Sweetest Boy.

While here in California, Jeff and I have been bathing Matthew in the regular bathtub. We usually undress him on the small counter in the bathroom and then one of us jumps into the tub with him. Tonight was no different.

Jeff [Making faces at Matthew]: Hey, Matthew. Hey, buddy.
Sarah [Trying to get Matthew's arm out of the sleeve]: Isn't he the sweetest boy?
Looking at his daddy and squealing with delight, Matthew flings his arm free of the sleeve, hits a cup containing Jeff's toothbrush, and knocks the toothbrush into the toilet.
Jeff: Yes.

Matthew's First Christmas

I think Matthew enjoyed his first Christmas. We opened presents on Christmas Eve at our house. Here's Matthew with his present.

Once he figured out how to open it, he found a jump-up, though he wasn't exactly excited about the gift. Here's a shot of him not doing a very good job of faking delight and his papa enjoying the chess game Santa brought him.

On Christmas Day, we flew to California to see Jeff's family for the first time. Matthew was the center of attention in a house full of his grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins - and even his other great grandmother! As usual, Matthew was quite a trooper.

Matthew's favorite part of Christmas so far is the train that runs around the tree. He has spend quite a bit of time watching it circle under the tree and then looking expectantly for it to come back around. Here's a shot of him, with a view of the beautiful tree!

Big Boy

We made it! After spending a total of ten hours on three planes, two hours in two cars, and three or so hours in airports, Matthew and I made it home. He was such a great boy on the trip -he didn't cry and even slept the last five hour hop to Hawaii. Thanks to some kind passengers, I didn't lose it either and was able to go to the bathroom without a baby on my lap. Jeff was super and stood by the phone all day trying to make sure that we caught all of our flights and didn't need any support. Plus he cleaned up the whole house following the installation of our new kitchen floor which apparently left a half inch of dust on every surface in the house. I was exhausted and when my head hit the pillow I had just enough time to figure out that I had been awake and in transit for over 20 hours before I finally passed out.

In other news, Matthew is becoming such a big boy. From the above picture, you can see that he is sitting up with assistance and is almost sitting up on his own. You can also tell that he loves to accessorize. He has wrist rattles and teething rings, all of which he thinks are fabulous. His favorite games right now are "Let's Hold Hands" which is a solitary game in which he holds his own hands, sometimes spicing it up by trying to stick both of them in his mouth at the same time. Then there's "Rocket Ship" which I credit my mom for inventing. It involves kneeling Matthew in your lap and then blasting off when he kicks. He also loves to practice walking, as you can see from the picture below. He really does love this game and only looks forlorn because I am documenting the fact that he is wearing reindeer shoes. He can thank his Paw Paw for those later. (They are pretty damn cute, though, and even rattle!)

Chubby Bunny.

A couple of days ago, Matthew and I played Chubby Bunny and he totally won. For those of you who don't know the game, you put a marshmallow in your mouth and without chewing say, "Chubby Bunny". Then you put another one in your mouth without removing or swallowing the first one and say it again. You do this until you've peed in your pants from laughter. When you play competitively, the goal is to cram more marshmallows into your mouth than your opponent AND be able to say "Chubby Bunny" without snot coming out of your nose.

Matthew cheated, though, because he started early. I didn't even know we were playing. Then, all of a sudden, I turn around and he's the chubbiest bunny around. He isn't actually this fat, it's just the florescent lights and gravity doing bad things for him. As you can see from other posts, he has actually filled out quite nicely since starting on formula a couple of weeks ago. I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to produce enough breast milk for him, but I'm grateful that we have access to and can afford baby formula.

This morning I nursed Matthew for the last time. While there might be enough for snacking over the next week or so, my presence is no longer required to feed my baby. Nostalgia aside, I'm really pleased to have my body back. I'm looking forward to wine, cheese, facials, naps, and wearing outfits that don't allow for easy access to my boobs. The best part is now truly being able to allow others to help care for Matthew for a few hours without worrying that he will wake up hungry and scream his head off until I can make it home. More than anything, I'm looking forward to going on a date with my husband. He is funniest man on the planet, and we've rarely had the opportunity to make each other laugh over the last few months.

In a couple of days, we head home after three weeks visiting Nana. Matthew and I have three flights to take together before seeing Jeff, and I'm nauseous thinking about how I'm going to do this by myself. Matthew weighs 6 pounds more than he did when we arrived (for a total of 19!) and I'm afraid that person next to us on one, two, or three of these flights might not like having 5 pounds of baby-leg in his or her lap. Maybe I'll bring some marshmallows on the plane and distract them with a game of Chubby Bunny. Who could stay mad at that face?!

Little Elf

Today I put Matthew's Christmas stocking cap on and laughed and laughed. He looks just like a wee elf, which I guess are the only kind. He liked it, too, I think because he kept looking at himself in the mirror.

We had lots of visitors today. Matthew especially loved playing with his PawPaw (not of Camper City fame). Matthew loves to use his legs to kick and stand up. And PawPaw likes babies that look like elves, so it all worked out well.

Cousins Sophia and Wesley stopped by, too. Somehow I allowed myself to be photographed in what look like maternity hot pants, but Sophia looks so sweet in this picture that I couldn't help but post it. Matthew was pretty bushed at this point, so I'm holding his head up to get his face in the shot. It doesn't say much about my parenting skills that a photo shoot with the cousins took priority over a nap, but who cares.

