6/24-6/26
a blur. Found out we have to go to Portland this weekend. Getting prepared in all my “spare” time. Quinn is a trooper. His only rough spots at daycare seem to be when other parents drop off and pick up their kids, but otherwise he has a great time. They go outside a lot, have cool toys to play with. He gets to carry his bottle of mama’s milk around if he wants to.
Found out that grammy and grampy will come the last week in august to watch Quinn when becky has vacation again. As for next week, Q will be with Ida, who works with Rhonda (the expensive place we looked at but can’t afford… gotta afford it for a week!) ALSO I found out I will not have to go to sea at all this year. Oh my goodness WHAT A RELIEF! I think the earliest would be next may…..
6/27
so the trip to Portland is definitely on (there was a chance of it being rescheduled, but no). We’ll be staying with susan and gang Sunday night. Yay! But tonight, we had romper room at my office so I could use the computer to get ready… I have a beautiful piece of artwork in crayola washable “turquoise” on my desk drawer.
Last night Q and I had a date. I put him in the sling, and we brought a bowl of tuna noodle casserole to the beach. We ate, actually Q started feeding me at one point so I fed him, too. It was fun. We played with the bucket and shovel for a few minutes but it was chilly so Q jumped back in the sling and we went to café mundo which is right near the beach and went inside because I knew they had open mic on Thursdays. I got a peppermint tea and Q drank water from a cup and ogled the “balloons” on the ceiling (those fancy paper lanterns) and danced on my lap. We heard 3 or 4 songs and I changed his diaper and we went home. He’s a great date- long walks, feeding each other on the beach, live music… 🙂
6/28
farmer’s market, then back to work to use computer some more. Then to the beach! Where Q played for a few hours in the sand, and I got a little more paperwork done. We even splashed in the ocean a tiny bit- it is warmer than usual but more unusual than warmth, no wind! (it is also hazy/foggy but we’ll take it!)
6/29
one more stop by the office computer- ugh. Then we hopped in the jeep with $74 of gas in the tank and drove to Portland. We passed the Lincoln city kite festival, which was cool, albeit trafficky. Q was angelic for the whole drive. We finally arrived at susan’s and it was so great to be there among true friends again. I wasn’t feeling lonely or anything in Newport yet, but coming back to ptown made me realize how little people know me in Newport right now. I know that will change in time… anyway, wonderful reunion. We went and got ice cream with the boys and then Quinn and Ro got to take a cold bath together (it is 95 degrees; we’ve been adjusting to 55 so it’s a bit of a shock). Everyone fell asleep pretty early, with full satisfied tummies.
6/30
Q and I got to see Deb this morning. Then Q stayed with susan for a couple of hours during which time babies were only wearing diapers (it’s so HOT!) we waited until evening as it started to cool down to drive home. Q was content the whole time until Depoe Bay, where I changed his diaper- he did NOT want to get back in the carseat even for 15 more miles. I could hardly blame him, I was tired of driving too. He fell sound asleep as soon as we got into bed (around 10PM) no rest for the weary; work in the morning.
7/1
Q’s first day with Ida. It was hard for me to leave him there. His third new place in such a short time… I called in the morning and things were going ok. He was really happy to see me at the end of the day!
7/2
at Ida’s again. I get the feeling she has the TV on just about all day. GRR!
7/3
Quinn’s last day of random daycares- Monday he starts with becky for good! He had a bad morning and Ida called me at lunch to tell me he had been crying a lot. I decided to bring him to work for the rest of the day, since I was out an hour early and had a bunch of desk stuff I could do. Quinn played with megablocks, colored, and nursed on the boppy like old times. Later on, we celebrated the start of our long weekend with a trip to the beach. I asked, “do you want to go to the beach?” and he said “water” (waghl) and I said, “yes, where the water is, that’s the ocean. And the beach is all the sand. You want to go there?” and he nodded and got very happy and jumped in my arms and pointed to the door. 🙂
7/4
long weekend! We spent most of today around the house, cleaning, unpacking more boxes, and doing some decorating. I finally got the pictures hung up in Quinn’s room. Most of them are scientific illustrations I did long ago of sea creatures. There are some old acrylic paintings I did in HIGH SCHOOL, one of dolphins, one of a young beluga. Next to the beluga I hung a watercolor from college of an arctic underwater scene, complete with icebergs, which also features belugas, including a mom nursing her calf. 🙂 grammy was storing these for me, and I’m really glad she brought them out and helped me frame them all! Quinn’s room is kind of empty still, so I’m pondering what to do to make it more fun…
7/5
we did a lot today! In the morning we met trina and noah at the farmer’s market and shared blueberries and raspberries while we visited on the grass. We went home around naptime. I made raspberry jam and started some bread rising (yay! First time since the move!) Quinn climbed in and out of his potty seat, some of which I captured on video (“Pah-ee!”) in the rainy afternoon we got a whole bunch of groceries for the week, and then later we went for a long walk on a really cool hiking trail that we found 4 blocks away from our house! It goes out behind the town swimming pool into old growth forest. It was amazing! Totally quiet and no people, just trees and mist. Quinn napped in the sling, his second nap of the day.
7/6
our third day of weekend, we spent the morning at ona beach, playing in the sand. I was trying to write a letter while Quinn played but he kept taking my pen and filling it with sand until I finally surrendered and played, too. Earlier in the morning, Quinn had been up for a half hour or so playing (bum) and he pointed at his diaper and told me “poo”. And sure enough, he was right! It is great to see him gaining awareness. He’ll follow me (walking) into the bedroom many times now, in order to get changed, rather than me having to carry him in. we played out in the yard (it was a gorgeous day!) later on we did something fun in Q’s room. I had noticed two things 1) there is a lot of empty space in the room and 2) Quinn will spontaneously lay down on his tummy as if to rest, but h doesn’t make use of his crib mattress (on floor in his room) to do so. So I decided to set up the tent in his room and put his mattress inside the tent! He thought it was just the greatest new thing, to play inside the tent. Then, at one point he laid on his tummy, said “bye bye!” to me, and started to such on his fingers. It was very brief and then he was up again, playing. But I liked that he saw it as a place he could rest. He took a bath all by himself, which has almost never occurred. Last weekend in Portland, he and ronan shared the tub and I was not needed, and I think that may have helped him realize he could do it. He was excited to get in, so I didn’t bother getting in with him as I had planned, and he just played himself clean. Then he came out to the garage with me and sat in the stroller playing with tools and watching me sand my dresser and take off the drawer knobs. He always loves helping with “bum” as such enterprises are fondly called.
7/7
back to daycare. 🙁 it was a great weekend so it was hard to see it end. But Quinn is now officially in a permanent “spot” at creative kids, and he seemed interested in playing with the other kids as soon as we arrived. He still cried when I left (according to becky, for 2.5 seconds) but had a good day. He is now able to just lay down on a mat and fall asleep with someone rubbing his back. (as long as that someone is not mama, ha!) after work, we took a walk to the beach, and he napped briefly, so we were up late, and it was tough getting him to sleep even at 10:30 when he eventually laid down.
7/8
more daycare and more beach! This time we played- Q got down and walked around on the sand. It is so beautiful how he just glories in everything. There is so much to capture his attention and excite his neurons- he laughed and walked in random patterns, then snuggled back into the sling out of the wind to walk back home. Bedtime was only slightly earlier tonight (10).
7/9
more beautiful weather! Today we stuck close to home after work and just played in the yard- the wind gusts I felt today were probably 40 mph so I thought too much sand would be blowing on the beach. Not to mention it makes it hard to walk even for those of us with years of practice. Then our bedtime walk was to our new rain forest trail, just a little ways in, but enough to hear the evening calls of the birds that live there. Tonight he was in bed by 8:30. (mama sigh of relief!) oh! Quinn’s new all-in-one diapers came in the mail on Monday so he used them at daycare today. Yay! Back to cloth, another sigh of relief!
7/10
I have seen quinn sign “cat” in his sleep twice now, both yesterday and today when I got up out of bed and opened the bedroom door to noisy mr. kitty meows, I looked back and saw him do it. He also signed “more food” in the middle of the night recently, which I believe really meant “milk please!” he also uses the sign for “book” a lot now. Napped after we came home, so bedtime was 9:30ish.
7/11 Friday! Another nap as soon as we came home- sounds slightly stuffed up, I hope it is nothing serious but may be why he needs extra naps. Bedtime 9:30-10ish, extendo-nursing required. We read lots of books, and he used signs to tell me “more book” when he would go to choose the next one to read. Opened up package from G and G- my old fisher price dollhouse with all the little people/dogs/furniture/car/firetruck… FUN!
