Summer Silas vs. Fall Silas

Now that summer has spilled into fall I think it is time for me to reflect back over the months to how Silas has developed.  Some of these things may not seem like much, but any little thing is a huge victory for our little guy.  So, here is Summer Silas vs. Fall Silas:

*Loved sleeping in his bed vs. Sleeping only on the floor
*Ate oatmeal for breakfast almost everyday (either at breakfast or at lunch, sometimes both) vs. Will eat almost anything now at breakfast
*Could only swing with help vs. Can swing by himself
*Had no opinion to what we listened to in the car vs. Telling us that certain music he doesn't like and its just to loud or to low
*Needing help putting on pants vs. Almost always being able to put on his pants (although some times both legs get in one hole, which we then call him a Merman)
*Taking his pants off and running around saying, "Naked boy" vs. Taking his pants AND underwear off and running around saying, "Naked boy"
*Only being able to understand him 50% of the time vs. Being able to understand him 80% of the time
*Not knowing how to spell his name vs. Being able to spell his name
*Tapping every license plate in a parking lot (if we would let him) vs. Tapping only a few license plates in a parking lot
*He wore a size 7 vs. He wears a size 8 WIDE (that boys foot is almost as wide as it is long)
*Repeating us when saying, "I Love You" vs. Saying "I Love You" on his own

Our summer Silas has really grown and developed into a fabulous fall Silas.  We can't wait to see what winter Silas looks like. 
                   

Bloggers Amnesia

Well, so much for staying committed. I have to admit that I totally forgot that I had even started to blog until a friend mentioned about me blogging. At first I thought she was mistaking me with someone else. Then I remembered that months ago I made a commitment to write about my journey with my kiddos, which sadly I did only twice. My only defense is I was preoccupied with mothering, and I had bloggers amnesia.

 I really do want to blog. I do want this to be something that is more then once in a while, and by a while I mean more then once every six months. *Side note-that is more frequent then the times I get my haircut, but that's a whole other blog. As I said in my previous post, I want to write about who my kids are and how they are growing and living. Not only for myself, but for them. There is something to be said of remembering where we have been and how we have grown. The other night Sienna saw the journal that I keep for her and wanted to write in it and for me to read to her from it. Sadly, I have had journaling amnesia as well. It had been months since I had even put pen to paper on who my little girl is growing into. For some reason it really made me sad. As I thought about that I realized that it brought me sadness because so much has happened in her life over those months: She has finished kindergarten and started first grade-trying to fight back a sob in my throat, lost four more teeth and developed a lisp to go with it, traveled all down south, jumped in waves in the Atlantic, continued to not want to learn to ride her brand new lime green Huffy bike, announced to us who she is going to marry and clarified it by telling us that the boy does love God with all his heart and soul (we say the Shama before bed), finished the summer reading program through the library, earned a movie night (Madagascar 2) with chinese and icees for good behavior, taught me what grace looks like when dealing with Silas' fits and frustrations, and these are just a speck of who she is.


 See why I might be sad. My girl is growing up, and WAY to fast. People tell you that when they are babies, but you don't really understand it until one day you wake up and they are as tall as you. Okay, so she isn't quite that tall, at the rate she is going though she will be there by next year. As much as it is sad, it is amazing to see your child grow from full dependency on you to becoming an independent individual. That is what it is about. Giving your child wings so that they can soar. There brings a bit of sadness, but more then that it brings pride. That all your prayers and hopes for that child turns into something beautiful. I know I am still at the beginning. Hopefully, she is more interested in flying then she is in riding a a brand new lime green Huffy bike!

2nd Kid=Humility

To say my kiddos are opposites would be an understatement, which I totally love. But there are some things that can be a bit difficult because of this. I will only share of one thing that seems to just about sum up them (and as any mother knows this is an important one)- Sleep Habits. Sienna came out of the womb just knowing how to sleep. She would have slept through the night, and as impressed as we were we would have let her, if she wouldn't have been jaundice and needed to be woken to feed. We followed those baby books (which are helpful) about sleep schedule's and feedings, thinking it was all us. She napped perfectly and slept at nights like a hibernating bear. Up until her first day of kindergarten she still took a nap. This girl likes her bed and her sleep. We as parents held pride in this area of our child. We thought we had it all down, that we knew the secret trick to getting a perfectly sleeping child. Boy were we wrong.

