Well, it has already started Mattison received her first kiss from a little boy on her preschool class. I went to pick her up and her little friend Colin came over to give her a goodbye hug. He grabbed her and hugged her tight and planted a big kiss on her cheek Mattison looked surprised and I felt my heart melt. It was so sweet, but she is growing up way too fast!
The past few weeks have been a little crazy so I have not been able to post. Mattison had her 2nd Birthday party this past Saturday. She was so excited. I almost believe she knew it was a party for her. We told her all week that she was going to be having a Hello Kitty party on Saturday. We explained to her about birthdays and sang Happy Birthday to Mattison for a few days to get her used to the idea. She woke up very early on Saturday morning. She seemed very excited when she woke up like she knew something was going to take place. I had the house decorated with Hello Kitty decorations and once I picked up her cake and she laid eyes on it she said "Mattison's Hello Kitties firfday cake". She wanted to eat it right then. I had to tell her we had to wait for every body to come. She then relpied "Every body comin, eat cake". It was too funny. She sat at the table and stared at the cake for a long time. Once people started to arrive she was a little shy in the beginning, but once Emma and Aidan came the party started for her. She played harder than ever. She loves when other kids are around to play with. The party went smoothly and we managed not to have any meltdowns considering Mattison takes a nap EVERY DAY at 12:00pm, but I could tell she was running on fumes. They had pigs in a blanket and fruit salad for lunch and then Hello Kitty Birthday Cake with ice cream. Mattison even blew out her birthday candle by herself. When we sang Happy Birthday to Mattison as she stood in a chair and smiled the entire time. After cake and ice cream we opened way many gifts. Mattison seemed to know what she was doing opening her gifts. It was so funny watching her open toys and opposed to clothes. All kids are interested when they receive toys, but when they open clothes they just toss them to the side. I could not help but giggle. I remember doing the same thing when I was young. She would grab and open her presents herself. She got a lot of neat gifts. She received a Hallmark "Twas the Night Before Christmas" book from her Papa Hawks who read the book on a recording of his voice. She loved it. She also received several Dr. Suess books and Hello Kitty coloring book from her Grandmommy Newton which we have really enjoyed. Her Aunt Debby and Cousin Jenn got her a baby doll and a whole bunch of cookware/bake ware for her kitchen which she has also enjoyed. Aunt Kiki and Uncle Kent got her the cutest Hello Kitty Suitcase with little trinkets inside which really fascinated her it also included hat, mittens, and some socks which are adorable. She is so girly these days. Papa David got her a Swingin with Snoopy 2009, which was really cute and she put it in her room to play with. Aunt Pam and Uncle Scott got her a really cute Pink Adias Jogging suit. It is precious. Nene and Papa also bought her a Carolina Cheer leading Uniform and Carolina Jogging suit of course her Daddy loves that! They were also precious. Her cousins Emma and Aidan and Auntie Donna got her a lot of Hello Kitty sticker, coloring book, Hair bows, necklace and ring, etc. She loves all of those and has tucked them away in her Hello Kitty Suitcase. Nana and Papa Marion got her a baby stroller and some coloring/activity books, some flash cards, etc. She received so much that I know I am forgetting to mention things, but Matthew helped her open gifts as I tried to take pictures so I had difficulty finding out who got her what. Matthew and I almost forgot to give her our present until some people had already left the party. I felt horrible we did not bring it down until the party was over, but we got her a children's easel so she could draw, color, and paint. She seemed to like it. By bedtime she was so wore out she made it through her bath but as soon as she got her PJ's on and crawled up in my lap to read I made it through two pages of on of her new books and when I looked down at her she was fast asleep. I could not put her to bed immediately. I just looked at her and stroked her hair as she had the most peaceful look on her face. I just wanted to rock my baby as much as I could. I do not get a lot of chances to do that anymore. Now, we just need a new house with a play room for all the wonderful toys and gifts. In reality I need to sort through a lot of her old things and either sell, store, or give to charity. We have Christmas coming up so I know there will be more toys. I can't believe that I will have a two year old in the house this week. She is just an amazing child! I am so proud of her and love her very much. Now, I cannot wait to see her face Christmas Morning when she sees her things from Santa.
I made it! I actually blogged every day this month and really enjoyed it. It was nice to document what Mattison has been up to everyday. I hope to continue if not everyday at least every other day. Nothing really new to report today except I received the first of Mattison Christms gifts today. I knew I would be excited this year, but when I opened the box to see a shiny pink tricycle a flood of Christmas memories took over and I was even more excited. She said again today that Mattison wants a pink bicycle. I can not wait until Christmas morning arrives and to see her face and get her reaction when she sees it. I know it will be priceless!
Mattison let me sleep in until 8am again this morning. When I get her out of her bed in the mornings she has started asking to come get in my bed for a snuggle. It is so nice to have snuggle time on the weekends. Sometimes in the middle of the day she will stop whatever she is doing and say Mattison get in mommy and daddy bed. She is constantly chatting and is doing a great job with her vocabulary. She says three to four word sentences and we understand about 80 percent of what she is saying. When she watches TV or looks at a book she likes to talk about and describe the story. She also likes to pretend to read books to me. She tries to tell the story by the pictures. It is so sweet. This morning she caught me right before I got in the shower and said Mattison shower. So I told her to get undressed and she could have a shower with me. She really has a great time doing that. After our shower we got dressed and I put her up on the bathroom counter and dried her hair with the hair dryer. She played in my makeup bag and smiled and stared at herself in the mirror. We were all lazy today and I am sure Mattison will be more than ready to see her friends tomorrow.
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and really enjoyed visiting with family. Mattison loves being at Nene and papa's house. Mattison was so tired from chasing Enrique around she ended up sleeping until 8am this morning. We took Mattison to have her Christmas photos made. They turned out great. She is getting harder to snap pictures of because she does not like to be still. We got back in Raleigh around 6pm. I could tell Mattison was still tired because she was very clumsy tonight. She is now snuggled in her bed sleeping. May be she might give me an extra hour of sleep again in the morning.
This morning Mattison when Mattison woke up the first thing she said to me was "Where Papa and Nene". I really think Mattison truly loves it here at Nene and Papa's house. She loves running and playing in their house and exploring new territory. She was so wore out by nap time she slept for almost three hours. When she got up from her nap I had decided to take her to see Santa Claus at the Mount Airy Mall since I knew the crowds here would be much less than in Raleigh at the Mall. Me, Nene, and Nannie Anna piled in the car with Mattison and headed to the mall. Mattison of course will not ride in a stroller at all so the stroller was a great way to carry all the purses, coats, and diaper bag as we shopped. Mattison had a field day at the mall. We shopped at Belk and then headed up to Santa which there was no one in line to see him, but Mattison did not like him one bit so no picture were made. She did however, sit on my knee in front of Santa staring at him like a deer caught in headlights. He ask what she wanted for Christmas and I told Santa I think Mattison wants a bicycle (Which she has talked about nonstop for a while now)and Mattison said in a very quiet whispering voice "Mattison pink bicycles". I told Santa that Mattison had been a good girl this year and Mattison said "Good girl" so Santa told her he would make sure she had a pink bicycle on Christmas morning. That was about all she wanted to do with him. At that point she was finished and ready to go. We headed to Kmart to check out the toy deals and of course she was all over the place. Nanna Anna, Nene, and I were needless to say worn out after this trip. Once we returned from our shopping trip we had a nice family dinner. Mattison really enjoyed eating at the table with everyone. She joined in on the conversation and had everyone cracking up at her. She is such a comedian. Aunt Lindsay came in around 7pm with Enrique and Mattison chase him around for two solid hours saying "Enrique where are you" and "Come on". She loves the little pup. Mattison went to bed around 10pm which is very late for her. I think she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. She has been running full speed ahead most of the day. Tomorrow we go get Christmas pictures made. I am very excited about it. I hope she does well consider we are getting them done at her usual nap time.
