge horde of kids and moms roaming the SF hills.

Those are the moms, Penny and Ali, and those are our kids running ahead of us while we admire the view...

We have let our Habitot museum membership expire - it seems like the end of an era. But we have added a new membership to our role: UC Botanical Garden. Why would a 5 year old enjoy a botanical garden you ask?...

Silas was in full shark face paint that day. Terrifying to garter snakes...

Silas has started writing much more than just his name. When I updated the fridge calendar he added a few things (sorry the photo is sideways): Saturday the 30th will be for Knock Knock Games.

Our dahlias and scabiosa are blooming.

The CSA from Fully Belly was overwhelming us with eggplant, squash, tomatoes and peppers. So I made a filling and stuffed peppers and calzones, mmmm

After 3 years of practice Silas is mastering the climbing wall in downtown Berkeley. Here he is with his long time friend Amelia (a master climber from way back). But in these photos they are tigers.

And the fuel of our summer has been the fruits: grapes, berries, melons, but most of all the stone fruit. The plan is to eat as much as you can while they are locally in season. Kashiwase Farm's market stand is supporting our goal with the most awesome Spice Zee nectaplums, August Glo nectarines and Flavor King pluots. We go into such a frenzy at the market, even the farmer noticed that Papa and Aunt Karen make the annual pilgrimage to eat some California fruit. I guess Karen and I were so busy looking for pluots during her visit that we didn't take any photos on my camera. Just trust me when I say we had a great time with Aunt Cookie and it looked a lot like this...

naked yogurt and fruit dessert

Summer round-up Part 1

2011-09-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

Ok so it turns out we did take a few more photos during Papa's visit in June, they were just on the camera still. Besides the big garage organizing project we also enjoyed a few California-style science and nature adventures. Starting out at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve tidepools we learned about crabs, limpets and tasty seaweed (I really don't have any pictures of the kids eating sea lettuce or walking barefoot on the slippery rocky tide pools or putting crabs on their heads, live ones).
We also took Papa to the Lawrence Hall of Science on UC Berkeley campus, way up the hill from Kevin's lab. There we enjoyed walking on the big whale out front, checking out the current animatronic dinosaur exhibit and Silas even got to pick out a new pet... and as Silas will tell you: it's not a dinosaur, it's a pre-dinosaur. Dimetrodon of course had to visit the prehistoric plants at Muir Woods.

And a few classic tourist shots of the Golden Gate Bridge...

"First Day of Kindergarten" or "You Can't Trust a Hungry Dog"

2011-08-30T19:37:00.000-07:00

The alarm went off at 6:40, school starts at 8:10. But he needs enough time to piddle around, eat first breakfast, get dressed, watch a video about smilodons, impersonate a smilodon, brush his fangs and get his helmet on.

He was so excited he even agreed to pose for photos. Wow. He didn't want to ride in the bike trailer, he rode his scoot bike (no pedals) up the hill. And when I came up the same hill this afternoon on my trike I was impressed at the effort he exerted to get to his new school.

When I arrived, he was happily coloring a connect the dots work and was in no particular hurry to leave, but he was eager to show me the leftover snack he had stashed in his bag. Pretzels in their own little package! (he loves anything in a wrapper so he was also psyched by the cereal in a packet he was served as part of the school breakfast) After I chatted with his teacher and heard that he had a good first day and "Mostly did his own thing" (no surprise), he put away his crayons, pushed in his little chair and said good bye as we carried out a snail that one little girl had brought in from the playground ("I didn't know something was still in there!" she said while sitting surrounded by other little flowers and bits she had found) A few curious boys wanted to hold it and one wanted to smash it, Silas protected it fiercely but eventually let the others touch it gently.

We biked home (down hill, ahhhhhh) and talked all about the special donuts I brought from San Francisco as a treat for his first day. And so we arrived home with smiles and happy talk of more kindergarten tomorrow, and then ...(ominous music)... we walk inside... "Where are the donuts mommy?" "Well they were right here on the kitchen table... Uh oh"...

In the living room we found the carnage (there was even some strawberry filling smeared in the dog's bed). Oh the horror.
You can imagine the scene, the tears and anger over the lost donuts and the pent up emotions from the intensity of the day... He made a sweet recovery though: Joey had to be in a jail made of pillows on the couch for one hour, but while he was there "He might like a whale magazine read to him". And Kevin came home with some replacement donuts which Silas thoroughly enjoyed for dessert (and Joey had none)

And even though during his breakdown he shouted that he wished he had never gone to kindergarten because then Joey would not have eaten his donuts, and he would never go back, ever....

before bed he set up his newest invention: the getting dressed chair.

So he can be on time again tomorrow.

Everything I need to know...

2011-08-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

First Day, September, 2008

Last Day, August, 2011

Last week was Silas's goodbye circle at Little Elephant Montessori, which he shared with four friends who have been there since the beginning with him. Yes, there were tears, but none from the kids.

Three years ago I didn't really have any expectations for what this day would be like. I didn't expect to have a son who was reading, doing addition and subtraction, and working on multiplication. It didn't occur to me that he would co

mmunicate in sign language or count to five in Arabic. And I really couldn't imagine that he would be able to go to the bathroom to wash his hands when he really wanted to join the circle at storytime.

Perhaps by coincidence, I've been hearing a lot about the science of early childhood education lately. A few months ago, Planet Money produced a podcast called The Case for Preschool, and last week Science magazine had a special issue called Investing in Early Education (sorry nerds, it's subscription only, but you can read the summaries). The rundown on what I've read and heard is that, more important than reading and math, preschool develops executive function, like self control and creative thinking that is critical for for success in school and in life.

The results of some of these studies are astonishing. Low income kids who got two hours of high-quality preschool per day were half as likely, 25 years later, to have been arrested than the control group. Two hours! These kids came from similar families and went to the same public schools. This agrees with other long-term studies that show that high-quality (and high quality is key) preschool produces long term benefits, and these benefits are most pronounced among the most disadvantaged kids. Although our bank account will appreciate not having to pay tuition any more, it turns out that investment in preschool is one of the most cost-effective interventions that we can make in the kids who need it most. It's something to remember when our school districts are cutting pre-K funding while building new baseball fields.

Christine and I are both profoundly grateful for Natanya, Emily, Cassandra, Caitlin, Kristin, Maxine, Jasmine, Monica, and Catherine, who have all nurtured Silas's growth with love and respect. He may not remember them all twenty years from now, but they have had a foundational impact on his life.

Sorry so wordy - here's another picture for your patience:

Try Me Island

2011-08-23T23:31:00.000-07:00

(Christine started this post almost a year ago but didn't finish. I'm posting it now since the pictures illustrate her last post about the many uses of string - kj)

This morning Silas brought over the globe ($1 yard sale find) and told me that somewhere on it was "Try Me Island" where they make scrap books to sell, that would be books about scrap according to Silas. hmmm... Is this some bit of trivia he learned at school?

Here are some photos of the very strong grader moving a blue whale around the living room.

Silas's Super Powers

2011-08-08T20:00:00.000-07:00

Silas is very interested in things he finds tricky or powerful or capable of causing mischief and/or mystery. Some of these things include: knots, math, acrobatics...

He thinks tying knots is an awesome way to display your power. I think he learned this from watching magicians and my dad, because Papa spends a lot of time looping extension cords into creative braids while he's here. Of course magicians' and Papa's knots are especially designed to release easily when you want them too and Silas's goal is to tie the most powerfully un-tiable knot the world has ever seen.

We get a lot of mileage out of a few balls of twine. Seriously, if you are ever at a loss about what to give a 3-5 year old as a gift may I suggest a ball of twine, a box of bandaids and some tape. Hours and hours and hours of fun... all your old toys are new again when they get tied and taped in new pairings. And the bandaids are a treat because they are just yours (no parent to tell you that that red spot is not a boo-boo but a pen mark) so you can cover yourself in them in one glorious afternoon if you wish. (thanks for the recent shipments Mimi)

Silas is also into things that other people would consider powerful: predators, weapons, invisibility. We used to be a no weapons household, but they creep in, as I expected they would. He spends hours of his time jumping on our bed talking through elaborate storylines that involve weapons made of pillows and blankets and pieces of dental floss... so with his recent interest in knights I made him 2 swords out of foam chunks from some giant packing materials Kevin brought home from work. There's another gift idea: up-cycle some boxes or foamy bits into play spaces and props. Silas was even recently spotted playing mermaids in the foam frames with our friend Jasper. So it's isn't all blood and gore, yet.

sorry for the hiatus, and the lack of photos. This post has been floating around for awhile waiting for photos but it just seems like it's time to get it out there.

odds and ends

2011-06-26T22:51:00.000-07:00

Crazy hair day at preschool

(this is the crazy face to match) ok, so his hair is not that crazy... it's hard to get this straight thick white hair to do much (and we didn't think ahead to get some dye). Actually his hair looks a lot like Kevin's does every day... but a good excuse to get Silas to pose for a photo.

I was feeling like it was time to blog again. So because I'm still not ready to go through the Philadelphia photos (too late at night to get all weepy about living so far away) here's a few from the unblogged archives and the one and only photo we took on our camera of my dad's week long visit and a short but sweet visit from our old neighbors Sara, Nik, Asahel and their not so new but new to us addition: Ruth.

hoarding library books about reptiles, big cats, sharks, dinosaurs... he's dangerous with his own library card.

last rain of the season was in June, which is not typical.

