Joss

UPDATE!: I've added some video.

The other evening we had linguini in a red sauce. At some point Jocelyn slurped up her linguini noodle, making a little noise. Dominic loved it and he laughed and laughed, causing us to laugh too. Joss grooved on the attention and she immediately grabbed another noodle, stuck it in her mouth and slurped it down. Dominic continued to laugh and giggle and Joss continued to slurp down noodles, giggling the whole time. She loved making her older brother laugh.

Then it happened. Only so many noodles can slide down a little girl's throat before something has to give. She made a little retching noise and then a ball of linguini noodles came up. Yum! She wasn't too pleased but she didn't get too excited. A little milk to drink and she was ok, but we took away the rest of her noodles...

Here's the video:

DominicsDad

Biking the Neighborhood

The kids love to ride their little trikes. Dominic works his pedals pretty well while we get to push Jocelyn everywhere. Joss usually does pretty well, steering where she wants to go, at least when she is paying attention. When she is not paying attention, she tends to run into the curb a lot.


One day, Dominic and Joss went out to ride their trikes infront of our house. They were soon joined by Dominics best friend on her bicyle(!). A little bit after this two other girls on our street joined in and we had a regular bike rally going. Kids were going this way and that, racing up the street. The parents all did their best to stay out of the way and avoid getting hit, although I'm still trying to figure out who ran over my toes...

Dominic has been back on his bike, but he is reluctant to ride it much. His trike is easier and more fun for him at the moment as he doesn't have to worry about his balance and the stop at the end of any falls.
DominicsDad

A Quick Photo Fix

Here are some more cute photos of the kids.

Dominic and Joss decided to stretch out on the ground one day, so I obliged them and took a photo.


DominicsGrandma Nana came to visit the other week. Everyone had a good time. The kids got to stay home and play with Nana all day, she got to see them, and DominicsMom and I got a hotel room in downtown La Jolla and spent a night ALONE! It was nice, so was dinner & breakfast.
The kids love their trikes. Dominic is a little reluctant to get back on his bike, but he loves to tool around with Joss (as we push her) in front of the house. We borrowed the pink trike from our neighbor, so they both have one. Nana had fun with the kids, but she found out how much it can make your back ache...
DominicsDad

Ducks

Both kids like ducks, so when I had to watch both kids for a few hours, I took them to Miramar Lake to feed the ducks. Dominic and Jocelyn were both thrilled and they both had a great time feeding the ducks. Listening to Joss quack was pretty funny.




And yes, I was worried about Joss jumping in the lake or Dominic falling into the water as he pursued a duck...

DominicsDad

Our Little Girl

Today DominicsMom took Dominic and Jocelyn to the park where they have a weekly play group. Dominic runs around with the other kids his age. Joss is just starting to, but today she had a little dixie cup of goldfish crackers she refused to give up. So she ran around the playground with the dixie cup, eating the occasional cracker, and being very careful not to spill any crackers.



Joss eventually worked her way to the slide, sat down, and prepared to go down. DominicsMom watched for a little ways away as she talked to some of the other Moms. When Joss goes down a slide, she usually uses her feet to keep her speed down. Slides can be fun, but you gotta watch yourself!

This time, she was too busy trying not to spill her cup that she did not brake her speed and she shot straight down the slide. So she slid all the way down and kept going, right off the slide. She landed with a loud thump and her goldfish crackers went flying everywhere!

DominicsMom quickly picked her up as she started to wail. Big tears came coursing down her cheeks as she saw all her precious crackers lying on the ground!

She soon calmed down and was back on the slide, but this time without her crackers...

DominicsDad

Your Target Audience

You know what they say, you have to know your target audience. With that in mind, I ran The Blog of Dominic through a reading level analyzer. Here is my results:

Just kidding!

DominicsDad

Some Photos

Here are some recent photos of the kids. In this first group, Dominic is pouting over something that we did not allow him to do... He looks sooo sad and miserable. It used to be very tough for us to resist not giving in to him. A year later...we let him sit until he decides he's had enough.

Here he is a bit happier...

Nana came to visit us the other week. We took advantage and hied off to La Jolla for a night.

This is the only photo that I have from our trip to Portland. It was DominicsGrandpa Tom and Grandma Nana's 40th wedding anniversary. We flew up and surprised Nana and had a wonderful weekend with them and DominicsUncle Lee, Aunt Rebecca, and Cousin Cole.

Dominic does some strange stuff sometimes. The other day he was singing "Your ABC's", but punctuating each word with a bang from his hammer.... The giggling you hear in the background was Jocelyn. She was sitting in my lap, watching Dominic on the camera's LCD screen and she was having a blast.

DominicsDad

232nd Marine Corps Birthday

Happy Birthday Marines!


Today is the 232nd anniversary of the Marine Corps birthdate. On this day, Marines around the globe come together to celebrate. This afternoon I will be meeting with some current and former Marines from work and we will celebrate.

Below is the Commandant's message.

Semper Fi,

DominicsDad

Halloween

The kids had a great time during Halloween. They were both excited to get dressed up and they both loved watching the other kids on the street. We started early, right around 630pm and we were the first ones on our street. We hit about half our complex, but only about a third of the houses were 'open'. Pretty sad... There were not a lot of kids on our streets either, so whenever Dominic and Joss hit a house, they generally received several pieces of candy. So while they did not hit a lot of houses, they both had full jack-o-lanterns by the time they were done. Dominic's friend Brianna came home late, so we joined her and her parents at almost 8pm and hit a few more houses. By the time we went home, the kids were beat.

