Matthew

Writing Matthew’s blog fell to me (see Jan 08 for Becky’s blog about Anna). Why me? Well, partly because I haven’t written much (which might be the reason why you’ve kept reading), partly because I really want to. But also I find myself more and more thinking, “I bet I was like that as a kid.” So there’s some sense of common understanding. This is good, but at times not a little frightening. How would you like to see the oddities of your personality played out in a two year old body with two year old concerns?

I re-read Becky’s blog about Anna to see what she said. It went something like, Anna is doing this, saying that, going here, coming there. Whatever is in her little head comes out, at times loudly. The uniqueness of Matthew, however, is that it is not so much what he does, but what he thinks. But the thing is, we’re not really sure exactly what he thinks. Things just come out from time to time. We’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

For instance, at dusk today we were walking down a side street that overlooked the lake, when Matthew blurted out, “all dogs go to sleep,” from the book Go Dogs. Go! We haven’t read that book recently, but the going to sleep seems to have stuck. Anytime anything reminds him of night time, he says recites from the book, followed by pretending to go to sleep and pretending to snore (It’s really cute). We just got past the, blue-car-crashed-but-the-red-car-helped-him stage, which seemed to have lasted for months. At the dinner table while Becky and I were sharing our thoughts for the day, Matthew would blurt out in complete seriousness his plot summary from the movie Cars. He would continue to repeat this summary until we acknowledged his contribution and responded appropriately. So we wonder, how much during the day is he thinking about the red car and the blue car? Apparently a lot, because I’d open the door to his room to get him in the morning to be greeted by the plot of the movie Cars.

But he’s not just absorbing things and then spitting them out. It seems he’s really interacting with his world. Matthew has been sick intermittently since we’ve arrived, most recently with an ear infection. Matthew had fallen asleep on the couch while watching Cars (for the 87^th time), when he was awoken suddenly by a giant fly landing on the side of his face. I suspect that during his nap his ear infection had reached a pain threshold that it really bothered him. He thusly drew the (wrong) conclusion that the fly—which he called a bee—had caused the pain in his ear.

So Matthew was terrified of bees, the sight of bees, or the thought of bees. He would respond by holding his ear and saying, “no bee, no bee.” Becky, who has a lot of wisdom in this area, taught him what has come to be know as the Matthew catechism. It goes like this:

Question 1:

Q: Who made bees?

A: God made bees.

Question 2:

Q: Who takes care of Matthew?

A: God takes care of Matthew.

Amazingly, this really seemed to work. Our language teacher was greeted one day by Matthew running out of the bedroom saying, “No bee, no bee, God made bees.”

Matthew also interacts with his world with a healthy dose of creativity. He rides his plastic tricycle all over the house. One day when we told him it was time for nap, he suggested, “nap on bike.” (I’m probably one of the few fathers who could honestly tell him that I’ve tried taking a nap on a bike and it doesn’t work very well). Matthew loves to play blocks. He’ll make something which he will call an animal (his pronunciation: mamel). When we ask him what animal it is he thinks for a minute and then gives an answer (Zebra, horse, and dog are his favorite). We have a book about Noah and the Ark. I’ve never read it because it is in Spanish (the last thing I need is another langue), but it has a picture of Noah on the front with a white curly beard that hangs off his chin. Matthew knows the whole Noah story. But there are two things that he’s really focused on. First, God told Noah to build a big boat (That’s our cue to add, “And Noah obeyed God.”). Second, apparently Noah has a beard. Out of the blue Matthew will put something on his chin and inform us that he is Noah, “Look, I Noah.”

Speaking of stories, Matthew has a very high capacity for repetition (or at least a good bit higher than Becky’s). He will ask for the same story over and over and over again. We started with the Baby Jesus story, to which we’ve added several others. In light of Easter, we told Him about Jesus’ death and resurrection. Matthew labeled this story the, “Jesus hurt story.” It is interesting when we get to the part about Jesus dying on the cross and that it really hurt Jesus, Matthew identifies something that hurts him.

Add to this a strong emotional intensity (okay, so he’s not entirely like me). Matthew gives big hugs or little hugs, no in-between. The animals are big or small. Even if he knew the world for middle, I doubt he would use it. Lately, Matthew has either laughed hysterically or cried—and maybe even both at the same time.

That’s our Matthew, and we love him.