A day of hugs!

Wow, Mattix is really into hugging! He apparently woke up this morning full of hugs. Ed spent the first hour with him after he woke up and received at least five. He gave them to both of us all day long. The best part is they are so unexpected.  He’d be sitting on the floor, playing with his truck…then he’d stop, crawl over to me, pull on my leg, wait until I leaned down, and then he’d hug me. Holy crap I almost cried about 50 times today. His hugs are even better than his kisses. He smiles at me so intently before he gives one, reaches up very slowly, takes my cheeks, pulls my head into his, and holds on tight for five seconds. One he has you in his embrace, he closes his eyes and makes this sweet, quiet little “hhhhhmmmmm….” sound. When he’s done, he pushes you back,  smiles again and goes back to whatever he was doing before the hug, like no big deal.

So I guess hugs are by far the most heart warming thing I’ve experienced with Mattix, interaction-wise. I certainly did not expect or think he’d be giving out hugs already! He also gave four or five to Slinky today. The funny thing is that she just sits there and seems to like them, even though Mattix has handfuls of her loose puppy skin wadded in his fists the whole time, and even though he often has her flattened into the ground while he presses his forehead into her head. It’s hilarious! I guess she just gets it.  I’m really trying hard to get a photo of the hug. I promise I’ll catch it at some point. It’s just hard b/c they’re unpredictable and he will NOT give them on command. Mattix hugs are all Mattix.

We went to the Social Security office and applied for Mattix’s SSN today. We should have one in ten business days (good news for taxes!), despite the man’s most serious and concentrated efforts to deny us. I’m pretty sure when you apply for a job working customer service as the SS office, you’re immediately turned away if you’re not surly, difficult, and angry at the world.

 Despite his best efforts to thwart us, we were able to come up with all of the necessary paperwork. He was really, really pleased with himself when he found one single typo that indicated a different birth date. I’m talking about one single date out of about 20, so it was obviously a typo on a translated document. I took the document back, looked at it, and told him he wasn’t even supposed to be looking at that one, as it was just stapled to another that he needed. I then directed him to Mattix’s original VNese birth certificate that showed the correct birth date. That really rubbed him the wrong way. He didn’t want to take the birth certificate form me to look at it because it apparently was a principle thing, so he just ignored me and moved on. What the hell? He again got a little giddy and excited when he found that the name on Mattix’s Certificate of Citizenship was not in the same order as on the application. I thought he might need a moment to himself. I reached across the counter, took the application back, scratched it out, and re-wrote it (I believe they reversed it on the COC). Then I handed it back and said, “Problem solved.” Once again, I put a damper on his day. He said, “Fine, I guess everything is okay.” I didn’t mean to ruin his day.

The good news is that the building was new and nice (not at all like our SS office downtown) and there was NO line. Like, we walked in, got a number, and our number was called two minutes later. We were all prepared for a long wait. We had Mattix in the stroller and everything, ready to roll him around while we waited, but nope, not even necessary.  Mattix was being adorable today. He was all chatty and giggly. He tried to engage the guy, but he just stared right past Mattix. Okay, seriously, you must have a really big stick up your ass to be able to maintain the pissy look with my adorable little boy being his adorable little self. He had both couples on either side of us cracking up, and this jackass was sitting there all bitter and irritated. Whatever.

We ate at one of my favorite restaurants, where there was a little eight month old boy (who was way bigger than Mattix!) in a high chair at the table next to us. Holy crap, Mattix is developing social skills! We’ve never seen him so chatty and interested in another little kid. It was absolutely adorable and really, really funny. All of the tables around us were cracking up. He was talking up a storm, reaching out for the boy, smiling at him and trying to pass him some of his Gerber graduate puffs! Too funny. I’m really glad to see him getting more comfortable in public. It’s crazy how different today was compared to just a month ago. And Mattix learned how to drink out of a straw today. My baby’s growin’ up. He sucked down an entire 4 oz juice box in 30 seconds flat without coming up for air.

And to top off a pretty damn good day, he went into his crib tonight fully awake after his bottle and 20 minutes of rocking, but he just babbled and moved around for about 15 minutes then fell asleep. Awesome!