A Lot To Live Up To

So this might be kind of a funny thing to come out of blog-hiding for, but I wanted to document it somewhere and this seems like a pretty good place to do so.

We have a 3 year old girl. A perfect, sweet, beautiful, wonderful little three year old girl. She is starting to get into all things princess - she likes fancy dresses, tiaras, jewels, necklaces, etc. She got a box of toy jewelry from someone for Christmas and it came with a necklace. The necklace have become her jewels and she slept with them on for several nights in a row even though I don't imagine they were very comfortable to sleep with.

She also loves Cinderella. I was a little surprised that Cinderella has become her preferred princess over the likes of Anna, Elsa, Rapunzel, and the others just because I think the movie is kind of slow, but she loves it. Amy took her to see the live action Cinderella when it came out earlier this year and I think that left an impression on her. In fact, she asked the other night if we could go watch Cinderella on the place that has the really big TV. I love those little descriptions.

For Christmas she also happened to get a Cinderella-like dress. It is light blue, with white and has lace. It's pretty cute, actually. I think it was yesterday that she had her dress on and kept dancing around with Amy, then would run away and Amy would yell after her, "wait! I don't even know your name!" Did I say she loves Cinderella? And that she's the cutest?

While she had the dress on she asked to look through our wedding book and Amy shared with her some memories of that day and talked with her about the different people in that book. She recognized grandmas and grandpas and is getting better at identifying who is mom's dad and mom and mine also.

It was while looking through the book that Amy said to Jane that she'll get married someday too and they had a nice little conversation about that, to which Jane replied, "maybe someday I can marry daddy too."

So there it is. For this little three year old, I am everything that it means to be a male role model. This is mostly because she doesn't have anyone else to really compare me against, but all the same, it still makes me feel a tremendous sense of responsibility. I really hope to live up to her ideal of what a husband should be.

For better or worse, I think we mostly end up recreating for our adult-selves the same relationships that we witnessed as children. Sometimes we live as a reaction against those relationships and people that we observed in our childhood, but I think there's always at least a subconscious pull back to them even when we are trying to escape. I just hope that whatever I model for Jane as a father and husband that it can be for the better and help her to aspire to great things.

I just love that little girl so much. It's maybe a bit silly, but I'm flattered that she feels that way about me.

Jane at 2 years and change

It's so crazy that we have a 2 year old now. We had a pretty quiet birthday part for Jane, seeing as how we still don't really know anyone out here. I guess it was that way for her first birthday too. Maybe we're just not big partyers. I don't know.

Our little two year old talks, runs, and loves anything to do with animals. She is incredibly shy around adults still, but is really embracing other kids now. She has no problem initiating play with other kids. Nursery was initially a bit of a struggle for her, but she loves it now. We actually pulled her out early yesterday to attend a coworker's wedding and she started crying. It's really fun to see her start actually playing with other kids and really seeking that out.

Jane talks a lot. I don't know what it's like in comparison to other toddlers her age, but she can say a lot. She sings a lot of songs to herself. It's always surprising how much she actually knows. This morning she's been singing temple, house, family, and Amy figured out that she was singing I Love To See The Temple. I'm so grateful that we have a church with a nursery where she can have those additional interactions with other kids and adults and learn things from people besides her parents. It's all so reinforcing.

She knows numbers, but I don't know if she really gets counting. She knows the context of when to count, but I'm not sure that she really understands the meaning of numbers. Colors are pretty good. She can sing the Alphabet song and can pick out certain letters. I think she's probably right in the middle of those developmental levels.

Jane loves movies and TV. I mean, just loves the visual arts. At the wedding yesterday she was the one on the dance floor the entire time.

And when I grabbed her this morning and we did our routine of daddy is still waking up so let's just watch some Curious George and Dinosaur train. she just cuddles right in and lays down with me. She's just the sweetest.

Snapshot: Jane (23 mos) and Peter (7 mos)

(Consecutive weeks. I'm making a comeback, baby.)

Oh man. My kiddos are the cutest, I'm pretty sure. They are so much fun right now.

I think they're adjusting to life pretty well here. It's crazy to think that this is Jane's 4th residence since she's been born. Hopefully we don't move in the next year, but you never know.

Jane first, I suppose. She is just the sweetest little girl, and when I say sweetest, I really mean it. Not too long ago, Amy was about to breastfeed Peter so Amy went to sit on the couch, and as she did so Jane brought her a pillow (because Amy always grabs one when she's doing that), and then followed that up by pushing up the ottoman for Amy to rest her feet. She just does that kind of thing all of the time.

