Five Years with You: How the Years Fly By With Children

My kids each have a special place in my heart. Skylar is my oldest. She is stubborn to the core. She is very sure of her likes and dislikes and changing her mind is like controlling the weather. While it can make her difficult to parent, I’ve found ways to work with her. She’s taught me how to bargain.

My last baby, Isaac is the easy-going one. He has a temper but quickly gets over things. He goes about most of life in an agreeable, yet adventurous fashion. He is happy, brave and curious. Basically, as his name suggests, he is laughter, personified. He’s taught me to find the joy in odd situations.

In the middle of the princess mule and the happy baby, you will find Silas. He has always been so bright, in intelligence and personality. He’s noisy, musical, excited, and maybe a little dramatic (middle child syndrome 😅), but sweet and selfless to the core. He’s always well-behaved, a dream of a little boy, for other people. He likes to push his boundaries at home, basically becoming my personal sour-patch kid as soon as he is off the bus. As I celebrate his 5th birthday today, I think back to my pregnancy, labor and what a little person he has become. In his time so far, he has taught me patience.

When I became pregnant with Silas, I had a 6-month-old baby at home. I wanted to be pregnant within 3 months, not a week, but we were overjoyed to be adding to our family. After a difficult pregnancy with Skylar, my pregnancy was completely fine with Silas. In fact, he is my only kid that didn’t try to kill me during pregnancy and I probably owe him a car’s worth of money in medical bills we saved from him cooperating.

At the end of the pregnancy, Silas being Silas, liked to trick me into thinking I was in labor every day, for nearly two weeks. I was miserable. After a couple of false alarms, I finally had one of my labor and delivery visits end in having a baby. I remember being so happy I was dancing in the halls during labor. My midwife broke my water to get the show started and at 4:34 am, on February 27, 2014, after 4.5 hours of hard, unmedicated labor, Silas Richard Gibson was born.

From day one he has been a mommy’s boy. I had a 14-month-old and a newborn, so Silas was worn a lot. When Skylar was almost three and Silas was just 19 months, Skylar started school. She was gone for a half day, 5 days and week and it was just him and me. We would have dance parties, share snacks and snuggle endlessly. Even as he has aged and become more wild and energetic, he is always happy to snuggle.

At this point in his life, Silas goes to preschool all day, 4 days a week. He learns so quickly, while also remembering the things he’s learned. He is an avid lover of dinosaurs and swimming. He is not a morning person and can be grumpy over getting dressed. He is obsessed with potty humor and would be thrilled to combine his love of smelly, gross things and superpowers by being “the garbage man”. His sense of humor keeps us laughing. His creative imagination is endless. He keeps me on my toes.