This is the picture that made the postponed nap worth every bit of frustration. It captures the rare moment of calm for Mr. Wesley who is always so excited to see Baby Mat-you that he can hardly contain himself.

Funny Stuff.

People tell me that they love my blog because it's funny and makes them laugh. (I'm proudest that my husband is among this group.) Unfortunately, the past few months have not been filled with my usually amount of humor due in part to the fact that sleep deprivation make me more serious instead of more goofy. It's also hard to laugh when your beautiful baby is screaming in your face. (Although, Jeff did manage to make it hilarious once when he waved his hand in front of Matthew's screaming mouth so that it sounded like he was saying, "Maamaa!" It sounds cruel, but it was a welcome reprieve from hours of intense wailing.) From now on, I'm going to try to kick it up a notch on the humor front. Both for my own sake as well as my readership. (I like that word because I think of all of you sitting in a big spaceship or on a boat while you enjoy my blog.)

The funniest thing to happen lately happened on a drive recently when my mother was sitting in the backseat with Matthew while I acted as chauffeur. I was trying to tell my mother a story when Matthew started talking, too. (Matthew's talking sounds like a Siamese cat with more "r" sounds.) I stopped talking to let him finish and he stopped almost immediately. So I started telling the story again and here's Matthew, "Gro arr AAH oh ree". So I stopped again because, honestly, it was quite loud and I couldn't talk over it. And Matthew stopped again, too. It was then that my mom and I both realized that Matthew was only talking when I talked. (He's become quite verbal in the past few weeks. I'm not sure where he gets it from.) The worst part about discovering his new trick was that we had to ride the rest of the time in silence!

Okay, so that story wasn't really as funny in the retelling as I had hoped, but check back again sometime and I'll try to collect some better material. The real problem is that my humor is almost entirely reliant on sarcasm and something about being sarcastic about your own infant is trashy. Which is not to say that I will not continue to occasionally be sarcastic about life with Matthew. It's just that life at home with baby doesn't lend itself to edgy humor. Mostly, I laugh at the fact that I left something in the other room and forgot to get it, or that I almost put Matthew's diaper on backwards, or that Matthew pooped and then laughed at himself. Okay, that last bit really is funny. I'll try to get it on video. Stay tuned...

Matthew's Biggest Fan.

Today Matthew met his biggest fan. Wesley Matthew is my first cousin Jeff's second child. I think that makes Wes my second cousin and Matthew's second cousin once removed, but it's too late in the day for me to try to figure all of that out. Suffice it to say that no one but my Jeff and I were more obsessed with the birth and life of little Matthew that four-year-old Wesley.

When I was in town earlier this year while very pregnant, Jeff and I visited Wes and his parents. Wes spent almost our entire visit fascinated by my big belly and full of questions about the baby inside. My favorite part was that he was quite impatient to meet Butter Bean - I think even more so than I was. At one point, he went up to Jeff, pulled on his arm, and implored him to "Get that baby out." He was NOT satisfied when we told him that the baby wasn't done being built, but that did seem to buy us some time.

So, his mother Jaime tells me that when he heard that he would be meeting Matthew, he was very excited. He said, "Matthew came out of Sarah's stomach." What a smart little guy! The sweetest thing I saw today was Wes hovering around a napping Matthew desperate to touch him and wake him up to play. When Matthew did finally wake, Wesley exclaimed, "He's so cute!" I hope Matthew Lanaux is as sweet as his older cousin!

Perfect Day.

Today was a perfect day. I decided this morning that it would be a cry-free day because my fragile mommy-ego just cannot take much more crying when I'm home alone. Usually the crying is a result of me trying to make Matthew take a nap (not as punishment but because he's tired) so today I decided that I didn't care if he took a nap or not. Luckily, if you let him stay up as long as he wants, he doesn't cry so there's really no reason to make him sleep.

So, I put him down for his naps today without much fanfare, but still following our usual routine, and then I waited for him to start crying so that I could swoop in and put an end to that right away. While I was waiting for the crying to begin, I took a shower and then a short nap. Then I realized that Matthew has actually taken a decent nap on his own. At the next nap time, I did the same thing and while waiting for crying I reorganized my mother's bookshelf and cleaned the study. At the next nap, I watched a movie and folded the laundry.

If this blog entry is not interesting to you, please do not ever stay home full-time with your kids because you might go crazy. I'm close to it on many days, but today the stars aligned and I was even able to make dinner. Yay! Of course, now I'm exhausted which doesn't bode well for tomorrow. But, after today, I could mope around in my pajamas all day tomorrow and have some super-stay-at-home-mom charma left over! The best part is that little Matthew was also exhausted after a full day of fun and not crying. Here's what he looked like tonight before his bath: (Try to ignore the teddy bear who jumped into the picture at the last minute...)

Great Grandmother

Matthew met his great grandmother Martha for the first time last week. He was really excited. When we got to her place, we found a note in his onesie that said, "I love you, Great Granny". Is he sweet or what?

Then we stopped by for the Christmas open house and Matthew soaked up more adoration from his many little old lady fans. Those ladies are so sweet, and his great grandmother is the sweetest of them all.

New Stroller.

On our whirlwind trip to New Orleans this weekend, we managed to find time to buy a stroller. It was a necessary purchase since Matthew has, in just the past week, become too heavy for me to carry around in a sling. I decided it was about time for him to get used to the luxury living of a stroller and to break it to him that his life will not be spent attached to his mother, however cozy that is for the both of us. I think he liked it since the first few minutes were spent looking around and the last few were spent sleeping.