Dante Turns 2!

We had a great time celebrating Dante's 2nd birthday in our very own "barnyard" with Wally the goat, Petunia the Pig and a few more friends. This is one very loved little boy! Thank you so much to all who joined us, to those who were there in spirit and to those who helped Mommy pull it off!

 

Is two really so terrible?

"At this age, children often say "NO" or refuse to do what you want them to do.  This is a normal phase of development involving testing the rules parents make.  Parents need to be consistent in following through with reasonable rules.  Your rules should not be too strict or too lenient. Enforce the rules fairly every time.  Be gentle but firm with your child even when the child wants to break the rule.  Many parents find this age difficult, so ask your doctor for advice on managing behavior.  Remember: You are the parent and your child is not in charge!"

Dante -
Mommy wasn't sure whether to cry or do a happy dance when I read this.  It came from the top of your progress report after we visited the doctor last week for your two year birthday check up.  It made me happy because obviously you are a very "normal" two year old, apparently doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing at this age and for that I am more thankful than I can express with the words on this page.  It also made me want to cry, because we are so knee-deep in this phase right now, that  you and I both end up in tears or a wrestling match out of frustration with each other on a somewhat regular basis these days.  As your mother, I'll officially say that you are one of the most determined little boys I've ever come across and I sincerely hope you continue to use that determination throughout life to help you follow your dreams wherever they may take you.  If I weren't  your mother, I might say things like capa tosta or STUBBORN! Thankfully, I am and we don't need to worry about that. 

When you are not pushing my buttons or trying to terrorize your older brother, you are one of the most adorable people to walk this earth.  You LOVE to laugh, especially if you think you were the cause of it.  A true jokester with a belly laugh like no other.  It's contagious and I hope it continues to fill the walls of our home for decades to come.  If I had to guess, you'll become the athlete in our family.  While your brother has cornered the market on negotiation, you simply come back with brut force and I can see it being put to good use out on the field one day. 

Over the last couple of months you've become quiet the parrot, repeating back everything we say to you.  This is another thing Mommy is very thankful for.  When you were born, we were worried about your "tight" frenulum, which could end up causing you speech problems.  Anyone who spends five minutes with you would tell me that I have other things to worry about like, "what are you going to do when at 10 years old this kid is bigger than you?"

I absolutely cannot end this letter to you without telling you that at two years old, you were your brother's biggest fan.  I can't predict if you'll always feel that way but right now if Dominic has it, you want it.  If Dominic does it, you want to do it too.  If Dominic likes it, you like it.  Dominic is usually more successful at changing your mood, making you laugh or distracting you then I am.  You ask for him from the minute you wake up in the morning and happily give him a big kiss to say good night. 

So, yes, two is kind of terrible.  But, it's also fun, cute, wonderful, happy and temporary.  I've learned that you usually don't get the good without the bad, so if I have to choose none or both, I choose both very, very gladly. 

I love you, Dante!
Happy 2nd Birthday!
Mommy

My Beach Boys

Had so much fun visiting Atlantic Beach this weekend - can't wait to go back next Summer! 

My Fish!

We got to spend some more time at the pool this weekend and Dominic is doing awesome with his swimming - I am one proud Mamma! Great job, Dominic!

He knows it!

 

 

Summer fun on Long Island

The boys and I had so much fun visiting and playing on our trip to NY the week before last. From the beach to the pool, so many Cousins, Aunts, Uncles and Grandparents to see - but I think we managed to fit it all in, having a blast all the while. 

And we have a swimmer!

Dominic conquered a huge feat today by swimming all by himself for the first time! Mommy did a terrible job trying to video it, so we will have to try again tomorrow. Here's a picture of the proud swimmer, plus one of him and Cousin Vincent. I'm so proud of my big guy and was even happier when he told me how proud of himself he was. 

My little farmers

We had a blast this morning picking lots of sweet NC blueberries. 

The Great "Creation"

In Dominic's words this is the "creation" that he and Aunt Catherine worked on yesterday. Who would have thought you could turn a diaper box into that! I don't about you, but I was pretty impressed. However, the real question is - who had more fun? Dominic or Aunt Catherine? 

What does the piggy say?

