It's hard living with a baby.

Babies are always playing their music too loud, then giving you attitude when you tell them to turn down that infernal racket.

Too Quick

Babies are such conundrums. As soon as you get to know them, they become someone else entirely. Silas is still so new that I sometimes look at him in surprise and wonder who this small person is, with the oversized head, my shirt in his fist, and his drool on my shoulder. I look at him and say, "Oh, hello! Where did you come from?" And then I blink and when I open my eyes again, he's got chubby roly-poly arms and is grinning great, big, genuine, toothless grins at everyone he sees. I blink again and when I open my eyes, he's got longer eyelashes and darker peach fuzz hair on his head. I take a thousand pictures every day in an effort to say, "Slow down a minute buddy!" And how many times a day do I think to myself, "This is my last one, my littlest baby, and the last time I'll experience just this thing in just this way." And I try to hold on, and hold on, and hold on tighter. But each new thing just slips through my fingers anyway, with no regard for my silly, sappy, nostalgic self.

It is hard to take pictures of someone coming out of a water slide.

Therefore you won't be seeing the giant splashes of water that are Pat and Saren. I did manage to get a shot of Harper's little head though.



She went on the big slides for the first time today. She loved it. She also went on the little slide.



Saren is a big slide pro.



It takes a good 45 minutes for Irina to even go near the water at all, but when she does, she likes it.



I love this pool because it only costs the 6 of us $12 to get in and it has water slides, and spray... thingies, and a play structure, and a deeper area, and that's a lot of fun for a family of six to have for only $12. We were planning on going earlier and bringing our lunch to spend all day there, but right as we were about ready to leave, we heard thunder. So we had a picnic on the living room floor and went later. As it was, the sky was overcast the whole time we were there. Which was very nice. Only 100 degrees!

All in all, a day well spent.

This is what happens...

when Irina watches America's Got Talent.

EC Update

So, the elimination communication is going pretty great. Basically, nowadays I wake up when Silas wakes up (usually around 9 or 10), stick him on the little potty, put a prefold on him, and we go through the rest of our day using the potty any time he needs to pee or poop. I still use a disposable for night time and cloth diapers for going out. He will sometimes go the whole day in the same prefold diaper because we don't miss any pees and he goes in the potty every single time. Then there are times where I find that there's just a smidge of wetness on the diaper and he finishes up on the potty, so I can tell that he was trying to wait until I got my act together. And, well, every so often I find a totally wet diaper and ask him why he didn't say anything. (He never tells me.) I don't mind and it's not discouraging because of how many catches actually happen.

It's just so cool to say, hey, do you need to go pee, and then he goes pee! It's the communication part of this that I love. Silas not having to sit in a wet or soiled diaper nearly as often is, of course, a great thing too. Lucky for me, he started consolidating his poops very early on and he only goes number two once a day or once every two days. (Sometimes I think Silas is a Wonder Baby. He sleeps perfectly, he hardly ever cries, he even poops optimally!)

Oh, and Pat took to it a lot better than I thought he would. He helps Silas on the potty too and expresses the same sense of wonder about that I do, because dude, it's really cool.

A Few Moments in the Life of Silas

Hey look! It's that spinny guy up on the ceiling!

He sure does have a lot of energy! I've never seen him not going around and around and around.

I really like that guy.

He cracks me up.

I'm not so sure about this owl though.

Harper on her 9th Birthday

Today Harper turned 9. Harper is one of the sweetest and most giving people I know in this world. She's always thinking of other people. She loves animals, she's an excellent writer, and she's always making us laugh. I'm incredibly lucky to have her in my life and to be her mom.

Happy birthday, Harper. I love you.