Creative Kimpire: Hobby Happenings

It’s been an eventful two weeks since my last post. I feel as though Quinn has started doing so many new things on the daily. He’s gained at least 5 words, probably more. I think part of that is because he has started using his mouth to do more things, such as whistling (aka just blowing in and out 😆), blowing raspberries on our bellies (which really results in more slobber than anything), and puckering to give actual kisses instead of just sliming us with an open mouth 🤣. Those actions have enabled him to make different sounds, leading to an increased vocabulary. He can even “sing” EIEIO to Old Macdonald Had a Farm. However, he’s also been channeling his inner dinosaur and screeching like a pterodactyl and taking bites off of a fork or spoon ferociously. He can stand on his tip toes and if he can grab something, he will, much to my annoyance. He is always watching and recently started mimicking things I do without being asked. The other day he watched me use the dish cloth to clean the counter while he stood on his safety stool and then he got down, went to the drawer where we keep the dish towels and got one out, climbed back on his stool and wiped the counter. After I had finished mopping the floor the other day, he went and got the rag I had used out of the hamper and used it to wipe the floor and the steps on his stool. Those are great habits for him to pick up. However, he also watched me empty his diaper pail and put a new trash bag in it. He started playing with the lid, sliding it back and forth, and since it was empty and that was keeping him occupied, I didn’t lock it and then went to take a quick shower. He came in the bathroom when I was getting out and had a shit eating grin on his face. I knew he had done something because he always comes to tell on himself 😆. I went into his room and he had stuffed at least 30 clean diapers in the diaper pail. It was packed full 🤦🏻‍♀️. I was thankful there weren’t any dirty ones in there. By the way, thanks to those of you who offered suggestions on how to de-stink the diaper pail. I hate the thought of throwing away plastic bags butttttttt our recycling center isn’t taking plastic right now due to COVID so at least if they’re being “repurposed” as poopy diapers holders, they aren’t being trashed in vain, right? 😉

Hard at work 😉

🤦🏻‍♀️

Yes, those are clean 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣

Helping me change/clean the sheets 😉😆

Quinn is very into hide and seek and also hiding objects, particularly his bink, in his or my or Philip’s shirt, and “finding” it. He likes to pull a shirt up, stick his bink under it, and then throw his arms up in an “I don’t know” shrug 🤷🏻‍♀️. The other day I was bent over the side of the bathtub, scrubbing the inside wall, and got a finger puppet shoved up the back of my shirt 🤦🏻‍♀️. His hiding things isn’t limited to shirts though. He also enjoys stealing towels while I’m in the shower and relocating them to other rooms 🤬. That one is not my favorite but most of the time he cracks me up.

I haven’t had much time to focus on finishing his kitchen because another project came up (one that’s still not done and going to take a bit to get under control). Usually parents have to lower their child’s bed to keep them safe but in our household, it went the other way. Our bed was on a high frame, making the drop from the mattress to the floor about three feet. I’ve mentioned that bedtime is a mess here and the week before last was sort of a breaking point for me. Quinn kept waking up and every time I would comfort him and try to put him back in his crib but he would immediately get back up. I eventually took him to our bed, where, to nobody’s surprise, he slept just fine. The problem though was that I didn’t feel comfortable leaving him alone in our bed, afraid he would roll off, so I felt trapped there with him when I really wanted to get some things done and just, ya know, not have someone attached to me for a little bit. I consulted with some experienced mothers (Kim & Marsha) who suggested lowering the bed. Philip and I had talked about buying a new bed frame but our boxspring and mattress are so thick, that wasn’t necessary. The boxspring is now on the floor and it is the exact normal height for a bed, which alleviates my fall concerns. However, there are 2 problems with this. 1) Quinn has pretty much permanently moved into our bed because it’s just so much easier to lay with him in there to put him to sleep and he sleeps all night. Before he would sleep for an hour, maybe two, if I was lucky, and I would have to go get him. I was usually ready to come to bed then anyway so most of the time he would just come with me. So this isn’t exactly a new ‘problem’ but it feels as though we took an entire step backward since he’s not even going into his crib at all now. I say problem because that’s what society says about bed-sharing but neither of us are really all that bothered by it. For now. He’ll get out eventually, right? 🤞🏻2) Fixing that issue created another because having our bed so high allowed for storage and I now have 10 totes of clothes that need to live somewhere else. Some of them need to go elsewhere and some of them need sold on eBay, which takes time to list. I’ve already sold 6 VS sports bras for $50 though 🤷🏻‍♀️. For the time being, our bedroom is a bit chaotic but I’m working on it.

Helping me clean the bed frame 😆 wearing his shoes with his pajamas because he thought he needed to 🤷🏻‍♀️🙄.

