Silas is a darling little boy. Sometimes I find his interests to be rather unorthodox for a two and a half year old chap but that’s what I love about him. He doesn’t model himself much as other people but he just does what he wants to do. He’s just Silas.

Silas knows our laundry routine like the back of his hand. He ASKS to do the laundry and he helps me with every step. Who knew a little guy like him would be so in love with the laundry. It always makes his day when we use bleach. At night and before naps Silas insists on kissing the soap boxes goodnight.

Another interest of Silas’ is cooking. I hardly can cook anything without him grabbing and chair and coming over to help me. The boy can name a lot of ingredients and takes a special interest in the “banilla”. He knows a few recipes like how I make scrambled eggs and he knows how to make oatmeal. He often asks to make cookies or brownies or dumplings (”dumpalines”). I love that he likes cooking him and I’ll continue to teach him for the sake of him and his future wife

Silas really like shapes and colors. I think his favorite shape would be a crescent. Whenever we do coloring he always makes me draw all the shapes he knows (circle, square, oval, rectangle, triangle, crescent, star, heart…) and then he makes me draw ceiling fans and snowmen. Sometimes he gets on a roll and asks me to draw every person he loves. I’m glad his one wall is covered in chalk board because it’s a big task. He’s now responsible enough to take out his crayons and coloring cook and color with them, use only a few crayons at a time, clean up after himself and put everything away. I need to get him to apply that to the rest of his play time.

Silas is getting better at counting things and can now go all the way to 20. I love watching him count, it’s cute.

His musical abilities are continuing to stretch and grow. He blew my mind on Saturday when I came home and him and Brent were playing the guitar. Silas was strumming in (almost) perfect time. He was also anticipating the cord changes and sometimes added his own stylistic bits that fit into the song very well. He sustains some chords but anticipates when the next one is coming, it’s rather incredible. He can also sing at the same time I dunno about you but I think that’s a leeetle brag-worthy. It made me cry. We’re going to get him a small guitar for his birthday so he can play with Brent. We wont get him a super expensive one until he proves that he can be responsible with it and is showing more interest in it. His musical abilities make me so happy. I’m hoping that I can nurture them properly and not put too much pressure on him about it.

Silas is a little mixed up still with the English language. He’ll ask for something the way I’d ask him if he wanted something. Like he’ll say “do you want some lunch?”. I was so proud of myself when I got him to say “yes please” to something instead of just repeating my question to me. But now when he says “do you want some water?” and then I say “may I have some water please?” he says “YES” and then I say it again and he says “YES PLEASE”. I’m stuck as to where we go next with that one…

Wow I didn’t realize that this would turn into such a long post.

Now Silas’ other passion, next to his laundry fascination, is candles. He probably asks to light the candles about 50-100 times a day. He loves them sooooo much. He usually asks to kiss them goodnight every night and he also thanks Jesus for them (names each one by its color) during his bed time prayers. One time I was cooking and I let him stand on a chair beside me and look at a candle that I lit. He just blows it out and I re-light it and he’s happy as a clam. Afterwards someone noticed that all his bangs were singed…oooopsie.

Oh how I could go on and on about my little Silas. I don’t go on and on enough about him on this blog and thus the reason for his post. I just love him to bits and I just love that he’s just himself. I love that he’s interested in weird things and that he says hi to everyone he sees. He is such a wonderful, sensitive human and I’m just so excited to watch him grow. I pray that he keeps that soft innocence in his face, his love for other humans, his affectionate nature, his love for his brother and that twinkle in his eye.

Tune in tomorrow for IKEY!

Happy belated Mother’s Day all!!

I hope that you all had a nice day.

My day went fairly well.  I think my favorite part was setting up my new compost bin.  The city I live in puts on an event every year where you take a work shop on composting and then you can buy a bin.  They subsidize them so it was only 35 buckaroos.  Lots of earth friendly stuff is subsidized through my city.  You should check out your city too.  Here they give you $125 if you buy new lower flow toilets.  I also bought this box for $10 which had 2 low flow shower heads, some low flow stuff for my taps, two bags that you fill with water and stick in your toilet tank so it uses less water and then a few other things.  Pretty neato hey?

