A Crooked Frame

Cadence. 27, Sydney Australia. Married to Cec, raising Silas Orion. Writing about it along the way.

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I know your blog is pretty popular. I'd love to follow more same sex families (I'm one as well). So if you have any blog recommendations or just want to post this and let your followers say hey, either way I'd appreciate it. I can't believe how big Silas is getting!! 😍😍😍

I somehow missed this! 

Everybody, come follow this rad blog!

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Me: we don't throw our water on the ground, Silas. Silas: 😁😁😁😁😁 #silasorion #brat #thedownstairsneighboursmusthateus

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Stuff:

You want to help us do everything now. You love pressing the buttons on the washing machine at my instruction, and you give a pleased smirk when the load starts running. We were unloading the groceries on Saturday morning and I turned around to see you pulling items out of one of the bags and carrying them over to the pantry all by yourself. And today I caught you pulling your dry clothes off the line and dropping them into the waiting basket.

You love cooking. You watch us intently when we chop and mix, whingeing until we lift you up to show you what we’re doing. You help Cec make her coffee every morning. You have a little play set that you practice stirring and pouring with, and you invariably insist on feeding us the imaginary fruits of your labour.

Now that the weather is warmer, we go for a walk after dinner each night, to let you burn off the last of your energy before your bath. You climb down the stairs to the courtyard by yourself (backwards on your knees), and then you squeal and run, shaking your hands in front of you with your fingers splayed out, unable to contain your glee at being outside again. You yell “enh!” and point whenever you see a dog, and try to follow it. You stop in every doorway along the way and climb the step and stand there as if it’s your own personal, miniature stage. On the last leg of our walk you get tired and insist Cec carry you, only her, never me.

You’re starting to use more words now, and it thrills me. Mama, Cec, Tata (what they call “grandpa” in Cec’s family), tickle, up, no, yum, yuck, Jacinta (Cec’s family’s dog- so clearly it stuns me). Cec’s mum has been trying to teach you Abuela (grandma) for ages and on the weekend you finally started calling her “teta”, which is hilarious because it’s Spanish for boob. We told her she should be flattered since it’s your favourite thing.

Speaking of, you still fall asleep for the night feeding, more nights than most. On the ones you don’t, I sit on the floor near your cot while you do the Silas Show of throwing all your cuddlies out of your cot, babbling, tumbling and rolling around until the babbling gets quieter and the rolling gets slower and you eventually fall asleep. Half the time you wake in the night and I bring you to our bed, half the time you sleep through. Our day still starts at the crack of dawn, any time between 4 and 5am. Thankfully I’m a morning person, and I guess you are too.

You throw some impressive tantrums and I watch your tiny body and mind try to process your frustration. I do my best to give you space, empathy or a distraction depending on the situation.

We have a great routine to our week at the moment. Mondays we catch up with friends, run errands, go to parks and cook dinner. Tuesdays you’re with Abuela, Wednesdays with grandma, Thursdays we go to swimming lessons and go on more outdoor adventures, Fridays you play with all your little mates at daycare. On the weekends we go exploring and we visit people as our little family of three.

Life is great with you in it, kid.

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We had a gorgeous morning at the beach today. Weekends with my crew are the best.

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We had the best day.

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Modeling new swimmers for summer, enjoying a play date with his cousin, and mastering facial expressions. Kid has been very busy lately.

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Taken exactly one year apart. At least we're getting good wear out of his clothes!

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🌽

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Newest trick- "surprised" face. Other stuff: He's still barely talking. He gets his point across pretty well with a strategic combination of pointing, grunting and facial expressions. It's stressing me out a bit but he makes all kinds of speech sounds when he babbles and he understands so so much of what we say. We'll see what the GP says at his 18 month check up in a couple weeks. When he's doing something he knows he shouldn't (like pulling out the toilet paper or throwing food off his high chair) he'll shake his head disapprovingly the whole time. He gave up his dummy a few weeks ago. I think it was because he was congested. He kept refusing it and getting really upset when I'd offer it, so I just stopped. I'm relieved that transition wasn't a traumatic one, because it's one of the reasons I was reluctant to introduce a dummy when he was tiny. It worked for us so I'm glad I did. And now we're off to the park!

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We took him to my childhood local park on the weekend. We enjoyed ourselves.

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We celebrated Cecy Day yesterday. We decided that we don’t want to share Mother’s Day, so reinvented Father’s Day for Cec. Silas made her some artwork, she opened a couple pressies and then we spent the day with her extended family to celebrate all the dads on her side. Silas tried Asado for the first time and he loved it.

I really couldn’t imagine a better person to be raising a kid with. She and Silas have the most beautiful bond and I feel so lucky to watch them together and to have my little family.

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How did you choose your blog's name? :)

I couldn’t choose a name and didn’t want to use my own name, so I chose the title of a random song I was listening to a lot at the time, which was Crooked Frame by The Section String Quartet.

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You and your wife are really pretty and cool and Silas is super cute and great and I love your blog. I'm a lesbian college kid who wants to be a mom someday and I feel good seeing other people be too, if that makes sense?

It makes me so happy to read this. I’m really glad my blog makes you feel good about your future :)

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I love the way Silas is with Cec! It looks like they have such a strong connection! How's Silas' leg now? Is he doing better?!

They really do. They have so much fun together, and I get big heart eyes watching them play. His knee is all healed up! He has another checkup in November but the doctor said it's looking great. He has little scars on each side of his knee but he's running and climbing and spinning and you'd never know he had surgery a few weeks ago. Modern medicine is pretty amazing.

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These are from a couple of weeks ago, but I love them so much I wanted to try to post them again. We went on a little bush walk and it was so much fun! Silas collected sticks and drew in the dirt (and ate some) and pointed to everything. He threw an epic tantrum when because we wanted him to hold our hands so he didn’t fall in the river, and Cec showed him how to blow on dandelions. 

I love family adventures like this.

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This kid.

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Working on his "angry" face, eating berries. 🍇