more development milestones

Dad here.

In addition to last Sunday being Mother's day, it was a big day for Matthew too. He showed us four skills that neither Maria or I have not seen before (which he must have been developing and perfecting at daycare):

1) recognizing block shapes: Matthew inherited a toy which has cutouts of 3 shapes on the lid. He successfully put square blocks through the square hole, circular blocks through the circular hole and triangular blocks through the triangular hole.
2) clapping to music: I played a Blues Clues DVD for him where the characters were clapping a rhythm and he followed along perfectly!
3) intentionally kicking a ball: He brought a soccer ball toward us and kicked it repeatedly. He must have kicked it at least a dozen times, screeching with happiness after each successful kick.
4) pushing a ball through a hoop: I held up the ring of a broken drum up towards Matthew, sticking my head through it, intending to playing peek-a-boo. Instead of playing peek-a-boo with me, he thought it would be funnier to pick up the soccer ball and push it through the hoop -- probably to smash daddy's nose. He found it so amusing that he did it about two dozen more times, screaming with delight with each time the ball went through.

So, this means that he will be either a croquet, soccer or a basketball player when he grows up. That is in addition to being an awesome drummer! :-)