Baby Lucas

Last night our friends, Rob and Casey came over with their three month old boy, Lucas. Lucas is almost the size of Matthew already so I think Matthew was having trouble figuring out why the "baby" that was his size couldn't play with him. At first he tried to pick Lucas up like we were. He was very gentle about it and we eventuallly let him hold the baby on the couch. Then when Lucas was on the floor, Matthew tried to share his balloons with the baby. He had two deflated balloons and he would give one to Lucas. We kept trying to tell Matthew that the balloons weren't for the baby, but he didn't understand. Finally, Matthew was drinking his milk and laid down on the floor next to Lucas and tried to feed some of his milk to the baby. Matthew was very gentle and seemed very curious to see such a small (well large) baby in the house.

All done

Friday night Matthew came down with what turned out to be a 24 hour fever. He was lethargic and his temperature spiked. He didn't even want his milkshake that we get him when he is sick. Saturday he was marginally better as long as we kept him on Tylenol, but by Saturday evening again his fever was spiking again. I gave him some Tylenol and then put him to bed at 7:00. By 10:00 I wasn't feeling too well, so I went to bed too. Matthew woke me up shortly after 10:00 and as I went in to see him, he stood up in his crib, raised his arms and said, "up". So I picked him up and he immediately snuggled against me. I sat in the rocking chair with him for a while but he kept whimpering and moving around. I figured that maybe since he was so sick, I would let him sleep with me for the night. I took him into bed with me and he moved around, whimpered and generally couldn't get comfortable. We both eventually fell asleep and then around 11:30, Jen came to bed. Matthew woke up, stood up in bed and announced, "All done." We told him to go back to sleep but he kept repeating "all done". I told him it wasn't time to be all done sleeping, but he insisted. Jen asked, "do you want to go back to your bed?" He answered uh huh. So she took him back to his crib and he went right to sleep. His fever had broke and apparently he was all done sleeping with us. As if to say, "thanks, but as long as I am feeling better, I would prefer to sleep in my own bed."

Games we play

Last night I was taking care of Matthew. He was very active and was trying to play games with me. One of his games involved three kitchen towels. He would force me to lie down on the ground and then he would carefully cover me with two of the towels. This could take some time as it seemed he was never satisfied with the exact positioning of the towels. Then when he was set with my towels he would walk across the room to the other side and lie down and try to position the last towel on himself. I think he was putting me to bed and then going to sleep himself. After we played this game a few times, he had me sit on the floor against the couch as he tucked a towel into my shirt. He stepped back and examined his work and then he said, "bye bye, Daddy." Then he gave me a hug and a kiss, waved goodbye to me and walked out into the kitchen. He was gone for a few minutes and just as I was about to go looking for him, he came back into the living room waving to me and saying, "hi, Daddy." I'm not sure what game he was playing with me there, but he seemed to enjoy it.

Riley

During the week while Jen and I work, Matthew visits a small daycare with four other children. The child closest in age to him is a girl named Riley who is a few months younger than he is. She is the cutest little girl, wearing her hair in pigtails and often dressing in very girly clothes. Apparently the two of them play together all the time, copying each other, dumping sand on each other. You know, all the things children do with members of the opposite sex. Riley's birthday is coming up and her parents asked her at the dinner table last night what she wanted for her birthday. She looked her mother right in the eyes and said, "Matthew." Her mom laughed but her dad said, "Excuse me?" I guess they have some special connection that we aren't aware of.

Short-sleeved shirts

Although we live in San Diego where it is relatively warm year 'round, the winters are still chilly enough to warrant wearing long sleeved shirts. Matthew has become accustomed to helping us put on his long-sleeved shirts in the morning. This morning he picked out a long-sleeved flannel button down shirt and tan pants. Jen agreed with him but added a short sleeve t-shirt for underneath the flannel. When Matthew slipped his arms into the t-shirt he said, "uh-oh" and tried to pull the sleeves down. He was very concerned that the sleeves seemed too short for him. We had to tell him that it was okay and the shirt was meant to be that way. He seemed much better after he put on the flannel shirt and the cuffs came down to his wrists.

Favorite Book

Last night Matthew decided he had a new favorite book. It's nothing special. A small book about dinosaurs and shapes that his grandparents gave to him for his birthday. But before bedtime, Jen had to read it four times. And then he wanted to sleep with the book. I didn't know all this at the time. Then at 2:00 AM he woke me up and I went in to see what the problem was. He was standing up in his crib with a pacifier in his mouth and his book held open. He said "Daddy, sit . . . book". I told him no way. It was the middle of the night and it was time to sleep. I put the book back into his crib and laid him back down. He went right back to sleep, but then this morning, he came out to the living room with the book again. He carefully moved the newspaper from beside me to the other end of the couch and then crawled up next to me and said, "Daddy, book." So I read the book to him, three times.

Hey Dude!

The new phrase that everyone at the house is trying to teach to Matthew is "Hey Dude". Jen is attempting to teach Matthew to greet his Uncle Michael with "Hey Dude" whenever he sees him. But with Matthew it comes out more like "HiDu". Still he makes the attempt.

Easel

For Matthew's birthday, the members of my lab got together and bought him an art easel from Target. He received a number of other toys for his birthday/ Christmas so we just put this aside for awhile. I finally put it together last weekend and he loves playing with it. There is a roll of paper at the top that drapes down over the easel and a small shelf near the bottom that stores all his crayons. He is constantly coloring on it now. He is learning to draw circles and color inside the lines of larger objects that we draw for him. He is always trying to get us to color with him. He hands us crayons and points to the paper. This morning he was very upset when I had to pry him away so we could go to the babysitter. I think I will soon have to start teaching him science so I can balance out his education with his Mother's influence.

An eating machine

Yesterday our babysitter, Ellen, commented that she had never seen a two-year old eat as much as Matthew had that day. Let me back this up by saying she has been taking care of children for 15 years and she has previously made the comment about Matthew three or four times. So the bar was set pretty high. He had a full bowl of oatmeal with strawberries for breakfast and then for lunch he had a full ham/cheese sandwich. As the other children were getting down from the lunch table, he was still asking for more and was starting to take food from the other children's plates. Then as soon as I got him home for the evening he told me he wanted to eat. So I made pancakes. We're not talking silver dollar pancakes, we're talking man-sized pancakes. I had two and was full, he worked his way through three pancakes. He's got quite the Buddha belly going.