Who's My Big Boy?! March 8, 2012

It's been a while since I've sat down to write about the antics of our dream boy, as he does his fair share of keeping this mom, wife, and sorta-career woman busy. AQwaqwwww2WQA
As of right now, and as you can see, he's currently typing with me and eating the corner of my laptop; essentially, making me completely lose my train of thought.

We've hit the eight month mark and along with that comes many a milestone. One fun thing that's happened in the past month is something a friend at work said to me. "Does Dominic crawl yet?" "Nope, not yet. He'll get there when he's ready."  "Well, are you teaching him?"  "Nope, he'll get there."
The shock in her face made me chuckle as she insisted that I need to start 'teaching' Dominic how to crawl. What would you like me to do? I suppose I could put a little roller skate underneath him, but I think I'd rather not. Now, I'll be honest. I used to worry if Dominic was behind the curve as far as development is concerned. I wondered why he wasn't smiling at the 6 week mark, or why he wasn't succeeding at tummy time, why he was still eating only two ounces at every meal, etc etc etc. But I've finally come to a point where I've realized that Dominic will develop at his own pace, and all we can do is work with him and give him things to encourage the learning process. He's only eight months old, for crying out loud!

Every day we take him to school, it's like the whole world lights up inside that building. Kids and teachers alike all cry out, "DOMINIC'S HERE!!!" And when they see us leaving, the kids chant in unison, "DOMINIC!! It's DOMINIC!!" My heart melts to see just how many hearts he's stolen! So here we are, eight months old. He gets rave reviews from his teachers at school, who tell us that he does more than the babies who are two and three months older than he, even though he's not crawling. So I'm very proud of him! Everyday we go to pick him up, they've a new story to tell us.

"Dominic was so good today! He's always so happy. He made all the little baby girls laugh when he came to school today!"

"Dominic was so funny today! The babies were all sitting on the mat together playing, and Dominic pulled his socks off. Once they were gone, he pulled all of the other baby girls socks off!"

"Dominic got SO mad today! We tried to feed him breakfast, and he did not want it. He got SOOO mad and was screaming MAMA! MAMA! And we would tell him, ok Dominic, Mama will come rescue you!"

"Dominic was so crazy today! He was rolling and rolling and rolling all over the place. He rolled from one side of the room to the other!"

We see a lot of these things at home, but we've yet to hear him say mama. We're working on it. But he does have a tendency to roll to get where he needs to go. He uses his legs properly as if he were going to crawl, but instead uses them as leverage to turn himself 90 degrees and roly poly his way around. It's really quite entertaining to watch! Of course, with the rolling comes the tragedy, and of course, the tragedy has always got to happen with mommy. Why me? Why?  What is this tragedy, you ask? Well. Here it is.

Bad mom moment number I've lost count:  Dominic and I were having a great day together, and I decided that since he was doing so well sitting on his own, that he could sit on the couch in front of the TV and play with his blocks. I even put two pillows on either side of him as a safety precaution.

He was having a blast and sat there playing for a good 20 or so minutes. I sat right next to him the entire time, picking up his toys as he launched them across the room. Then, I got thirsty. I walked about five feet away to get my drink, and heard a muffled "ahhhh" and immediately knew that he had tipped himself over onto his side, and smushed his face right into the pillow, as is characteristic of him. (He smushes his face into anything he can.) Well, I kicked it into high gear and began running back that five feet and saw him as he began to kick that leg over his tiny little body, and I screamed "DDOOOOMMMIIIINNNNIIIICCCC!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I'm pretty sure that everyone in China heard me. Alas, I was too late as he plunged about a foot down from the couch and onto the carpet.. THANK GOD for carpet. I'm not sure who it upset more- Dominic or myself, as when I picked him up he was fine and laughing and playing with whatever he could, and I was still crying. Sigh. At least it wasn't the changing table.

Why do I feel like I'm always writing about bad mom moments? Am I doing something wrong, here? haha.

Dominic has also learned that he is hilarious. You know how you make that indian noise when you go 'uhhhhhhhhhhhhh' and pat your mouth? Kinda sounds like "AAABABABABABABABABBABAAA." So, if we start patting his mouth with one or two fingers, he immediately starts going, "uhhhhhhh" and of course we get far more entertainment out of it than he does, but he laughs and then we're all laughing and it's fun. A lot of fun.

Right now, I can say that I'm looking forward to him turning one. Yes, I'll be excited when he can walk. Sure, I'll be excited when he can talk. But what's REALLY exciting about him turning one is that his milk will soon cost me about three bucks a gallon, as opposed to 25. YAY! No more formula!