But 2 typical things are depicted here: Silas in his pj's and rain boots in the back yard and Silas running away from the camera

preschool "Stepping Up" celebration, like a graduation day but not exactly because he has to go back for summer school.

this is also a great and rare photo of Silas hugging someone besides his parents, the lucky recipient is beloved teacher Catherine.

We had a nice visit with Papa last week, and we even let him leave the garage occasionally (he organized the heck out of the growing collection of garden detritis, bicycles and backyard sports equipment) I'm pretty sure he took some photos with his camera of our visit to Muir Woods and the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve tide pools, but alas... I only stole one photo of Silas and Papa reading in the back yard, that's more representative of our real life anyway.

and here's the promised photo of cutie Ruthie enjoying our crop of sugar snap peas (which Joey is also very fond of)

Cat nap

2011-06-06T22:53:00.001-07:00

"A cat nap is when you sleep on your cat" -Silas.

This is a typical quote these days, he's in a didactic phase. When he's not sure about his facts he uses his most professorial tone. After reading all the nonfiction he gets from the library (marine life, dinosaurs & Arthurian legends are current interests) he is a bit of a walking encyclopedia these days. Sometimes it's difficult to sort truth from imaginative invention or wishful fantasy.
But in this case having a friendly cat makes all your linguistic dreams come true.

Easter eggs, snakes and punks

2011-05-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

Silas got to use a pipette to dye eggs this year. He was way into it. The whole family was.

We also celebrated by attending BOB fest, an outdoor punk show. Silas enjoyed the drama of the zombie impersonator band, it matches his current sense of humor/drama. Lots of violent talk lately, but in a funny way.

Silas got to ride the bike pedal powered Ferris wheel with neighbor Rudy. Way up in the Oakland sky.and here's a repeat post from facebook, but this photo is so great I had to show it again.
Our baby sitting co-op kids, all sitting around Rudy the reader.
Silas would not pose with the Easter baskets (we all got one this year, since we all like candy). Survival time of Silas's chocolate bunny: 15 minutes.
But he would pose with our spring break house guest: corn snake Stein from preschool. He looooooooooves Stein.

Recipes we live off of

2011-04-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

We've gotten lots of requests for recipes lately, so here are some of the basics.
perhaps I should title this post "How to Grow a Giant Happy Vegetarian Boy" or "How to Afford to Feed 2 Guys that Eat like Marathon Running Vegetarian Pigs" or "How to Cook for Your Family and Still Have Plenty of Time to Sit Around in Bed Drinking Tea, Staring out the Window and Feeling Really Really Lucky"
Yes, any one of those would work.

Pinto Beans based on the recipe from Tortillas in Atlanta (RIP)
we make burritos or quesadillas with these, cheese, chopped up sweet potatoes (see below or just microwave one whole like a baked potato) and chopped steamed kale or spinach, and if you are Silas this is your favorite, if you are Kevin you add lots of spicy salsa
1 lb dry pintos
2 tblp oil
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp chili powder (less if yours is spicy and it's for kids)
3 tsp ground cumin
3 tsp salt

enough water to cover by 2 or more inches
bring to a boil and simmer covered at least 4 hours or all day in the crock pot (but make sure you have lots of water in there so it doesn't burn, hint hint)

Mac and Cheese from the New York Times Published: January 4, 2006
this recipe is amazing because it makes very few dishes to wash compared to traditional mac and cheese (only the blender, grater, and dish it's baked in if you skip a bowl and just mix it in the pan)

Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup cottage cheese (not lowfat)
2 cups milk (not skim)
1 teaspoon dry mustard
Pinch cayenne
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt (less if your cheese if really salty)
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound sharp or extra-sharp cheddar cheese, grated (we like a combination of mild and sharp, or sometimes part gruyere)
½ pound elbow pasta, uncooked (whole wheat works fine)

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees and position an oven rack in upper third of oven. Use 1 tablespoon butter to butter a 9-inch round or square baking pan.

2. In a blender, purée cottage cheese, milk, mustard, cayenne, nutmeg and salt and pepper together. Reserve ¼ cup grated cheese for topping. In a large bowl, combine remaining grated cheese, milk mixture and uncooked pasta. Pour into prepared pan, cover tightly with foil and bake 30 minutes.

3. Uncover pan, stir gently, sprinkle with reserved cheese and dot with remaining tablespoon butter. Bake, uncovered, 30 minutes more, until browned. Let cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

Yield: 6 to 8 servings.

Black Eyed Peas (from the genius Deborah Madison, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)
2 tblsp oil
1 tblsp butter
1 onion diced
1 celery rib diced
2 cloves garlic minced
1 sweet pepper diced (I use less because I don't love pepper)
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp dried thyme
saute all 15 minutes (I add the onion first and get that browning before I add the rest)

1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp ground chipotle pepper or red pepper flakes (use way less if for kids)
saute 3 minutes

1 cup dried black eyed peas
1 qt water or broth or collard green pot liquor
bring to boil, reduce to simmer 40 mins

add 2 tsp salt or less if used salted broth
simmer 20 mins more

Sweet Potatoes (adapted from Cooks Illustrated to make them less "brown" per Silas's request)

scrub and slice 1/2 inch thick (you can peel them first if you like)
pour about 1 tablespoon oil on a baking pan/dish
slide the slices around on the dish (both sides) to coat with oil (you can toss them in a bowl but then you have another dish to wash)
sprinkle with salt and pepper if you like
cover tightly with foil
place in cold oven and then set oven to 350 degrees for a dark metal pan or 375 for a non-metal pan, bake for 30-40 minutes (depends on how thick you sliced 'em)
uncover, flip, bake 10-20 minutes more (depends on how brown you like 'em)

-I put these in the oven hours before dinner and set the oven to turn on 1 hour before dinner time, easy peasy.

Silas doesn't like this one but we do, and 'tis the season:
Broiled Asparagus (from Cooks Illustrated, but Auntie Nicole taught us first)

Adjust oven rack to uppermost position (about 4 inches from the heating element) and heat broiler.
Toss 1-2 bunches of asparagus (tough ends removed) with 1 tablespoon or less of olive oil and salt and pepper, then lay spears in single layer on heavy rimmed baking sheet. Broil about 4 inches from heating element, shaking pan halfway through to turn spears, until asparagus is tender and lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes.
Cool asparagus 5 minutes and arrange on serving dish.

5 years old

2011-04-16T21:45:00.000-07:00

I think Silas really enjoyed his birthday again this year. Who wouldn't love a Russian Cream Cake from Crixa Cakes topped with a Smilodon?

Here he is opening his package from Mimi.
This lucky guy got everything he wanted and more, and although it's obvious that he enjoys his gifts a lot, he gets a little stressed out right after a gift receiving occasion because he starts thinking about all the things he didn't get that he wants. We're still working out how to help him through this consumer stress. It's sad to see. But luckily he is certainly able to find plenty of unhindered joy in other celebratory practices that don't involve gifts (namely baked goods and gatherings of friends)

At his Montessori school (as in years past) on the big day the celebration was all about the birthday circle ritual. The birthday child walks around the "sun" 5 times holding the "earth" to represent the years he has spent on the planet. And afterwards Silas serves his classmates a special snack (we always bring mini banana blueberry muffins: 50 of them!)
Of course his brilliant teacher Catherine uses the opportunity to teach them about the elliptical orbit. We love her, and she loves Silas, and Silas loves her... it's pretty great. (uh oh, don't get me weeping about kindergarten again...)
So we also had this awesome party in the back yard over the weekend which included a burrito bar, a dinosaur egg hunt, fake tattoos, craft projects, a fossil dig (no pictures oops) and cake with fake blood on it. Oh, and mojitos, for the parents.

and to top it all off: Papa came to visit for the week. We couldn't have pulled off that little backyard shindig without him (spring gardening season begins around this time and so we put Papa to work... the yard is looking incredible, photos soon)
Although I worked a bunch of night shifts while he was here we did get a day off to go to Point Reyes. I think Papa took a lot of beautiful photos of the scenery, but we don't have those. We have these, which capture the 5 year old essence permeating the trip:

Chapstick

Tree with Belly

And just when Papa left and the last cupcake was eaten and it started to look like the birthday celebrations were truly over... there was no time to feel sad because:

Soccer Season is On!
(note the blurriness, that's cuz he's so fast. Silas would want me to point that out for you)

Florida trip: February 2011

2011-03-07T23:59:00.001-08:00

We made it to and from Florida in February and even got a few photos from the trip. While there we attended a wedding at which a certain 4.9 year old did not wear sweat pants and did in fact enjoy wearing his dress clothes, despite some very passionate speeches while packing the suitcases. He did insist that it was silly to tuck the tie into the vest where no one could see it, so let it be out and appreciated instead, he tried to convince Kevin to change his too but he's waiting to see which way the trend goes.
The wedding was lovely and we had a great time celebrating with Andrea and Alonso and all the family and long long time friends.

How about this nice family photo taken at the wedding? How did we get Silas to pose for this exceptionally rare photo you ask?...

"Hey Silas if you pose for a picture with us you can serve yourself a bag of sugar from the CANDY BUFFET!"

very effective.

He sweated it off on the dance floor with the lovely Aunt Cookie. Sadly it was too dark to get good video footage of Silas's new dance moves. But he was workin' it.

As usual he gladly posed for a photo with Uncle J, no candy bribe needed.

Silas took a few photos on this trip as well. Some were posed "And now I want to take a picture of cousin Luke and Daddy" and so it happens:

and other photos are caught on the run... literally, with the camera in hand around the poolside... Hello Grandma Jane!

While in Florida we engaged in a favorite pastime: tossing stale bread crumbs to the fish, turtles, coots, and other water birds. Here we are on Aunt Betty's bench waiting for the diners.

