No ni-ni...

Quin is starting to talk quite a bit. I'm happy to say that he is finally speaking in sentences! Of course, most, if not all of his sentences are just telling us no to different things that we want him to do. "No ni-ni." "No eat." "No Bath!" I guess you have to start somewhere!

The other day, Ethan, Quin, and I were out to eat and had some time to burn before we went to swimming lessons, so we went to Best Buy. We walked in past the DVDs. I was looking at the Weeds Season 5 DVD with Marie Louise Parker on the front - Quin pointed at the cover and said, "Mommy!" I thought that was pretty nice, because even though she's older than Jenny, she's quite good looking. We then progressed further down the aisle when Quin picked out another movie where he pointed at Brad Pitt and said, "Daddy." Smart boy!

We went to the pet expo down at State Fair Park yesterday. We aren't really in the market right now for a dog, but we thought we'd start looking... Ethan has fallen in love with the Boston Terrier breed. Who knows what will happen ultimately, but it was fun to have the kids interacting with dogs again...

New Year

Happy New Year! In the name of New Year's Resolutions, I've resolved to blog on a more regular basis this year! I've found that blogging is nice on several levels. It allows people who care to follow along with what is going on with our lives (or ignore it, which is nice as well). This is important right now since my parents have moved to Arizona for the remainder of this winter and will be grandchild starved for 3 months! But more than that, it allows us to go back years later and see what we were doing now.

I've been putting off an update for a long time now. At first it was innocent enough - just didn't have time. Soon it started to feed itself, though. I kept thinking of how much had happened since my last update, and thinking that I'd never get it all into a post. The more I thought about it, the more I dreaded doing another update for fear of leaving something out. I've finally decided to take a stand and to post what I think of at the time, knowing that my family will remind me of the things I've forgotten.

Quinton has been growing up quite a bit in the last few months. Physically he has grown into a full blown toddler. I don't recall if he was in a toddler bed as of the last posting, but he is. It all happened because he kept climbing out of his crib and falling down, waking him up. The transition to the toddler bed has been a difficult one, but we have it under relative control at this time. For the first few weeks it seemed much worse than when he was an infant getting up three times a night. I think we got used to getting pretty regular, long periods of sleep, and being torn from that made me quite cranky! Anyway, with the help of The Supernanny, we are now back to where we were at several weeks before he started crawling out of his crib, which is to say that we can put him down to bed awake and he will fall asleep, and he will stay in his room most of the night, even if he wakes up - he has started getting up earlier for some reason, but we'll deal with that as time goes by.

Quin has also started to become more and more vocal. I would say he's a bit behind where Ethan was at this age, but he is definitely starting to roll! Each day he learns new words, though many of them are used incorrectly and most of them are hard to pick out.

His favorite word is "no," which is not as bad as it might sound. No is to Quin like Aloha is to the Polynesians - it has several meanings. The only way to know what he's really saying is to listen to the inflection of the word. For example, "No," said with force and cross eyes really means no. "No," said in a sing-song way with a smile generally means "yes." Confusing? Yes, but I suppose that's what it is to be a parent...

Quin has recently started to show a genuine love of books. He will pick up a book, hand it to either one of us (or any adult, really), and say "Book!" He then sits on the floor and patiently waits for you to read to him. He won't sit through the entire book, though he'll be interested longer if you make funny noises while reading the book!

One of Quin's better qualities is his courtesy. He learned "Thank You" several weeks ago and uses it in the correct context almost all the time. Today we were at our friend's house ice skating. Quin was struggling to get going on the ice, so our friend Tim helped him to move in the right direction. Quin immediately said "dit dyu," which translates to "thank you."

Quin's had a couple of sicknesses in the last month, but recently he's been feeling quite well. So well, in fact, that he appears to have no end to his appetite. He eats and tries to eat pretty much every waking hour. Two nights ago, I put Quin down to bed and came downstairs to take a shower. When I got out of the shower, I found Quin in the kitchen helping himself to some Cheerios. Jenny said she thought it was me eating, and was confulsed why I hadn't responded when she asked me something...

Perhaps one of the most challenging things about Quin right now is to deal with his love of water. He loves all things water. He loves to be in the pool, go down waterslides, he puts his face in the water, he loves baths... He also loves to drink water. Lots of water. And he doesn't wait for us to get it for him either. We have the misfortune of having a refridgerator with ice and water in the door. It is old enough that it does not have a lock on those devices. Quin figured out how to run these long ago. He has recently discovered all the different things he can put under the water dispenser to fill. If there is a glass available, he will fill it up and start to drink from it. If there isn't a glass, he'll go into the tupperware cupboard and fill up one of those containers. He has recently tried to fill some of his cup-like toys with water. The only problem with that is that some of them have holes in the bottom! When he is done drinking the water, he starts pouring it from one container to the next, and eventually will dump it on the floor. He will generally attempt to clean this up, but that usually ends up making more of a mess than the water itself...

Of course Quin is growing by leaps and bounds, so there's lots of things to write about him right now. Ethan is moving right along as well, though there's not that much interesting to write about him. One encounter with him was pretty funny, though. A week or two ago, Ethan was sitting in the car waiting to go somewhere. I put Quin in the car and said something like, "Whew, something smells bad. Ethan, did you poop your pants?" Typical dad humor, and generally Ethan plays along. This time, however, Ethan pulled a new one on me. He said, "Dad, why do you always say that to me? That's insulting." I was kind of shocked - I'd never heard that word from him and was surprised to hear it in the right context, so I asked him what he meant by that. He said, "You are always accusing me of doing things that you know I wouldn't do, but that Quinton would." I couldn't do anything by apologize and to stop insulting him!

Kickles and Hillbillies

Of course my wife reminded me of some things I forgot... If only she knew how to blog!

The other day Ethan and I were driving to Soccer when we passed a section of road we frequently pass. On one side of the road is a pretty steep, tree-covered hill with a couple of houses on top. Ethan asked me, matter of factly, if the people living there were hillbillies. To be honest, I was laughing to myself, but calmly collected myself before explaining that they were not hillbillies. I was a little surprised that I was unable to come up with a really good description of a hillbilly without referencing Deliverance...

Not sure if I mentioned this one or not yet, but it deserves a repeat if I have not. A few months back, Jenny's nephew invited us to his apartment to dinner with his two kids. His oldest is about a year older than Ethan. The two of them get along very well. While they were eating, Matthew asked Ethan if he wanted to play cards after dinner. Intrigued, one of the adults (there were many, so I can't remember who it was) asked him what type of card games he liked to play. He answered, "you know, five card stud, Texas Hold 'em, those kind of games. My grandma taught me how to play them. Ethan looked at him and said, very matter of factly, "My grandma taught me how to crochet."

I also forgot a couple of cute things Quin has done in the past months. He doesn't do it so much anymore, but about a month ago, we were reading a book to him called Fishy Kisses and Gorilla Hugs. Jenny taught him to do both, so he was going around giving everybody fishy kisses with his mouth pursed and moving... He still gives them on occasion, but not quite as much as he did a month ago.

He also loves to be tickled. He pronounces it "kickle." He'll raise his shirt and stand by you saying, "kickle" until you tickle his belly. One day he was playing with a toy dinosaur, complete with growling dinosaur roars. At one point, he took the dinosaur and put him on my stomach and said, in a growly dinosaur voice, "kickle, kickle."

Lastly, Quin has been using the potty lately as well! Well, I guess he's not really using it. He stands by the toilet and asks me to put him on there, pants on and all. He'll sit there for a minute or two, smiling, then grab the roll of toilet paper, take a few pieces (I help him to only take a few pieces), then pretend to wipe his butt. When he gets done wiping his butt, he takes the same piece out from behind him and wipes his face... Not sure where he saw that one. I can only assume Jenny does that.

