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| 2 years old (24 months) |
As I have done the last two years at both Dominic's 1st and 2nd birthdays as well as Blake's 1st birthday, I love to reflect on how my children have changed over the past year. It's always amazing to see this grand transformation from baby to little boy over the course of the last 12 months especially because it's so easy to forget what they were doing a year ago and difficult to really see the change when you are with them on a day-to-day basis.
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| 25 months old and as active as ever |
1. Physically -
Dominic has grown and changed quite a bit since he was a little 2 year old, gaining over 6 pounds in weight and 4 inches in height. Last February, he weighed 29 pounds 2 ounces (60th percentile) and measured at 35 inches tall (65th percentile). This year at 3 years old he weighs 35 pounds 4 ounces (80th percentile) and is 39.5 inches tall (85th percentile). I was surprised that he's gaining so much percentile-wise especially considering he's such a selective eater.
When he turned 2, Dominic was still wearing some 18 month pants, 2T and 3T shirts, and 2T and 3T pajamas. A year later, he's primarily wearing 3T pants as well as 4T shirts and pajamas. Apparently, he's gone up just 1 size in shoes since last year, wearing size 7 shoes back then and now wearing size 8/8.5 shoes. A year ago, Dominic was wearing size 5 diapers, but now he's wearing size 2T/3T underwear during the day and size 3T-4T Overnight Pullups at night and nap time (yes, Dominic is potty trained!).
Last February, I noted that when you would see Dominic sucking his thumb when he was tired, bored, or being shy. The more things change, the more they stay the same. He continues to suck his thumb when he's tired, bored, or acting shy; however, I would say that it's pretty rare that I see him sucking his thumb outside of his crib at bedtime in comparison to last year. Dominic's hair continues to be extremely thick and in need of haircuts every couple of months because it grows so fast. He still doesn't like getting his haircut and went through a stage this year where he would scream and cry when we were cutting it especially if he got hair on him (I'm talking about complete freakouts) or when the electric razor turned on making the buzzing noise, but the last couple of times, he's been pretty calm although hesitant when we or other people take scissors or the electric razor to his hair.
Looking at pictures from last year at this time, it's easy to see the difference between Dominic as a 2 year old toddler and Dominic as a 3 year old preschooler. He's slimmed down a lot and grown a lot taller and leaner, looking much more like a little boy and less like a baby (tear :(. )
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| 26 months old...and so sweet! |
2. Sleep -
Sleep is one thing that I'm happy to say Dominic has not had a great deal of change in during the last 12 months (knock on wood). Last year at this time, Dominic took one 2 hour nap from around 1pm to 3pm daily and slept 12 hours each night from around 8pm till 8am in his crib with his blackout curtains on the windows, sound machine on (since birth), and wearing a sleep sack. These days almost all of the above continue to be true. Dominic still sleeps in his crib (Brian and I are safety "nuts" about our kids and are following the AAP and our pediatrician's recommendation to keep him in there till he's at least 3...plus why mess with a good thing?) with his blackout curtains on the windows, sound machine on, and wearing a sleep sack. The sleep sack is something I plan to transition him out of once it gets warmer. Since Dominic moves around a lot while he's sleeping and typically kicks off his blanket, we like him to stay warm, which helps him sleep better, by wearing the sleep sack, but once he's out of the crib, he shouldn't need that hopefully.
Similar to a year ago, Dominic takes a 2 hour nap usually around 1:30pm to 3:30pm every day. His bedtime is still around 8pm and wakeup time is 8am. However, these days, it typically takes him about an hour to fall asleep at night. He just lays in his bed happily singing, talking, giggling (which I love), sucking his thumb, rocking, and humming before he finally settles down enough to fall asleep. The pediatrician says this is fine, but I fear it may be the beginning of the end of napping. If he doesn't nap during the day, Dominic falls asleep as soon as his head hits his pillow at night, but he still seems to need his daytime nap or else he's in a bad mood the rest of the day (no, thank you!). Speaking of pillows, the only other change is that Dominic sleeps with a pillow and several stuffed animals. He became stuffed animal obsessed around November, and now sleeps with 2 or 3 Snoopy stuffed animals, including his lovey that he's had for quite a while. I put the pillow in their with him when he was sick with a cold to help elevate his head to help his congestion, but now Dominic prefers to cuddle with it or sleep under the pillow. I continue to use the video monitor with Dominic and plan to for a while although we primary just have the sound on.
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| 27 months and very silly |
Dominic continues to be an extremely picky eater with very few differences in what he's willing to have at meals. He still pretty much refuses to eat anything new...unless he sees Blake eating something. He tends to enjoy "stealing" (a recent development) Blake's food at times, which has actually helped get Dominic to eat his vegetables (whatever works, right?). Last year at this time, Dominic was a self-imposed vegetarian. He ate a veggie yogurt, Cheerios, fruit, and milk for breakfast, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with milk and fruit or Cheerios for lunch, a veggie yogurt smoothie for an afternoon snack, and a kid-friendly dinner where we hide veggies like spinach pizza or a grilled cheese and spinach pizza.
