A Desperately Needed Moo Update

Oh Matthew....

I'm sorry that you are the second child, and I haven't meticulously documented everything as I did with your brother.

I notice how much I keep forgetting to mention: what an expert crawler you are and have been for sometime...

...how you are still constantly a little beam of sunshine any time of the day...

..how you are kneeling, pulling yourself up, you can stand for quite some time holding on to things, and you are starting to shuffle your feet if I hold your hands or if you hold on to the couch.

Matthew! You are going to be 1 in a month! You cannot do this to me! You are my baby and you must stay that way forever!

______________

Matthew continues to be as his pictures indicate: a smiley, golden little baby who brings such joy to our home.

...but he's also a little rascal.

First and foremost, the diaper change situation is out of control. This child is on the move constantly. He is always zipping around from one room to the next exploring everywhere he can. If I'm in the kitchen and look away for a moment and look back up to see what the boys are doing, Matthew is in a completely different side of the room doing something completely different from the moment before.

Getting him to stay still for the few moments it takes to change a diaper is like wrestling an alligator. I know it's mean, but if I can toss enough toys in his hands to keep him occupied, I often have to resort to laying my leg across his chest while I work on his diapers. He hates it. He screams. But at least he has a clean diaper at the end of it, which is more than I can say if I don't do it and he just keeps flipping over and crawling away, bare-bottomed and all.

The other bit of trouble he causes are my vertical blinds.

The first place he goes when he gets out of his room is underneath the window. He pulls up on the air conditioner and bats at my blinds.

Michael did this when he was his age, and I let him for awhile, before learning of the dangerous precedent, and then had to work extra hard to get that at of his system. So I'm starting early with Matthew, but he is really making me work for it.

Especially too because he looks back over his shoulder and gives me the sweetest possible smile I've ever seen, and then goes right back to his task of batting at the blinds. When Michael did that at his age, he would give me a look too, but it was much more of a "Look at me Mom. Look what I'm doing. Do you see it? I'm doing something I'm not supposed to Mom. What are you going to do?"

But Matthew's look is different, but no less devious and strategic. His look, fitting his personality is, "I'm so cute Mom. You don't want to stop me. You like to see me smile, don't you Mom? This makes me happy. Let me do this and I will continue to smile for you." He knows exactly what he is doing.

Matthew's language skills are developing well. He says "Dada" very clearly, and is particularly good at imitating sounds. He makes an sound like an airplane, "MMMMMM" and flies the airplane or helicopter in the air

he hums along to songs, imitates sound effects like "yay!!"when he claps

or when he say "Where's Matthew" and then say "there he is!!" he'll make a sound in the exact same way we said "there he is!" except without forming words.

Matthew is a great eater. Not selective in any way and he LOVES his water cup.

I don't know what it is about those sippy cup, but if he finds one, it's like the greatest treasure in the world.

I was supposed to not give him water to drink with meals to encourage him to nurse more because he is slightly underweight, but it is so hard because he sees Michael's water cup at meal times and he absolutely must have his part of it.

Matthew is a good sport about everything. If that means just sitting in his stroller observing

or getting into whatever action is going on....

Matthew is pretty no-fuss. And if there is stuff going on and he'd rather do something else, he'll just make his way to whatever he wants to do without any drama.

Matthew loves his brother and still often wants to be doing whatever he is doing, but I am starting to see a little bit of independence too where he has different interests and is content to be around Michael, but not necessarily doing the same thing.

He does love to read books. He still shrieks at turning the page like, "Oh my goodness! There's MORE!" and he loves this little book about Cats. He'll just sit and read that book for the longest time and make little happy baby noises to himself.

He loves the mirror. Everytime he sees himself in the mirror when I get him out of his playpen from his nap he shrieks with delight as if to say, "There's that happy little boy again!"

He tolerates my love and smothering kisses day in and day out. Which is good, because he doesn't really have a choice.

He's my little baby Moo and I'm not going to let him grow up. Ever.