Dante loves animals, whether he gets to see them live, on TV or in his books. We are still working on saying all of their names but he's starting to really perfect a lot of their sounds!

 

Aunt Catherine

Having so much fun having Aunt Catherine here to visit! 

Funny Guy

Dante's humorous personality shines through more and more each day! I simply cannot wait until I can understand what all his babble means. Here's a picture of him being silly in the tub the other night. 

Dante, 

Thank you for being you and making Mommy smile every day. 

My Sweet Boys

I can't express how happy it makes me when I find the boys doing sweet things together.

"Holy crap! It's show and tell day."

I felt like I could actually see these words fall out of Dominic's mouth and onto the floor of my closet that morning.  They seemed so heavy; I think might have even heard them land on the carpet.   How did this happen? How did it come to this? My once angelic, little boy being anxious about school and having this ugly vocabulary to express it.

It feels like chaos has been our normal for the last two months.  The holidays, Vinny's surgery, my busy time at work had all been one on top of the other.  Not only had Dominic's new word choices been a concern of mine, but overall his behavior was such a cry for a change.  Dante still refused to walk.  I knew physically he could but I didn't know why he didn't want to. The ear infections, runny noses and coughs just kept coming, one after the next for both boys.  You try and tell yourself and it will be over soon and you can go back and fix all those things you put band-aids on to make it through.  But can you really?

Things have since settled down for a little bit.  Thankfully, Vinny healed great from his surgery and is back on his feet at full speed.  My biggest event is successfully over and done for the year.  We can breathe a little sigh of relief for the moment.  As for the boys, Dominic seems to have done a 180 in a very short period of time and I couldn't be happier.  There are a few key ingredients that came into play there and I pray his new attitude is here to stay. I can also proudly categorize Dante as a "walker" now.  As for the band-aids, the old ones have been ripped off.  There are probably a few scars and I'm sure eventually new ones will be need to be taped on. But I know from my own scars that if we take a lesson learned and keep on moving on, head held high, one day, we can look back and appreciate how we got to where we are.

To my Sweet Pea and my Little Stinker -
I love you more than I can type on these pages and live each day proud to be your Mom.

Our Little Star

Dominic made his debut in the Christmas play at school earlier this week.  His class was the stars and they did a fantastic job!

Dominic,
Mommy and Daddy couldn't be more proud of you!

A Visit with Santa

As you can clearly see, Dante thoroughly enjoyed his very first visit with Santa.  Thankfully, Santa let Dominic stay for a minute longer after I removed Dante from the scene to ensure he had made it to the good list and whisper a few hints on what he might like to find under the tree. Hopefully, there are a few for Dante too, despite his behavior.  There's always next year, right?

Thanksgiving 2012

Since it is almost Christmas, I thought it was probably about time I got our Thanksgiving pictures up here ;-) We had a great Thanksgiving this year with the Miceli's.  The weather was perfect so the kids got to go outside and play and Dante seems to have enjoyed his first taste of fried Turkey. Throw in some awesome pumpkin pie, a few glasses of red wine, a little football and I think we can call it success!

It feels better already

Yesterday was much warmer than it has been and one those days that you just simply cannot justify spending inside. After naps, we decided to take the boys to the playground.  Each was happily expending their energy; Dante, climbing up and sliding down while Dominic found some toy dump trucks to move the sand around in.  All of a sudden, a shriek that we haven't heard in a long time came from Dominic's direction.  As both Vinny and I turned at the same time, we could tell by the creature circling his head that Dominic had just gotten his first bee sting on the left side of face. We grabbed them both and made a quick exit back to the car.  And what do we do in situations like this? Call Mom, of course.  She always knows exactly what to do while you have a screaming child in your arms. Well, after the house phone and both her and Dad's cells went unanswered, we were at a loss for a moment.  So, I told Vinny, "Ok, call anyone with kids and I'll start Googling." Thankfully, ZiZi Frank and ZiZi Denise were home and answered.  Frank started to give some suggestions that he knew, one of which, was to put a nickel on the sting. Vinny handed the coin to Dominic and by his look, I could tell there was nothing he was going to let touch his face, especially not this odd item.  However, with the nickel in his hand, Dominic did stop crying for a minute and said, "Daddy, it feels better already.  Can I just take this home and put it in my piggy bank?"

