Memorial Day Weekend

The family and I have some very big plans this weekend, like other weekends, it probably won't take much to get us off track and distracted. That is pretty much what life entails these days...last weekend we had big plans of bringing Quinn to the pool for his first swim, we got his swimmers ready, and sunscreen slathered on, all of the bags, snacks, extra diapers packed and loaded up the stroller with all of our goods, started walking down the street to the pool, and then......dun, dun, dunnnnnn.....a huge rain cloud rolls in and starts spewing lightning and thunder, we continue on our way because sometimes in SC the weather is crazy and we were thinking that this could pass, and it did...so I got Quinn all ready and we start to walk into the water, and it was freezing, and then another rain cloud rolled in doing the same as the first, and I decided that it just wasn't meant to be, plus, there wasn't anyway that I was getting past my shins in that freezing water! Which is really too bad because we just bought a new digital camera from Olympus and it is an underwater camera. We were really looking forward to catching Quinn's little feet kicking around. Maybe this weekend, but probably not, cause I think there is a chance it could storm, and it will wait for us to have everything packed and be halfway down there before it hits us.

Back to the plans for the weekend, we are going to try to go to the Riverbanks Zoo, and possibly do a grill-out with Jen, Ty, and Gracie. I am also going to try to run the almost 4 mile loop by my house. I may have to walk some of it, and that is okay, but I am going to do it anyway. I have been running a little over a mile everyother morning. I kind of like it, it gives me a little alone time, and since it is 5:00 AM when I do it, there is not very many people in our neighborhood up, so they don't have to see me huffing and puffing my way past their house. I don't even want to know what I look like when I run, especially since I know what I look like when I get back from my run, and it isn't pretty. I get red in the face very easily, and it generally takes a good 30 minutes to get back to normal. Thankfully I am not really trying to get skinny, just fit. I would be okay with myself if my tummy didn't look like a donut.

Fly By Time

We go through each day like we are trying to reach the end, only to realize that the end means the beginning is just around the corner again. The only time that this is not a factor is on Saturdays and Sundays for which I cherish every moment of being able to do what ever I want. Right now, that is to spend as much time as possible with the people I love. Quinn is changing everyday, growing up too fast. He went from being a little pumpkin that didn't do much besides pooping, peeing, eating, and sleeping - to now getting into everything that he is not supposed to. I am not going to tell you that he is going to be walking soon, what I will tell you is that he is pulling himself up and has started letting go. He can stand by himself for about 10 seconds and then he gets nervous and sits....or he starts dancing and ends up making himself sit.

He has very strong opinions now, and you can very easily hurt his feelings or scare him. For instance, normally Quinn has no issues with the vacuum, to the point that he loves to follow me around and try to play with it...so we didn't really think much of the hand held cone crumb vacuum, and turned it on and pretended to suck his belly with it. Let me tell you, the look of fear on that baby's face made me want to grab him up and shield him from anything that could possibly hurt him. He has also started something that I am not very fond of, in fact I don't like it at all, he bites. He has four teeth now and he knows how to use them, and frequently tries to show you. The other day I was holding him when he bit me in the sholder, I pointed to him and in a firm voice told him "no!" well the tears started streaming, the lip started quivering, he was sobbing...well it almost made me give in....almost.

I worry about Quinn most of the day, which is a mothers job, but that kid has the grace & balance of his mother...and that isn't saying much. Sometimes I feel like wrapping him in bubble wrap and putting pillows on everything, but I know that is a little much. The other day he was pulling himself up on the coffee table, and lost his balance and did this to his eye:

Basically he gave himself a black eye. His poor little noggin.

You know what else I don't understand? How the heck do babies fall alseep with their butts in the air, I mean it can't be comfortable, could it? I choose not to try this right now for fear of someone else seeing me. Seriously though.... it is super cute. To Quinn's defense, I had already woken him up from a perfectly comfortable position and forced him to get dressed into non-pajama clothing. He slept through the entire process, which is not easy I am sure. I did find him last night in his crib in a very similar position though, and had to roll him because I just couldn't believe that it was comfy for him.

We went to the beach for Easter and decided that it would be a great idea to get pictures of him playing in the sand. What we didn't take into account was the fact that he was going to eat the sand, and lots of it in fact. He tried to sneak a shell too, but I was too quick for him. This is my favorite picture of the trip:

I just love how great they look together, I just know they are going to be best buds. Herb is by far the best person that I know, and I am greatful to him everyday for his unconditional love and patience. He is the love of my life.

No Time For Anything

Soooo..again, long time no post! A whole ton has happened since the beginning of the year, some good, some bad, some just terrifying. Herb, Quinn, and I went on our first official family vacation, for which we drove approximately 14-16hrs in a car with an infant, and I am happy to tell you we survived! NY was snowy and cold, as it should be in February. Quinn is all baptised and all that is associated with that, we got to see a bunch of our friends, and spend some quality time with the family. Of course with seeing all of those people comes germs, and germs = sick family....so our entire family was sick for the 14-16 hr trip home, which wasn't so much fun.

