12 months with Silas...

"He falls asleep and I feel I could die of love when I watch him, and I think to myself that he is what angels look like. Then I doze off, too, and it's like heaven, but sometimes only 20 minutes later he wakes up and begins to make his gritchy rodent noises, scanning the room wildly. I look blearily over at him in the bassinet, and think, with great hostility, Oh God, he's raising his loathsome reptilian head again."
-Anne Lamott

Wow! What a year! As I've said before, it seems like such a long time, and yet it just flew by.

What's Silas up to?
Silas is learning that he has a lot of independence at dinner time. His list of favorite foods has changed several times this month... one night he loves grapes, the next night he throws them all on the ground. Repeat with sweet potatoes, pears, chicken, etc. Some nights he refuses to eat unless spoon fed, some nights he won't let a spoon grace his lips. And sometimes he begs for a baby carrot off of our plate until we give it to him to gnaw on. It's enough to make this mama crazy!

No door or drawer is safe from Silas these days, and neither is the stuff inside... although occasionally he seems to follow the commands "leave it alone" and "put it back." After finding the DVD remote in the recycling can, we took action to move the trash cans to the other side of the baby gate at the dining room door... we'll see how long it takes for Silas to learn to go around.

It took Silas a day and a half to figure out how a straw works, although he still hasn't figured out that you don't have to tip the cup. Now he can also stack rings back on a spindle and will spend a long time trying to put the cap or lid back on a container. The best is... when he finds a sock on the floor, he stops and tries to wrap it around his foot even if he already has a sock or shoe on.

He started taking a few unassisted steps around the middle of the month, almost as if he didn't even know he had let go. As soon as he realized he was on his own, he would plop down on his knees. However, he surprised us on his birthday by walking the length of the living room (several times!)

Silas has been sick a couple of times this month: once with a scary bout of croup that ended up with an ER visit and a quick hospital stay, and then just recently another ear infection. Also, did you know that shedding fingernails/toenails can be a lingering symptom of a bad case of hand, foot, and mouth? Or so I learned from Dr. Google after Silas lost a thumbnail, a big hunk of a fingernail, and is about to lose a toenail. Luckily though, it seems to be only a temporary issue.

From mama's perspective...
I'm the mama to a one-year-old... how is that possible? All of a sudden Silas seems so big, his legs dangling from my lap as he nurses. More mobile every day, with plenty to say, if only we could understand. With independence comes tantrums, and this feels like whole new territory. While I know we've only just begun down this road, I find myself running to parenting blogs and books, and debating which philosophies and scripts I think will work best for us.

This month we put our deposit in at one of the Montessori nursery schools, in hopes of Silas starting in March. He has to be walking and drinking from a cup. We've been holding our breath on the walking part, but it seems that he is going to make the deadline.

Our freezer stash of milk is on its last days, so just days before Silas's birthday, we began to introduce whole milk into his daily bottles for school. I have fretted about the best way to make this transition, knowing all along that Silas would probably adapt just fine. I am hoping that he'll still want to nurse when I am with him, but I will trust his lead.

We woke Silas up with a crib full of balloons on his birthday, with hopes of creating a new family tradition. I've also been planning a "big" bash for Silas's birthday... both Rob's and my families are planning to be in town to celebrate the weekend afterwards. All of my brainspace has been devoted to party planning lately. After that is over, I know I'll be itching for a new project...