Before

During:

Poor Joss, she was running down the street (DominicsMom in hot pursuit!) when she tripped and splayed full out, candy flying everywhere. No, I'm not the heartless b@st@rd who took a picture of her after she fell. I just happened to be taking a shot as she fell and caught her just after impact. She was ok, although I had to pick her up and carry her for a bit.

After

This is the post-sugar rush the kids experienced that evening. It had been a long night and it was well after their bed-time. They both went to bed very quickly.

Joss is still a messy eater. For quite awhile we fed her ourselves or she used her fingers, so we had gotten out of the habit of putting a bib no her. A few months ago we let her feed herself with her own fork and spoon. Unfortunately, she turned out to be a very messy eater with the fork (and she generally gives up on the fork halfway through the meal and shovels everything in with her fingers...) So we've gone back to putting the bib on her.

DominicsDad

I'm In Trouble

I'm in sooooo much trouble... Jocelyn is going to be trouble when she gets a little bit older. DominicsMom is trouble enough, but Joss will be worse. (Did I say that out loud?)

We haven't bought or received a lot of girl-specific toys for Jocelyn, most baby toys that she received were just that, baby toys and they rarely differentiated between boy and girl babies. As she has gotten older, she has started to acquire more dolls and other 'girl' stuff. For the most part, she rarely played with her dolls, preferring to play with Dominic's trains and cars, as well as certain (cat) stuffed animals. However, Joss did receive a little doll at Dominics birthday party and she really took to it, carrying it around and feeding it with her bottle (and sometimes from Penelope's food bowl.) But beyond that, she does not play with too many other girlie toys.

She has shown her girly side in other ways. One day, DominicsGrandma Pat & Grandpa Frank came by and gave her an outfit. She was soooo excited to get it, holding it up to her body to 'check its fit'... I wonder where she got that from. Today, DominicsMom brought down a shoe box containing new shoes for Dominic (Joss had already received her new shoes weeks ago). Joss became really excited when she saw the box and once she saw the shoes inside, she lunged for them, grabbed them away from DominicsMom, and tried to put them on her feet. When DominicsMom had to take them away to put them on Dominic (so they could go outside), she became very upset and began to pout... I am soooo screwed when she gets a little bit older and begins to pick out her own clothes... She can pick out whatever she wants, as long as it is from the Salvation Army store.

Oh yeah, besides the fixation on clothes and shoes, she has started to pout. It's actually quite cute as she crosses her arm, lowers her chin, squints her eyes, and screws up her face into a little pout. It sort of reminds us of what Dominics friend Brianna does when she is angry. Joss can't keep it up too long as I usually tickle her out of it.

Joss also has a few other things that she does now. When she gets scolded, she puts her arm over her face, covering her eyes (just like Dominic) and tries to look sad. We can usually see her peeking out from underneath her arms and she starts to giggle right away.

When she sees something funny, she covers her mouth with both hands, bends over a bit, and giggles...just like DominicsMom sometimes does. If she sees something somewhat surprising or unusual, she draw in a deep breath, lowers her chin, and tightens her shoulders, you have to see it as it is cute. Dominic did this one also, but has pretty much grown out of it.

Joss has very quickly picked up a lot of different mannerisms in the space of a month and is always entertaining us. I'll try to post some pictures videos soon.

DominicsDad

Teaser

Here is a teaser from Halloween...Jocelyn was a cheer leader this year, complete with pom-poms. She looked pretty cute with the two ribbons in here hair. She was pretty excited when she saw her costume and couldn't wait for DominicsMom to put it on her.

Both kids really enjoyed Halloween this year. Joss was so excited she ran from house to house. She insisted on carrying her pumpkin full of candy herself, even when it got so heavy that she had a hard time holding on to it. I often carried her between houses, so I helped her support the pumpkin, but she insisted on holding onto the handle and I couldn't hold it in my other hand.

Dominic knew the full Halloween routine and rarely had to be coached. He eagerly went up to each door, knocked, and waited for the people to open the door before he shouted "Trick or Treat!" He was very good with his "Thank you's" and "Good byes!"

Dominic was Thomas the Train Engine the last two Halloweens. DominicsMom and I resolved that he would not be Thomas again this year, so we gave away his Thomas costume right after the last Halloween. This year, we asked Dominic what he wanted to be and he said, "Thomas!"

"Duh!"

We told him that he was Thomas last year and he had to pick something new...so we asked him again. "James!"

"Duh!"

Dominic had seen the James costume in a catalog and remembered it, so we dutifully found him a James costume. ..I'll have some pictures soon.

DominicsDad

Long Time No Post II

Well, it has been a long time since I posted...but I've been in mourning. I've been having some problems with my computer and so I devoted a week to fixing it. In attempting to eliminate software as the problem, I reloaded Windows a couple of times, reformating each time. Before I did this, I of course backed up all my data...or so I thought. During one of the times I formatted the drive, the program I was using hiccupped and to fix it, I had to format the whole drive, not just the Windows partition.

No problem, I had backed up everything, right? Nope, the folder I used to store all of the new photos that I had not sorted was not backed up, so I lost everything there. So everything that I had not finished sorting through, and there were photos from the summer, were gone. This included all the photos from our trip to DominicsGrandma Nana and Grandpa Tom. I was sick....

So I haven't been able to post anything (plus there were some nagging configuration issues with my photo viewer and the game Civilization IV, which I managed to get hooked on, again...)

I have some new stories in the wings and a lot of new photos coming up...stay tuned!

DominicsDad