Hopefully you’ve been checking out our photos at http://www.theurenos.com/, because I’ve been a lot better about keeping that updated than here.
Ok. On October 29, I wrote that it sounded like he was distinguishing “dog” and “truck”, but either I was wrong or he has regressed. Maybe all his brainpower has gone to making teeth, because he has 4 new molars – 2 on top and 2 on the bottom. But as far as talking… not really. He doesn’t say mama or dada any more. He points at all kinds of things in books (with his thumb… it’s so cute!) and wants us to tell him the name of what he is pointing at. Along with the point comes a sound somewhat like the word “that”… “daa” is more how it sounds. It’s like he is saying “what is that?” We say “pig” “tree” “sunscreen” “spaghetti”… whatever. It’s really funny when he points and either gets no response or what he perceives is the wrong response because he repeats his “question” but louder this time. “Daaaa!” nothing? “DAAAAAAAAAA”.
His cousin Kira was working with him on this little puzzle where each wooden cutout letter, when removed from its wooden home in the alphabet, reveals a picture of a word that starts with that letter. Remove the E and see a picture of an elephant… like that. Well, under the letter J is a “jet”. Dominic has seen that sort of picture before and it’s one of his favorites, but the book we read says it’s an “airplane”. So Dominic is pointing away with his little thumb saying “daa” and Kira responds “queen”; “daa” .. “orange”; “daa” .. “jet”. Silence. A puzzled look. Points again. “Daaaa”. Kira: “jet”. Hmm. How come this big girl doesn’t know what an airplane is called, he seems to be asking himself. Points again. “DAAA”. Kira: “JET!” “DAAAAAAAA!! DAA DAA DAAAA!!” Kira: “WHAAAT??!! It’s a JET!” Gram interjects: “Kira, he's expecting you to say airplane.” Kira: “Airplane”
He has also started turning himself around and around (standing up) until he gets so dizzy he sometimes falls down. It seems to start when it might be appropriate for him to dance, like when Sesame Street characters are dancing or when Mama is dancing, so it may be his idea of dancing. What do you think readers… should I keep him from doing this? Of course I take care that he doesn’t start it when there’s any sharp corners too close by. But should I try to stop him as soon as he takes his first turn? My cousin Becky, who is a trained occupational therapist, says that it might actually be a good thing because it helps him develop an aptitude for handling motion.. it may make him less likely to get seasick or carsick later in life. But part of me worries that satisfying his little brain’s craving for a dizzy spinning high might make him more likely to crave chemical highs someday. Hopefully he will find his satisfaction in roller coasters and boating and not anything harmful or illegal.
As far as his tendency toward risk, he’s still right there where I think it’s best for him to be. He has climbed/fallen out of his crib once but I haven’t seen him try again since then. He loves me to hold him tightly and barely rest his feet on the little skateboard Daddy gave him for his birthday, and then I move/carry him resting just enough of his weight on the skateboard that it rolls along with us. He also likes to put toys on the skateboard and push it, but I have never seen him even think about stepping or crawling on the skateboard himself. Don’t worry, Fry family, I never EVER leave that skateboard where he can even SEE it when I am not right there with him. I know that even though he hasn’t tried yet to step on it, I’m sure he _would_ try if I took my eyes off him for a second and next thing you know we would be rushing to the hospital with blood gushing out of his ear or something.
I’m going to just go stream-of-consciousness with some random remembrances/facts from the past 3 months:
Dominic now wears a size 7 wide shoe. Most of the clothes that fit him well are 18 months but the pants are starting to look a little like he is waiting for a flood. 24 months the arms are still a little long and some pants need to be rolled up one turn. I try to measure his length all the time, but it’s really hard because he doesn’t want to stand still against a wall for me to mark his height yet. My best measurement shows about 35 inches, I think. He weighs about 28 lbs.
He has started becoming interested in storylines of the stories we read. He used to not be able to stand a book with too many sentences… just point and tell me the name of each thing. But now he is getting into stories like The Grouchy Ladybug. He especially likes to search the page for the ladybug, who is smaller and smaller on each page as her adversaries grow larger and larger.
In one of our lift-the-flap books, there is a toy plane shot close up (big) and far away (small). I say “HERE’s THE BIG PLANE” in a deep voice, and then in a super high-pitched voice I say “here’s the little bitty teeny tiny plane” and when Dominic points at the little plane, he will squeak out a little high-pitched sort of sound like “ee-ah-ee-ree-ah”. So he’s getting the inflections, just not the vowels and consonants. The pediatrician seemed concerned but oddly enough, even the pediatrician’s concern doesn’t really phase me. I’m sure he’ll talk when he talks. I know for sure he can hear perfectly well because he can execute instructions I give him even when he is in a completely different room.