Today was a busy day. We woke up around 7am and got everything packed up and headed to Mount Airy. We started out at the Seivers for Thanksgiving. Mattison had a great time meeting some of them for the first time. She was a little overwhelmed at first, but eventually got used to all the people in a small area. After that we headed to Nene and papas house to see everyone and have another Thanksgiving meal. Considering Mattison is a very scheduled child she did a great job with no nap and being way off her normal routine. We had only a few meltdowns, but they were managable. We plan on being in Mount Airy until Saturday. We may even venture out to see Santa Claus tomorrow. All Mattison really knows about Santa is that he says "Ho Ho Ho".
Everyone over slept this morning, which makes for a wild day. Mattison woke up very cranky this morning. Something tells me that she realizes that she will be two in a few weeks and might be going through some mental/developmental changes. For the past week she has been a little cranky. I had to make a Target run tonight and Mattison absolutely would not ride in a cart. I allowed her to walk and she did a fairly good job keeping up, but once we strolled by the toy isle she was in heaven. I did however get a lot of great ideas for Christmas and birthday. As we were leaving I stopped by the shampoo isle for shampoo. I turned my back for a second and Mattison was putting bottles and bottles of shampoo in a ladies cart. The poor woman was oblivious that it was going on. I had to get the ladies attention and let her know that Mattison had dumped several bottles of shampoo on her cart so I could dig it out. Luckily the lady was very understanding. My Target trip ended up taking thirty more minutes than it normally does. Thank goodness I have a lot of patiences. I am looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with Matthew, Mattison, and the rest of the family.
Tonight while watching Mattison's new favorite TV show Zooboomafoo Mattison saw a monkey who is named Zaboo eating nuts and she turned to me and said "Mattison eat cereal and Zaboo eat nuts". I was shocked at that statement. I guess everything she sees is sinking in ... may be good may be bad.. Here are a few pictures and two short video clips. In the video clips Mattison was running around so much it was hard to keep track so they are a little shaky.
Sorry still no pictures tonight. They definitely will be posted tomorrow. After Mattison's bath tonight she got her ear thermometer out and said "Mattison temptures". She turned the thermometer on, put it to her ear and waited for it to beep. She had a serious look on her face. A look of concentration. Then she took my temperature. She even swiped my hair back before she put the thermometer up to my ear. I could not stop giggling at her. In other news the tree is still standing. She only took one ornament off the tree and then got bored with it. We will she how long that lasts.
I do not have access to my computer again tonight so I am blogging from my phone. I will definitely post pictures and movies tomorrow. We decide to decorate today which I thought it would be a lot of fun. Matti was absolutely wide open today. She was just so excited. She kept saying oooo big tree pretty. When we turned the lights on she was even more excited. We broke several ornaments of course and Matti fell on the large container of ornaments, which freaked her out. We have Matti her own tree, but she was not interested in it. She just wanted the beads off of it and called them bracelets. There is one particular ornament that is a giraffe that she would not stop messing with. It is really cute and it is glass. She kept crying saying "my giraffe" and absolutely would not let us touch it or she would loose it. I am so glad Matthews mother was here. She decorated the whole tree foe us while we tried our best to keep Mattison occupied. We finally finished and definitely have great memories of our first family Christmas decorating experience. The next month we will see if our tree survive little curious minds and hands.
I have company so I am blogging from my phone so this post will be very short. Today was a very busy day for all of us. Mattison's best friend Hailey had her second birthday party today at little gym. Mattison and I had a blast. After watching Mattison play on all of th equipment and swing from the bars she is definitely going to be signed up for a class soon. She had so much fun and just grinned from ear to ear the entire time. I have pictures to post tomorrow. I will post more info about the weekend tomorrow when I have access to the computer.
I have posted a lot about Mattison going pee pee in the potty. She is doing it more and more. I picked her up from school yesterday and I noticed on her daily report card that her teacher apparently let Matti use the potty at school, which is perfectly fine with me since we had already discussed potty training and Mattison's willingness to go. Of course in the evenings when I pick Mattison up her evening teacher is there so she did not know anything about it. This morning when I dropped Mattison off I asked Ms. Lisa about her potty experience and she stated that three of the little girls in Mattison's class went potty around the same time. She said that Mattison did a great job, but seemed to be a little freaked out by the water splashing in the real toilet. They have little bitty toddler kids toilets at school (awww they are so cute) and apparently since she only uses the potty at home she was not used to using a real toilet. Anyway, last night as I got Mattison ready for her bath she sat down on her potty and immediately pee peed. I was so excited. She stood up and looked in the toilet, clapped, and said pee pee yuck. I think she said yuck because she has wanted to put her hands in it before and I told her pee pee in potty was yucky. I have thought hard about it and decided to try to start potty training after Christmas. I will not be disappointed if it does not work and will not force it upon her, but I will make a concious effort to ask her if she needs to go.
Mattison started coughing a lot more yesterday evening, last night, and this morning. Still no fever. Just sniffles and still a raspy voice. Every time she would cough it would sound to me like it hurt, but when I ask her if she was okay she would say "I'm fine mommy". I get shocked every day with what she says. I am so glad we are at the point where she can tell me when something hurts or if she is not okay. She really enjoys painting lately. She is very good at keeping her paints on her little table and knows not to get up and walk around with the paint brush. It is so funny that she will sit in a poopy diaper, but if she gets paint on her finger she has a fit to wipe them off. She is having a Thanksgiving Lunch tomorrow at school. Thinking about it brought back memories of being at Central Methodist Preschool and we had a Thanksgiving Day feast with Indians and Pilgrims. I was dressed as an Indian. It was cool. I hope Matti enjoys that fun like I did.
Matti is still a little under the weather this morning. No fever, no running nose, and really no cough. She just sounds like Stevie Nicks. I hope this is just a little cold that does not get any worse. She does not seem to have a sore throat or anything so hopefully this will pass quickly. She definitely still has a lot of energy and does not seem to be feeling bad. I took a picture of Matti on the potty last night right before her bath. She decided she wanted to run around naked in her Hello Kitty boots. It was so funny. Here is a picture of her on the potty with her boots on and her Elmo telephone. She likes to call Elmo when she is on the potty.