Freedom...

Quin climbed out of his crib the other day. We were working around the house and he was acting like he was tired. He generally doesn't like to take naps during the day, but we like him to take naps. So I put him in his crib and began to let him "cry it out." I went outside to take care of something, and a couple of minutes later came back inside to find Quin standing downstairs, smiling at me. He hasn't done it since, but we now know it is possible...

Vacation 2009 - Evil River Part II

Here it is, the big vacation update! Of course, it's been a month since we went, so the memories have already started to fade, but I've uploaded some pictures to our photo gallery and the site's slideshow is now showing them. Hopefully this gives a better idea of how the vacation went. To see all of the pictures in the album, either click on the slideshow, or try this link here.

In August of this year, our family joined the Zieglers, Johnsons, and Abholds on a trip to St. Germaine, WI to stay at one of the remote Black Bear Lodge resorts. The resort was pretty nice, 6 cabins arranged along the lake with piers out front, a firepit, a shared fish house, and a "game room." We selected the first off-peak week to book our stay, and were rewarded with some of the coldest weather I can remember on a summer vacation. The first day was pretty nice, in the low 80s, and the second wasn't too bad, in the mid to upper 70s, but that was the end of that. Weather ranged from the 30s at night to windy and 50s during the day. Our cabins faced west, so we took the full brunt of the wind most of the time. Luckily we were able to find activities to do that did not involve going in the water or being outside all the time...

One such activity was going to GI Joe. Early in the week, Ethan and I decided that we were going to see this movie during this week because we rarely get an opportunity at home to get out to the movies. Unfortunately we didn't end up going until the second to the last night, and that was one of the nights that was actually pretty nice from a weather perspective. Nonetheless, we both enjoyed the movie, Ethan moreso than me as he has, or more specifically had declared it his favorite movie of all time. On the ride back from the movie, Ethan was discussing the finer aspects of movie making and asking my opinion on whether they would make another one. He has pretty much figured out Hollywood already as he basically equates the likelihood of a sequel on the money the original takes in. Hopefully I don't spoil the ending, but Cobra gets captured by GI Joe (there, I spoiled it). Ethan summed up the potential of future Joe movies by saying this,

"Everybody knows the bad guys are going to get out, and they're probably going to make a lot of money, so I'm sure they'll make another one..."

Quin busied himself all week by perfecting several new skills. One of the ones he's been working on for awhile now is the ability to walk up and down stairs without having to sit down. I'm not sure why he is so intent on doing that, but once he sets his mind on something, he does it and doesn't stop until he's satisfied that it is done right. So he entertained himself by walking up and down the camp stairs for what seemed like hours on end. By the end of the week, he could do it without falling or sitting down.

It seems silly to talk about now since he has added so many new words, but the vacation up north seemed to be Quin's verbal coming out party. Probably because I don't see him all day, but it seemed to me that Quin learned and used more words on vacation than he's ever used before. Now, looking back, I think that may have been true, but his latest achievements have far eclipsed those of that week. Let's see, he was still using "all done" with great success, he had "go-go-go" down pat, and was also starting to attempt to pronounce some more difficult things. For example, one day he got stuck in a lawn chair. He looked at Jenny and said, "guck." On another day, he picked up a rock and proudly said "cock."

As I said, many of our activities involved things away from camp, and away from the wind. On a particularly cold day, we found our way to the go-kart track. Ethan was very excited to drive his own go-kart. Unfortunately, when we got there we realized that you had to be 53" tall to drive one yourself - he only measuredin at 52" (thank God!). So Ethan abided and rode tandem with me - I let him drive, and let me tell you, it's a good thing he didn't drive himself!!! After the go-karts, he discussed at length the possibility that he might grow an inch in the next 24 hours so he could drive a go-kart tomorrow!!!

In the end, it was a very nice week, despite the weather. We got to see some of the tamest ducks I've ever seen, we saw a dog destroy a muskrat Discovery Channel style, and Ethan and I even fished a little bit. In fact, once I found Ethan fishing off the end of the dock by himself with no prodding or bargaining from me at all!!! Now that the kid's trip is out of the way for the year, it's time for Jenny and I to start planning the adult's-only vacation that we so desperately need!!!

Quin Quickie

I couldn't resist blogging this before my "big vacation update" later this week...

Quin has been talking A LOT MORE lately. I sat down to try to figure out the words he knew now and lost track. He's become much more interesting in the last month or so. Anyway, a game that I always play with him is to push his nose and say "beep beep." Ethan might do it to him, too. So now he goes around and pushes people's noses and says "bee bee" just like we do...

Apparently he doesn't just stop at noses, though. This morning when I was changing his pants, he grabbed his penis and said "bee bee..." Once I figured out what he was doing, I had to concentrate very hard not to laugh so hard that he fell off the changing table...

Kissing Cousins

Kissing Cousins

These pictures are from awhile ago, but I thought they were cute enough to post anyway!!! This is a picture of Quinton kissing his cousin. Man, he's really going for it! OK, they are second cousins once removed, or third cousins or something (you'd have to ask Blaine for the exact designation), so that's probably OK in most You can tell they are from awhile ago as they were for Jodi's baby shower - and they've already had the baby!!! Man, I just don't 'blog enough...

Swimming at the Lake

Jenny and I participated in a triathlon two weekends ago. My parents came down to watch the boys while we were out punishing our bodies (thanks mom and dad). The festivities took place in a state park, so we purchased a state park sticker. Since we purchased the sticker, we've decided we should try to get our money's worth from it - so to make a long introduction a bit longer, we've been going to the state parks in the area all week this week. On Tuesday, Jenny has her tennis league, so it's just me and the boys for the evening. Last night was warmer and sunny, so we decided to go to the state park and hit the beach. Quin just loved the water. I couldn't keep him out of it. He first found some puddles towards the top of the beach where he played for quite awhile. Until, that is, he realized there was a BIG puddle not too far away (the lake). Once he got there I couldn't get him out of there! He just loves the water. He makes me kind of nervous, though, since he has absolutely no fear of, and also no coordination in the water. Eventually he found a way to get around without falling in the water and swallowing a stomach full...

The funniest part of this story is the contrast between the boys taking a trip to the lake alone and taking a trip with mom in tow. When we went to the lake last night, we all put our swimming suits on at home, went to the lake, swam, then remembered that we needed a towel - luckily there was one in the van. We all used the same towel, dried off, went home, and went to bed. Tonight we did the same trip, this time with mom. When Ethan and I got home from work and camp, there was a picnic supper packed, extra clothes, four towels, garbage bags for our refuse, I could go on. Let's just say there are differences between trips that dad plans and those that mom does...

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Quinton has been serenading us with his lovely singing voice lately. We've been shocked lately to hear a very recognizable rendition of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," or it could be the alphabet song... The words aren't that clear, but the tune is spot on. He is already a better singer than Jenny!

Remote Control Car

A week or two ago, I got Ethan's remote control out and we played with it in the driveway. Ethan and I were having a blast, but Quinton didn't like it so much... He spent the entire 30 minutes we played with it on my lap clinging for dear life. Strange what kids will be afraid of.