Motherhood comes with so many sacrifices, first we have to share our bodies, then they invade our bed, and then they steal your bathroom privacy. Now I’ve even lost my beloved soggy French fries to the child who doesn’t yet have chewing teeth. You better believe when they come in he’s getting all of my crispy ones! 🤣 He’s definitely working on some, I can see two on the bottom making their way in and I’ve even thought I saw one on the top. I hate teething because he’s such a crank ass some days, he’s exhausting to be around. Have you ever chosen to do the dishes, rather than spend anymore time with your kid? I have 🤣. “Sorry, babe, mom’s busy doing the dishes, go play with your dad.” Speaking of his dad, we went to Target a few weeks ago and he wanted to get Quinn a new toy. I buy 99% of, well, everything, in this house, so he wanted to pick it out. He let Quinn pick it out, actually, and told me he needed a “fun” toy because all of his toys are educational 🙄. As if they can’t be both fun and educational 🙄🙄🙄. Well, let me tell you how “fun” the toy is that he picked out. It’s a dinosaur that roars, bites, and walks when you turn it on. Quinn brings it to me, wanting me to turn it on, but then is immediately scared of it and screams until I turn it off 🤦🏻‍♀️🤬😆. This happened so many times that I now hide it. Another toy I hate is this duck push toy that Philip’s brother and sister-in-law got for him. I wouldn’t hate it if he would push it himself but he doesn’t, he brings it to me to push. I have to bend over to push it so it’s not at all comfortable. Since he loves hide and seek so much I started hiding it and telling him to find it. He will find it and bring it back to me. He actually likes that game and I prefer it to pushing the stupid thing around the house, killing my back. It’s hell getting old 🤣.

That’s the most rotten “I don’t know” shrug I’ve ever seen 🤣🤣.

This is what I found in the bathroom last week 🤦🏻‍♀️ Yep, those are Quinn’s teeth prints.

We’ve spent time with both of our families recently and the way all of the kids play with him just warms my heart. They all are very gentle with him and some of them even take a beating before I realize what’s happening and make him stop. He steals their food, too, and they don’t complain 😂. I hate that he won’t grow up with cousins close to his age, like I did, but I’m glad they’re all sweet to him ❤️.

Hanging out with Kate during Lincoln’s soccer game.

Link was riding with Quinn but then decided to pull him for a minute before handing him off to Haleigh. He was harder to pull than Link thought he would be 🤣.
*I unfortunately didn’t get any pics of him with his other set of cousins 😔. Next time!

You all heard about our saga with Suddenlink (which is fixed but I still hate them) but I’ve got another rant for you. If you’re having issues with Seasonal Affective Disorder or any other mental illness that leaves you feeling sort of numb as a default (been there lots of times!), let me direct you to another company that can help get you heated and your feelings fired up. I’m going to add AT&T to the list of companies we will never deal with again. Actually, the whole reason we even had to deal with AT&T to begin with is because of the issue with Suddenlink, so I doubly hate them. So, from the beginning, we had Verizon cell service for years with no issues. When our home (Suddenlink) internet went down, we had to increase our data package with Verizon so that Philip could tether to his phone for work (he works from home). Verizon has a pretty shitty tethering package compared to AT&T and because Suddenlink representatives were absolutely useless in helping us fix the issue or to give an accurate ETA of when it would be fixed (or even say there was an outage🤬), we decided to switch to AT&T so that we wouldn’t have extreme charges for data usage through Verizon if the issue dragged on for eternity. I know someone who’s internet was out for 3 months, the last I checked with her, and we were not willing or able to make accommodations with data tethering at Verizon prices. Anyway, Philip called to inquire about prices and an employee discount through his work (you should check to see if your/your spouse’s company offers one, many do!) and every phone call after that was a disaster. Because he asked about a certain plan, they put that in as our starting plan, and then when we ultimately decided to do a different option (a better plan for the same price because of his employee discount, the only one his discount works on), they charged us $96 for “making changes” and pro-rated for a month, even though we only opened the account the day before and the monthly price difference between the plans is $20. They made a mistake with Philip’s SIM card and he LITERALLY, I’m not even exaggerating, spent over 3 hours on the phone, probably more collectively between all the calls and a minimum 30 minute hold time just to get connected to someone every time, to get it fixed. They transferred him to person after person. He finally told them he wouldn’t wait anymore, they could fix the issue and call him back or he would just go back to Verizon and forget about it because it was such a hassle. He did end up having to call again the next day to confirm it was fixed (it wasn’t but they fixed it very quickly) and since then we have had no problems with our service. Until the bill the arrived. $421 for a $97.50 + taxes and fees plan that was supposed to have activation fees waived. Philip said he wouldn’t deal with it, and I don’t blame him, so I called. The person in the billing department was very nice but I explained the situation and she repeatedly told me it was because he didn’t submit the papers for the employee discount (he did. Twice.), and then it was because the discount wouldn’t be applied for 2-3 billing cycles (they never told us that), and then it was because we made changes to the account (which I REPEATEDLY told her we did not 🤬🤬🤬). I finally told her this is the biggest hassle we’ve ever had with a company, they lied to us when we opened the account, we were not informed about the discount not being applied right away, we were quoted a price, and I’m just not paying $421. I said, “it’s not happening” and we’ll just go back to Verizon because we’ve never had issues like this with them. I did tell her I realize none of this is her fault and I’m not upset with her but I’m just unwilling to deal with this. So anyway, long story long, after 54 minutes on the phone (they sure do love to talk to people there 🙄), she “credited” my bill and got it “lowered” to $271. I was done. I told her thank you and got off the phone. I have no intention of paying that. We’ll be filing complaints. AGAIN. It’s unreal. We are back with Verizon. I tried to go to the local store to switch back because I never want to talk to another stranger on the phone ever again, but they said they couldn’t do anything since we had been gone less than 90 days. I had to call and speak to the “Win Back” department. They also had a ridiculous wait time—36 minutes before I got connected with someone—but as soon as I did, she knew what she was doing, got our old account set back up and we were good to go. We can see all of our information online and make changes without unbelievable charges.

