Hobby Happenings

Our baby is 18 months old today 😭😭😭😭. He had his first sleepover away from home last night. We all did great. I mean, I only cried once. I got to enjoy two meals (dinner and then breakfast) without having someone sit on my lap and eat my food. As much as he annoys me with that sometimes, dinner time is when I cried because I missed him 🤣. I had a really hard time going to sleep but once I did I slept really well. Except for when Sansa woke me up to potty. She’s gonna have to go with him next time 😂😂😂. He stayed at my brother’s house. Lori said he gave her no problems at bedtime and slept all through the night. I said he sleeps better there so he should probably just do that every night 🤷🏻‍♀️. 

The photo I got from Lori after he went right to sleep for her.

You know what sucks about having a kid free night during a pandemic? You feel all kinds of pressure to “do something fun!” but you can’t. Well, rather, you shouldn’t. We stayed home and watched a movie. I still enjoyed it though. 

Have I mentioned lately how much fun toddlerhood is? I mean, when Quinn’s not terrorizing the dogs, tear assin’ through the house making a mess, hitting, biting, and pinching, that is. Some days, man, I have to remind myself to pause and regroup to realize he’s not a demon child but rather expressing a need that lies at the end of his most frustrating behaviors. Hitting is his newest form of communication and boy, can he test his limits! He’ll hit you and look you right in the eye to see how you’re going to react 🤬🤬🤬. I’m ashamed to say I’ve smacked his fingers more than once and his butt on occasion (not hard 🙄). I’ve never been a proponent for spanking and still think there are better ways to rectify negative behaviors. For the record, neither of those methods worked and I just felt like a jerk afterward. Also, I did them out of frustration and that’s not a good way for me to express emotions, either. I’m human though. Time out tends to make him squall like he’s being murdered so in other words, it’s effective 😆. The biting and pinching stages didn’t last long so I’m hoping hitting takes the same route. He’s a compassionate kid though so if you pretend you’re hurt when he does it, he will at least give you a hug to make you feel better 😂. He’s a Sour Patch kid. 

He was hiding the label maker and motioning, “where’d it go?” 🤣

We bought Quinn a potty chair for Christmas with no expectations, just to have and introduce to him. He’s pretty fascinated by the goings on in the bathroom so we figured he might want to check it out. He used to try to stand by the toilet while Philip peed and try to touch it 🤣🤣🤣, now he just watches and waves bye to it 👋 💦😆 . Progress. He tells me he peed at least once an hour and he’s usually right. We’ve begun sitting on the potty occasionally but he usually ends up standing inside it and does not pee. Thank goodness 😅.

Quinn still spends his time playing in the sink several times a day, tearing out anything in the vicinity of where I may be putting things away, and putting on and taking off his shoes, hats, and pants. He often wears more than one pair of pants at a time, and usually without a shirt. When his shirt gets one drop of water on it, he becomes very dramatic and insistent on me helping him take it off, even though he can take it off himself 🤦🏻‍♀️. 

I got him a small mirror for the wall beside his dress up clothes. He loves to put on hats and look at himself. 

He’s learning so many new words and talking so much. One of his favorite things to say is “Stink!” when one of us tells him to go tell the other that they smell. He has learned manipulation and plays us against each other with kisses. One of us will ask him for a kiss and he’ll say no and go kiss the other parent 🤪. He moves his stool all around the kitchen to gain access to whatever he wants, including the butter dish while I’m busy elsewhere 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️. I turned around from doing dishes the other day and he was 2 fingers deep in a stick of butter 🤦🏻‍♀️. You cannot use butter without him wanting a bite. It’s ridiculous but he got that honest from his Nanna. We’re told she did the same thing when she was little. While he’s a bit of a reckless driver with his straight forward stool pushing, there are no worries of being surprised by an accidental collision because he gives plenty of warning with his “beeeeeeeep,” which starts when the idea first even enters his mind to move 🤣. We’ve taken to using the word beep as a way give Quinn directions or to describe what he did; ex. “Beep back over to the counter and eat your snack,” or “he beeped over to the butter dish and helped himself.” 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️. It sounds like we’re on a tv show and censoring ourselves in weird ways 🤣. 