Marley and Me

A week ago, Ethan and I watched the movie "Marley and Me" while Jenny was gone for a night out with the girls. It is a basic movie about life, family, and the family pet, Marley. If you just looked at the title and watched casually, you would think that the movie is actually about a dog and its owner. If you are an attentive and perceptive viewer, however, like Ethan, you might just take away a different message from the movie. The message Ethan took away from it was quite intuitive. Towards the end of the movie, Ethan says to me, "Dad, do you want grandchildren?" I said, "of course." He replied, "Well, you better hope Quin has some then, because I'm never going to." When I asked him why, he told me, "because kids ruin your life." Apparently the message he took away from the movie was that being young and married with a dog is a blast and you get to "make out" all the time. Once you have kids, though, your life is over and you don't even get to "make out" anymore... Very perceptive, indeed.

Cub Scout Camp

Cub Scout Camp

Last week, Ethan and I attended Cub Scout day camp for our second year. This year we went on the 3 day camp. Camp started at 9:00 AM and went until 4:00 PM. Besides the mosquitoes, it was a bona-fide blast for both of us. Ethan was able to do all sorts of different activities, including archery (which is is very good at), mini-golf (which he is not so good at), highlander games, knight's quest, etc. For me, it was a good opportunity for me to see Ethan interact with other kids and adults and how he did in the different physical and social situations. Let me tell you, if you ever find yourself annoyed at your child, spend some time with other people's children - like 18 of them. You will quickly appreciate your own!

Ethan proved very adept at archery, and we got do shoot each day we were there. He also very much enjoyed the castle out of which his group was based. I was very proud of the fact that he tested into the "swimmers" category, the highest category at camp. To do this, he had to swim 6 laps in the lake swim area on his front, then 2 on his back. Only 2 other kids in his group tested that high! Guess those YMCA lessons are paying off.

The camp is themed for the different years in scouts. Wolf scouts are the Pirates and do their activities around a pirate ship. Their leader is Captain Chris. Bear scouts, which is Ethan's group, are the Knights and are based out of the castle. Their leader was Sir Jim. Webelos are miners (as well as minors) and are based out of the mine. Their leader was Miner Mikey. The staff was outstanding and kept the kids engaged at all times. At one point Ethan assured me that he was going to stay in scouts until he received his Eagle. I would love if he would stick with it that long...

At closing of the second day, the heads of each of the groups declared that for the last day, the kids could shed their costumes and wear regular clothes just like the leaders. The leaders, incidentally, wore clothing matching their role - so Captain Chris wore a pirate outfit, etc. When they said that, Ethan was just about vibrating with excitement. Dressing up in costumes is one of his favorite things in the world. We spent about two hours the rest of the night preparing our costumes, him as a knight and me as a miner. The next morning he could not wait to get to camp! By 7:30 he was already asking me if it was time to go yet. When we finally got to camp at 8:45, he was disappointed to find out that not all kids shared his enthusiasm. In fact, only about 3 of the 80 kids at camp dressed up at all, and I was the only adult... He made me very proud, though, and stuck with his custume throughout the day. His biggest worry coming into the day was that his costume would not be the coolest. At the end of the day, however, he was convinced that his was, indeed, the coolest costume.

Miscellaneous Updates

Quinton has discovered that he likes to drive the vehicles that Grandpa and Grandma Grady bought for Ethan some years back. What is surprising is that he is actually able to drive them to some extent! Invariably he ends up in the weeds and somebody has to turn him around, but he definitely knows how to make them go.

He is starting to say more and more words. He says "bye bye" regularly now and waves. He is very goofy sometimes... When I first see him after work, he gets a big smile on his face and runs up to me, seemingly to give me a hug. When he is almost to me, he stops, bends over, pretends to pick something up off the ground, then hands it to me... Not quite sure what he's doing there. He has also been prone lately to spin around in circles for several seconds until he falls down from dizziness.

I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of it right now. Hopefully Jenny will read this and remind me of what I've missed.

It's amazing how Quin already thinks he can do everything his big brother can do. This morning I asked Ethan to help me take out the garbage, so he wheeled the garbage can that I had sitting out over to the side of the road. Quin, not to be outdone by his big brother, saw that I had the red plastic gas can sitting by the van waiting for me to fill it for the lawnmowers, and promptly grabbed it and started moving it towards the side of the road as well...

Testing out a new "quick-blog" tool from my Mac. It doesn't allow me to post pictures or anything, but should allow me to post more quickly and, therefore, more often.

Quin woke up ata 5:00 this morning! What is the matter with him!!??! About a week ago he went four days straight waking up at 6:30 or later. Jenny had to wake him up one day at 7:30 so she could get Ethan off to school! I don't remember when they start sleeping properly. I know it's by the age of 6 or 7 if their name is Ethan.

Quin's talking quite a bit more.  It helps that he can somewhat tell us what he wants. If he's hungry, he goes and points to his high chair, but normally he just wants a "nana (banana)." Of course, his most effective way of saying that he wants something that we're not providing properly is to scream at a very high pitch. Remember the most annoying sound in the world from Dumb and Dumber? Well, they weren't quite right.

That's about the limit of this new tool's ability to post, so I'm off.

Pets...

Quinton and Ethan's, well, all of our pet Barley passed away on Monday. Two weeks ago she suffered what appears to be a slipped disc in her back. Her back legs quickly became disabled, and over the course of the next two weeks she lost control of her bladder and bowels. She was almost nine years old.

The kids really loved her. Quin probably moreso than Ethan, though she's been a fixture in our house since Ethan has been around. Quinton just loved her, despite the fact that he tried to kick her on occasion and pulled her hair, all of which she handled without complaint.

Monday was a very difficult day for Jenny and I. She spent the weekend at the vet in hopes of a miracle that just didn't come. On Monday, the whole family went to the vet knowing what was going to happen. Jenny and I spent a lot of the time in tears. Ethan looked sad and seemed like he wanted to cry but just couldn't. I think he was upset most by seeing how upset Jenny and I were. Later in the day he did manage to get a good cry out, but it was a confusing time for him I believe.

Her life ended peacefully, though a tad early. One of the main issues we're encountering in her absence is how much we have to clean the floor around Quin while he's eating!!!

She loved to sit on the back of the chair in the sun. She loved to come and welcome you whenever you came over. She was a good dog and we will all miss her.

Sesame Street

Lots has happened since the last time you were updated on my two favorite kids. Ethan and Quin's only remaining great-grandmother passed away, Ethan received his first communion, and Quin has had his first ride on the lawnmower... Let's begin.

To set the table, I used to watch video blogs on the mac while I was feeding Quin last year. It was nice because I was able to control them with the remote control while I used my other hand to hold the bottle. One of my favorite blogs is College Humor. The video I happened to be watching that day was titled "Pot Cookie Monster" about a cookie monster like the one from Sesame Street but instead of regular cookies, he liked pot cookies... Here is the video...



At any rate, about a week ago, out of the blue, Ethan asked me who my favorite Sesame Street character was. It's not unusual for him to ask my favorite of whatever, today it just happened to be Sesame Street Characters... I answered, because I have to, "I don't know, maybe Oscar the Grouch." He responded that his was Big Bird. I then thought about it and said, "wait, maybe Cookie Monster." He asked me, "don't you mean Pot Cookie Monster." I guess the moral of the story is that Net Nanny and other programs to protect your kids from these types of things on the internet aren't that effective if you are letting them watch you browse the internet...

Last weekend was Ethan's first communion. He did fine, but he was a little nervous. At one point I caught him rehearsing the exact position of his hands when he went up to receive the host.

Quin is getting bigger and more bold all the time. He has now successfully climbed the ladder up to Ethan's top bunk and found a way to crawl into the bed! Today I found him on top of the kitchen table!!!

Quin is also talking a bit more. His best expression (the one we can understand the best) is "All Done," which he sings rather than says. Lately he's been making Mmmm sounds, which Jenny hopes will lead him to finally say "mama" but so far no luck. He's also starting to mimic Ethan pretty well. Ethan is a bit of a protector and enforcer with Quin, so when Quin starts doing something "naughty," Ethan says "No no no." Of course, Quin picked that up right away and can now say "No No No" in the right context and everything!