We also got to visit the 2 great grandma's. Silas is obsessed with big numbers so anyone who is 91 (Grammie) and 94 (Meemaw) is very interesting to bring up in discussions of mathematical comparisons. The phrase "But not as old as MEEMAW or GRAMMIE!" comes up quite often. Not to mention the fact that they offer such wonders as giant claw gripper tools to play with and unending supplies of cookies.

And on the other end of the age spectrum: we got to play with cousin Owen who just started walking and we got to meet cousin Sophia!

And if that wasn't enough fun we also got to hang out with cousin Richie at J, Brittney and Sophia's house, hence forth known as: SOS Goat Farm (Silas, Owen, and Sophia are the 3 grandkids not the goat kids) And every modern farm needs a golf cart for hauling children around.

Here's a bit of the baby goat petting fun.

There was this other little outing we went on, to a place called DINOSAUR WORLD! this is quickly becoming a destination of legend in our house. Silas is wearing his dino shirt from there in the above photo, and he's been wearing it every day-after-laundry day since. He built a large fortress of blocks today and called it "Shark World" complete with toy sharks and a hand written sign with the name. But up until this day he has played with his new mini dinos or pretended to be a dino (Postosuchus, Leopleurodon, Allosaurus and T Rex are the faves) pretty much non-stop since we got back. Can you guess his theme of choice for his birthday cake this year?

So where are the photos of this amazing visit? Thank goodness Auntie Nicole came along that day with all her cameras! we are still figuring out how to post them

And to top it all off we had a pool party in February with as many little people as we could round up, Nanny even made mac and cheese to warm the swimmers back up, and Papa made...

a fire!

Silas's view of Tahoe

2011-02-12T19:53:00.000-08:00

there are so many great photos from this trip thanks to the efforts of Grandma Jane, Auntie Nicole, Aunt Cookie (aka Karen) and the newest photographer: Silas. Kevin and I took none - how relaxing.
You can see Nicole's awesome photos in other places (which I currently can't figure out how to link to). Karen's are likely on facebook. And luckily the ones on Mom's camera were downloaded to our computer before she left. A bunch of them were taken by Silas. Such as this one while snowshoeing in the woods near the west shore of the lake:
here he is in action
We stopped by Squaw Valley and Silas was surprisingly interested in the bungee jump. This photo was taken somewhere in between the "uh oh what have I gotten myself into" face and the "weeeeeee!":

And this is probably the best picture ever taken of two old people from such a low angle, must be the love we are shining down on the photographer:

We got Silas his own pair of snowshoes. Then we marched him around for miles with no food and nothing but snow to eat/drink in a winter heat wave. His stamina was amazing.

He spent much of the time throwing snowballs at us.

And taking pictures of our feet.

And he does love a sunny beach
The next day we took him sledding.

Compare this year's photos to previous years'...
2010
(either I didn't post in 2009 or I just can't find it... should have been tagging the posts all along)
our first year visiting: 2008

the budding photographer takes tea

2011-02-06T20:36:00.000-08:00

We enjoyed tea at the Crown and Crumpet in San Francisco with Grandma Jane in January.

Apparently 4 year olds are obsessed with strictly categorizing everything: good/bad, love/hate, girly/boyish, pit viper/non-venomous, oviparous/placental ... it goes on and on. Sometimes this tendency makes him sound smart (like his obsession with animal classifications) and sometimes it makes him sound rude or narrow minded (he declares pink is for girls, so he hates pink) But my re-reading of Becoming the Parent You Want to Be and my current reading of Your Four Year Old: Wild and Wonderful comforts me with information that most 4 year olds think this way; it's the way their brains are trying to handle the enormous amount of info coming in. Classify, group, eliminate uncertainty, no gray zone.

So I try to keep the categories a little bit open ("Actually, lots of men do like pink.") without expecting him to loosen up much, at least not during this stage of development.

But apparently going out for tea (aka: tiered trays of sugary treats) in a very pink setting is no problem.

He's obsessed with taking pictures now. Sometimes it works out that he even agrees to pose for a few... or sometimes he only wants to take photos of his hand.

or of Grandma Jane's feet.

But there is a perk of parenting such an enthusiastic photographer... I am reappearing in the family photos!
Taken by Silas at the SF Maritime Museum:

and after tea and photos... back to the dirt pile.

Mama said don't fool around

2011-01-06T21:40:00.000-08:00

In case you're wondering what passes for children's music around here, this is Silas's current favorite song

He doesn't take to new songs easily, but he grabbed onto this one immediately - demanding silence while it plays, asking Christine to search the internet for pictures of Caitlin Rose, and asking to go to Nashville to see her perform.

His two favorite bands, though are local: OMGG and Oak Grove. Here's a video of each (check out the front row in the Oak Grove video):

Silas makes the blog art...

2011-01-01T20:48:00.000-08:00

Resolution #1257: blog more often

Resolutions #1258: accept that Silas doesn't want his photo taken, unless he says otherwise

So here I go. First blog post of 2011. Short and sweet, very sweet.

Silas is now 4.8 years old, weighs 48 pounds, is 43 inches tall.
He can now use a camera. Sort of.

He makes drawings that are meant to be things.
This is a hotel. "the thing that looks like a C around it is the restaurant"
Of course there are lots of great photos to share from our string of family visits over the last month... I'll get to it.
But for now, does anyone wonder where all that 2007 baby chub went?

pumpkins and kale and other things to be grateful for

2010-11-22T14:48:00.000-08:00

So I'm in the middle of making an epic post about our trip to Atlanta, Franklin and Pittsboro and so of course I'm distracted by some other photos in the archives...
Looking at these pictures I can hardly believe how grumpy we all were when they were taken during the horrific 2 weeks before our trip when Silas was home sick with a fever and cough and I was working twice as much as usual. I guess I was trying (at least a little bit with the help of my camera) to notice the good stuff.

This boy has some interesting interpretations of how to use his toys... here the grader is towing the blue whale. (Aunt Cookie will appreciate the lack of pants in this photo)And here's where the kale comes in... this is what Kevin feeds Silas most mornings. It's a kale smoothie. I'm not kidding. Silas loves it.

And here was the highlight of one particularly intense day. I decided to try and do some sewing while Silas played with his toys. Turns out Silas dictated some sewing done by me. But he did contribute this incredible drawing of a shark (those are teeth, not whiskers).
He decided it's going to be a Christmas gift for Darwin and Joey. I have no idea what the cat and the dog will do with it (sans squeaker or catnip), or if they are capable of sharing a gift, but I enjoyed the generous thought. And please note the new onset of representational art.

PS: he is holding a lollipop in the other hand. a bad day indeed

Soccer season ends

2010-11-07T21:55:00.000-08:00

Soccer season ended this weekend. We learned that tiny little cleats make little boy feet look even cuter, and here's what Silas learned:

Where's the goal? There it is!

Follow the ball. Aim in the general direction of the goal. You ARE allowed to kick the ball away from the other team.

Have fun!
I think we'll be signing up for soccer again next year.
Take a bow Silas

an epic vacation

2010-11-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

Silas contemplates the Tin Man at the Brook Run community garden in north Atlanta.

Back in October we took a trip to Atlanta and North Carolina and we had some fun, although it took us awhile to remember during the recovery from our airport weather delays. After 26 hours and one weird hotel room, we came home to the disaster we had left behind since Silas had been home sick from school and Christine had been working double time in the weeks before we went on vacation. But sanity is restored now and we are enjoying the return of the rain and cold in Berkeley (mostly) and Silas has agreed that one day he will fly on a plane again (despite making the declaration that he would never go on a plane trip again, yep, it was THAT BAD)

But let's leave this whining paragraph behind and remember the good times...

Mimi took us to the community garden at Brook Run and she and Silas enjoyed the new children's nature trail with cute little activities to do along the short route.

We got to spend a lovely day at the Chattahoochee Nature Center with the Mills family minus Matt (who joined us after work for dinner at our favorite spot: Cafe Intermezzo, home of lemon-rosemary cream gnocchi). Despite my best efforts to photograph the joy of the day, the results were not perfect... 4 excited children and 3 chatty adults in bright sunlight or dark woodlands, not to mention the gleaming white hair of some of the children just to add to the photographic challenge!

Here's the reunion photo of Bridget with her happy birth attendant (sort of the doula, sort of the midwife, I think the word is montrice, but for sure ebullient) Mama Elaine and her girls.
Checking out the box turtle
In the butterfly garden watching the caterpillars.

Hiking up a hill near the end of the day.

Silas was able to pet the elusive Misty cat on this visit, clearly he has the touch.
The next leg of our journey was an all day version of the 2 hour drive from Atlanta to Franklin with Grandpa and Nana Janet. We admired the view at Tallulah Gorge from both sides of the gorge. On one side we used a telescope and ate ice cream.
On the other side we hiked (Kevin and Silas did the treacherous 600 stairs by themselves) and looked for wildlife.

After a wildly big dinner at the Dillard House we made it to Franklin and said goodbye to Grandpa and Nana. Silas is at the age when hugs must be stolen in a frenzy of giggles.

I think Silas was happy to be out of the car so he did some running when we got to the Franklin house...

