Dominic's Birthday List

Dominic has really taken to writing.  Here's his hand-crafted birthday wish list for your enjoyment:

If you are gifted in deciphering, you read:

Spiderman coloring
Remote control car
Cool lego sets
Readers
Kid Games
Wii
Spiderman lego sets

For my birthday
About the guys that turn into monsters (Avengers?)
Plaid shorts
A sweatshirt with orange starts and a hood

Video Time!

Peter is now four months old and quite a ham.  This is a little video of Peter's first time in the high chair.  He's not eating yet, but he sure loves to be up by the action and "talking".

Dominic and Cate dancing with their best friends, Margaret and Edith.

The first minute captures Peter rolling and cooing.

"I got a REAL light saber!"

Dominic received many presents for his fourth birthday that he really liked, but this one especially tickled his fancy.  His cousins, Stephen and Ellie, both have their own light sabers and it had apparently been a secret wish of his to have one too...

The delicate balancing act of mothering

Inspiration and time seem to have made their return at the same time.  Convenient, isn't it?  So, if I'm reading the stars correctly, this means my blog might just have some new posts on it this month!

Have you ever experienced utter amusement simultaneous with very sincere embarrassment? It was very unique, and even somewhat exhilarating, I must say.

The scene: a nice grill-out (with many people I didn't know) in a lovely park full of similar grill-outs.

I was getting something for Cate and had my back turned for about one minute from where Dominic was wandering around watching Italian children.  Suddenly I got the sense that everyone was looking in that direction.  I turn around to make sure it wasn't Dominic.  What do I see?  Dominic's bare bottom with pants around his knees, standing in front of a tree taking care of business no more than ten feet from our picnic.  To make matters even funnier, he was facing another group of picnickers. Again, no more than ten feet away.

For some reason, though, this struck me as utterly amusing. And yet, everyone was looking, waiting to see who the mother was that had such an indecent son.  So, while trying to hold my laughter in, and yet, feeling embarrassment in the center of my being, I went to retrieve retrieve my son and instruct him in the proper way to pee on a tree.  Thankfully, the people with the frontal view were amused. But really, how funny.  He had followed the right instructions.  He found a tree in a park.  I guess I had forgotten to instruct him to find a tree away from people. 

Tutto Okay

Another long blog absence...We were struck down by chest colds (Matt and Amy), fever (Cate and Amy), flu or perhaps food poisoning (Dominic and Amy), and an eye infection (Cate).  After 5 days, I think we're definitely on the mend now.  I'll spare the details, but there is one funny story that came out of this that is too good to pass up, which highlights Dominic's cheery personality and perfectionism all at once.


After Dominic threw up all over the bed, we gave him a bucket and instructed him on what to do.  He nodded and lay down to try to sleep.  A few minutes later we heard the dreaded sound and came in to see how he was.  But before we get there, we here this cheery little voice announce, "I'm not very good at this."  Apparently, he had partially missed the bucket.  Sweet Dominic.  Even in his sickness, is thinking about his performance...

The Art of Persuasion, Lesson 1

So, Daddy was instructing Dominic in the art of persuasion.  It was his turn to do the bedtime routine with the kids, and Dominic was putting up a huge fuss.  For some reason, he wanted Mommy to read his stories.  He threw himself on the ground, yelling I WANT MOMMY.  And he was getting nowhere.  Zero sympathy from me.

A tired Daddy, hoping to get out of reading Uncle Willy (Richard Scary's Bedtime Stories) again, whispered to Dominic that he needs to say, "Mommy, you're soo beautiful.  Mommy you're soo wonderful.  Would you read me a bedtime story?  Just tonight.  As a special, special treat."  So, Dominic came over and was trying to say it all just right to me.  But he got stuck after "Will you read me a bedtime story?" So he looked at Matt and said, "What next?" Matt, of course, fed him the rest of the lines.  Dominic carefully repeated them very sweetly to me.  But when he said, "As a special, special treat."  He paused and looked up very excitedly: "Can I eat it?"

I did end up giving in and reading him his bedtime story, so I guess Daddy's lesson in the art of persuasion was successful after all.

The Answer Is

All right...the answer is... 

CATERPILLARS!  

Why?  We have no idea.  In fact, I'm not really even sure how he knows about caterpillars.  I don't think he's ever seen a real one, we don't even have Eric Carlyle's book, The Hungry Caterpillar.  The only thing I've ever done is make little play-doh balls and stick them together, adding eyes to the front one, and tell Dominic it was a caterpillar.  And then another day he lined up a bunch of coins and proudly told me he made a caterpillar.  But scary?  And going to eat him? I have no idea...he's a weird little boy.

Scared!

