Noel, age four

Noel and I just compiled a list of his favorite things at age four. I typed them in the order we did them, and you can see how he came up with his own categorites toward the end. Here they are:

Food: Pizza and hamburgergers

Drink: Milk and orange juice

Toy: Pillows

Game: Castle Crashers

TV show: Max and Ruby

Movie: Wall-E

Fruit: Grapes

Vegetable: Carrots

Color: Red and blue

Restaurant: Cici's and McDonald's and Wendy's

Friends: Everybody

Book: Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present

Song: "Day Tripper", "A Hard Day's Night"

Number: 100 billion

Animal: Horse

Candy: Every candy

Cereal: Honey Crunch and Oats

Place: Tillis Park exercise trail with 14 exercises

Holiday: Everything

Color (again): Orange

Crackers: Graham crackers and Cheez-Its

Dominick's art exhibit

Our living room has become an art gallery filled with drawings inspired by the boys' favorite video game, Plants vs. Zombies. Dominick says he likes our house better now that it's a PvZ house and not to call it a gallery because the drawings are not for sale. I love them so much.

Barnyard Moosical

Since we're still getting caught up here in blogland, I would now like to share a video of Dominick's kindergarten musical, held on May 4. His participation in a kindergarten-wide program (five classes, a total of about 100 kids) in front of a gymnasium packed full of parents, siblings and other family members was nothing short of miraculous. Consider that this is the same child who, a few short years ago, freaked out at parties when "Happy Birthday" was sung. My eyes were more than a bit misty when I realized that Dom was not about to run out of the gym screaming that night. He filed in with the others, wore his goat hat, sang and did the hand movements. The next day, he told me liked it so much he wanted to do it again. Dominick has come so far, and I couldn't be prouder.

The video below shows the part of the musical that featured the goats, a song called "Gourmet Pizza Pie."

Noel's turn

Fire eraser
Cameloupe
Pick-ups (hiccups)
Guh-skito (mosquito)
Guh-poose (caboose)
Guh-Queen (Lightning McQueen)
Cow goat
Winch (witch)

I love you, but I don't like you on Sunday. (12/9/09)

That was mypyramid dot gov. (ca. 12/13/09)

I will stop Daddy's hands. I'll use hitting.
I need to sit on your face.
Do you like naked running?
My pootie hurts. Please kiss it. (12/16/09)

We didn't went to McJoklin. (12/20/09)

[Holds up a piece of turkey]: That's shaped like California! (1/8/10)

What a heck? (1/12/10)

Beam me up, Spidey! (ca. 1/14/10)

[Eating a cracker]: Hey, this looks like Tennessee! [takes bite] Now it's North Dakota! (2/6/10)

Do you have mommy milk in your pooties? (2/13/10)

My body made a very funny noise. (4/5/10)

It's a beautiful poopy day. (4/26/10)

I hate numbers. (4/27/10)

I'm going to pee on you and kill you. (6/4/10)

More from Dominick

Okay, here we go. These are in roughly chronological order. Forgive me if you may have seen some of them before.

inrevisible (invisible) It took me forever to realize why Dom said this wrong. Anyone know?

I pooped so toughly. Look how tough it is. (10/29/08)

It takes me a long time to hurry up. (11/21/08?)

Double engines are kind of annoying. (12/2/08?)

I am un-run-over-able. (1/7/09)

Noely just has pants stuck to his shirt. (1/10/09) Noel was wearing a sleeper.

A little bit teeny more bigger (1/23/09)

Dominick: Noely, why do you like signs so much?
Me: We could ask you the same question.
Dominick: Don't ask me the same question. I don't like signs. (1/26/09, as we were planning his road sign birthday party)

I am very trouvlesome. (1/29/09)

I tooted happily. (1/30/09)

wack (what crayons are made of, i.e. "I need some wack." 2/7/09)

I just like to look at cabbages. (6/3/09?)
Daddy thinks we can have worms for dinner.