Now he basically eats the same meals with a few minor alterations. For breakfast he still has a veggie yogurt, Cheerios, fruit, and milk along with a daily multivitamin and probiotics. Recently he LOVES eating Rice Chex with milk although I keep catching him picking the chex up out of the milk with his fingers instead of a spoon. Lunch continues to be a PBJ, milk, and a banana (along with some pretzels or more fruit if he's really hungry). Lunch is his favorite and biggest meal of the day most of the time. If he has an afternoon snack, it usually is dried fruit or Cheerios. For dinner, he still eats the same kinds of things with the addition of chicken. That was a huge breakthrough for him since he refused any meat whatsoever before that. After the pediatrician said even frying it is okay if it gets him to eat chicken, I started breading and baking the chicken and that worked for him. I honestly think this protein gain has helped with his 20 percentile point jump in height and weight since last year.
Sweets have definitely been an addition to Dominic's diet too. A year ago, he didn't even like cake but suddenly around his 2nd birthday that changed and now he can't eat enough desserts especially cake, cookies, and ice cream. Until November Dominic didn't like M&Ms, but thankfully he started loving them, which per our pediatrician's recommendation, helped potty train our little boy. Other than that, we try to limit food with dyes or high fructose corn syrup at home with Dominic and Blake, but with him at school, that's something less and less controllable or realistic. Dominic continues to only drink milk and water. He still primarily uses straw cups but these days he's drinking water out of an open cup at school and the kitchen table.
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| 28 months and on the move |
4. Skills -
I know I'm a bit biased, but Dominic has so many skills and talents that I'm truly amazed. I think that because he may not speak as well as his peers that it can be easy to underestimate his intelligence, but Dominic is an extremely intelligent child. An area where Dominic has made huge leaps this year has been his "academics." I know what you're thinking...what kind of academics does a 2 year old actually do? At this point, the entire world is a classroom in which he's learning, but specifically reading (alphabet, letter sounds, sight words, pre-reading, etc.) and math (numbers, counting, shapes, colors). Last school year, Dominic went to Parents' Morning Out twice a week (Wednesdays and Fridays), and then this school year Dominic started official preschool at the same place for 2 mornings a week again (Tuesdays and Thursdays). He has learned a ton in school and really been exposed to a lot there, but to be honest most of his reading skills have developed at home.
Before Dominic turned 2, he could identify all of the upper and lower case letters of the alphabet. A few months later he knew all of the letter sounds as well as words that start with the letters (i.e, o says /o/ like octopus). Once Dominic learned the letter sounds, I started teaching him sight words. Now he can read 27 words by sight! These are mostly words from the Pre-Primer Dolch list with a few extra like his name and Blake's. I'm honestly more of an active play/kinesthetic learner myself and prefer that method as a teacher too, but since one of Dominic's strongest skills is his ability to memorize things, I firmly believe that this is the best way to teach him. As he learns these words by sight, he's also learning how to break down each word and sound it out with me. Teaching Dominic to read is truly amazing and very exciting to experience with him!
In other academic areas, Dominic knows all of his colors and shapes, which he started learning before he was 2 and mastered before last summer. He also can count to 19 (20 with me) and is understanding the concept of counting objects. A year ago, he counted from 1-10 and recognized the numbers 1-9 except 7 by sight . Sometimes he gets overzealous and over-counts but all in all he has learned and understands so much compared to a year ago.
Perhaps the biggest (and most recent) change over the course of this year is that Dominic is potty trained!! Not long after his 2nd birthday, Brian took a day off of work, and we attempted the 3 day method with Dominic. That proved to be an epic failure, and we completely stopped working on it until the Fall when I slowly started having Dominic sit on the potty each night again. Then things seemed to start to click just before Thanksgiving when he started peeing or pooping on the potty (after meals) at least once a day almost every single day through New Years. On January 2nd, I went for it again, and took Dominic's clothes off, letting him run around naked, and he basically potty trained himself at that point, telling me when he needed to pee and running to the bathroom on his own. We stayed at home for the next 4 days with only a couple of accidents. We're still perfecting the poop potty training as he keeps going during nap time every other day or so, but that's going much better too.