3 S's for Ethan

It's been awhile since I've updated this site on my favorite 7-year old. Ethan's been doing quite a bit lately, now in the home stretch of his 2nd grade year, about to receive his first communion. But why the title "3 S's for Ethan?" Really it all stems from a sad little game I play with my brain when I'm trying to remember something. I figure my brain can only remember 3 things at a time, and then only if I name them interestingly. In this case, I came up with three things I wanted to write about for Ethan, and I managed to make them all conform to some word starting with S. Let's begin:

Skiing

A couple of weeks ago, Ethan, Jenny, and I went to Lutsen, MN for a small ski vacation. We left Quin with his Grandpa and Grandma Grady for the few days we were up there. It was a great vacation, but the nicest part was to see how well Ethan had taken to skiing. This is his fourth year on the slopes, but it's only been a couple of times each year. Nevertheless, he has proven to be a very adept student of the sport, and is now skiing much faster than I'm comfortable seeing. By the end of the vacation, and one day of ski school, he was handling all the hills that Jenny was comfortable with. My only concern is that he is a bit cocky. By the end of the second day skiing, he was begging me to let him go down the black diamond hills, the ones rated for "experts only." I talked him out of it, but I'm sure it won't last too many more years. Where has my baby gone!!?

Segway

In my posts about Disney last year, I mentioned that I got to ride a Segway, and it was awesome. On that trip, Ethan and I tried to convince Jenny that we should buy a Segway for us to use at home. She said we could do that when she got new furniture.

A couple of weeks ago, Jenny ordered a new couch and coffee table from Overstock.com. It was delivered a week later, and while I was putting it together, Ethan came in the room and said, "awesome! Now we can get a Segway." It had been almost a full year since we had talked about it, yet he remembered the conversation immediately upon seeing new furniture in the living room!

Adult Things (wait for the S connection)

On Thursday night, Ethan and I were saying our prayers. I mentioned that we should pray for Grandma and Grandpa so they had a safe trip back from Arizona. Ethan asked me where that was, so I explained that it was in the southern part of the US between New Mexico and Nevada. In fact, I explained, it wasn't far from where Jenny and I were going to take a vacation in the coming months. "Are you taking us?" Ethan asked me, referring to himself and his brother. I told him no, that we weren't taking them. He asked me why that was, to which I answered, "because we're going to do adult things." "Like swear?" he retorted...

Smartest Kid Alive???

I can't be sure, and I'm probably not a good judge since he is my child, but I'm pretty certain that Quinton is the smartest 13 month old to have graced the planet. My first clue happened a couple of days ago. We sat him in his high-chair to feed him and mixed all of the food onto his tray. His tray does have segmented areas, but we generally just put stuff in the large middle one. I think we put some chicken, apples, cheese, and crackers on the tray. He finished up the apples and cheese pretty quickly as they are two of his favorite foods, but the crackers and chicken remained in the center. I turned around to do something (I would claim that I was doing dishes, but my wife may call my lie out on that one), and when I turned back, all but a few of the crackers had been placed in one of the segmented partitions. I watched in amazement as he sorted the remaining 2 or 3 crackers out from the chicken and the proceeded to eat the crackers one by one, all the while ignoring the chicken (he doesn't like meat very much). Some could argue that it is an early sign of OCD, but I'm pretty sure it's an early sign of pure genius!

Another sign showed up a couple of weeks ago. He has a toy telephone that he carries around with him. Lately I've seen him talking on the telephone. I'm not really sure how he got that one. I'm guessing one of us did that to the phone since this is a pretty antiquated toy telephone, looking more like the phones of the 80's and 90's rather than the ones we use today, but he knew what it was for!

Speaking of talking, apparently Quin has been talking to us for quite awhile. It took his grandparents to realize it. We left Quin with them while we vacationed in Lutsen, MN for a ski getaway and when we returned, my mom and dad told us all the words that they recognized. Sure enough, taken contextually, he was saying all sorts of words! Before we left, we thought all he said was "da-da" and "da-di-di-da" and other variations therein. But if you listen close, he is actually saying words. The ones we recognize so far (and this is not all inclusive) are:

• Hi
• Dada
• Thank You
• All Done
• Uh Oh
• Barley
• Ethan
• Peep

I'm sure there are more, but those are some of the more frequent ones.

I haven't even started talking about how well he sings! Oh well, I guess that's good material for another post sometime down the road.

Birthdays and Readers

Quin and Ethan have been busy folks as of late. Quin went and turned one and we barely even acknowledged it! Well, digitally anyway. In true Grady boy fashion, Quin celebrated his birthday not once, not twice, but three separate times so that he could cover all his bases. Our favorite celebration was the one we had at our house with just our little family, though. It was the first time Quin really got to dig into some chocolate cake, and boy do I think he was impressed!!! Here you see him starting his sugar coma! It didn't take him long and he was pretty much demanding that he be fed cake any time one of us was eating some. I had a piece on my plate the other day when he was eating his supper and he spit out the noodles he had in his mouth and screamed until I gave him a bit of my cake! He may have a sweet tooth... Now to figure out how to take advantage of it...

Quin is developing at a nice pace. While his height and weight are only in the 40th percentile for his age bracket, his head is solidly in the 90th, which means he really does take after his dad and brother. He's been walking for about 6 weeks now and is getting quite proficient. Lately he has even mastered the ability to stand up in the middle of the floor. The early connection between actually moving forward and hysterical laughter is now gone and he is capable of propelling himself as silently as you could expect a 1 year old to do.

He's still a very happy boy. He laughs all the time, loves to blow and give big wet kisses. He still loves Barley! Barley is such a good girl with him, and that is saying a lot as Quin really likes to give Barley big wet kisses as well! He likes it so much that he tries to hold her still with clenched fists while he delivers said kisses on her back.

We had a bit of a traumatic event recently - Quin finally got a haircut. We were going in to get his 1 year old pictures taken and decided it was finally time to part with the hair (no pun intended). He was a very good boy in the barber's chair - he didn't cry once. He only fidgeted a little as the hair was falling down over his face.

Ethan is, of course, doing well as always. We recently found out the peril of having another reader in the house. For valentines day, I got Jenny one of those oh so clever cards that said something like, "This card has a wheel you can spin that, whatever shows up, I will promptly provide for you." On the wheel it was filled with the same task, "A night of hot sex." Yes, yes, very clever. Jenny left the card on our nightstand, I assume so she could trade it in at some point, when Ethan got ahold of it. I was walking through the downstairs when I hear Ethan say, "Jenny." I didn't realize at the time that he was reading the card! He got to the point where he was reading the different options on the wheel and repeated several times, "A night of hot sex, a night of hot sex, a night..." Luckily it hasn't come back in question yet.

Brett thinks that Ethan is destined to be a real ladies' man. Last weekend when Brett, Blaine, and my parents were down to visit, Brett was having a conversation with Ethan about various things. Ethan declared to Brett that he, "[knew] a lot about two things, Star Wars, and Jesus." Rumor has it that Brett has him lined up to teach him so he can score a girlfriend!

Quinton's top 10 Lists

Top 10 things Quin does that drive mom and dad crazy!!!

