One convenient thing about having a two-year-old who can’t read at Christmas time is I can leave boxes that contain descriptions but no pictures in plain sight and Quinn doesn’t have a clue they’re for him. I can wrap things right in front of him, too. He discovered a gift I didn’t intend for him to see a few weeks ago though, and it was intense for a hot minute, and I almost gave in and let him have it 😂. He has a leaf blower toy that my friend, Holly, passed on to us that he loves. However, it stopped working over the summer and he constantly tells me it needs new batteries but that’s not the problem. Anyway, I bought him a new one as an Easter gift (I know I’m way ahead of the game but it’s an outside toy and it went on sale at the end of summer). I had it stored in a container that I ~thought~ he couldn’t get opened so I sat it on our bed while I was arranging Christmas gifts in our closet. Surprise, he can now open containers with lids (both pull lids and twist tops, as I’ve also recently discovered 😳)! He found it and was super excited. I lied and told him it was for someone else for Christmas. He was very upset when I put it back away and, like I said, I was very close to just giving it to him because he loves his leaf blower toy so much. Luckily, his sadness didn’t last long, and the leaf blower is securely back in my closet, on the top shelf 😉. I guess I can be reassured that he’s going to love it at Easter 🙂. He has seen a few other small things, like stocking stuffers that I was trying to sneak by him, but I’ve told him they were for one of his cousins and he usually just accepts that. I wonder how long I’ll be able to get away with that 😂.
Another trick I’m curious about the longevity of is the way I sort of force his compliance in cleaning up. If I ask him to put something away and he refuses, I often wait until he wants me to do something for him (get a toy, find something, open something) and then say, “I’ll do XYZ as soon as you clean up XYZ, like I asked you to.” Thus far, it works pretty well. I’m sure as he becomes more independent and needs me to help him less, this strategy will stop being so effective. Honestly, about 70% of the time, he does what I ask without any issues. Sometimes he decides to test what he can get away with though 🙄.
He likes to ask to do something: Ex. “I wanna go downstairs,” and then immediately replies, “Alright,” as if he’s speaking for us 😂😂. We have some of the best pretend play in the playroom. Quinn loves pretending to steal your money, whether or not you pretend to have any. Another favorite is putting on, what he calls, his Spiderman suit, which is just a resistance band he found in the gym/laundry room 😂. He literally steps into it, pulls it up to where it gets stuck on his butt, and then pulls the front to his shoulders. Now, he has an actual Spiderman costume which, obviously, looks nothing like a resistance band, so your guess is as good as mine as to why he calls it that. He recently saw a video with a pirate and commandeered a “pirate stick” (Don’t ask me where he came up with that name), a piece of the foam floor edging. He got me one, too, and came at me one day, saying, “I’m a pirate,” while putting on his pretend hat, and then, “You’re a pirate,” as he handed me my “stick.” He spotted his dinosaur toy, identified it: “I see a Triceratops!” and then said, “I’m going to chop it down!” 😂
I think one reason he likes to go downstairs so much is because he knows the basement fridge has the freezer where we keep the good stuff. If there are ice cream sandwiches in this house, that’s where they’ll be. He can almost always talk his dad into having one with him and he always wants to eat the last bite of someone else’s. He’ll tell you, “I eat it all gone.” 🙄 I was eating cottage cheese and veggies the other day and Quinn came over and wanted some. I gave him a bite of the cheese and then he said he wanted another. I asked what he wanted a bite of, and he said, “Put it in my mouth,” as he pointed to it 😂.
