Parenthood - 2016-02-11 Matthew is 3

February 11, 2016

At three, Matthew is very sweet, very noisy and a little mischievous.

He is a real talker, although people don't always understand him unless they've had some time to learn "Matthew". Part of the problem - he rarely stops talking even to breathe, so if you've missed something it's easy to get lost in the sheer volume of words. He does not appear to be able to pronounce the /kuh/ or /ell/ sounds yet, which further complicates matters.

Favourite words or catch-phrases: "Actually" "Help is on the way!" "I can't do that until Thursday" "Why can't spiderman have a balloon? He'll shoot his web at you!" "Peese may me see dat?"

He now calls Elizabeth "Livbeth" instead of "DeeDee" and Amelia "Melia" instead of "Meelee". Interestingly Elizabeth made a fairly concerted effort to switch him back. "I won't play with you if you call me that. Call me DeeDee or Emma." and he does try half-heartedly for a few minutes but she's definitely losing the battle.

He's still a very musical child and loves to do "his" piano practice just like Elizabeth. He's very particular about needing to use his own music book for practice. Often he sings along ("like Lorianne"). I think the result is hilarious, even if it's a stretch to describe it as music!

He loves spiders, building stuff out of lego, playing with forts, cutting stuff up with scissors (not always sanctioned), reading books, cuddling with Mommy and Curious George.

The potty training app helpfully emailed me this week with the opening line "So... You must be done potty training now, right?" HA! The timer part is still good and I can see hope in the future but HAHAHAHA not quite there yet. New spiderman underwear for his birthday from his sisters was a big hit and he's in underwear more often than not. There have been a few puddles (sigh), but if he remembers that he's in underwear (helped by frequent reminders) he goes pee all by himself. Less popular was Mommy and Daddy deciding that we are done dealing with toddler poop where possible - he now has to wash his own bum (Outraged son: "but it's TOOOOOO YUCKY!!!" Mean parent: "Then use the toilet") He's at least trying the toilet occasionally but this clearly is still a challenge for him. And one of the times he forgot he was wearing underwear had truly horrifying results. Of course he lost his head and went charging up the carpeted stairs for help leaving Poor Poor Auntie Janice to discover the "presents" left behind.

Ahem - so... Anyway. On his birthday Matthew requested that he have YOTS of candles and YOTS of cake. I think we delivered. Amelia was allowed to sample some cake for the first time. She approved. Matthew wanted to go to the dinosaur museum and to see spiders so we went to the Museum of Nature. He enjoyed the current bug exhibit that's visiting although he flatly refused to pretend to be a dung beetle and push around the giant (brown) bean bags on the grounds that they might be smelly. He very sweetly explained to Amelia everything that I explained to him, and asked me to take pictures of certain things "for Elizabeth" since she was at school and couldn't see them. "Livbeth yikes butterfies." "Livbeth yikes elefunt beetles cuz she yikes elefunts".

On March 8, 2016 at 03:03 am
Grandma H said:

So cute! Matthew, i'm with you on the dung beetle exhibit!