As I’m enjoying the last couple of weeks, if not days, alone with my favorite toddler in the world, a lot is going on with him! The most random, mysterious thing I’ve ever seen happened a couple of weeks ago. We were at playgroup when Dominic picked up a foam letter A that goes in the bathtub and said “a” a couple of times. I was pretty surprised by this but brushed it off for the most part as just a coincidence. After all, I hadn’t started working on letters of the alphabet with him other than singing the alphabet song with him. Then he picked up another foam letter. This time it was an R, and he said what sounded like “r.” At this point, I was in disbelief but still thought it was just either me hearing things or a coincidence somehow.
The next day when Dominic was drawing with me, I wrote an A on Dominic’s paper to see if he knew the name again, and low and behold when I pointed to the letter and asked what it was, he said, “a,” once again. I tried it again with the letter B, and he responded, ‘bay.” Close enough, right?! That night, when Brian gave Dominic his bath, I took out our foam letters and started asking him several of the letters, and I was in complete and total shock when he knew most of them. We wondered did he learn this at school, from TV, or what?
The following morning I asked his teachers if the class was learning the letters, and she said they were just learning the alphabet song but looked surprised when I told them that he was able to identify by name many of the letters. I then assumed he must have learned this awesome skill by watching his favorite TV show “Super Why. However, the more I quizzed him about the letters, the clearer it was to me that he only knew the upper case letters and had actually picked this skill up from his Leap Frog Leaptop, his little, interactive laptop that he had been taking around with him and playing with since he received it for his 1st birthday and has been a favorite toy ever since. For the last 8 months, Dominic has been pushing the letter buttons and listening to the voice saying, “J says /j/ for jellyfish,” incessantly. Apparently, it wasn’t just for entertainment purposes…it was actually teaching him the letters!
The teacher in me got super excited about Dominic’s talent, and I went through my old kindergarten reading/phonics materials immediately. I administered to him part of a Pre-Kindergarten assessment that I had to see just in fact how many letters he knew. I couldn’t believe it when he properly identified 16 out of 26 letters. His pronunciations are a little funny on some of them, but he definitely knows the letters! After going over the letters some more by the following day, Dominic was up to identifying 22 of the 26 letters!! Now Dominic is up to 25 out of the 26 letters of the alphabet (all upper case)!!!!! Insane! The one remaining letter he's having trouble with is V as he keeps calling it "doubu" (aka the letter "W")...pretty confusing.
Based on what I’ve been reading, typically kids do not have the cognitive ability to even begin really learning the letters until the age of 2 and continue learning them over the next year or two until they're 3 or 4. I’m not sure how long Dominic has been starting to get these letters but to know almost every single one of them is pretty exciting. The truly miraculous thing about this is that Dominic is not much of a talker, so the fact that he can say the letter names (even with some mispronunciations) is a big deal to me. He also already is telling me what sounds some of the letters make like M for makes the /m/ sound for his friend Madden and Z makes the /z/ sound (a big part of reading). Additionally, he always turns the letters the proper way as soon as I give them to him. This made the letter Z a little confusing for him at first as it looked like a sideways N to him, but this is supposed to be an important pre-reading skill. Dominic appears to be familiar with the order of the alphabet too. When I say, “A, B,…” he’ll say “C” and tries to sing along with the alphabet song, which I'm playing and singing with him insessantly these days. I'm trying to present Dominic with upper and lower case letters together on the same flashcards, so he becomes familar with the lower case letters since that's the next thing I plan to work on with him.
On top of these advances, we’re working on a few other things with him. Dominic and I have gone to the pool a couple of times since I joined the gym earlier this month. The primary reason I joined was so I could continue teaching Dominic to swim over the winter. An entire monthly gym membership seemed to be comparable, if not lower, in price to doing mommy-and-me swim classes like we did in the fall and spring of last year. This seemed especially logical since I used to give swim lessons and be a swim coach, and Dominic seemed to improve much more in his swimming skills when I was teaching him myself over the summer than he did with the classes last year. Our first trip to the indoor pool was a little discouraging. It had been over 2 months since he had been in the water, and he appeared to have forgotten how to swim and definitely did not feel as comfortable in the water as he had over the summer. It didn't help that it was cold outside, making the pool - even though it's indoors - cooler too.