So, Dominic woke up crying in the middle of the night.  Mommy to the rescue.

--Dominic, Dominic, what's wrong?

--I'm scared.

--What are you scared of?

--They're going to eat me!

Okay, guessing time, what is Dominic scared of?

Did you know?

Not having any inspiration, I have turned to my ever-ready source of comedy once again.  Here we go.

1) Anyone growing up with the classic Bible songs will appreciate Dominic's latest...

"I'm in the Lord's R.V. Yes! I'm in the Lord's R.V. ..."

Now that's a funny mental picture.  I didn't know the Lord traveled around in a recreational vehicle, did you?

 2) Everyone knows the song, "clean up, clean up, everybody, everywhere," right?  Dominic sang:

Clean up, clean up, everybody, everywhere.
Clean up, clean up, everybody do your share.
First you pick up all the toys
Then you...

Here he got flustered and changed it to

Then you...get a treat.

Not remembering the next line either, he paused the appropriate amount of time for one line and then made up the words

Then you...get another treat!

I think I like his version better.  Clean up and get a treat.  Clean up and get another treat!  It seems like the perfect way to motivate myself.   

A few recent "Dominic's"

Here are some pictures of Christmas Eve and Christmas.  After that, I listed a few of the funny things Dominic has been saying lately.

• We heard Cate screaming a sort of muffled scream.  Matt ran in to check on her and found nothing suspicious.

     M: What's going on in here? What'd you do?

     D: Nothing.  I'm just being her protector.

      It happened again just a minute later.  Matt went in.

     M: What's going on in here?  What happened?

     D: Nothing.  I'm just trying to help her be a good...uh...boy.

•  After cousin Michael was born, we were discussing this with Dominic.  He told us, Michael came out of Aunt Sarah's belly.  Then Dominic rubbed his belly.  I fully expected Dominic to say something about having a baby in his belly.  Then he started rubbing his chest.  "I have Jesus in my heart. Mommy, you have Jesus in your heart.  Daddy, you do too."  

• I was chopping up spinach and Dominic was standing on a chair next to me watching.  He kept saying, Mommy, be careful.  You'll chop your fingers off.  I told him, of course I'm being careful.  I have lots of practice and am very careful.  He insisted, Mommy, be careful.  You'll chop your fingers off!  I was having great trouble resisting the urge to laugh at his concern, but I managed to respond by thanking him for his concern, but again, I reiterated, I'm being careful.  I know just how to chop vegetables with sharp knives.  Mommy can do this.  Then he reached out and took my hand (the one without the knife in it) and pulled it away from the spinach.  No Mommy.  You'll chop your fingers off!

Life is short, but the memory is long

We went to Disney World in May 2009.  In case you've lost track, it's now December 2009, 7 months later.  Grandma and Grandpa were thrilled to be taking Dominic and Cate on their first-ever trip to Disney World and witness their joy at having lunch with Winnie the Pooh, riding on Dumbo, and seeing fireworks shoot off Cinderella's castle.   While Matt and I were excited, we were also a little skeptical about how much they would remember from the trip.  In any case, it would be fun while we were there, for sure.  And indeed, they had a superb time, regardless of how long the memories would last.

A  few days ago, however, Dominic through me for a loop.  I opened up the December issue of Real Simple, which my dear friend so kindly mailed from the US to Italy as a surprise, and found an insert about Disney World.  I guess they have a promo right now that if you volunteer for one day at an approved organization, you can get one day's free admission.  Not a bad deal!  Anyway, Dominic wanted to see what I was looking at, so I showed him the picture of the castle. "Do you know what this is?" He responds, "Yeah.  It's Mickey's castle. Remember? Dreams come True!"  

Wow.  He really did remember a lot from that trip.  Not only did he remember the castle and who he saw there (he also talks about Cinderella, Peter Pan, and Snow White dancing), he remembers what they told him to say.  All together now, "Dreams come True!"  As corny as it seemed to me, it seems like it truly was a magical moment for Dominic.  He still remembers it 7 months later after we certainly had not talked about it once.  Wow. I guess it's encouraging to know that all the experiences we're having and the memories we're making here in Italy are not for naught.

"Tubby" by the Tub (a companion video)

This video tells more than I ever could about our son's burgeoning personality: lively, energetic, and camera-loving. There's no doubt about it, he is his father's son through and through. The only thing that I can claim (besides his obvious good looks...) is his unmistakable eyebrow raise to accompany any expression. Clearly he gets that from my side--especially my mother and brothers. So, without any further delay, here's the video of my "Tubby" at his favorite place, the tub. I hope this video brings a smile to your face, as it does to mine. Think of it as a visual companion to my post, "The Tub's Edge".