Matti is 23 months today. It seems like yesterday that I just had a sweet baby girl with a head full of hair. I cannot believe she is going to be two. She loves Hello Kitty right now so we are planning on having her a Hello Kitty Themed party. I guess I need to get planning. Time goes by too fast. Matti woke up this morning a little under the weather. Seems that she is getting a cold. She woke up around 5:30am crying, but I rocked her back to sleep and she slept until I had to wake her around 7:10am. I hated to get her up, but she had no fever and I had to work today so she went to daycare. I absolutely hated taking her knowing that she did not feel up to par. I know she is good hands though she absolutely loves her teacher and her teacher is very loving and caring. I just just remember being a kid and not feeling well and wanting my mommy. Ms. Lisa said she would call me if Matti seemed fussy for me. The day has passed without any calls so I guess I will get her in a few minutes and pray she has been okay all day. Mommy Guilt!!!! Last night at story time Matti pulled out her word book which is a book with 100 pictures and words naming the pictures. We got to the food section and Matti named every food on the page saying "Mattison likes.....cheese, bananas, broccoli, tomatoes, etc" she would pat her chest suggesting that she was Mattison while she was saying that. I was so proud of her for knowing all of her foods pictured. I did not realize she knew so many different items that were in the book. She almost named all every picture in the book. I was absolutely amazed at her and I am amazed everyday at how much she learns from day to day.
Mattison must have been tired of being around her parents all weekend. She was up at 6:00am and ready to go to school by 7:00am. I was trying to get everything ready for the morning and we normally do not leave for school until 7:30am, but Mattison put on her shoes and jacket and said "Mommy School". I asked her if she wanted to watch the Wiggles before school trying to get a little time, but she said "School Mommy". I dropped her off and she took off into her classroom straight over to her friend Hailey and started playing. Well, I guess she was bored with me and needed a little kid action. Today when I picked Mattison up her teacher told me about a child that was visiting the school today with his/her parents. She told me that when they came into her classroom Mattison went directly over to the child saying "Hello" and taking the child straight over to the toys and telling them exactly what they had to play with. The teacher said Mattison was so sweet and made the child feel so welcome in the class. It really made me happy to know that she is such a sweet and loving child.
The past week or so Matti has been standing with her head on the ground trying to do flips and today did a couple which completely caught her off guard. She did one on the couch and a couple in her crib after I put her down for a nap. It is too funny. Matthew got her on film while I was out fabric shopping. He videoed her playing in her crib, standing on her head, and talking her animals while she was trying to settle down for a nap. He got it on his phone and I hope I can post it on here once I get a chance to download it. It is a cute and really funny video. I bought Matti some really cheapo four wheeler's toys at Dollar General the other day and she absolutely loves them. You pull them back and let them go and they will do 360's and race down the hall. She has definitely started squealing a lot with excitement here lately and every time she lets on of those four wheelers go (she calls them bikes) she will squeal louder and louder and jump up and down and clap her hands. Her outside voice found it's way inside.
Matti woke up at 6:30am this morning, but I had been in bed since 8:15pm Friday night so I guess I had enough sleep. Whew, just looking at 6:30am on the clock regardless is a little on the early side for me, but I knew we had to get the day started. I decided to do the grocery shopping early this morning because I knew Matti was not thrilled about riding in the cart anymore. We took off to the store and she of course handled herself fairly well. She loves to get the groceries for me and put them in the cart. Toward the end of of our shopping trip though she started to get a little out of control, but I handled it without breaking a sweat. I was quite proud of myself. I am finally starting to realize I am not the only mother in the world with a very energetic toddler. We got home, Matti had her lunch, and she was ready for a nap and so was I. Matti took a nap around 12:30pm and slept until around 2:30 or so. I ended up falling asleep on the couch for an hour, which was wonderful. I decided to try to sew a little this afternoon. I have a wonderful jacket pattern for toddler girls that I have been wanting to try. I put Matti in a chair at the dining room table and gave her a bunch of large buttons to play with. She named each color and pretended to count them and had the biggest time. I ended up having about an hour of sewing time. Matti decided she wanted to play in her room a little this evening. She sat in front of a mirror and combed her hair and said "Mattison Pretty", which I completely cracked up. She has also been saying "Mattison Princess" a lot lately also. I am so glad she is not down on herself, you know...like her mom-he he Actually it was very sweet. Then she combed her daddy's hair and said "ooohhhh, pretty". This is her thing now. Everything is pretty-from clothes, to herself, to daddy, and mommy. What a sweet child. This evening we snuggled on the couch and watched her favorite bedtime shows which consist of Caliou and Make way for Noddy. We did our normal bath time routine, which Matti pee peed in the potty again and was very proud of herself. After her bath she was so ready for bed. As soon as I put her down she was out for the count.
I am not feeling well. I have a migraine so Daddy is putting Matti to bed. I am listening to them read books, actually Matti is looking at the books telling Daddy the story she wants to make up. So sweet. Matti has really become a daddy's girl. Matthew loves every minute of it. There is nothing like watching your husband and daughter create a tight bond!
Nothing new to report today. I have to say that my daughter has inspired me to take a new direction in my life. I am so determined to start a sewing business and hope to get it rolling around the first of the year. I broke down and bought a Serger and now have to learn how to use it. I did however, use it to make this dress and did a pretty darn good job. Now the seams are very professional on the inside. She saw this dress and said "Pretty". It put a huge smile on my face. Here is a pic....
Matti has just had an explosion of words and putting them together lately. It is amazing what she picks up on every day. We will definitely have to start watching what we say around her. She heard me say "Oh Crap" and directly after I said that she said plain as day "Oh Crap". Her father said "Oh Great" sarcastically of course and Matti said "Oh Great" right after she heard him. She is definitely like a little sponge right now. Soaking up and taking in everything around her. Even though she still mumbles a lot of baby gibberish she actually thinks she is having an adult conversation with us which is very interesting. She has a new favorite after school show she likes to watch on Nick Jr. Zooboomafoo. She calls it Zoobafoo.... It is an interesting show that talks a lot about animals and how they live. It is hard for me to believe that it interests her at all because it is not a cartoon. Her only favorite cartoon is the Little Einsteins on Disney and let me tell you after the show she can tell you all about it. Just listening to her describe what they did and how it happened it just hallarious. For the past few weeks Matti has really started using numbers. She has a book with numbers and items to count which we look at every night. She counts as follows: two, three, four, twelve, fourteen-never in order, but it is funny to watch her point and think she is counting. She usually cheers at the end and is very proud of herself. Also she really likes for us to sing songs with her each night. I am amazed at all the nursery rhymes and songs she knows. She has little hand signs she uses for all of them we sing. Daycare tuition is starting to pay off after all. I can really tell that they work with her each day. She surprises me with something new each day. Her favorite song right now is Ring around the rosey... she actually will fall down at the end. I went to pick Matti up from school today and noticed a deep red line along her wrist. Before I could ask the teacher said that apparently Matti had taken the little rubber band I put in her hair today and put it around her wrist during nap time. Once the teacher noticed it she took it off, but at that point it was already red and made a place. I have to really keep my eye on her at home, but refuse to cut her hair so we will have to come up with another way to keep her BIG hair out of her face. She will not wear head bands and cannot wear bows to school because the smaller kids like to pull them out, including Matti so I am not sure what to do about it. I will come up with something I am sure. I am definitely not cutting her hair.