Although it was cold yet again, our second trip to the pool was much more successful! My mom came along with us, so Dominic was able to swim back and forth between us, and I think it just helped his comfort level that he had been to the same pool before and had another familiar face in the water with him. He still wasn't as comfortable in the water as he was over the summer, but it was a vast improvement over the first trip. It just reaffirmed the importance to me that I need to keep him in the water as much as possible over the winter, so he can continue to progress and feel comfortable swimming. I think this time will prove to be great for providing one-on-one (or even two-on-one) attention to Dominic once the baby gets here when I take him for our weekly swimming. I'm hoping that after BCM gets here, that Dominic and I will return to the pool in January for a regular Thursday morning swim date. :)
Even though I'm in no rush to attempt to potty train Dominic, I’ve bought him a few “potty” books which he seems pretty interested in and started watching the Elmo Potty DVD since Dominic loves Elmo these days. Dominic did sit naked on the potty last week but with his short attention span that didn’t last too long. I’m just trying to get Dominic familiar with the concept of sitting on the potty at this point, but so far he’s much more interested in the books than the potty itself.
Although it was cold yet again, our second trip to the pool was much more successful! My mom came along with us, so Dominic was able to swim back and forth between us, and I think it just helped his comfort level that he had been to the same pool before and had another familiar face in the water with him. He still wasn't as comfortable in the water as he was over the summer, but it was a vast improvement over the first trip. It just reaffirmed the importance to me that I need to keep him in the water as much as possible over the winter, so he can continue to progress and feel comfortable swimming. I think this time will prove to be great for providing one-on-one (or even two-on-one) attention to Dominic once the baby gets here when I take him for our weekly swimming. I'm hoping that after BCM gets here, that Dominic and I will return to the pool in January for a regular Thursday morning swim date. :)
Even though I'm in no rush to attempt to potty train Dominic, I’ve bought him a few “potty” books which he seems pretty interested in and started watching the Elmo Potty DVD since Dominic loves Elmo these days. Dominic did sit naked on the potty last week but with his short attention span that didn’t last too long. I’m just trying to get Dominic familiar with the concept of sitting on the potty at this point, but so far he’s much more interested in the books than the potty itself.
I’m also prepping him for the baby by buying him a baby doll (as recommended by several moms). I discovered that boy baby dolls are few and far between…and expensive! So we got him a girl baby doll with no hair and took her clothes off, thus making her into a boy. At first Dominic just played rough with the “bay-bay” as he calls it. He even tried to grill the doll (not the best sign of things to come for his little brother, right?). However, now Dominic loves his baby. I’ll make a baby’s cry sound, and Dominic rushes over to the baby, picks him up, and gives him a kiss. It’s so sweet! We’re trying to get Dominic to understand being gentle with the baby, which he is doing better with but still often carries him by the arm at times and that kind of thing. He's setting him down more gently every day though, so I think he's getting the idea. The funniest thing is that I put the baby “in my belly” (under my shirt) telling him that a baby is in my belly, and now Dominic loves to do this to me too. I wonder if he’ll think anything when I get home from the hospital and my belly is a lot smaller! The way that Dominic is so sweet with his baby doll convinces me that he’s going to be an amazing big brother! I can’t wait to see my boys playing together in just a couple of weeks!!!! J
Speaking of the baby, I'm 38 weeks pregnant...2 weeks to go! At my 37 week appointment last week, my doctor said that I'm 1 cm dilated!! This could mean I'm close to having the baby or that I'm still a couple of weeks away. At this point in my pregnancy with Dominic, I was not dilated at all, so this is promising. At least it means that I can most likely be induced a week early as the doctor said I needed to be dilated first. So I'm hoping to make it through Thanksgiving (fingers crossed!) and be induced a few days afterward. I'm basically over being pregnant (especially with the lack of sleep), but I still want to celebrate Thanksgiving with Dominic and not have this baby too close to the holiday where he could have his birthday in the future on Thanksgiving. Too bad I don't have any control over these things, right?
