I was expecting clothes, food, a few toys, soccer gear, and a college fund. What I did not budget for was all of these licensing fees.
I mean, $6.99? And it’s only good for 30 days? Time to write my congressman.
Good thing we got that Target gift card at the baby shower.
Lettering by Sylvan (no, I didn't put the slide into the projector backwards)
When Sylvan was about a year and a half old, I dropped him off at school one day as usual. I took off his jacket to put it in his basket, and I noticed that the label on his basket had been changed, from “Sylvan” to “Sylvan J.”
Right next to his basket was another, marked “Sylvan B.”
So not only was there another little kid named Sylvan in Eugene, despite the name not having appeared in the top 1000 U.S. male baby names since 1935, and despite it never having cracked the top 500 baby names, but this kid was in Sylvan’s class at school! Crazy. (Names that were more popular than Sylvan in 2005: Markell, Daquan, Adin, Jaheim, Jaren, Gauge, Messiah)
We didn’t really get to know Sylvan B., though, because he wasn’t in Sylvan J.’s class for very long. I don’t think their school schedules overlapped either.
Eugene/Springfield has a population of almost 200,000, but it’s a pretty small town. Everybody we know knows everybody else. So this means, naturally, that we see Sylvan B. once or twice a year at some event or other. Some of our good friends know his family.
We were introduced to him at the Cascadia Wildlands Project Hoedown in 2007 by a mutual friend. I don’t think I have a picture from that one.
We saw him somewhere else in 2008. I forget where.
So when we walked into Cozmic Pizza for kids’ night at the end of September, who was there, of course? That’s right.
Sylvan J. (age 4) and Sylvan B. (age 3) at Cozmic Pizza, 30 Sep 2009
This post is mainly to test the new, wider format of the Eugenious weblog. I’m hoping that we can post bigger pictures right in the posts, instead of having to use the tiny little thumbnails we’ve been using.
OK, here goes nothing:
Julie and Sylvan walk in front of a rainbow and the Kienzle barn at Mt. Pisgah, 3 Oct 2009
Yep, that works. Nice.
For those of you who don’t get to see the little guys every day or even every week, here are a few photos so you can see how big they are:
Told you he was big. 36 years, 127 days today.
He started meditating soon after this was taken. Ah, those relaxing parachutes.
Elena hiking in the cemetery - and eating a roadkilled apple.
In anticipation of Sylvan’s big day tomorrow, his fourth birthday, here are some shots of him, on or near his birthday over the past five years.
All cleaned up and asleep in Aunt Jenn's arms after the difficult business of being born
First birthday: reading a birthday book
Second birthday: balloon madness
Third birthday: opening presents, eating pretzels
Nearly four: watching a wet parade last week
Chris, my sister Jenn, and I hiked up Mt. Pisgah the day before Sylvan was born. It was September 11, and I was silently grateful that my unborn child apparently wasn’t going to share a birthday with a tragedy whose date figures rather prominently whenever it’s mentioned, but I did want to spur things along. It was five days past my due date (a date Chris reminds me is arbitrary, since our human gestation time of 40 weeks was simply made up; he might tell you more about that if you ask nicely).
Sylvan Alexander Jones was born at 4:45 p.m. the following day. The blackberries, 2 mile steep uphill hike, corresponding 2 mile pounding downhill hike, and happy thoughts apparently did the trick. To commemorate this successful hike, I thought we’d hike up Mt. Pisgah the day before each of Sylvan’s birthdays. In true parental fashion, I managed to make that work for birthday #1. Birthday #2’s hike was a week and a half late, birthday #3’s didn’t happen at all, and #4? Well, Sylvan put the kibosh on it tonight. Maybe within the next few weeks? Here are some photos of the little Sylvan I could still easily carry up to the top.
Almost 1, looking through sculpture at top (and resembling Elena)
Just over 2, dropping rocks into the sculpture at the summit (and resembling a tiger)
Dear Sylvan,
As you and I sat on the shore of Crescent Lake, soaking in the morning sunshine, Diamond Peak dominated much of the horizon in front of us. “When I was up here four weeks ago, there was so much snow on that mountain,†I told you. The snow had reached in unbroken slopes from the summit ridge to treeline. “There is still so much snow up there,†you countered. I said I might climb Diamond Peak next weekend. You looked up at the mountain. “I want to go with you.â€
I smiled. I do want to hike and explore with you; I want you to climb big mountains with me in ten years. Honestly, though, I’ve avoided hiking with you in the past couple of years. Preschool whininess has defeated me, I’m sad to say. But you and I hiked the trail alongside Crescent Lake last weekend, following far behind Grandma Diana with Elena on her back. You displayed curiosity, wonder, and pure joy. You, the Toadmaster, found FIVE toads, three in one little tunnel-burrow (or barrow, as you say). You bounded up the mountain bike jump and soared off it. You told Grandma Diana, Elena, and me a story on the way back about the driller bug dinosaur, the fossil of which was right in front of us on the trail. You described its eating habits and that the holes in it (this upturned, silvery stump – shh!) were how it had been born.
You’re becoming interested in dinosaurs, more as a concept than a category. That they’re extinct gives you something to think about. How long ago were they here? How can you put 265 million years ago into context when you’re not even four? I’ve given in twice now and let you watch Barney on Netflix as I put Elena to sleep. You liked it, which I just can’t understand, but what you said to me was, “Barney’s a dinosaur, but he’s around at the same time as people.â€
You, Elena, and I traveled to New York last month to attend a couple of family reunions and visit Gramma Mia and Grampa Dick. I needed you to be a big boy, a good traveler, and you didn’t disappoint. You traveled like you’d been flying since you were four months old. Okay, you have been. In fact, when we went to the mall, the Galleria in Poughkeepsie, you asked if we were at the airport. We must be doing something right if you recognize an airport but not a mall.
Love,
Mommy
…in the making of this photo, despite its similarity to this scary image.
photo courtesy of Dennis McCarthy
“Daddy, I saw a shape in the reservwater,* and it looked like a sock!”
* Fern Ridge Reservoir, just west of the airport.
