~black and white wednesday~ love letter with no words
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Tag Archives: baby
~rainbow mondays~ spiral heart tunnels
why i love spring: metaphors for rebirth literally growing on trees; the mascot for lightness of being zooming past my head each time i walk out my door; the spiraling of life curling outward into the light; and oh, the light!
rainbow flash!
perhaps inspired by spring, my husband and i are purposefully taking brisk walks, and some slower but longer walks… on the beach!
so nice to catch a sunset on the beach!
lightness, light, and pink blossoms!
baby pink: i am having fun being a nana.
petal pink
red: this rufous male has been showing off quite a range of colors! he is pictured multiple times throughout the post.
red-orange!
orange: moths and bumblebees fluttering in the flowers.
orange: this was amazing to witness! hungry robin (with rusty orange breast) yanking on a worm!
orange: flashy face with backlit tail feathers.
yellow: skunk cabbage in bloom
yellow: angled to shimmer like gold…
green: and emeralds!
green: dusty rose fairy gown columbine foliage emerging!
green: skunk cabbage after a spring rain
green: trilliums! we are amazed at how early these have bloomed this year!
green: i think i am somewhat related to plants in that i only start to feel alive again this time of year. grateful for the light activating my chlorophyll!
green: even the trout lilies are up! depending on how you tilt your head, you can see their curled leaves as spiral heart tunnels.
green: trout lilies almost ready to bloom!
blue: i spied the first forget-me-nots yesterday!
blue: i also witnessed a bald eagle flying overhead stealthily, because i just happened to be looking up.
purple: this young anna’s male has a striking plum color to his plumage.
purple: and perhaps a little candy pink mixed in for good measure?
tan: sand like dragon scales. love the texture!
brown: dahlia spiral memory; in addition to the benign neglect creating habitat for beneficial insects, it provides a frequent perch for the hummingbirds.
white: spring rebirth inspiring me to dust off my heart-shaped lens to look upon this beautiful world!
a splash of color on monday
a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed
~rainbow mondays~ colors of renewal
this rainbow wrap has snuggled several special babies including my own… and now one more!
rainbow dragon hand warmers hand made for me by my dear friend!
hard at work on color wheel assignment; finishing up red violet, best for last!
rainbow dragon camera mama selfie superimposed on smiling boy
the rainbow tree tunnel to date night
pink: cherry blossoms, the promise of renewal!
red: sailor’s delight
orange: bayou overlook view at the golden hour.
yellow: in spite of all the snow, sleet, slush, and hail…
yellow: looking down on golden ripples
green: a bayou date
blue: a beach date
blue: a bayou double date with hawks
purple: a sunset date in the driveway
purple: i’m starting to believe spring is really going to come!
a splash of color on monday
a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed
ten ~ an order of magnitude
for grammy and me, and anyone else who would like to go back and revisit previous birthdays…
last year i was startled to realize that quinn was halfway to 18, and now suddenly he’s halfway to 20. for some reason, time feels like it is accelerating on me.
the time we spend together when i walk him from the car up to the door of the school, never fails to be the time he wants to talk my ear off. i really cherish this precious “get to hear from your kid” time that feels like a secret that a lot of other parents don’t seem know about as they drive their subarus through the “hamster wheel” as i like to call it, and pop their kids directly out of the car onto the doorstep of the school. on one recent walk up, he was telling me all about the next game he is drawing on graph paper which is about angry birds, and explaining all the details to me, but he was still explaining when we got up to the door. i was hugging him, and he just held onto me and kept explaining, so i kept hugging him, and listening, and then he was finally done and let go of the hug and said bye and ran inside.
he has lived a whole year for each one of his fingers, and will have to start counting on toes next year. also, a year for each leg of a crab (they’re decapods!)
10 = 1+2+3+4… from the bathtub, he told me, “there’s actually a fourth person point of view in stories, because sometimes the narrator is telling you about everything mostly through one person’s thoughts.” he explained how in harry potter, he noticed that the narrator isn’t harry, but only reports on the thought process of harry, and observes the actions of other characters from his frame of reference without reporting on the thoughts of other characters. he noticed that this differed from a third person perspective in which the author could see inside all of the character’s thoughts. i proceeded to pull out my notes from reading word painting, specifically the chapter on point of view, and we discussed the subtle nuances between third person omniscient, third person objective, and third person limited omniscient (the magical point of view which he had identified). i had never fully articulated the differences among these points of view, until learning about them approximately a year ago when i read this book intended for writers.
what’s funny is that i had just had a conversation with him about minor frustrations with the level of material he feels he could be learning, which ended in a discussion about using his time in fourth grade to bring his writing level up to speed with his reading and math. more about that in a lifelong learning post, but needless to say, his writing skills are not a big concern.
