Some pictures!

If you've ever raised a toddler, you know how hard it is to get a picture of the kid.  I sure am glad I took tons of pictures of his first year while I had the chance.  Anyway,  I went through the recent pictures on the camera tonight and these are the best I could come up with:

Yup. He's a toddler.

Sure, I blog so my family and friends can see pictures of Matthew and have a little glimpse into our life.  It makes being SO far away from EVERYone we love, a teeny bit easier (ok, not really...it's still hard).  However, another reason I blog is to have a keepsake of this time.  To remember all the cute, and let's face it, not so cute, things that Matthew does.  I sucked at writing in his baby book, but I found a program online that allows me to make a book out of the blog.  I am still working on it, but it is going to be an AMAZING piece of art when it's finished.  I've uploaded from the day I found out I was pregnant, up to his first birthday (for the first book anyway).  There is no way a baby book would have as much details, honesty, photos, memories.  I can't wait to get the printed copy and just pour through it remembering everything.  So.  There's that.

Onto the main point of this post--I must also record the devious moments as well.  He may be cute, but he's no angel.  This weekend Matthew thought it would be cool to color on the beige walls with blue crayon.  He made a lovely scribble drawing.  Since mommy did not learn her lesson, today he had a repeat performance.  Matthew and his little friend Keegan were coloring pictures together (on paper!).  Matthew disappears around the corner.  I realize he has a crayon with him at the exact same moment he starts adding to his masterpiece on the wall.  Thanks buddy.

But this next trick.  This one was not funny (despite daddy's insistance that it is, indeed, funny).  In an unfortunate series of events, my evening pretty much sucked.  Matthew and I are playing all nice and laughing, enjoying our legos.  Boss dog gets sick and vomits her neon yellow dog puke on our (already nasty), light colored carpet.  Mommy puts Matthew into the kitchen (it's gated) to keep him away, because, trust me, if I had not, I promise you he would have stuck his hands into the pile of frothy ick.  Boss is baned to the backyard.  Mommy starts cleaning the carpet (only to find we are all out of the good carpet stain stuff), but scrubbing at that stain none the less.  I hear Matthew playing in the kitchen, all is well.  I walk into the kitchen to get a different scrubber, and panic.  Matthew's gone.  GONE I tell you.  Not in the kitchen, which I may remind you, is gated.  Suddenly I see a yellow object walking around on the back patio.  It's dark outside and the patio is puddles of water from rain.  My boy.  My sweet precious boy....climbed through the doggy door and escaped the madness that is our house.  I open the door (the people door), and he laughs and tries running away.  Needless to say, Mommy was not pleased.  Matthew was pretty proud of himself.  And now we've found one more thing to baby-proof.  Oops, I mean toddler-proof.

I am drained.  No more energy left in this body.  Stick a fork in me.  I am so pleased Matthew is in bed asleep for the night. :-)

Blah blah blog

I don't believe how long it's been since I've blogged anything.  Not much to say--winter in Oregon is Boring!  This small town living leaves options for socializing Matthew limited.  There is a library group that meets once a week. We go occasionally.  It's not that great of a group- the age range is so broad and the little room is overcrowded.  Thus, Matthew and I do a lot of hanging out on our own.  We get together with our friends at least once a week. 

Matthew had his follow-up appoinment with the surgeon 2 weeks ago.  Everything looks great.  He is supposed to go back in a year to make sure everything stayed where it's supposed to be.  Then again when he's a teenager.  They like to teach the teens who once had this issue how to do self-checks since they're at a higher risk for testicular cancer.  I told Mike he will be in charge of bringing him to that one!! I can't even imagine Matthew as a 5 year old, never mind a teenager!

Mike also had his follow-up yesterday (with his cardiologist here, not the surgeon in TX).  Everything looks good--he was happy that he can increase weights now for working out, up to 50 pounds I believe.  I'm still amazed at all that.  If I didn't see that big red scar on his chest, I'd never know he had heart surgery!

Since it's medical update day apparently, I've had an annoying headache for 2 1/2 weeks now.  I went to the doctor, who gave me migraine meds that didn't help.  I went to the chiropractor this week and turns out 2 of my vertebrae are sort of twisted a little and causing a nerve to be pinched.  This nerve, gets pinched in the back, hurts like heck, and then sends a dagger up to my left temple where I get stabbed over and over.  It's quite pleasant.  The adjustment on Monday was awful, but I'm going back today with an open mind that it will take a few times to get it fixed.  Annoying and painful to say the least.

