Playing Farm

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“Play farm?” Matthew asks me, as I change him from his octopus feetsie pajamas into his sport ball feetsie pajamas at his request. “Please?”

“Ok,” I agree, even though I think it is the most boring game on earth to play with him.




“Farm” – Game 1

“Help! Hurry, hurry!” Matthew coaches me to say. I hold onto a Little People girl and repeat my lines in a high voice. He drives a Tonka fire truck over to his toy farm and a fireman “rescues” the animals one by one.

“Farm” – Game 2

“Wait, come back!” Matthew calls to his toy school bus. I am in charge of loading the animals on and off a school bus. I must remember to say, “Here is your money” and mime handing money to the driver.

“Farm” – Game 3

The fireman falls off the ladder and has to be taken away in the ambulance. Matthew then takes out his toy doctor’s kit, gives him a pretend exam, and tells him he is all better. Rule of thumb: Game 1 may lead to game 3 but game 2 must be played alone.

These games are cute for the first forty three times.

For breakfast I make scrambled eggs and homemade biscuits and jam. Matthew loves to play in the kitchen, so while I cooked, I let him mix cinnamon, nutmeg, dry pasta noodles, and cups of water together in a plastic bowl for the fun of it.

“Yummy,” Matthew compliments after taking a bite off the plate that I prepared. It makes me so happy when he enjoys a meal, even scrambled eggs.

The next task of the morning was to move Pepper’s cage inside for the winter.

We made her a little nook of her own in the basement with decorated walls of Matt’s artwork at his suggestion.


“Mommy? Mama? Mommy?” Matthew calls while climbing back upstairs.

“Yes..?”

“Play Farm? Please?”

Matthew Goes To The Hospital

On Tuesday Matthew had a minor surgery that had been planned for a couple of weeks. It almost didn’t happen because he came down with a cold the weekend before. A nurse took his temperature and measured his oxygen level, which were both fine, and then the anesthesiologist did an exam before giving the okay to proceed.


The surgeon came by to say hello and drew a smiley face on his right hand to mark the side that he was having his surgery on. Matt was on his very best behavior, as all these new people kept giving him presents, like the marking pen, a quilt to keep that was on his crib like hospital bed, red slipper socks, not to mention lots of attention, like the med student who played peek a boo with him.

“Is he your first child? Is he your only child?” The doctors and nurses asked, making small talk, before promising to take good care of him. Matthew was then given a drink with an unfamiliar medical name that I can’t recall, but it was something like baby valium. Matthew became elated to change into his elephant and clown gown and lie in his hospital crib-bed. He bumped his head on the side of the crib, “Oh no, I need a doctor,” he cutely moaned.

“Do you have any final questions for me?” the nurse asked us.

“Can he bring his blankie?” I asked.

“Of course,” the nurse granted permission.

The surgery was relatively common and safe so Bob and I felt more that we wanted it over with instead of worried. At least we thought we felt that way until we watched him get wheeled away in a gurney and we felt tears in our eyes.

We waited for an hour until the surgeon came out and let us know that everything went great. Matthew was sleeping off the anesthesia so we waited another thirty minutes until a nurse came and brought us to the recovery room when he was waking up.

My first thought was that Matthew smelled like medicine instead of himself. His left arm was bandaged with gauze where the IV was attached. The nurse asked me hold him even thought he was writhing in pain and asking to lie on the floor. She gave him more medicine which took the edge off of his pain. His eventually drank some juice and watched a little bit of television. Once we were discharged Matthew seemed to enjoy the wheelchair ride to the car.

That afternoon he was sore and cranky until bedtime. When we tried to give him some Tylenol he said he wanted to throw it in the trash. Bob handed him apple juice in a cup but he said he wanted mommy to hand it to him instead. Each time his head slumped down on the pillows he yelped for help. He settled in our bedroom watching a week worth of Calliou episodes, recorded in preparation for the occasion. We read him his favorite truck books, and let him eat dry toast, popsicles, and banana slices in bed. When he started asking for chocolate milk and cookies we knew that he was on the mend.

That night after he was tucked into bed, Bob and I put together two tupperware boxes of train tracks that were handed down to us. It took up the entire living room floor once we were finished. In the morning Matthew seemed less crabby and more mobile. When I carried him to the living room his eyes lit up. He more or less demolished the perfect bridges and some of the trains fell off the tracks but he still loved it.

Late in the morning our friends Michelle and Zach stopped by, bearing gifts and a plate of cookies. They only planned on staying a couple minutes but the boys wanted to play longer, so we got to sneak in a little play date.

For the rest of the day Bob and I took turns from working from home and keeping an eye on our little patient. Matthew took a long nap in the afternoon. For dinner he asked for cupcakes, but we said no.

