10 Months!

Another month flew by!  And here we are at 10 months!  You are still maintaining your healthy diet of protein (beef, chicken, turkey, hummus and tofu), veggies (squashes, broccoli, peas, carrots, potatoes, green beans, mushrooms) and fruits (blueberries, pears, kiwi, grapes, melons, apples, bananas), carbs (pasta, pancakes, raisin bread, pumpkin muffins, veggie sticks) and yogurt.  You are such a delight to watch eat.  You really enjoy it and are so passionate while eating and just being in the presence of food.  It is our daily entertainment during every mealtime! You have transitioned easily to the formula this month and are no longer breastfed.  (Sniff, sniff...)

You sit and play so nicely.  You are learning to gracefully transition from sitting down to your belly on the floor.  You are "army" crawling and picking up speed.  You also love to practice standing and can stand for short bursts of time independently.  If cars or trains are around, you would much rather play with them than your own age appropriate toys.

You just love being out and about.  You get complimented every time.  "He is such a good baby", "He is so adorable!" and "I just want to squeeze him!" are the most popular phrases we hear.  You love going to the "Happy Mouth School" but now start to whimper after we drop Mikey off and you are alone in the backseat.  You look around the house for him when you wake up from your naps.  I feel like you are a little disappointed to be "stuck" with just me at home.  Maybe that's why you love going out! :)

This month we started Music Together.  We signed up for the Friday morning class at 11:30 with our friends, Phoebe and Tracy.  You LOVE everything about the class---the singing, the dancing, playing  eating the musical instruments.  I really enjoy spending that time with you, just the two of us.

I can't believe I am starting to think about your upcoming birthday.  These 10 months have really passed quickly....and a PERFECT 10 months they have been!

Feeding a family of four!

We have reached a milestone at the Scialabba house! There have been three meals in the past week that we ALL have been able to eat together--flounder, stew and lemon buttermilk pancakes! Naturally Nicholas eats more than his brother at each meal! What a difference it makes when you aren't making a bunch of different things for dinner and when the baby can finally finger feed himself most of his dinner. Yay!

June Vacation

I don't know where the summer went!  I'm getting way behind on my blogging since we are busy spending our days playing outside, going to the pool and now starting school!

Here's a quick re-cap of our week to PA and NJ in June:

We started off the week in the Poconos for my grandparents to meet Nicholas.  My parents were there as well.  Highlights were dining at Woodloch, viewing the "parade" and then Mikey going to the show with his grandparents and great-grandparents (Mommy and Daddy took Nicholas back to the house)!

Monday morning we left Hawley and headed to Lancaster to visit Great Grandma Ruth & Honorable Ernie as well as Auntie and Uncle Scott.  It took us 5 hours to get there and the boys were perfect in the car (it was supposed to have taken 3 hours).  Once we got there, we had a great time visiting and catching up.  That night Auntie and Uncle Scott took me out to downtown Lancaster and Michael stayed at the hotel with the boys.

Tuesday morning we headed to Strasburg, PA to see Thomas the Train that was passing through.  Mikey had great time although all we were able to do was ride the train since it was POURING rain.  They had a bunch of other activities to participate in so we will need to do this again in the future.  From there we drove to Manalapan to stay with my parents.

Wednesday was Mom's retirement dinner with her colleagues.  It was different being on the other side of the spectrum--usually my parents attended functions revolving around my sister or I--and here we were listening to one speech after the other praising my Mom on her dedication and hard work that she put in to her years of teaching.  She was the only one to retire this year so the entire party was dedicated to her---which worked out perfectly since she deserved to be the center of attention for once!  Mom had a great time showing off her grandchildren, too.  Mikey loved dancing to the music!

On Thursday we hung out at home with Auntie and went to lunch at a local pizzeria.  We (read: Mike & I) stuffed our faces with yummy Italian food that we don't normally eat up here!  For dinner Mommy made crab cakes and we ate outside on the deck as requested by Mikey.

Friday we went to the park with Aunt Erin, Jimmy and Kevin.  We saw the animals, had lunch and played in the field.  It was great to catch up and introduce them to Nicholas!  After our visit, we swung by Gran-ma's school so Mom could show off her grandchildren to her students.  (She's just a little proud!)  That night Mommy and Daddy went out for a date night to Point Pleasant.  We had dinner and then strolled along the boardwalk, played skee-ball and had ice cream.  It was the first time we had been back to the shore since Hurricane Sandy.  Everything was fixed and running smoothly.  It was nice to see.  The boardwalk itself was empty, however.  A lot of homes were not renovated after the hurricane which means there were less people vacationing there.  I walked with both arms fully extended and didn't touch anyone.  That has NEVER happened before.  (Celebrity sighting: Eric LaGrand--former Rutgers football player who was paralyzed from the neck down during the kick-off to start their game being played at Met Life Stadium.  He now works for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers under his former Rutgers coach.)

On Saturday Michael took Mikey to see Monsters University in 3D and I ran some errands with my Mom.  Saturday night we went out to one of my parents favorite restaurants to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary.

Sunday we headed back home to Boston.  As I am writing this I don't remember the car ride home, which hopefully means it was uneventful!  All in all, it was a successful trip!

Dinner at Woodloch with parade characters

Riding in the caboose

N's first train ride

                                           

Father's Day with (Grandpa) "Bob"

Father's Day with Daddy

Father's Day with Great-Grandpa Armand

Brothers

Tulumello residence in Hawley, PA

Backyard (the golf course is behind Michael taking the picture)

View from golf course

View from golf course looking at house

Hole #4

Great Grandma Ruth & Nicholas in Lancaster,  PA

Mom and her co-workers

Nicholas and Auntie

Tubby time at Gran-ma's!

Mikey and his BFF Jimmy

                           

                           

                           

                            

                           

                            

                            

New this week!

Nicholas has started clapping, telling us "more" via sign language and babbling with more sounds like "MA-MA". Yay!

First day of school

Mikey started his first day of preschool on September 6. It was a full day from 9:10-3:20. He and I attended an open house at school two days prior to his first day which I feel helped the transition. Nicholas and I dropped him off, he gave us kisses and went along to play. His "job" for the day was the "music helper" in which he selected songs for circle time. He told me he picked "The Wheels On The Bus". I have no idea if he is correct/incorrect so we are going with it! Mikey brings home a folder every day with a little note about what they read, what they played with, etc. He even came home with homework the first day!  We had to complete a worksheet about an event from our weekend and then draw a picture about it. (We selected Nora's birthday party at the park which was held on Saturday.) On Monday Mikey was to share the information with his class. I have no idea how it went since Mikey is very selective on what he tells me.

A typical conversation goes like this:

Me: How was school today?

Mikey: good.

Me: Did you do anything fun?

Mikey: Yes. 

Me: What did you do that was fun?

Mikey: I played...

Me: With...

Mikey: Toys. 

Me: What kind of toys?

Mikey: I don't know. I don't remember. 

Sigh.....

I am looking forward to watching Mikey grow over this school year. It was clear to Michael and I that he had made nice progress over the summer and we are hoping it continues. We are so lucky to be in such a great school system with a wonderful special education program.