Thumper

Matthew had some signature Kirchhoff hair during his bath tonight, so I just had to get a picture of it. All it took was a quick swipe of a towel, and it was perfect. I guess that's how Jason does his hair too. And we got a nice smile out of the kid too, as sometimes it seems we can only capture his grumpy look. But he's pretty smiley around Jason, and since Jason took the picture, maybe that's why he appears so happy in it.

Now Matthew's nickname used to be the reluctant napper, but he's moved beyond that and mostly naps ok these days. So now his new nickname is Thumper. Like the rabbit in Bambi. I don't remember much about Bambi, other than I have a strong memory that my dad really disliked it. I do remember Thumper batting his foot loudly on the ground too. At times at night, Matthew likes to slam his legs down in the crib repeatedly. Whether he's on his back or on his stomach, he manages to lift his legs up as high as possible and slam them down. It's really pretty strong. I wouldn't want to have any of my body parts beneath his legs when they come crashing down. Not only does he have strong legs, but he just generates so much force!

In the early evenings while the kids are in bed, but Jason and I are still awake, we turn on their monitors so we can hear how they're doing. We don't sleep with them on as the kids are right down the hall, but when we're downstairs I like to hear what they're up to. Matthew's monitor has this "voice recognition" feature where it will be completely silent unless there is a vocal sound, then the monitor will essentially pick up the vocal noises and turn on. It's nice because then you don't have to hear their crib creaking or their white noise machine or static. So there will be times when we hear this thumping upstairs, but hear nothing through the monitor. That is noteworthy in two ways: Matthew is an amazingly loud thumper and the monitor works really well with the voice recognition feature.