1. Plays with the computer mouse while they're using the computer.
2. Drinks from the dog's dish
3. Plays in the dog's dish
4. Plays in the toilet
5. Takes all the toilet paper and paper towels off of their dowels onto the floor
6. Identifies anything that is not currently on the floor and within his reach and frees it to the floor
7. Eats dog food
8. Climbs the stairs when nobody is watching
9. Touches the TV
   
10. Licks things (like the gym wall and miscellaneous bolts sticking out from it)

Top 10 things Quin does that make us wish we had a dozen more

1. Big wet kisses
2. 100 Megawatt smiles
3. Sleeping 11 hours at a crack
4. Constant laughter
5. Cuddles (for anybody, not just mom and dad)
6. Playing the piano
7. Cat-like curiosity
8. Playing peek-a-boo
9. Saying "da da" (this might be on Jenny's other list)
10. All the rest of the things on the first list
    

Fully Ambulatory

As of last night, Quinton has become one of the walkers of the world.  He took his first tenuous steps from Jenny to myself last night before bed.  Everybody was very excited.  Well, Ethan was a little disappointed since he was in the shower when it happened, but was excited nonetheless.  Looks like it's time to get the house to the next level of baby-proofness.

Another score for the "nurture" portion of the nature vs. nurture debate.  Quinton walked when he was 11 months, 2 days old.  Ethan first walked when he was 11 months, 0 days old.  These results are not scientific by any means.

2009 Update

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a wonderful 2008 and are ready to endure what is sure to be an interesting and trying 2009. I have mailed a "2008 Year in Review" to some of you, those that I knew could take it (it's a 30 minute video of our family). If you would like one of your own and did not receive one, please e-mail me and I will be happy to send one out to you. Now, on to the updates.

Quin
So it's been a very long time since I have posted, so obviously Quin is doing all kinds of things he didn't do since the last time. Where do I start?!? Well he can climb stairs now. Ethan says he is too little to go up wooden stairs, and I tend to agree, but that doesn't stop him from trying. He can "talk," and he still does that quite a bit. The only things that are recognizable are "dada" and "hi," sometimes he even puts the two together. I'm pretty sure it is random, though, as he says it not only when he sees me, but when he sees the dog, when he sees a lamp, etc.

Quin is now quite proficient in clapping as well as waving bye-bye. We haven't quite gotten him to blow kisses yet, but he thinks it's funny when we do it, so maybe soon. He is also not quite walking, though he can stand for longer periods of time than before. I, personally, thought he would be walking by now, but I'm OK with it taking a little longer than I thought it might. He is a MONSTER for getting into things, so when he walks it will only be that much worse.

Ethan
Ethan is doing well as always. He had a wonderful Christmas and is very excited about all the video games and Legos he got (along with everything else). His two front teeth have finally started to come in, so that's good. He has a strong desire to make a movie. Tonight he asked me how long our camera's battery would last. He was very disappointed when I told him it would last only 1 hour since he wanted to make a 2 hour movie... The pose you see here is his idea for a promotional picture for his video of him and his friend dueling with lightsabers. He wants to put his picture on one side and his friend's on the other and put "v" on his picture and "s" on his friend's, "you know, because that means versus." Once he has it all put together, he wants me to put it on Youtube. Maybe I will...

I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of it right now. It's a new year, though, so it's time to resolve to do things that may or may not happen - I resolve to update this blog at least twice a month. There.

Happy New Year again, and I hope to hear from or see you all very soon.

Quin

Quin is literally growing before our eyes. He has at least 7 teeth now, perhaps 8, and is crawling all over the place. This time it's not the army crawl I talked about last time but a full-on, four appendage crawl. And he is getting into EVERYTHING!!! Did I mention he loves to pull himself up on almost anything? I know, I know, for those of you that have kids this is really nothing new, but for the second time now I am astounded at what these kids can do! What's more, after he pulls himself up, he is already experimenting with letting go of the thing providing him support. We're fairly certain that he will be walking before he's a year.

We've also proven ourselves as "second child" parents. The other day Quin had a temperature approaching 104 degrees. Bad, right? Of course. Well, we gave him Advil, gave him a bath, then forced liquids, and got the fever down into the 101 range and didn't even take him to the emergency room once! A day later, the fever broke, and he had his 9 month well-baby checkup anyway, so he got some medicine for a mild ear infection that seems to be the cause of the sickness. Jenny and I are very proud of ourselves. At his checkup, Quin weighed in at 20 pounds and is 29 inches in height. Still rolling right along at the 50th percentile in each.

Incidentally, the picture above is my proof that Quin is now a true Grady.

Ethan

Ethan has been taking swimming lessons at the YMCA for the last 2+ years. He has had to repeat several classes, but this most recent one he has had to repeat like 4 times. This time, he has finally passed onto the new class!!! His front crawl is getting very strong and he can consistently hold his breath for greater than half the width of the pool. We're very proud of him!

What's more, I am constantly impressed at what a good kid he is, particularly since I am his father! He has a boy in his class who is very big - OK, he's fat! Ethan wanted to tell me a story about him the other night and described him as "that boy that wears the blue swimming shirt," and, "the guy that touched the wall last in our swim race." I asked, "you mean the chunky one?" and he said, "not really. I guess a little..." What a good kid.

He's also doing well in school, although he has struggled of late in religion. Jenny has him so scared of him, though, that she threatened him that if he didn't do better on the next test, she would be angry. He was so nervous, he went up to the teacher after he took his test and asked her to grade it right there and then. (He got 100%)

We're teetering on the edge of having to finally tell Ethan about Santa. He is asking questions on almost a nightly basis. Jenny is starting to feel bad that we are "lying" to him. I feel covered as I just divert whenever he asks. For example, the other day Ethan said to me, "Dad, tell me the truth, does Santa come to our house or do you guys come?" I answered, "I don't understand the question - Hey, doesn't that Monsters vs. Aliens movie look cool!" OK, maybe not father of the year material, but those of you that read this blog already know that I've been eliminated from the running for some time.

On a parting note, it has snowed down here again. The snow is showing a similar pattern to last year where we get some snow, it warms up a little to melt some snow, then we get pelted with snow again. The first day we had snow on the ground, I woke up, looked outside, and said "Oh s**t!" I then went upstairs to wake up Ethan, he looked outside and said, "Awesome, it snowed!!!" When I hugged him and got him on the bus, he smiled at me and said, "have a snowy day, dad!" I guess it is good to remember once in awhile what it's like to be a kid. Ethan and Quin remind us all the time.

General Update

Ethan

We had Ethan's parent-teacher conference yesterday. He is doing very well in School, mostly thanks to Jenny. She works with him constantly on his school work as well as reading, basic math and the like. It's a lot of work, but it is apparently paying off. While in the conference we were able to read some of Ethan's stories and reports that he's been writing up. I plan on posting a couple of them to this blog in the near future. One of them which is hilarious is his essay on what he would do if he were president. He is clearly a democrat in the making, let's just put it that way.

Speaking of politics, Ethan has been very interested in the whole political process during this election season. During the lead-up to the election, he was often coming home and asking Jenny and I who we were going to vote for. Like everything else, he would change his mind on his vote on a daily, or sometimes hourly basis. I think he ended up "voting" for John McCain. Yes, we live in the republican underbelly of this proud blue state. I can't remember his exact reasons for "voting" for McCain. At one point he wanted Obama because "McCain is too old." Oddly that's not too far off of the reasoning I was using...

Quinton

Quin is rapidly developing right before our eyes. If you haven't seen him for a month or two, you might not recognize him. He now has 5 teeth that have broken the gum line with no fewer than 3 more just about to poke through. The first few teeth he cut were a bit of an ornery experience for him, but now he seems to take it all in stride. He is a very happy kid almost all the time!