In the midst of this drama with AT&T, I was outside with Quinn while on the phone and trying to keep him quiet. He was pushing his truck up and down the driveway but eventually the driveway was just too safe and he needed to test his limits with the road. To avoid a struggle while I was on the phone, I let him venture out with me right behind him since I live in a nice neighborhood and most of the people drive like they have some sense. All but one, who lives a block down from me. There’s an older man who must think that stop signs are just suggestions and either his gas pedal is really touchy or he’s just an asshole because he guns it every time he has to actually stop. He also gets irrationally angry when anyone is in the street (I’ve seen him throw his hands up in frustration before), although pedestrians have the right of way and he can go suck it. So anyway, Quinn was on the left side of the road (and as we all know, we drive on the right so he was not even in the way), directly beside my mailbox, like so close to my yard I could reach out a foot and touch the grass. I’m arguing with AT&T lady and Mr. Lead Foot stops at the stop sign in front of my house (but only because we were outside. Even that only gets him to stop about 50% of the time). He did drive slowly by my house, meaning, also, my child, but then immediately gunned it so that he could reach the next stop sign at the end of the block 5 seconds faster than if he had driven like a normal person and had regard for other people. If I hadn’t been on the phone, he would have (and 100% will in the future) received a cussing. I don’t have a ball bat yet but I will get one if necessary. Ok, I’m kidding about the physical assault. Not kidding about the verbal one. For real though, mine is not the only kid on the block and he has driven like this for years. I actually asked someone on his block what the name of the man who drives like an idiot is and she knew exactly who I was talking about.

All of that happened on the day I took Quinn to his 15 month old well check, an 11 am appointment I made before my/his schedule changed to nap-time being at 11am. Nap-time is for both of us. So we missed our morning nap and I was so worked up that I didn’t even take a nap that afternoon when Quinn eventually crashed. That old man really pressed his luck that day 😂.

Don’t let all of my complaining fool you though. Like I told my mother in law, I’m living my best life right now. I love staying home with my boy, who is so, so smart and typically sweet, when he’s not tired or hungry 🤣. I’m just curious, does anyone’s child just go to sleep without being a complete butthole or is it just ours who does this? Like he has to reach the unreasonable stage—cries about EVERYTHING, wants something but never anything you give him, testing every limit, etc.—before he’ll calm down and go to bed. Anyway, aside from all those things, life is pretty good 😊. I got to play with my camera that I never use and took some cute pics this week. I wanted to get some with the beautiful fall foliage before it dies away so we went to the park. He was pretty cooperative despite not wanting to walk and the last ones we took were like a mile up a hill 😳🙄. For the record, he weighed 22 pounds, 10 oz. at his appointment so that was a fun walk carrying that load 🙄🤪. Last week my friend Chris assisted in a Fall themed photo shoot and we got some great pics then, too. He loves her and she was awesome at getting him to smile 😃. Because I obviously need another hobby 😉, I’m working on figuring out how to use my DSLR camera. I’m pretty sure you all know I like to take pics (I have over 22,000 in my Photos app 😂) so I’m looking forward to creating some fun shots.

The best pic from that day 🤣.

No post is complete without pics of the girls 😉.

Quinn is always loving on Sansa and Sophie; sometimes too much. Soph isn’t the biggest fan of hugs but Sansa tolerates them. They all love giving kisses, too.