The next day Silas was worn out by all the hiking and running in leaves so we got to rest by the river a bit.
Then Mimi, Lynette and Uncle Chris arrived and he was re-energized by his first ever roll down a grassy hill. (the scratches on his face stopped itching by the next day and were totally healed in 2 more days, no problem)
Silas asked to go fishing so Chris took him to sit by the river, a fishing pole was there too but I don't think it was the main attraction, I imagine that would have been the conversation.
Silas refused to look at the camera for any photos despite the gorgeous scenery in the mountains on our last day, I think he was sad to say goodbye to Mimi and be moving on to Pittsboro, but Lynette and Chris had a plan...
The Carolina Tiger Rescue was just the place for a big cat loving boy. He even got sprayed (nearly) by a giant tiger who thought his cheetah/jaguar costume was pretty cool.
It rained in Pittsboro and we were reintroduced to the feel of humidity. But that's ok, we enjoyed a lot of time around the table eating Lynette's cooking and Chris's sorghum.

Silas enjoyed his tour of the biodiesel plant, they had everything he loves (except the predatory cats, but see above)
High high swings:
Strange plants to chew on (this is sorghum):
Large hooks on mechanized pulleys, what more could a boy want?
Maybe some baby pigs? Those are just down the road...
It was a good vacation, nice to see family and the south.

Silas might need to rest up a bit more before we come back.

The kind of stuff we should be putting on the blog:

2010-11-01T21:47:00.000-07:00

"What are unicorns made of?" [first answer: "Imagination." "Wrong!]
[Second answer: "A horse with a plastic horn on its head." "Wrong!"]
[Third answer: "A horse with a narwhal horn on it's head." "No, mommy, a horse is an animal. You can't put a horn on its head"]
"No, what is a *real* unicorn made of?"

"My monster shirt is too scary for school. I'll wear this shirt instead. Everyone likes alligators!"

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T21:49:00.000-07:00

The young jaguar and his mother preparing for the hunt...

...but first, a little snack to build his strength.

And last week, we caught this rare footage of a cheetah watching a Serval at the Carolina Tiger Rescue.

(That's right, mom - Silas decided yesterday that cheetahs are old news. Fortunately, your costume can easily be converted to a jaguar!)

2010-10-30T22:24:00.000-07:00

September 29th: Kevin's birthday, Silas's half birthday

2010-10-14T20:27:00.000-07:00

34 and 4.5, the ages of the boys.

Earlier in the party... before we got wild with the face paint....

And here's a picture of the actual birthday boy (alongside our favorite teen babysitters, Jacob and Ana)

Kevin and Silas were both pretty excited about the cake, strikingly similar to Silas's 4th birthday cake. In fact the entire party was quite similar to Silas's... I must be running out of ideas. Silas and I decorated the cake together that day, we ate our body weights in frosting during the making of but that didn't slow us down when it came time to lick the decorations clean. All the kids enjoyed that part.

backblogging: Nancy, Susy and Jacob visit 5/10

2010-10-07T20:09:00.001-07:00

I wasn't keeping up with the blog way back in May when our Philly friends Susy, Jacob and Nancy came to visit. But I'd like to remedy that oversight now, because I can.

That's the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, looks a bit bigger in person.
Sorry about the glare of flash off the shuttle windshield (is it called a windshield or an atmosphere shield?) These pictures were taken at the Space Shuttle display at the Habitot Museum. This play space is built of old electronics, rotary phones and interesting plastic tubes. Nearby is the face painting area, Silas's favorite.

Hmmm... does this space suit come in a larger size?
Jacob was jet-lagged and had to squeeze in a nap where he could in our busy sight-seeing schedule. Wake up Jacob we're at the Pacific Ocean! We had a hilariously raucous meal with 2 kids, wine, white table cloths and sweeping ocean views at Cliff House that day. But of course I didn't get any pictures (see list of distractions above)
I'd like to encourage everyone to come visit us in Berkeley and you too can have this much fun!

Soccer Heat Wave

2010-09-26T21:45:00.000-07:00

No pictures are available of Silas facing the camera because he is now more interested in the soccer practice than the parent taking pictures. That's a big deal.

Silas has a rule that I need to follow along the sidelines next to him while he plays so that he doesn't feel too nervous; he's told me, though, that I don't need to do that next week.

We are in the middle of a heat wave in California. Typically we get up to the low 70s for a brief time in the afternoon, but lately we're hitting the 90s and 100s for the better part of the day. Amazingly hot for the Pacific coast.
So it's a good time to wear the one tank top we each own. And the mesh fishing hat if you're lucky enough to have one.
At Point Isabel Regional Park, aka the dog park.

relearning how to blog

2010-09-23T21:07:00.001-07:00

So some time in the last year the blog has suffered a number of blows:
1. I started working more (Two 12 hour shifts a week feels like a lot to me with only 3 short days of preschool to work with)
2. I forgot how to download and upload photos, I blame the mac, picasa and blogger but really it's just me.
3. Silas became camera shy. It was bound to happen after thousands of photos were taken of his cheeks in his first 3 years. Recently Si said: "I don't want anyone to take my picture because I don't want them to see my cuteness." Well luckily he seems to have loosened up on that rule a bit and agreed to let me photograph him spontaneously hugging his fish tank today.

that photo was enough to make me want to learn how to blog again.

Sorry we haven't mentioned it before to follow up on the death of goldfish Eliza, but we have successfully kept a tank of 7 living healthy - dare I say happy - fish for 6 months. Even the plants and exponentially reproducing snails seem happy (perhaps the snails are too happy). After taking these photos of Silas as fast as I could, I realized how messy our tank looks with many of the plants uprooted from a recent water change and/or the dirty work of the snails. Perhaps I'll get a nice photo of the tank soon, and maybe Silas will agree to be in it. The photo, not the tank.

Here's the largest resident: dwarf gourami

and here are the fanciest residents: male fantail guppies (getting a kiss from Silas)We recently went on a field trip to Little Farm with Silas's preschool, Little Elephant Montessori. He is now a "senior" in the class and having a great year.

Little Farm is awesome, we've been going since we moved to Berkeley 3 years ago. Oh how time flies and boys grow up and get brave enough to feed the animals by themselves.

And here Silas and his buddy Wilson are discussing the cows... or discussing something with the cows. Hard to tell.

Found material

2010-08-30T22:31:00.000-07:00

A list of items to build and equipment with which to build them (dictated by Silas):

aquarium

small tower

cranes

diggers

excavators

bulldozers

grader

dumptrucks

bobcat

water tower

road (pretend) (not really a magic one, just kind of a track road)

everyone could be pipelaying:

digging holes
laying down pipes
smoothing dirt

Cute bomb

2010-08-29T21:56:00.001-07:00

Soccer starts in three weeks... Provided that Christine doesn't eat his feet first. There's just something about those shoes. The stickers on his legs, by the way, are lateral lines.

Si posing (yes, posing!) with his new cousin Owen in Florida. Christine made the matching shorts. Silas loved Owen so much that he didn't even get jealous when Christine carried him.

Renaissance Man

2010-07-18T20:02:00.001-07:00

A man of science...

of man of art...

a gentle nurturer of infants...

and a lover of muscle shirts and bike stunts.

He is passionately interested in so many things now that there's hardly time in the day to do half of the ideas he comes up with. We are often waking up to bright eyed Silas listing the things he wants to do (counting them on his fingers for emphasis) and instructing us in how we can help him meet his goals. He invents a new science "experience" almost every day. Most of them either involve a pipette and a "test kit", as he calls the ice tray, or a trap for bugs with variable kinds of bait. He still spends a lot of time making art, usually drawing, and although the marks he makes on the page are getting more complex and a bit more purposeful he still leans towards the abstract representations of maps, things towing other things or wild storm/fire scenes of chaos and rescue. The bathtub art you see above was first described to us as a map, then as a cheetah, wolf, great white, two headed turtle, etc etc. Much to my delight many of his works are now signed, with his awesome backwards "a".

When he's not conducting experiences or creating art, he's indulging his newest obsession: listening to bluegrass music. His two favorite bands, far and away, are from Walnut Creek and have overlapping members: Oak Grove and OMGG [site plays music on loading], but he can get into any band that will play Tennessee Waltz or Wagon Wheel.

It's so hard to keep up with the blog since our photo situation got more complicated (I won't bore you with the details of my mac confusions). And there's also that little problem of Silas's resistance to any photo that is posed alongside another person. So just believe me when I say we have had fun visits from my dad and from Kevin's mom, and maybe pictures will come along some day.

Leviathan and other amazing sea creatures

2010-07-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

Silas has great passion for learning about new things, especially sharks and whales. So the recent discovery of Leviathan is a hot topic of conversation in our house. A prehistoric toothed whale who eats other whales is pretty cool by anyone's standards, and we are currently using the Leviathan tooth (40 cm) as a unit of measure around here (e.g., our friends' newborn twins are "a little smaller than a Leviathan tooth.")

He loves to wear his shark costume (made by Mimi for Halloween 2009) as often as possible. A great white shark has been spotted riding his bike to the Habitot museum many times. People love to see a shark on a bike. Silas says "And they say they've never seen a shark riding a bike on land, only in the water".

When I'm sprinting to catch up with my biking blond shark who is waiting at the corner for me I feel very lucky indeed.
Occasionally we are able to round up a herd of children from the neighborhood for these outings, a few of the usual suspects: Zimry and Silas out front, dad Rudy, Jasper bringing up the rear with me.
Try not to be too scared of this next picture - the Oceanic Whitetip shark is one of the more fearsome maneaters, but this one is friendly.

We have a few shark books and magazines, and the local library provides an awesome selection (which we hoard with renewal after renewal). Silas is rapidly becoming an expert in shark identification and shark trivia. In fact, he's rapidly becoming an expert in just about everything. Some days I get hoarse answering his questions, thank goodness for his smart and patient preschool teachers who pick up the slack 3 days a week.