My only post tonight is that Mattison went pee in the potty again before bath time tonight. I hear training panties calling her name. HA Changing her diaper is such a challenge anymore. Once that diaper comes off she thinks that is a sign to run around naked. She hates wearing a diaper and I tell her if she would use the potty she could wear big girl panties and she would not have to wear diapers anymore. She is interested in using the potty, but not all the time so I am not convinced it is time to start training as of yet. We will continue to have fun with it for now.
Here is a cute video of Matti pretending to put Daddy to sleep. She has started doing this every night before we settle down to ready books. It is quite funny. This video does not show it, but I almost think she is role playing how the teacher puts the kids down for a nap at school. She will cover Matthew up with a blanket, give him animals or lovies and say "everyone nite nite" and sit in he rocking chair and hum while she makes sure he is asleep. It is too cute. Enjoy!
Today turned out to be a beautiful day here in Raleigh. Matti woke up around 7:15am this morning ready to go. I had a few errands to run so I loaded Matti up in the van and we ventured off to pick up a few things at the grocery store. Usually Matti lets me carry her in the store and put her in a cart, usually she wants one that looks like a car, but today was different. She wanted to walk and not ride. Of course, I kind of panicked, but decided to let her push the "Shopper In Training" cart. She was so excited and was such a big girl. She followed close beside me pushing her cart. We talked up and down the isles to get the things that we needed. I knew if I kept her interested in what we were doing I would avoid a nightmare of a shopping trip. I let her put the groceries in the cart and let her look at my list to see what we needed. As we pulled up to the check out she wanted to get the groceries out of the cart herself. When it came time to pay she stepped off to the side and allowed me to pay. I guess I will be paying for a long time. She seemed to have no interest in that at all. She waited patiently as I felt a hot flash coming on. I just knew she was going to dart off somewhere, but to my surprise she did not. I grabbed the bags and gave her a small one and we walked out to the car together without a fight. Man, she is growing up too fast. It was such a pretty day I decided to take her to the park again. When we got there our little neighbor Maddox was there with his father. Maddox is 2 1/2. The funny thing was that Maddox and Matti have met a few times and never really played together, but I did not hear Matti say "My turn" or "My slide" the whole time. They played nicely together. I am starting to figure out she only does that when girls are involved. She does not do that when it is only boys at the play ground. Weird, huh? They chased each other, squealed, went down the slide, got on the swings, and just had a great time. By the time we got home Matti was completely exhausted. She fell asleep before I could finish reading her nap time book. Matti started calling Matthew Daddy this weekend instead of Dada. It was so sweet to hear her say it that way. She had really become "Daddy's little girl" here lately. She also has started saying three worded sentences. A couple that stick out in my head from this weekend are "No Daddy, I do it", "I don't Like", and "What you doing". She always wants to know what we are doing. I guess because she always hears us saying "Mattison what are you doing, you are being too quiet". It is really funny hearing her talk and just be so matter of fact about things.
Mattison was a big help to mommy today. She helped dust, sweep, and tidy up the house. She absolutely loved copying everything I was doing. It actually helped me out a lot. She was so proud of herself. This afternoon turned out to be beautiful so after cleaning house all day I was ready to get outdoors. I packed Mattison up in her wagon and we headed for the park. We had the whole park to ourselves for about thirty minutes then two little girls a little older than Mattison came. Mattison was very upset that she had to share her playground, but I found out that she is not the only one who acts like that. All the girls where taking turns on the slide. Mattison looked at one of the girls and said "My turn" the little girl went down the slide, looked at Mattison, and then looked at me and said "I am not moving". I bit my tongue and told Mattison to wait until the slide was clear before she could come down. Luckily the little girls mother finally noticed what she was doing and scolded her, but what goes around comes around I guess. We did have our first little spill on the playground. Mattison was on the younger play equipment (thank goodness) and fell straight back onto the ground. I think she got the breath knocked out of her and she screamed for a few minutes, but after that she got right back up and started climbing again. Whew... It scared me for a minute until I knew she was okay. Here are a few pictures.
Another Friday.... TGIF. I had to wake Mattison up for school this morning, which is very common. She must have been dreaming because she started mumbling about Colors, which is what she calls crayons. It was cute. Mattison is getting slower and slower in the mornings. She wants to do things on her own time. I wake her up at the last possible minute not leaving us much time to get ready. I am normally dressed and ready to go and all I have to do is get her ready. She tots around, wants to visit daddy, watch a little tv, and put on her own shoes and jacket. Then she walks into her school (sometimes like she owns the place) waving and saying hello to everyone. She takes her time washing her hands and finally I get hugs and leave. I have had to learn to be very patient with her lately. I read toddlers take their time at doing everything. The only other news for the day is we were in the floor reading Mattison's night time stories when out of nowhere she pointed to the shelf in her room. There are soft pull out drawers that have a pink princess on each one. Mattison looked and pointed to one and said "Princess" and then said "Mattison Princess". I am sure she was talking about it being her princess, but the way she said it, it sounded like she was calling herself a princess.
Well, not much to post tonight. Matti went to Daycare as usually this morning. She smiled at everyone as she walked in, waving a big hello wave to everyone she met. She loves her teacher so I have no problems dropping her off. She enjoys being around the other children. I picked her up around 5:00pm and she can name every child in her class and tell each of the bye using their names. She has started using a new word or two everyday lately.
I thought I would post Mattison's top five mostly used phrases tonight. 1) Not Nice 2) No, mommy dada do it (there are some things she refuses to let me do) 3) Be Back (she will even put her hand up as if she were saying stop, I will do this myself) 4) My Turn! 5) Come on (she will come to you put her hand on yours and drag you from room to room until she figures out what she wants to do) 6) Poopy diapers-shew... this is a recent saying 7) Hailey Bite-not nice (She is a little tattle tail- I get a report if Mattison gets bit at school and it does not happen every day. Mattison tells a different story, but with no bite marks to prove it. 8) I do it 9) Sit Down (Mommy/Dada whoever she wants to play with at the time) 10) Hey Honey-Where that comes from I have no clue.
Oh well, hopefully something a little more interesting tomorrow. Until then Good night all....
Just a couple of updates tonight. Matti did pee pee in the potty again before her bath tonight. I am so proud of my little girl. She is so proud of herself. I am still not leaning toward trying to potty train just yet though. Although I have a feeling it will not be long. Secondly, Mattison's book of choice tonight was Cat in the Hat again. She was all into the story. Pointing and giggling at that crazy cat. It is kind of nice to read a longer book instead of a bunch of short ones. Tonight was the first time in a long time Mattison has done something that just melted my heart and turned me into mush. She noticed I had a bandaid on my arm and said "Mommy booboo" and I said yes Mattison mommy has a booboo. She leaned down and kissed my arm and I said all better. Then she pointed to her hand and said "Mattison has a booboo". I nearly melted. That is the first time she has referred to herself as Mattison and the first time she has said her name after weeks and weeks of working with her. It was the sweetest little voice ever!!!