Anyway, yesterday I set it up and went out to the park to get a bunch of leaves for my “brown matter” and I used a bunch of the left over sod we had and I got it all started.  I’m composting for my sister too, she’s keeping all of her food clippings.  She’s living in an apartment so it’s kinda easier for her to just bring them to me on our weekly dates.

Gosh, sorry, this may not be very exciting but composting just makes my heart full of glee.  Last August I wrote this and ever since then it has killed me to throw out food scraps.

Totally different topic now, on Saturday I had another photography client.  It has really inspired me to start my own business.  I get such a high from doing it and it makes me feel really good to make money as well.  It’s just giving me a purpose outside of being a mom.  So soon Leah Shannon Photography will be up and running and growing and hopefully it’ll be great.  It’s nice to start a business without worrying about making enough money.  I think I’ll put a lot of the money back into the business so I can start charging more.  I’ll start taking classes and buying more toys and pretty much it’ll be a massive tax write off the first year…yay.

The end.

I feel a cold coming on. THANKS IKEY!! Poopy baby gave me a cold.

So Wednesday morning I woke up and stepped out on my deck that’s attached to my bedroom to admire my planters on my fence and one was GONE!!! I was ticked beyond belief and I ran downstairs and out my gate hoping to find it had only fallen down and not had been stolen. (I have to change a poo bum…darn Silas…eww that was gross) There was my poor pot, all toppled over. It was tipped towards the fence so someone obviously took it down and dumped it. I was so sad. I think I managed to save all the plants though. I’ve put them on my neighboring fences so the little brats that are bored and wandering in the night don’t cause me any more grief! Who does that kinda thing? Gosh people are so DUMB!!!

So I have another challenge for you. I heard last July that you could put a little sign in your mailbox asking for no flyers. It took me this long to actually do it but it does work, you don’t get any!! I ALWAYS just get rid of mine (recycle) but I thought if I did that and perhaps got more people to do that then maybe they’d stop making so many?

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world”- Ghandi

Hearing that quote on Grey’s Anatomy last week actually really inspired me…oddness. Brent and I just looked at each other and said “hmmmm”.

Anyway, try it if you don’t use those pesky flyers and tell me about it. Perhaps send me a photo of it? Perhaps get one more person to do it?

The other day when I wrote my “shoulds” list I was really thrown off. I was in a bit of a hole for a few days. My counselor wanted me to do it just so she could see how many shoulds I actually have. What they were wasn’t so much the issue I don’t think. I’m having trouble with our last session. I kinda realized the vision I have of myself in my head really isn’t me. I’ve almost been living in denial of who I really am for some reason. I think part of me feeling so many shoulds is that all my life I hard time feeling like I met people’s expectations for me. I didn’t get good grades, I was a loner a lot of the time, church leadership always seemed annoyed by me…K I kinda felt like I annoyed everyone…etc. So that’s one theory. So now it’s time to focus on all the good things I do. I kind of feel like I’m on a journey to some sort of higher self awareness. Right now my mind, heart, and spirit aren’t communicating with each other very well. That’s actually EXACTLY how I feel. Interesting.

Anyway, I write about my mental health because I’m hoping that someone else might feel the same as I do and perhaps find some connection or perhaps some inspiration? I’m not totally looking for advise unless you feel like I really need it. Sometimes getting advise just makes me feel worse though. I think understanding is what I’m looking for. Not just for me but understanding from me to other people. But if you have some neat factoids like what Courtenay is giving me then I la la la love that too.

This is getting lengthy. Have a good weekend and Happy Mother’s Day all you amazing mothers out there!!