He is now crawling in earnest. He's been doing that for almost a month now, but only recently has he gone up on all fours more often than he has done the "army crawl." One of his favorite destinations is the dog dish, mostly because he knows he's not supposed to go there. Just yesterday, he headed out of the kitchen, then waited in the hallway until I came out there to look at him. When he saw me, he turned around and bolted as quickly as he could for the dog dish, laughing all the way. Now he is starting to venture into the third dimension by pulling himself up onto tables, people's legs, the toilet, you name it. Looks like it is time to lower his crib mattress.

Unfortunately Quin is sick right now. We've come to expect this having had Ethan go through the daycare experience. I seem to remember some winters where Ethan seemed like he was sick from October through June. Luckily sickness doesn't seem to dampen Quin's spirits at all. What does dampen his spirits (actually it pisses him off) is when we have to wipe his nose. Mean parents!

I am not at home to post pictures and Ethan's creations right now, so look for them in a quick update post later this week.

Big Strides

Quin has learned the fine art of movement. He still doesn't really "crawl," necessarily, but he lilts along like an army man. Actually he looks a little like Igor would look if he crawled. Since he's been in motion, he's bee quite happy and quite a handful. I don't remember if Ethan got into as much when he was younger, but Quin really likes to get into everything!

Unfortunately, Quin's also been sick for the last week or so. He hasn't really let it get him down, but his stomach has obviously not been feeling well for quite awhile. That part is easy to remember from when Ethan was younger, unfortunately. He hangs in there, though. On the worst day, we had to change his clothes 4 times!

Just when I was approaching what I thought was maximum frustration, Quin pulls out another first and totally disarms me. We were at church on Sunday for Jenny's nephews baptism. There were several occasions where the parish applauded. Whenever Quin heard it, he clapped as well! I didn't even know he knew how to clap! At one point during the mass, Quin had fallen asleep and another applause broke out. He woke up and tried to put his hands together to show his appreciation, but was just a little too tired to stay awake long enough...

It's Official!!!

That's right, Quin's a Grady! Poor kid... On October 2, 2008, we had our final court date at the Waukesha County Juvenile Court to finalize, legally, our adoption. Largely it was uneventful, but it still managed to choke me up a little bit. While there we met another family that was finalizing, except this was their THIRD adoption! Crazy folks!

Quin's getting bigger and moving around more and more all the time. Today, I'm proud to say, he said his first word that I could understand. Jenny was telling me that daycare said that Quin had been saying "dada" lately. When he heard her say that, he promptly said "dada" to us. We're working on "mama," but hey, the kid knows what he likes!

Catching up.

I know that I'm getting behind because my wife has told me that I'm in trouble because of how infrequently I blog. I didn't even know she knew I had a blog... Oh well...

Quin's doing great! He's 7 months old now and is quite mobile. No, he still doesn't (really) crawl, but has developed a rolling technique that enables him to get pretty much wherever he wants to go. He's also started to try out the "all fours" thing by getting up on his knees and lunching towards things that are slightly out of his reach.

I'm pretty sure I've written about this in the past, but I have a feeling that we're going to be in a bit of trouble in our household before too long. Quin appears to be taking after his big brother in the talking department. He is capable of babbling on and on for minutes on end. He also manages to use several consonant and vowel sounds. On occasion he will even try to mimic something that somebody else is saying!

Wednesday marks our court date. After that, Quin will be a bonafide Grady at long last. We'll post pictures then!

Guess who has a tooth?

No, it's not Ethan, and it's not Barley either. That's right, Quin's first tooth has finally busted its way through his gums. We were wondering why he's been so crabby lately, and the old "well, he's probably teething" excuse was wearing a little thin some 4 months later. But lo and behold, it really was true this time!

Here you can see him having a deep conversation with an old Elmo doll. He seems a little skeptical I think...

It's the best state fair...

Last week, Quin got to partake in his first State Fair. He "fared" pretty well, though I'm not sure it was entirely his cup of tea just yet. Ethan had a blast, at least for the most part. We started out by getting a wrist band and going on the rides. This is really the first year where Ethan was ready to go on the "big kids" rides. Unfortunately we were there with Micky and her kids, and they aren't quite ready. Not to worry, we split up for an hour and allowed Ethan to go on several rides by himself, and he had a blast. He even got to go on the bumper cars while I talked with a couple of Chicago guys waiting for their kids. The only things he was not able to go on were the rides that had a 52 inch height limit. Apparently he isn't quite 50 inches yet. Guess the NBA isn't necessarily in his future!

After the rides, we grabbed some dinner then went through the animal barns, like you are supposed to at the State Fair! Ethan's definitely a city boy. He was amazed that the cows would poop wherever they were. He also told me that this goat had its udders in the wrong place! Then there were the "racing sheep" that had blankets on them. To be honest, I suppose they could have been racing sheep for all I know. I don't know why they where those blankets!

Quin is doing very well now-a-days. He is now able to roll in both directions, which sounds great in theory, but is a bit of a pain in reality. This means that he is mobile, to a certain degree. I placed him on the floor in our living room the other day and went into the kitchen for something. When I returned some minutes later, he had migrated to the other end of the floor and was playing with the coffee table! I just can't wait until he can crawl or walk!

The last few nights, Quin has treated us with full nights of sleep! 10 hours minimum for 3 nights straight! Let's hope I haven't jinxed it by writing about it!

"Where the hell did they put them?"

Time is flying by. Quin is starting to get more and more independent, which is nice as he was being a bit clingy for awhile there. He is very good at rolling and can sometimes even roll from his back to his stomach. His latest trick is to stay in a seated position if we put him in one to start with. He's also reaching for toys and other things that are out of reach, which I'm told is a developmental milestone. So way to go, Quin.

Ethan has had a couple of funny situations in the last few days. First, we were over at Tony and Michelle's, Ethan's aunt and uncle's for a birthday party. Many of Jenny's family members were outside being eaten by mosquitoes and playing cornhole, when a policeman pulled into the driveway. Apparently a 911 call was made from a cell phone at this address, so they were coming to check it out. Well, I guess Tony's sister knew the guy, so she invited him in to look at Tony's shed. While he was touring the place, Ethan came up to me and said, "Dad, it's cool to have a cop at your party, don't you think?" I told him he probably won't think so in 9-10 years...

Fast forward to yesterday (that sounds kind of funny, doesn't it?), Ethan had some friends over the day prior to play Wii and look at Ethan's new Bakugon - a Pokemon knockoff. One of his friends apparently asked if he could keep one of his characters, but Ethan said no. Well, yesterday Ethan was looking for his little guys and could not find them. He immediately assumed that one of his buddies took it. He became suddenly obsessed with finding the toy, looking all over the upstairs. After about 5 minutes of furious looking, he said loudly, "where the hell did they put them?" After my initial shock, I calmly told him that that word was not appropriate for kids to say. He seemed to accept that, but called us out on using those words... Guess it's time to start watching our language again.

Ethan the Triathlete

This past weekend was the Pewaukee Sprint Triathlon. I ran in this event last year along with a team that we had assembled known as "Big Sky Multisport." We had our own jerseys and a whole bunch of people. Ethan was so impressed when he came to watch! He wanted to be "on my team."

This year we did it again, and they have a kid's event. So I ordered Ethan a jersey and he competed in the kid's triathlon. Well, it was actually a duathlon this year since we've had so much rain this summer that the lake where we swim is closed with algae problems... At any rate, Ethan is now offiially a Big Sky Multisport member.

When I first gave Ethan his jersey, he wore it everywhere! Of course, the jerseys are made of some sort of moisture absorbing, space-age material or something, and they don't always agree with the wearer's body parts. After Ethan wore his for awhile, his nipples started to get very sore. So before his race on Saturday, he asked me to put some band-aids over his nipples so the shirt wouldn't irritate them. They worked like a charm, but he forgot to take off the band-aids when he got home, then went to a friend's house to go swimming. His friend's mom told me that she knew quite a bit more about Ethan's nipples than she ever wanted to know.

