Instead of posting fourteen one-liner posts in the next few days, how about a general update?

1. The second dentist appointment was not as bad as the first. I'm not finished with everything, but at least I'm through with the crown, which was the ugly one. The rest of it is cheaper and faster, and I can stomach it a little better.

2. Silas has his first word - "Hi!" Twice in the past three days, when I've gone to get him out of bed, he's waved at me, smiled, and said, "Ha!" It totally counts as "Hi."

3. Even though "Hi" is his first spontaneous word, he's beginning to imitate sounds and other words with some consistency. He will imitate "duck" and "dog" (both with da, of course) and - my favorite - "ta-da!" He also claps his hands when you say "hooray!", and plays this game where he opens his mouth and yells (sort of) and moves his head around, so that you'll imitate him. It's his favorite game at the table, and it's what he's doing for the camera almost every time I take his picture (explaining why his mouth is wide open in every shot right now). It's really very cute, at least to his parents.

4. Silas assumes every single human on the planet a. knows his favorite game, and b. wants to play it with him. Asher's not shy, he's just not interested in crowds. Silas eats them up - he becomes such a ham in front of an audience. It's really cute. On Sunday both of our families were in our living room (which is a reasonable size for a family of four, but not really for 15 people). Silas is sitting in the middle of the circle, putting on his best show, while Asher is walking the entire circle of our house to avoid the crowd. At one point my mom even said, "Asher, why don't you come in here with me?" "No!" cried Asher. "There's too many people in there!" Even though those people were all of his grandparents, aunts, and uncles. It's just his personality to prefer smaller groups, and so far appears to be Silas's personality to prefer a crowd. Really Silas reminds me more of Brian all the time.

5. While we're on the subject, Asher has become a very toddler-y eater. We've been joking that he's gone on a Daniel Fast, as he will just about only eat fruits and vegetables lately. Few meats, occasional cheeses, almost no breads - until we go out to dinner, or do something novel with food, then he can eat as much bread or macaroni and cheese as any grown man. Go figure. So I bought some novel foods for him at the grocery store - things he will eat when he is somewhere else, but that I don't normally cook for whatever reason. One of those were beans and cornbread. He and Silas both polished off a substantial amount of beans yesterday, and Asher ate THREE PIECES - regular sized pieces - of cornbread. And two more today. He will also eat cheese in the shape of Mickey Mouse, but would not ever EVER eat just plain slices of the exact same cheese. So, you know, whatever. I'll make more beans for you and by the Mickey Mouse cheese, kid. It's usually what's on sale, anyway.

Time's up. Happy Tuesday.