quinn’s fourteenth month ~ bum-bum-bum and dinosaurs

words this month:

Hi Pencil backpack peekaboo car duck play (bay) here there pear cheese

3/24

went to japanese gardens today, which was beautiful. Quinn enjoyed the walk. There is a beautiful waterfall, amazing trees and shrubs, a pond with coy swimming in it, and amazing sand paintings.

13 months 1 guitar

3/25

quinn stayed with susan for a few hours today while i went to the lab. He is using lots of new words. we just figured out he says there (day!) and possibly here, outside, etc. (he definitely waves at the windows and doors now, if he wants to go outside.) he was saying fish “ish” at susan’s house.

3/26

home-baking bread, staying warm. Quinn is pointing to my nose a lot, as well as everyone’s belly buttons.

3/27

quinn is using his word for tools a lot: “bum!” it’s related to “boom” which he says when things fall and make noise. He has been really interested in dada’s work on building a guitar, much of which has been taking place in the dining room this past week or so. Quinn has been very observant, and watches how dada wraps the sandpaper around the sanding block, then he will try to do it himself, and try to sand the guitar, too. dada has been so patient while he does this, it’s been cool to watch.

Speaking of observant, quinn is also way into building fires… yes i know, not generally approved baby activity. He has watched dada do it a million times over the winter, and this week has been particularly cold (for spring). Both yesterday and today quinn “requested” a fire to be built in the afternoons- after he danced by the stereo to get me to put a CD on, he sat by the fireplace and pointed at it saying “hot!” over and over again, and picked up pieces of kindling and poked them at the screen until i got the message. Build me a fire, mom! So i did. And he helped! He knows exactly what to do. Kindling first, then the big pieces, which he watched me lay, then he helped crumple the newspaper and without me even showing him, he stuffed each piece of the newspaper underneath the grate. He did the same thing both yesterday and today. Then he knows to back off while i light the match and put the screen back in front. He is something else…

13 months 2 finger paint 1

3/28

it snowed this morning…. it has never even snowed in MARCH in portland. Let alone the END of march. Blech. Global climate change.

we have figured out that Quinn has been saying “pick”. He has been infatuated with guitar picks for a while now, always a supervised game of course, and he is able to hold onto a pick and strum the strings now. We finally figured out which of his words it is- it sounds like “bih” or something like that. Now that we have identified it, it’s easy to pick out every time.

3/29

Quinn also has been saying guitar, it turns out. We finally identified that one- because he says it while pointing frantically at the guitar hanging on the wall that he wants us to get down and play, and let him play. He says it like “a-tagh” or “a-dagh” or something like that, sometimes just the second syllable but the “gh” sound is there to differentiate it from anything else he says starting with t or d. It sounds French in a way.

Another fun language tidbit that dada discovered… Everything we drink is tea “t” with the exception of dada’s coffee which is named “hot”. Soda is also tea, but since it is in cans which have tabs on them, and Quinn calls those tabs picks “bih” or “pih”, soda therefore becomes known as pick-tea or “bih-t”. Very cool bit of detective work on daddy’s part there…

13 months 4 finger paint 3

3/30

this evening dada was sitting at the dining room table carving the neck of a guitar, i was at the kitchen sink washing dishes, and quinn was rearranging “his” cupboard (the one with all the canned goods, non-breakable items). dada could see quinn and at one point told me to turn around and look- and there was Quinn, sitting looking at what he had just built, a tower of cans stacked five high. Not only were they 5 high, they were arranged biggest on the bottom and smallest on top (soup cans- jelly jars with flax seeds in them- tomato paste cans). Then we cheered for him and he smiled, and looked proud, and then he accidentally knocked it over and looked up again and smiled and said “boom.” Very calmly. It was a very cool moment. He has been into stacking blocks some lately, but never that many, although he has been standing the cylinders up on end a lot lately. Usually it is just one cylinder on a flat rectangular block, or two side by side on the rectangle. So the soup can tower was pretty impressive!

3/31

indoor park and space monkey with susan

4/2

omsi with susan

13 months 5 drawing

4/3

i turned 30! Quinn and i had a good day because it started to get warm today finally! We went for walks, swung on the swings (quinn LOVES the swings.) in the morning we went to indoor park but it was lame- only 2 other babies and we were there all alone for the first 20 minutes. Boring! Well, we still had fun. Quinn is the kind of person you can be all alone with and he will somehow always make things fun!