Do any of you see colors when someone sings a song? Do songs have certain colors? This morning Silas told me the colors of all the songs we sing. He started off by telling me that All My Lovin by the Beatles was an array of colors. Then I asked him about Twinkle Twinkle and he said “orange” and Jesus Loves Me is “black”. Alriiiiiiiighty.

I know that Justmakingitupasigo has a color for every day of the week sooooo, perhaps he’s not crazy? I’m chalking it up to either two year old antics or that he actually sees colors flowing from my mouth when I sing and that makes him a musical prodigy :). Perhaps that’s why he likes it so much?

This morning was lovely though, they both slept in and my sister Juliet’s phone call (asking me how many dozen eggs I needed from the farmer) woke me up at 9. I then wondered if the little chap was alive so I went into his room and he calmly said “hi” as he laid there playing with his stuffed lion. We had a miraculous cuddle in my bed where he’d wrap his little arms all around me and pull me in close to him. We sang lots of songs and I think he sang Gingerbread Boy like 80 times all the way through. I love hearing him sing “he was made from ginger, sugar and spice”. So stinking cute!!! He also gave me kisses for every color he could think of, “blue kiss *smooch*, red kiss…*smooch”. We kiss about lots of things.

Anyway, it was a spectacular morning snug.

Oooo I must also tell you that the last night Brent and I were watching Americal Idol and we heard a loud thunk above our heads. We both raced to rescue our son from an obvious fall from his bed. When we got there like 8 seconds later he was already back in bed and dozing off to sleep. We were obviously more shaken then he was!

Silas just came and sat on my lap and said “and the purple close your eyes (his name for All My Lovin) and the yellow close your eyes”.  Weeeeiiiirrrdo

My counselor learned that I’m a blogger so I have an assignment from her today.  She actually wants to hear all of your input to.  So comment please…perhaps today is a good day to quit lurking :)  I’ll love you still if you don’t.

K here’s the thing.  I live my day to day thinking I should be doing a lot of things that I don’t do.  It really gets me down.  I don’t know where all of these should’s have come from, perhaps I’ve picked them up from here and there.  But I definitely focus on them a lot even though I don’t realize that I’m doing it.  My counselor wants me to write a list of my “shoulds” and hopefully hear some feedback from all you folk.  So here I go.  I’m going to leave out a few of them that might be TMI for Grans and Grumps :).

