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.