4/4

i went to work at the lab today while dada stayed home with quinn. (dada is now working four ten-hour days so i can do this once a week!)

4/5

took some hand-me-down baby gear over to doug and meg’s house (they’re due in 5 weeks!) and then got thai take-out and some dvds for my birthday.

molar

4/6

went to omsi with dada today- quinn showed him all around the science playground, and then we checked out the dinosaur exhibit. Somewhere along the way quinn has learned a word for dinosaurs. (often it is just “dah” but sometimes it is “dah-nah” while pointing at one of the large skeletons.)

4/7

32 pounds!

Climbing on couch

13 months 7 drawing

4/8

Quinn can climb on furniture as of today. Yikes! He climbed onto the lounge today while i was sitting on it with absolutely no assistance! He is also standing up and letting go momentarily of hand-holds. Tonight quinn did the sign for “milk”. He looked at me and did it with both hands when i was doing it to him. It was really cool! His first sign… i’m so proud. (sign for milk: think milking a cow- squeezing your fist; his is way cuter than the “proper” version, because his little fingers go in and out a lot more.)

quinn has his own keyboard on the floor that he plays with when I type.

4/9

wow! Quinn already did his second sign! Today we were on the bus and someone was reading a book- i signed (and said) book a few times. Then after a few minutes he pointed back at that person’s book and did the sign to me! It was again, so very cool. (book is your hands in “prayer” position, then open them up like a book. His is cute because he opens them WAY up. Hehehe.)

today we went to omsi with susan, gryph and ro. Q is standing up and letting go of furniture quite a bit, then grabbing back on. He’ll reach between furniture that is farther and farther apart, and he “surfs” (gets really low with his arms wide) to get from one to the other. He asks me to hold his hands and walk him once in a while, but not often. I got to take a bath this evening while quinn and dada played “bum”. However, as we were getting ready to go for a bedtime walk, and I was putting him in the sling, he tore off my glasses, and as I was getting them out of his hands, he head butted me with his teeth, right next to my left eye. Ouch! I scared quinn with my “ouch!” and he cried, and I was in pain but trying to comfort him because he was afraid. What a mess! I have a bruise/cut and it swelled a little.

13 months 8 close up

4/11 “bum,” by the way, is anything involving wood and tools. Stacking blocks, hitting them with the hammer, and saying “bum” as you hit them. Or standing up a piece of firewood on end, hitting that with the hammer, (bum-bum-bum) until it tips over. Hours of entertainment!

13 months 9 bum

4/17 I listened to my new (birthday) mp3 player for the first time today and got to hear the mighty Quinn (it was on random!)

13 months 10 pretzel

4/18 ANI DIFRANCO CONCERT at the crystal ballroom. It was fabulous! We brought Quinn, earplugs, sling, and boobs, showed up just in time for ani to come on stage. Quinn nursed and snoozed in the sling, then later on he was awake, dancing with me or with dada, and laughing and having an excellent time. He pointed at the stage and said “ha-tahg” (guitar) a bunch, and he would bounce if I wasn’t dancing enough, to make me dance more.

13 months 11 thinking

4/22

phone interview with Kym Jacobson at HMSC (Hatfield Marine Science Center) in Newport, for the Salmon Microbiologist position I applied for. I don’t know… I think it went fine, but who knows? dada watched quinn while I did the interview. Quinn and I have been outside a lot lately- lots of trips to the park to swing!

13 months 12 ready for a nap

4/23 FOURTEEN MONTHS AND I GOT THE JOB!!!!!!

Wow! That was fast turnaround time. Last interview was such a long process, this one is almost too fast! But I’m so excited! Making the decision… the only thing will be how to make the sea-time aspect of the job work, but dada says he is game. It seems like a good thing- wish I knew whether the other one I applied for (salmon genetics) would come through or not- it would avoid the sea time bit, but this way I’m working for a woman which seems much better for me usually… I want to give her an answer tomorrow.

 

My baby is 14 months old, and I am going to raise him at the beach!!!

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