“now wash your hair, son.”
10 is special. it’s the culmination of the numbers that come before it, and the start of a whole new set of numbers. there is still a little bit of a younger boy in there, the one who still needs to be cajoled into taking a bath, and reaches for my hand as we walk up the sidewalk to school. but there is also an older, mature and capable young man in there, whose brain can wrap around narrative points of view he hasn’t been formally introduced to, who can prioritize his learning goals, and microwave his own tupperwares of rice.
quinn is in an intensive art mode right now, mostly drawing games on graph paper but also some on regular paper and even getting out the markers, not just pencil drawing. he is coloring in and making scenery for games, and designing many intricate details of games. as a result, every time we leave the house for school or karate, he asks, “can i draw in the car?” and a few times recently when i expressed that we were really cutting it close on time, he ran back anyway and grabbed binder/pencil/markers. at one point he told me, “i’m doing a peaceful protest. i’m going to draw on the way to school. i’m like martin luther king jr.” what could i say? “if you are going to be martin luther king, i’m going to be proud. but you also need to bring your backpack for school.” “i’m peaceful protesting again,” now seems to be shorthand for, “i know you’d prefer i didn’t, but i’ve thought about it, and i’m going to anyway.”
10 is the sum of the first 3 prime numbers, 2+3+5. this stage feels like the prime time of parenting. quinn told me the other day, “lisa was being so cute sitting on the white box, and i just had to take a picture of her! so i went and grabbed the camera…. ” i had had no idea, but i adore the fact that i now sometimes get surprise pictures on my camera that i didn’t take.
he’s halfway to 20, the age that, when he was 4, he used to idealize as the magical age at which he’d be able to do all the things he was as yet too little to do.
from 2011: we arrived home to the dark house and snuggled up on the couch in the almost darkness, and i asked if i could talk to him about something. “you know how i told you i’d be going on a boat for a few days?” i explained in more detail how it would be ten days, and all the ins and outs. quinn got very quiet, then he got a little quiver in his voice and sat up straight on my lap (he had been snuggled up against me) and said, “well, can i come on the boat too?” oh god. the agony. the poor kid. i not only feel bad leaving him, but it’s his favorite dream ever to go on a boat and here i’m going and doing the super funnest thing ever (in his mind) without him. so i explained that we’re going too far offshore, where the waves are too bumpy for little people, and we have to do a lot of work with heavy equipment that’s not safe, etc. “well, maybe i could take a nap down in the cabin?” oh my god my throat hurt so badly, listening to his problem solving little self find potential solutions. sigh…. pretty soon he was just saying, “don’t go on a boat, mama!” and we both cried a little bit and i told him i would miss him so much. he asked a lot of questions like why did i have to go on the boat for work, and then finally told me, “when i’m 20, maybe you can go on a boat again and i can go with you because i’ll be 20 and i can catch some salmon and do work on them with you too.” resolved.
mother mother ocean, he’s wanted to sail upon your waters since he was three feet tall. a pirate looks at 10. 10 in roman numerals is x marks the spot!
celebrating having been a mama for a whole decade, i indulged a bit this morning in reading back through the story of his birth, which was a bittersweet time for a multitude of reasons, due to relationship strain and hospital stress all mixed up in the incredible joy of meeting quinn for the first time. i’ll admit it, i was a little teary-eyed while reading these memories. it struck me that birth stories, especially ones that were written, like mine, within days of birth, are impossibly intimate. they distill an unbelievable amount of the human experience into paragraphs, but are almost too graphic to share. i have so far spared the public the play-by-play of cervixes and contractions, dilation and doppler, perineum and pitocin and paramedics, oh my!, but i have extracted a few favorite excerpts of tmi (you have been warned!) to share on the tenth anniversary of the hardest thing i’ve ever done.
