39 weeks

So once again months go by without a post!

We're doing pretty well. I think we are set to deliver next week - probably Monday. Amalie is in position & will hopefully arrive with relative ease!

Silas asks me almost daily to "Tell me about my baby sister." He wants to know everything & tells me all the things he will do with/for her. When he plays he asks me if Amalie will be able to play with the toy he has. I've been telling him that some toys could hurt her & he's already looking out for his little sister.

With the help of Grandma Ruth & Grandpa John, Daddy-O built a swing set for Silas (& eventually for Amalie). Silas calls it his swim set ;) This isn't a confusion about what the words mean... it's just difficulty pronouncing "swing."

We have some new pictures in our picasa album (the above, right link). A friend took some wonderful pictures of our growing family recently. Amazingly she made us look really good on a hot day with a distracted boy.

Silas has been doing really well with potty training, but I'm sure that will change when Amalie arrives & his schedule (everyone's schedule) is thrown out of wack. He also tries pretty hard to be a good kid, but sometimes drives us crazy. I hear this is typical almost-three behavior, but it doesn't make it any easier. This past weekend we were sweeping & he wanted to help out (which I always encourage). But lately if he doesn't get his hands to do whatever he thinks they should immediately he throws things down & says, "OH! I can't do it." This was never acceptable behavior in my family & I don't want him to give up on things before he really tries. So I spent some time trying to encourage him to keep trying & he got progressively angrier (without attempting it again or listening to me). So I told him that he wasn't trying to learn & that maybe he should go try to do something else (we'd been dusting & that he can do). About an hour later I'd moved to another room & decided it needed sweeping as well. Silas came in & wanted to help. This time he got it. He ran around the house declaring "I CAN LEARN! I did it!" Then he ran to Jason to show him how he could sweep. I'm not sure that I am understanding enough with him... I am certainly low on patience lately (late pregnancy can to that). I felt bad when he ran around happily screaming "I can learn!" At least he was happy about it!

He is also exhibiting typical tired Melissa behavior - especially when he first wakes up. He rattles on with mixed up words & then stops & says, "Oh! I don't know what I'm saying." The first time he did this I thought something was wrong with him... then I realized that that is probably exactly how I sound. Since Daddy-O misses most mornings with Silas, he hadn't heard this from him. But over the weekend Silas did this at nap-time & Jason just laughed. Apparently it is just like me.

I am afraid that Silas is becoming too much of a couch potato as well. He LOVES TV. I hate that he loves it so much & I know that when Amalie comes along he'll get even more TV time. He watched almost nothing for his first two years & now he watches something nearly every day. Ah well, hopefully he's decently well socialized despite his tube time.