At least we choose to fall apart one at a time over here.  My declaration of a really healthy 2010 are not going well!! 

In case you were wondering...

This:

is the face of a child REALLY upset about mittens and hats.  Mostly mittens.  Mostly because they are making it difficult for him to pick up his lovey and shove his thumb in his mouth.

And this:

is what it looks like when you let your toddler "finger paint" with chocolate pudding.

It's a masterpiece, right??

(also in case you're wondering--yes, I do wish I had removed the white shirt before beginning such a messy

artistic activity.)

So You Think You Can Dance?

So, if you really know me, you know that is one of my favorite shows.  I mean, it's gotta be right up there with Biggest Loser and Glee for sure.  Might have something to do with my own personal lack of rhythm and dance moves, but I haven't quite figured it out yet.  As much as I love the show, what I love more is seeing my dear, sweet, no rhythm son put on a show for the judges.  Well, if not the judges then at least for Mommy while we're having THE biggest danceathon this house has ever seen. 

Here is are a few quick videos to show off his skills:

Dance moves #1: feeling it out

Oh yes, that's correct.  He's rocking out to my Glee soundtrack. He's using his space (the judges always like it when they use the whole dance floor).  I'm so proud.

Dance moves #2:  distracted dancing

Love it. He is so spastic that he has to take a little break to pull a book off the shelf, investigate a bit, and then...back to dancing.  Oh yeah...rock on my boy.

Dance moves #3: MORE

Oh how I love it. I love it MORE that I caught it on tape.  I love it less that I happen to be singing along a bit (better plug your ears before you hit play).  Anyway, it was funny because everytime the song got to "anymore", he would stop and do the sign for "more" and then move on. Oh so cute.

I'm not sure what the judges would say--I don't know if he has any moves outside of his own style.  For me, it sure is one more example of how my child can supply me with ENDLESS entertainment.

The latest craze

Two words: Magna Doodle.

The child has discovered the great world that is magna doodle.  On day 1 he put in about 4-5 hours of time writing on that thing.  By day 2 he had scaled back to putting in 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there.

He follows me around, carrying his very important toy, and just plops it down wherever we stop.

That's him in the laundry room. He got side tracked with writing while I was trying to get everything into the washing machine.

It's the latest craze I tell ya.  What? Didn't you get the memo?

18 months!

My kid is seriously 18 months old, aka "a year and a half", aka "almost 2!"

Can't believe it.  In the last month he's doubled his teeth from 8-16.

He is picking up new words every day. 

He's a monkey.

He's a ball of energy!

He's finally fitting into most of his 18-month-clothes.

He is off and on picky with eating and has recently begun gagging and then projectiling when tasting certain veggies.  Spinach and carrots elicit this extreme reaction.

He likes daddy to throw him up in the air and "fly fly".

He is completely and utterly attached to his lovey "gaga".

He is a thumb sucker....still.

He asks for Boss every morning when he wakes up.

He is sweet.  Sweet as can be.

Proof

Ok, it has become clear you need another picture to really get the full effect of the bad haircut.  (I'm talking to you Babci).  His hair does not stay parted.  When it falls (5 minutes after parting), it looks like this:

It's not straight.  It's too short.  He looks like a dork.  We are forced to laugh and point and make fun of him.

And, this is how Matthew feels about the new 'do:

Like I said before, we're waiting for it to grow out.

First Haircut!

So, yes, we've trimmed the back of his head once or twice, but Thursday I decided it was time for a "real" haircut.  I should have known better than to take him to the cheapie place daddy always gets bad haircuts from, but the first place I tried had a 45 minute wait, and well, there's not a lot of options in this little town.  The pictures don't really do it justice--it is a BAD haircut.  I admit, when I look at this after picture, I think to myself, "that's not so bad."  Then I look up across the room to Matthew playing with his airplane toy and think "yes. Yes, it is."  It's hard to keep a straight face when looking at him, the front is so ridiculously short. It won't stay in that side part position, so when it falls, it just looks like really, really short bangs. 

Another disclaimer: in the before picture there are some crazy wings that make it look like he's about to fly away.  It doesn't always look like that- he was just out of bed and I didn't bother getting it to go down since we were going for a haircut.

He doesn't look too happy about it, does it?  After I put the camera away, and he got over the initial "what the heck is going on?", he was much improved. 

Now we just wait for it to grow out.