Sleeping with ornaments is a pretty dangerous thing. (8/19/09?)

He's a bug and he fell apart. (8/19/09?) Hmmm, I wonder why.

Mike: Dom, what did the egg say when it found a dollar on the ground? Egg-cellent!
Dom [laughing]: Don't make me laugh too hard when I'm cracking eggs! (February 2010)

Oh, crut! (6/21/10)

Dominick on Mortality

A month ago, Dom made a bow and arrow out of sticks and string. Afterward, he told me, "I'm going to keep this until my life is over. Usually, when your life's over, you don't live anymore. When you're really old, that's what happens to ya. When you're ten years old, your life is half over."

Then last week, he said, "Robots don't have lives. We have lives that are going to be over."

Also last week, we were discussing the mosquito problem. Dom's idea? "What happens if we take the dead person and put him for the mosquitoes to bite on?" An interesting thought, I have to say. I'm not sure where all this dark subject matter is coming from. Maybe Dominick has inherited my morbid sensibilities.

More words from the mouths of babes to come. I have a stack of paper scraps where I've jotted down these little treasures. Sifting through them, I realize that Dominick no longer refers to the Golden Arches as "Old McDonald's." Sigh. At least he still says "hamburgerger." I'll be sad to see that one go.

A milestone for Dom

What's missing from this picture?

Training wheels!

Dom's pretty proud of himself. He told the lady at the sewing store that he rode his bike without training wheels, so now he gets to go to Skyzone. A little bribery never hurts, right?

The other thing Dominick tells everybody these days is that he's six and in first grade. Kindergarten, where did you go?

Big boy, big news

It appears that my diaper-washing days are about over. Noel is on day three of wearing underwear. Something clicked for him about a week ago, a year after he unexpectedly produced solid (ahem) results on the toilet. Since then, he's been quite resistant to the idea, so I gave up on him graduating from diapers early. Last week, when things finally started happening, we went to Target to pick up underwear. Noel chose Toy Story. Granted, he had a couple of accidents yesterday and one today, but I can't see a return to diapers during the day, which is a little bittersweet. He's getting so big, and I've really enjoyed our four-plus years of cloth diapering. Anybody need some Fuzzi Bunz?

More birthday

For months, Noel had been telling me that he wanted a red birthday party and a traffic light cake, so that is what we planned. The party was scheduled for Saturday, but he was sick, so we postponed it to Sunday. By then he felt better, the weather was still amazing (short sleeves in November?!?), and my mom was still in town, so it all worked out beautifully.

Here are some pictures from the weekend. The first was taken at Monkey Joe's, the rest at our house.

Somebody had a birthday today

Our little guy turned three this morning, at 8:08 to be precise. It's scary how fast we've gotten to this point. Didn't we just have a baby? Noel is no longer considered a toddler but a preschooler, although his birthday falls too late for him to start preschool this year. He does some big-boy things (talks in long sentences, pretends to read, writes a couple of letters, opens doors) but hasn't figured out how to give up diapers or pedal his tricycle. He's still a sweetie but has gotten very bad about dumping things out and refusing to pick them up. Biting has given way to what he calls "blubbing." Ah, don't you wish you could be blubbed by Noel!*

Here is more about Noel at three:

--chose to eat at Sweet Tomatoes and play at Monkey Joe's for his birthday

--enjoys riding his tricycle and jumping the trampoline (I love the way he says that, by the way)

--started a parents' day out program in September

--wants so badly to go to school with Dominick

--asks for crackers and raisins for morning snack every day

--likes chocolate (I wonder where he gets that?)

--navigates the iPhone amazingly well, just like his brother

--loves lollipops but gets himself way too sticky when eating one

Some recent words and phrases:

--pootie (breast)

--big booty puddle

--cameloupe

--fire eraser (extinguisher)

--two bless yous (after sneezing twice)

--"Hi, stupid butt grabble." (gravel)

--"I going to the pool. My penis going to the pool."

