Our little nudist.

Dominic refuses to keep clothes on now a days. I left the room for 5
minutes and he stripped all his clothes and diaper off! To top it off
he pulled all the throw pillows and cushions off the couch and smeared
Greek yogurt on them. Lovely. I'll tell you it's never boring with
Dominic around!!

Happy Easter! :)

It's been HOW long???

Yikes! Apparently I let time kinda slip away between postings and forgot all of April!! In my defense, Dominic battled a stomach bug for most of April and our dog, Sadie is battling her own spine & bladder issues. Basically I've been playing nurse to most of the house! Hopefully we are all healthy by May!!

I also got a new camera recently and having been having too much fun taking TOO many pictures of Dominic. Here are just a couple, with more to come! :)

Toddler Rosetta Stone

 If you are not aware, we found out that Dominic had significant fluid blockage in his ears in December. So much that he had 30 decibel hearing loss and basically was hearing things like they were being spoken under water. I believe that because he had so many ear infections from 18 months-2 years that they were blocked the entire time. Due to that blockage, Dominic suffers from a speech delay. He had tubes put in in mid-December and with the help of weekly speech therapy sessions has been showing a lot of improvement. His hearing was immediately improved to the normal range after the surgery as well.

I can't lie and say that it is not heartbreaking to see kids younger than he is speaking in full sentences or perfect English. It hurts and makes me feel guilty that I have done something wrong ( I know it isn't my fault). Dominic does have his own little language and he and I can for the most part communicate well. I sometimes feel like I could go to another country and communicate with them because I am able to do it with him. He has his own words and phrases that would make no sense to anyone else but I get it--which is great because I am with him all the time. Often, Lou turns to me and asks "What is he saying?" lol.

 Last fall, he was put in daycare four days a week and when I would pick him up the teachers would proudly tell me something like this:
them-"Ohh Dominic came up to us today and said :I need to go potty:"
me-*thinking* Oh really because he can only say the word "go" and the kid could care less if he has poop or pee in his pants (at the time)

Those kind of situations make me feel especially grateful that I am now able to stay home and help him daily to learn and communicate better. I'd say that his vocabulary has probably tripled since he had the tubes put in and each day is getting better. Some days I still get frustrated or sad that this vocabulary miracle didn't occur the minute he came out of anesthesia--but it's not up to me. All I can do is my best to foster learning and communication. He will talk, not just to me, but to others. He does tell everyone "Thank You" pretty clearly so at least he has the important stuff down!

I've had a lot of people give me advice or their two cents about our situation-and it's a tough pill to swallow because not one single person is in our situation or has ever been. One of my all time favorite piece of mind by anyone about Dom's speech is "Oh don't worry some day he will be talking your ear off and you'll just wish he wasn't talking"

I can honestly say when that day comes, that thought will never cross my mind.

Hello Spring!

The weather was finally nice last week and we were able to get out and
play! Dominic and I took full advantage of the sunshine and went to
the park. He had so much fun with the slides, climbing and giggling
all over! It's so neat to see how different he is this year from last
spring-I no longer am having to follow him around on the equipment in
case he fell or have to go down the slides with him (which is super
nice for Mommy!) I do realize that with a winter thaw comes MUD and we
are definitely going to have to invest in some play clothes and shoes!
I can't wait to get outside again!!

Yee-haw!

This weekend was a "Toy Story" marathon on tv and Dominic was
mesmorized. At one point he wanted to wear this cowboy hat to be like
Woody. Oh and please disregard the fact he is pantless, he's also
begun the "loves being nakey" phase and is pulling his clothes off
every chance he gets! (thank goodness it's usually at home and not in
public!)

Fun at speech!

Dominic has been going to speech therapy every Friday since getting
tubes put in in December. He loves his therapist and seems to have so
much fun playing! Here he is playing on the computer with miss K.