The past week Matti has wanted to sit on her potty before her bath and play with her Elmo cell phone. This has become a part of her night time routine. I let her sit on the potty until she is ready to get off. Well, tonight we made pee pee again. Matti was so excited. Matthew and I cheered for her. Again, we are no where close to start potty training, but when she asks to sit on her potty we do not refuse her. YAY!!!! My big girl!!! I feel it is very important to read to your children. I think I feel this way because I have never been able to read out loud very well and sometimes still struggle with reading. There is not a night that passes that I do not sit and read several books to Matti. I hope that she eventually will enjoy reading to me. We have been reading books to Matti every night for at least the past year. She really enjoys that special time with me or Matthew. Usually her books are short and sweet, but tonight she pulled out Cat in the Hat. I did not think she would sit through the whole book, but I gave it a shot. (Dr. Suess books I think are a little difficult to read, but I made it through)... Matti sat perfectly snuggled in my lap through the whole book and ended up falling asleep at the end. I think I read that around this age they start enjoying longer more detailed stories. I wonder if that is starting to happen or if it were just a fluke. Oh well, I enjoyed the extra time. I put her to bed thinking she completely out. I walked over and cut out her lamp and started to walk out the door when I heard a whisper "mommy" and remembered that I forgot to kiss her head before I left. I said "oh mommy forgot to give you a kiss". Her reply was "uh huh" so I reached down a kissed her foreheard. She said "bye bye mommy. Nite Nite"....
Dealing with the time change has been harder on me than Matti. We fell back an hour on Saturday night and Matti seems to be dealing with it just fine. I was worried that it would take a couple of days for her to get adjusted since last year it was a nightmare. This year, not so much. She has adjusted just fine. Still sleeping until around 7am on weekdays and around 7:30am on weekends.
It has been quite sometime since I posted some videos. Here are a few recent ones.
Happy Halloween! On Friday Matti had her Halloween Party at school. I was only able to snap a couple of pictures of her and her buddy Hailey as I dropped Matti off for school. I was unable to attend the actual party because of work. Here are a couple of pictures of Hailey and Matti.
These girls do not look to happy, but I swear they are buddies!!!
We had planned once again on taking Matti to the Hill Ridge Farms here in Raleigh this weekend, but once again woke up Saturday to pouring rain. I was so disappointed. Later in the morning on Saturday I noticed the rain had stopped and I knew there was a Fall Festival going on at the end of the neighborhood so Matthew and I got dressed and put Matti in her costume and decided to just tough it out and get out of the house. The rain by this time was a drizzle. We initially took Matti stroller, but Matti seemed to do just fine walking beside her father the entire time we were at the festival. Matti loved the bouncy houses, from the outside only... She seemed to circle around each of the three bouncy houses over and over again as if she were trying to decide whether she wanted in or not. She did get in the first one we came to only to make a quick exit minutes after she got in. I was relieved because I thought some of the kids were just a little rough and I was petrified she would get hurt, but I knew I had to let her at least try it out. We also saw a big fire truck and Matti got to sit in the drivers seat, which ago lasted only a second, but she seemed to be interested in it. We went around to different stations. Matti got balloons and candy and just got to walk around and enjoy herself for a little while. Here are only a few festival pictures.
Matti's one minute in the bouncy house...
Later that afternoon after Matti had her nap her grandmommy Newton came down and Matti and Grandmommy painted pumpkins and Matthew and I carved pumpkins. We had a lot of fun. By this time the weather was 78 degrees and Humid!!! It was perfect for painting and carving though. Here are a few pictures.
Later on in the evening we finally got Matti dressed in her costume to go trick or treating. Our neighborhood was buzzing with parents and kids. The neighbors basically set up candy stations all the way down the street. It was a nice night and everyone was out. We took Matti to a few houses and she did a great job saying trick or treat, which of course came out sounding a little different, but we had worked with her all week and she was very polite saying thank you to each person and waving and saying bye bye to each person. We made it to about eight houses and Matti turned around and started walking home. I figured she had enough. We decided to give Matti a sucker and sit on our front porch and pass out our candy. Matti really enjoyed doing that. She also like the sucker. She had sucker everywhere!!!! It was in her hair, running down her chin, on her hands, and face. It was so funny, but so rewarding to see her have so much fun. Here are a few pumpkin painting pictures and trick or treat pictures. We had a wonderful weekend. I have a few videos I will post tomorrow.
This week was a very busy week. I had my 20th ish.... class reunion on Saturday night in Mount Airy so Matti got to visit with her nene and papa. We had a very busy Saturday. We took Matti to get her picture made in the Halloween dress I made her and also in her bee costume. They turned out great and I will post them as soon as mom gets them back. Here are a couple of pictures of her costume and the pumpkin dress I made for her. Matti has been so into seeing pumpkins I decided to take her to across the line this weekend to Cana, VA were there is a road side stand with all kinds of fresh fruits, veggies, flowers, pumpkins, etc. I thought it would be a great field trip for us. Matti, Nene, and I went and it was freezing cold. Matti seemed to enjoy looking at the pumpkins and flowers. She was very excited, but extremely cold so our trip was short and sweet. Here are a few pictures. I wished it had not been so cold so we could have stayed longer. I think Matti was having a great time, but she was shivering cold. Matti loved playing with her Nene and Papa all day on Saturday. If she did not get her way with Matthew, Nene, or I she would just yell for her papa to come save her. She is really starting to know how to play us. If she does not get her way with one -she will try the other. At one point she had asked Nene and I if she could go outside. It was so cold and Matti needed to change clothes so we told her not right now. She immediately yelled "Papa" and papa came over and Matti said "Papa outside". Of course Papa took her out. Here are some pictures of Nene, Papa, and Matti. Matti really enjoys spending time with Nene and Papa. When we wake up at there house she always asks for papa and then she starts looking for Nene. She loves to go into Nene's bedroom and wake her up. Matti is so into shoes and starting to enjoy dress up clothes. Here is a pictures of her new dress up shoes that Nene and Papa got her.
Matti has still been an angel here the past few weeks. Hardly any tantrums and very cooperative. She also did pee pee on the potty again last night. We were so happy for her. She was excited for herself. Still we are under no pressure to potty train just yet. Although she has been taking her diaper off by herself a lot lately. I just tell her when she learns to go pee pee and poop in the potty she can wear big girl panties and she will not have to wear a diaper anymore. We will just see how she does in the next couple of months before I really start working on the potty training. We are planning a trip to a farm here in Raleigh this weekend weather permitting. The NC State Fair is also happening right now, but I am still not ready to expose her to all of that just yet. I am not sure which has more germs the farm or the fair, but H1N1 scares the crap out of me and I know several people who have small children that have already got it and they all attended the fair. I am sure it was just a coincidence. Oh well, next year we will definitely take her. Matti also has really got into Thomas the Train here lately. I bought her a Thomas the Train toy and she absolutely loves it. It is a train that runs around the floor on no tracks. She follows him around and dances to the music. It is also interactive and response to commands, which is funny to watch her tell Thomas what to do and when he needs to go. Next time Thomas comes around I will have to take her to see Thomas also....