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| 29 months and being such a goof-ball |
Dominic's behavior has changed a lot over the course of the last 12 months; however, it continues to be the biggest challenge for me as a mom. He's a stubborn child, and no matter what, I don't think that will ever change. The first half of this year was spent much like the 2nd half of the previous one - with tons of tantrums, meltdowns, and frustration (for both of us). When Dominic hit 2 and a half something truly clicked. The tantrums and all "Terrible Two" behavior decreased dramatically in frequency, thankfully. It was great, but after a couple of weeks of near perfect behavior, the "Torturous Threes" behavior began to appear. Since then Dominic has decided that he loves testing every boundary ever placed on him. It's made for other challenges compared to the meltdowns, but other moms have told me that the threes are much worse than the twos. Instead of getting so frustrated that he screams and throws himself on the ground like he was doing a year ago, now Dominic can express himself much better, but likes to try to see what all he can get away with. He likes to hum, "hehehehe," when he's doing something he believes is naughty. He has started being a bit too aggressive with Blake, and often will look at Brian and me when he does something. The meltdowns still happen here and there too especially in certain situations (crowded rooms, after not getting enough sleep, when he's hungry, etc.). As Dominic tests my patience, I just try to be as consistent as I can and not let him get to me...or see me laughing at the crazy things he does. Timeouts are a staple in our house. He gets one warning, "If you scream, you go to timeout," and then goes to timeout for 3 minutes the next time he displays that not-so-lovely behavior. To help prevent bad behavior, I try to give him as much active time (usually outside) as possible. No matter what he does, even if he's getting into trouble, that often times mischievous smile is one of the cutest things I've ever seen!
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| 2 and a half (30 months)...and growing gills ;) |
6. Home Life
Dominic has really embraced his "big brother" role in our family. A year ago he loved kissing his baby brother on the head, pushing him in the swing, baby talking him, and playing peek-a-boo with him. These days Dominic still loves doing those things with Blake, but now that he is a lot closer to Dominic's size and cognitive level, their relationship has changed a great deal and they are best friends (as Dominic will tell you). Dominic and Blake love running around the house together, chasing each other and making each other laugh. Dominic also enjoys tickling Blake and giving him eskimo kisses which puts the two in complete hysterics. When I hear those two boys laughing like that together, it's truly the most wonderful noise I've ever heard.
Recently, Dominic has developed the cliche older brother role even more by barking orders at Blake, tattling when he does something wrong, and of course wrestling with his brother. There are some battles over toys only occasionally and honestly 99% of time it's because Blake takes the toy since he doesn't know better...yet. As a result of this new behavior, I'm developing into the roll of referee. Another older brother tendencies that I observe is Dominic's protective nature over Blake. If Dominic hears Blake cry, he wants to help him immediately. As soon as Dominic wakes up in the morning or from his nap, he immediately wants to know where Blake is and go see him.
In addition to loving his role as big brother, Dominic has also developed into quite the little helper around the house. He loves to vacuum, sweep, clean up his toys (sometimes), help collect recyclables, and bring the recycling bin back from the street. These are some of the "chores" I've begun giving him around the house and hope that he can start doing even more soon. I love the help and also think it's important that he learns to pitch in and have that good work ethic.
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| 31 months and fun-loving |
Probably the biggest change I've seen in the last 365 days has been Dominic's jump in language. Although this area continues to be Dominic's biggest issue, he has gone from saying over 100 single words a year ago to now speaking in sentences and telling us what he wants, needs, and feels (I've completely lost count in number of words at this point). He goes through waves of language explosions. One happened around his 2nd birthday, another around his half birthday, and they continue. I think the fact that Dominic can now tell me what he wants and is thinking that this really had a lot to do with why his behavior improved/tantrums decreased around 6 months ago. These days there's a lot of speaking in third person, but in the last couple of months that has lessened. He seems to understand a lot of what we say to him unless it's new vocabulary, which he picks up pretty quickly. Dominic really does learn something new every day...in fact many new words every day! I think Brian and I appreciate as much as Dominic does the fact that he can expression to us whatever he needs to (most of the time). He continues to have trouble speaking intelligibly especially when he is around other people, so we're hoping that improves over the course of the next year as speech is becoming more and more important academically and socially for Dominic and as he begins speech therapy soon. Overall though, it is amazing to be able to hear Dominic communicate with us and talking so much these days!
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| 32 months and cute as can be |
8. Activities -
Since Dominic was a baby, he and I have always participated in a lot of activities. Otherwise, I think we both would have gone crazy. This year we haven't been as active in organized activities, however. As a two year old, Dominic goes to school two mornings a week and attends a playgroup one morning each week. He has been in and out of music classes this year both a regular one and a French one. Additionally, I try to take him swimming at the gym once a week although that hasn't been very consistent. In the summer, my little fish could swim about half the width of the pool kicking his legs and pulling his arms, gained enough strength to swim to the wall and pull up as well as lift his head out of the water to take breaths, and loved jumping off of the wall. After taking a break from September until December because the outdoor pool closed and we became busy with other activities, much to my horror Dominic actually was a little scared of the water and wouldn't swim :( Thankfully, after a few times back at the pool, it all came back to him and he's back to swimming around like a fish!
