Matthew

Animals in prison/ time out

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:54:00 +0000

Some animals just don't get along together. We all know that. That's why we don't cage the lions with the antelope or the wolves with the sheep or the alligators with the the, well we they're just better left alone anyway. So why do we assume that we can put all these different stuffed animals in the same room without any problem appearing? I guess we shouldn't.
Matthew came to me the other day to say the sneaky snake had bitten Mr Elephant on the foot. Now Mr Elephant needed to rest in my bed because he could only walk on 3 legs and everyone know an elephant needs all 4 legs to hold up that weight. So Sneaky Snake was put on notice that if he did it again, he would be sent to timeout. Well not more than 10 minutes later I was informed that Sneaky Snake had in fact bitten Mr Elephant on the leg again. So Sneaky Snake was banished to the garage where he would not be able to bite any other animals. But banishing wasn't enough. He was tied up with a rope and pushed inside a box and then locked inside the garage.
We thought the other animals would learn their lessons, but no. A few minutes later, big Scooby Doo and Little Scooby Doo were banished to the locked garage because they were beating up on Monster Truck. And then Elephant, who had apparently miraculously recovered from the snake bite, got into a tussle with Monster Truck and was also banished to the garage. Monster Truck had to recover in Matthew's bed with the covers tucked up over him and a pillow for his, errr, head?
After a week, the animals were allowed back into the house. But I think the big lesson from this is that if we are going to buy stuffed animals, we need to make sure they are compatible. Just to be on the safe side, we are not buying any stuffed salmon for AnnaRose's room. I think the stuffed bears would just have a field day with that one.

I (Heart) the 80's

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:56:00 +0000

Matthew told me the other day he was allergic to the 80's. Actually, it went something like this:
Mom, "Those shorts look just like Daddy's 80's shorts he still wears."
Matthew, "I hate these shorts."
"I hate the 80's"
"I'm allergic to the 80's"

My daughter ain't no sharpshooter

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:06:00 +0000

Last couple of nights AnnaRose has been waking up in the middle of the night. 12:30 to be exact. Which is unusual because she always sleeps through the night. Has since about 3 months old. We got really lucky with her or maybe someone was making up for Matthew's sleeping habits when he was young. Anyway, back to the story, I went in last night to try to calm her down. I usually will not pick her up or feed her in the middle of the night because I don't want her to get in the habit of waking us up. I rubbed her back and told her she needed to lie down because it was still night. She promptly hurled the Nuk she had in her hand at me. That wasn't sufficient though so she took the one out of her mouth and threw that at me. Fortunately she has my athletic skills and couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a shotgun. I calmly reached down to the floor and gathered up the Nuks. I tried to give one back to her but she just screamed and refused to take it. I tossed the two in the crib and watched as she literally body slammed the crib mattress, hunted around in the dark for the Nuk, stood up and hurled at me again. Unfazed I told her I wasn't going to play games but I would sleep on the floor in her room until she fell asleep. A trick I used to use with Matthew a lot. She fell asleep about 10 minutes later and I got to go back to bed. Before I left, I snuck the Nuk back into her crib knowing she would thank me in the morning.

Test night

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:15:00 +0000

For the past two months, Matthew has announced each night what kind of night it is. For instance, cardboard night. This is a night where I have to design and construct something out of cardboard. Some nights are easy, such as Movie Theater night where we turn off the lights, make popcorn and watch a show on TV. Others are more difficult, such as Contraption Night where I have to help him design and build a contraption on the living room floor. All without letting AnnRose tear it down. There are many other 'nights': Store Night, Tent Night, Sleeping by the door Night, etc. He usually plans these out weeks in advance and writes them on his calendar with symbols that only he can decipher. And he knows what night is coming up and refuses to alter the plans.

Tonight is a new night called Test Night. This is a night where we have to think of a new night and test it out. I guess to determine if it will make it into the regular rotation. I'm a little afraid of what this night might be. I'm hoping for something simple like Chicken Nuggets Night and not something like, Make a movie Night.

You want to do what to me?

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 04:14:00 +0000

San Diego is a great outdoors city. Everyone know about the beaches and the large park in the middle of the city, but the city also has a several canyons that criss-cross the city. These canyons are reserved for wildlife and so cannot be built in. They make great hiking areas.

Jen asked Matthew if he wanted to go for a hike in the canyon on Sunday.

"But Mommy, canyons kill people."

"Canyons don't kill people, what are you talking about?"

"On the pirate ships they explode and kill people."

"Those are Canons. We are going to the canyon. It's like a small valley."

"Is a valley what's behind Alex's house?"

