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17 1/2 months old and loving life!

I can safely say that 17 months old is one of my very favorite stages in Dominic's life thus far.  I love how interactive he has become.  Dominic has a full-on personality, and I am completely in love with it.  He makes me laugh more than I could ever have imagined.  

"Mommy, I'm playing with the electrical outlet.  Want to try to stop me?"

These days Dominic has decided to start “testing the limits” constantly.  It isn’t as horrible as it sounds.  It’s actually kind of funny – not that I can let him see me laugh!  Dominic will just do something he isn't supposed to do like stand on the couch.  Then he'll smile at Brian and/or me, and wait for us to tell him no, which he promptly obeys.  However, a moment later, he’ll be standing again on the couch and repeats the process over and over again.  I can tell he’s looking for a response from us, testing what we’ll do and testing what the rules and boundaries are for him.  It’s hard not to laugh, especially when Dominic flashes that adorable, mischievous, little smile at us, but I know I can’t because that would definitely send him the wrong message.  I can say for sure that I’m going to be in trouble in a few years when he really tries to manipulate me with that charming smile of his!  

This mischievous grin 

Speaking of being in trouble, timeout appears to have been a success with Dominic (knock on wood) because he hasn’t been hitting, biting, or tantruming in the last week or so…and therefore hasn’t needed to be in timeout!  Dominic has been the best behaved I’ve seen for months this past week.  We haven’t even needed the timeout gate to the dining room up in over a week. J  Hopefully, that continues.  One bad behavior that I do see increasing though – a very boyish behavior – is throwing things.  He loves throwing toys, remote controls, and any other object he gets his hands on.  I’ve been told this is typical boy behavior, but I’m afraid that I may need to start using timeout to let Dominic know that he needs to stop.  It’s always something, isn't it? 

Dominic - and Daddy's - monstrous new toy 

With Dominic's half-birthday nearing, his behavior recently being so good, and the fact that he's a bit bored of his toys (hardly any new toys since his birthday almost 6 months ago), we decided to finally use the last gift card from Dominic's birthday to get him a toy.  After a trip around Toys R Us, we decided on a monstrous play tent, which he crawls through and plays around in.  Honestly, I think it was more of a gift for Brian to play with, but I'm sure Dominic will get some use out of it too. ;)  We went for the more expensive one because we have to plan ahead for a year from now when we have 2 boys crawling around inside the thing.  A bit scary to think about!  I also got a bubble machine for Dominic last night because I can't blow the bubbles fast enough for him.  He loves that too.  

Bubbles!! 

Adding to the great week of behavior we've experienced with him this week, Dominic has entered what I like to refer to as the “Kissy Boy” stage or the affectionate stage.  I think this might be my favorite stage of his so far!!  A month or so ago, he started making the “muah” sound when he kissed us, such an adorable action that it still melts my heart.  Kisses, by the way, are putting his mouth against someone’s skin (no puckering up involved).  Well, now Dominic apparently knows the word “kiss” and will go up to girls and kiss them especially when I tell him to.  He’s not around very many boys, so I don’t know if he would do it to them too quite honestly - other than Elmo.  Sometimes he gets very excited and starts trying to open-mouth kiss the girls.  What do I have ahead of me in Dominic’s teen years?

Giving Elmo some love 

Not only is Dominic being more affectionate to his little girlfriends, but he’s also kissing on Brian and me too, which is what makes this my favorite stage.  I love when Dominic gives me kisses and hugs.  It makes my day, and honestly makes all of the other not-so-fun stages, which proceeded this one, completely worth it.  I just adore when Dominic randomly kisses me, telling me in the only way he can communicate it to me that he loves me. ♥

Having such a great week with Dominic might have something to do with the fact that I’ve been concentrating on moving his nap time from 12:00 to 12:30/1:00pm.  This way Dominic will be ready for Parents’ Morning Out which lasts till about noon and then be able to eat lunch afterward before his nap.  Also, it gives us more freedom to get things done in the morning and go out to lunch without the lunch time seeming more like a breakfast or a dinner as we used to have block the noon to 3 range for Dominic's nap. 