There are many more of these, if I could only find the various scraps of paper I wrote them down on. And now for the best one:

--"I love you, Mom."

*Blubbing is when you put your mouth on somebody's skin and blow to create an interesting noise. Is there a real word for that?

The big day

He did it! Dominick successfully attended his first day of kindergarten. Mike worked from home today so that he could join us on that first walk to school. Our neighbor/goat lady/crossing guard guided us across the street safely. May I say how extremely lovely it is to live half a block from school? I had the same luxury growing up, although not until first grade. I rode a bus to kindergarten. But I digress.

The building and grounds were somewhat chaotic, but Dom picked his way through the crowd and led us to his classroom, showing Mike his star on the door. (We had visited the school yesterday after receiving a call on Friday saying that Dom's immunization records were not up to date. I had the doctor's office fax said records in July and confirmed with the school secretary two weeks ago that they had been received. Oh well. While there, Dom found his name on the classroom door and got further acquainted with his room and teacher, who was there setting up. He even helped by placing colored folders in the appropriate baskets. I loved how chatty he was with Mrs. C. And just like that, I've digressed again!)

So anyway, we got inside, and all was well until Dominick wanted us to stay, so I gave a quick goodbye and left him drawing at the table. Neither of us cried, which is quite a miracle. At pick-up time, the parents waited outside the main entrance, and the principal--great guy--came out to greet us and gave our kids a thumbs up. Shortly thereafter, the doors opened, and the morning kindergarten class emerged. Dominick was first (how nice it must be to be an A in school!) and came running to me. He was in great spirits. Later, he said that he'd had a "really good" time at school. Bring on day 2!

Meet and greet

Dominick attended his final day at preschool today. [sniff sniff] Mike picked him up early to take him to Six Flags for one last bit of fun before school. Only five more days until the first day of kindergarten!

Yesterday morning was our meet-and-greet at the elementary school, so the transition is in full swing. Dominick led the way as we joined the wave of parents and kids heading to the school carrying bags of supplies (crayons, glue, paper towels, hand sanitizer, etc.). I was surprised to learn that Ms. Walker, the teacher we met back on registration day, was no longer there. Word on the street is that she wanted to teach full-day, so she's now in a neighboring district. The new teacher is Mrs. Casey, who seems as sweet, energetic and enthusiastic as Ms. Walker. We also saw Dom's preschool friend Calvin, whose mom told me that he is also in morning kindergarten, so there will be at least one familiar face.

After leaving Dom's new classroom, the boys and I explored rest of the school. The art room is full of wonderful things. It even has a kiln! I didn't have access to one of those until high school. The gym has a climbing wall. The cafeteria seems tiny. Dominick got acquainted with one of the bathrooms. We bumped into some neighbors, and they introduced us to another boy in Dom's class. Dom and Noel didn't notice the tables full of donuts near the office. Everything went really well. Now for the big day...

The end of summer is near

The first day of kindergarten is only fourteen days away. We received our first school newsletter in today's mail, and a quick phone call to the school told us that Dominick will be in morning kindergarten. Now that we've gotten what we wanted, I hope we can really be ready and out the door by 8:20 every day. That will be a feat. The boys have recently started sleeping a little later, so that some days we don't actually get up until 7:45. (Don't tell Mike!) Dominick may be coming around to the idea of kindergarten. He was able to talk about school today without getting upset, so that's a good sign.

In other news, we harvested and ate the first yellow squash from our garden today. My blog entries have been rather few and far between this summer, so I don't think I've ever mentioned that we even had a garden. We started it in May after hearing Dominick talk constantly about vegetable gardens. Why not? I thought. So we found a suitable spot, prepared the ground, put up a little fence to keep the bunnies out, and planted peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, watermelon, peppers, carrots, parsnips, cauliflower and cabbages. The peas are dead, the tomatoes are dying, and the watermelon and cauliflower don't look too impressive. We've had three grape tomatoes over about as many weeks. Still, we should have a sweet crop of root veggies; the peppers have rebounded from a sorry state; the cabbages look like baby cabbages; one cucumber has been picked and two more are growing. It's really just a big experiment, considering we've never done this before. The boys love having a garden. Several times a day, they ask to check on it, and Noel loves to water.