Cue Woody Guthrie's song "Why oh why" which he wrote about his own curious kids, with Silas asking in the background "WHAT? WHAT DID HE SAY? WHY DOES HE SAY THAT ABOUT THE HAMMER?"... Yes, most of these interactions are in all caps.

I'm enjoying several food blogs lately, particularly smitten kitchen and our friend Elsa's sage sprout (I get to be a recipe muse). But since I have a kid blog that I can barely keep up with, not to mention deteriorating photography skills, I'll just have to put my own cooking blog fantasies on the back burner for now. But let me tell you, we eat pretty well around here.

Snappy Snap Pea Salad, from Vegetarian Planet cookbook by D. Emmons, created with Fully Belly CSA cabbage and onions, homegrown sugar snap peas and Iranian sumac powder from our awesome neighbor Olaf.

Stepping Up

2010-06-26T21:31:00.000-07:00

Last week was the Stepping Up ceremony at Silas's school, a celebration of everybody's accomplishments in the school year and of their upcoming transitions. Dress: very fancy.

Several of the older kids that Silas admires will be going off to kindergarten in the fall, and several of the younger kids who admire him will be joining his class. Perhaps the toughest transition, for us anyway, will be one of his teachers, Ms. Cristan, who will be moving to a school coser to her home in Marin county. She and Silas have been very close over the past six months; almost every day he's asked to do a work with her, specifying that he wants to do "a really tricky one." He's told us countless stories about the writing, drawing, math, and reading work that he's done with her. We're happy, though, that Catherine will still be teaching in his class. Si and Catherine bonded early last year, before he joined her class, although he's only this month decided that he's done playing hard to get and willing to give her a hug (see below).

And on to the video! The kids have been practicing these songs for months, and occasionally we've gotten some snippets at home. The video quality isn't great; I suspect this is really grandparent material, but the hugs in the last video are worth it.

Point Reyes

2010-05-29T20:51:00.000-07:00

As part of our tenth anniversary weekend, we made our first trip to Point Reyes National Seashore today (with Silas). In Marin County and only an hour's drive from home, I'm amazed that we haven't been here before. We started at the awesome visitor's center, whose exhibits included a grey whale's skull, lots of taxidermied animals, and life-sized models of an Orca and a Thresher shark (guess who identified that one?)

Did I mention it's our tenth anniversary? Who looks older?

As we approached the Estero trailhead, the trip was officially made when we saw this turkey vulture eating a dead skunk. He flew up to the fencepost as our car approached. Needless to say, we didn't hang out long after getting the photo.

The Estero trail starts in the dry coastal grasslands but quickly comes to the wetlands, which then open into Drake Bay, a smallish inlet from the Pacific.

Silas biked most of our 3 mile out-and-back route. He needed help with some of the hills, but otherwise had great range and had a lot of fun. It's the only way to hike!

After our hike we drove a few more miles to the beach. Silas and Christine both got caught in the Mommy trap...

...but he was still able to rescue me from a thresher shark.

We didn't see a tenth of this amazing resource today. In the winter months it's a prime spot for whale and elephant seal watching, so I know that we'll be back many times.

San Diego 2010

2010-05-12T21:48:00.000-07:00

We crashed the Schwarz-Madrid family vacation again this year, but you have to take advantage of East coast friends visiting any part of the West coast... especially when 3 children are involved. I barely had time to get my camera out of the bag, the trip was so short and there was way too much catching up to do. But in the above photo you can see "baby" Claudia wrestling her big brother Diego to the ground, and Penelope in the background with her fancy new hair poof and fancy new thumb sucking (both make her happy).

Silas and Penelope this year:

and a link to photos of Silas and Penelope at our first San Diego vacation with them 3 years ago
http://silas-arthur.blogspot.com/2007/07/san-diego.html

Silas calling Kevin at breakfast on the balcony:

California weather is nice but it is way too far from the East coast.

"Take my picture"

2010-05-12T21:45:00.000-07:00

Silas rarely wants us to take his picture these days; we have to be quick and sneaky usually. So when he asks to be photographed we oblige...

"Take my picture with Darwin"

"Take my picture in my favorite shorts from Nanny"

"Take my picture with Baby Paul"

"Take Joey's picture"...

They have stars on them!

2010-05-06T21:50:00.000-07:00

Silas got his new glasses a couple of weeks ago. They are not to correct his vision but, as he will tell you, "to help me look straighter." He enjoys wearing them and enjoys putting them in their "sleeping bag" when he takes them off. And, they're pretty helpful for doing embroidery, no?

Familiar Quotations and the Problem with Praise

2010-04-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

"I like my life"
"I've had a lot of boo-boos, haven't I?"
"Do you love your life? Do you want to live forever?"
"Do you want to live after the world breaks?" [Where would we live?] "Under the ocean."
"I wish people would only shoot junk mail or wood."
"I want my job to be sailing across the sea and telling people not to kill whales"

One of the developmental milestones for 3-4 year olds is drawing a human stick figure, with limbs and a few facial features. Si is totally uninterested. His drawing up to this point has focused on exploring the materials and seeing how they interact with paper - ask him what he's drawn and he usually makes up a description on the spot. I do wonder how literally to take these suggestions, though; after all, he is writing his own name, and Easter morning was spent adding and subtracting eggs, then examining them in his microscope.

Christine and I have a philosophy that learning should be fun and engaging for Silas. We don't push him to work in his workbooks, drill him on addition, or make him practice his writing, but if he asks me what 6+3 is, I'll help him figure out the answer. Likewise, an article on the problem with praise was published a few years ago in New York magazine and has been particularly influential for us. In this vein, I've noticed that our occasional, nonspecific praise has the opposite effect of what's intended - Si will clam up, or drop what he's working on. Engaging him in conversation about his work and showing interest seems to provide much better encouragement.

It's fun to watch!

Seaweed, Mimi, Chicks and other birthday related fun

2010-04-11T10:04:00.000-07:00

Silas's birthday dinner at Kirala, our local sushi place. On his actual birthday: Kevin made pancakes for breakfast, Christine slept off a night shift, Mimi took Silas out to the Lindsay Wildlife Museum, and then we all went out for dinner. The boy loves seaweed salad.

We had a post-birthday party-Zachary's pizza party with cousins Palmer, Scott and Karen; enjoying the last rays of sunshine on that lovely day.
We managed to get two nice photos of Mimi and Si during our Oakland Zoo outing.

And here are a few more images of the bike launch... He was not so happy when he first saw his new bike, but within the hour he was exclaiming how much he like learning how to walk and ride his new bike. And you saw the video of the first gliding attempts in the previous post.

After this photo was taken Silas declared that Daddy's bike also needed ribbons, as if they don't already look alike. (the boys and the bikes)

And chickens have arrived in our neighborhood... not in our backyard yet. Here we are enjoying the baby chicks at our neighbors' backyard barbecue. Silas loves to hold the chicks, but not such a fan of the poop (see right forearm)

First bike ride

2010-04-06T22:23:00.000-07:00

Last week:

Party Party Party...Party

2010-04-04T14:12:00.001-07:00

Silas is almost 4... and some Tahoe photos

2010-03-16T00:08:00.000-07:00

Kevin got him a bike, shhh, it's a surprise! It's from Cycles of Change, a cool local nonprofit that works on transportation advocacy, job training, and bike education.

Some of you may be wondering what to get Silas for his birthday. I'd like to encourage you to think of his bursting closets (filled with clothes and shoes that fit him perfectly thanks to so many loving grandparents and friends) and overflowing toy shelves (filled with toys that he still loves to play with for hours) and instead give him an experience for his birthday, like museum memberships (Cal Academy of Science is pretty great) or tickets to a live performance (we can help you find something in our area) or a gift card to his favorite places to eat (Picante, Tacubaya, Cole Coffee, Crixa Cakes, Zachary's Pizza, ... this list could get long).

taking Joey on the slide

We updated the Wish List on the right to give a few more specifics ideas.
But really truly Silas loves getting birthday cards (especially with pictures of people, animals and machines he likes); getting his own mail is a big thrill.

Here's a taste of our Tahoe pictures:

And the grown ups had fun too!... here we are on a sleigh ride (Silas was just not in the mood for a photo)

Florida in February

2010-03-02T21:21:00.000-08:00

"Come on Silas... just be in the picture!!!"

... Well he did enjoy playing with cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and great-grandmas on our recent trip to Florida, even if he did scowl and run for most photo shoots.

An assortment of photos that he either didn't notice me taking or sporadically agreed to:

Chowing down on Nani's famous mac and cheese.

Aunt Karen (aka Cookie) teaches Si to eat the fish food we brought to lure them to the dock at her new place. In this case it was fresh cuban bread, lucky fish.

"Quick Grandma Jane! Lean in while he's distracted by a giant plate of food at Memaw's house!" Got it. Now back to eating.

Did I mention that Memaw is 93 years old, lives by herself, cooked all this food, and baked a cake! She is unstoppable, and she likes it that way.

And Grammie is no slouch either at 90. Here she is playing her "racing grannies" game with Silas, I don't think the photo captured the sparks coming off this track. The game was nearly as ruckus as Gram.

and apparently she has trained us well... while we were waiting for her and the other residents to finish dinner in the dining room Dad, Karen and Silas try out some acrobatics in the rec room. I'm not sure whose idea this was.
Silas begged my dad (aka Papa) to take him fishing. For anyone that doesn't know, my dad is a professional fishmonger, or so he likes to call himself. But he got his start with a dip net at the lake. So during the ladies-only baby shower the guys went "fishing" and brought back an assortment of live specimens in a bucket, mostly minnows and grass shrimp. Here's Silas squealing over the crawfish, he wants to hold it but the thrill is almost overwhelming. I remember the feeling myself.

