Happy Thanksgiving

We hope everyone had a very nice and relaxing Thanksgiving! We spent the day with Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma Chenery, Uncle Mark and Aunt Julie, and Uncle Bruce and Aunt Joene. After that visit we had dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Genisio's house. We did another non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner (sorry Debi!) and opted for southern fried chicken, twice baked potatoes and cornbread! Boy was it yummy. Matthew enjoyed eating and trying all the different flavors. His favorite though was pumpkin pie, whipped cream and ice cream! It was also nice to have Ryan home for Thanksgiving. Work is picking up again and he is working twelve hour days this past week, including this entire weekend. So, while Ryan was working, Matthew and I put up our Christmas decorations today; inside and out. All we need now is our tree, which will hopefully be here soon.

Kalamazoo Valley Museum

Ryan is on his annual hunting weekend up north, so Matthew and I were looking for things to do. Since it was snowing and too cold to play outside, Grandma Genisio had the idea to go downtown to the museum. Matthew had a ball! The museum is small, but very kid friendly and best of all it is free! We played in the 0-5 year room with tons of other kiddos. Matthew was quite upset when it was time to go to lunch! The rest of the museum is very kid friendly, offering many different options for other children of all ages.

It was very neat to see how Matthew's mind works while we were there. He was quite fond of an activity where you get a rubber ball and it rolls back and forth down a couple of ramps until reaching the bottom. He quickly figured out how to get the ball out of the hole and where to walk to drop it back in. He also did a great job of sharing with the other children wanting to play there too. He was also quite fond of the crayons and paper. They had a camping room with a tent and outdoor themed murals and a table for crayon rubbings. Matthew loves to climb just about anything right now, including chairs and he really enjoyed coloring and playing with crayons. We were so busy with that little room, that we ran out of time to even visit the top floor to see the mummy and the older kids room...next time for sure! After the museum, we went to lunch and then to the mall for a ride on the carousel...another one of Matthew's favorite activities! Visit our photo site to see more fun pictures from the museum!

Ear Update

I took Matthew to the ENT yesterday for his six month follow-up for his tubes. Luckily we had record's day because of the election, so I didn't have to take a half day from work! Matthew's tubes are still in place...yeah! The doctor thinks they may fall out by the summer, but we have to wait to see. We are keeping our fingers crossed that as we enter cold and flu season, the tubes will do their job. On the bright side, since getting his tubes in April, Matthew has only had one cold!

His language is delayed, which we already knew. Not only is he a boy, but he couldn't hear normally until about 11 months; he is delayed in his expressive speech. Right now he is saying about six words, three of which have started in the last week or so. Our goal for him is 50 words by our next appointment in April. We are not worried at all that he won't reach this goal. His receptive language is right on target. He understands much more than he can express. If we tell him it is time for bed, he will walk to his door. If we tell him to get his shoes on, he will walk to the laundry room, sit down and try to put his shoes on. If Deah asks him if he is thirsty, he will walk to the kitchen and sit down for a cup of water. He understands what we want him to do, now we have to work on getting him to tell us. His last hearing test showed that he was within the normal range. I believe he will have another hearing test in April.