(it got bigger. there was still another month to go.)
on induction:
On Wednesday I was finishing up session four of acupuncture when my water broke- I felt a small gush as I sat there all poked with needles in my hands, legs and feet, visualizing flowers opening, water flowing in and out of sea caves, baby’s heads pushing on cervixes and opening them up… woohoo! I thought that would start things off for sure. Kate visited to test that it was really amniotic fluid, and it was. I knew it anyway, it smelled like earthy water, like nothing I’ve smelled before, but reminded me of spring gardening in the rain.
on gathering:
I started finding that I could do 5 or 6 pushes instead of just 4 per contraction, and soon I was able to feel his head- I felt so much hair! This spurred me on- I knew the midwives had been able to see part of his head each time using the flashlight, but now I knew how big a circle I felt, and his hair for some reason made him a real baby and made it real to me that he was coming really soon…. I would sigh with relief to hear his heart beat, take a deep breath, and start the next gathering of my senses~strength~energy~spirit and begin the next push.
on cinnamon:
the midwives were telling me to reach down and hold my baby and talk to my baby and there he was! a slimy little tiny creature with tons of dark hair, all curly from being wet, all curled into a litlte ball of arms and legs and butt and head and umbilical cord. this was the very first time in the entire twenty hours of labor when i wanted to be on the bed. i think i needed help getting my legs on the bed at all. all i could pay attention to was quinn, this little dark haired bundle on my belly. the cord was just long enough for him to lay on my tummy with his head close to my breast. he was so tiny to my eyes, and so amazingly perfect. that was when he really became quinn to me. we had found out he was a boy days before, thanks to a fairly insensitive ultrasound doctor, and had decided almost for sure on his name, but now it was for real. i saw his dark blue eyes, his round cheeks, his tiny pink mouth, his little hands and feet, ears, arms, legs, butt, chin, tummy, chest… his head smelled like cinnamon.
on why i might be overly attached to my placenta:
(after it was decided we would head to the hospital by ambulance) i was immediately thankful we were attached, because immediately someone suggested taking him from me. i think my placenta refused to move from that point on, feeling that we could stay together if it would just cling a little longer…
(at the hospital) i don’t remember that moment of them separating us, i think i blocked it out. next thing i remember was looking over to my right to where quinn was lying on his own little stretcher, surrounded by people in scrubs. i was taken up to the labor and delivery ward, since i had not yet delivered my placenta. that was the first order of business. it sounded like the last thing in the world i wanted to do. i couldn’t really handle the thought of even one more contraction. they said they would need to give me pitocin (a shot in the leg) and then they would push on my belly and i would need to push once and then it should come out. (neither shot of pitocin i was given did anything to stimulate contractions. i never had another one.*) unfortunately, although my head was soaring from the meds, i felt the pain quite well when they pushed on me, but somehow i was able to push once and get the placenta out. it happened quickly, at least. sometime in this vicinity was when word came up that quinn was in the nicu and stable and that he weighed 11 pounds and 15 and a quarter ounces.
*ten years hence, i believe i never will have another contraction, including menstrual cramps. i think my uterus retired right then and there.
on wires and tubing:
it made me so sad that he had to have a tube in his throat. they tried to put him on CPAP (oxygen support that uses tubes inserted into the nostrils) but he seemed like he needed more support, so they intubated him and therefore had a tube down his throat and tape all over his face to hold it in place- i was warned it would be hard to look at him that way… It seemed like a thousand years between when they took him away from me and when I finally got wheeled in beside his crib. he was elevated (all the babies in the neonatal intensive care, NICU, are elevated so the nurses can reach them) and I couldn’t stand up, so i only got to stroke his little hand and talk to him from way down low in the wheelchair. i remember feeling sad and a bit defeated, but at the same time overjoyed to finally be touching him again. I just wanted to hold him. He was peaceful but it was a shock to my system to see how many monitors and tubes and things they had running to and from his little body. That first time in the NICU I didn’t notice any of the other babies. i just focused on quinn, and talked to him so he would hear my voice and know i was there with him. i scanned the layout of the place so i would know exactly where to find him- there are “pods” in the NICU, like little alcoves off a big hallway, and i counted which one he was in from the entrance…
People kept saying to me “no news is good news” and I was so frustrated with that. Any time I would ask how Quinn was, that was the answer I would get. I was still feeling so weak and had to rely on others to be able to be near Quinn, and that was the most frustrating, helpless feeling.
…Now that I had been to the NICU a few times, I had noticed the other babies around Quinn. Most of them were premature, and tiny. I could gaze at Quinn for an entire hour thinking how tiny and perfect he was, then all of sudden I’d glance to the right and the itty bitty girl next to him was less than a quarter of his weight- that was surreal.