1. I should keep a cleaner home
2. I should take my kids outside more
3. I should exercise more
4. I should eat less
5. I should stop spending so much money on delicious red wine
6. I should stop eating dairy products
7. I should stop playing on the net so often
8. I should give Silas and Isaac each more one on one time
9. I should have more energy
10. I should stand up for myself more
11. I should stop fearing conflict
12. I should start saying yes to people who want to hang out
13. I should be skinnier
14. I should stop letting Isaac nurse at night
15. I should start doing more fun things with my husband
16. I should go to bed earlier
17. I should keep to my cleaning routine
18. I should actually fold clothes
19. I should feed my family more fish
20. I should pay off my debt faster
21. I should get my taxes done (k I really SHOULD do that)
22. I should get to my mom’s house more often
23. I should start singing in church again
24. I should start writing songs again
25. I should reach out more
26. I should have a sponsor child
27. I should tithe
28. I should get a compost (K I am on Saturday)
29. I should work harder to get our renos done
30. I should think before I speak
31. I should make more things from scratch
32. I should have more deep conversations with my husband
33. I should be better with money
34. I should drink more water
35. I should remember to take my vitamins
36. I should be a better wife
37. I should teach my kids more
38. I should get my kids dressed in the morning instead of letting them roam about in their PJ’s (but it’s so comfy)
39. I should take better care of my hair and my skin
40. I should be the kind of person who can take on challenges
41. I should be better at setting goals
42. I should be better at actually trying to reach a goal
43. I should stop saying should so much
44. I should try and make money somehow
45. I should take more photos
46. I should eat more veggies
47. I should take singing lessons again
48. I should take piano lessons
49. I should focus more on the now then the future or past
50. I should work on Silas’ communication skills more
51. I should make more of an effort to sit at the table and eat with everyone (but by the end of the day I’d rather eat in a closet than eat at a table with loud children)
52. I should reach out to my nieces and nephews more
53. I should be more like so and so
54. I should learn to sew
55. I should make more gifts
56. I should be a Suzie home maker
57. I should clean the kitchen every night before I go to bed
58. I should cook more frugal-y (I dunno…is frugaly a word??)
59. I should be more social at church
60. I should be ok with myself when I always stick my foot in my mouth at church
61. I should stop being so scared of social situations
62. I should be the change I want to see in the world
63. I should stop eating at Wendy’s (but that spicy baconater!!)
64. I should start going to Nexus again
65. I should show my husband more appreciation
66. I should volunteer
67. I should volunteer for the Olympics
68. I should read my Bible….but I don’t understand it anymore…
69. I should fit into my summer clothes before it gets too hot
70. I should do anything possible to pay off our debt, even collect cans
71. I should buy a better car
72. I should keep my car cleaner
73. I should stop forgetting to throw dirty diapers away
74. I should have more people over
75. I should call my chiropractor
76. I should stop procrastinating
77. I should pay my bills on time more often…oops
78. I should go visit my Grandparents more often
79. I should be less pessimistic
80. I should stop being so honest with people…but I can’t help it
81. I should make a bunch of meals and freeze them
82. I should bake more
83. I should give more of myself
84. I should stop sitting in front of the computer or on the couch so much
85. I should put my marriage before my kids (how the heck do people do that?)
86. I should stop being such a pushover
87. I should be more thankful for what I have
88. I’m starting to think I should stop telling myself “I should” so much
89. I should keep the kids toys in line more
90. I should read more parenting books
91. I should have more patience

K I have to stop now.  I’m feeling ill and overwhelmed.  I could still go on.  It wasn’t hard at all to think of those things because I say all of that and more to myself on a daily basis.  No wonder I’m going crazy.

I have this vision in my mind of the person I want to be.  She’s skinny with long hair and wears stylish clothes.  She does all these things and more.  She’s not Leah.

I think with time we all mature and grow into better people we create more habits, we learn to do things more efficiently.  Of course if I tried all these things at the same time I’ve never find time to do it.  It’s hard to let go of them.  It rocked my world last night when I realized that thinking this way isn’t the best for me.  It’s hard for me to accept that I already am a good, well-rounded person.  I should remind myself of the things I already am instead of what I should be.  That’s the one “should” I think I need to actually focus on.

Sorry if there’s spelling mistakes.  I can’t bring myself to actually read over all of that.  I fear I might throw up or explode.

Thoughts?

We’re on the countdown until Isaac gets to one year. I can’t believe we’re so close!! He’s changing very quickly now. He’s just cut 3 teeth, all in the wrong order just like Silas. Not AS wonky…but close. I swear that comes from his Dad’s side because Lucas did the same thing. But poor baby, they just keep poking through. He’s handling it better than when the first two came in at the same time and he slept all day long. Although, I must admit, it’d be nice if he slept all day long :).

You all know the little booger is starting to take some steps. He really blew us away yesterday and we were all playing out in the back yard with Lucas and Isaac just started walking all around the yard. He did it a few times. He was just like “I’m walking now”. It didn’t continue throughout the day but it was funny to see. If he were more determined to walk he’d be pretty good at it already. He’s pretty happy to still crawl though. He’s doing better with walking back and forth between Brent and I but it’s hard to do because Silas always wants in on the action.