When Jane watches TV, she loves to come over and sit in my lap or at least right next to me. She's just a cuddly little girl. I love it so much. If I'm just holding her and her attention is on something specific, she'll unwittingly just be rubbing my hair on the back of my head or my back.

Jane is very naturally obedient. She understands direction and takes it really well, at least for the time being.

She always goes to sleep really easily, whether it's naps or for the night. She's been a great sleeper for so long, I probably take it for granted. (Although I can thank Peter for not letting me go too long in not recognizing that mercy.) She still eats mostly pretty well, but she' more distrusting of things that are unfamiliar. It seems mostly to be appearances because pretty much when she actually tries anything, she almost always likes it. Jane is just easy as can be, so naturally affectionate and sweet, and she's the apple of my eye. I can't imagine that I'll not ever swoon over her.

She's talking up a storm, although she does get shy around strangers. I'm always surprised at how many words she knows and even the way she's starting to pick up on concepts and story lines. It's the craziest thing to be watching a show with her and she gets the drama behind the story, when people are distressed, that sort of thing. That's probably normal for a toddler her age, but it still surprises me. She's able to pick up so much nuance. It's neat.

Peter is so mobile now. It's great because for most of his life, he's just not been very good when being left alone (not like we are leaving our less than 6 month old babies alone a whole lot, but you get what I mean). I feel like Jane was pretty good in this area, but Peter just has not been. With being able to get around now, he's able to busy himself so much more and be content with it. He has favorite spots - the fireplace grating, wires plugged into the wall, the peddle that opens the lid on our garbage, and more recently, the door stop that makes that twang over in the kitchen. I remember last summer in Michigan when Jane was all about that. (I can't believe I have babies that close in age that I say last summer and it's talking about a different baby.) He very much does the wounded soldier crawl, but he's getting up on his knees a lot more and doing the rocking. The hardwood and linoleum doesn't slow him down at all, which is great, because there is more of that flooring in our place than we'd probably like.

His noises have a few more consonants now. He imitates a lot more. Not like he's following dance steps or anything like that, but you just can interact more with him and there is more cognizance there now.

And probably the best part about him is just how much he lights up with people. Every time he sees someone, he freely gives the biggest grins. Everyone's first comment is something along the lines of "he just loves people," "he's such a happy baby," or "does he ever get sad?" I tell people all the time that he's just very validating and will make you feel like a million bucks. All you have to do is engage with him and he'll light up. It's amazing how a child like that can just disarm people, even ones that you wouldn't think be so easy to crack. It's the sweetest thing.

He's been going through a bit of a rough patch lately and has not been great with his sleeping patterns, not to say he's really bad, but when you're being compared to Jane when it comes to sleeping, it's hard to be good. He's a little trickier than Jane, but I think we're mostly realizing that Jane was just about as low maintenance as they come. She can be really sensitive when it comes to her emotions, but I think she's actually pretty physically tough. She rarely cries long or much when things happen to her and that's really nice.

She's come to enjoy the water a lot more. It took a summer of beaches, pools, and waterparks, but I think she's there. Peter takes to water like a fish, it seems.

I love my kids more than anything. They have changed my life completely and I'm grateful for it, although I will say that just getting out to see a movie sounds like the most exciting thing in the whole world.

They're great. They bring us much joy and I'm so happy to be a dad and feel so lucky that these ones are mine. I think that day and night.

The Adjustment

It's funny, last night Amy and I were talking about how fun it would be to only have Jane. It'd be so easy. She warms to people no problem so getting babysitters for her is no issue at all. We could go to movies frequently and do other things. She travels well as evidenced by our summer. She's just easy. One kid is easy to care for, especially if it's Jane. She's just wonderful.

We knew that adding another to the mix would make things more tricky. We knew that there would be an adjustment period of at least a few months. You just never know how these things go when you add kids to the mix.

The timing that we decided to go with also made it kind of interesting. Jane is still so young. To just about everyone, Jane really is still just a baby. Would it be smart to add on another baby given all of that? We still don't have any money, so it's not like that would be any easier.

The way we were talking last night, it almost felt like we were talking about having only Jane the way we talked about how it was being married without kids. Adding more to the mix just complicates things.

Regardless of whatever fantasizing we were engaging in, we still wouldn't have it any other way. It definitely is more tricky adding another child to the mix. Schedules are hard to line up. Just the logistics of getting out is trickier. We used to forget things all the time when it was just Jane, and now that happens just as often with Peter. Everything is just trickier.

