Fear

Last night Matty was sitting on the arm rest of one of our couches thinking about jumping over to the arm rest of the other couch. I noticed this active thought process and let him sit and negotiate whether he should jump or not, as I watched. He began reaching out for the other couch with his hand and started leaning with his body over to the other couch, then he would get scared and lean back on to the couch he was sitting on. He continued to lean back and forth, reaching his hand out and then changing his mind over and over again. Finally he looked at me and said, "Mommy, hand" so I reached out my hand, he grabbed it and jumped over to the couch using the assistance of my hand.
I let him do this many times. Each time he would get back on the couch and think about jumping without my assistance, but then he would get scared and ask for my help.


I had the opportunity to go to a seminar my work sent me to a couple weeks ago. There were many speakers and they were all there to motivate us to work hard and be successful. One of the speakers was Rudy Giuliani. He talked a lot about courage, the point that stuck out to me the most was this; "Courage isn't the absence of fear. It is the management of fear."

Matthew was scared to cross that chasm between the 2 couches, he was afraid he might hurt himself. After thinking about the potential of falling and the potential of making it to the other couch with a sense of accomplishment, Matthew decided he was indeed scared, but that he would still cross that chasm. He decided to cross it with the help of someone else.

Matthew wasn't being a wimp. He was being courageous; he managed his fear, negotiated his fear and decided the best way to manipulate that fear would be to ask for help. This little 2 year old is a pretty good teacher, who would have thought?

P.S. Thanks Cyndi for the beautiful picture of Matthew, as always you are so talented!!

Model?

Bored at home on Sunday with snow coming down outside I started taking pictures of Matty. I decided I should work on his picture taking skills. How awesome would it be if he would just automatically give me a cute smile whenever he saw the camera? I figured this would not be a hard skill to teach, let's see how it went...

First I explained that everytime I point the camera at him he has to smile. So lets try it, give me a smile.

Apparently his smile consists of showing his bottom teeth. So we worked on smiling. I showed him how to smile, by ridiculously smiling at him and telling him to "smile like Mommy."
Then I said, "Let's try to take another picture with a nice smile. Smile for me, buddy, come on, give me a good smile!"

Okay so then his smile turned in to sticking his tongue out. Great! Let's try this again. Give me a good smile!!

Again with the tongue!!! What the heck is with this kid? He will not smile for me!!

After many pictures of Matthew with his tongue sticking out, I told him to show off for the camera. And this is what he did...

He wanted to show me his hand?? hmmmm, interesting....

Then I discovered something. He loves showing things to the camera. He gets the whole camera concept, but doesn't quite understand why I would want a picture of him. But he does think that I should want a picture of his food or his toys. Let me show you what I mean...

Maybe he could become one of those models on The Price is Right? You know those girls who show off the stuff that the contestants can win. I think Matthew would be really good at that. Or maybe we need to work on his modeling skills a little bit more. I'll let you know how that goes :)

Warm and Cozy

What do we do when it is cold and snowy outside?

We cuddle with our little Matty in front of a fire, of course...






What is Matty's favorite new word? Fire!!!
And after we built this fire he said the word about 87 times.


I pray we get many more warm, cuddly nights by the fire.

While I was painting my nails...

Matty and his Dadda were outside playing with remote control trucks. What a manly thing for a father and son to do, right? Steve would drive the truck so crazy that it would sometimes flip over. This would leave Steve with a problem, he would have to walk, sometimes a long distance, to the truck to turn it back over. Now comes the part where we had a child.... Steve doesn't have to walk to turn the truck over, Matt will!!!


Now comes the best part for Matt; Dadda let him drive the truck all himself. This led to Momma (that's me, in case you are confused) coming outside to take pictures and having the truck slammed in to her shins. And me giving Steve a dirty look and Steve saying, "What?? It was Matt, not me!"

What a great afternoon for the boys. Trucks, boys and sunshine-

This guy is so cool!!

This guy is soooo cool..... He has his own motorcycle that his aunt and uncle got him for his birthday.





This guy is sooo cool.....He gets all kinds of chicks to ride on the back of his motorcycle.

This guy is sooo cool....He thinks going to jail is nothing to cry about.

In fact he thinks going to jail is quite funny!

He is so totally cool, isn't he?

Photography, if only I had some talent...

Katie Smith and I were inseparable. We were always together at school, at her house, at my house, in the car, at the mall, at the movie...you name it Katie and I did it together. In high school Katie was a great friend. Sure we had our fights, but most of the time we were together laughing and talking. Katie understood me like no one else did and I understood her. I remember there was this boy in high school that essentially dumped me and I felt embarrassed and stupid. The next day Katie gave me a sympathy card. It was so hysterical, it made me laugh and instantly changed my mood, she always knew exactly what to do to lift my spirit.



After high school we kept in touch, but slowly drifted apart. We lived hundreds of miles away from each other which proved to make it hard to be friends. But we always contacted each other from time to time to check in. Our connection proved to be unchanged when we both found out we were pregnant with boys that were due 3 days apart. God has a crazy way of bringing people together, doesn't he?

Katie and I all got to see each other the other night. Rhiannon, another great friend from High School and I drove to Conifer to see Katie. It was a fabulous time. Katie is an extremely talented photographer and it was such a blessing to see our boys together and for Katie to take some pictures of Matthew.

This is Thaddeus, Katie's little boy. What are they looking at? Hmmmm....

Now let me explain this next picture. Katie is working on building her photography portfolio, particularly her bridal pictures. So, she talked me in to putting on my 5 year old wedding dress and she took some pictures of me. I told her these pictures might ruin her portfolio, for I have NEVER been called photogenic, however I learned a good photographer can make anyone look good.

Mr. Potato Head

Matty got a Mr. Potato Head for his 2nd birthday from the Combs' family down in Texas. He was not so sure what to do with it at first. He just kind of stared at it and pointed at it. Then I started taking the pieces off for him and he got the point of Mr. Potato Head quite quickly.

He loves Mr. Potato Head and has even demanded that he sleep with him a few nights.


Here is the first night he played with Mr. Potato Head. He inspected him thoroughly, even his booty opening (which a little disturbing- the toy making people crack me up!)

Check out that forehead of his...Unfortunately he gets that forehead from his mom. Poor guy!!

Now where does this go??? Hmmmmm....

This was the finished product. For some reason he got every body part correct except he mixed up the mouth and the eyes. We have played with Mr. Potato Head many times since and Matthew always does the same thing, the mouth and eyes are always reverse. Can a psychologist please tell me what this means? My son will be a dentist? My son is psychic? My son can read lips? My son thinks I talk too much? My son is trying to tell me my teeth are yellow??? Hmmmm......