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We are a bag of tired bones here today at Casa Cajo. The last two nights have been sucky – Matthew was secretly replaced by a demon of some sort and woke up repeatedly and unendingly. As a result, we are all zombies, of course, except for the little boy. He has a way about him.

We took him into the doctor this morning because we are at the start of week 3 of this sick that just will not quit (actually, for ALL of us) and we wanted to rule out things like ear infections or something nastier brewing in his little germ factory’s caves. He is fine. I love our pediatrician to bits and pieces – she greeted us warmly today and said how nice it was to see the whole family (although I think she was being nice – two of us looked like we were about to keel over!) and she does a great job of reassuring us me that everything is fine and he is headed in the right direction. I asked, because I always do, about Matthew’s speech and she said she is not worried one little bit, and when I told her that one of my July mom’s babies already knew her A-B-C’s, she reassured me. I like her – she makes me feel competent and not paranoid. Hard task, that.

For my own reference, a list of things Matthew says now:
- mama (although the stinker will actually, if you ask him to say mama, say baba instead. Pfeh!)
- baba
- dog
- duck
- outside
- rabbit
- grandma
- great-grandma
- thank you (never with us, the stinker)
- banana
- orange
- What’s that?
- All done!
- Hi there!
- milk

Things Matthew understands:
- feet
- shoes (boy loves shoes. Watch out Zappos)
- socks
- diaper change
- he nods yes and no appropriately (although if he isn’t sure, he’ll nod both at once!)
- hungry (heads for fridge)
- milk or water (heads for fridge or points for a sippy cup in the dish drainer)
- book
- hug
- kiss
- blow a kiss
- Peekaboo
- cover up and cuddle in bed

And lastly, a funny after today’s doctor’s visit: we took Matthew to daycare and there were a few other of the full-time kids there. Matthew ran into their arms and gave them kisses and hugs and it was very sweet. Then my goofball son decided to play on the floor and put his head down and stuck his butt up in the air, à la downward facing dog. This was funny, because hey, isn’t a baby’s butt in the air a funny thing? What’s even more funny is that Matthew has found his leadership skills in yoga: within a few minutes all of the kids were head-down on the carpet with their butts in the air. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.

Work has totally kicked my booty these last few weeks – all for good reasons, I think – but stressful nonetheless. I was at work today, and Josh came out with Matthew to visit before we all went home together – Matthew was a shy little charmer – it is amazing how our gregarious son is so shy around new people. Watching him learn and the little light bulbs in his head go off is really cool – it is like he is our own little science and psychology experiment. He saw someone put money into a soda machine, press a button, and then a soda came out. As it happens, Matthew is kind of in love with sodas (I don’t know why; I let him taste a little of my diet Coke and his face screws up into a grimace, but I think he likes the bubbles) so he immediately scrambled out of my arms, went over to the machine and inspected it. He pressed a button and put his hand into the slot and waited for a soda to pop out and looked all up in the slot trying to figure out why no soda came out.

Stuff like this – watching him figure things out, play with the dogs, squeal with laughter – this is what makes parenthood cool.

(I will forget happily about the snot that runs from his nose like a faucet. Seriously, this boy is keeping Kleenex in business.)