Birthdays, and first sleepover

I have been waiting to blog about the boys' birthdays because I don't have the pictures downloaded because our home computer is in the shop. But, time is a-wasting. So, I will write sans pictures.

 

Silas birthday was on January 7 and he turned 1 year old! He is an adorable little 1-yr-old, too. He is walking all over the place, so long as we're indoors because he still falls a lot. But he greatly prefers walking to crawling, and almost never crawls anymore. He does walk some at the playground, on the wood chips, if he needs to get to me. He still doesn't like to wear "real" shoes. He is just wearing soft-soled baby shoes still. If I put him in rain boots, he just can't walk in them yet. He's also making lots of noises and can say Dah (which is the word for everything if he wants something), Dada, Dogs ("Dahz!"), and Eliot ("Eyyeh!"). He can say Mama too, but he almost never does. And he loves to feed the dogs. I took a video; he goes to the dog food bin, opens it, takes out the cup, takes out some kibble in his hand, puts it in the cup, then goes over to the dogs and takes out kibble from the cup and gives it to them. Then again, and again, and again.... 

 

Anyway, for his birthday I made chocolate cupcakes, and we celebrated at home, after dinner, and Eliot had to have a candle on his cupcake too. "Silas can have the green candle, and I can have the blue candle. Silas can have the green candle and I can have the blue candle. Yeah," said Eliot, multiple times to make sure I understood.

 

On January 14, we had a birthday party for both boys. I made cupcakes again, and friends came over. Eliot opened gifts. And he allowed Dada and Mama to sing him happy birthday, but he didn't want anyone else to sing, and he didn't want me to play it on the ukulele (even though I had been practicing it! *sigh*). So I explained to everyone that Eliot has requested that only Brady and I sing, and everyone else just listen, and when Brady and I started singing, Eliot looked around the room with a smile on his face that seemed to say, "Cool! Everyone is doing what I asked!" It was cute. After the party, we walked down the street for a casual bento dinner with whoever was available to join us from the party.

 

Then January 20 was Eliot's actual birthday, and it was music class day, so I brought some chocolate chip cookies and we shared them with everyone after class. The teacher said we would sing Eliot Happy Birthday, and of course Eliot doesn't like it when people sing that song, but he said to me, "I want her to sing it quiet," and so I said, "Ok, ask her." And he did! He said, "I want you to sing it quiet," and Maggie, the teacher, said, "Okay!" And she played and sang quietly and everyone followed her lead and sang quietly, and Eliot enjoyed it. And everyone enjoyed the gluten-free cookies and kept asking me for the recipe. ;-)

 

Speaking of music class, we are really enjoying it. It's Music Together, which is a national thing out of New Jersey, but run locally in different places. The Portland one is very popular. And it's super fun. Every week, 45 minutes, for ages 0-5, so I can bring both Silas and Eliot, which is very convenient. There's a music CD with 20 songs that we can play at home, and do nearly every day, and it immediately puts the boys in a good mood. Eliot has learned quite a few of the songs and sings along, and Silas walks over to the speakers and bops up and down and grins. It's very cute.

 

Eliot has his first sleepover on Friday night. He is going to sleep over at his good friend's house, Ari, down the street. He asked to do it, and we asked Ari's mama, and the answer was yes, so we shall give it a try and see if he makes it all night or if there's a late-night call asking us to get him b/c he got scared or something.