So yesterday Brent came home early to say goodbye to his parents and have lunch with all of us. Once everyone was gone and the kids were in bed I set back out to the nursery to buy MORE things. I went to a different place this time and it’s so much cheaper and way better organized. The first one I went to is crazy but they have loads of exotic plants in there. Anyway, I bought these two pots that have a groove in the bottom so they can sit right on your fence or your railings. So cool. I filled them both with loads of trailing plants in white, blue, orange, black and red. I also stuck a bright orange New Guinea impatience in both and then a white Osterospermum in both too, just for some high pretties. I’m very excited about the black sweet potato vines I put in them. I think it’ll add some funky funky fresh. K I have to go take a photo for you…

(kinda blurry…sorry)

I can’t wait until they fill in and get really long and delicious. I also did three hanging fuchsia pots. One is oranges and yellows, one is pinks and one is reds and a bit of white. Those are very small still so not worth taking a photo of. Once they get bigger and loverly I’ll take picts. I hope all the colors look good, sometimes kinda hard to tell when they’re not blooming.

Gardening is such therapy for me. Every step of the way. Going to the nursery is like sending me to Disneyland. Then getting my hands in the dirt and planting everything, putting everything just where I want it. Then watching it all grow, caring for it and weeding it. I also love blogging about it and then sitting back and staring at all my beautiful plants for hours and hours. Then I get to take pictures and blog about it. Oh my oh my oh my. Plants are the best ever.

That’s all….

…oh and grumps, your birthday money paid for the plants in those pots. NOT the tattoo I’m getting in 9 days :). Jill…your money bought the pots

whoa…who’s that with the mullet?

Yesterday was one of those days that make you wish every day was like that.  By the ghastly smell of my garlic breath, that I can even smell myself, you’d know I had a good time.  Oh dear…I smell poop…I’ll get back to you in a moment….

…..k that was foul.  Anyway,  in the morning we took the boys to the pool.  We tried a different pool this time and it’s WAY better than the one we had gone to before.  Anyway, all of us were there including Brent’s parents and Colin and Leanne.  Even Yvonne who comments on here sometimes :).  The kids had so much fun.  I couldn’t believe how content Isaac was the entire time.

I took Silas down the water slide and he didn’t want to go back on but he didn’t hate it.  He was really excited to go down but I think going so fast down a weird blue tube might be a little odd for someone like him.  We talked him into one more round and he went with Daddy.  I took Ikey down once with me too…he just looked around in awe.

Once that was all done the in laws got everyone Wendy’s and we all had lunch here and then put the boys to nap time.  Roselle and I were kinda bored so we went to a nursery and got plants to put into my pots.  It was so stinking exciting I almost peed a little.  We did all of my pots and because I went a tidbit nutty we had extra that we just put in my front bed until I had a better use of them.  The front of my house is definitely spruced up a bit.

Then arrived the sand and water table that Jill had bought my kids for a housewarming present.  Silas and Ikey helped Juliet and I build it (Jules delivered it) and then we filled it up and they pretty much flipped out.  Ikey was soaked within a few second and he was shaking he was so excited.  Silas began dumping all of the sand into the water side but I was ok with it because Jill gave me a pep talk about how the kids SHOULD mix it and it’s good for them.  So, trusting the ECE teacher I let it happen.  Both of the boys are so in love with that thing already.  And they’ve both ingested the sand and water and the sandy water.  Lets hope it’s ok :).

But no, the fun didn’t end there.  We got ready for a supper with Brent’s family.  I made a ganache and just put it into a graham cracker crust.  Man, that is the most simple decadent dessert in the world.  It’s to die for.  And then I made a baked brie with roasted garlic and also some baked goat cheese.  The family brought booze and appetizers and dips and chips and other yummies.  We put Lucas to bed here and we all just ate and drank and talked for hours and hours.  It was lovely.  And my ganache was like…holy cow.  Yum yum yum.

Anyway, I eventually got to bed at like 12:30 and then the day was over and the next thing I knew I was rescuing Isaac from his nasty poo spill over this morning while Silas was screaming at me from his bed.  Back to reality.

my pansy pot

my random pot.

my pink pot

my white and red pot.  It’s two different kinds of impatience and some white bacopa

The leftovers.  Pretty pretty pretty.