Quin's doing very well, also. Jenny and I had to get up early this morning for our race (at 4:30) and it was my night to get up with Quin. I was very happy when I woke up at 4:30 and found that I hadn't been interrupted in my sleep the past night! He may not sleep through the night consistently, but he seems to know when it's imperitive to do so. He's also added the raspberry sound to his ramblings, which is pretty funny.

Milestones

After having been read the riot act by my mother, I have decided to finally make a most delayed post. In the past two weeks, Quin has been passing milestones by the handful and I have neglected to document them here, so here goes.

Two weeks ago Friday, Quin passed not one, not two, but three milestones in a 12 hour period. First, he ate rice cereal for the first time, and gobbled it up completely. I mean, he really liked it! Next, after his meal, Brett and I put him on the floor and he was observed for the first time rolling over (he had previously rolled over in bed two times, but this was the first time another human saw him). To top off the act, Quin slept for 9.5 hours that night from 8:30 to 6:00!!! That was the big one in my book!

Now, two weeks later, Quin is eating cereal and fruit on a daily basis. He has eaten pears and bananas so far and has really liked both of them. He also rolls over ALL THE TIME! It's actually to the point where we have to watch him more closely because he is starting to use it as a means of propulsion. Unfortunately, the last item on the list hasn't taken quite as quickly. He has ripped off a couple of 8-9 hour sleep nights in the intervening time, but has also reverted oddly back to the 4 hours sleep and up pattern at times. That is VERY frustrating as he has set a high water mark now and I expect that to be met on a nightly basis! I guess I haven't reached too many of my milestones as a second parent yet, unfortunately.

Dexterity

I'm just sitting here doing some scout stuff and Quin is sitting right next to me in one of his bouncy chairs. What's different than normal is that he is grabbing everything within reach.  He has access to a bunch of toys within reach and he is studying each one of them intently.  This is a first for him and quite exciting for us.

A rough 36 hours...

It all started out innocently enough.  We were going to church on Sunday morning, after which Ethan was supposed to attend a birthday party for a girl in his class.  While in the "gathering place" after mass, Ethan was horsing around with a buddy of his when his head got bumped and one of his loose teeth started bleeding.  On came the waterworks!  He insisted that he was in no shape to go to the party.  We drove to where we were going to meet to discuss with hosts, one of who was a dentist no less, all the while Ethan was crying in the back seat.  Luckily for us, the party was postponed due to inclement weather.

Let's back up.  It has been raining here in Milwaukee for the last 4-5 days straight.  I'm not talking about Seattle showers, I'm talking about torrential downpours.  There is standing water to spare, and flooding is the norm rather than the exception.  Today I saw a statistic that we've gotten over 9 inches of rain in June, already making it the third highest precipitation accumulation for June ever, and it's only the 9th.  What's more, our average rainfall for the entire summer is 11 inches...  On Saturday, there were several tornadoes spotted and detected with radar, high winds, inch hail, you know, basic apocalypse stuff.

So the party was postponed.  No problem.  That should give Ethan some time to recover and he should still be able to go to the party later.  After we met with Tatum's parents, we were asked to check out Aimee and Steve's basement for water.  They were away for the weekend and had troubles with water in their basement in the past, so they are a bit sensitive.  We agreed and took the trip over to Ixonia to check out their basement.  On the way, Ethan managed to work his front tooth out!  We were very proud that he managed to stop crying long enough to do so.  What's more, during the 15 minute trip over to the house, he managed to work the other front tooth out without so much as a whimper.  "Yes!!!"  He exclaimed as the second tooth lost root in his mouth.  Hopefully he will remember this next time a tooth gets loose and bleeds a little bit!  Anyway, now he has no front teeth.  You can see for yourself how he looks!  What's funnier is to hear him talk.  He's not too bad, but you can tell he has some troubles with "s" and "th" sounds.

Crisis averted!  The rest of the day went innocently enough.  Ethan bragged constantly about how he pulled two teeth.  We found jobs to do in the house because the sky had opened up yet again with some more rain.  Eventually, the rain stopped for a bit and we decided to grill out.  After supper, we were giving the boys baths when I noticed that Quin was feeling quite warm.  I didn't think much of it, and gave him a bath, thinking it would cool him down.  Well, about 30 minutes later, Jenny noticed how warm he felt, so we (read Jenny) decided we should take his temperature.  Imagine our surprise to see the thermometer reading 103!!!  OK, Tylenol, the doctor said we could give it to him, so we did that.  Unfortunately that wasn't enough for Jenny, she wanted a doctor to see him.

Gone are the days when we could both get in the car and worry equally about our baby at the doctor, we have another baby at home that needs to go to school the next day.  So I drew the short straw (because it was Jenny's night to put Ethan to bed) and headed out to the emergency room at 7:45PM, right as the sky had opened up again for another barrage of water.

Apparently Sunday is the busiest day in the ER in Oconomowoc, because I couldn't find a parking spot.  So I parked in the front only to find that the front doors were locked at 8:00 on Sunday.  It was 8:03.  So around the building I walked with Quin, a diaper bag, and a big umbrella that was struggling to do its job.

The ER was not entirely that interesting, but let me hit in the highlights.  Quin was feeling quite a bit better after the Tylenol, but the doctors wanted to make sure they checked thoroughly for anything they could treat.  They started checking the ears.  Once that yielded no results, they did a chest X-ray, followed by urine and blood samples.  I was wondering how they were going to get urine from a baby, like if they would try to squeeze it out of the diaper...  Nope.  Catheter baby!  I couldn't watch.  In all, we were there for just shy of 4 hours and found out that there was nothing treatable wrong with him and we should just give him Tylenol.  While we were there, I did get to hear some interesting conversations from people trying to score some narcotics from the ER staff as well as some woman involved in what sounded like a horrible car accident, so the night wasn't a complete loss.

Around midnight, Quin and I rolled into the driveway.  It was still raining, and the storm was picking up.  As soon as we walked in the door, the power cut out!  No problem, I knew where the flashlights were, so I was able to get the house prepared for the night.  Of course, one of our babies was sick, so we had to sleep upstairs.  As soon as I hit the pillow, I was out.  The power had still not yet come back on.

When the morning arrived, things appeared normal again.  Quin's fever had not spiked like it had the night prior, the power was back on, and it had finally stopped pouring rain (it was still sprinkling).  After getting breakfast ready for Ethan, I went to get his toothbrush ready and found out that we had very low water pressure.  I figured immediately that we must have thrown a breaker on the water pump, so I went downstairs to check it out.  I'm not sure what possessed me to check the sump pump.  It has never run a single time in the 5 years we've lived here.  In fact, it has been bone dry!  Not this morning.  The water in the sump was up to the brim!  I can't believe it didn't come out.  The pump was working just as hard as it could, but it was fighting a losing battle.  I guess I'm not going to work today!

After a while, I realized that I needed to divert the water deeper into the yard as it was collecting right next to the house.  That seemed to appease the drain tile for awhile, but the pump just kept on working, and working, and working.  At one point, worrying that the old pump wouldn't make it, I went out and bought a new pump just in case.  Turns out that was a wise decision.  I bought the new pump at 8:30 AM.  One of my neighbors went to the same place I bought mine an hour later to find they were completely sold out!  Oh, and the pump came in handy.  With two pumps going, I was able to finally get ahead of the water coming into the sump, at least briefly.  But the water was still coming in at an alarming rate.  It was like somebody hooked up a fire hydrant line to my drain tiles.  As I sit here at 10:00 PM, the sump pump is still working more than it is resting.  Apparently the ground has reached its maximum tolerance for water and the rest was going to follow the path of least resistance, which was my drain tile.

