Aprils

Visiting KitCat today made me want to go back and look through pictures of when Matthew was that teeny-tiny, so here's a parade of Aprils - 2006, 2007 and 2008. My handsome young man!

Meet Kitty

This is Kitty. Kitty is Matt-Matt's absolute favorite stuffed animal. Kitty sleeps in the crib every night, and I absolutely shudder at the thought of losing Kitty. (Kitty is forbidden from leaving the house at any time.)

Kitty started out life as a Halloween decoration. We were putting away the Christmas decorations this January when Matt-Matt spotted the Halloween container, grabbed Kitty and ran off with him. It was love at first sight, and now they are inseparable. Kitty used to have whiskers and he's already had some surgery on the tail but hopefully Kitty will last a nice, long time.

Matthew has a new kitty in his collection - he got a Puss in Boots from Ethan and Aiden at his party, and he's quite partial to Puss too. Puss has already had to have some emergency surgery to close up a hole in the top of his head, which stemmed from some overenthusiastic pulling. :-)

We have a date

A date with Baylor - Our Children's House in Allen. May 6th at 10 a.m. Looking forward to it, to get started, but kind of wary too.

Waiting on the doc

I called Baylor today to get Matthew set up for an evaluation, but it turns out they need a referral from the doctor's office first, so now we are waiting on them. I'm eager to get started on this!

We always go for a walk somewhere when I come home from work, since the weather is nice and soon it'll be too hot to move. Matthew hasn't been too keen on the duck pond lately - we walk down there but he wants to keep on going to the elementary school and wander around under the pecan trees collecting the fallen nuts and walking up the straight slide. He likes to watch the older kids play soccer and tee-ball, tries to kiss every dog he sees (except when they get up close, then he's not so enthusiastic anymore) and then wants to walk through the tunnel under Eldorado Pkwy so he can call his own name out and hear it echo in there. If we have time, we wander home through the next development which backs up into ours. We went today and one of the homeowners was gardening and offered to let Matthew help him. :-) Matthew also insisted on riding his Radio Flyer scooter which meant I had to carry it most of the way. We ran out of juice before we got home, and we were both pretty warm by the time we were done.

We have a playdate with Sofie on Saturday, which should be fun. Must remember to bring camera with me for pics.

Two year appointment

So Matthew went in for his two year appointment today. He's 26 pounds, 6 oz (30th percentile) and 35 inches tall (60th percentile). Head circumference is 19 3/4" (80th percentile - that's one big noggin!) He is just fine, "passed" all the autism questions, which were interesting. "Does he point with his index finger?" "Does he pretend?" "Does he play appropriately with toys?" He smiled at Dr. Suzanne and pointed at his ear, remembering she looks into them with her little whosiwhatsit thingamajig.

The bad news is - no progress on the speech front. :-( He has the same amount of words that he had at the 18 month appointment, and no two word sentences. So we need to take him to a speech therapist for a consultation. Apparently Baylor have a program in Allen, and there is a state sponsored program called ECI, which I need to look into. Apparently some health insurance covers speech therapy and some don't. Must go check out what United Healthcare will do for us.

I do have two friends who have had to go the speech therapy route with their little boys, so hopefully they can help us get going on this.

Finally finished the table and chairs

Not thrilled with the way the blue paint turned out (looks like some strange wash effect that doesn't quite cover up the wood) but the rest of it looks great, including the chalkboard top. It looks all dusty because it is. You are supposed to rub the side of a piece of chalk on the surface and rub it in to get a whole layer of chalk dust down. Supposed to make it easier to erase. We shall see. The first thing I noticed was I needed to get a large size placemat for it! Any oil from food gets all over it and looks terrible.


Can't get Matthew to sit at it for more than about 15 seconds, but that's to be expected these days, I think. Patience is not his strong suit. :-)

Matthew is TWO

Today was Matthew's birthday, so we had some friends over to help us celebrate. A fine time was had by all and the birthday boy was happy to play with Ethan, Noah and Aiden, and his new toys too. He conked out right after everyone left for a few hours, then we took his wagon down to the duck pond during the gorgeous weather. Couldn't have asked for a nicer day!