7/12
met trina and noah at the FM and bought TONS of blueberries. Then our car wouldn’t start. 🙁 popped the clutch, took it to the mechanic, have to take it to yet another mechanic on Monday. So… we stayed close to home except for a trip to fred meyer (slanted parking lot; I parked strategically but car started fine.) before fred’s, I blew up and filled up Quinn’s pool and he played in it for quite a while, dumping water between various containers. He started a new game of sorting- he walked up while I was unloading the dishwasher and made off with the silverware basket (I always take out the knives first thing in case he wants to help) and took it into the dining room, and sat on the floor. He proceeded to take everything out and put the spoons in one pile and the lids (from milk bottles, etc.) in the other pile. He put them back in and did it at least a couple more times. He also spent a lot of time with the alphabet magnets on the fridge today. He went to bed at 7PM! You just never know…
7/13
we stuck close to home today, given the jeep situation. We did go to nye beach for a little while this morning, but after 40 minutes we were chilly (breezy today!) so we left. We stopped on the way home to buy a transfer doodad to get the videos off my phone and onto a computer. Looking forward to sending those to friends and family, especially dada since he hasn’t seen Quinn walking yet.
Quinn played a lot in his pool again today (3 or 4 different times). We took a long (2 hour) hike on our local rain forest trail (not rainy today- the needles smelled so good underfoot!) bumped into jen, alan, aidan and taryn in the woods- Q goes to daycare with Aidan and Taryn. Quinn “fed” me water from his sippy cup while I hiked. He started on my back but came up front after a half hour or so. The end of the trail is a park with a playground! Still no swings, though, sadly.
Quinn was insatiable with reading books today- I finally took him on that hike because I could not bear to read “more book” yet again. (I think it was in the neighborhood of 15 or 16 books. He signed “more book” after every one!)
He has been surprising me with little things- more sorting, like the green chairs from the dollhouse all collected in the green beach bucket (same shade of green). He colored a little while, but when I looked at the coloring “area” all of the markers were away in the box with the lid on. He was playing with some Qtips and when I told him we don’t put them in our mouth he did this circular motion with one on his cheek (I guess that is what we do do with them! he must have seen me using them on my ears and thought it was my face…)
Another 7 PM bedtime! Ahh… bath and ice cream for mama.
7/14
third day in a row of 7PM bedtime- not as much of a sigh of relief when I don’t get to see him until 5:30! L oh well. I am glad his little body knows when he needs to be sleeping extra. I took him to the school playground (4 blocks away) at 6:30. he didn’t even really want to walk much of the way preferring to be carried or in the sling snuggling. He did play on the slide but around 6:45 even that was too much for him and he asked to nurse and fell immediately asleep as I walked the 4 blocks home. Earlier he “helped” me make dinner- he watched me grate cheese, and reaches down inside the grater as it fills up and grabs a handful to eat. J the car is fixed- $287 and a new starter later… yay for the ‘rents footing the bill! Grandpa’rents that is…
7/15
I think Quinn could have gone to sleep at 7 again but I took him out this evening to a barbecue. Today I worked all day cutting fish (taking samples for several studies including mine) and this was a “thank you” BBQ for the cutting party participants. I met (and cut alongside) another mom, Elizabeth, who works on salmon diet analysis (zooplankton) and has 2 boys, ages 3 (wyland) and 7 months (cole) and got to meet her whole family at the bbq. Quinn got overtired and wound up, but was generally a happy camper. He got to play with the croquet balls and the rain stick at laurie’s (the host’s) house, and eat pita bread, deviled eggs and raspberries. His favorite new word seems to be “down” (dowm) but he also just got the hang of “bread” (usually “hred”). He says “dog” now more often than “woof woof”, which had been the other way around.
7/16
I put quinn right in the sling after daycare and we walked to the beach, stopping at the bike store to get our stroller tire fixed on the way. He was asleep when we got there L so no playing. But I let him just sleep on me as I lounged in the sand, listening to the surf and enjoying the sun. 6:30 is too early for bedtime!
7/17
lots of cleaning this evening, getting ready for our first official company since grammy and grampy! Steve, dena and bodhi will be here tomorrow so we did lots and lots of sweeping, which quinn likes to help with a lot. We also made a pasta salad for tomorrow. We hung up our first co-created masterpiece (a picture of curious george flying from a bunch of balloons, with wonderful coloring by quinn) in quinn’s bedroom. It had been taped on the floor while we worked on it, but we declared it finished and taped down a new big piece of paper.
7/18
we ate our pasta salad for dinner and then steve, dena and bodhi arrived just as we were finishing eating. Quinn was already very tired (he went to the fair today with becky) but ended up staying up late (combo of excitement from company and junk food I have to remind becky not to feed him!) we played outside, planted some strawberries and mint steve dug from his garden for us, and then played with megablocks and trains and the dollhouse until around 10. quinn finally sacked out, but when I came to bed he had fits of restlessness interspersed with nursing until after 11:30. it was pretty rough. No more rainbow goldfish and pink-icing cookies and teddy grahams!
