Christmas 2009: A Photo Diary

The day after Thanksgiving we took Matthew to the Texas Renaissance Festival. He rode a pony without being held by his mommy or daddy for the first time.


On December 3rd, 2009 Matthew experienced his first snowfall in Houston Texas. This is the earliest snowfall in Houston on record.

Making Christmas cookies with Mama. Matthew's idea of decorating the cookies involved pouring the whole container of sprinkles on one cookie.

The arrival of Grandma Claus.

It looks like Swiper swiped Grandma's hat.

Matthew playing with the first present he opened while waiting for other family members to arrive.

Some of the many presents Matthew received, including lots of stuffed animals.

Matthew having fun with his Thomas the Tank Engine train set.

Matthew exhausted after a full day.

Vising friends on day after Christmas. Matthew had a lot of fun with the Deal girls, Lizzie and Rosie.

He also had fun playing with Jimmy and Collin.

If there's a drum in the house our little drummer boy will find it.

Matthew ended the weekend by supervising his Daddy's raking of the leaves.

First Lesson in Matthewese

Matthew has been attending speech therapy for about three months. He has shown great improvement. Before speech therapy and before he started wearing his hearing aids he rarely repeated words we would say to him. His vocabulary consisted of pointing out lights that he called, "la las". Now Matthew repeats words we say to him regularly. However, he usually does not repeat words correctly. For instance, he can say "D" words, ie. Daddy and Doggie. However, most other words if they start with a consonant he either exchanges the first letter with a D or just drops the first consanant and says the word by itself. For example, he calls his stuffed Piggy, "Iggy". However, he calls his stuffed Monkey, "Dunkee". The odd thing is that he can say the M sound, because he says Mama all of the time. This morning when he came into my bedroom saying with delight, "Mama!", while holding his monkey. I tried to get him to say "M" with another word referring to the monkey as "Mama Monkey". It is the larger of two monkeys he owned so it made sense. So I said, "Matthew, can you say Mama Monkey?" Matthew then said, "Da Da Dunkee."

Baby Neil Peart

If anyone is wondering whether Matthew still has his drum obsession take a look at this video. He did this completely on his own.

Dewberry Farm Revisit with Daddy 2009

On Sunday Tony and I took Matthew to Dewberry Farm. Last year Tony was in a body cast so I took Matthew by myself. We had a good time then, but we had a great time this year. Tony did a lot of fun things with Matthew including riding in the tractor train. Nothing funnier than a tall guy in a little car:

We also went on a hay ride to a pumpkin patch (that had seen better days before Halloween). Tony made the visit fun for Matthew by placing Matthew's monkey, Bongo, on various pumpkins while he wasn't looking. Tony knows how to keep his son entertained.

Skydive Houston with Kristi and Friends

Friends of mine, Kristi and her husband Todd, own Skydive Houston. We thought that Matthew would enjoy seeing skydivers with their colorful parachutes falling from the sky. Tony and I met our friends Hazel, Mark, and their 18 month old Gavin in the spectator area. We had a great time. It was a beautiful day and Matthew and Gavin had fun playing and then watching the skydivers every 30 minutes or so.
Matthew and I watching the first load enter the plane. Matthew said, "Airplane."




Matthew pointed to the sky and said, "up".


Matthew and I with our friend Kristi who finished her 3rd skydive of the day.



Hazel showed Matthew how to play badminton.


Matthew and Gavin enjoying some fruit while they wait for more skydivers.

Halloween Trick or Treating--Can you guess who Matthew is?

On Halloween night Matthew enjoyed a party at his cousins Bodie and Cooper's house. We had dinner there and then we went trick or treating together. Here is Matthew in his costume. See if you can guess who he is.

Here is a hint. That is a full body swim suit he is wearing, swim cap, and goggles and of course 8 gold medals. In case you cannot guess, this link will show you who Matthew's hero was at the Summer Olympics. http://theadventuresofmatthew-maria.blogspot.com/2008/08/phelps-phan.html

Here is a photo of Matthew for the Gymboree Halloween party before we could find 8 gold medals to put on him.

Balunar Festival

On October 25th we braved the crowds at the yearly Balunar Festival at NASA. Making it to the festival grounds was quite a feat. We also had to wait in long lines for food. However, when we saw the enthralled expression on Matthew's face we were glad we went. Matthew enjoyed watching the balloons and skydivers and especially the "balloon glow" after dark where the fires used to lanch the balloons were lit up on the field. This combined two of Matthew's favorite things.. balloons and "la las" (lights).

Pumpkin Patch and the Unhappy Alligator

A nearby church has a pumpkin patch every year. I passed by one day before taking Matthew to daycare for some photos.

My friend Barb has two sons and they are several years older than Matthew. I have been lucky to receive a lot of hand-me-downs from her. In last batch of clothes I got a Halloween costume. I thought we would be able to dress Matthew up in this for a Gymboree party and Trick or Treating but he had different ideas.

We had to come up with another costume on the fly. Look at later posts to see what we decided on.

Pumpkin Carving with Cousins and Zoo Boo

In early October Matthew's Deda had him and his two cousins, Bodie and Cooper carve pumpkins. Here are a few of the many photos.

The next day we went to the Houston Zoo's Halloween event, the Zoo Boo.