The garden about ten days after planting

Our first cucumber

Noel watering the garden

Dom's new hobby

Look what Dominick did this afternoon:

Don't you love that look of concentration on his face? Despite the apparent seriousness, Dom was so excited to do this project. We used burlap and a monster tapestry needle, which is fairly blunt. I wish I could take credit for the idea, but I'm not nearly crafty enough: it came from this book.

The design began as chocolate and an apple, but the apple became a cone and the chocolate a hole in the ground, and then for a brief moment the cone went back to being an apple. Ultimately what we see is a dirty cone next to a hole in the ground, all surrounded by grass. It's pure Dominick, both in style and execution. All I did was tie off ends and prepare the thread for him. I think we'll be buying some different colors of embroidery floss soon to see what else he can create.

I'm very proud.

Vacation!

Mike decided he was tired of waiting around for the CWA to strike and said the heck with it, we're going on vacation. So we booked a cabin in the Smoky Mountains and headed out on June 20, with an overnight stay with Mike's brother and family in southeast Missouri. We returned Saturday the 27th. We spent a week in Pigeon Forge and had a great time just getting away, especially considering the heat wave we escaped here. Cabin rental is the way to go when you have kids. The boys had their own bedroom with twin beds, we were upstairs in a master suite, and we had a full kitchen, air hockey table, our choice of gas and charcoal grills, and a hot tub (though we never used it). We lucked into a good deal by booking last-minute.

Here's a quick summary of our vacation:

Sunday: arrived around 5:30, checked in, ate dinner
Monday: Dollywood
Tuesday: Smoky Mountain National Park, including the North Carolina side
Wednesday: Splash Country, dinner at the cabin, Smoky Mountains again
Thursday: WonderWorks, tubing on the river (Mike and Dominick)
Friday: Dollywood
Saturday: drove home

Dominick's favorite part was Dollywood, Mike's was tubing, mine was the Smoky Mountain National Park, and Noel's was throwing rocks into creeks and down steep embankments.

I have almost 300 photos to go through, but I'm planning to post some soon. Right now I'm just thankful to have a working computer again. When we came home, the computer appeared to have died, but Mike took it apart and repaired it last night. Whew!

Birthmark treatment update

Yesterday afternoon, I received a phone call from Noel's dermatologist's office informing us that our new insurance covers pulsed-dye laser treatment of his birthmark. Mercy is smart enough to realize that removal of a port-wine stain from the face, especially one near the eyes, is not a cosmetic procedure. Why couldn't GHP get that?

While this is certainly good news, I'm feeling a little conflicted, mainly because I don't love the idea of putting Noel under general anesthesia 6-8 times. Maybe I'm also so used to his appearance now that I don't want to change it. I mean, could he be any cuter? But I know that treating the birthmark is in his best interest, obviously for Noel's self-esteem but also to prevent it from worsening. Doing so sooner rather than later means less disruption for him (imagine him going to school with bruising after a treatment) and a greater chance that he won't remember much of the experience or the birthmark. I just saw some before-and-after photos of kids who have undergone laser treatment for port-wine stains, most of them far worse than Noel's, and the results are amazing. Of course now I can't find the web page to share!

So I think we're probably going to go ahead with the treatment but wait until the first of next year. Even though it's covered, we'll still have a deductible and 10% copayments for each treatment, so we have to set up our health spending account accordingly.

New toy

Something that's been on our list a while...

You've got to love Craigslist. We're still working on the enclosure, but in the meantime the boys are having a blast. We just have to keep a close eye on them so that nobody gets launched off the trampoline.