But he's just the sweetest little guy. He's making more cute little baby noises now. He holds eye contact better and whether he is or isn't in reality, it really feels like he engages more. He's becoming more alive and I just love it.

I think the biggest payoff will start in about a year when Jane and Peter can play together. That relationship is sure to be tenuous at some times, but they will always have each other and there will be a growth in relationship building that will occur that couldn't have happened if we didn't have a second, let alone a second that is so close in age behind the first.

That's what I'm really excited for. This part right now is tricky. And I say all of this with a grain of salt because relatively, I still think Peter is pretty easy as far as babies go. Right now we are in the business of building our family and it comes with its challenges, but it's just so wonderful to have them both here with us now, even if there are other things, and good ones at that, that we have to forego for the time being.

Giving up good for something better. That's what it's about, right? And in my heart of hearts, I know that this is what's best.

Road Trip Out To Michigan

Video of our road trip out to Michigan. This was the most daunting video project from last summer. I started with over 200 video clips and boiled them down to these 60 or so. This was a fun project though. The others should be easier from here on out.

Peter Christopher Silva

Towards the end of Amy's pregnancy whenever she would flinch or something kind of pop up, I would ask her, jokingly, "are you gonna have a baby?"

Once we got within 3 or so weeks, I began making the same joke, but in more earnestness. Cut to Monday night, January 13th. We had just participated in an FHE with a couple of other families in the MBA program. We had a nice evening and then just went home.

We were just kind of sitting around, casually talking back and forth while she sat at the computer desk, and I took a call from my best friend, Dave. Amy stood up when she noticed some amount of water that come out. I don't know of a better way to say that. I was still on the phone with Dave, joking with him about having him there for the actual experience of our baby, when as more time passed, it became more and more apparent that our baby was actually coming.

By that time it was almost 11:30 at night and we were assembling everything for our hospital trip. Although Peter's induction date was only a week and a half away, and his actual due date 2 weeks away, it still caught us off guard. We hadn't packed bags or prepared anything for the actual hospital trip. Still though, with our first trip to deliver a baby at the hospital, we already had some sense for how this would go for Amy, so instead of rushing to get out, she and I both took showers, I made her some toast, and we got Jane ready to drop her off at our friends, the Paxsons.

 We are so lucky to have the Paxsons. They were ready for our midnight call and were glad to take Jane in for the evening. Besides being so obviously accommodating, they also happened to live just right down the street from the hospital. Although Jane was now completely awake and not quite ready for us to leave, we knew she was in good hands and that she would do pretty well in spite of the jarring wake up call and displacement. (They also verified later that in spite of staying up for another hour or two, she handled everything pretty well.)

 We arrived at the hospital some time around 12:30am. Amy doesn't really have regular contractions (at least initially) so it is kind of hard for her to tell when those are coming on so getting on pitocin quickly is standard for her. She also had to run through a course of antibiotics for some strep strain she had tested positive for, so it would be a few hours before things would get going. This time, however, it didn't seem like it would take as long this time as it did last time (17 hours).

 You know what's funny? I had a lot of late nights last semester between working on school assignments and my thesis, but staying up late into the night this time around was really hard on me. I was just so tired. She got her epidural probably some time around 3 or 4am and fortunately that provided no additional complications.

From that point it was just waiting for the baby to come. It was around 6:30 or when Amy alerted the nurse that she was feeling a lot of pressure from the baby, to which the nurse replied something like, well, it looks like that baby is about ready to come. She notified Dr. Lamoreaux and the rest of the staff and then we had a baby.

 It almost feels unfair to describe Peter's birth story because it was just so easy. Amy's water broke, we dropped Jane off, and then basically took naps until she was ready to push him out. Once the pushing began it must have been like three pushes and then we had our new son, Peter Christopher Silva. At one point the doctor even told her to stop pushing because he was already starting to exit on his own.

 There is nothing like it, nothing like watching your newborn child enter into the world. This time, at least, I didn't get much more emotional beyond just a surge of adrenaline and excitement at seeing him. Like Jane, he cried a little once he came out, but he was otherwise very calm. Jane was very pale because she had the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, but Peter had some good color right away. It also helped his delivery that he was smaller than Jane, 7lbs 2oz, 19" long (as compared to 8lb 2oz, 20" for Jane). Peter was born at 6:51am on January 14th, 2014.

After each delivery Amy was exhausted, but the first time it was more from the delivery process. This time it was mostly just a lack of sleep. See? It's just unfair. We complain that her deliveries come in the night instead of the daytime rather than having any kind of real harrowing experiences.