"No, that's an alley."

Time for a re-negotiation

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 04:03:00 +0000

At the age of 5 Matthew has his good days and his bad. Actually they go in cycles where he will have 3 to 4 bad days followed by 3 to 4 good days. For punishment, we have tried many different approaches but the one that up till now we felt worked the best is the time out. He is sent to a chair in the dining room to sit and we set the timer.

He had been good for a few days with no timeout when we were driving home the other day. We stopped the car and as I was helping him out of the car he said to me, "Daddy, I don't think you should put me in timeout anymore when I am naughty because I don't think timeouts are making me be better."

So he is telling me, "Dad, we need to re-negotiate the whole punishment thing. Cause what we got here isn't working for me or you."

Am I an absent parent?

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:53:00 +0000

We don't get a lot of snow in Southern California. In fact, we don't see any in San Diego, but occasionally a winter storm will blow through and drop a few inches of snow in the mountains to the East. When this happens, two things occur: 1) chains are required to drive on all mountain roads and 2) everyone from the city drives up to the mountain on the weekend to revel in the snow. Some even load the back of their truck with the snow to bring back home.

The other day, I decided to take the family to Mount Laguna for some sledding. The first thing we realized was that we had to dig out all our winter gear. After that, we realized we didn't even own a sled. We borrowed two sleds from our neighbor and off we went for the hour drive to the sledding hill.

After parking alongside the road with every other city nut, we piled out and I pulled the sleds out of the car. My son looked at them and asked, "What's that Daddy?"

What's that?! This is when I realized I was not doing my job as a father. It's like being asked what fishing is, or how to throw a baseball. After this he asked me if I could show him how to make a snowball.

A snowball! He's 5 years old and I have never shown his how to make a snowball!

I should turn in my fatherhood license. Before that though, I should show him how to fish.

Tough job

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 01:33:00 +0000

I have often said that parenting is the toughest job you'll love. Well this weekend, the tough far outweighed the love part. Leaving me reaching for the bottle, the wine bottle that is.

"Daddy, I cleaned up all the milk I spilled. And Chiquita is licking up the rest off the floor."

"How much milk did you spill?"

"Not much, it was in the medium."

Fire Fuck

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 18:02:00 +0000

While on vacation lately, Matthew received a red fire truck from one of his cousins. At 2 and a half, his language is, well, less that spectacular so sometimes his words do not sound exactly like we would like them to. As I am sure you can guess from the title, he calls his new toy his "fuck" or his "fire fuck". Add to this, that while on vacation, he would refer to his cabin as his home 2. The number two. Well whenever he uses a number, he has to count out his fingers first to get the number correct and then shows us the number of fingers. So he will hold his forefinger and middle finger out and say "my home" when referring to the cabin we were staying in on vacation. When he wanted to refer to the home we stay in in San Diego, he would drop the forefinger, leaving only the middle finger pointed up, and say "my home". My concern is that people are going to confuse his truck (fuck) with his home (middle finger).

I Help

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 22:55:00 +0000

Matthew's new thing is he likes to help out. He wants to help feed the dogs (which inevitably means dog food on the floor). He wants to water the plants outside (which means changing is pants when get back inside). He even tried to help me mow the lawn until I had to yell at him to step back because it was dangerous.
Yesterday I was working on the wife's car doing basic tune-up work. Matthew wanted to 'help fix Mommy's car too'. At first he just crawled around inside the car (with the parking brake on). He would push buttons, pull levers and remove all the contents of the glove box. Help is such a subjective term to a toddler. I was busy under the hood with the occasional check on him. Finally I crawled under the car to loosen the nut on the oil drain pan and at that exact instance, he found the horn. BWAAAAA! I nearly flew out from under the car and yelled, "Stop it! That's now funny!". I crawled under the car again, and again BWAAAAA! BWAAAAA!. I jumped up and now deaf, pulled him from the car and locked him behind the gate in the backyard. Through the dim hearing that remained I could hear him wailing 'I help Mommy car too.' I felt bad for him but even worse for my father, because I remember the exact same incident 33 years ago.

The Big Bed

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 22:00:00 +0000

Matthew being 2 1/2 now, we decided to finally purchase a big bed for him, meaning a twin bed. He had started to learn to put a leg over the side of his crib and we were worried that it wouldn't be long before he fell out. Jen bought a headboard and frame at a going out of business sale a few months ago so I got them out a looked them over. The frame was pretty bent up at the connection points so I had to pound it back into shape and then had to find some bolts that would fit. I showed the bed to Matthew and told him it would be his new "big boy bed". On Sunday we went to the mattress store and picked out his new big boy mattress and he was very excited. According to advice from our neighbors, we decided to put the bed together in his room and then let him continue to sleep in the crib until he was ready for the bed. But after putting the bed together he crawled right in and said, "my bed. Night Mommy, Night Daddy." So we looked at each other and decided to let him try it out. He slept just fine in it the first night out. Apparently he was ready for the big-boy bed. Unfortunately, I don't think I was ready for the big-boy bed yet.

