Friends and Family

In addition to his actual aunts and uncles, Dominic has quite a few honorary aunts and uncles as well. His Aunt Rita came to visit him when he wasn't quite two weeks old, and in honor of her visit, Dominic wore a lovely warm jacket that she had bought him.

(It's padded and puffy, which is why he looks like a mini-Arnold Schwarzenegger in this picture.)

Last weekend, Aunt Jane (whom we congratulate on passing the New York bar exam) came to visit Dominic for the first time and brought him Big Bird, the Cookie Monster and a mirror with a song that David and I have already memorized. Unfortunately, because I was holding Dominic, there are no pictures of that summit meeting.

And Dominic has gotten to know Asmita Auntie and Milind Uncle very well indeed, as he's seen them more than anyone else who's not a parent or grandparent (or a vendor of coffee and croissants at Bittersweets on DeKalb!) At Thanksgiving dinner, Dominic, clearly setting up to be a ladies' man, shamelessly flirted with Asmita - there was a lot of intent gazing, a proto-smile and a good bit of eyelash batting going on (not to mention some heavy breathing - well, snorting to be precise - and possibly a burp or two.)


The day after Thanksgiving, Dominic's grandparents Pete and Betty came down to visit and this time, Papa didn't get food-poisoning and got to spend some quality time being slept upon by Dominic:

Anniversaries

This week marked two anniversaries - one sad, one happy.

On Tuesday, November 20th, it was exactly one year since we had to put our beloved German Shepherd to sleep. We miss Aconcagua de la Caramba (known around here as A.C. or Acito or other names depending on what exactly he was doing at the time) terribly and I'm sure we'll be telling Dominic stories about him for years to come.


On a much happier note, Dominic was exactly one month old on Thursday the 22nd, which happened to be Thanksgiving this year as well. It's simultaneously hard to believe that he hasn't been with us forever AND that it's already been a whole month because it seems like yesterday that we were bringing a newborn baby home from the hospital. (Also, it's weird not referring to age by the number of days any more!)

He's already a bit world-weary, clearly!


Today marked another milestone for Dominic - his first bath with water in the baby tub (as opposed to a spongebath with a washcloth). We were well-prepared with a giant hooded towel and a pacifier to muffle the anticipated screaming from Dominic:

But Dominic surprised us - after a brief squawk about being a) naked; and b) sitting in a pool of water, he seemed to enjoy himself quite a lot. (Perhaps enjoyment is a liberal interpretation of his reaction, but he rarely suffers in silence, so he obviously didn't mind the experience that much.) Thanks to Aunt Rita, we had a variety of Bübchen baby products from Germany to use for Dominic's bath, so now he smells of camomile, linden and clean baby!

Grandparents!

When we came home from the hospital on the 25th of October, we were extremely grateful to grandmother Betty for bringing her expertise with babies to help us out. We learned that it's one thing to read about diapering, changing, burping and sponge-bathing a newborn, and quite another to be faced with a hungry and/or wet baby who is Very Upset. Apparently, diapering is a form of horrible baby torture and Dominic usually responds to this assault upon his person with a demonstration of the art of Baby Kung Fu.

Sure, he looks peaceful now, but you should see the other guy:


Grandma also did about eight million loads of laundry and a whole bunch of cleaning. Unfortunately, grandfather Pete got food-poisoning from some bad chicken and didn't get to play with Dominic very much, but we hope his next visit will go much more smoothly! Grandmother Betty's visit marked a milestone for Dominic - he found his thumb. Then he lost it again and that made him cross, but that's a tale for another day:

This past weekend, Dominic's Hinchey grandparents came down from Boston for a visit. Needless to say, Baby D. was a big hit (in both Kannada and English). There was even talk of smuggling him home in a carryon (note to self: search visitors' luggage in future!) Dominic's parents were treated to a delicious Indian feast cooked by his ajji, so they were pretty excited too!

Dominic's favorite activities include sleeping on grandparents:

And holding their fingers very firmly:

Dominic's world

Welcome to the blog of Dominic Rammohan Scialdone, born on October 22nd, 2007. Dominic was born at Long Island College Hospital at 8 p.m. exactly and he came in at 9 lbs., 6 oz. (that's 4,225 gms for the metrically inclined!) and 21 1/4 inches long. He was not 11 lbs, as predicted by one of the midwives shortly before his mother went into the O.R. (and it's really not nice to scare people that way!!)

Minutes after delivery, Dominic was not particularly impressed by this brave new world:


But things seemed to be a bit better some hours later when he'd had a chance to get his bearings: