Birthday Surprises

After starting daycare, Matthew was sick for more than a year - straight. Yes, he had at least a runny nose every. single. day. After that, the next few months he was mostly sick. I think we had a 3 day run with no runny nose. But, just before he turned two, he had a stretch of almost 2 weeks of not being sick at all!!!

Matthew had a lovely second birthday and he was thrilled. A lot of people helped us to put on a great party. He was so joyful when he saw all the balloons, balloon sculptures, balloon animals, and all the people that came to celebrate! He started speaking in full sentences when he turned 23 months and so was able to communicate his needs and thoughts on this fairly well.






We also had a bubble entertainer - since Matthew is enthralled with bubbles we thought the kids would like it. However, the adults were mesmerized as well! Matthew absolutely loved his birthday cake which we kept as a surprise! He loves Dory and Hank and was thrilled to see them on his cake. He also recognized his name and actually blew out the candle like a pro on the first try!

A few weeks before Matthew's birthday, I showed him some sprinkles that I was planning to use to decorate his birthday cupcakes. Upon seeing them he says "rice". I stopped dead in my tracks. "Rice?", I asked, shocked. "Where did you see rice baby?" and he says "Eat at school." Let me tell you, I nearly fell over! I said "no baby, rice hurts Matthew's tummy" and planned to check with the school the next morning at drop-off.

You see, a few weeks before this, a staff member in his room gave him a plastic baggie to put his snack in to take home. While that was nice, the bag had little white spots on the inside so I asked if it was clean and she said, "yes, it just had a rice cake in it". I felt sick to my stomach at the thought of what might have happened had I not been there. And, what was going on in that room when I wasn't there???

In both cases I was assured that Matthew had seen others eat rice cakes and rice, but had never been given any. He had also seen other children play with rice in the sensory bins, but was given sand for himself.

So, I'll take the good with the bad. We had a great birthday party with lots of surprises. And, surprise! Matthew knows what rice is!!!!