I did a lot of studying of monitors and instruments that day to learn what the numbers all meant. I learned that the settings of Quinn’s respiratory support were all very low or “ambient” settings, and that meant he was mostly breathing all by himself with just a tiny bit of enrichment to the air he was being exposed to. I learned which finger clamps and which little pads taped to which parts of his body were pulse oxymeters, which was the thermometer, which was his blood pressure cuff, and what tubing went to and from his umbilical IVs (one was in the umbilical artery, for drawing blood for his repeated tests of dissolved oxygen levels, and one was in the vein for giving him fluids, electrolytes, lipids and aminos, as well as his Fentanyl and antibiotics… I had to learn to be around for shift changes (7am and 7pm) when the nurses give each other the run down of the previous shift, so I could hear what they REALLY thought, not just what they said for my benefit.
on blood loss:
i asked if i could have help getting to the bathroom, so she got another nurse and they supported me over to the toilet and i sat down. then when they helped me to stand up again, i blacked out, i remember the nurse saying “look into my eyes! look into my eyes!” and really trying to obey, but i just couldn’t keep mine open. Then I was sitting down again, and they made me smell something to wake me up, and they helped me get back to my bed and lay down again… My blood hematocrit had been measured that morning, a 19 being pretty far below the “normal” level they quoted to me of 33. The doctors came into my room and told me they strongly urged me to have a blood transfusion. I could live without it, however, it would take me many months to regain my blood supply, and my energy levels would also remain low for a long time. In the end, I decided to have the transfusion because it meant I could be stronger more quickly, and be able to be there for Quinn. That night I had to stay in my room all night because the blood transfusion (two units) took 6 hours to complete. I was more than ready to be up and about the next morning to go see Quinn, and I felt SO much better that I stood up and walked down to his floor myself, trailing my IV pole behind me.
on pumping:
It was so strange to have grown up on a dairy farm milking cows, with milking machines, and then all of a sudden to be a new mother and hooking myself up to the same contraption…by evening I was running on a pretty large surplus over what was needed (according to their calculations) for feeding Quinn every 3 hours. I was holding myself to my 2 hour pumping schedule, and I think that had a lot to do with my success. My midwife checked in with me and reassured me, “your body knows you made a twelve pound baby.” It was so good to be reminded of such grounding wisdom.
source: wikipedia; couldn’t resist this orders of magnitude illustration, complete with baby
and just like that, his time on earth has increased by an order of magnitude. my heart feels as though it has correspondingly expanded like a universe by its own order of magnitude to accommodate all the love i have for him.
~rainbow mondays~ winter banana and stained glass
red: holly berries
orange: amanita mushroom observed during quinn’s school field trip.
yellow: i was so excited when i found these winter banana apples at the fill-your-pantry market that i had to buy some. it is one of the varieties my mom has identified growing on the farm. they grew these on the west coast, too, mom! the farmer said the tree is from the 1940s, like ours.
yellow: sky glow
yellow: ocean kid glow
green: connectome
green: rich saw this and knew exactly which 3-foot section of which two trees in our backyard he was looking at.
blue: appropriately for a wet november weekend, we played games: loot (pictured, though this was round two with custom role play rules), skip-bo, snakes and ladders, chess, and we finally got to learn settlers of catan from good friends!
blue: camp/wedding boss was the party boss for a friend’s baby’s recent baptism, and i had the honor of taking photos. she’s such a great boss, i am so happy to have her on my team.
purple (and friends): sunlight pouring in through stained glass on the day of the baptism. light is so precious and rare this time of year, and i’m making my best effort to collect as much of it as i can when i get the opportunity. sustaining friendships help with the lack of light by warming up the heart. i am lucky to have good friends to help get me through the darker days!
a splash of color on monday
a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed
~rainbow mondays~ comfort food
red: the vacation house is a dragon house, too.
orange: to kick off the weekend, quinn built his ideal band. i believe he had in mind to make this into a video game of sorts, hence the graph paper. he is especially jazzed about having two drum sets. his band also has 2 upright pianos, 2 grand pianos, 11 guitar players in a row downstage from the drums, and 8 violinists just downstage from them (not drawn yet), 4 flutists, 4 singers with microphones, and 4 saxophones, right out front. i know only the pencil is orange, but it’s his favorite one, and it clocked a lot of miles this weekend making games, so i feel like it earned its place in this week’s rainbow.
yellow: january 17th, the daffodils looked lovely that day.
green: walks with my kiddo, when i could pry his orange pencil out of his hand.
green: comfort food, on green dishes. i sigh inwardly when he asks me for this upon first arriving back from his dad’s house… grilled cheese and tomato soup is something i associate with my mom, too.
