A few more albums

We have posted a few small albums to Facebook recently. Here they are for everyone else to look at. Posting to SmugMug yields higher quality and larger pictures, but takes a lot longer.

• Album 1
• Album 2

Two Apologies and an Update

I would like to open this post with two apologies. First, I am sorry that we do a poor job of updating everyone about what is going on with baby Silas, both on the blog and in more personal forms of communications. At work, my supervisor is always telling my team (and, most of the other teams as well) to do a better job of picking up the phone - we can instant message or e-mail our customers, but what they really want to see is us calling them. I am amongst the worst offenders of this, and it is not just limited to my work. So, again, I am sorry that we do not keep in better touch with everyone.

Second apology: We are also sorry that thank you cards have been so long in the making. We had hoped to send them out with birth announcements, which we finally got just a couple weeks ago. We had enough free time last weekend to get the first batch written and mailed, the second batch will hopefully be done to go out in Tuesday's mail. We have been so thankful for the many things we have been given by so many who love us and Silas. The members at Eastside provided us with enough food that Summer did not have to cook for almost a month. Friends and family have provided Silas with so many clothes in different sizes, that we have only personally bought 3 or 4 outfits out of his nearly 30 (30 may seem like a lot, but these cover newborn, 0-3mo, 3-6mo, and a few bigger than that).

Now on to the update. Here is a copy from Summer's personal blog:

I took Silas to the pediatric urologist yesterday. He will have to have surgery to correct his hypospadias, but they won't do it until he's older. It will probably be in July. Dr. Neil's nurse is supposed to call me to set it up. They didn't make a big deal out of it, so I'm not either. I think Dan is a little more worried than I am. I think it's because he cringes just thinking of having surgery on such a sensitive area! Silas was so good for everybody. I think it's because I nursed him right before we went in, so he was still on his milk buzz. He didn't care when we stripped him down to be weighed (he's a whopping 12 lbs 8 oz now!) and he only grimaced when they examined him. Dr. Neil was very good with him and he smiled and cooed at him. It was so cute! I'm glad he saves his bad side for me and doesn't take it outside of our house!

Silas has also been sleeping through the night the past two nights. He has slept solid from about 12:30 to 7:00 both nights. Now, to be fair, he might have woken up a few times last night and we did not hear him - the baby monitor has gone missing (it has a portable receiver, which plugs into a base station in our bedroom at night). But, he has gone from being fed every 4 hours to lasting 6 to 6.5 for two nights in a row. Hopefully, this will continue

Finally, we have been at a weekend meeting the past few days at our congregation, presented by Dick Modine of Kansas City. He is a lawyer, an elder, occasional preacher, school board member, father of 4, one of which died at an early age from physical and mental disabilities. Though he does not have a degree in childhood psychology, he has devoted a lot of his life to observing how children grow and remain faithful, and what their parents did right, and what parents did wrong in raising their children who became unfaithful. This was a very timely lesson, considering how many families, including ours, have young children. There were some very good thoughts, and we will probably talk about some of these here in the future.

Finally, we want to thank our friends Chris and Vanessa for watching Silas on Thursday. Summer really likes Valentines day, which fell yesterday, during our weekend meeting, so we celebrated it on Thursday. Chris and Vanessa watched him for about 3 hours while we went out for a nice dinner. He behaved very well for them (he usually does for other people), and was sound asleep when we picked him up.

The days, they have become roller coasters

The past few weeks have been full of little roller coaster rides. Some days Silas has been a really good baby, some days he has fussed all day long. Summer has been stressed, dad has been somewhat stressed, and little Silas, well, he just can't decide if he wants to cry or not. The general lack of updates and pictures is due to our trying to establish a routine, which has consumed much of our time.

This past Saturday was Barkley's first full day in the house since Silas came home. Our back yard is typically very muddy this time of year, and every time we let the dogs out they track in mud. So, we usually let them out front. Both of the dogs have been somewhat dirty for some time, and very smelly. This past weekend it finally got warm enough for us to clean both of them off. Since Bayley still isn't house trained, she was returned to the cage, while Barkley was allowed inside.

Barkley got along really well with Silas. In fact, Barkley behaved perfectly. Only when we let Bayley in one time did he start to get hyper - further highlighting the need that she needs to find a new home, since she tends to make him misbehave.

Silas also now has a bouncy seat and swing. A friend at church was kind enough to loan the bouncy seat, and so far Silas has really liked it. The swing also has helped to calm him down a few times, though he doesn't want to stay in it for more than about 15 minutes at a time.

5 weeks and counting

One thing I am starting to notice is that the week days kinda blur by. I go to work, come home, help Summer and Silas out, go to Bible study (Monday and Wednesday), unwind for a bit, then get some sleep. I really have not had much time to even take pictures during the week, so most of the pictures as of late are from the weekends.

This past weekend my brother Jason and his fiance Katy had their first visit with Silas. They were a little late (leave it to my brother to get lost even with the help of a GPS :) ), and Silas was asleep by the time they got here, but they did get to see him a little bit Friday evening. They left after lunch on Saturday, so it was a relatively short visit. Jason has been having some issues at work - he needs prayers to get through them.

What time I have not been spending helping Summer and Silas out, I have been devoting to rewriting CofCPages.org. I dont know if I mentioned it before, but a brother in Indiana sent me his software, and I am in the process of upgrading it to meet the needs of my system. It is pretty exciting stuff.

I think Silas is trying to make mommy a liar today. She was very upset when I got home - Silas had been crying pretty much the entire day. A friend from church was nice enough to take him for a couple hours this morning (this was arranged a few days ago, before the crying fit), and he behaved for her, but when he got home he went right back to crying. Now I am home, Summer is taking a shower, and I sit here typing on the laptop a few feet from his bed. He is awake, but quiet. He wants to show others that he can behave, just not for mommy.