This experience has been so different for us, mostly because we have done this before. With your first child everything is a little daunting - you've never had to be responsible for a child, never had to be the sole provider for all of the basic needs of a little baby, but once you have that first, you're armed with experience and it just makes everything so much easier. Another thing too is that some people will talk about their bursting love and expanded capacity for love once they meet their little baby. Amy and I don't have that. I love Jane way more than I love Peter right now, but that's because the way I (and I think I can see "we" here too) bond is through time and by meeting that baby's needs. I know I'll love him the same as I do Jane, but that's going to take some time and experiencing life together, which I'm so excited to do. (Plus, Jane is just awesome. I may never love any of my children more than her, let's be honest.)

One thing I also wanted to mention was the timing of this thing. Peter's due date was January 27th. His induction was scheduled for a Friday, January 24th. This whole time we had been saying that it would have been so nice for him to have been due just a week earlier to take advantage of a break that I have within the program from January 15th-20th. It seemed like a stretch, but it just so happened that in one of our prayers a couple night's before he was born I asked that he come a little earlier, and if possible, that Tuesday the 14th or Wednesday the 15th. When I told one of my friend's in the program about this he pointed out, "good thing that you asked." That made me think of this part from the entry on prayer in the Bible Dictionary found in our scriptures: The object of prayer is not to change the will of God but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant but that are made conditional on our asking for them. I don't know exactly if I sped up the timeline when I mentioned that in my prayer, but I am going to assume that I did. He really hears us and I'm so grateful that this worked out the way that it did.

Children are an heritage of the Lord. That is the phrase that keeps on going through my head these last couple weeks since we had Peter. My kids are my greatest blessings besides my dear wife. I can't describe how blessed we are to have them, to have our own little family. And also that Amy's experience with pregnancy and labor is so mild compared to most people's experiences. Honestly, it makes me feel that because of that great blessing, it is now incumbent upon us to have all the children that we can. There is no real reason not to. We feel that we are in a position to take care of these kids, Jane and now Peter are relatively easy to handle, and her body can bear her pregnancies, so we need to take full advantage of those blessings. Where so many people cannot for whatever reason, we can so it's on us to do it. Hopefully that makes sense.

Anyway, I love my little family. It's a wonderful life.

Jane, My Heart

Jane is so fun lately.

She's walking all the time now, except for when I chase after her and she walks until she falls down and then crawls away as quickly as she can to mom.

She's very naturally playful. I love it. One of her things lately is when I start putting on shoes to head out, she'll come over and grab one of my shoes and run away from me. It's so fun.

While she can walk just fine on her own, she still loves having me walk around with her holding her hands. Part of it is so that she can go faster, but I think it's mostly so she can keep me playing with her as long as she can.

She's always cuddly in the mornings. And even at night. I can usually get her to settle into the crook of my arm on the couch and watch TV with me.

She still loves Fantastic Mr. Fox. She fetches it out of the DVD collection and as soon as it is on she is in a total trance. She'll pause in whatever position she is in and lock in for a solid 20 minutes or so. It's crazy, because she doesn't have that response to anything else. She'll watch anything for a little while, but she never locks in like that.

Jane is very naturally obedient. It's so nice because you can tell her yes or no to things and she's really good at following with most things. Even with things like wiping her nose when its runny, which she hates, you can usually reason with her pretty easily and she will turn over and let you wipe it.

She doesn't do any performing though. And she isn't very verbal at all. I'm excited for her to start using her little voice.

She's a one nap baby, taking one killer 2-3 hour in the afternoon. And she's a dream when it comes to sleeping. She goes down easy and wakes up at 7:30 or so.

I just hope that Peter doesn't rock her world too much, but I can't imagine that it will. She's got such a sweet and mild temperament.

Jane @ 10 months(!)

I can't believe this little girl is only a couple months away from a year. How does that happen?

Jane is just so amazing. Honestly. I think it was only last month that I was saying that Jane was kind of leery of strangers, men in particular. Well that went away just about as quick as it came. The other day some strange man picked her up while Amy had her at the pool and started splashing and playing with her and Jane couldn't have cared less. She just was happy to play in the water. And she courts interaction from strangers everywhere we go. She makes eye contact with anyone that talks to us, like waiters, and waits for them to notice her and she'll smile and make noises. That's another thing.