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| 33 months and growing so big |
Over the course of this year, Dominic has developed many interests. Last year at this time, he was into being chased on around the house, which continues to be his favorite thing to do. Since my sister would always say, "I'm going to chase you," Dominic always says, "Chase you!" when he wants someone to chase him. He loves that Blake can (kind of) play chase with him too now. Dominic is extremely active and loves most physical activities - running, climbing, playing soccer, etc. Additionally, he continues to be into cars, trains, and especially trucks these days. When we drive around, he very excitedly alerts me to every.single.truck he sees and expects an excited response about it from me. He's such a boy that he loves anything mechanical and loves to see how things work. He appears to already be into gears and tools, showing so much curiosity and a definite aptitude. Maybe he can fix my car for me in a few years.
Dominic still is enjoys watching TV a little too much and now actually has the attention span to watch an entire movie. His favorite TV show continues to be "Curious George." His favorite movies this year have been "Finding Nemo," all of the Charlie Brown movies but especially the Christmas one, "Curious George: The Movie," and the latest favorites have been "Curious George The Movie 2," "Cars" and "Mater's Tall Tales." It's a battle not to watch too much TV, but typically we limit it to around an hour each day, during which time I try to make lunch or dinner or get other things done.
Dominic has always been a music lover and that certainly hasn't changed. These days he loves Christmas songs (yes, still and it's February!). He also loves singing the ABC song, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," "The Wheels on the Bus," and this "Wiggle Wiggle" song that he sings at school and randomly sings all of the time around the house. Dominic LOVES singing and dancing so much and has added playing his little piano that he got for Christmas to the mix. Music is his favorite "class" at school.
Dominic's other interests include playing with play-doh, puzzles, legos, blocks, coloring, playing doctor with his little stethoscope, and fixing things with his toy hammer, screw driver, and most of all wrench. The Little People play set series has become a big hit with Dominic as well as Blake. Reading continues to be one of Dominic's absolute favorite things to do. This kid LOVES books! Dominic also adores little babies. He thinks it's so much fun to make them laugh and is very sweet with them.
One of Dominic's biggest requests is to go play outside in our backyard on the "playground" as he calls it. In the spring, Brian and his dad built a big wooden play set for the boys in our backyard, and it is one of the best things we have ever invested in. Dominic loves climbing up into it, sliding on it, and playing in the little "house" with a door. He has recently started swinging on the big boy swing on it too but still really enjoys the baby swing in the tree. Some of the biggest smiles I see from Dominic happen outside while he's playing on the play set, running around, or playing soccer, t-ball, or basketball out in the backyard. Additionally, Dominic absolutely loves going to various parks and playgrounds in the warmer weather as well as indoor jumpy places where he'll run and jump around until he's completely sweaty, gross, and red in the face. As I mentioned before, Dominic is a fish and loves swimming! This little boy is very active!
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| 34 months and ready for Christmas |
10. Personality
Dominic has one of the biggest, funniest personalities I know. I still call him a "goof ball" all of the time because of the goofy things he says and does each day. The funny thing is that a lot of people comment about how serious Dominic is, and they aren't wrong. He can be incredibly serious; however, that's generally just in new situations and/or around unfamiliar people until he feels comfortable. He's pretty shy although I would say in recent months he's been less like that. In fact, with some new people he'll be the opposite of shy and start talking to them a mile per minute, where we have no idea what he's trying to say. Dominic can be extremely cautious in new situations until he figures things out. After that, he's so happy and just silly. He's still a little prankster, loving to be silly and joke around with people. He's so much fun!
I always recognized that Dominic was very kind, sharing, and unselfish, but until he became a big brother, I really didn't see how big this little boy's heart really is. Dominic gives up his favorite toys to Blake, cheers him on, and always wants to give hugs and kisses. Unfortunately, Dominic has in recent months started saying the phrase, "That's mine," but typically it's just a statement and does not involve him actually taking the possession from anyone else thankfully.
My 3 year old is very affectionate and quite the cuddler these days. Laying in our bed or sitting on the couch to watch TV or read a book and curling up on or next to us is something Dominic loves to do (and we love to cuddle with him too). Dominic is also very polite, doing a good job of saying excuse me when he bumps into someone as well as God bless you when someone sneezes. Please and thank yous are used frequently as well but lately he will mumble the words because he doesn't really want to say them...yes, a little rebellion from him. Dominic continues to be extremely strong-willed, Dominic's generous, sweet personality makes my heart smile every single day. I am incredibly grateful to have spent this year and the 2 prior years with my precious Dominic. :)
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| 35 months and making me laugh |
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