17 Months Old

I’m feeling much better today. I hate days like yesterday, they really suck. Silas is 17 months old this week. Time has really flown by since he turned One. His vocabulary continues to grow each day but I don’t think it’s grown as much as it did last month. His incredible memory when it comes to songs is what’s really expanded. He really doesn’t know what he is saying but he can get a lot of the words to songs he hears everyday. He sings a range from Josh Grobin to Bon Jovi. Yesterday he baffled me with many more songs he knew words to like “Lullaby” by the Dixie Chicks and “Sunrise” by Norah Jones. There’s many more too. He can’t sing the whole song or whole words but he knows when the sounds are coming and he does get words quite often. His skills with the tune are lacking but sometimes he gets the tune bang on, just depends on the day. He knows parts to over 20 songs I think.

It means so much to me that he’s into music. I don’t know if I’ve ever given my musical background on here but I’ve been very involved with it at times. I did about 8 years of classical training. I’ve been involved in band and choirs. One time I got to go to Cuba with my band and choirs in high school. A few years back I got to travel around with a choir in Germany, that was amazing. I’ve been in quite a few musicals and festival competitions as well. There have been times in my life where most of it was consumed with music, I love it. I also can play the guitar which is something I don’t do often enough anymore. I’ve written a few songs as well, some of which can be heard on my myspace. If it wasn’t for music, I wouldn’t have met my husband. I went back to Bible College to get my BA in Worship Arts which would have prepared me to be a worship leader at a church. I didn’t even finish the first year but that brought me to Brent who was in the same choir as I was in. Music has given me so much in life so I really hope Silas continues to love it and carry it on in the family. I’m not so involved right now but I do sing at church once a month and that’s been a lot of fun. I’ve gotten way better at finding harmony when singing it in 3 parts. Brent’s also very talented as well!! And a little musical side note, SANJAYA NEEDS TO GO HOME!! He was soooo bad last night!

Anyway, back to Silas the 17 month old. I’ve really been realizing that consistency works for kids. It sneaks up on you so you don’t notice how far they’ve come with discipline. Silas no longer opens cupboards and hardly every grabs things off the table. He leaves our toilet lid down which is nice because no one like to see their child drink toilet water. If he opens a drawer and I say “no no” he’ll even close it back up. He now points to things he knows he’s not allowed to touch and makes this funny “ooo” noise. I had to tell him only a few times to sit on his bum on the couches and chairs and now whenever he’s on them he makes sure to even say “ah bum” so I know he remembers and he hardly every stands. He’s doing really well with all of that. I still have to say “no” to him for things but at least he’s obeying me 80% of the time. The hard thing right now is to get him to stop kicking when I’m changing his bum, I guess it took forever to get him to stop opening cupboards so this will take a bit of consistency as well. It’s just painful when he gets you with his heel.

The newest thing that Silas does is brings you books. It’s starting to happen all day and at the end of every book he either throws it because he’s done with it or he says “again”, in that case we usually end up reading the same book like 10 times in a row. Last night during the hockey game (GO CANUCKS), Brent was reading to him books we’ve read a million times so we just have to look at the first word on each page and we know what it says. I have some completely memorized now which makes it easier to read to him and watch the game at the same time. He’s also thinking that everything with 4 legs is a doggy which is kinda cute. He says “HI” to almost everyone he sees in public and he enjoys yelling “EIEIO” and “WEEE” off our balcony. His fascination with everything that spins just grows deeper everyday, he’s so weird about that. He loves coming into our room and pointing out the fan, he does it in such a silly way that makes us laugh so hard, I can’t describe it though. It’s very dramatic.

Anyway, there’s his 17 month update. I’m excited to see what happens in the next month. Soon we’ll be dealing with him abusing his brother so that should be some entertaining reading.

This is Silas enjoying his “hat” that auntie Jen Jen made him. A few days ago, he made Brent and I stick it on his head a million times only for him to pull it off right away. Thanks for the toque Jen!