Happy birthday, Dominick!

It's late, I'm sick, and I should be in bed, but I can't let today pass without posting a birthday wish for my first baby. I can't believe Dom is four years old already! I wish I could remember what I was feeling this night four years ago, but everything was such a blur. All I know is Dom has grown tremendously since coming to us as a tiny (well, maybe not so tiny) baby, and now he's such a great little kid. I can't imagine life without him. We love you, Dominick!

That's it for now. I'll try to post photos of the birthday festivities this weekend. Stay warm.

No speech therapy needed this time!

How refreshing it is not to be worried about my child's speech development. Noel is showing great interest in repeating words and using them on his own. This weekend, he said Dominick, up, Jeep and diaper. That last one seems to be his favorite. He still calls me Daddy, so we'll have to work on that. Even when babbling, he's making a variety of sounds. Noel's receptive language is also quite impressive. When asked, he will search for and bring me a specific book or hand me utensils out of the dishwasher. He's actually a good helper. I just have to take out all the knives first.

Dom said something funny yesterday. He'd taken the pencil sharpener, which he's not supposed to do, and sharpened the flat end of a colored pencil so that it is now pointed at both ends. Dom looked at the pencil curiously and said, "Why did I do it that way?" Mike and I had to laugh. I love listening to my boys talk. They're each amusing in their own way.

We had a busy weekend. On Saturday, Dom and I went to a Valentine tea party at preschool while Mike and Noel went to a birthday party. I probably wiped out an entire week of workouts at the tea party. Dominick brought home a balloon and a doily heart decorated with his thumbprints. He slept Saturday night with the balloon tied to his snowman sock puppet, which he'd been dying to bring home from school and finally got on Friday. Last night he slept with the heart, which didn't fare well overnight.

My virtual flag is at half staff

Today our thoughts are with the town of Kirkwood, its police department, and the family and friends of the victims of yesterday's tragedy. It's mind-boggling what some nutjobs will do to innocent people in a fit of rage or insanity or whatever. There is no justification in the world for what happened. I don't even know what else to say. It's senseless.

Crazy Missouri weather

What a week of weather. First there was Tuesday's 50-degree temperature drop after a high of 73 degrees at noon. Then there was my least favorite of all weather conditions: high winds. You could hear it whistling through the trees (Wednesday?). It was a miracle that our power stayed on and our trees lost no major limbs. Thursday and Friday we had seven or eight inches of snow. Dominick had his first snow day when preschool was cancelled on Friday, so the boys and I stayed home all day. During Noel's very long afternoon nap, Dominick and I went outside to play in the snow. I was proud of myself for not being cold (I'm a wimp), but it was actually a really nice day. Mike came home while we were outside and made hot chocolate for us. I also shoveled the sidewalk, much to my lower back's dismay.

By Saturday, the snow was melting rapidly, and it was amusing to see all the Friday newspapers in their red sleeves emerging from the snow. Today was warmer again, and tomorrow's high is 65 degrees. That's just as well. Snow loses its picturesqueness when all that remains are gray mountains in parking lots. Tonight an eerie fog is blanketing the area. What next?