May - June in a nutshell

Fourteen & Fifteen Months snuck up on me. A lot has gone done the past few months. Here’s a down and dirty recap.

Dominick is walking! He’s walking! He’s walking! Dominick took his first steps on mother’s day, May 9 and hasn’t stopped. He likes to walk on his own and will rarely hold your hand, but we’re working on that.

Here is is enjoying some bubbles at one of the many carnivals we have at our hospital.

Dominick has been doing a lot new things lately – some of his faves: shaking his head no, blowing kisses, pointing with his pointer finger, give us kisses – mostly open mouth w/ a little tongue!

He continues to sign: more, all done, milk, and eat and has added juice, book, paci, and please! AND he now strings two words together – “More please” It’s adorable.

He learns so quickly these days. I think he learned how to sign book in just a few minutes. It’s like something finally “clicked.” He just needs to work on the dexterity of manipulating his fingers. A lot of his signs look alike, but we actually know what he means. Juice looks a lot like milk and paci and eat are very similar. But we can usually tell what he’s trying to get at. We’re working on: Ozzie (the sign for O) and his Aunt Kristen taught him to sign the color “Green”

We’ve had another round of croup and a few strange viruses with high fevers. Just this past week he spiked a 103 fever with no other symptoms. He now has a bunch of green sticky boogies – YUCK!

Mother's Day 2010 - no I will not sit in this really cool riding toy! I'll push it, tip it over, but I will NOT sit in it!

Most recent family portrait - Dominick is in the "I will not sit still" phase. He is always on the GO!

We took Dominick to the St. John Vianney carnival last week and he rode the merry go round. He LOVED it! As the horse was going up and down he was holding on to the poll with a smile from ear to ear. This carnival is a family favorite. Frank’s parents have been going for decades. I’m sad to report that the food is getting worse every year. Frozen pizza, stale zepole – just awful. But I think from now on we’ll be going to the rides and not so much the food.

Out for lunch with mommy, Grammie and Aunt Kristen flirting with all the ladies!

We’re gearing up for a trip down to Jacksonville, Florida this weekend for a Wright family reunion. My mom’s side of the family hasn’t gotten together like this in years and it will be so great to see all my cousins and aunts and uncles again. Frank is staying home because it’s department policy to not ask for days off around a holiday – doesn’t that suck!

Dominick, myself, my mom and step-dad and my brother, his wife and two kids are flying out at 6 a.m. on Friday morning, returning late Sunday night. My stepdad is funding the entire trip and made the flight reservations. It’s obvious he has never traveled with small children before, otherwise he would have chosen a more reasonable hour to travel – but my motto this weekend is to “go with the flow” and enjoy every minute I can.

I’m stocked up on new toys for the trip and hopefully I’ll be able to keep Dominick entertained for most of the flight. Here are some pictures from the past few months to catch us up to speed.

June is all about the pool! This kid LOVES the water. He will litterally put his face down into the water - no fear! Catching some rays at Yaya's house - loving the pool!

Samantha not loving the pool so much.

One hot, hot, Saturday in June I went to Metuchen's street fair with Zach, his mom Jen, and my mom, Yaya.

Dominick is the newest member of the Metuchen Fire Department.

Here's my nephew, Zach, trying to eat his ice cream faster than it can melt! It was over 95 degrees out.

I took Dominick to Turtle Back Zoo - it's a small Zoo in West Orange. This is the "what the heck is this thing" look.

Here Dominick is saying "ooohh, oooohh!" at the prarie dogs.

He LOVES to splash!

The little guy was sooooo tired after an afternoon at the pool.

He Can Do It!

Wanted to fill you in on some of Dominick’s recent milestones and little tidbits:

At six months Dominick is rolling all over the place. Tummy to back, back to tummy. When I lay him down at night in his crib, he usually ends up in a completely different location in the morning. Sometimes spinning clockwise!

Dominick has mastered sitting up. He sits up so straight with great posture. He loves to sit and play and just watch the world go by. We’re still working on get him from laying down to sitting up.

Teeth - the boy has SIX teeth! Four on top, two on bottom. His teething hasn't caused him too much discomfort. We had a few sleepless nights, and Tylenol or baby oragel did the trick.

Physical therapy - torticollis update. We've been going to physical therapy at the hospital where I work for about two months to help straighten and strengthen his neck muscles. His PT says he's doing really well and can hardly notice a tilt. Now we're down to every other week with daily stretching at home. It has been so much fun to see him work with his therapist and see how much he's progressed over the past few months. She's given us great tips on helping him learn to roll each direction and sit up. We're sure he'll be pulling up and standing in no time!

Crawling - not just yet. He started a few weeks ago with picking up his little bottom and moving his feet. Now he uses his legs more and his bottom gets higher in the air, but he hasn't figured out to use his hands so he literally smashes his face into the blanket! It's too funny to watch. He'll get it soon enough. But I'm actually pretty happy with having a baby that will pretty much stay put... for a while anyway.

We’re looking forward to Halloween. Dominick’s and Ozzie’s costumes have arrived but you’ll have to wait until the big day for their reveal! They’re just too cute for words!