7/19
we spent the morning playing again, then I went to a yoga class while quinn stayed with the woolfs. (my first one in Newport! Yay!) I brought home a lot of blueberries (a quick stop at the FM on the way home) and dena cut up a cantaloupe. Steve cooked some orzo pasta and put melted cheese and tomato pesto sauce on slices of zucchini (baked) so lunch was awesome. Quinn napped for a while, and soon it was time for our friends to leave. We had a nice visit! Then quinn and I went to the beach (briefly; it was very windy!) then to fred’s (also brief thankfully) and I worked on some bread while quinn played with measuring spoons. His vocabulary is snowballing recently. Today he has been saying “boppy” which i have not yet interpreted. New words I can think of (I know there are many I’ll forget to list): up/down (dowm), inside/outside (zide- both of them are zide, context dependent J), bumblebee (bumbumbee), cow, boo, roar (when he sees the dinosaur book he roars), bowl, spoon, bread, cereal, open, help… these are only some of them, but good examples. Later on, I decided to check out the fair because I saw in the flier that there was a siletz Indian drumming and dancing performance going on, so I took quinn in the sling- he LOVED the drumming! He heard it before we even got in the gate and was bopping in the sling. He clapped and swayed and laughed and got SO into the performance. Then we walked through the livestock barns. He said “ba-ba” to the sheep and goats and “neigh-neigh” to the horses. We looked at the quilts and strolled around some more, then came home and quinn fell asleep in the 3 block walk home (we live close to the fairgrounds). A very good weekend so far!
7/20
Talan’s one month birthday! We had a lazy, relaxing day today. We ate a scrumptious breakfast (breakfast burritos) and then walked to the beach. Quinn took pictures with my disposable camera then used it as a shovel. By the time we came home, quinn was sound asleep (10:30) and he proceeded to sleep until 2:15. tired boy! He woke up very refreshed, and we played out in the yard, then in the living room. We read lots of books today. It is fun to see his associations with certain books. The touch and feel dinosaur book elicits a “rar!” whenever he sees it. “does a cow say boo?” is called “boo”. He calls Dr. suess’s ABC book “bumbumbee” because of “what begins with be? Barber, baby, bubbles and a bumblebee!” which is his favorite page.he says “bye bye” at the end of the belly button book (before I read the final line: “bye-bye be-bo!” he points at each balloon in each book, and says balloon, and a lot of them have balloons- good night moon, goodnight gorilla, belly button book, curious george… today when I asked him if he’d like some toby’s (toby’s tofu pate) he replied, “toby.” He has also started saying cheek (chee) when webpoint at his or my cheeks; he has said “eye” for a while now, but although he has said both nose and mouth, he prefers not to say them as much recently. I determined that “boppy” or “buppy” is puppy, I imagine becky calls her dogs “puppy” because I always say “dog” to him, but he likes the word a lot. (personally, bumbumbee is my new favorite word.)
We got some pictures in the mail today (FINALLY! It took a month this time!) and there were several from Portland of Quinn and his dad. I took those out to mail to his dad, but showed them to Q first. He immediately pointed out “dada” and then went through the stack finding dada in each one. Then he helped me put them in an envelope and put it in the mailbox (he literally put it in) and he talked about dada on and off the next hour or so.
He fell asleep around 7:30 for the night, we seem to be settling into a pretty good routine but alas, Monday is almost here again.
7/21
today felt like a time warp. Before I knew it, it was 5:30. becky said the same thing- nap time came and went while the kids played outside, so they napped from 4-5. Quinn was up later, therefore, which was a nice change from last week (8:30). We cooked burritos and ate dinner. Played with blocks, read books, took a walk, the regular evening stuff. he is such a lovable boy.
7/22
the weather was glorious today after work so Quinn and I walked to the beach (Q in sling). There was very little wind (unusual for Newport) and it was warm enough for bare feet in the sand. Q played with his shovel, filling my lap, his bucket, and his truck with sand. Then he told me he was hungry and he fell asleep nursing on the walk home. (7PM).
7/23 17 MONTHS!
A pretty “normal” day… it’s actually nice to say that these days, after so many changes. A little “bum”, a little backyard, some couscous and veggies, some yogurt in the high chair, a lot of nursing, and a nice warm bed to snuggle in!
Leave a Reply