Sometimes he speaks so clearly, and sometimes I feel like I’m playing Mad Gab, trying to decipher the meaning from words that sound alike. He went for weeks saying he wanted to watch something that sounded like, “Robagina.” I had no idea. I asked him to tell me another word, which usually helps to clue me in to what he might mean. He told me, “Kids.” Still, nothing. One day, it just clicked, and I knew he meant Roma and Diana, a show with two siblings by those names. He’s funny when he’s watching tv and you ask him what he’s doing because his typical answer is, “Nothing, pretty much.” He really picks up on phrases we say often. Just last night I overheard a conversation he was having with Philip about closing the bedroom door. He drives us nuts always wanting to close doors but then getting stuck in that room. We’ve repeatedly told him to stop. He had done it again and then asked Philip to please let him out. He wanted Philip to come in the bedroom and play with him and Philip said he would. Quinn said, “I close the door. You come in first, though.” I’ve never heard a two-year-old use the word “though” before 😳. So, he may be a little advanced in the language department, but he also counts, “1, 2, 3, 11, Kate, B,” and tells secrets to your mouth, rather than your ear. You win some, you lose some 😂. Honestly, there was a time when I was beginning to worry a bit about his language being slightly delayed but then it just seems like he flourished in no time. Having worked in early childhood education for 8 years, I wouldn’t have hesitated to get him evaluated if I thought something was wrong though.
I was complaining before about how Quinn always thinks I know where his bink is, but it’s no wonder because I do give that impression. I’ll be straightening up and notice where things are, usually because they’re not in the right place, but I won’t put them away because that’s not what I’m working on at that moment. Anyway, I swear, he will coincidentally ask me where some random thing is that I just happened to see 2 minutes prior and I actually know where it is. So, for example, last week, I moved his big car out of the living room and into his room. His toy pliers were on the floor, underneath where I was sitting his car down, so I scooted them over, placed the car, and went back to the living room to continue making space for his ball pit that he wanted out. Fast forward like 10 minutes and Quinn asked me where his pliers were. I told him, “On the floor, in your room, beside the car that goes in the living room.” Philip heard this exchange and was like, “Why do you know that?” 😂. That’s when I realized that it’s no wonder Quinn always thinks I know where things are. Another example happened when we were in the playroom. Quinn asked where the spray bottle was that he had been playing with earlier. Just before going downstairs, I had noticed it on the floor and thought about how he would want it again later. Sure enough, he did, and I told him, “It’s upstairs, on the floor, in front of the bookcase by the bathroom.” I sent him up to get it and I can’t say that I expected him to actually return with it. I fully expected to be going up to get it myself a few minutes later. He surprised me though and came back with it! I was proud of him for following directions with that many descriptions.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t always listen to what I say 🙄. I told him I was getting in the shower one day and he said he was going to watch tv. After I had gotten in, I realized that he was eating Goldfish and I had a little panic, worried that he may get choked while I couldn’t hear him. I yelled for him a few times and hurried through my shower. When I turned the water off and yelled for him, he still wasn’t answering so then I was really starting to panic. Just as I was about to go streaking through the house to find him, he busted into the bathroom and said, “Mom, stop yelling for me! I just poopin’!” 🙄🙄🙄. Of course, I told him he still needs to answer me when I call for him but I’m pretty sure he didn’t absorb the message in that moment.
We’re still on a poop kick here. Yay 🙄. He literally woke up one day and said, “I have an idea,” as he started sniffing my shirt. In my sleepy state I asked what he was doing. He said, “Smelling mom’s shirt. Smells like poop,” as he laughed like a crazy 🙄🤦🏻♀️. He says the weirdest things when he wakes up sometimes. One morning, I was awakened by a bink being shoved in my mouth (that was much funnier when it happened to Philip a few months ago 😜) and Quinn saying, “I’m a taco, eat me. I have meat and taco sauce.”
Speaking of our bed, remember how I was complaining about having no room from being crowded by the tiniest member of our household? Well, the very night after I posted that entry, Quinn decided to shift sides and invade Philip’s Island for once and guess what I did; woke up in a panic, feeling around for him because I didn’t know where he was 🤦🏻♀️.
Many nights, Sansa goes to sleep before we do, and she takes any opportunity to use our bed when it’s empty (and lots of times when it’s not 🙄). When she’s there, I like to tell Quinn that there’s a big, brown, blob in our bed and he laughs and says it’s just Sansa. Now, it has become a game to go see if she’s there when it’s bedtime. If he doesn’t particularly want to go to bed, that will usually convince him to. We’ll ask him if he thinks there’s a big, brown, blob in the bed and what it might be. Sometimes he says he thinks it will be a lion or a dinosaur. I’m not sure if he’s disappointed or relieved when it’s just her 😆.