From silas february 2010 berkeley-fl

They did other guy things as well, like riding the world's fastest lawnmower and eating bananas with a pocketknife:

From silas february 2010 berkeley-fl

And here's the big reason we went to Florida this time, Alex and my sister Deidre are expecting their baby in April! Here they are trying on the slings (with sock monkey babies).

We lucked out with an unexpected visit from the Biodiesel reactor on wheels, driven by Uncle Chris and Lynette all the way from North Carolina. Silas ASKED to have his photo taken with the reactor. If only I'd been quicker I could have gotten some relatives in the photo too!

that last post was too depressing.

2010-01-29T10:00:00.000-08:00

Silas listening to his stories on Ipod (while objecting to having is picture taken)

I went through the photos from December and January and decided to make a nice fluffy kind of post with photos. Life goes on. Enjoy.

He is completely completely obsessed with his trains, still. The red engine used to be called "Vodit" (named when he was 2) but is now "James". This is one of the things we don't like about Thomas the Tank Engine.

A weekday morning...What to do? What to do? How about we walk with the neighbors to the local bluegrass instrument store and buy everyone a new harmonica?!?! (thanks neighbor Rudy)

Launching his Christmas present airplanes at Derby field. One of them didn't survive the final crash but the other will fly again when it stops raining.

Over the holidays we enjoyed biscotti from Lynette and Chris. I tried not to resent sharing with Silas.

Trike ride with Mimi. He hasn't figured out steering yet but that might be because his controlling parents have that handle.

Taking the meerkats and manatee out to brunch.

Steam train ride, in the fog. Cool.

Yep, 2 black eyes. He tripped while running through the house and hit his forhead on a door frame on Sunday night. It swelled to an egg and stayed that way, slowly draining down to swell the bridge of his nose and darken under his eyes over the next week. After nearly 3 weeks it has almost faded, but still looks like he's tired all the time. Here he is checking his wingspan at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum.

love and loss

2010-01-28T23:52:00.000-08:00

Her health had been precarious since her arrival in December, and I had started this blog post a few days ago when we still had hope... but the funeral was this morning, 1/28/10.

Silas has long had a passionate interest in the beta fish Oswald and his neon pal Henry that live in a bowl at his school. They often come to stay at our house for vacations. So when Silas's teacher Caitlin rescued a bunch of table-decor goldfish from a fancy dinner she attended, she thought of Silas as a potential fish adopter. Once she had parental approval she presented Silas with his very own fancy goldfish. And oh boy was he excited.

What to name the newest pet? At first Silas was shy about proposing names, so I started rattling off names as they crossed my mind. One of my coworkers, Sylvia, keeps goldfish. Silas met them at her house once, the same day we met her magnificent daughter (tall, gorgeous, intelligent and ...older, a sophomore at Brown). I was rattling off names and said "Sylvia" since she came to mind as a good goldfish keeper, and Silas then interrupted my list and in his shy but firm way he directed me to the name of his new fish, named for Sylvia's memorable daughter "Eliza".

So just when we were becoming attached to this new cutie, she started to do some very scary floating stunts. A little bit of research told us that we were over feeding her, not feeding her enough fiber, and the 1 gallon bowl wasn't gonna cut it for a hungry, pooping goldfish. We started feeding her bits of frozen peas and less of the flake food and we got an entire 10 gallon aquarium set up off of craigslist. Then Kevin discovered the newest use for his PhD (in addition to beer brewing): aquarium water maintenance. After waiting over a month for the "good bacteria" to colonize the tank and get the nitrogen cycle going, we finally found friends with a colonized tank and took a bit of their gravel. 2 days later Eliza moved into her "mansion." At first she seemed to be thriving, and all of her awkward floating issues were gone. She loved the bubbler stone and could be found drifting on the wall of bubbles as if it were a jacuzzi.

But all of a sudden she became lethargic, spending a lot of time resting on the bottom. So we went back into fish rescue mode, scouring the internet for advice, making frequent trips to the fish store. It's all very exciting for Silas - he loves the Albany Aquarium store with all the plants and fish. Somehow it brings out his social side and he starts up conversations with the employees and other costumers, not his usual thing in a new environment. And this has been just another opportunity for him to talk about some of his favorite topics: illness and death. I get it, he likes to explore these complex issues and try to come to some understanding and acceptance (I'm still struggling with these issues).

We play a lot of "Let's pretend" games involving sick animals. He's now repeating lines back to me about "doing your best to help" and "you never can tell if they'll get better" when we play. It has been hard to help him understand the uncertainty and lack of control, and hard to give a balance of hope and acceptance. We have also been spending a lot of time at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum and Hospital, where he sees the living injured animals they could save but not release, and the stuffed animals. It's an amazing place.

In the end Kevin and I discovered the little dead fish. Even we had to stare for a long long time to make sure she was dead, and so we let him do the same. And then he told us the plan: Mommy makes the blanket for her, Daddy digs the hole, Silas helps carry her out. He wanted her buried close to Lucy cat. I'm sure they would have been the greatest of frenemies in life.

Let's pretend...

2009-12-28T20:32:00.001-08:00

"Daddy, let's pretend that you see a head and a tail under the blankets and it's a baby cat and you're fox and you try to eat it and I'm the momma cat and I poke you with my claws and you run away."

"Daddy, let's pretend that you see a face and it's Diesel 10 and you're afraid."

"Daddy, let's pretend that I'm a momma Great White."

"Daddy, let's pretend that I'm a little dog and you give me my peanut butter medicine."

"Daddy, let's pretend that this big boy eats meat and this dried mango is salmon."

"Daddy, let's pretend that you're a hunter who doesn't kill animals."

"Daddy, let's pretend that I'm a ten year old and I'm running around on the sidewalk without my parents and you ask me where my parents are."

And so on. At least 20 times a day, maybe 50. It never gets old for either of us!

Christmas 2009

2009-12-25T21:14:00.000-08:00

Preschool Holiday Party 2009, now with 50% more singing

2009-12-11T15:07:00.000-08:00

Silas made it to the Little Elephant Montessori Holiday party this year, red puffy eyes and all. He was so excited to find a Christmas tree in his classroom. Everyone says he is like the elder statesman when parents or new children come to visit the caterpillar classroom, he shows them around and tells them the rules and introduces them to the fish.

He was so happy to see his teachers and friends.

Although he was not prepared to let go of us to line up with the other children and parade in for the performance (just like last year), he did jump up to stand with the kids and he joined right in on the songs.

The dessert table was all he hoped it would be.

surgery's done (now with photos)

2009-12-08T19:05:00.000-08:00

Silas had his second eye surgery today at Children's Hospital of Oakland. We arrived at 830am and were home by 1:30pm.

This time around he handled the pre-op stuff very easily, just like last time But this time he had more questions and at one point tried to undress himself from the hospital pjs in order to go home, but having an Ipod with his favorite books on tape helped with anxiety, it was amazing actually. The post-op recovery has been a bit harder. The surgery went well but apparently coming out of anesthesia is different when you are 3 1/2 then when you are 9 months old. Or maybe it was the extra morphine he needed this time after surgery (he was very sad and complaining of eye pain, he asked for a "dry washcloth" because that is his eye remedy when taking a splashy bath and when that didn't help he begged for medicine, which helped a lot). He has also been much more nauseous and slow to get started eating again. (but thank goodness we've hit the developmental milestone of asking for the puke bowl). After graduating from a popsicle to applesauce to yogurt, he's eating some shredded wheat now and considering beans and rice. And, of course, there will be ice cream. He seems more worn out and uncomfortable then last time - I remember his playing afterwards on the day of surgery as a baby... at 6 pm today he was finally ready to come into the living room to play trains. This time Si is really into his hospital bracelet (he calls it his watch). And the first thing he said when he woke up from sleeping today was "this bandaid has rabbits on it" - very important.

He might have double vision and eye soreness for a few days, and then the redness in his eyes will fade slowly to bruise-y yellow over weeks. Last time it was the inner corners of his eyes, this time it's the outer corners where the muscles were worked on. He'll be resting at home tomorrow and probably the next day too. If he's up to it we might get to the holiday party at his school on Thursday night. He remembers the dessert table from last year, and he was getting excited about the singing.

Twas the night before surgery...

2009-12-07T15:58:00.000-08:00

Not the most festive thing we could be doing this time of year but the time as finally come for Silas's second strabismus surgery, tomorrow, December 8th at 9:30am. His first surgery was almost 3 years ago. Hopefully this will be his last but there are no guarantees.

We'll be at Children's Hospital of Oakland at 8:30 in the morning. And we'll probably be home in time for lunch with a red-eyed Silas. I'll try to keep you posted.

Hallowe'en

2009-10-31T23:44:00.000-07:00

Christine the mermaid (with legs) and Silas the Great White Shark (my mom made the costume!)

Halloween on Saturday means two days of fun. Friday was the Halloween Parade at Si's school, followed by a picnic lunch and pumpkin decorating:

Si was a bit of a grump during the parade, though, so it was hard to get good pictures of that action.

This morning, we went with out neighbors Shelby and Paloma to a Halloween concert at La Peña Cultural Center. I got to waltz with Si for one song, and he played the Limberjacks for another:

Here, Silas and Paloma are more interested in watching the musicians than in their job of presenting the visuals for the song.