About a week later Quinn and I found ourselves back in the chilly state of NY for a family emergency, which turned out better than we thought.

In the meantime the Quinn man has decided that he wanted to crawl, and I know I thought months ago that any day he was going to start, but now that he has started there is no stopping him. Right now he loves trying to play in the cat's water dish, and while I could make it easy on myself and just put the water dish on the counter while he is playing on the floor, I figured that the more he crawled around the quicker it would tire him (and me) out so that he would go to bed :). In his free time he also likes to chase the cats, he does warn them with one single chuckle similar to this: "heh". As soon as I hear that, I know what he is up to. The cats have decided that any time he moves they are going to take cover, and sometimes, I know what they mean.

Quinn has also started pulling himself up, and you can tell that he is very proud of this new skill, which he now uses to grab stuff that I had hid from him on the coffee table. For example, Quinn loves, loves, loves, to get his hands on the diaper rash cream. Not sure if it is because I take it away from him every time I see that he has it, or because it looks fun, or it smells right to him, but never fail, anytime I have it out, he goes straight for it! So last night as we were eating dinner (we eat in front of the TV, I know totally horrible...but we get home really late, and blah, blah, blah, even I stopped listening to myself) and he is playing down on the floor when he pulls himself up and starts playing with whatever he could get his grubby little hands on, which included but was not limited to: my empty plate, my cup, a fork, diaper rash cream, a napkin (which he tried to eat), his temporal scanner thermometer, and a few other misc. items. I couldn't believe how much trouble he was trying to get into!

Sleep is still trying to evade me, sometimes it is Quinn's fault, and sometimes (like this week) it is my fault. Sometimes when I start reading a book that I find extremely good I cannot put it down, I could compare it to an addiction, well that is what happened to me this week. I started reading the twilight series after I was so sucked into the movie that I watched it twice. I don't know what it was/is about the movie and the books, but it is like a really good dream that you don't want to wake up from (which ironically is how the twilight books got started, at least that is what the author wrote on her website).

Once in awhile during the week I will start to feel really overwhelmed, like, what did I get myself into?...but then on weekends I reflect and I think about all of the things that Herb and I do on a day to day basis, and I think WOW! How are we able to do all of that and still function? Sometimes I think about all of the hard work having a child is and think should I have waited? But then I look at Quinn, and I can't imagine my life without him. He has truly changed me, and yeah I have a lot of days where I am straddling the line of insanity and frustration, but then he laughs, or gets this goofy look on his face, and I hope that he knows how much he means to me. How can someone not love this face?

Its Been Awhile

Since this is my first post in the new year....Happy 2009 to everyone! I can't believe how quickly January and February have gone! On Wednesday we get to go visit NY, and Quinn finally gets baptised. We are excited about the trip and getting to see everyone, so I hope the weather cooperates and allows us an uneventful trip.

Since the last post Quinn has started saying da-da-da-da and ba-ba-ba, not really in relation to anything in particular, I mean he calls his blocks da-da, so Herb doesn't feel that it is really official that his first word was da-da, but I think it counts. Also he loves to blow raspberries, and will start doing it if you initiate it.

I think last post or so I may have thought at any moment Quinn would be crawling, but we are still waiting, although I think he is still making progress. He has gotten the all fours down, and rocks back and forth, but the actual movement forward hasn't kicked in yet. He has also mastered the sitting by himself, and if you lean him standing against something he can pretty much hold himself up.

He is my little love muffin, and he is getting too big too fast....although right at the moment we are not on speaking terms. I think he has found a game of trying to mess with my sleep patterns. Until right after the Superbowl this child would wake up once a night and I would end up sleeping on the couch for the rest of the night. Then the Superbowl, we stayed up late, he played until he was too exhausted to do anything else, and he went down hard for the night! I woke up the next morning more tired than I could ever imagine, this continued (to my surprise) for the next week and a half, just long enough for my body to adapt....then he got sick (again) and will not sleep through the night again unless he is in his swing and me on the couch. It is a bit weird because we tried moving the swing to the bedroom to see if that helps, but it didn't help, at all.

Anyway the eating has progressed, in fact he has moved onto the stage two foods, and we have realized that he just hates any of the green veggies (at least the mushed variety) and loves sweet potato's. Daycare has started to feed him regular cooked carrots, and he loves them. I guess he will not end up drinking formula at college.

About once a week Jenn, Gracie, Quinn and I go out for a walk (Jenn & Gracie go a lot more than once a week) and I think Quinn would enjoy it, but he falls asleep almost every time, I guess he does enjoy it enough that he falls asleep though. I am finding that I am enjoying living down here more now, than any other place we have lived (minus NY). The weather is nice most of the time, and now that I have finally started to make friends, it feels good.....that being said, I have now formally cursed myself and we will be moving next week (just kidding, we aren't really, not that I know of anyway :)) I can't wait until the summer when I can start to bring Quinn to the pool. I think he will enjoy that. I actually should start looking into going to a pool now.....