Last weekend, my friend Caroline was sweet enough to have a baby shower for BCM and me. It was a lot of fun! Unfortunately, several of my friends had to cancel - some due to pregnancy-related issues (the curse of having lots of pregnant friends at the moment), and Caroline's family had some health problems, but she was amazing enough to still have the shower anyway. We stocked up on lots of diapers, wipes, and other fun gifts for BCM and I was able to catch up with some girlfriends. I have some amazingly generous friends!
We did have one hiccup this weekend...Dominic has a small ear infection. Brian took Dominic by himself to the doctor's office for the first time because Dominic had been having a cough the last few days and some trouble sleeping. She gave him a presctiption for an antibiotic, so hopefully he'll be feeling better in time for Thanksgiving and BCM's arrival. Until then, we're continuing to try to get things organized and ready before BCM gets here and enjoy our time alone with Dominic, but my mind is constantly racing with a mixture of excitement to meet BCM and apprehension with how I'm going juggle having 2 boys under 2. The excitement definitely outweighs the apprehension at this point. I'm just trying to continue to check things off of my list without overdoing things.
We have the nursery all setup, the bassinet is ready for BCM (thanks to Caroline again), and Dominic's bedroom is basically done. We're trying to get the house ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as finish up some thank you cards. Now I feel like we're much more ready for BCM to get here and can't wait to hold my baby boy!! This week should be interesting as all of Dominic's regular activities are cancelled due to Thanksgiving - parents' morning out, music, and playgroups - leaving time to fill up Dominic's schedule so we don't go stir crazy. Plus Brian and I are trying to get things ready to host Thanksgiving at our house on Thursday for both families although I can't do too much as I'm 9 months pregnant. All of this on top of the baby's impending arrival should make for some fun...and craziness!
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| Such a sweet big-brother-to-be already!! |
Speaking of the baby, I'm 38 weeks pregnant...2 weeks to go! At my 37 week appointment last week, my doctor said that I'm 1 cm dilated!! This could mean I'm close to having the baby or that I'm still a couple of weeks away. At this point in my pregnancy with Dominic, I was not dilated at all, so this is promising. At least it means that I can most likely be induced a week early as the doctor said I needed to be dilated first. So I'm hoping to make it through Thanksgiving (fingers crossed!) and be induced a few days afterward. I'm basically over being pregnant (especially with the lack of sleep), but I still want to celebrate Thanksgiving with Dominic and not have this baby too close to the holiday where he could have his birthday in the future on Thanksgiving. Too bad I don't have any control over these things, right?
Last weekend, my friend Caroline was sweet enough to have a baby shower for BCM and me. It was a lot of fun! Unfortunately, several of my friends had to cancel - some due to pregnancy-related issues (the curse of having lots of pregnant friends at the moment), and Caroline's family had some health problems, but she was amazing enough to still have the shower anyway. We stocked up on lots of diapers, wipes, and other fun gifts for BCM and I was able to catch up with some girlfriends. I have some amazingly generous friends!
We did have one hiccup this weekend...Dominic has a small ear infection. Brian took Dominic by himself to the doctor's office for the first time because Dominic had been having a cough the last few days and some trouble sleeping. She gave him a presctiption for an antibiotic, so hopefully he'll be feeling better in time for Thanksgiving and BCM's arrival. Until then, we're continuing to try to get things organized and ready before BCM gets here and enjoy our time alone with Dominic, but my mind is constantly racing with a mixture of excitement to meet BCM and apprehension with how I'm going juggle having 2 boys under 2. The excitement definitely outweighs the apprehension at this point. I'm just trying to continue to check things off of my list without overdoing things.
We have the nursery all setup, the bassinet is ready for BCM (thanks to Caroline again), and Dominic's bedroom is basically done. We're trying to get the house ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as finish up some thank you cards. Now I feel like we're much more ready for BCM to get here and can't wait to hold my baby boy!! This week should be interesting as all of Dominic's regular activities are cancelled due to Thanksgiving - parents' morning out, music, and playgroups - leaving time to fill up Dominic's schedule so we don't go stir crazy. Plus Brian and I are trying to get things ready to host Thanksgiving at our house on Thursday for both families although I can't do too much as I'm 9 months pregnant. All of this on top of the baby's impending arrival should make for some fun...and craziness!
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