We had a pretty uneventful weekend this weekend. Matti has been having a few, what I think are, nightmares almost every night this week. She also may be getting her two year molars. She has had several episodes of waking up in the middle of the night crying out for me. Most of the time she just needs to be tucked in and checked on. Matti is constantly learning new words every day. Her most recent are Pumpkin and Elephant of course Elephant sounds more like El phant and Pumpkin sounds like Pukin. It is too cute. We took her to play at the park this weekend in our neighborhood which is usually empty, but this weekend there were a lot of children there. Most of them were around Matti's age. I was worried about her getting pushed around, but found that I had a different problem. She was pushing the other kids around telling all the other children "My Slide", "My turn", MY EVERYTHING. She just jumped right in front of other kids and did her own thing pretty much pushing them to the side. I completely felt out of my element and was not sure what I should do. I first tried to tell Matti that this was Every ones playground and that she needed to take turns, pointing out to her how she must share. Of course in went in one ear and right out the other. I threatened that if she did not play nice we would have to go home. Once I told her that every time a child would come around she would look at them and say "play nice". She eventually got the idea, well sort of. I just had to hold my breath and also I caught myself giggling under my breath at how darn bossy she was. I just shook my head. We ran into one little girl who looked similar to her cousin Emma. She followed the little girl around and kept trying to talk to her calling her Emma. I thought it was sweet. She has been a perfect angel here lately. Tantrums right now are few and far between, but I know that this will change again probably over the next few weeks. We have been playing with play dough, I cut out pumpkins out of construction paper for her to decorate and we put them on the refrigerator, she loves Tinker toys (only under supervision) and she loves to pretend she is cooking for us. Grandma Marion gave me a huge bag of zippers and I have found her several times sitting in the floor with the bag of zippers pulling one by one out and sorting the colors into categories. She is really getting good at recognizing her colors esp. yellow, brown, orange, red, green, purple, blue, black, and white. It was pretty cool watching her sort and match colors together. She also loves for me to take her finger and court items in books. She likes to pretend to count using my finger. I have made a game out of it. She is starting to love certain books at night before bed. It is like a ritual. Her bedtime routine is so routine that Saturday night we decided to let her stay up a little later than normal, but decided against a bath since it was so late. She was all out of sorts. We put on her pajamas and read books and then she took off into the bathroom and wanted to take a bath. I saw first hand how a routine is beneficial for bedtime. I will post some pictures of the park. She is really growing up so fast I am amazed every day at the things she can do...
I have been VERY bad about keeping up with Matti's blog and have really missed out on posting a lot. So much that it would take me forever to update so I decided to start fresh with the things that are going on right now. I have been so caught up in sewing, work, and chasing Mattison around I completely regret I did not keep the blog going.
Matti will be 22 months old next week. It is so hard to believe that her 2nd birthday is fast approaching us. At Matti's last check up, which was her 18 month check up, she weighed 26 pounds, 32 1/2 tall, and still has a big noggin measuring at 47.6cm which is the 70% for children her age. There is either a big brain in there or is it all that hair of hers. He he ... Matti has really started talking a lot over the past several weeks. Words are too many to name, but Matthew and I can understand about 80% of what she is saying. She is starting to make two to three word sentances and likes to copy everything Matthew and I say. Apparently Matthew and people at daycare call Matti Honey or Honey do not do that because Matti has been saying "No Honey" to her father lately. It is absolutely hallirous. Also her daddy told her "bye Pookie" as she walked out the door to go to school this morning and she turned around, looked at him, and said "Bye Pookie" right back to him with a big grin. It is simply amazing how much toddlers can change in just a matter of a few weeks. Matti has started singing lately. She will sing bits and pieces of the Imagination Movers theme song, nursery rhyme songs, and most recently bits and pieces of the alphabet song. She also loves to dance, draw, color, use play dough, dress up, undress (especially loves to take her diaper off these days), run, put puzzles together, play with Tinker Toys (supervised of course), play with baby dolls, etc. She is just into everything. She is starting to understand emotions as well. If I make a sad face she will look at me all concerned and say "Mommy sad". If I make a happy face she will say "Mommy Happy" and then imitate the faces stating what faces she is making. One afternoon we were rough housing and she kicked me in the face by accident. I pretended to cry and she hugged me, patted me on the back, and said "Mommy sad" and once I looked at her and said you kicked mommy she said "Sorry" and gave me a kiss. It was the sweetest. She was patting my back and sssshhhhing me trying to comfort me. What a sweetheart. One of the biggest things that has happen over the past couple of weeks is Potty!!! Mattison actually pee pee in the potty once (I think by accident), but got so excited. Once she first started to pee pee I think I scared her by my excitement, but once she understood it was a great thing she starting clapping and screaming to the top of her lungs. I was a proud mama even if it was just coienidentle. For the past few weeks Matti has shown great interest in using the potty. She will come up to me and say "Potty" or "Pee Pee In Potty" and I will take her straight to the potty. She will sit there for a few minutes and sometimes look at a book and then get up. She never really uses the potty with the exception of the one time above. This morning she was all dressed for school and before I could put her shoes on she got off the couch and crouched down in the corner and started to push and then all the sudden she stood straight up and grabbed my hand and said "potty" so I took her to the bathroom, took off her pants and diaper, she sat down and pick up a magazine, then tooted really loud, stood striaght up and said "all done". Oh well, I guess this is all a start.. I had to giggle-she toots like her father he he he.... Matti still loves school and her friends at school knowing each of them by name. I think she is actully bored on the weekends because she has no one to play with, but mommy and daddy. I will be posting some pictures later and try to get some movies, etc. I hope to keep this blog more updated. I have missed out on posting so much. Please stayed tuned.
Matti just went for her 15 month doctors appointment and is 16 1/2 months. We got a little behind when she was sick for her one year and that appointment was in January. Matti did well at her appointment. She is 24 1/2 pounds and 31 1/2 inches long. She is 70% for her age group. I thought she seemed short, but she is actually a little above the average height for her age group. Matti has changed so much over the past few weeks. She seems to be talking more. Some words we can understand and some words are a bunch of baby gibberish. We are beginning the frustration part of toddlerhood and trying to figure out what she wants by her pointing and jabbering. She is still signing, but she only knows a few signs. I know when she wants to eat, needs more, wants us to do somethings again, and there a few more signs she does not use often, but I still sign with her. She has been saying bubble, ooose (shoes), duice (juice), pee (for pee), nanna (Banana and Nana), apple, happy, nose, poo (Poop) and a handful of other words. She can name several animals (Cow, dog, pig, horse, and cat) and make the animal noises. She has little toy animals in her bath tub and we talk to her about each animal every night and the noises they make. She is doing a great job with that. I often take Mattison to the bathroom with me to teach her where the potty is and having been repeatedly telling her about bathroom procedure. Matti started to recognize when she is about to poop just last night. She was sitting in her highchair and looked at me and said "poo" and then looked down at her diaper. I did not think much about it. I cleaned her up and put her in the floor with no sign of poop. Within a few minutes she came back around the corner and she had pooped. I was shocked and so happy for her. We clapped and made a big deal of it so she will keep this up. Our night time routine is still going great. She gets dinner, bath, dressed, and then I read her a book, which has now turned in to three books before bed. She seems very interested in me reading to her and sits calmly while I read. She likes to turn the page when it is time. Sometimes she tries to read to me. She will open the book and start talking baby gibberish like she is reading. It is so cute. I have yet to get this on video. She will also point at different pictures in the books wanting me to tell her what the picture is. I have really enjoyed looking at books with her and repeating over and over the names of the pictures. It is finally starting to sink in. Matti will have a mouth full of teeth by the time we go to the beach. She has two molars and several other teeth already through on one side top and bottom and swollen gums on the other side top and bottom. We had are first night up with her (in a long time) Monday night. She woke of screaming and crying and it took a diaper change, Tylenol, and a lot of cuddling to get her to go back to bed. I know her teeth have really been bothering her. Hopefully we will be finished teething soon. She is still following simple commands. She really likes helping me around the house and she will help me clean up her room after playing. She tries really hard to put everything back where she found it. She will dust, help with laundry, wants to vacuum, etc. whatever I am doing she wants to help. She can also put on and take off her shoes. She tries to put on her sock herself, but still has not mastered that as of yet. Just over the past few weeks Matti's world has really changed. I feel she sees it in a whole new way. She seems to be grasping every day life better than before. It just all seems to click for her now. I have several videos to post. Hope you enjoy.
