Sixteen

Matthew,

These are trying days. You're cutting two bicuspids and you're not having any fun. At least, I hope that I can attribute this mood to getting teeth because if there is no logical explanation I'm going to go insane.

After an entire day yesterday where you did nothing but fuss, whine, or scream, you woke up this morning and, two minutes after I got you out of your crib, launched into another round of incessant attitude. I was borderline losing it when I pulled up Brunhilda's blog. It reminded me that there was a full 14 months there where I didn't know if you'd even be able to pitch fits here for much longer. I scolded myself for my impatience, rubbed some Orajel on your gums and then we went about our day...which included a trip to the pediatric opthamologist.

About a month ago your pediatrician noticed something strange with your eyes. Where she should have been seeing a red semicircle, she saw a green one. She said she'd never, ever, in all of her years practicing medicine, seen this. She had us come back a week later so that she could check it again. Still green. She said she wasn't terribly concerned but wanted me to take you to a specialist. It took me three weeks to get in. I wasn't overly worried. She said she'd never seen it before and so I knew it was either nothing or you'd be diagnosed with something that would come to be known as The Matthew--as, apparently, you'd be the first. I figured the odds were in our favor.

Turns out you have a very dark choroid pigment and astigmatism. This bent the light to make it appear green. At least, I thinks that's the way it was. It was something like that, anyway. Neither of the contributing factors concerned him at all and he said that he didn't need to see us again.

In other news, you're not gaining any ground on the vocabulary front. I'm not worried. If your babbling is any indicator that you will, one day, speak more than six words, you'll be fine. Of course, you continue to walk, run, walk backward, climb, dance, and fine tune all your motor skills.

Your playroom and the backyard are major sources of enjoyment for you. Don't mind the purple walls, painting is on my list of things to do.

If you ask me, you look like a combination of your birth parents. You have your mother's eyes and nose. You make faces that look exactly like your father. So, on any given day, we can see one or both of them peering at us through your little face. But this...

That right there is your mother. It's your mother in the face of a small boy.

It is so incredible to watch you learning to love things because your brother does or following your daddy around or clinging to me like a baby animal and then to simultaneously see both of them in you. It's such a beautiful reminder of the blending of all these families.

You're growing up, getting so big, learning and changing every day. Sixteen months. It's flown by. And in the moments, in the hours, in the months, I am loving you--attitude and all.