Thanks for reading, hopefully I will have new pictures and a new post following our vacation to NY.

Therapy

In the past couple of months I have decided that this parenting thing isn't easy. Yeah Quinn is a pretty easy going baby most of the time, but the fact is, that sometimes he is just plain irritable. He cries, I make a bottle for him, he doesn't want it, I change his diaper, that doesn't make him happy, I try to snuggle him to sleep, he goes stiff as a board and starts crying....what is a mom to do in this situation? Most of the time I say "okay then, you can go in your swing" or "play on the floor then" but inside I am upset. I am upset that I don't know what is wrong with him, I am upset that I can't make him happy, I am upset that I am so damned tired that I can't think straight, I am upset that I am upset at him for being upset....did you follow me there? My newest thing to be upset about is the fact that he doesn't want to eat food for me, I have tried everything, (except for most fruits) and he just doesn't seem to want to eat food. It is not that he doesn't like it per say, if I can get it in his mouth than he will eat it, but the fact is, the child will not open his mouth! I told him over the weekend that it was okay, that he could continue to live on formula until he was in college for all I cared, except that he may care when he can't get a girl friend because of it.

There are times that I question if right now was the right time to have him, and then I look at him and he laughs, or does something for the first time and I can't imagine life without him.

There are 2 things that I think he will accomplish in the next couple of weeks:
1. He is going to start crawling, I am surprised that right now he is moving as fast as he does just wiggling around on the floor.
2. He is going to get his first tooth!

The holidays went pretty well, Quinn got lots of presents (thanks everyone!) and we got to enjoy watching him open & eat the wrapping paper on his first gifts. I almost forgot to take pictures (thanks Herb for reminding me). We do wish that we were able to go north for the holiday's but there is something nice about doing your own thing!

Hopeful

Do you know what I love the most about this time of the year??? Watching Christmas movies, I like them all...the Corny, the sappy, the hilariously funny...you get the idea. On Sunday Herb, Quinn and I watched Christmas With The Kranks, I tell ya, that Tim Allen is a funny guy, (spoiler alert!) my favorite part of that movie is when he gets botox injections in his face...I laugh so hard every time I see that! Quinn was laughing at me cause I was laughing so hard. Herb asked how I could find it that funny every year, but I forget most of the year that I watched it even, so it is still a surprise for me when we watch it again.


I was thinking this morning on my way to work about this coming summer, I am really, really looking forward to it. Quinn will be able to go out on the boat with us, I will be able to wear a bathing suit without looking like a whale (hopefully anyway, maybe if I start running this could be accomplished, yikes!), and it should just be more fun than last year. Not that giving birth and all that wasn't fun...


I was looking back at photo's of the Quinn man and can't seem to wrap my head around how quickly he changed...when he was first born he had kind of an alien oblong head, now it is more rounded, he used to look like a little old man, now he actually looks more like a baby. You get the point. Here is a picture of then and now. He was almost kind of weird looking when he was born, maybe I shouldn't put that on here, in case when he is older he reads this and thinks that I don't love him. Quinn, if you ever read this, I love you very much, and even though I just called you weird looking when you were born, I think you are the cutest man child ever! I was just remarking on how much you developed in just 5 long, I mean short months.

Growing up.

I need to start running, I need to get back into somewhat decent shape. I am tired of being, well tired. I have been considering when I am going to be doing this so called running, and have come to the conclusion that it will have to be in the morning, that I will have to get up earlier than I already do, and go for a run....who knows, maybe getting up that early won't actually kill me like I think it will, maybe it will wake me up better, and make me feel better. Do I want to take that chance? Well only time will tell if I am actually able to make that committment. It is very difficult for me right now to make it to work on time, there just seems to be so many things to do in the morning before I leave, I have to get everyone fed, and diapers changed, and into clothes that aren't considered pjs. Now I have to make sure my (stray, but not so stray) kitty who's pelvis got broken is doing okay and is near his food so that he can continue to eat.

This has been a physically and emotionally draining year this year, and I am relieved and excited to see what the new year brings. I have been thinking about inviting one of our neighbors over for new years eve, since we don't do the go to the bar thing anymore. They have a 4-5 month old daughter that I think she and Quinn would have fun playing together...at that age do they really play together?? I don't know.

We got family photos done a couple of weekends ago, that was a bit of a fiasco, there were a ton of people there, and we were late for our appointment so they actually had marked us as a no show, but they were good and were able to sneak us in only about 10 minutes after we got there. Good thing that I brought food for Quinn though, cause he started having a meltdown about half way through. Not so good for the photos, but we were able to feed him enough to get him to calm down for at least a few minutes.

This picture is one of my favorites...they both look so good in it, I had such a hard time choosing which one we liked....and before anyone gets on my back about sending them photos, we have already thought about that and you may possibly be getting some, but I am not telling you for sure, so don't even try to get it out of me.