Finally, the big night! This evening, we headed over to the Newman/Anand's for Kelilah's second birthday party, followed by trick-or-treating. Cupcakes were a good way to start the evening:

Trick-or-treating itself was great fun. Si was extremely cute and said "Trick or treat," "Thank you," and "Happy Halloween!" at each house. After a few blocks, his bag was full and he decided he was ready to go home.

Chris and Lynette's visit

2009-10-29T21:29:00.001-07:00

Well, it's been more than a month, so I guess it's time to post pictures from Chris and Lynette's visit in September. They were able to come out for a long visit, which was the first we'd seen each other since January.

On day one, everyone else started with a trip to the "Big City Port" in Oakland to check out the cranes and the bay. I missed this trip, but if you look closely at the second picture you can make out the Left Coast Lifter in the distance, an enormous floating crane that was brought in to work on the Bay Bridge - it's rated to lift 4,000,000 pounds. Needless to say, a favorite in our household.

The biggest part of the visit, though, was spent on a trip to Yosemite National Park and the vicinity.

We had a nice 5 hour drive to Tuolumne Meadows; we stayed in a tent cabin while Chris and Lynette camped. We saw one fierce bear:

but otherwise the wildlife was pretty relaxed. We went on some outings from Tuolumne, including a trip down to Mono Lake (below, and the top picture)

a short hike after delicious breakfast at the Tioga Pass Resort

and a hike around Saddlebag Lake. We saw the stocking the lake with trout for the winter - it was really interesting for Silas, but the pictures aren't very descriptive. Below you can see Silas and me hiking on the loose rocks - a lot of the terrain on this trip was challenging for him, but he had a great time and had fun getting around.

After three days at Tuolumne, Christine and Silas and I packed it up to head home, while Lynette and Chris packed it up to head into the backcountry for a few days.

Below, Silas showing Chris the sights while riding the Steam Train back in Berkeley.

Alabama Leg

2009-10-25T21:24:00.000-07:00

It was surprising cold in Alabama but we had a great time with family celebrating Erin and Danny's wedding.

So in Birmingham we found 2 ways to get Silas to stay for a photo op: Chocolate cake ...

or cousin Erin (the bride). They had never even met and she wasn't in a wedding dress at the rehearsal dinner, but he was smitten. He changed shoes twice saying "I need to go ask Erin which ones she likes best."

He also had a great time with cousin Richie, but I could only get them in a photo together if Erin was there too!

We spent Saturday morning exploring an old cemetery in Birmingham. Mom and I like to look at ancestral graves. Silas and I also enjoy the macabre and outdoorsy aspects of a cemetery. And today Silas told Kevin "Ants in Alabama bite" so this anthill made an impression.

We had a great time staying in side by side hotel rooms with Grandma Jane, Aunt Karen and Uncle J.
Silas slept hard before the big events on both nights so he was ready for late nights on the town. This is the first wedding he's been to since he could walk... or more importantly DANCE!! You can see why cousin Katy B can't resist him.

Rare time for girl chat with cousin Yecenia and sister Karen.

A rare group photo of Mom and her kids and grandkid. All smiling too!

You can see why Silas is so smitten... Congratulations Erin and Danny!

The Southeast in October: Atlanta Leg

2009-10-25T21:01:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a fun filled visit back east. Despite flying out on the first rainy day of the season (and by "rainy" I actually mean "typhoony") the plane eventually took off and carried us to Atlanta. As we sat on the plane at the gate watching free movies and eating up our giant bag of snacks, I rejoiced that up until this 3.5 hour delay we have had 3.5 years of on-time flights with Silas in tow. And despite the flu season starting up, no one got sick, and everyone saw plenty of animals and grandparents.

Pandas at Zoo Atlanta (we had the place to ourselves on a rainy weekday)

Stingray petting at the Georgia Aquarium (Grandpa and Nana need to send some photos because this was about all I got from that outing)

Silas warmed up to Bella on our last day, he started out pretty happy to see Mimi of course...

Sorry the photos are so grainy and few. I was having some camera issues (technical and logistical). I am eagerly awaiting the phase when Silas does not run screaming "Do not take my picture!" 90% of the time. But maybe we had that coming with our intense photo habit since birth.

more posts soon of the Alabama and Tennessee legs

Lucy Lu Lu

2009-10-04T19:16:00.000-07:00

Little Lucy Lu Lu died peacefully in her own back yard yesterday, October 3rd.

On September 29th Lucy was visiting with party guests as we celebrated Kevin's 33rd birthday and Silas's 3 and a half birthday. She went on her merry way after the party, as usual. Later that night she came home injured. The x-rays showed she had a severe tail injury that had caused nerve damage; it wasn't clear if she had other internal injuries at the time, but she was stable. For 3 days we nursed her at home with medications and special treatments, hoping she would get better and could just have her tail amputated. She purred whenever we came near. Silas was incredibly gentle and spoke to her so sweetly while giving soft scratches and pats, always avoiding her "ou-ey tail". But her condition worsened and she was struggling to breathe and spent her last day on oxygen support. We made the incredibly difficult but important choice. A wonderful veterinary technician came to our house to help. It was monumentally sad.

Silas has always described our family as "Daddy, Mommy, me, Joey, Darwin and Lucy" (in order of descending size.) He struggled over the last few days to understand what is happening and how to react. We told him honestly but simply that she was injured, it hurt her, we were giving her medicine to help... but on the last day I told him that everyone had done everything to help, but the vet said Lucy was going to die. I didn't want to say "might die" - he doesn't take well to wishy washy statements, he is a negotiator. I didn't want him to feel that he needed to say just the right thing to keep Lucy alive. I just gave it as fact. His reaction evolved from uncertain giggles, to tearful argument, to pragmatic planning for how he would say goodbye.

He pet her gently when she came home on her last day. Then he watched a video and sat with our friend Nisha while Kevin and I were with Lucy at the end.

He remembered every word I said and told Kevin about how "We will miss her, but we will remember her and look at pictures and talk about her so we won't miss her as much".

After she died he kept asking "Does she have a terrible injury? Is she ok?" I would say "She doesn't feel pain anymore. She's dead" and he would repeat "But is she ok?" Finally I said "Yes" and he seemed much happier with that answer. Before we buried her he told Kevin "She's dead but she's ok now. You can pet her, she's the softest, she can't feel it but we can."

Silas helped with the funeral. In fact, it was his idea. He really wanted to help bury her "to help the flowers grow". We planted a fuchsia on the spot. She loved to be outside.

She was there at Silas's birth, even making me smile in labor.

Although she had been the "baby" of our family, she adjusted to the newest addition pretty well.

After all, they did have something in common for awhile.

She brought so much fun to our lives. We will remember her for her sassy strut, jingling bell collar, striking green eye, independent ways, and her warm delicate purr when we pet her soft soft fur.
Outside, looking in. Inside, looking out.

Philly in August

2009-09-26T18:51:00.000-07:00

With our August trip to Philadelphia, Silas and I crossed into another golden age of travel. The "no-nap-needed-and-nothing-to-complain-about-when-other-kids-are-around-to-play-with" age. As an infant we did a few trips that I thought were pretty enjoyable because Silas would sleep as well on vacation as he did at home, and he could fall asleep on the go. (see the older post of our trip to Florida when he was 8 weeks old for example) However there were a series of trips that made me question if I would ever willingly travel again with my sleepless 3o pound feverish barnacle. But then there were these 2 free tickets on Southwest...

So as I was saying... no nap and we missed Kevin but we enjoyed ourselves everyday and he lapsed into a comma every night at 7pm and slept for 12 hours. whew!

We hung out at Clark Park on the playground and with the turtle
bought peaches and a new red turtle t-shirt at the farmer's market
got rained on!
milled about the neighborhood chatting with new and old friends
drank iced coffee at the green line cafe
had dinner and vegan s'mores with Nancy, Susy, Jacob and Elise
celebrated Penelope's 3rd birthday by swimming in a lovely lake in New Jersey (really, it was lovely)
and even had a West Philly Midwives gathering (well, Silas was asleep through the entire thing but that was perfect)

We were lovingly adopted into the home of Jessi, Al, Diego, Penelope, Claudia and Thoren Oakenshield.

the nightly group story: this flash bulb photo does not capture the warmth and joy of 3 sleepy children... or the thrill of their worn out parents

a typical scene: Pile o' kids in the minivan (Claudia's feet pictured in the lower left corner)

Iris enjoying her biscotti with her future sibling as back drop

We had so much laid back fun that we barely took any pictures at all. Oops. But I am asking Jessi and Nancy to post any photos that they took and provide a link to them in the blog comments (pretty please)

Creek to Bay Day

2009-09-25T21:45:00.001-07:00

Silas and I spent a few hours cleaning up the bed of the Temescal Creek in Oakland last weekend with a few families and teachers from his school and other volunteers from the area. His enthusiasm was unparalleled, and he even helped a bit, too. Si also helped everybody to remember not to dig up the worms. Afterwards, we headed to Lanesplitters for a couple of slices of spinach and olive pizza. Yum!

Papa and Karen visit (way back in July)

2009-08-24T21:46:00.000-07:00

I've been working on the blog post since July, what is my problem? I'm having too much fun and not enough sleep! And I truly dislike sitting in front of the computer, maybe I need to work on my ergonomics.
So... here are some lovely photos of Papa, Karen (aka Aunt Cookie) Silas, and me freezing our taters off on the California coast in July. We said good bye to Kevin, Joey, Darwin and Lucy and drove out of chilly Berkeley and through San Francisco to Highway 1, which we took all the way down to Monterey Bay, stopping along the way to admire the scenery.

