Mathis' Tales of Hardship

Mathis, Mathis, Mathis.... What to say about this cute and crazy little guy? First of all, I know three year-olds, as a rule, are spunky and determined to have their own way, but Mathis seems to embody those traits in a way that my other two did not.  He is also hilarious, fun and lovable and I'm so glad to have him in my life everyday. I also feel like he had a rough go of it for about 6 months, and things are finally starting to calm down a bit for him. Besides losing his place as the baby in the family, he has hurt his chin badly twice within a 2 month period (once before his sister was born, once after). Both times required a trip to Urgent Care, the first being the most traumatic and requiring stitches, followed by infection and an antibiotic, the second time was resolved with glue (so easy and painless in comparison). He also got a lego lodged up his nose, which luckily came out on its own a couple minutes later.  He went from 1 to 0 naps, at a time when we had lots of evening soccer practices. I felt like he was perpetually tired, sometimes even falling asleep in the car on the way to/from practice and sleeping through 'til morning without dinner.

Crooked Smile

Most recently, I found a cavity in his mouth, and took him to the dentist. Turns out he had multiple cavities, and because of his age and fear (thanks again stitches!!), he had to be put under General Anesthesia to have the work done. The dental work seemed to go fine, but a few hours after he woke up, we realized that his smile was crooked, meaning that his lip wasn't responding properly to his attempts to move it, and it wasn't due to swelling. That concerned me for a number of reasons, and I worried that he may look like a stroke victim for the rest of his life. The dentist thought it was strange, since that type of thing is rare in dentistry, but when it happens is usually attributed to nerve damage caused by the needle that administers the local anesthetic, which Mathis didn't have. The dentist's perplexity scared me, but our pediatrician seemed more confident about it being a nerve palsy due to the dental work and that it would recover. She was right, but it took about a month of slow and steady recovery.

Finally his smile is even again, he can get through the day without a nap and without crashing, and he hasn't had any major injuries lately, though not for lack of trying.  A few weeks ago, he planned to slide down the back of a couch onto a slate floor. I informed him that his plan was lousy and would probably would result in injury, to which he replied, "I'll just do this!" and cupped his hand over his chin. Seriously, kid! Apparently when you hurt one part of your body repeatedly (and yes, in addition to his two aforementioned injuries, he's also scraped his chin a couple of times and even managed to bump it on the carped floor in my room so hard that it formed a goose-egg for an hour or so), you begin to think that its your only vulnerable spot.


That is a lengthy account of Mathis' woeful existence over the last few months.  Fortunately, despite my account, the majority of Mathis' days have been spent eating fruit snacks, climbing outside, and watching Jake and the Neverland Pirates, so life really isn't so bad after all!