One Year - Happy Birthday Dominick

One year ago today we welcomed our little boy into this world. Dominick Frank was born at 10:29 a.m., Tuesday, March 24, 2009. We feel so blessed and thankful we have such a healthy, happy baby boy. Read his birth story here.

Dominick has grown so much this passed year.

He’s gone from 8 pounds, 13 ounces of this:

To 25 + pounds of this:

Dominick is soooo close to walking. Everyone says he’s about to take off at any minute. But he’s just not ready yet to let go of hands, or walls – he’s still cruising. When you to hold his hands to help him walk, he takes off! He kind of looks like walking dead Berny from "Weekend At Berny" - sort of off balance, belly out, but on the go! I’ve felt the mother’s intuition that he’s going to be a handful and I’m pretty sure he’s living up to my expectations. Dominick is definitely a “boy’s boy” He’s very rough with his toys, things constantly fly off the high chair. He’s already climbing on anything and everything. Yesterday I caught him standing on his big plastic truck! That thing could have taken off underneath him, but he stood strong, trying to reach what the extra few inches he had.

Dominick really likes to climb into things... even more reason why I think he'll be all over the place once he starts walking.

Dominick has twelve teeth and eats just about everything. This month we tried Chinese noodles and he LOVED them! The boy just loves his carbs. We also tried kiwi, and he can eat an entire one all by himself. I need to schedule his first dental apt sometime around his first bday. Not sure what they’ll do, it’s hard enough for me to brush his teeth every night. He gets too excited and starts laughing at the tooth brush.

Dominick still doesn't "ride" any of his riding toys. He'll push them and crawl behind them. He'll give his sippy cup a ride, or put things in the trunk.

Our signing is starting to pay off with Dominick. He’s had “more” down pat for about a month and now he’s signing “all done” and “milk” – they both look pretty similar, but we definitely know what he’s trying to say. When I’m changing his diaper, half way through he’ll sign, “all done” and want to get up. While we were eating one night at the table, he was finished and he looks at me and signs “more.” I didn’t immediately give him a taste of what I was eating, so he leans forward and signs “more, more” giving it more umph by leaning in. That had the entire table in hysterics.

Dominick has taken up a new passed time... pooping in the tub! He's done it twice now and I hope to GOD that last night was the last...

We celebrated our Irish side on St. Patrick's Day - yes Dominick Mazzarella may sound 100% Italian, but the boy is pretty much 1/2 Italian, 1/2 Scots Irish. We had lots of festive green attire and I made homemade corned beef. Here's Dominick with his daycare girlfriend, Teresa. She turns one next week.

I’ve put on my super mom hat getting ready for Dominick’s birthday party on Saturday. Working full time AND being a mom does not lend itself to much free time. I've had lots of late nights, but that comes with the territory. We are having local friends and family come for an afternoon celebration at my in-law’s house. I am really looking forward to celebrating making it through the first year.

I never imagined I would enjoy motherhood this much. Sure, it’s a lot of work. Sure, you are constantly feeding someone or wiping something or stepping on that damn Lego piece for the tenth time… but when you see your child, your little angle giggles and smiles up at you… my heart swells each and every time.

Happy Birthday to my favorite little boy.