I don't know the end of this story yet, but my nerves are about shot.  I'm going to try to get some sleep if I can.  I'm sure I'll dream of breakers flipping and basements flooding, and that will prompt me to once again go into the basement to look at the sump pump doing its job.  At least the tooth fairy was good to Ethan and Quin's fever broke, though.

The "Forrest" is strong with this one...

Birthday Boy

May 17th was Ethan's 7th birthday.  To celebrate, we invited the boys from his class to join us at the YMCA for some cake, games, and swimming.  Unfortunately, Ethan has only 5 boys in his class, including himself.  Even more unfortunate, one of the boys didn't show up, so there were only 4 boys there.  Actually, that ended up being lucky for us as boys are crazy!  The spent the bulk of their time wrestling and smashing into one another.

We did manage to get them all into the pool in one piece.  Our Y has a very nice family pool that is separate from the competitive "lap" pool.  It has a small lazy river, therapeutic area, a play area with fun water toys, and a big water slide.  Ethan's always been afraid of the water slides, which is too bad since we go to the Dells at least twice a year in hopes that he'll start going down them.  Each time we've gone, we've been disappointed.  We tried everything.  We picked out any 3 year old girl that was going on the slides and point them out, we'd question his manhood, but nothing would work.  He was very stubborn.  Finally we thought we had found something that would work to get him to go on waterslides, movies.  He loves movies, particularly Spiderman and Star Wars.  We have not let him watch the Star Wars III and Spiderman 3 because they were PG-13 and that made him mad!  His friends got to watch them, he would tell us, to which we would retort, "your friends probably aren't afraid to go down waterslides."  Yes, nominate us for parents of the year right now...  So we told him that if he would go down a waterslide, we would let him watch one of those movies.  Well, he finally went down the waterslide at the Y, not because he wanted to watch a movie, but because all of his friends did it and he felt like he should as well.  He did not hesitate to tell me immediately, though, that he intended on watching Star Wars Episode III that very evening.

Episode III

Ethan has been a fan of Star Wars for quite some time.  He has recently renewed his love for the movies when he discovered Lego Star Wars, the Wii video game, a couple of weeks ago.  Since then we have watched all 5 episodes (besides Episode III) several times.  Watching the movies with Ethan means enduring a constant barrage of questions and comments about the movies.  As late as three weeks ago, he still referred to the "Force" as the "Forrest."  It was all I could do to answer him with a straight face when he would ask me, "Dad, do you believe in the Forrest?"  He finally conceded that it was the "Force" after some heated arguments and re-viewings of the movies.  All that time, though, we insisted that Episode III was too dark and scary for him to watch.  The fact that it was rated PG-13 helped us to convince him that he couldn't watch it.  After surprising us by going down the waterslide, though, we had no choice but to let him watch.

After the party, we quickly went to church (fun birthday, eh?), went out to eat at one of his favorite restaurants, Burger King, then rushed home, got into our pajamas, popped some popcorn, and settled down to watch Episode III.  It had been awhile since Jenny and I had watched the movie as well, so we were excited to watch the movie as well.

My impressions of watching the movie with Ethan are mixed.  On one hand, I thought he had an incredible amount of insight in the movie.  He understood many things that I never would have thought he would understand.  For example, he figured out early that the Chancellor was only pretending to be kidnapped.  On the other hand, he never shut up for the entire movie!  Over the last few weeks, since the Star Wars craze started up again, he had been barraging me with questions about Episode III.  I told him what I remembered and never left anything out.  From that, he was able to predict a good portion of the movie.  It was pretty annoying, though, because he would constantly be saying, "Is this the part where such and such?"  I'm sure there was not an entire minute during the movie where he didn't say something.  One thing that he said that I found hilarious was during a scene where Anikan and Padme were talking about what they were going to do with the baby that they had accidentally created together.  Padme said something like, "Do you think Obi-Wan could help?"  Ethan started snickering to himself, so I had to ask him why.  He said, "I'm thinking how funny it would be if Obi-Wan helped with the baby.  Like if the baby got stuck coming out, he could use his light-saber..."  Perhaps the PG-13 rating should have scared me away.

In the end, I'm glad I let him watch the movie.  He actually is very good at following these movies, perhaps even better than some adults (myself included).  He has a very good attention to detail and is not afraid to ask questions about anything that comes to mind.  The bad part, of course, is that he asks it when it comes to his mind, regardless of whether it is during the movie.  One of his favorite questions is, "who is your favorite character" and all variations around it.  An example of his variations on this question is "who is your favorite bad guy in the second episode?"  Ultimately, he wants me to say either Boba or Jango Fett, his two favorite characters in all the episodes...

Quick Quin Update

I feel bad that I've not written much on Quin lately.  It seems that the second child syndrome has set in.  Reading back on the blog entries on Ethan, I wrote at length on gripping topics as the consistency of his bowel movements to the exact pitch and tone of his coughs.  With Quin, however, we have been through that, and we choose not to worry ourselves about it so much.  There, another reason to get that nomination in for parents of the year!

Quin is progressing as one would expect a three month old to progress, I think.  He has become quite interactive.  He rewards us often with smiles and laughs.  He is also starting to discover that he can grab things with his hands and explore them.  Right now he is very hesitant and cautious about grabbing things, and is still trying to get the hang of controlling his limbs to such a fine degree.

He's still eating about 5 ounces at a time every 4 hours or so.  He has started sleeping a bit more at night, but it's not very predictable.  He has gone 9 hours before eating at night in the past week, but that 9 hours went from 6PM to 3AM.  Eventually we'll figure out how to get him on somewhat of a schedule.  It is more common for him to go 6 hours between eating at night, and he still goes to sleep almost instantly after eating when in the middle of the night.

Oh, he talks a lot!  I'm not sure if I'm ready for another kid that talks as much as Ethan!  The funny thing is that I really believe he thinks that he is talking.  He will look you in the eye, smile, then babble at you for minutes on end.  He repeats sounds sometimes as well!  I'm wondering if those repeated sounds actually mean something?  Do babies come out with some sort of default language that they all speak and we just don't understand it?  I always thought all babies came out speaking a Chinese dialect since they had about a 1 in 4 chance of being born in China, but now I'm not so sure.  The things Quin is saying don't sound Chinese to me...

At any rate, Quin's doing well.  I'll update more as more exciting things occur to him, like getting teeth, rolling over, eating his first solid food, you know, the really exciting stuff!!!

Superheroes

It's not secret, Ethan is a HUGE superhero fan.  He loves all things Spider-man, Superman (to a lesser degree), Batman, Fast Guy, who he now knows as The Flash, you name it.  He even thinks Ghost Rider and Blade are cool.  On Friday, he had a book fair at school where he become the proud new owner of a Spider-man encyclopedia.  It is a book that has many of the characters from the Spider-man universe, gives a brief dossier on the character, and shows a picture.  He was very excited to show me "Spider-girl" from the book.  In fact, he told me that he had Spider-girl in his collection!  He rushed upstairs and grabbed his most European looking Spider-man action figure (he has very many), brought it down, and showed me, explaining, "see, dad, this is Spider-girl.  She doesn't have very big boobs, but it's definitely her!"

"No, son, she doesn't have very big boobs at all, does she?" I replied, temporarily stunned...  I didn't even know he knew the word boobs!!!

The above picture is promotional art for Amazing Spider-Girl #1.  Art by Ron Frenz.