Back to Blogging... lots of news

My blog has been callign to me... Yes, it’s been – well way to long. So here’s a VERY short and sweet recap of the past year or so.

- I got pregnant around July. Anyone surprised? Probably not. Easier pregnancy than the first time - less swelling, same amount of nausea for the first 5/6 months. Less energy since I was chasing around Dominick. Look at those lips!

- Had a great summer, fall.

- Dominick fell and chipped his front tooth. Major parent guilt on that one since he was under my watch. He just fell face first off of the kitchen chair onto the kitchen floor and I was too pregnant to move quick enough to catch him. Tooth didn’t die… but it’s not pretty either. We decided to wait a while before we did anything to it.

- Visited Costa Rica with my family! Left Dom at home, but went with my mom, step-dad, siblings, and my two nephews. It was a great time. I was 7 months preggo, but still managed to have a good time. But no zip-lining for me but we had monkees sit on our shoulders! Did have some contractions while I was there – that was SCARY! But ended up I just needed to drink more water. So I took it easy – no problem!

- Dom turned two. Had a great party at our house – while I was 37 weeks pregnant. He talks and talks and talks. The things that come out of this boy’s mouth just make me smile! I’m so grateful! - Maternity leave from end of March till August! It was heavenly.

- We welcomed our second son, Rocco John on April 11, 2011 with a scheduled c-section. Great birth date! This was another “big baby” at 8 lbs 14 ounces and 21 inches long. He is healthy, easy going, loving, happy baby. Love him to pieces and he fit right into our family.

Here's my family getting their first look at Rocco!

- I chopped my hair... not sure what I was thinking, but I needed a change. And let’s face it – I really did it to hide the fact that I LOST tons of it after I had Rocco. It’s growing back and I’m growing it out once again.

- Took a trip to Nebraska to visist my extended family. This is the boys' first baseball game. Dom didn't sit for very long. Think we made it to the 4th inning.

- Lost my dear step-mother Susan to a horrible battle with cancer in October. It's still painful to talk about. She was a HUGE part of my life.

- Just recently got promoted at work. Minor promotion, but way over do. Takes guts to ask for a promotion after being out on leave... You are your own best advocate.

- Met several celebrities at work – Bethenny Frankel reality Bravo TV star (former Real Housewife of NY and mastermind behind SkinnyGirl products), various New York Giant’s players past and present including Victor Cruz, Former Miss America Teresa Scanlan (met her while she was the reigning queen) All of these celebs come in to visit the children’s hospital where I work AND I happen to be the celebrity handler so to speak. One of the most fun parts about my job.

Dominick will be three in March. Rocco just has his 9 month check up and will be one in April.

That’s it in a nut shell. Lots more to come.

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.

True Story Tuesday - One Rainy Monday

This is my first ever True Story Tuesday post. I hope I linked everything right, but even if I didn’t, this story is truly worth telling. I was inspired to join in by wife.mom.nurse. Check out her TST.

For some reason, I decided to take a mental health day and stay home from work on a rainy Monday. I was working full time and loving the independence of living alone. Well, some what alone. I lived in a two family house, one of a set of three houses so close together you can hear the leaves rustling as my neighbor made it home at the wee hours of the morning. I also, so I thought, lived in a very quiet town. In fact, it’s the town I grew up in where no one ever locked their doors and let their kids go out and play till the street lights came on.

My neighbors were, um, a bit sketchy to say the least. The middle house had a man in his twenties that only used this apartment during the week and went to his house on the weekends. The house on the end had a bunch of young men living there and there was so much turn over.

Well, back to that rainy morning. It had started to pour – I mean buckets and I was looking out side on my front porch when I look to my right and see one of those young men two houses down standing completely naked. Oh, and yeah, he’s BLEEDING from his side.

Oh My God!

Just as I saw the young man come out of his house a patrol car was pulling up and the town’s sergeant got out and was going in to help.

Good, I didn’t have to call the police. But my heart is racing. What just happened? Am I in danger?

I lock my door. I lock my back door. I check all the windows.

I call my then boyfriend, who’s a police officer, and says to stay in side. Well no shit Sherlock.

I call my stepfather, who happens to be my landlord. He knows who the victim is and he calls the police to get the scoop. My stepfather also happens to be the town’s attorney so he’d have no problem getting the details. Yeah… it’s a small town.

More cop cars show up lights and sirens blazing. It’s still pouring. The poor neighbor gets taken away in an ambulance. Then the cops are high tailing it around town to find the suspects.

After what seems like HOURS, but which was probably less than an hour, my stepfather calls me back and fills me in.

The neighbor, Danny, was robbed, stabbed and locked in a closet by two intruders. The robbers left to use his ATM card. Danny kicked his way through the drywall to get out. I’m not sure why he was naked… was he surprised in the shower? Or was he sleeping in the buff? I never knew anyone who slept naked. That’s just too much information to know about a neighbor. Heck, I didn’t need the mental visual – I saw the real thing. But it was the blood that really got my attention.

My little town is small and upper middle class. It’s certainly a fact that in some parts of town we do not have many minorities. Well, if it just so happens the police used a bit of racial profiling to catch the suspects, then so be it. The cops saw two African American young men walking down a side street and picked them up. Turns out, their get away car wouldn’t start so they were trying to hoof it out of town.

A few weeks later I come to find out one of Danny’s roommates was hanging with a pretty rough crowd and they came to rob him knowing that he had money.

Just goes to show you that even if you live in a small town you really shouldn’t let your guard down. Lock your doors and keep an eye on your neighbors.