blue: i mentioned this new nephew of mine last post, and although i make a point to avoid posting other peoples’ children, and especially their faces, on my little corner of the internet, i was urged to post photos of this beautiful boy by his mama, who thinks he is too cute to not shout about from the rooftops, and besides, the other person who reads my blog already knows his name and where he lives. xoxo
blue: so here he is… one day old. can you even handle that smile in his sleep? we are all very much in love with him already. his next oldest sister keeps professing to me how “yeah, cute” he is, sister just older than her says, “he is as cute as a candy cane!” and one more sister votes that he is, in fact, “even cuter than a baby koala bear!” i couldn’t agree more with their assessments.
purple: my camera missed out on the most epic part of the sunset on this gorgeous afternoon, but still managed to catch some purply-gray clouds over the bridge, bay and ocean.
purple: you can never have too much purple in a rainbow, i always say.
a splash of color on monday morning
a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed
~rainbow mondays~ lighthearted
i didn’t take enough pictures this week for a full rainbow monday post, but i also don’t want to skip posting today, because i am feeling so blessed and joyful. i attended a wonderful yoga and writing workshop on saturday that filled me with inspiration was just so invigorating. then yesterday (sunday) looked at a beautiful house with my love that we would like to put an offer on. (all good house-buying mojo/chanting/prayer/finger crossing appreciated! not to wish anyone else out of the running, but there are others interested… even if we don’t get it, it felt very hopeful to see something that was such a good fit for us.) i spent a good hour on the phone with my mom hearing about the niece and nephew blessings in my east coast family, and then not long after that, received the news of my newest nephew’s birth here in oregon. i just returned from meeting him, it’s important to let them imprint on their aunties as early as possible. i am off to a great start on my theme for 2016 of lightheartedness, don’t you think? i thought quinn’s joyful look of receiving rainbow blessings in his upturned hand was perfectly symbolic for the occasion.
a splash of color on monday morning
a photo study documenting the colors of the spectrum: the balance points between light reflected and light absorbed
~this moment~
it’s a moment from 5 years ago… but one i was transported back to this week, when i had the honor of holding my dear friend’s not-yet-24-hour-old son… who also happens to have an abundance of dark hair and was very alert as i held him, like my own baby boy was. ok, so maybe he is a bit smaller than my baby, at a mere 7 lbs 8 ounces… but i will let that slide. it’s still a good healthy size for a baby (even if it’s nowhere near 11 lbs 15 ounces) and i’m so grateful for the chance to get to know this new little human being, and grateful for his safe arrival into my friend’s loving arms. hurray!
a photo capturing a moment from the week.
a simple, special moment.
a moment i want to pause, savor and remember.
archiving
one of my main motivations for having this blog is to create a space to store all of my mama reminiscences in one place, to be able to look back at, both for myself and quinn as he grows, and to share with friends and family. i’m slowly beginning the process of compiling all of the older versions of mama notes (from myspace, cafemom, etc.) into this blog, beginning with quinn’s first month. i have gotten three months in now, which you can either get to one by one by clicking the arrows at the top of the page, or by navigating through the “archives” menu on the sidebar, organized by date. i’m back-dating these posts so they are dated for the time frame when they would have really been written, rather than posting them as “new” posts.
and for new friends, you’re in for a treat because quinn is one of the squishiest cutest babies on the planet!!!
quinn’s twentieth month ~ ducks in a row
9-24 (added on 8-20-20 from found notebook)
this afternoon got pretty gloomy and quinn asked, “sunny go?” then he requested “outside” where he ran around the yard with his hammer exclaiming, “windy!” he asked to eat “dinn-oh” right away after daycare. he also told me “sine-saur” (dinosaur – i didn’t understand so he told me “rarr!” and then i got it!) he helped empty the dishwasher by carrying the bowls over and putting them up on the counter.
9-25 (added on 8-20-20 from found notebook)
this morning when it was time to go to becky’s i asked Q if he could bring me the sling from the bedroom. he could, and he did! it is so cool how he loves to be useful. i guess we all do. he likes to say “clip” and “snap” while snapping together the various buckles on the sling. we did a sling walk to the beach after work, and Quinn was talking up a storm there: “wa-ter!” (used to be wagh), sand, step, hill, beach, doggy, woof, bird, seagull, zipper. he is learning to unzip his jacket, and zip the backpack. as we were leaving, we got to watch a doggy workshop of some sort – about 20 dogs and their owners, learning how to sit/heel/stay. Quinn gleefully distracted the dogs by barking at them from the sidelines.
