Matteo is Four!

Matteo had a special birthday buddy to celebrate with this year. Our au pair, Nina, turned 21 on the same day Matteo turned four. Nina was kind enough to let Matteo pick what we would have for dinner on their big day and they also graciously shared a birthday cake. After dinner and presents, Matteo hit the sack, while Nina made the most of her 21st birthday falling on a Friday and went out to the Wild Onion with friends.

Matteo is still winning hearts with his rosy-cheeked smile, stylish glasses and Pillsbury dough boy laugh. He's so ticklish and it's easy to get him going with a few pokes to his belly. No matter how hard he's laughing, he always wants to come back for more. 

Even though Matteo is the youngest, he's the most empathetic of our children, and overall wise beyond his years at the tender age of four. One afternoon the kids were building Legos when Soren stole Kiera's chair, which caused her to scream and cry as she unsuccessfully tried pulling the chair back out from underneath Soren. Matteo assessed the situation and then pulled a chair from the other side of the room over to where Kiera was standing, tapped her to get her attention, and then very enthusiastically patted the seat to encourage her to sit down.  

Matteo likes everything to be in order and have its place. When Matteo was up at the cabin with his dad and brother, he disappeared into the bedroom they were all sharing. When Chris checked on him, he found Matteo had lined up all the water bottles and snack cups neatly on the nightstand and he was in the process of making the beds. Chris said  he was working so hard he was sweating!

Speaking of the cabin, Matteo loved being up there this summer. Anytime Chris took the kids to the cabin, Matteo and his siblings were giddy with excitement anticipating the opportunity to pack their bags and load up the minivan. Matteo loved spending time on the boat, tubing, roasting marshmellows, having sleepovers with his brothers, pedaling the paddle boat, fishing with his Ironman fishing rod...and well, everything about the cabin and being Up North.  

Being the youngest, Matteo uses a lot of energy to keep up with the rest of the family. He also doesn't nap anymore, except for catnaps in the car. This probably explains why he often falls asleep within seconds of kissing him goodnight and is the last to wake up. Kiera is not the most considerate roommate and often turns on the lights or just causes a ruckus while Matteo is sleeping, but amazingly, he doesn't wake up. 

At four years old, Matteo is approximately 39 inches tall and 33 pounds. He has been in 3T bottoms for awhile, but with the change in the weather, we moved him up to 4T pants. His speech is still very unintelligible, but we're hearing a little bit of progress. As always, everyone says what a joy it is to work with him.

Matteo is so brave when it comes to medical appointments. Granted, this is a kid who's used to having people look in his mouth, but the dentist was still surprised at how compliant a child of Matteo's age was when having x-rays taken. He finished has last cleaning with no tears, happily picked out a toothbrush and stickers, walked out the door of the waiting room and then ran smack into a wall. And that's when he burst into tears. 

My faithful readers who have long known about Matteo's intense fear of dogs will be surprised to read that Matteo is not only no longer afraid of dogs, he now LOVES dogs. Our former au pair spent a lot of time with Matteo (as well as Kiera and Soren) "puppy-training" him by having him spend time with the Great Pyrenees puppy her au pair friend's host family had gotten. Even as he slowly got used to Gustav, his aunt and uncle's large and hyper-active Golden Doodle, Watson, was a little too much for him. And then seemingly overnight, Matteo not just tolerated dogs, he sought them out. Watson spent some weekends at the cabin and when the others grew bored with petting the dog, Matteo made sure he continued to get some attention. He loves throwing the ball to him and doesn't even flinch as Watson tries to grab the ball out of Matteo's hand before he gets a chance to throw it. 

Matteo loves his family. He adores his brothers, is an awesome brother and partner-in-crime to Kiera and lives to be his daddy's little sidekick, whether it's fixing something around the house or making a Home Depot run. And at the of the day, he wants his mommy to put him to bed and kiss him goodnight.

Preschool for Matteo

Matteo started preschool over a week ago and I'm only now posting his back-to-school photos. The truth is, by the time I had gotten my last child off to what is just one of the three schools my four children are attending this school year, back-to-school fatigue had already set in. It felt like a win just to get some pictures taken. Such is the life for a fourth child.