Matthew's first big trip

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Tue, 02 May 2006 15:59:00 +0000

I just looked at the last post and noticed it was over a month old. It's not that Matthew hasn't been doing anything the past month, quite the opposite.
So we are planning for our big trip to Italy. We leave in two days and we think we have everything set for the trip. I tell you , planning a long trip with a two year old is quite a task. I think it would be easier to fly with my dog than with Matthew. We tried the 'ol Benedryl trick this weekend and it really knocked him out so we plan to drug him on the plane. I know that sounds so bad, but those of you you have traveled with children can relate. I wanted to make sure he had some sort of ID on him at all times in Italy so we looked for an ID bracelet. We couldn't find one so we settled for a luggage tag that we will pin to his belt loop each morning. We are going to put his name, our names and the name of the place we are staying in case he should get lost.
I really think the hardest part of the trip will be the flight. Once we are there he wile be fine. We have even been working on his Italian language. We tried teaching him Ciao Bella, but it just comes out Ciao Baby. I think they will still get the point. And we have been trying to get him to say Gelato instead of ice cream. Of course his Aunt and Uncle have been trying to teach him Sclerragia (sp?) which means fart in Italian. His favorite food lately has been "Pisa" which means pizza so I think he will fit right in.

Baby Lucas

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:20:00 +0000

Last night our friends, Rob and Casey came over with their three month old boy, Lucas. Lucas is almost the size of Matthew already so I think Matthew was having trouble figuring out why the "baby" that was his size couldn't play with him. At first he tried to pick Lucas up like we were. He was very gentle about it and we eventuallly let him hold the baby on the couch. Then when Lucas was on the floor, Matthew tried to share his balloons with the baby. He had two deflated balloons and he would give one to Lucas. We kept trying to tell Matthew that the balloons weren't for the baby, but he didn't understand. Finally, Matthew was drinking his milk and laid down on the floor next to Lucas and tried to feed some of his milk to the baby. Matthew was very gentle and seemed very curious to see such a small (well large) baby in the house.

All done

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:13:00 +0000

Friday night Matthew came down with what turned out to be a 24 hour fever. He was lethargic and his temperature spiked. He didn't even want his milkshake that we get him when he is sick. Saturday he was marginally better as long as we kept him on Tylenol, but by Saturday evening again his fever was spiking again. I gave him some Tylenol and then put him to bed at 7:00. By 10:00 I wasn't feeling too well, so I went to bed too. Matthew woke me up shortly after 10:00 and as I went in to see him, he stood up in his crib, raised his arms and said, "up". So I picked him up and he immediately snuggled against me. I sat in the rocking chair with him for a while but he kept whimpering and moving around. I figured that maybe since he was so sick, I would let him sleep with me for the night. I took him into bed with me and he moved around, whimpered and generally couldn't get comfortable. We both eventually fell asleep and then around 11:30, Jen came to bed. Matthew woke up, stood up in bed and announced, "All done." We told him to go back to sleep but he kept repeating "all done". I told him it wasn't time to be all done sleeping, but he insisted. Jen asked, "do you want to go back to your bed?" He answered uh huh. So she took him back to his crib and he went right to sleep. His fever had broke and apparently he was all done sleeping with us. As if to say, "thanks, but as long as I am feeling better, I would prefer to sleep in my own bed."

Games we play

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 00:47:00 +0000

Last night I was taking care of Matthew. He was very active and was trying to play games with me. One of his games involved three kitchen towels. He would force me to lie down on the ground and then he would carefully cover me with two of the towels. This could take some time as it seemed he was never satisfied with the exact positioning of the towels. Then when he was set with my towels he would walk across the room to the other side and lie down and try to position the last towel on himself. I think he was putting me to bed and then going to sleep himself. After we played this game a few times, he had me sit on the floor against the couch as he tucked a towel into my shirt. He stepped back and examined his work and then he said, "bye bye, Daddy." Then he gave me a hug and a kiss, waved goodbye to me and walked out into the kitchen. He was gone for a few minutes and just as I was about to go looking for him, he came back into the living room waving to me and saying, "hi, Daddy." I'm not sure what game he was playing with me there, but he seemed to enjoy it.

