When I first started this, I wanted to capture those things that I worried I would forget. Unfortunately, I've been caught up in life that I am not doing as well at the documenting. Matthew has become quite verbal as of late and I wanted to share with everyone some Matthew-isms:
- Yellow Bus - the definition not only for school bus, but any other large van-like vehicle. He LOVES school buses - and the color yellow for that matter. When we flew to Asheville last month, we parked at the parking spot which has yellow buses to take people to the airport. You would have thought Matthew died and went to heaven. He was so excited to be riding a yellow bus - it was all he could say - "I ride yellow bus." And he said it over and over and over and over and over....
- BIG Truck - Matthew is in awe of anything with an engine and he loves to point out 18-wheelers. When we are driving along the highway, you hear from the backseat "Ahhhh! Big truck!!"
- Where'ditgo? - this is said like one word when looking for something or someone and is accompanied by the gesture of putting the hands up and shrugging the shoulders. He can walk around the house like this looking for mommy and daddy or one of his cars
- Numbers and letters - we recently discovered that Matthew can count. One night while at dinner when Marvin and I were having a conversation, he just started to count - 1...2...3...4...5...6..7...8...9...10. Now he does this generally when he's bored - like sitting in the car on a long car ride. I know its just rote right now, but it is cute. When we were hiking in NC, he tried to count all the trees in the forest. I guess we need to teach him how to count beyond 10! As for letters, he can recite the alphabet too - though some days are better than others. And if you catch him on a good day, he may even tell you what letter he is looking at. If he doesn't know, he just says A-B-C! Hey, he knows its part of the alphabet.
-Catching on - I always had friends who said their kids would catch on to spelling of words. We are not to that point yet, but Matthew is rather observant. When we are trying to get him to pay attention and do something, we'll say Matthew, you have to the count of 3 - 1, 2, 3. Now when he wants one of us to do something he'll say "Daddy 1,2,3! Daddy 1, 2, 3!" Too funny!
- Mimi - Mimi must be Matthew's favorite person in the whole world. I don't know if its the undivided attention he gets or what, but Mimi more than any other person will come up in his every day conversation. For example, we took a train ride with my parents and he'll tell people that he rode a Choo-choo train, then he'll say "I ride choo-choo with Mimi." Forget everyone else who rode the train with him. The only person on that train in his mind was Mimi.
- Getting down the gait - Obviously Matthew has been walking for a while, but recently he's been experimenting with his gait. He loves to run and I just love to watch his wobbly unsteady run, but he also tries other ways to get around. Here lately it's been this hoppy, gallopy type of stride. He just bounces along to get where he wants to go. I don't know where it came from or why, but it sure is cute.
- Manners - I am NOT saying I have the most well mannered child by any means. He doesn't always listen and often doesn't behave, but he does say excuse me. Sometimes its cute and in the right context like after he burps - other times its his way of getting what he wants i.e. pushing Mommy aside saying excuse me so he can get to his toy or something. We are working on context, but hey, at least he is saying excuse me!
- The engineer mind - we've always said that Matthew is a little engineer. He observes with great detail and tries to really figure things out. To this, he loves to the action and reaction of things - no door can be left unclosed, no button unpushed etc. But now it's moving into more of the application of putting things together. While at my parents, he helped to assemble my brothers old Brio train track and can fairly easily put together his Mr. Potato Head. What he enjoys most though are buckles. He now has to be strapped in where ever we go because he wants to buckle his harness. We get an added bonus at Costco when he can play with the buckle on the extra seat!
I am sure there are many other things, but these are the few milestones that are top of my mind and I hope that I don't forget.
8 years ago