This is what I love about our Silas. He humbled us. I mean isn't that what having a second child is all about. We just thought we had the whole parenting thing down. Our Siguy let us know right off that our heads were to big. The kid wouldn't hardly sleep as a baby. He was up at all times for hours on end, and then wouldn't nap. We clearly thought something was wrong. We were informed this was normal. So, I went to those baby books. Cry-it-out (CIO-they love their acronyms) was a joke. No matter how much I stuck to a schedule he wouldn't give in. So, I tried a technique of every time the baby cried you pick them up and then once they stopped put them right back down. Did that for a full week (an hour or longer at a time) and he never gave into sleeping. The only thing that seemed to help was a friends suggestion to swaddle him with a swaddle blanket. That was our savior. And the boy was swaddled until he was 8 months old (we stopped swaddling his arms once he could roll), he was a human burrito. As you can see the kid just struggles with sleeping. He ended up being a great sleeper at night once we introduced the swaddle, but never the greatest of nappers. If I could have gotten away with it I would still be swaddling him at naps. He does like to be in a blanket cocoon, with his face covered.



Sadly, he has tried to stop taking a nap, but mommy don't play that. We all know how precious those times are when our kiddos sleep. Drastic moments call for drastic measures (I think that is how that phrase goes). I started something I said I would never do, and that was to rock/pat/be in the room until my child falls asleep. It goes against the books, it goes against my very grain of what I have achieved as a mother, at least that is what I thought, since my first never needed that. But what I have found is that kids are different (As I am writing this Silas has come up to me and grabbed my hand, which I am thinking he is going to take me to show me something, no, no, no he opens my hand up and puts his mouth up to it and spills out all the wonderfully chewed contents from his snack of nuts he has been eating. Then says, "UCK". Gives me a big smile and walks off. This happened two more times before I took the nuts away. Sienna wouldn't have ever dreamed of that as an option). Not just kids, but my own kids, who are more like each other then they are of me. And so, I have started to put Silas in our beds for nap and lay with him. I mean can you believe it-haha:) At first I would end up falling asleep with him while he napped, which I am a nap lover, I am not complaining. Then I started a new thing where I stuff my side with pillows and when he falls I asleep I army crawl out of the room to have some mommy time, who doesn't love a good army crawl. To me, 5 minutes of laying with him equals about 2 hours of me time. And I have LOVED my time laying with him. Some days I hold him, other days I just rub his curly head, and everyday I pray over him. Something that once was a NEVER, has turned into a beautiful thing.

Lastly, here is a shot of what drastic can mean. Silas was wanting to sleep in Sieanna's room for nap and it wasn't working. I had tried him in different rooms without me to see if he would nap, and of course he wouldn't. For some reason I had gotten in the middle of something and was trying to see if the pattern would be broken. It wasn't happening. So, I did something that I thought would definitely make him sleep, put him in the tub. At first I was just playing, but then I decided to leave and turn off the light. He stayed in there just talking to himself for about 10 minutes before he started to knock on the tub asking for me. We ended up in my bed and napped together!

Let the journey begin

Well, well, well, I am actually doing something that I thought I would never do, and that is to write down my thoughts for the whole world to have access to.

You see, this started from a comment my sister made.
She said I should start a blog documenting Silas'(my son) behavior.
I laughed!

But the idea seemed to sit for a bit (to be honest it only sat over night). I guess
that means I have thought about documenting my son and my daughter's journey, and
my own journey with them. It just never crossed my mind to do it in a public place. I
am not a writer. I have,over the short years of my kids lives, kept journals of their
milestones and our treasured memories. It is a joy to read through them and to remember
them frozen in that particular time. The thing is, is that I haven't been consistent. I really want to be. Not only for them but for myself, and for their kids. Everyone in my family knows how reminiscent I am. So, this to me seems like a way to hold myself accountable in writing about them.

Going back to what my sister said, about starting a blog, was more about the place we find ourselves with Silas. He was diagnosed with a speech delay when he turned two (which was last year). The past year has been filled with a lot of valleys in our journey with him because of this. There is so many emotions surrounding this that I don't really even know where to start. I guess that's why when my sister, Janette, mentioned this, it lingered. Maybe writing about it will help me to process it a little better. We have gotten tremendous help for his needs, but it is a path that seems like we take a step forward and three steps back. I fully believe he will speak clearly one day, but the "one day" seems very far off at times. In the midst of the valleys we have also had some amazing mountain top experiences with Silas. He is a sweet, gentle, feet-loving three-year-old.

But this isn't just about Silas, it is also about our beautiful daughter Sienna, who is six-years-old. To know Sienna is to love her. She is filled with such joy and sweetness that can only be known in a child. She loves fiercely, and truly believes in princesses,fairies, and leprechaun's. She to struggled with a speech delay when she was younger, but grew out of that and has had no true battles with it. Unfortunately, she does see the battle that Silas has with it and it affects her.

Just in these short paragraphs I feel a sense of excitement in doing this. It wasn't quite as painful as I was imagining. So, let the journey begin:)