You can just tell she's understanding her voice and that it is the means to communicate with people. Probably my favorite thing that she does lately is when she's crawling around the apartment looking for me, she'll pause at the spot she sees me and makes her call which is something like, "ah!" And then I chirp back to her and she comes a crawling all smiling and giggly. She's really just so happy all of the time. For as much as we take her and do stuff - and we do a TON of stuff - she just rolls with everything. She can be totally tired and now she's just getting really good at falling asleep anywhere. Last night we went to an outdoor concert and even with the noise and the crowd (we were on the grass on the periphery), she just got really still in Amy's arms and fell asleep. Then I took her the rest of the show and she didn’t even stir while she laid on my chest. (Of course we’re the only bad parents there who had a baby in the first place, but that’s not the point.) 

She crawls with ease and stands every chance she gets. It’s really so fun and it feels like it’s just a matter of time before she just figures it out, although it felt that way with crawling and then it ended up taking her a couple months longer  than we would have guessed, but we’ll see. 

She still only has her bottom teeth. I’m excited for the other ones to pop in and fill out her mouth, but I still love just seeing those two little toofers on the bottom. 

She eats everything, but the fun part is seeing how she reacts to different foods. Amy gave her a lemon slice the other day and I was expecting more of a reaction from her, but she only seemed surprised by it initially, and then she wanted to hold it and ended up just licking it. That’s totally her mom coming out with that move. 

The best was her trying ice cream for the first time last week. We were at PNC Park in Pittsburgh just melting from the humidity so we decided to get a treat. She put her whole mouth on it, not really getting how to eat it at first. By the end, though, she started using her tongue and kept making her excited noises to let us know she wasn’t done. 

Jane is also pretty good with a sippy cup now. It took a little while, but she’s figured it out pretty well. Holding it upright is a still tricky for her when it gets low, but otherwise she’s got it mostly figured out. 

Jane is just so amazing. The two best things about her are just how happy she is and how she rolls with everything. She is so much like her mom that way and it honestly just makes life so easy for us. I could not feel more lucky to call her my own. 

Look out world!

Jane @ 8 months

I know you'll never believe this, but Jane just keeps on getting more fun. She's getting more and more interactive. She just gets games more. She gets when you're being playful, and if you're kind of coming after her, she'll turn and bury herself into the arms of whoever is holding her. She's so darling.

Her second tooth started coming in and that has just started some sleeping issues recently, but otherwise she is just awesome. The traveling kind of messed her up too, but she's normalizing since we haven't stuck her in her car seat for hours at a time and not changing rooms and locations every night.

Tonight we gave her some Tylenol and she started kind of crying and moaning as soon as I put her down for bed, but calmed down when she realized that I was staying to hang out with her. It was the cutest thing. She'd just kind of roll over and change positions, reach her hand up to touch my face, and I just rubbed her back until she fell asleep a few minutes later.

Probably the sweetest thing ever, though, was on our road trip over to Michigan. There would be times when we didn't have too much left in our car ride, but she had woken up or was just plain getting tired of being in her car seat, and if one of us could reach back and hold her hand, she would calm down immediately, set her head off to one side, and just fall asleep, reaching up her one little hand to hold one of ours.

She constantly melts my heart. I was not a person who just filled with love the second she came into my life, but my heart is brimful and overflowing whenever I think about her now. She's just such a happy little baby. I love my sweet little Jane.

Watching Her Learn

I know Amy has mentioned it on her blog, but Jane is just the cutest when she eats food. She's a very clean eater. When it's time to eat Jane will hold her hands out, never touch the food with her hands, open her mouth and make excited noises and kick her feet. That's her food reaction.

Last night we were playing games with some friends. I had decided to have a dessert soda (Amy thinks it's weird that I call it that) and was sipping on a bottle of Mexican Coca Cola that the Mitchells always kept in stock for us. I happened to be holding Jane at the time - and to anyone else this is such a small thing - and I noticed that she kept watching me pick up the bottle and lift it to my lips. After a couple times of doing this, I picked up the bottle a few more times even when it was empty just to see if she really was tracking what I was doing, which she was. 

Just out of curiosity to see her reaction if I handed her the bottle, I picked it up and brought it to her. That's when she gave her food reaction. Instead of reaching for the bottle like she would anything else, she gave her food reaction knowing that there was something for consumption, not for play. It was just the neatest thing in the world for me to notice her do that. It made me so excited to watch her and realize that through her observation, she was learning what kinds of things we eat and how we take them in. I'm sure that is only among the first of many times I'll see those kinds of things, but I just loved it.

I almost felt bad that I didn't give her any. I can't start her that young, right?