Easter presents

Rachel charged me with finding some inexpensive Easter presents for Matthew. There are few things that Dad does better than toys! I picked out

• A small frisbee. Matthew hasn't figured out throwing with the wrist but he gets a kick out of throwing it with Dad anyway.
• A nerf missile launcher: put the missile on the launcher and give it a pump; the air pressure pushes the missile off. Since it's a direct-fire system (unlike his crossbow where clocking it loads a spring) Matthew can only shoot it 10 feet at most, but he thinks that's fantastic.
• A play-doh "factory." We haven't let him open this yet because of the mess potential but we will probably play with it tomorrow morning while Rachel sleeps in. I think he will like it.
  
• Silly putty: easily the most popular toy. He loves it. Even kept him quiet (for Matthew) during church. Huge hit.
  

Peanuts

Well, crap. I had an amusing and fun post but blogger crapped out when I hit publish, and thanks to the cleverness of rich-text widgets, nothing was left when I clicked Back.

Anyway, the short version is, Matthew put his shoe (singular) on by himself for the first time. (Velcro rules.) He needed help with his left one, though. Or maybe he just got impatient.

A mystery

Last night I lost my cellphone.

I thought, Where did I see it last? The last I could remember was calling Rachel up on the way home from the park to see if she wanted me to pick something up for dinner. Sometimes I put my phone next to the cupholders when I'm driving, so I checked in the car. No phone.

I dialed it from Rachel's phone repeatedly. Couldn't hear it anywhere.

I called up Artic Circle to see if somehow it had fallen out of my pocket there. No. At this point I decided it was gone. Too bad.

Not long afterwards, Rachel did her nightly re-tuck-in of Matthew. She came out looking amused and said, "I have good news and bad news." Yes? "The good news is, I found your phone. The bad news is, your son's a pickpocket." He must have lifted it out of my shirt pocket as I carried him to bed. Then I guess he dialed down the volume (accidentally, the only buttons he understands are Dial and Hang Up) so I didn't hear it ring.

The peanut gets the flu

Rough day. Matthew vomited oh probably 8 or 9 times. Seriously. From about noon to 7:00 he could not keep ANYthing down. Not even ginger ale.

He took it like a man, though. He was actually a lot LESS demanding than usual. Just wanted to sit on Mom's lap. Only thing that got him to smile was the Bumblebee song. Poor kid.

I asked my neighbor Chris to help me give him a blessing about 5:00. Two hours later he kept down a popsicle and not long after was back to his normal, happy, slightly prone to whining self.

Four loads of laundry later it's almost back to normal here.

Peanuts

• Matthew is calling me Dear today. "Taitai, Dear." Monkey see, monkey do...
• In a rare but not unprecedented occurrence, Matthew told Rachel that he wanted a nap today. ("Let's look at some books and take a nap." "Nap!" So he read some books with Mommy then went peacefully to his mattress.) He slept for almost 3 hours. Good thing, because he was a tired and cranky peanut this morning.
  

Little kids, big ears

Matthew, having risen early and napped insufficiently, is cranky and tired. I observed as much to Rachel while Matthew had his attention entirely riveted on The Wiggles. He instantly looked over and insisted, "Up! Up!"

I guess "tired" must be on his top-priority list, along with train and airplain noises.

Thank you Mommy!

Matthew brought me his bear (the bear, the one he freaks out over if he can't find it for nap/bedtime) when I got home from work yesterday. Wook! Bow! Bwoo! Taitai Mama! (Look! Bow! Blue! Thank you Mommy!)

Matthew had almost severed the bear's neck bow a couple days ago when I wasn't quick enough to stop him after he decided cutting newspaper with his scissors wasn't exciting enough, and reached out to expand his horizons. Apparently it's been slowly ripping the rest of the way through since the bow is his main carrying handle, so Rachel sewed on a new neck ribbon.

Taitai Mama! Tanks!

He was very pleased.

Songs with Matthew

Matthew got really really into singing kid songs this week. His two favorites, by a large margin, are "Caught a bumblebee" (he pinches his thumb and fingers together and waves it around, saying, Bumblebee -- his first three-sylable word that I can think of, and definitely the most recognizable) and "Three monkeys sitting in a tree, teasing Mr Aligator." Either of these can distract him from all but the most tragic of circumstances. This is a lifesaver in the car sometimes.

A tired Mommy

Monday was day 2 of installing our hardwood floors. This involved a very loud air compressor powering even louder nailguns. To keep Matthew out of the way (and for sanity: Matthew did not like the noise), Rachel took him basically everywhere, including all the way down to Provo where the mall has a kids play area. (Rachel wants me to include that she took him outside despite the bitter, bitter upper-30s cold. And wind. Don't forget the freezing wind. "Even Matthew said it was cold.")

She called at 2:00. "Are you coming home early?" "I wasn't planning on it." "Oh. Well, could you come home early?" "Okay...." I was busy but Rachel sounded frazzled. So, I tried to call her at 3:00. She didn't answer, so I figured she'd gone outside without the phone.

I left anyway. Rachel's car was gone when I got back. 20 minutes later she got back and I took Matthew outside some more and then to the McDonald's play area. I called half a dozen times during my two-hour stay at McDonalds to see if Rachel wanted me to pick up pizza (McDonald's isn't an option with Rachel, duh) on the way home. No answer. When I got home I found Rachel fast asleep. "Mama sleep!"