bountifulplate

Last week, Dominic and I put together a bag of food items and took them to our church. I was explaining to him that some people don't have enough to eat and that we were helping them. My father-in-law was a remarkable man. He and I had more than one discussion about what made us happy. I would always tell him the same thing - I was thankful for a roof over my head and food on the table.  I guess I have always been that way. It truly doesn't take a lot for me to be happy. I have talked about my grandmother before. She was an amazing woman and lived to be 101. This picture still cracks me up, it is from Christmas of 1988 and she and I were cooking together. I have no idea how much that turkey weighed, but I'm guessing at least 20 pounds :) . She passed away when I was pregnant with Dominic, but Lauren and I would go visit her at her apartment in Virginia. I used to sit on the couch and watch Lauren and my grandmother interact act with each other and just feel s...

I recently returned this past Monday from being out of town for five days. The hubby was left in "charge" of Dominic.  I have had to leave my family before, but Lauren has always been here to "assist." Since she is 90 miles away at college, that really wasn't an option for her to come back and help her dad (though my sweet girl did offer). Being the ultra-detailed person that I am, I left an itinerary for the hubby to adhere to in my absence.  I showed Dominic on the calendar when I was leaving and when I was returning. His teacher and the bus driver were both made aware too. I wanted to make it as little as a disruption as possible for Dominic. The only area where the hubby saw a possible "issue" was in the bathing department. Due to Dominic's sensory issues, he still takes a bath and I assist him about 99.9% of the time. The hubby is "banned" from bath time because about five years ago, when he tried to assist Dominic, he got a ma...

I have written in the past about how one of the most difficult things I have ever had to explain to Dominic was when my husband's mom passed away. At the time, he was just six. Since the hubby is an only child, Lauren, Dominic, my husband and I spent a lot of time at the funeral home in Cleveland when she died. Not exactly the best place for a six-year old. Since Dominic was used to seeing his grandmother frequently, it was super duper hard to figure out the best way to explain it to him. We finally decided to tell him, "Grandma was broken, and she went somewhere where they could fix her." That seemed to satisfy him at the time. As he has gotten older and is beginning to understand more about that time, we changed it to, "Grandma is in Heaven." Once in a great while, he would say that spontaneously. For the past month, though, he has been saying, "Grandma is in Heaven," just about every day, at least once a day, sometimes multiple times a day. When the...

Yesterday, Dominic had a doctor appointment first thing in the morning, so he didn't ride the bus like he normally does to school.  I took him in a little after nine and signed him back in through the attendance office.  Since his teacher had already told me I could bring him back to the classroom, I decided to "tag" along with him. I am still learning my way around his new school, so I kept asking Dominic which way to turn. He was so full of confidence and seemed so grown up, as he lead me through the hallways, it's hard for me to think back to the time when he was this young and actually seemed, "shy." When we arrived at his classroom, Dominic went right to a key on the wall, unlocked his locker and put his backpack and coat away. I then said, "mommy has to leave, can you give me a hug?"  He instead looked right at me, waved, and said, "bye, mommy!" Has my little boy already gotten too big to give his mom a hug in public?" I h...

This past Sunday was my husband's birthday and we went out to eat to celebrate. I told Lauren and the hubby ahead of time, that I thought it would be a good opportunity to let Dominic order his own meal.  As we walked into the restaurant, a part of me automatically went into the "stressed out" mode of wondering how Dominic would "behave" since this would be the first time he would be ordering his own drink and meal. Lately, going "out" to eat has meant getting a take-out pizza from Little Caesars and eating it at home! As we sat down, we had Dominic look over the menu.  The waitress came over and said, "so, what would everyone like to drink?" When she looked at Dominic, he said, "water." Awesome! After about another five minutes, she came back and asked everyone would they would like to eat. When she got to Dominic, he said, "chicken nuggets." Cool, so far, so good. While we were waiting, he seemed to be a little bit at lo...