I bought Matthew his first rain coat last week along with a matching boots. When it's raining, he always wants me to open the kitchen door and he sticks his hand out to feel the rain. With his rain coat, I can let him outside when it's raining once in a while. Here he is trying it on. The coat is a wee bit long on the arms, but still cute.

Last week my husband, MonkeyDad, blogged about our son's shoe size . But yesterday, we found out that Matthew's feet isn't size 6 1/2 wide, it is actually 7 extra wide. Since all of his shoes are now too small after last week's event, we went out yesterday to get him another pair. We went to a couple of department stores and other shoe places specifically avoiding Stride Rite, as their shoes are not cheap. But, as it turns out no one but Stride Ride carries Wide shoes so we gave in and went there. The sales lady wanted to make sure of the size and sure enough, Matthew's feet is actually bigger. We could go with 6 1/2 but we'll have to buy new shoes in a couple of months and who wants that?!

Is there a growth spurt ready to happen or is already happening here? I read that growth spurts usually start low and go up. So feet size is usually a sign of growth spurt already occuring.

I started a Breastfeeding Support Group here on Minti for moms who are thinking of breastfeeding, moms who are breastfeeding, and for moms who have breastfeeding experiences in order to support each other. Breastfeeding, though natural, doesn't always come easy for some. Come join the group if you have questions or just want to share your experience for the purpose of helping others.

The group is Private so that we can be as personal/graphic/helpful as we want.

I've been struggling with an aching back even before my son. My husband and I both go to the chiropractor regularly, which helps tremendously. But I think for me, the culprit has been the bed. When we got married, we had a full bed which is way too small since we elbow each other on a daily basis. When we bought a house, we bought a queen bed. Yay, we we both though. Less than a year later the mattress had an indentation already and got my back out of allignment. The mattress was the one that came with the bed and was not a high quality one. So we bought a high quality firm matress.

Two years later, we have the same problem with indentation. This time, we invested on a king bed and decided to go ahead and go for the gold. We both a Tempurpedic bed. Oh I loved it! Especially since I became pregnant 4 months later. It was the best! During the later months of my pregnancy when I tossed and turned a thousand times a night, my husband hardly knew it. He just snored away.

Well, lately it seems that the tempurpedic bed is getting a tiny indentation too. It's very tiny, but since my back is sensitive, I can feel it. I went to the tempurpedic website to see what the warranty coverage is. It said that if they will cover indentations that are at least 3/4 of an inch. Yikes! I can't wait until it sags that much. Crazy people!  But, there may be other possible culprits so we'll see. The box springs may have collapsed, or bottom thing of the bed may have collapsed. We'll just have to see.

In the meantime, I wake up with my lower back aching.

 

I was letting the dogs out this morning when I saw a leaf on the deck railing. I was about to brush it off with my hand when I thought, gee what a funny looking leaf and in that instant I saw a pair of legs. It was an insect! I instantly got the hibbie jibbies, but I had not seen anything like this before so I grabbed my camera. Of course I had to get really close and thanks to the stupid camera, I had to hang around the bug longer than I really wanted to. I think my husband would be proud of me for having gotten so close to it. Here it is...a wonder of nature, a hibbie jibbies provider.

I don't really know what it is, but I'm sure it's not a moth.

It's my husband's turn to put Matthew to bed and instead of taking advantage of my "night off" what do I do? I go mow the front lawn.  It's a great exercise though.

We ate out tonight as a belated celebration for my husband's birthday. At the restaurant, Matthew screamed when he couldn't get something. He had crayons to play with, and if I took it so that he could eat he screamed. When I gave him food and he didn't want it, he screamed. When he dropped the crayons, he screamed. It's getting quite frustrating, especially when I'm trying to get him to eat dinner.

I"ve been making a shooshing sound while I put a finger on my lips to get him to quiet down and then whisper to him. My husband and I have only been doing it for a few days and it seems to be working a little bit. When I put my finger on my lips, Matthew immitates it so it distracts him from screaming. But really... does it stop? I try to ignore it if we're in a place where it's pretty noisy and people wouldn't really mind that he screams, but sometimes we're in a pretty quiet place. What then? It's pretty hard to ignore it then. Sometimes I ask him if he needs help as "signal" to stop screaming...it also only helps sometimes. When I ask him if he needs help, he signs "help".

anyway... the challenges of mothering a toddler. I can't wait until he starts verbalizing what he needs.

