Matteo Update: 3.5 Years

With his super stylish glasses and a personality that makes an impression upon everyone he meets, Matteo elicits adoring comments from just about everyone. His can-do attitude and eagerness to please is just so darn endearing.

In the coming weeks we need to make a decision about preschool for next year.  Matteo's September birthday means that he's not eligible for Pre-K along with Soren and Kiera, but he likes learning and we want something that will be challenging enough for him and fun all at the same time.

We're super impressed by how many letters Matteo knows and he likes to point them out to us, especially the letter M!  Chris took Matteo and Soren to the boat show and while Soren's main interest was climbing aboard every boat, Matteo's favorite activity was to look for the license number decaled on each boat and pointed out if he saw any M's or 3's.  (He's very proud of being 3, so of course that's his favorite number.)

My only nervousness about schooling of any kind, even preschool, is that Matteo's speech is still very difficult to understand, if you can understand him at all. We're hoping that this is the reason he doesn't try to talk much unless we actively engage him.

We hit a milestone recently when Matteo tattled on his brother.  I was downstairs getting ready for work when I heard Kiera crying.  I ran upstairs and found her sitting on her bed crying, but she was unable to tell me what had happened.  Matteo, however, was very eager to speak up for her.  His speech was still very difficult to understand, but Matteo was able to communicate, "Oliver hit back" and pointed to Kiera's back. Yup, when you have a child with such a profound speech delay, you get excited about any form of verbal communication, even in the form of tattling.  

Matteo loves swimming and was fearless jumping in the water at the Y. He didn't even plug his nose like his mom still needs to do.  He's a pro at his tricycle, and is now just barely big enough for one of his brother's hand-me-down bikes, which he immediately got the hang of and cruised down our block. 

The one thing he has feared has been dogs, but slowly (very slowly), Matteo is warming up to them.  My brother-in-law and sister-in-law's exuberant Goldendoodle, Watson, is still a bit much for Matteo, but Celina is having luck helping Matteo grow to like dogs by hanging out with her friend's Great Pyrenees puppy, Gustav.  Although Gustav will quickly outgrow Watson and seems like a odd choice to bring around a kid terrified of dogs, Great Pyrenees are pretty chill dogs. He's clearly growing more comfortable because when I asked a guy at the park walking two Great Pyrenees if I could pet his dogs, Matteo ran right up and voluntarily gave each dog a quick pat on the back. One turned and licked him in the face and while he wasn't thrilled about that, he didn't shriek in terror. 

Between preschool, speech therapy sessions and all the things Celina keeps him busy with, Matteo is tired by the end of the day. He doesn't nap anymore, but if we drive anywhere farther than Target, he falls asleep in the car.  Because he so desperately needs at least a catnap, we sometimes plan a post-lunch drive to give him a chance to sleep.  The only problem is that Matteo is GRUMPY when he wakes up.  

I'm not sure what's fueling that little body of his because he's getting a little pickier with food and for the most part won't touch vegetables.  However, he'll still eat vegetables if they're chopped up and mixed in a dish.  He's not the type of kid to refuse to try something new and if there's nothing else for dinner he likes, he'll eventually eat what's being served.

Whatever Matteo is eating, he's still growing.  He very recently moved up from 2t pants to 3T, but is in 3T shirts for the time-being.  I can see him being in 4T shirts by mid-summer.