Working the screw driver.  Look at that luscious grass we put in!!

The first thing he did was sit in it.

fun fun fun

lets just have a sip

this boy was SOAKED!!

Ikey’s look is cuz his just drank a big gulp of water from that cup ha ha.

“Thanks Auntie Jill!”

]]> http://pluckymama.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/yesterday/feed/ The Informal Matriarch http://pluckymama.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/baby-silas/ http://pluckymama.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/baby-silas/#comments Fri, 02 May 2008 19:04:49 +0000 The Informal Matriarch http://pluckymama.wordpress.com/?p=1037

I’ve recently been looking through old photographs.  I realized that none of you have seen Silas as a baby because I started this when he was 14 months.  So I thought I’ve give you some visual stimulation to tantalize your taste buds :)  The most delicious kind of photo Friday.  Meet baby Silas.

we used to wrap his blanket up around him like this so he wouldn’t loose his sucky while he slept.  Ha ha.  He was also swaddled up tight under there

Some daddy love as a newborn

I love photos of babies in pumkins

This is my utmost favorite photo of my little darling.  Oh my oh my oh my.

He loved to read books even at a very young age.  He was looking through books before he was crawling.

Christmas 06.

In Red Robin.  Dangit he was a cutie…still is

]]> http://pluckymama.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/baby-silas/feed/ The Informal Matriarch http://pluckymama.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/pulling-out-my-hair/ http://pluckymama.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/pulling-out-my-hair/#comments Thu, 01 May 2008 16:44:39 +0000 The Informal Matriarch http://pluckymama.wordpress.com/?p=1036

Today is one of those pull-you-hair-out sort of days.  It began with both children waking at 7am, bright eyed a bushy tailed.  Silas was screaming in his room while I tried to nurse Ikey in hopes that he’d go back to sleep.  He didn’t he just pooped.  Silas threw a tantrum because he wasn’t getting his blueberries fast enough and ran around the house screaming bloody murder.  Ikey didn’t eat anything because he was much too tired and cranky from waking up at 7am.  Silas ate both bowls of oatmeal himself.

I made myself two pieces of toast and while I was talking to my mom on the phone, both were snatched from under me and consumed by a wild and apparently still hungry toddler.  I made two more and was able to consume about 1 piece myself, but it had been licked in attempts to get the honey off of it.  By that time I was too hungry to care about child slobber on my toast.

Nothing too nutty but it’s just been go go go go all morning.  Withing a minute I pulled cotton balls out of Ikey’s mouth, rescued him from the stairs and stopped him from eating other bits from my floor.  Time to Vacuum I think.

Now Ike is in an early nap because he wasn’t coping with his fatigue and the whole day is messed up.  Ha ha.  But I did manage to talk my mom’s ear off that entire time because she is FINALLY not busy.  Wooot.

Oh dear, something new has begun and I’m not too sure what to think about it.  My precious little pudding has grown up and started to take some steps.  The first one happened on Monday where he stepped towards me.  I didn’t see it though.  Then last night the little snickerdoodle started taking more.  He took 3 steps toward me from the coffee table like a total champ.  After that he was too excited to walk.  His mouth got too big and he was giggling too hard to be able to move anywhere without falling.

So, I am proud.  Very proud.  I’m just sad because his first year is drawing to a close and I already forget 90% of what happened.  I’m glad I have this blog to remind me.  I LOVE having a baby around.  He’s just priceless and he makes me smile all of the time.  Just with his funny grins and sounds and his wonderful mushy body.  I am excited to watch him toddle after Silas and try and do everything just like Silas does.  It’ll be nice when I can watch them run around and grow and bond like brothers should.

I guess he’ll always be my baby, I just wish he could stay a baby a bit longer.  I’m glad they don’t really turn from baby into little boy for another year.  With the first one you think they’re big but with this second one I’m realizing just how tiny he still is and I’m enjoying every moment.