Snot Walrus

Matthew is usually very even tempered but sometimes he has full-blown 2 year old temper tantrums. We got some photos for proof. I told Matthew that he looked like a snot walrus.

Matthew's First Haircut

Matthew got his first haircut on September 19th. His hair was getting a little long and curly and even though he was very cute, a few people told me what a cute daughter I had. I knew it was time to get his hair cut. We went to Fantastic Sam's close by and we had a stylist who was very happy to give Matthew his first haircut, especially since he was so well behaved... no crying or squirming. Tony took the opportunity to get his hair cut during the same visit.

My handsome boys:

Mischievous Matthew

Sometimes when I tell people that I work from home their response is, "That is great! You get to save a lot of money on daycare." I usually let them know that this is not the case I still need to send Matthew to daycare in order to get work done. One day I had about 30 minutes of work to do after I picked up Matthew. After turning away from him for a couple of minutes this is what he was up to:

Yes, he is on top of the dining room table swatting at and grabbing our antique crystal chandelier.

Matthew Our Bionic Toddler

We can rebuild his hearing, we have the technology....

Matthew had a very exciting couple of months.. stressful for his mommy and daddy though. After Matthew had ear tube surgery we discovered that Matthew still had a hearing loss based on the hearing tests during his surgery follow-up. We then scheduled a different hearing test that was more objective, an ABR (Automatic Brainstem Response) hearing test, that involved Matthew being sedated. Unfortunately, this test confirmed that he does have a mild to moderate hearing loss. He needs hearing aids to hear normally. This is essential at his age as he is learning to talk. My biggest fear was that he would fight it every time we tried to put his hearing aids in. He struggled and fought every time Tony and/or I tried to put ear drops in his ears. So when the Audiologist fitted the hearing aids by forming the molds in his ears he was surprisingly still and well behaved. (Remember he is 2 years old so this is not usual for him). The next week Matthew had a C-T scan--yet another procedure that would require him to be sedated or so I thought. We went to Texas Children's Hospital anticipating a 3 hour appointment to allow time for him to be sedated and afterwards come out of it. When it was time for our appointment the wonderfully child-friendly radiologist said, "Well, let's try doing the C-T scan without sedation first-it couldn't hurt". Despite my certainty that he would not stay still we gave it a try. The radiologist showed Matthew the machine that he would go into and then gave Matthew's Monkey Jude a C-T scan. She gave his toy monkey a sticker and then told Matthew to climb in. He did.. and then he followed the instructions to stay very still while they took his X-ray. Matthew finished the C-T scan in 5 minutes instead of 3 hours!! The even better news was that he did not have the abnormality in his temporal bone structure that could cause complete deafness. We were relieved obviously.

Well the happy ending to the story is that a couple of days ago Matthew's hearing aids came in. We went to the ENT's office and the audiologist gave me some instructions on how to use the hearing aids, change the batteries, etc. Matthew immediately accepted the hearing aids. He didn't fuss at all. He wore them all the way home and all day the next day. Josie at daycare said he didn't try to take out his hearing aids all day and that the only time he fussed was when she took them out for his nap. She also said that he seemed to be listening and responding a lot better. I am SO proud of him. When I see him with his hearing aids he is the same happy active kiddo but he seems to be enjoying the new sounds around him. What a relief that he instantly understood that this new device will help him hear better.

In this photo he is giving a cheer for his new hearing aids.

Can't Sleep Elmo will Eat Me

On Sunday we went to the Babies R Us store closing sale and we bought Matthew a toddler bed. It is cute and has Elmo on it. Tony put together the bed on Sunday afternoon and Matthew slept in it for the first time on Sunday night. He seemed to be very interested in the bed at first and even lied down in it without being prompted. However, when I checked him at 3:30AM he was sleeping on the floor, so I picked him up and put him back in his bed. When I checked on him again at 6AM he was lying on the floor again with his diaper half off. He got up at 7AM and walked out of the bedroom holding his diaper in his hand. I wouldn't consider his first night in his toddler bed to be successful, but it wasn't too bad since he woke up in a good mood this morning.

Matthew's Colorado Trip Memoirs, Part 1

Matthew spent six days in Telluride Colorado this past week August 23rd-Aug 28th. We had a terrific time. I am still sifting through the 1000+ photos that Tony took (no I am not exaggerating) to find the ones that "tell a story". I will start off with Matthew's first Gondola ride. Telluride is a beautiful ski resort town in southwest Colorado. We stayed in Mountain Village which is a free gondola ride away from Telluride. We enjoyed this feature so much we used it at least twice every day of our trip. Matthew now thinks that we should be able to travel everywhere by gondola.

Our Morning Routine

Every morning when I take Matthew to daycare I take Paxil and Domino along with us for the ride. This short ride is pleasant for all involved. Matthew becomes less fussy because he has dogs to pet and the dogs LOVE their rides. In the winter time I can take the dogs to pick up Matthew too, but summer afternoons are too hot for the dogs even for the 2-5 minutes it takes to pick up Matthew.

Matthew and proud Domino

Matthew and coy Domino

Paxil thinks she's alpha dog so she always wants to sit in front.


Maybe Matthew spends too much time with the dogs seeing that he has started to chew on his drumsticks like they are bones.