Dear Silas,

I've been joking that you have a musical tush, but I just wanted you to know that I wasn't be metaphorical or gross, I was speaking literally. Hense the photographic evidence of you playing your sister's keyboard with your posterior.

You have the nubbins of four more teeth, bringing your total to eight in the headcount.

And that's not all your doing these days. In addition to climbing up on the kitchen stepstool, you are also saying please (prompted) and thank you (unprompted) for everything that's handed to you.

Your vocabulary is starting to expand. You can call us all by name: Mama, Dada, Bel, Maddy (who you also refer to, appropriately, as DOG! and GO!).

Of course cookie, chocolate, cracker and pretzels you refer to as the all-inclusive "CA-CA."

It's been tough, lately, since you've been down with the gastro-intestinal badness that is making its way around the world. You've kind of been your usual smily self, but with a mix of "Surley, Frustrated Boy" thrown in to keep us guessing.

This morning, however, I never saw even a glimpse of SFB at the breakfast table, and you ate - without spitting out in various locations around the house - an entire bowl of Rice Chex, so my guess is we won't be seeing much of him around unless you're tired or your sister won't let you play with the Leapster she got recently for her birthday.

Of course you are still amusing. You will try an repeat almost everything we say (unless we ask you directly) and it usually comes out either sounding lost in translation or a battle of wills:

Merry Christmas = May Kiss
Dinner = Do
Play = Pay
Eat = NO!
Shoes = NO!
Diaper Change = NO!

But there are times when you know exactly what you want:

Bye = Bye!
Milk = Milk
NO! = NO!

There's also the thing where everything is "mine." You sound like those Stepford gulls from "Finding Nemo."

Your dad is teaching you to ask for "boob" instead of "milk."

I'm only telling you that one because he thinks this is funny, and who knows what he's going to be telling the first girl you bring home to meet us. I suppose I just wan't you to know it wasn't ME who drilled it into your lexicon is all.

There's so much you can do, it's hard to forget your growing up.

You can put on one shoe (I'm sure you can put on the other one, too, you just choose to limp around the house unevenly). You can turn off the television at the crucial moment when the surprise ending is near (driving your sister insane). You can bang around on the computer getting the train in Kneebouncers to show you its crazy cargo. And you can play peek-a-boo with the next table at breakfast.

You are also learning to sing along on one of your sister's favorite songs.

Together, you're singing it loud every morning on the daily commute, and oddly enough, the screaming, laughing indecipherable lyrics are music to my ears.

Love,

Mama