9/26
quinn picked out his own t-shirt this morning- his brown pisces shirt from aunt Lauren. He had a birthday party for Sydne today at daycare, and then we worked on packing for our trip to Portland. New words: curtain, breakfast, oatmeal…
9/27-9/29
we did a quick trip to the farmers market before we left town for Portland. Quinn had gotten up at 5:30 (early for him) so by the time we got on the road he was ready to settle in for a nap. He did really well in the car, sleeping a long time, then eating snacks and playing until we arrived at baby ariana’s house (“beebee ana!”) to drop off a cooler full of milk. Quinn got to play with his “milk sister” ariana for a few minutes, which was really nice. She is now 9 months old, and starting to stand up and cruise.
Then we were back on the road, to susan’s house, where ronan’s birthday party was just getting started. We ate ladybug cupcakes and homemade vanilla ice cream. quinn was really happy to hang out with his buddies “gippon” (gryphon) and “wo-wo” (ro) again. we took the new scooters to the park and they zoomed around, we took the boys to OMSI for old times’ sake, and we ate lots and lots and lots of good food. yummy burritos, farmers market potatoes with cheddar-beer sauce, farmers market veggies in a stir fry, blackberry pancakes… yum! i felt so well cared for!!!
at OMSI the 3 boys were all decked out in smocks and splashing around in the pool when i noticed quinn collecting all of the greenish-colored ducks out of the lake and setting them up on the ledge in front of him. he worked for several minutes at it, as one would invariably fall on the floor, or back into the water. But he eventually managed to get all of his ducks in a row, and he was very proud. (so was i.)
on Sunday quinn and I ran a few errands- had to get more gummi bear vitamins (“min-a-mins” are very popular with quinn at the moment- he requests one at almost every meal, but only gets one a day) at trader joes, and a few things from new seasons that we can only get in Portland.
Monday Quinn stayed with susan for a little while, as I took care of some things, and then we went to the park again in the afternoon- quinn was having a great time with a basketball someone had left behind. He also got to try ronan’s scooter and was even able to do the one-foot-on-one-foot-pushing action of scooters, he very obviously gets the conceptual end of it, and soon his motor skills will be right there.
We drove home to quinn saying “happy day! Happy day!” as he had been saying all weekend (I finally figured out it is “happy birthday” but susan and I decided it shall be an every day phrase “happy day” from now on…) Quinn slept (it was bedtime) but woke up in Lincoln City and was pretty bummed to still be stuck in the car for another half hour- luckily that was all that was left of the trip! We went immediately to bed on arrival home.
There were so many new and refined words I lost track this weekend- ones I rememeber: frog, ribbit,
9/30
nap
store
dinner
egg/yogurt
bath
books
nurse/bed
10/1
I picked quinn up from daycare at noon, because becky called and said he was not feeling well. He has been runny nosey for a few days, but nothing serious. But it was affecting his ability to have fun, for sure. Luckily it is October now so I had a sick day… just barely. He felt much better.
10-3 (added on 8-20-20 from found notebook)
Quinn refused to eat lunch at daycare, and Becky thinks the hunger strike has to do with food envy – specifically she thinks he covets the other kids’ lunchables. luckily she knows me well enough to know i won’t buy them, so she saved me a bright red empty lunchable tray so i can reuse it to make Quinn hippie lunchables. tonight as i sang Quinn the ABCs, he sand along for Q, W, and “now I!”
10-4 (added on 8-20-20 from found notebook)
we went to the much-reduced farmer’s market this morning and met noah and trina. we got some turnips to try, and some gorgeous kale. amazingly, there are still strawberries! Quinn started his nap earlier than usual (10:45) and didn’t eat much besides milk beforehand. he nursed a lot today and ate only small amounts until just before bed, in fact (yogurt and avocado at bedtime). after nap, we swung by salvation army to see if they had speakers/stereo equipment (no) and got Quinn 2 nice long sleeve shirts. then we went to the aquarium and spent the whole afternoon there. Quinn was more into running around the paths and climbing the rocks but did stop occasionally to watch the otter, sea lions, puffins, fish, crabs, etc. he got a little riled up (wanted to climb in the puffin tank), so i put him in the sling where he immediately asked to nurse. i threw on my big shirt over us and sketched in my sketchbook while he snuggled and got calm. he stayed in for a while and looked at fish (cowfish, lionfish, seahorses, etc.) and then he wanted to get down again and roam outside. we took the nature trail, and just as we got to the end of it, it started to rain, so we headed for home. we played trains, sang our ABCs some more, and then off to bed. words: butt, sorry, scattered (i was telling someone on the phone i was feeling scattered…) as for the alphabet, Quinn was singing W-X-Y-Z- now-I in the car, and this evening he added a bunch of new ones while I sang- he chimed in with E-F-G, P, Q, T-U-V, W-X-Y-Z-Now-I, Me!
