Here's what's going on in Matthew-land right now:
-Matthew is still really goofy--he LOVES to do and say silly things in order to make people laugh. However, he is still quite shy and doesn't like having the attention of a group of people.
-He has a great time in his preschool class, but he doesn't like the idea of going to school. Every day he asks "is it my school day?" and if the answer is "yes," there are some tears and protests. I think Matthew thinks that if he goes to school, he'll be missing out on some super-secret fun at home. His teachers always say that he's fine when he's there. It's just the idea of going that bothers him.
-Matthew's favorite toys right now (or, still, rather) are trains. He loves setting up train tracks and running the trains on them. His favorite track configuration is a straight line (which really bothers his brothers, since he uses most of the straight pieces and leaves none for them).
-He still goes everywhere with his lovey, Saggy, and is an avid thumb-sucker.
-Matthew is a pretty good eater, but does not like "seeds" in his bread, and prefers his toast uncooked.
-He is really getting into cooperative imaginative play, which is wonderful in that he can now play more with Daniel. In fact, the other day I overheard them playing some pretend game together and just as I was thinking "wow! They're able to play the same pretend game nicely together," Matthew exclaimed "Daniel! You're letting me play with you!" Daniel was pretty nonchalant about it, but it was pretty sweet how excited Matthew was to really be playing along.
-Matthew has a few idiosyncrasies right now that are a bit difficult for us. One is that he doesn't like pants that are long enough to touch his feet. That makes getting dressed pretty difficult most days. For awhile all he wanted to wear were tight pajama pants....not quite appropriate for going out and about. Needless to say, we are very excited for summer so he can just wear shorts and we don't need to argue about the pants issue anymore. (And hopefully, after a long time not wearing pants, he will have forgotten about his trouble with them, too.)
-Matthew loves to sing. He can often be heard singing songs to himself. :) His favorite TV show is "Wonder Pets," which is made in a sort of opera-style, and since watching it lately Matthew sometimes sings his sentences instead of just speaking. It's awfully cute.
-Matthew is an early riser. He wakes up around five every morning and comes into bed with us. Sometimes he shows up earlier, and often we have no idea when he came in. This would be fine if Matthew didn't like to sleep sideways and kick blankets off of him (and us). I'm hoping this is just a phase.
All in all, Matthew is a super sweet kid and we love him very much. He brings so much joy to our family and we can't wait to see how he grows over the next year. :)
We had a little party for Matthew over the weekend. He was pretty excited about the cake...
With his buddies, Luca and Estela.
Look how tall I am!
All smiles on the way to school.
It is so much fun to watch Matthew open gifts. He has such wonderful expressions and gets so excited about every gift.
Auntie Laura helps Matthew figure out how to use the yo-yo that Aaron picked out for him.
Boogie Board from Auntie Karen, Uncle Jesse and cousins in Maryland! This thing is awesome!
Model bullet train! [Matthew has had some very specific gift requests for this birthday and last Christmas. Any time you ask him what he'd like, he says "model bullet train." He's never seen this before, so we're counting ourselves lucky that there actually is a model train set made for four-year-olds and there's a bullet train version. Oh, and it was reasonably priced, too. Here's hoping next time is that easy.]
Extra cars for the train from Daniel! [At this point, Matthew was giving us a live version of that video from a few years ago of a boy getting an xbox 360 for Christmas...]
"My OWN binoculars?! Thanks Auntie Laura!"
Since we had cake over the weekend, birthday dessert was homemade strawberry ice cream sundaes.
Then it was off to the living room to set up that train!
Making tunnels for the train to go through.
Learning all about how it works.
Love.