Crib for sale

Lately, Noel has been coveting Dominick's bed, so much that every naptime and bedtime, he's run and jumped into it. For a couple of weeks, we've searched antique malls, garage sales, and Craigslist (haunting it, actually) for a twin bed. We wanted to find one in a style and wood tone similar to Dom's, preferably with footboard, rails and mattress included, and not too far from Webster Groves. (Hauling was going to require the use of a friend's truck.) The right bed hadn't shown up yet.

My neighbor Judy was back in town for two days from Rhode Island (Dominick asked, "Does it have a lot of roads?"), where she's been on a year-long sabbatical/fellowship that she has extended through next summer. Before leaving today, she mentioned offhand that she had a complete twin bed in her garage. Ooh!, I thought. I said we might be interested in it if it was compatible with Dominick's existing bed, so she showed me the bed. Well, take a look at this:

On the right is Dominick's bed, and on the left is what is now Noel's bed. It certainly fit our criteria, and all we had to do was fetch it from the garage next door. How easy is that? Now I have some shopping and/or sewing to do: pillow, bedskirt, comforter, sham, etc.

The boys were very excited about this new development. I suppose it's a pretty big milestone, moving out of a crib and into a big bed. They're growing up so quickly. [sigh] As expected, Noel has had trouble staying in his bed tonight. May the novelty soon wear off! In the meantime, anyone need a crib?

A chapter ends

Not to be dramatic, but Dominick's last day of preschool was today, and I'm feeling a little sad. He's had a wonderful year and, according to one of his teachers, grown exponentially. I can see it, too. He's changed so much since he began in the Red Room last year, but perhaps most dramatically in the Yellow Room. Emmanuel is such a familiar, comfortable place, full of great people. We'll really miss it, but the good news is that Noel will be starting there next fall, probably in the Parents' Day Out room on Wednesdays. That means we'll bump into some of Dom's friends or their younger siblings and parents, so we'll be able to stay in touch. The other bit of good news is that the summer program starts June 9, so Dominick still has a couple of months to see some familiar faces before launching into his elementary school career on August 18.

The Yellow Room seemed so bare today because all the projects were taken down and sent home with the kids. This was exciting enough, but at the bottom of his bag Dominick found a special gift from his teachers: a small photo album of pictures taken throughout the year, kind of a day-in-the-life of preschool. Dominick absolutely loves the album. When he first saw it, he said he wanted to thank his teachers and make them a gift, too. Then he hugged the book to him. He has looked through it several times today with both me and Mike. I just hope he doesn't love the poor thing to death!

Dom with his painted counterpart. He drew the face. We taped the other Dom to the living room wall, and it freaks me out every time I turn around and catch a glimpse of it.

The beach picture, a current favorite of Dom's. He's very proud of the sand he glued onto the paper. Note the octopus with more than eight legs.

Dom embracing his photo album

Dom's first dental checkup

Yes, I know...Dominick is five and should have been to the dentist long ago. Bad me. I put it off forever, telling myself it was because of insurance questions when the real reason was that I dreaded it. Given Dom's refusal to let the dentist (our dentist) see his mouth after he knocked his tooth out last spring, I didn't have high hopes, but the boy surprised me: he did great! He went back (without me) willingly and cooperated marvelously through x-rays and all, though he said he kept closing his mouth during the cleaning portion. There were no tears, no fighting, nothing. At the end he got to pick out a toothbrush, a prize and three stickers. You can imagine his joy to discover that Lightning McQueen was one of the toothbrush choices. (Of course, now Noel wants one, too.) Also, he got a sticker and photograph for his book, mailed to him prior to the appointment. Here's the picture. He's looking pretty tough in it.

I made good on my end of the bargain and took Dom to the dollar store for a treat after we were finished. He picked what might have been the worst possible item in the store: a four-pack of whistles. What?!? I blame my five-day-and-counting headache for preventing me from thinking clearly enough to veto that decision. Maybe I can barter with him for something else.