To accomplish the nap time transition, I’ve really just made sure to keep Dominic busy and occupied distracted from 11:30 until he goes to sleep.  There’s been a little fussing and thumb sucking during that period, but overall it has gone surprisingly well. I’ve also moved Dominic’s lunch time to noon, which I greatly prefer over giving it to him after he wakes up.  Although it was nice having that time to prepare it while he was napping, I feel like noon is a much more appropriate lunch time.  We’ll see how the new time affects our afternoon activities though since we’ll be a little more crunched for time there.  Anyway, Dominic’s new schedule is as follows (assuming that we can maintain the new nap time):

          8:15/8:30am          Wake up

          9:00am                  Breakfast

          9:30am                  Playtime or get ready for whatever morning activity we have 
                                        that day (snack mixed in there)

          12:00pm                Lunch

          12:30/1:00pm        Nap time

          3:00/4:00pm         Wake up and Snack

          6:30pm                  Dinner

          8:15pm                  Bath

          8:30pm                  Get ready for bed

          8:45pm                  Bedtime

Next mission: make the bedtime a little earlier and the wake up time too, so he'll be ready for PMO in another month!  

All ready for Parents' Morning Out with his new backpack on! 

Another thing we worked on this week was minimizing the TV as much as possible.  When I was enduring the 1^st trimester of my pregnancy, I was exhausted and feeling horribly, so I started allowing Dominic watch TV more than I normally would have permitted.  As a result, he became a little more interested in the TV often turning it on himself when he wanted to watch (typical boys).  Brian and I decided, now that I’m feeling much better, that we needed to cut the TV off as much as possible, hoping that would help his strange, tired behavior the week before.  So far the TV restrictions seems to be working.  Dominic isn’t turning the TV as much anymore, so I feel like that’s a good sign. J

Dominic's language and gestures seem to have "clicked" recently.  He keeps understanding and using more and more language, which I am truly enjoying.  This weekend’s big accomplishment was that Dominic started rolling his arms (not an easy gesture!) when I do the part of “Pat-a-Cake” that says “pat and roll it.”  Then he started saying “roll” in his cute, little voice.  He’s so proud of himself.  He has also started saying the word "help" (which sounds more like "hell") and "up."  I counted today, Dominic’s up to about 13 words now which is twice what it was just a couple of weeks ago!  It amazes me how Dominic is really catching on to the songs we sing to him especially.  This is an amazing time in his development.  

Our little fish 

At the pool over the weekend, Dominic not only did a great job swimming (kicking and pulling) between my mom, sister Stephanie, and me, but he also jumped off of the 1-meter diving board.  Well, I use the term “jump” pretty loosely.  One of us would sort of drop Dominic off and the other one would catch him in the water.  Dominic loved it either way and kept running back to the diving board afterward each time, wanting to get back on and do it again. (video below...please ignore the large, pregnant woman on the diving board and just concentrate on the cute toddler)

I’m 22 weeks pregnant now!  18 weeks to go!  I’m hungry all of the time…even when there’s no room left for the food to go in my stomach.  The increase in my body size has definitely started catching up with me.  It’s harder for me to pick up Dominic, to sit down and play with him, and bend over to help him.  I’ve resorted to taking Benadryl to get a good night’s rest.  A good night’s rest = 2 or fewer trips to the bathroom during the night…and it’s never fewer than 2 trips, by the way.  I’ve also developed an annoying eye twitch over the last several days that I’m sure is at least indirectly caused by being pregnant (stress, lack of sleep, BCM taking all of my nutrients, or BCM pinching a nerve).


My little BCM meanwhile is quite the soccer player in my belly.  I’ve reached the point in my pregnancy where you can see him move my stomach, which I think makes it more fun especially for Brian.  I may complain about the not-so-fun aspects of pregnancy, but honestly I love being pregnant and having so much to look forward to with BCM.  It’s truly miraculous having a person growing inside of me!  Now I just can't wait to meet him!! J