Riley

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Mon, 13 Mar 2006 21:15:00 +0000

During the week while Jen and I work, Matthew visits a small daycare with four other children. The child closest in age to him is a girl named Riley who is a few months younger than he is. She is the cutest little girl, wearing her hair in pigtails and often dressing in very girly clothes. Apparently the two of them play together all the time, copying each other, dumping sand on each other. You know, all the things children do with members of the opposite sex. Riley's birthday is coming up and her parents asked her at the dinner table last night what she wanted for her birthday. She looked her mother right in the eyes and said, "Matthew." Her mom laughed but her dad said, "Excuse me?" I guess they have some special connection that we aren't aware of.

Short-sleeved shirts

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 20:40:00 +0000

Although we live in San Diego where it is relatively warm year 'round, the winters are still chilly enough to warrant wearing long sleeved shirts. Matthew has become accustomed to helping us put on his long-sleeved shirts in the morning. This morning he picked out a long-sleeved flannel button down shirt and tan pants. Jen agreed with him but added a short sleeve t-shirt for underneath the flannel. When Matthew slipped his arms into the t-shirt he said, "uh-oh" and tried to pull the sleeves down. He was very concerned that the sleeves seemed too short for him. We had to tell him that it was okay and the shirt was meant to be that way. He seemed much better after he put on the flannel shirt and the cuffs came down to his wrists.

Favorite Book

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 04:50:00 +0000

Last night Matthew decided he had a new favorite book. It's nothing special. A small book about dinosaurs and shapes that his grandparents gave to him for his birthday. But before bedtime, Jen had to read it four times. And then he wanted to sleep with the book. I didn't know all this at the time. Then at 2:00 AM he woke me up and I went in to see what the problem was. He was standing up in his crib with a pacifier in his mouth and his book held open. He said "Daddy, sit . . . book". I told him no way. It was the middle of the night and it was time to sleep. I put the book back into his crib and laid him back down. He went right back to sleep, but then this morning, he came out to the living room with the book again. He carefully moved the newspaper from beside me to the other end of the couch and then crawled up next to me and said, "Daddy, book." So I read the book to him, three times.

Hey Dude!

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 19:43:00 +0000

The new phrase that everyone at the house is trying to teach to Matthew is "Hey Dude". Jen is attempting to teach Matthew to greet his Uncle Michael with "Hey Dude" whenever he sees him. But with Matthew it comes out more like "HiDu". Still he makes the attempt.

Easel

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 19:17:00 +0000

For Matthew's birthday, the members of my lab got together and bought him an art easel from Target. He received a number of other toys for his birthday/ Christmas so we just put this aside for awhile. I finally put it together last weekend and he loves playing with it. There is a roll of paper at the top that drapes down over the easel and a small shelf near the bottom that stores all his crayons. He is constantly coloring on it now. He is learning to draw circles and color inside the lines of larger objects that we draw for him. He is always trying to get us to color with him. He hands us crayons and points to the paper. This morning he was very upset when I had to pry him away so we could go to the babysitter. I think I will soon have to start teaching him science so I can balance out his education with his Mother's influence.

An eating machine

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 22:24:00 +0000

Yesterday our babysitter, Ellen, commented that she had never seen a two-year old eat as much as Matthew had that day. Let me back this up by saying she has been taking care of children for 15 years and she has previously made the comment about Matthew three or four times. So the bar was set pretty high. He had a full bowl of oatmeal with strawberries for breakfast and then for lunch he had a full ham/cheese sandwich. As the other children were getting down from the lunch table, he was still asking for more and was starting to take food from the other children's plates. Then as soon as I got him home for the evening he told me he wanted to eat. So I made pancakes. We're not talking silver dollar pancakes, we're talking man-sized pancakes. I had two and was full, he worked his way through three pancakes. He's got quite the Buddha belly going.

Waking up in the middle of the night

noreply@blogger.com (Brian Spencer) — Thu, 23 Feb 2006 22:28:00 +0000

Waking up in the middle of the night to Matthew's cries are nothing new. Usually he just needs his Nuk replaced or a little comfort. Last night he woke me around 3:00 AM and I went in to check on him. He was Nuk-less again so I searched around on the floor and found on for him. I noticed he was still wrapped up in his blanket, which was unusual. He usually would be standing and point to where his Nuk was, so I thought he might be cold. After all, it was cold out last night, for San Diego that is. He sleeves on his pajamas were pushed up so I pulled them down to his wrists again and he responded with "tickle, tickle, tickle". It made waking up in the middle of night worth it.