I was trying to empty the dishwasher and turned around to this scene. He opened that drawer by himself. I prefer his beeping to the far reaching. Im afraid he’s gonna fall over one of these days 🤦🏻‍♀️.   

No matter how many new words he gains, thus far, all dogs are Sansa and all circles are eyes. Also, mama is the most versatile word he knows. He uses it to say a multitude of things like: “I need a drink,” “Turn the water on,” “Turn the water off,” “Put my shoes on,” and then immediately, “Take them off,” “I can’t reach the dustpan,” “My finger is stuck in the dryer lint vent,” etc. 🤦🏻‍♀️. That last one happens on the daily 🙄.

Yep, those are my (clean) underwear around his neck 🤣. I did not put them there. He’s gonna love this pic one day 😉. 

What I don’t understand is he can very clearly say both S sounds in Sansa but for some reason calls Sophie (Soph), Boof. I think it’s a fitting name for her though because when I was growing up I had a cousin who called farts, boofs, and Sophie is the queen of flatulence 🌬 . She nervous farts and takes every opportunity to be in my way but we love her. Our girls have an addiction to cardboard and probably require intervention at this point. I get stalked in the bathroom for toilet paper rolls. We get several packages delivered each week and they have learned the sound of me cutting the boxes up for trash (recycling is closed until February 😔) and come running. Sophie is pretty but she isn’t the brightest dog around and always gets entirely too close to danger. I have to constantly turn away from her so she doesn’t get her nose cut off 🤦🏻‍♀️. 

Quinn cracked me up the other day because he wanted Sansa to give him a kiss and she wouldn’t. He walked over to her, lips puckered, hunkered down so that he was face to face with her and she snubbed him. He got so mad that he squealed and stomped his foot 🤣. I laughed hysterically, of course. Sansa is selective with her kisses and she wasn’t in the mood 🤷🏻‍♀️. Soph, on the other hand, is a bit of a hussy and has no reluctance about giving kisses to most people. 

She is such a baby. 

Anyway, tonight I’ve got some hobby happenings to share. I told you around Christmas with the picture of my tree that I painted our fireplace but I wanted to show the before and after. So here it is:

Before 

This was September something. 

After 

4 coats of chalk paint and 3 coats of polyurethane. It’s definitely not perfect but I like it. I could only paint after Quinn went to bed so I didn’t have little hands helping me. The lighting in this house sucks so there are runs that didn’t sand out but they’re mostly hidden. Quinn got that table for Christmas so I set it up as his art station. It has a hole in the middle with a lid so it can store things. Right now it has his crayons in it. White was a great choice 😉🤦🏻‍♀️. There are marks on it already but nothing a Magic Eraser can’t fix 🤷🏻‍♀️.

He takes art very seriously 🤣. 

See? We weren’t even sure if he was having fun doing in 🤣😬. 

I know you can’t tell (because, again, lighting 🙄) but there are marks on the black paper lol. This is just a dowel rod, command strips, and shower curtain rings. Makes an easy art display 🙂. 

Anyway, another hobby we’ve been working on for a few months now is a hydroponic garden in the basement. Because it’s hard to do projects together anymore, Philip did the installation mostly by himself. I put up the lights and took over the growing. We did a test run with Butter Crunch lettuce and I had my first salad yesterday. We’ve started more seeds and can’t wait to watch them all grow! Fresh veggies and herbs all year long! 🥗🥬

The grow lights make everything look weird colors. The wall is actually an ugly green that I hope to paint someday. Painting brick really, really sucks though so I’m in no hurry 🤣. 

The water in the 55 gallon drum is mixed with nutrients and pumps up into the top PVC pipe. It runs down into the bottom pipe and back into the drum. The roots of the plants hang down into the water and absorb the nutrients. The lights (there are two more that shine on the top pipe) simulate sun and help the plants grow. There’s no dirt involved. It’s a pretty cool process! 

Do any of you have hobbies you’d like to share? I’d be interested in hearing about them!