This fourth child had longingly watched his siblings start school and knew what he was due and walked into preschool like he owned the place. Because of his September birthday, he couldn't start Pre-K with Kiera and Soren through the St. Paul School District, so he's back for another year at the preschool he attended last year and with the same teacher. She adores him and eagerly accepted him into the Pre-K class.

When I arrived home from work after his first day, he was excited to show me his "All About Me" poster, which he and Nina had almost finished. 

Fistula Repair and P-Flap 6-Month Post-Op

Matteo had his six-month post-op visit to check up his recovery from his fistula repair and p-flap surgery back in February. Despite how well his mouth has recovered, he did develop a fistula, or in layman's terms, he developed a hole. The hole appears small, but the surgeon can't tell how deep it goes. The good news is that the surgery appears to have been a success given that the fistula is not impacting Matteo's speech and his p-flap closes off properly to prevent air from going through his nose, which gives him the ability to pronounce a broader range of sounds. At this time, we don't think he'll need another surgery to do a revision to the p-flap, which means his next surgery won't be until he's somewhere between seven and 11 years old when he'll have a bone graft.

The bad news is that despite Matteo's incredible work ethic during speech therapy, his repaired and lengthened palate, his age (he's turning four soon) and being home for a year and a half now, his speech is still nearly impossible to understand. And when I say impossible, I mean that I as his mom have extreme difficulty in figuring out what he's saying. It's heart-breaking to hear him repeat a word over and over again with such persistence and helplessly can't understand him.  

The doctors told me what I already know, that he has a severe articulation disorder. Of the 44 phonemes (the smallest units of sound that distinguish one word from another) in American English, Matteo can only pronounce nine according to his speech therapist's evaluation. His speech includes multiple phonological errors, such as phoneme omissions ("poon" for "spoon"), syllable reduction ("jamas" instead of "pajamas") and difficulty sequencing phonemes in single words. Just like Kiera, Matteo doesn't readily initiate verbally and communicates in one- to three-word phrases at most. 

Aside from identifying that Matteo has a "severe articulation disorder", they can't do further testing on his expressive language skills due to how unintelligible his speech is. So we must plug away at speech therapy and wait until he develops more intelligible speech to be able to identify a more exact speech disorder. 

Matteo is so smart and inquisitive and like his sister, I'm curious what he's thinking and wish he were able to tell me.

Candid Portraits

I love photographing my children. They have little patience for me when I have a camera in my hand, but occasionally I can convince/bribe/plead with them to cooperate for "just one picture."  They're onto me though and know there's no such thing as just one picture. But I know they won't be young forever and the moments in time I manage to photograph are so precious to me.

Soren, age 4.5

Oliver, age 6.5

Matteo, age 3.5

Kiera, age 4

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.

Shuffling Wardrobes

Every spring and fall we engage in the great wardrobe migration.  Oliver's clothes go to Soren, Soren's clothes go to Matteo and Matteo's clothes, well, they often go straight into the trash.  The poor guy came to me one morning clutching his clothes and wanting help getting dressed.  He pulled on his pants and I saw three huge holes in one knee and told him he needed to find a pair of pants without holes. He came back with another pair of pants with no holes, but when he tried to put on his socks, he pushed the first foot through and three of his five toes poked out the other end! Since we're coming to the end of the winter, I'm determined to finish out the season with the remaining clothes without rips, holes or stains, but I did spring for new underwear for Matteo. For a kid who rarely gets any new clothing, it was the least I could do. 

The wardrobe migration is particularly hard on Soren.  One day he was wearing his favorite Wild jersey and then next day it was in Matteo's drawer with an "M" etched in the collar with a Sharpie. There are certain times of year when Soren and Matteo wear the same size clothing and while it would be easier if we simply divided the clothes and put half in Soren's drawer and half in Matteo's, we discovered that we eliminate Soren's meltdowns over thinking Matteo is wearing his clothes if we write an "M" on the all the clothes designated for Matteo. Even if Matteo is third in line for the clothes, he can at least make it clear that they belong to him.