This first video Matti had been outside playing in sand and water. I striped her down and let her run around in her diaper. She decided she was tired and grabbed her blanket and was trying to find a spot to take a nap. You will see her point to me and hear her say night-night.
This is Matti's favorite word to say. She says it constantly. I used to keep her bubbles in the pantry and now everyday we come home she goes to the pantry and pats on the door saying "bubble".
Here is a couple of videos of Matti dancing around. I could not stop laughing at her. The first video her daddy gets up and you will see her walk over to the chair that Matthew usually sits in and she points for him to sit back down.
Matti has changed so much over the past couple of weeks. She has really started to follow simple tasks. She will throw things in the trash if I ask her to. She will get a book or toy if asked. She will get shoes or put them up when asked. These are just few tasks she will follow. It is very cute and is actually helpful to me and entertaining to her. Matthew and I make sure we say please and thank you when asking her to do these tasks and clap for her reward. This seems to make her understand that she is doing something that is positive and you can tell she is very proud of herself. Matti has to be one of the sweetest children ever. She always gives kiss and hugs to EVERYONE. She is very dramatic when she gives kisses. She makes the ummmm ma sound when she puckers up. She hugs and kisses Matthew before we leave for school each morning and loves on him when he comes home at night. When we leave school in the afternoon she walks over to her jacket and then over to the teacher to get her report card of the day. Once she gets that piece of paper she starts blowing kisses to the teacher and the other kids in the class. She is also very excitable. She gets so excited over things. She squeals, bounces, claps her hands, and gasps. Grandma Marion and Nana Bonnie went with me to pick Matti up from Daycare last Friday and Matti almost jumped out of her high chair when she saw their faces. She was ecstatic. She went straight to Nana Bonnie and was grinning from ear to ear. She is also likes to get books and get up in our laps to look at them and snuggle. She is starting to sit with us for longer and longer periods of time now. She still only looks at the pages and sometimes she will get my finger and point to things in the book with my finger as if she were teaching me and I will name different pictures for her. She also babbles a lot while looking at the book. I sometimes think she might be imitating reading-not real sure about that one. Although part of night time routine now is looking and reading a book so you never know what they pick up on. Separation anxiety is finally getting less now. When I drop her off at school she no longer cries. She usually goes directly to the other children and starts playing with them. She doesn't even look back for me anymore. This has made it easier on me in the mornings because I know she is having a great time at school with the other children. She is very outgoing and is not one bit shy. Matti is definitely a child that will need a sibling. She really enjoys being around other children and seems to miss it on the weekends when she is at home with Matthew and I. She acts like she is bored. Yesterday Matti started putting a lot of syllables together which sounds like long sentences in a foreign language. When she first did this I immediately cracked up because it came out of nowhere and she was directing the gibber towards me like she wanted to have a conversation so I just started talking back. She went on and on with this foreign sounding language and her face was just so serious. I am not sure if she is getting ready to reach a milestone in her vocabulary, but she has been up and down the past two nights just talking to herself in this crazy baby babble each night. She usually sleeps soundly through the night and we normally do not hear a peep out of her until she is ready to get up. Matti is still having tantrums when she does not get what she wants, but I have found if I can get her interested in something else immediately she stops crying and fussing immediately. If she is just having a tantrum because she cannot reach something she is not supposed to have ignoring the tantrum she is having gets her to figure out it is time to move on. I feel horrible when I ignore her frustration, but sometimes I only make it worse for her when I tell her she cannot have the item. I am trying different approaches with the tantrums to see what works the best for us in getting her to understand I know she is frustrated and everyone gets upset, but that just how things are. Matti seems to be having a lot of problems with molars right now. She has not had a solid bowel movement for two weeks. It is not bad diarrhea it is just a little loose. She also exhibits some mouth pain and every now and then feel a little feverish. Her gums are so swollen and red she should have several teeth over the next few months. Right now she still only has her two front teeth and two lower teeth. She has one tooth coming in beside the top right and one molar that is partial through. It seems like her teeth take forever to come in. I will feel better about her eating once those teeth are through. It will probably make her feel better as well. I had some cute videos to post, but accidentally delete my favorite of her putting items in the garbage and I have one of her in the backyard with the bubble machine that I need to download. I should have those up in the next few days.
Matti will be 15 months old next week. It is so hard to believe. She is beginning to be a true toddler. We have experienced major meltdowns and a lot of independence. Mattison wants to do everything by HERSELF. She is so scheduled now she knows exactly what is going to happen and when it is going to happen. She expects things. If you put her shoes on she automatically starts saying bye-bye and waving. She immediately wants to put her jacket on and heads for the front door. She will stand there and wait for me. Once I am ready to go out she does not want me to pick her up she wants to walk out by herself and she wants to shut the door herself. I usually grab her hand and led her to the car, although she wants to play in the front yard and screams and cries when I pick her up to put her in the car. Once she is settled she is fine. She has also started talking A LOT. More baby babble than real words, but every now and then she will say something that and throw a real word in there. She has started saying Mommy and Daddy instead of Mama and dada. Any time she sees a baby whether it be in a picture or a real baby she says baby over and over. She also can make some animal sounds. If you ask her what sound a sheep makes she says ba-a cow she says mawwww-lion she growls. It is quite funny. Also the other day I picked her up from school and we usually come home and have a snack and some milk. Matti started signing for more. It completely caught me off guard. I had stopped signing with her because she would not pay me any attention and then out of nowhere she did it. I ask the teachers at school and found out that they are teaching signs to them. WOW-it just took someone other than me for her to pay attention. They really work with her a lot at school. I am very impressed with the daycare we chose. The teacher actually has a lesson plan book for them. She has brought home art work and I can see the results of the teachers working with her and teaching her. I am just so thankful I made the right decision. Matti has only had four teeth since she was 12 months old and finally she is getting several teeth all at once. Including her molars. Her poor gums are blood red and swollen. Her top right molar has already peaked through and the rest are not far behind. She should have a full set of teeth within the next month. She has been really cranky and will cry in pain just out of no where. Sleeping is excellent. Matti of course has been off the bottle for a while. We have kept the same night time routine with the exception of the bottle. Now, after her bath and we get her pajamas on she knows it is time for bed. Matthew and I usually get her ready for bed together. When we are finished she usually starts blowing her daddy kisses and says ni ni dada and waves at him. It is so sweet. I will rock her and tell her a story softly and within a minute or two she will sit up in my lap and look over at her bed as if she is ready to be put down. I will kiss her head, tell her I love her and put her down. Sometimes she will talk to herself until she passes out, but never any crying. We are so proud of her. The same goes for naps. She is ready for a nap every day at 11:30am and does not fight going down. She sleeps an 1 1/2 and sometimes if we are lucky 2 hours. Wow between us sticking with a night time routine and daycare training her on the cot things are great when it comes to sleeping habits. So much has happened over the past month it would take me all day to post so from now on I promise to post every day or every other day even if I do not have pic's or videos. That is the only way I can keep the blog current and not leave anything out.
