mmm... Thanksgiving

This year we enjoyed Thanksgiving in sunny California with our "neighbors" from San Diego, Clay and Elise. What a great week to have 4 adults vs. 1 toddler, the odds were good.
We started our day on Thursday with a hike on the Strawberry Creek Trail on the high hills above campus with views of the bay. Silas and I enjoyed snacking on the trail, just trying to warm up for dinner ya know?




We all got a little exercise among the eucalyptus trees, came home to take a nap, and then it was time for the feast...

The grown ups were so worn out from cooking for 3 days that we were more than happy to let Joey and Silas handle the clean up. In their own unique style of course.
Clay and Elise brought Silas an early Christmas present: a pet elephant!
Silas and Elise wore coordinating jean jackets, too cool!
Kevin (aka speediest dad in the west) ran a 10k around Lake Merritt in nearby Oakland over the weekend. He was so fast (40 minutes) that we missed him crossing the finish line but we got to see him win his ribbon for first in his age group. Besides the height difference and the polar opposite physiques I think these two look an awful lot alike.
And it's high time we gave a shout out to welcome our newest Berkeley pal to the world: Baby Kelilah Newman Anand was born at home November 5th. Nisha and Dan are thrilled. Big brother Nikki is still a little surprised, he'll come around.
After all that fun with our visitors and friends over the holiday weekend we got back to our boring old regular life. (hardly) Here's Si enjoying the YMCA baby gym.

Exploring Northern California: San Fran and Santa Cruz

Our friend Stefanie came to visit from Philly and it was a great excuse to explore places outside of the 3 mile radius that is our complete (and lovely I must say) world in Berkeley. Of course we had to wait for the puking sickness to end which it finally did and then we were off...

We walked 5 blocks to the BART train which takes us on a 20 minute ride all the way into the heart of the San Francisco Mission District where we visited the "Triumvirate": Poncho Villa for a burrito, 826 Valencia St (the pirate supply store and home of Karl), and Tartine (the bakery I am obsessed with). We left after nap and were home by bedtime, and no one had to ride in a car seat and everyone got to ride the "chugga chugga chugga chugga choo choo!!!"

waiting for the BART train

Of course to counterbalance our trip into the big city we had to see some big trees. So we went to Santa Cruz (an hour and a half south) and hiked in the redwoods just outside of town along railroad tracks overlooking a beautiful rocky river. Silas collected some leaves and rocks and generally enjoyed himself.

We even got to see a banana slug!
We ended our day in Santa Cruz with a trip to the boardwalk to see the Giant Dipper (the 1924 roller coaster) and the lovely sunset over the water.

The Shower Scene

And because the photos have been particularly cute this month, here's a few more...




(see our kale patch?)

19 1/2 months

I love being Silas's mom. Yes, occasionally I need a walk around the block ALONE and it would be nice to drink an entire cup of tea while it is actually hot once in a while (not just talking about it: "TEA TEA!" "Yes, that's mommy's tea" "HOT HOT!" "Well it was hot about 10 minutes ago before you mentioned your other favorite topic of conversation, poop poop" "UH YEAH")

Silas still needs to wear his eye patch (more often than he is actually willing to wear it, but we do our best) to keep his left eye in good working order, since he can use his eyes together but he doesn't always maintain the alignment. This is not unusual with his diagnosis of congenital esotropia, he's actually doing pretty well. He may need glasses at some point and possibly another surgery down the road. I admit I am not that enthusiastic about another surgery but a kid with glasses I fully expected when I married Kevin.
I promised my Dad I wouldn't post this picture and make him look at it again but I just can't resist. Look at that egg head! He made a quick recovery after a collision with the kitchen trolley leg. I offered him ice for his head but he prefers to take his ice by mouth.

He has a love/fear relationship with the real cows (aka "moo moo"s) at the farm but this cow in the cheese shop is just perfect for kissing.
Many of our loyal blog fans may not realize that Silas is actually very very shy (you certainly can't tell from most of the photos we take around the house where he is in his element). He is very slow to warm up when we go out to the playground, library, baby gym, farm or anywhere there are other folks even though I take him to at least one fun place a day and he usually attracts a lot of positive attention because he has elbow dimples and a flowing white mullet hairdo. Although he does seem to enjoy himself while he stands near one of us and talks about what he sees: "BABY" "Yes there are babies playing in the sand box" "WAA-WAA" "Yes, some of the babies are crying" "WEE!" "Would you like to go down the slide?" "UH YEAH" and then we sit for 10 minutes repeating the conversation while he contemplates his approach to the "WEE"

Here he is outside the farm making animal noises, should have had the camera on video mode...
We got a new camera since the old one died and it does fancy stuff, here's an early experiment with the color display.
If anyone is wondering why we still co-sleep with Silas in one big bed, let me explain...

harmonica

An example of open-ended, creative play :)

Only 49 Shopping Days Until Christmas...

...and I'm sure that some of the readers of this blog are chomping at the bit to buy presents for Silas. Christine and I have always had thoughts about the role we would like for toys and other possessions to play in Silas's life, but we are still fleshing out how this fits into our parenting philosophy (as well as the details of our parenting philosophy in the first place!). We are currently both reading the book Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture by Juliet Schor, which has helped to crystallize some of our thoughts. Besides the horror stories of how marketing to kids has changed even since we were young, Schor presents her quantitative research into the effect of what she calls "consumer involvement" on children's psyche. She used surveys to develop measures of "dissatisfaction", "consumer orientation", and "brand awareness" among pre-teen children. The results are striking, and can be summed up in this quote:

High consumer involvement is a significant cause of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and psychosomatic complaints. Psychologically healthy children will be made worse off if they become more enmeshed in the culture of getting and spending. Children with emotional problems will be helped if they disengage from the worlds that corporations are constructing for them.

This confirms much of what Christine and I already felt. We would like play, for Silas, to be a time to have fun and be creative rather than to have a branded, licensed experience. Is a toy train more fun because it has a picture of Thomas on it? Or is it a gateway: today, Thomas; tomorrow, Tommy Hilfiger? (Actually, Silas doesn't watch TV, so he wouldn't know Thomas from Dora from Barney from Elmo.) And will it all make him happy? I'm interested in having this discussion with folks individually, since there's a lot more to it than I'm writing about here - and it's not a lot of fun to just write a list of things that Silas can't have and you can't get for him.

In any event, we have compiled a list, to the right, of suggested gifts that Silas would probably enjoy. These are suggestions only, and you are welcome to buy (or make, barter for, or compose) anything else that you think might be suitable. Hopefully, gifts that he receives will be in keeping with what we would like to teach Silas, including creativity, open-ended play, environmental sustainability, and fun! Like, a subscription to the Pumpkin of the Month Club:

"pat pat kitty gentle"

Silas's first word was kitty (technically "diddy") and he was speaking about Darwin, our obnoxiously loud 16 pound Siamese. Si likes Lucy too, he calls her "another one" but she's a normal cat and doesn't crave attention the way Darwin does.
Darwin and Silas have a very special relationship. Here it is in pictures.



Good kitty.