We finally made it to the Monterey Bay Aquarium (my birthday present from Dad Jude and Janet, thanks!) and it was wonderful. I was almost as excited as Silas was about everything, and that's saying a lot because Silas was really really excited.
Here he is demonstrating how to touch the sea star "with one or two fingers" as instructed by the aquarium guides.

A blurry photo but I couldn't resist... he's watching the sea horses. He actually squealed with delight and fell to the floor in a fit of joy when watching a video showing the male sea horses giving birth. And we were both in a state of ecstasy watching the otters, so of course I couldn't operate a camera in such a state.

We stayed at the beautiful Asilomar in Monterey. We walked to breakfast every morning at the historic dining hall (designed by Julia Morgan in the Arts and Crafts style). For Silas the morning highlights were: getting carried to breakfast when he could find a willing sucker, I mean loving relative; seeing a mama deer and a baby deer in the morning mist; and ordering as much pre-sweetened yogurt as he could eat.

And the tide pools were pretty incredible too. Did I mention Asilomar was just a stroll through the dunes away from the beach? (I mean beach in the cold California sense, not the warm Florida sense, note the hoods and jackets)

We didn't see the sun for 2 days, but that was ok.

And because I love these photos and it happened during the visit:

Here is Silas as the caterpillar getting wrapped in the cocoon of toilet paper at Aya Mei's 5th birthday party.

And here the butterfly emerges and stretches his wings.

For dessert, pluots

2009-08-13T20:48:00.000-07:00

Here we go again, getting Silas to repeat a story for the camera. I really enjoy the elaborate scenarios that he develops, though. Amazingly, he doesn't say "like" once in this video, despite having picked up that particular tic big time in the last two days. He's, like, a total valley girl.

Mimi's summer visit

2009-07-26T22:07:00.000-07:00

Can you feel the excitement?

Silas was waiting for Mimi's visit for weeks, and even though it was a short one, we packed a lot in.

We started off with a trip to Muir Woods (below) and Stinson Beach (above) while Christine was at work. Silas enjoyed talking to the rangers ("How do you spell your name?") and even asking them a little bit about the wildlife - including checking out some banana slugs (I know Nicole would have gotten pictures of the banana slugs!). Si also enjoyed digging in the sand at the beach, although he was a little freaked out by all the jellyfish that washed ashore. We didn't bother with swimming suits because the ocean was freezing anyway.

Mom's visit coincided with the twins' birthday party at Willard Park. All of the kids took turns riding the piñata, and Silas and Zimry managed to share a ride.

Bike to Work Day

2009-07-14T22:51:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Bike to Work Day in May with our friends Penelope and Rudy (below in the hat) and their twin girls Zimry and Jasper, and a couple hundred other folks. The twins are the luckiest little girls in the world because this bike carousel is usually in their front yard! Their parents made it as part of the group Cyclecide. And we are the lucky neighbors who get to come over and ride it sometimes.

What I do...

2009-07-09T17:08:00.000-07:00

It's not Silas-related, but in case you wonder what I do at work:

No big deal. Just developing an antigravity formula.

Silas Arthur Jude: Man of Action

2009-07-05T14:50:00.000-07:00

I love these pictures of Silas "flying" on the swing. Taken about a month ago, we were at Dreamland playground at the Aquatic park in Berkeley. This place is awesome, I bet I've mentioned it before. There's a giant wooden playground/fort structure with all kinds of bridges and tire swings and slides, sandwiched between the train tracks and the waterway that runs along the highway (big trucks are a good thing if you are a 3 year old boy).
He's still not as dexterous (or dangerous) as some other kids his age but he certainly has a good time.

Neighbors Zimry and Jasper are turning 2 soon, which seems to make them less baby more buddy in Silas's opinion.

the boy

2009-06-08T15:44:00.000-07:00

So it's been awhile since I've blogged, there were multiple computer deaths around here, and now all the photos are going onto the new Mac, which I don't really get, not that there's anything wrong with it, just that I don't intuitively get any new technology it seems. So anyway, I'm learning and Silas happens to be napping for 2 hours today so I blog!
The above photo is the closest thing we have so far to show Silas's newest obsession with lining things up. Kevin did most of the actual lining up work on the dominoes but Silas was an enthusiastic supervisor. I sometimes come home now to long lines of construction vehicles winding through the living room. I remember my little brother (aka Uncle J) doing this same activity when he was about this age. But I don't remember doing it myself, and I have never seen a girl do it.
He does boyish things more and more now. Some of it seems instinctual, like the obsession with vehicles and lining them up and using everything in sight as a tow truck or something to be towed. But some of it seems like playground parroting such as "purple is for girls" which I take issue with. But apparently he hasn't yet heard that pearls are also for girls, and so he spent the day in my cast-off necklace last week.
I almost always imagined that I would have a girl. While pregnant my only dreams were about holding a baby and saying "I can't believe you're a boy!" And then he arrived. Shortly after he was born I read a book of essays called "It's a Boy: Women Writers on Raising Sons". There was a story about this scenario, I think an older boy wanted to wear fancy jewelry out, and so I was thinking of the story that day. I even intervened with Silas before we left the house, trying to give some basic info about other peoples expectations, trying not to talk him out of his choice, just trying to get him ready for what he might encounter in other folks' reactions, but he was committed to the "fancy puh-wuhls". Of coure we do live in the bubble of Berkeley, he is only 3 (please don't tell him I said "only" because he is obsessed with being big lately) and in the end no one at the Lawrence Hall of Science seemed to think it odd.

He's into "fancy-ing up" in many ways lately. Here's his homemade tattoo. (a photo had to be taken before he would agree to a bath that night)

Well, here's one last photo and story for you. The story is better than the photo turned out. He's playing his harmonica along with a band at a rock show in our friends' living room. We sat up front so he could see better, which put him right in front of the speakers... thank goodness Auntie Nicole saw this day coming, so he had his ear protection. He was thrilled, there was no way to capture the full enthusiasm of the day, he was rolling around on the floor in front of the musicians at one point, if he could have he would have been stage diving.
(Not until you're 4)

An Asian shark grouper fast alligator

2009-06-02T23:31:00.003-07:00

We took some video of Silas talking about one of his latest drawings from school. In case you can't tell, we're trying to get him to repeat a story that he told before we got the camera out, but he's having some new ideas.

The drawing itself is interesting from a developmental perspective; Christine calls it "representational art" because it actually looks like something, or looks like it looks like something (compare to the smaller drawing that he wants to glue to the large drawing - his scribbles are starting to take form). I don't know anything about children, but this is a quantum leap in Silas's drawing. Well, maybe a spin flip, not an s->p transition or anything.

Happy Anniversary

2009-05-31T13:21:00.001-07:00

It's been a great nine years.

Happy Mother's Day

2009-05-10T12:10:00.001-07:00

Way down upon the Weeki Wachee river...

2009-04-15T09:55:00.007-07:00

This photo was taken on the pontoon boat on a river off of Lake Tarpon (basically in Dad and Dawn's backyard!) Silas and I were traveling alone, Kevin stayed home to hold down the fort and keep the animals from rioting.

On the Weeki Wachee river we were in canoes and kayaks and so we relied on Nicole to take the photos with her handy waterproof camera, and take photos she did... 277 of them, glorious!

http://flickr.com/gp/elawgrrl/zwC8v0

The rest of our trip to Florida was pretty fun too, although Silas did his whole jetlagged/homesick/101 degree fever/coughing all night/whine-y routine which has become the usual travel schedule. So we missed out on seeing lots of folks. But now that I've caught up on my missed sleep I'm already thinking about trying another trip... oh how quickly I forget the hard times when I look at the pictures of Silas enjoying his family in Florida!

moody boy in the pool

happy boy with Auntie Karen (aka Cookie) on the pontoon boat

some down home fun around the keyboard with Grandma Jane and Grandpa Tom at their quaint Florida cottage (aka Memaw's old house)

Papa lets Silas drive the pontoon boat on Lake Tarpon, he learned about the throttle this trip

Silas bestowed many hugs on Uncle Jeremy and Uncle J

Visiting Papa's baby chickens

Trying out "The World's Fastest Lawnmower" (says it right there on the front)

Good-bye hug for Nanny

Silas's dream come true: driving the forklift with Uncle J (they did doughnuts in the parking lot at the fish house)

Happy Third Birthday!

2009-04-03T01:23:00.006-07:00

Well, after "Almost 3" must come 3. Silas had his big birthday party last weekend in our backyard. Thankfully, he got over his cold a couple days in advance, and we were all able to enjoy the mayhem. Having Papa in town while we were getting ready was great, since somebody was always able to entertain Si while the rest of us worked on preparations.

Silas wearing his new fish robe made by Christine.

Here, Silas is reading his birthday card from Eddy, while Zimry looks on. In the background you can see one of the two bean-bag tosses made by Zimry's dad Rudy.

This is Greta showing Silas a card; Greta is one week older than Si, and he spent most of her birthday party last week playing with a crane in the sandbox.

The kids are getting ready for their big birthday parade - note the face paint. Silas is a camel, and Gwen must be a kitty, or Janis Joplin.

Christine managed to get some video of the cake ceremony, but what you don't see later is my frantically cutting cake while 12 toddlers are on me like white on rice.

Here's a close-up of Christine's awesome cake.

We also had a birthday celebration at Silas's school on Tuesday. Here he's telling all of his friends what he did during his third year.

And then came the impromptu parade of birthday hugs...

After his birthday circle, Silas served blueberry-banana muffins to all of his friends.