My Sloth Ninja

 Matt isn't exactly the fastest runner (he's quite disorganized and limps with limbs flailing when he runs).  He isn't quiet and stealth (he's probably the opposite).  But this kid can do a few things with the skill of a ninja and take me completely off guard. 

One of them is steal food.  Frequently, I have something I'm just about to eat--or I've saved the best bite for last--and it disappears from my hand or plate before I can possibly stop it from happening.  Well, one of the problems we are discovering with the ninja food-stealing skills is that Matt is so anxious to actually succeed that he shoves whatever he stole into his mouth as fast as possible.  Since his choking episode, we are noticing that he is choking FREQUENTLY.  And I think it's scaring him.  Today, for example, he had three separate times that he struggled with a mouthful and got that panicked look on his face and one of us dug food out of his mouth, or he spit it out, or we had to hang over the sink until he calmed down.  So this ninja skill is actually starting to make me a bit nervous.

The other one was newly discovered today.  I have pulled a muscle in my butt and I was REALLY uncomfortable at church, so every time Matt needed a walk, I took him.  At one point, we made it all the way around the church to the other side and, from the lobby on the far side of the chapel (opposite where we had been sitting as a family), Matt spots Todd.  He had been sitting peacefully, transferring himself from couch to couch...and then all of a sudden when his eyes locked on Dad, he BOLTED.  I tried to grab him, but missed. I started to hobble after him as quickly as I could, across the entire chapel full of people.  He got to Todd who was sitting in the back row of pews, but rather than walking in and taking a seat beside him politely, Matt threw a leg over the back of the pew, pulled his body up, stood up nice and tall on top of the pew, and then sat himself down on Todd's lap.  It was his equivalent of church parkour.

The good news is that doesn't happen often.  The bad news is that Todd and I could not stop laughing afterwards so I'm sure we were pretty disruptive.