It's Matt's Turn...

Bare with me, please, in my somewhat feeble attempt to paint a picture with words. While I do consider myself a good “writer”, the goodness comes from being grammatically correct, with “exact nouns and vivid verbs” – from being taught, and then teaching, grammar and composition. I envy writers that their words actually seem to come alive - to pop - to become pictures in my head - as I read them.

This “story” almost requires me to SHOW you what I mean, and since I can’t, I can only hope that you can “get the picture”.

My number three son, the one-and-only Roger Matthew Newton, had a birthday this past Wednesday, October 1st. He was finally 23. Because of issues with his past employment with Boy Scouts of America, I have trouble remembering just how old Matt is supposed to be. A Scout is trustworthy… hm-m-m-m… but that is definitely a whole ‘nother story…

Matthew was a beautiful baby. I mean it, too. With an infectious grin and beautiful white-blond tufts of hair. He was a wonderful baby, too. So good, so happy. So different from baby #2, Andrew… Matt was truly a joy. We knew we were blessed.

When I was about 7 months pregnant with Matthew, my daddy became very ill. There were many scary days that we just knew we would lose him. During one of these fateful times, my daddy told me he knew that we almost named Andrew “Roger Andrew” after the two grandfathers, but for some reason chose “James” as the first name. He then asked me, if this baby was a boy to please name him “Rogers” or “Roger”. Of course, during stressful times as that, without hesitation, I replied, “Yes, Daddy. Anything for you.”

As I have mentioned in previous blog stories, Andrew was stressful baby of the century, and Adam being the older brother was NOT sure another baby was something he wanted – but, he was SURE of one thing: he did NOT want another brother. Well, you know, those babies are going to be one or the other: brother or sister. So, to hopefully make the chance that there would be another boy a little more appealing, we let Adam choose the middle name for the new baby. Now, Adam was six, a bright child with a VERY active imagination, and I guess we should have been scared he would have wanted to name the baby “He-Man” or “Michelangelo” or “Thundercat” or “Shredder” or “Luke Duke” or some other cartoon name. But, he liked the name Matthew. So, Roger Matthew it was.

After a traumatic delivery, when my pediatrician finally placed my new baby boy in my arms and I looked into his beautiful little face, he was NOT a Roger. He wasn’t my daddy, he wasn’t my brother, and “Roger” just didn’t fit. Then again, neither did Matthew, as far as I was concerned. While in the hospital, I dreamed we called him “Road Map” for the RM, and that stuck. For several months, my cute little blondie was called “Road Map” – even some of his first Christmas gifts were given to “Road Map”. Truly a strange bunch we are… Thankfully, we finally got adjusted to “Matthew” or just “Matt”.

The only “problem” we had that kept Matthew from being the perfect baby was in the fact he didn’t sleep very well, nor for very long. But neither did my other two babies, so at first it wasn’t a big deal. But waking up every hour on the hour was a little harder then it was with Adam, because now I had to get up in the morning and get kids off to school, and I had responsibilities that simply come along with the job title “Mama” of older, growing children – and a household of 5 people. There was no “sleeping in” anymore. No “take a nap when the baby naps” either. And there were after school activities and evening activities that had to be attended, so early bedtime because Mama was tired wasn’t happening either.

But TRULY!!!!! My favorite memory of my sweet little Matthew was me – waking up in a “start” -- trying to focus in a sleepy haze, and seeing this cute little grin. On the side of my bed would be Matt, with his little arms crossed on top of the mattress, and his head resting on his arms, just staring at me. He knew if he just waited, I would wake up.

He would just look at me, and sweetly say, “Hi, Mama. I’m awake. Did you miss me?” Then he’d add something to this effect: “Aren’t you glad I came to see you. I went to ‘tee-tee’, just like you told me. Can I crawl in bed with you? You look kinda lonely. Just scooch over so we won’t wake up Daddy.”

Of course, I “scooched” over closer to Paul, pulled back the covers, and let him crawl in the bed with us. We had always had a “family” bed, so add-ins weren’t too unusual, but it was just so cute the way Matt did things. He always tried to make it sound like he was getting into our bed because good old Mom was wanting the extra body in the bed with her. Like it was MY idea...

Wait a minute…

I think that’s called “MANIPULATION”!!!

And, looking at Mr R Matthew Newton NOW, I KNOW it was. And, knowing that he spends the vast majority of his time trying to make other people think HIS ideas should be THEIR ideas, too, I KNOW he fist learned his lessons on me. What a willing victim he had, too. Such a sappy victim, too.

As a matter of fact, one of his favorite t-shirt sports the comment: “A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say”. Hm –m-m-m… I’m not sure if a family of 6 is a lot of people, but he got an early start. As Stephen would say, Matt’s the “Golden Child”. We all do what he wants…

What can I say…

Happy Birthday, belated, but the feelings are still the same. I love you, Matt. And I guess if there’s going to be a “Manipulator” in my life, I’m glad it’s you. HAHAHAHA!!!