Experts say that very young children go through parallel play first before starting to play with other kids. Parallel play is when 2 kids play with the same things/toys but really don't play with each other.

Well, I took Matthew to the mall to play in the playarea and he is beginning to want to touch and play and "talk" with the other kids. I saw him trying to hold hands with an older girl, but the girl didn't quite know what to do and ignored him. 

Last week while waiting to be called to come in at the Little Gym, Matthew waited by the glass door. Another older girl did the same and stood beside him. Matthew looked at her and started babbling and trying to engage her to a conversation.

It's trully amazing to see my son develop.

Matthew is 16 months and has started to pretend play. It is quite amazing to see. Yesterday, I bought him rainboots and of course, he had to put them on immediately and walk around the house with them. Later in the day, he took them off and kept peeking inside the boots. He put his hands in and pretended he got something with his thumb and forefinger. Then he looked at me and put his hand on my mouth as if to feed me. I pretended to take it from his hands and chewed. He thought it was the funniest thing so he kept doing it and kept feeding and feeding me.

Then tonight, when his dad put him to bed, he told me that Matthew was playing with one of his stacking cup and pretended to drink from it making a chugging noise. After a couple of chugs, Matthew stopped and said "aaahhh".

It's MonkeyDad's birthday today. Instead of coming straight home right after work to celebrate with Matthew and I, he will instead go golfing.     The nerve! What about me? I mean, Matthew?  Just kidding...   Have fun golfing today! I hope it's not too hot. Happy birthday! Matthew and I love you.

At The Little Gym today, there was an 18 month old little girl that wasn't quite feeling like herself (I think). Usually, she and Matthew (the explorers of the group) just have fun hanging out and exploring together. During the part of the class where they could play with balls, the two of them chases the balls that roll away from the group and they usually "share" . But today, the girl was a little moody. When Matthew approached her to get the ball, she screamed a high pitched scream very loudly. Matthew got a little startled (though he didn't cry) and ran back to me and sat on my lap. It was quite funny to see. After that, Matthew was a little hesitant to approach her. Guys can sympathize, right? I mean, who would want to be with a girl who shrieks out of nowhere?

Before my son was born, my husband and I were into Martial Arts. We studied American Kenpo Karate for over 2 years. If we had not moved, MonkeyDad would still be into it today. As it is, there are not a lot of American Kenpo instructors everywhere and there's not one here where we currently live.

Anyway, I just want to impart some thoughts. Women aren't always at a disadvantage in a fight with a man...especially if a woman's switch can be "turned on". The problem is, women most often shut down in a violent situation when they are attacked. If she can only turn herself on, a woman is a formidable opponent when she needs to be defend herself even without training.  From my experience, I often fought harder-insane to a point, once I start getting hurt. I remember one day having sparred with a man who didn't adjust his fighting just because I was a woman (good for him & me!)... I got kicked square on the torso and got winded really good (don't worry, it was one of the days I decided to wear chest protection). It upset me and got me really focused on one thing and one thing only... I'm fighting back. To make the story short, he later came up to me after the sparring and complimented me on my "combos" and that that was one thing he needed to work on. After I had calmed down from the adrenaline, I realized I really had no pre-formed thoughts about what combos I used. It just came out of me because in the primitive part of my brain, all I knew was that I got hurt and I needed to defend myself.

Ok, now I sound like a freak who likes pain. I do want to put a disclaimer that both my husband and I got pretty high in our martial arts training, enough so that we trained "full contact". Beginners in martial arts classes are never pushed to do anything full contact, so don't let me scare you if you are intending to go into any kind of martial arts.

I've been out of training for almost 2 years so I sometimes doubt my own ability to defend myself..but being a mom actually renews my faith in myself that I may actually be more danger (perhaps "crazier") if I need to defend myself or my baby.

The painting is done. Hooray! My husband is also happy since Matthew gave him a hard time. I hope he appreciates how my days are with Matthew 24/7.   I will be tackling the hallway soon, but I think I won't do it this weekend. The weekend is going to be for my husband and whatever he wants to do since his birthday is on Wednesday.

Here are a couple of pictures from yesterday's swimming adventure.

Matthew loves splashing!

I can only wonder what they're thinking about.

This morning, we went to take Matthew to his swimming class. Matthew had absolute blast with his daddy. He was the biggest one there...it turned out that he was in the wrong one. Ooops. Children 16 months and above were at a different class (same day, same time) so we'll be on that class next week. 