For Halloween, I made D a little mariachi costume. You can see pictures here. What I did was I took a pair of comfy black sweats and tacked on this sequin strand down the outside of each leg. Then I took a comfy black onesie and sewed a strip of Velcro across each shoulder and down each side seam. Then I made this sort of mariachi jacket dickey that attached to the onesie with the Velcro. Seriously when you looked at it it looked like he was in a really uncomfortable shirt, cummerbund, jacket, tie, etc. But it was really just this faux façade of all that. At the end of the night when he was all wiped out from Halloweening, we just ripped the Velcro accessory off and he was comfy for the night. The next day I removed the sequin tacking and we had a great pair of warm sweats that fit him for another 60 seconds. It worked out so great I thought maybe I should start a company that makes super comfy Halloween costumes that velcro onto the front of soft onesies. (Side note: he did hate the hat.)
We started Halloween night by going to our office in downtown HB. There’s a big thing downtown every Halloween and our office joins in the fun giving away balloons and candy on Main Street with lots of other businesses. Then we drove to Fountain Valley where D trick-or-treated with cousins Kira and Karoline (Kaylin was with her older friends) in the same neighborhood where I used to trick-or-treat! Our home base there was Dominic’s Uncle John & Auntie Karla’s house, where Karla fed us dinner too. We finished off the night back in our own neighborhood in HB where there was rumor of a neighborhood bring-your-kids-to-this-adults-and-kids party. I think Eddie and I were the only two adults who were dressed up so it was a bit awkward, but most of the kids knew me from the park anyway, so I fit in with them!
We took Dominic to a USC football tailgate party at the USC campus early in November. He’s not big on loud noises so we decided it was still too early in his life for him to enjoy a game. But he had a great time with his cousin Asaiah, particularly playing with the wheels on the dolly some other group used to carry their party gear. The campus security officer let us stand on his patrol scooter… very cool. You can see pictures here.
Next we went on a charity walk benefitting Muscular Dystrophy. We were invited by one of our close friend/clients whose son is fighting the disease. It was a rainy gray day but it was still a lot of fun. Before the walk, Dominic ran around the Pier Plaza, splashing in the puddles, flanked by his harem of 3 cousins with an umbrella making sure nary a drop fell on his beloved head. During the walk, he stayed bundled up warm in his stroller with the rarely-used rain cover on it. More cute pictures here.
Thanksgiving, Dominic’s first day at Disneyland, our trip to the Colonial area – Williamsburg and Yorktown Virginia and Washington DC – and to see Tia Cynthia and Nano & Nana’s new investment home in Vegas… our office Christmas party at Gram & Granddaddy’s house, 2 days of Christmas boat parade – one with the Carpentiers and Aunt Martie and one “Adult Night” (Dominic went to both – the rules don’t apply to us!)… Christmas Eve at the Etheridge house and Calvary Chapel, Christmas Day at home and at Nano & Nana’s house, New Year’s Eve in Catalina. SOOO much to be thankful for! And practically every day photographically journaled, on our gallery. If I wrote about it all in this one post, it would be a small novel. I'll try to go put really good captions on all the pictures in the gallery.
Bottom lines: he’s a great traveler, has had a couple of bouts of super-high fever (last one was 103.8 degrees on Friday the 13th (of Feb 2009)… was it from his flu shot that Monday or from being exposed to cousin Kira’s Scarlet Fever that Tuesday? Ped says neither!) and he always seems to have either grown a lot or broken through to some new layer of learning during those fevers! He’s really pretty calm and sweet and smiles a lot (when he isn’t scrunching up his eyebrows and pursing his lips in some serious act of concentration). He eats most things (mainly likes blueberries, scrambled eggs, lentil soup, goldfish crackers, and cottage cheese). He likes books, mostly ones with bulldozers in them.
Now I am going into the office on Wednesdays and Daddy spends all day with Dominic then. It’s great for both of them because poor Eddie was having to work pretty much 7 days a week with Mama goofin off at home with the cupcake every day! I was, and still am, doing real estate behind-the-scenes work after Dominic goes to bed every night, but it is kind of fun to put on a suit and see my colleagues. (True, about noontime, I am going crazy with withdrawals from missing my “Pubbie”.)
Ok. I’m sort of caught up. So maybe I will get back on track here and make writing more regular again. No more apologies. Just results! I’m proud of myself that I’ve got pretty much all caught up on filling in his baby book, too!
In closing, here’s a quote I read on a plaque that Gram, Dominic and I saw when we were walking through the Harvest Festival Craft Faire at the Long Beach convention center a few months ago:
The secret to having it all is…
…believing that you do!
I do! Do you?