10/6/08
the night before last i woke up to quinn giggling in his sleep! it was freakin hilarious. he just slept right through it.
10-7 (added on 8-20-20 from found notebook)
first visit with dada since the move.
10-9 (added on 8-20-20 from found notebook)
dada was waiting by front door for him after daycare. he was happy.
10/10/08
a while ago i recorded a video of quinn looking at pictures and at the end i said “dada misses you very much” or something like that and quinn looked at the camera and i don’t know if i imagined it or wHAT but had this sigh that was like…way too mature for him by like 20 years.
he is an old soul… i actually imagined in that last bit where he sighs, that he said “yub dada” or “dada
uv” or something to that effect which i heard as i love dada. sigh. this morning he was talking about dada first thing again, and he picked up a piece of wood to act as a phone (anything can be a phone) and put it up to his ear and said “dada bum!” into his phone a bunch of times. last night he handed each of us one of the blocks that he uses for phones, and dada and i had a conversation from the kitchen to the living room (i was making dinner breakfast burritos) and quinn stood halfway between us just soaking it up.
10-11 (added on 8-20-20 from found notebook)
“it’s so funny.”
“tea kettle.”
10-12 (added on 8-20-20 from found notebook)
mail box, bunny, rabbit, paddle, boom, line… words.
10/14/08
i made quinn a sling so he can carry his babies in it- got it all finished and laid it out on the couch for him next to the big sling, for when he woke up in the morning. except he woke up when i came to bed, and couldn’t get back to sleep. he nursed on and off, but would end up tossing or turning and needing to nurse more but finally he just got so frustrated and cried, and anything i asked him (do you want food? water? etc) he said NO! until i said do you want to get up? YEAH… so we got up, there was the sling on the couch, he threw it on the floor (i did not expect him to be super happy about it in that mood though) and i couldn’t do ANYTHING to make him happy, he went over to the window that looks out on the driveway, and hid behind the curtain and any time i came near yelled “no!” and cried. so… it was 11:30 so i called his dad, thinking maybe he might have advice. he hadn’t asked for dada yet and i hadn’t really said anything about dada, thinking if dada wasn’t an option, why bring him up? but he was up, actually out crabbing (crazy man. it’s full moon, he couldn’t sleep.) he said it would take him a long time to get there… and i said well he hasn’t asked for you yet… but just then quinn’s mad crying turned to sad desperate “dada” crying. oh man. so i asked him if he wanted dada, YEAH. we went to the fish dock, which was actually really cool for me, just to walk out the pier with q in the sling, i never get to be on the water at night anymore (i have a baby) so i was loving it. then we got to see dada pull up his two traps, and then he packed it all on his bike (including a bucket of 5 crabs) and we followed him in the car back to his shop. (it’s a block or two away). and we hung out while he put the crabs in a cooler with an aerator for the night so he could deal with them today, and we got back in the car and went home. then quinn was so happy. and he wanted to clip the buckles on his new sling, and then he wanted it
“on. on. on.” and so i put it on him, and we put the monkey in it, then a duck and a raccoon who could both fit together. he was just happy.
the aquarium was really fun. i didn’t get to see the sharks last time so that was cool. quinn loved it. he would drag dada through all the tunnels in all the rocks, and wanted to do all the stairs.
10/16/08
last night quinn napped as soon as we got home, and that always sets things off. i figured we’d do the library, maybe even go buy groceries, if he seemed not tired yet after the lib. so we did that, and all was basically well. the library was fun, the stories were about squirrels (squirrels are our THEME – say in ani living in clip voice). he wasn’t all caught up with dada at least. he made me go up and down the stairs at the library (two flights down to the children’s room) about 4 times before we could go check out our book and go home. so cute. then he asked for milk on the way to the car but i gave him peanuts and raisins mix (i always have some snack available when we go places to facilitate getting him back into the car seat.) so he loved that. he thinks nuts and raisins are just the greatest thing in the world. he was happy when we got home. he wore his sling a little, he played well.
i guess around this age a lot of kids have their first nightmares, so that could be going on. i think there is teething involved (2 yr molars- he is yanking on his mouth a lot) and both becky and i think his recent upsets have everything to do with dad being back in the picture- she had mentioned at the end of the week last week (the 1st week of dad being back around) that q is doing a lot more hitting/throwing/etc and that she actually put him in time out at times (in the pack and play) because he just needed to be alone to deal with himself. and i asked her this morning if she felt that was all pretty recent, ie since dada’s return and she said oh absolutely i think so.