Then after that, we went to the mall because they were having a Family Day (animal balloons, face painting, tatoos). On the way, Matthew fell asleep (thank goodness!). We ate lunch there and enjoyed some of the festivities. Matthew got tons of balloons and a visor (made by his daddy) and got a bee tattoo (lick & stick kind of course).

When we got home, we were so tired and we all needed  nap. So we were all in bed. My  husband and I were ready to sleep instantly but Matthew had other ideas. AFter 45 minutes, Matthew finally fell asleep. I got up after an hour and started on my dining room project. It was 5:30 by the time I started painting and I didn't stop until 10. Phew! Of course all that time wasn't spent painting. I had to wash the brushes and switch paint color..yada yada yada. I'm still not done though. I have to finish up tomorrow.

Now I'm tired and achy. I have blisters on my right hand, little itty bitty paint splatters on my arms and some paint on my shirt. I need a pain killer before going to bed. 

 

My house is still white. This is the first house we've left white for a very very long time. There's no color except for Matthew's room so it's about time to get working. I'm going to paint the dining room this weekend while my husband watch Matthew and spend time with him. Hopefully, it all runs smoothly and Matthew cooperates.

I'm going to paint the buttom part reddish brown and the top half light brownish-beige.  If everything goes smoothly, I'll go on to the hallway the next weekend. If not, then, I'll have to think about hiring someone.

My husband is thinking about joining Minti. He doesn't really have time since he works long hours and when he is at home, he tries to balance spending time with me and Matthew with his computer gaming and maybe some house chores. (Shhhh... let's pretend I didn' t say that last part). He's a freak about computer games! 

Is minti ready for someone who is very analytical and very mathematically inclined? I don't know...  If he joins, we may end up on a conversation by ourselves about martial arts. We're both martial artists (well, I'm not anymore ever since I got pregnant with Matthew) and can get very technical about.

 

We went to a hamburger place for dinner tonight. We were seated in a section where Matthew had a good view of the door. While we were eating, he decided that he wanted to be the official greeter for the place. He waved at everyone that came in no matter if they were old or young. Then a big burly biker man came and Matthew waved at him too. Matthew even blew a kiss. How hillarious!

It's hard to photograph an excited toddler as you can see. On a series of about 15 photos, I only got 2 pictures in focus. I think Matthew knew that I wanted to him to sit still so I can get  a good photo and this added to his excitement about the camera. We both had fun though!

OK, I've mentioned in my blog before that Matthew has been waking up earlier and earlier. He used to wake up at 7:30, now he wakes up at 6am. Yesterday he actually got up at 5:45. I've already adjusted his bedtime from 8pm to 7pm to make sure that he gets enough sleep.

Anyway, today I thought maybe if he gets 2 naps instead of 1 maybe he'll sleep longer?! From my experience, the more sleep I get the more sleep I want so maybe, just maybe it'll work for him. So I got him to nap at 10:45am and he slept for 1 1/2 hrs. Then at 3:15 I tried to get him to nap again, but he fought it it this time. Though he did finally fall asleep half hour later. He slept for an hour. Because he was not as sleepy as before at 7pm, I put him to bed at 7:30. He finally fell asleep at 8.

I hope that this gets him to sleep later! I'm hoping at least until 7am... I can handle 7.

This was taken at The Playroom the other day. He is just using water on a blackboard, but look how hard he is concentrating on the task.

The hubby and I took Matthew to The Playroom this morning. It's a place filled with toys and fun things for kids. You pay a fee ($6 per child) and a child can enjoy everything in there for as long as he/she wants. So Matthew had lots of fun riding all the toddler cars and train. I got too caught up though and lost track of time. I missed giving Matthew his snack and he got cranky and threw a full blown tantrum...tired & hungry are never a good combo. He screamed and screamed. Thankfully I am not one to feel embarassed by the screaming, but I did have to remove him from the place to quiet down. He had his snack and quieted down.

Matthew woke up at 6am this morning. His dad was in the bathroom and I was still in bed. Matthew got up and got off the bed to play. He found the trash next to the bed with balled up dirty diapers and unbeknownst to me pulled them out one by one and lined them up on the edge of the bed. After a couple of minutes of quiet, I got suspicious and rolled over. That's when Matthew looked up at me and said, "Ta-Da!".