Thankfully, by that point, we had pulled up to the pharmacy and the very nice pharmacist pointed me in the direction of some Benadryl with some very specific instructions.  In a matter of moments, Dominic was back to himself, running and jumping like the incident had taken place eons ago. 

The farmer and the bear



Halloween was a really fun day this year.  Dominic was very excited about it  from when we first started to think about picking out his costume, to the anticipation of wearing it and the idea of getting so much candy.  He started off the day with a party at school and once he came home he couldn't wait for dinner to be over so we could go trick or treating.  Dante, of course, knew nothing of it and when it was time to get him in his little bear suit was none too happy with me.  After I finally wrestled it on him, we were ready to head out.  Dominic did an excellent job of remembering to say "trick or treat" and "thank you" and had a great time seeing all of the kids in the neighborhood.  Thankfully, once Dante was in the wagon, he happily enjoyed the ride as well as all of the people watching. After rounding a few blocks back towards home, Dominic got so overjoyed with the thought of giving out candy, he decided he has collected enough and was ready to man the door and he did for a little while. Then he and I went back out for one more block in the other direction while Daddy took care of passing out candy.  Dominic finished off the night filling a few more candy bags and as we finally headed up to bed asked "Is Halloween over? Do we have to wait all the way to next year to do this again?"

Celebrating Dominic

To celebrate Dominic turning four years old we took him, his friends and cousins to Pullen Park for his birthday party.  It was a perfect fall day to be outside and the kids had fun riding the train, carousel, boats and running around on the playground.  Dominic got the special treat of a trip to the airport later that day to pick up Grandma who came in from NY for the week. Several days later on his actual birthday, Grandma treated Dominic with dinner at his favorite restaurant, Chic-Fil-A, (Hopefully, his horizons will broaden one day.) which was followed by birthday brownies back at home with Daddy. Dominic is a very lucky little boy and was spoiled, as usual, with presents from all of his friends, cousins, grandparents, aunts and uncles. 





"Hi-yeeeeee"

I think we can officially say that "Hi" is Dante's first word.  He does a nice, long and drawn out "Hi-yeeeeee" to greet everyone now, even strangers as they walk by. Sometimes, he accompanies it with a big wave and is becoming quite the social butterfly.

Another recent addition to Dante's skill set is shaking his head yes or no to let you know what he wants.  Pay attention though, because I warn you that if you don't listen when he tells you "no", you'll likely also get a big hand swat along with that head shake.

Four?

Dear Dominic,
Today, on this perfect fall day, you turn four years old.  Is that really possible? I just spent some time looking at your baby pictures, thinking back to when we were anticipating your arrival, the two days I was in labor and when we first brought you home.  Seems more like a lifetime ago.

You have become an amazing little boy and I am so proud to be your Mom.  I love that you have started to assert your independence in many ways, like wanting to help out and do things on your own, but I'm also glad that you still run up to me and nestle your little face into my legs acting as if you want to just melt into me.  I love that  now we can have real conversations and decide together if something is silly or a good idea.  You are such a thinker that sometimes I swear I can see the gears grinding behind those beautiful brown eyes and wonder if smoke will start to come out of your ears! But then you resolve whatever had caused you to pause and we either get one of those great Dominic smiles or a very thorough explanation of the current topic.  Sometimes we are even lucky enough to get both!

Things you are loving right now include pulling your brother in the wagon on walks around the neighborhood, coloring, monster trucks, Legos, playing your Leap Pad, cookies or ice cream before bed, and as always, anything to do with trains!

Thank you for being you, Dominic.  You bring a light to my life that I never could have dreamed and am so excited to watch you continue to grow.
Happy Birthday!
Love,
Mommy

Roar!

Papa!

I'm not sure why, but from when Dominic was just learning to talk, he's always referred to Dad as Papa. We all call him Grandpa and Dominic calls Mom, Grandma. Just one of those things that stuck, I guess. Hope Dad doesn't mind because I think it would be a lost cause at this point to try and change it. Plus there is something endearing about it to me that he determined this name and not us.
Here are some good shots I got of Dad with the boys while he was here.