10/17/08
quinn had another rough night. he woke up at 3 with another dream (if that is what it is.) and cried a bit but i was able to keep him in the bed and get him to nurse, i just had to sit up and hold him in my lap first. usually i don’t even sit up when he wakes at night… so yeah my sleep is short and very broken up compared to normally… i woke up at 7 and woke him up at 8:20 and we were less late than yesterday but still late… but he is making glitter pumpkin art today so he’ll have fun. and he has strawberries in his lunch because i felt like buying out of season fruit on sale.
10/18/08
last night went much better… quinn had no night terrors (which i think is what they are, not nightmares. if that is what it even was, and not molars. sheesh) he did wake up quite a few times to nurse but it was the normal eh-grope-latch-on thing where no one even has to open their eyes and certainly not sit up. so i had 9 hours of fairly restful sleep and he slept really really well from like 8 to 7:45. and he took a 3 hour nap at day care yesterday so he is getting caught up i think. i just read that being overtired can aggravate night terrors which was my hunch, which is why i was super happy about the nap and the relatively early bedtime (compared to this past week anyway.)
night terror description (added on 8-20-20 from found notebook)
Quinn went to bed last night at 7:50pm but woke at exactly 2 am asking for “song, CD, CD, up!” i told him we had to lie down, it was still night time. he got up out of bed, telling me no emphatically, and pointing to the door. as soon as i caved, though, and decided to get up and go in the living room, he wanted nothing to do with me – wouldn’t hold my hand, did not want me to pick him up or touch him at all, and began crying the same way he has on other recent nights. having researched it a bunch online yesterday, i think this is the “neural storm” of a night terror, and for 57 minutes, he cried and wanted me at a distance. he didn’t even end up leaving the bedroom, just stood in the middle of the floor and cried, eventually going inside the closet (where the light was on) and continuing to cry. it stopped very suddenly, and he wanted “mama” and quickly climbed into my lap. we changed his dipe and he nursed back to sleep. the suddenness is unnerving, and i can see his eyes change from a look of despair and confusion to a look of alertness and relief and “oh mama.”
in the morning we woke up together and had bagels and cream cheese for breakfast. we took the stroller to the farmer’s market and met trina and noah as they were parking by the coop. we walked the rest of the way together and worked our way through the market, quinn bopping his head to the violin music. he held onto a huge bell pepper for me, and after a while also accumulated a carrot and an apple, both of which he munched on – he was very mellow for the whole trip. almost as soon as we got home,he wanted to lay down and nurse (i love how happy he gets when he decides he wants milk, tells me, i ask, “do you want to lie down?” and he runs gleefully to the bed, laughing and acting like the luckiest kid on earth. it is so sweet!) he was out by 11 am, and i proceeded to make tomato sauce and put away carrots, broccoli and peppers in the freezer. (next week is out last FM for the year and i’m in denial and mourning!)
10/20/08
we had one more night terror friday night from 2-2:57AM, and then none the last two nights, phew! he got upset when i was going to leave him at daycare this morning, so i stayed a little longer again but he just needed a couple more hugs and then he was ready to go color, and it’s so cute, when he decided he was ready for me to leave he brought me my coat. (i had worn it over both of us this morning but took it off to get him out of the sling). so cute. sometimes he lets me out the sliding door and closes it behind me, little doorman.
we had a really good weekend. went sailing on saturday afternoon, quinn fell asleep in the boat and i froze my butt off. in fact i’m still chilled from it. that paddle was in our garage, left behind by former owner (before my landlords) and they said we can have it. so that one is for Q. how cute is that?
sunday we attempted to hike but Q just wanted us all to stand in the moss together, and play in the sand together, and not hike very far. then after nap we took him to the beach and he decided to climb all the way to the top of this long staircase that basically gets you from the beach up to the top of the cliff where civilization is (we usually just take the ramp) he had so much fun “stepping!”
10/23/08
quinn and i each ate a gigantic bowl of brown rice, squash, and salty squash seeds. best dinner last week, i know it’s ridiculously simple. my son loves orange-yellow veggies though. he has sweet potato in his lunch today.
10-23 (added on 8-20-20 from found notebook)
“ten!”
“katydid”
twenty months old!