Things have been absolutely crazy around here. I feel terrible that I have not posted one thing since November. I will do the best I can to bring everyone up to speed. Well, Thanksgiving was wonderful. We went to Mount Airy and visited with all of the family. Matti enjoyed meeting some new cousins on the Seivers side of the family. We also had dinner with the Marions which is always a blast. Soon after Thanksgiving I started planning Matti 1st birthday party. On December 13th Matthew and I threw Matti her First Birthday in Mount Airy at Nana Bonnie's house which was a blast. We had mostly family and a few friends there. Matti seemed to enjoy herself although she had no idea that the event was for her. She was dressed in a princess tutu, tights, and a onsie. Matti had her own little birthday cake and destroyed it pretty quickly, she also had a lot of balloons, and a banner stating Happy Birthday. She received many cool gifts. She seemed to understand how to rip into her gifts. That was not a problem, but she seemed to be more interested in the paper than the gifts. Thanks to everyone for making that day so special.
Here are a couple of Pictures from her Birthday party.
When we returned home that Sunday and got Matti out of her car seat she was extremely hot. We thought the car seat and the warm car might have been the problem until an hour later she seemed to be even warmer than before. I took her temp and it was 102.5. Of course I freaked out a little and called the on call doctor. I spoke with an advice nurse who gave me some info and told me how to lower her fever. By Monday morning Matti's temp was still 102.1 so I took her to the doctor. He thought Matti had a cold and also said just because she does not have an ear infection today does not mean they cannot get inflamed over night. By Wednesday, the child still had a fever of 102.5 and back to the doctor again. This time it was an ear infection and sinusitis. Finally all of that cleared up just in time for Christmas. We went to Hickory for a day to visit with he Newton's and then to Mount Airy to visit with the Seivers and Marion's for Christmas. Matti once again received several cool gifts and loved everything she received, especially opening the presents. She was so expressive in showing her interest in the gifts. It cracked me up. She is my little actress. She loves to put on a show. After Christmas, Matti started in her new Toddler (12-18 months)class at school. She did not really progress much until she started this new class at school. Almost overnight I saw a completely different child emerge. She started going through separation and stranger anxiety all over again which made it hard to drop her off every morning. She also started going through a fussy and clingy phase where I had to be on top of her constantly and if I moved she would cry. She has accomplished so many different milestones I hope I do not leave any out. She says dada and mama to the appropriate parent, she also says "ooooooo" for hello when picking up the telephone, she also says bla for block, ba for bottle (which we are currently off the bottle except at night and on whole milk), Dug for dog, dat for that, and Nana of course for Nana, and Na for No and bal for ball and wave and say bye bye. She makes more sounds for words that I just have not figured out what she is saying yet. She jabbers all the time talking in her own little language while looking right at you. Her conversations are so funny. She is also into everything and the word "No" will make her cry at the drop of a hat. If you tell her "No" she will lie down on the floor and put her head down and cry like someone had hurt her. That tears me up, but I know she has to learn when she is not supposed to do something. She also points to everything and says "Dat". So I will tell her what the item is and what it is used for. She is also starting to really enjoy books. She has several touch books that make noise if you touch a part of the book. I used to take Matti's finger and press the bottom to make a noise and now she will take my finger and press my finger down on the bottom to make the noise. If we give her a brush she will brush her hair, tries to brush her own teeth for a while and now she does not want any part of the toothbrush. She wants to brush our hair with it instead. She likes to try to put her shoes on her own feet and just the other morning she saw her coat hanging on the chair and tried to put it on. She could not do it by herself so she brought it to me. I put it on her and she waved and said bye bye as if we needed to go to school.I swear she wore that coat around all morning. If the phone rings she will stop what she is doing and walk over to where the phone is and point to it. Sometimes if I am busy I do not answer it and she will stare me down until I tell her that I will get it later. She was also turning the TV off and on (we have now fixed that problem). She would cut the tv off and then scurry away because she knew she was not supposed to touch the TV and look at me and point to the remote to turn it back on. She would get bent out of shape if I did not cut it back on. Matti also helps do laundry by pulling clothes out of the dryer for me and she likes to unfold them when I get a pile folded and hand them back to me with a smile. Yesterday I was emptying out the dishwasher and she started handing me dishes out of it. Some where so big compared to her I could not help, but laugh. She is such the little helper. Also we have started to notice when Matti is hungry she will automatically head over to the high chair and start to point and tries to climb up into the high chair herself. And then there is climbing-already- She wants to climb on the furniture, up the stairs, etc. Mom bought her a wagon for her overnight trip there last weekend and she would climb in the wagon by herself and start rocking so someone would push her. I could go on and on about everything, but I have to admit so much has happened over the last four to five weeks I cannot keep up with it all now. The big step in Matti's milestone progress is that she has started walking. I mean, walking everywhere and sometimes so fast I can barely catch her. The funny thing is you can tell she is so excited by the look on her face. She even swings her hands around and squeals with delight! I have noticed since she started walking she is not as clingy and is a lot more independent. She just goes her own way and if she needs me she just walks right over to me and pulls on my pants. Matti has also had pink eye twice and two colds since she was sick in December so I have been out of work a lot with her home sick so I have not had much time on the computer lately. The updates from now on will be more frequent. Matti finally got to have her one year check on on her 13 month bday which was Jan 17th. At that time she weighs 22 pounds and 4 ounces and is 30 inches long. Her chubby thighs are slowly starting to dwindle away. I miss those little chubby baby legs. She of course hated her shots and screamed before the doctor even stuck her. OUCH!!!!! She finally has two front teeth now and she looks so much like a little girl and not like a baby anymore. She has a huge gap in between her front teeth that gives me the giggles when she smiles really big. Matthew says her two front teeth are like Lauren Hutton. Whew, with all that said we are finally up to this past weekend. Matti had her first overnight trip without Mama or Dada. Matti spent the night with Nana Bonnie and Papa Lane on Saturday night so I could take Matthew out for his birthday. Nana and papa bought Matti a wagon and pulled her around everywhere. The full report when we came in to pick her up on Sunday was she did not miss me at all and she was an "Angel". She sort of looked a little funny to see us again. Almost like, you mean I have to go back home with these people. Oh well, she gave me a big ol kiss right in the mouth so I really know she missed us. I am posting a video of her walking. It is not the best video, but right now it was the best I could do. I promise to keep this blog updated better. Hope you enjoy.
Here is Matti posing in the scarf that nana made for her.
Here is Matti posing in the wagon that nana and papa bought for her.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)