Plane To The Moon

Written By Bob

Matt and I always have a wonderful time hanging out together at night while Laurie is at work. There are times however, when communication issues get in the way. Matt might not know the exact word to describe what he wants and instead throw himself on the floor in a tantrum of frustration. Perhaps I will ask him to do something and he will immediately say “NO!” without even listening to me, even if what I just asked him to do was to eat a bag of M&M’s. Or, I will be too occupied with cleaning up the house or checking in on the sports scores to listen to him as attentively as I should.

One recent night when we got home from work/day care, I decided the theme for the night would be communication. That sounds about as exciting as some of the Effective Communication seminars I have taken at work. But I figured that if I listened to him better, and he listened to me better, we could eliminate some of the meltdowns that inevitably happen with a toddler.

I’d been having a problem with Matt refusing to come in from the car when we got home. This day, he lay on the bench in the basement that we sit on to take off our shoes and cried that he “wanted to stay” (stay at day care? in the car? I didn’t know). He received a two minute time out for not listening, and when it was over instead of just going back to our nightly routine, I made a point of explaining to him why he received the timeout, and that he needed to do what I asked of him. I think he got the point, because soon thereafter he picked up all the raisins he dropped under his chair at dinner without even being asked. Granted, it was so he could eat his beloved raisins but still… he was trying.

After dinner, I decided we would just chat. Matt is always talking when we’re home together but often times the busyness of life keeps me from listening as closely as I should. And since he’s a toddler and still mastering the art of speaking, it does require careful listening to completely understand him. I was curious what exactly was on the mind of this little chatterbox.

I asked him what he wanted Santa Claus to bring him under the tree and he replied “No, Grandma coming soon with presents for Matthew.” Even Matt had noticed that his grandmother has a habit of buying “Christmas presents” for him but then being unable to wait and giving them to him on Thanksgiving, or in October, or in July. We talked more about Christmas and to my surprise, he remembered that we had the tree in the living room the year before. He also asked if we could take a plane to the moon for Christmas. That might be one gift that Grandma can’t deliver!

When Matt later asked if I wanted to read books, I immediately dropped what I was doing in the kitchen to read with him. Normally, I’ll tell him to wait till later if I’m busy, but since he was being so good I wanted to reward him. We read all his favorite books and Matt even “read” one to me called Digger Man, the first book that he has memorized. I was so proud of him, and glad I sat down with him and listened.

As I tucked him into bed, he reminded me that we forgot to check for the moon, a ritual we have started so he knows it is time for bedtime. When “the moon is in the trees” (still coming up over the horizon), it is time to get pajamas on and play a bit more before bed, and once its up over the trees, its time for bed. “Dada, I check the moon again?” he asked me from his crib. “Awww, moon not in the trees!” he said disappointed, knowing that it meant it was time for bed, and that another fun night had come to an end!

This blog is brought to you by the letter P

P is for Painting

It is chilly outside on Saturday, and yet the rain pouring down is warm, typical of the weather this time of year. In the kitchen Matthew paints on large pieces of paper. “This is a school bus going to the bank,” he let me know, while drawing squiggly lines from a yellow blob to a green and pink blob. In Matt’s ideal world everyone travels by school bus, even to the bank in the age of on-line banking.

“I need to take my socks off, Mama,” Matthew declares, putting down his paint brush long enough to tug off his navy blue socks one at a time. He wriggles his bare feet and then reaches for the bottle of black paint.

“All better?” I ask my little artist, covered in smudges of paint.

“Yes,” he replies and makes wide swirls of black on the paper, “This is Pepper.” He swooshes the brush a mug of water and then dips it into the yellow paint, “She is waiting for the school bus.”

P is for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Sunday is warm and the rain has stopped. The fresh smell of leaves and the sound of acorns falling from the trees rush through our open windows. In the kitchen Matthew and I make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.*
“Okay Matt, you are in charge of the chocolate chips,” I hand him the bag, “Put as many in the bowl as you want.” Instead of tossing them in by the handful, he cautiously adds them one at a time. It feels like hours before he adds enough to put chocolate chip in the name of the cookie.


* The recipe is really simple. Take one box of spice cake mix, combine it with a can of pumpkin pie mix, and add as many chocolate chips as you want. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.


P is for Patriots

Bob and I were both Patriots fans before we met. We were fans before the new stadium, before Tom Brady, and before they won a Super Bowl. After the Patriots won their second Super Bowl, Bob, his brother Mike, and I skipped work/school to see the victory parade in Boston. Mike was shorter than me then and now he is taller than Bob. That was also the day we learned about his uncanny sense of direction as he was the one who guided us through the roads that were crowded with 1.5 million people (quite literally), earning him the nickname “Mike Quest”. That day a stranger stopped Bob and I to ask if she could take our picture, for no reason other than we looked so happy and cute together. It was odd, but years later I engraved the words 1 in 1.5 million into Bob’s wedding ring.