He likes to pretend that dinosaurs are chasing him, or they’re outside, or there’s a wolf downstairs. We’ve convinced him to not be scared of the basement by telling him there’s not a wolf there because Sansa checked, and she would have scared it off if there was one. Now he says, “Wolf downstairs,” and when we say, “No, there’s no wolf downstairs,” he automatically replies, “Sansa checked.”
Sansa is such a good big sister. She checks for wolves and she makes a great pillow, apparently 🙂.
There are a few videos he likes to watch on YouTube that have some elements that scare him, like anytime someone is dressed in a costume. We’ve told him particularly about one family he watches that the dad is just dressed up to be silly so now when he sees something that scares him, even if it is obvious to us that it’s not someone dressed up, he’ll ask what it is and if we don’t know, he’ll say, “Maybe just his dad.” Those dads get blamed for everything 🤣.
He has seen way too many tractor videos and loves to throw himself on the floor and whine for me to come get him because he’s stuck in the mud 🙄. You really don’t want to watch something new with him unless you’re prepared to answer one million questions. That goes for books, too. One day we were reading a book about a farmer who drives a tractor around his farm and gathers up animals, counting 1-10. The farmer literally looks exactly the same on each page but for TEN PAGES I was repeatedly asked what the farmer was doing.
Q: “What’s the farmer doing?”
M: “Driving the tractor.”
M: “Do you see the (insert animal name here) that he just picked up? Let’s count them.”
Q: What’s the farmer doing?”
REPEAT 10X
Repetition is the key to learning. Repetition is the key to learning. Repetition is the key to learning🤯🤯🤯.
“Mom! Come here! I stuck in the mud!” 🙄🤦🏻♀️ This could almost be true with the amount of muddy paw prints the girls have dragged in lately, thanks to warmer temps and rain 🤬.
How was everyone’s full moon, the weekend before last? Fun? Frustrating? Ours was the latter and the full moon is the only reason I can think of to explain why Quinn was in A MOOD. Constant whining, playing the yes/no game, hitting, pulling my hair, biting, even, and making us wish it was bedtime 🤞🏻. I’m generally pretty patient with his mood swings because that’s not his normal so I figure something must be wrong. However, by the 57th time he told me he wanted a hug but then refused to give me one and cried instead, I lost my cool. Instead of sharing my calm (because I didn’t have any left) and just saving space for him, I told him I wasn’t going to sit in his room while he cried and that I would be in the kitchen when he decided he wanted me 🤦🏻♀️. I think that sent the wrong message and I regretted it later. But in that moment, I just couldn’t take anymore. I don’t want him to think that crying is wrong. He can cry as much as he needs and that won’t make me leave (abandon) him. I can only hope to do better next time.
I’ve entered my third trimester and the fatigue is back to let me know it. I’m SO. TIRED. ALL. OF. THE. TIME. 🥺 I had an early appointment for my 28-week check-up, which meant getting up super early as I have an hour drive. I asked Philip to just stay home with Quinn rather than find a sitter because I didn’t want to have to deal with getting him and me both ready and dropping him off somewhere when I had to leave so early. I’ve told Philip and he’s semi seen that our morning routine consists of changing diaper, getting him a drink, maybe a snack (this kid can put down 1 1/2 bananas, no problem), and then Quinn watching tv for a few while I make coffee and wash dishes from the night before. A side note on my first world problem is that our dishwasher broke a few weeks ago. I ordered a replacement part that we thought was the problem and Philip swapped them out but that didn’t fix it. It hasn’t become that big of an inconvenience yet so we haven’t made it a priority to have it looked at by a repair person. Anyway, dishes are my first chore so that I can get them done while he’s content with zoning out for a minute. Okay, so, Philip expected his morning to go similarly as I had to leave pretty much as soon as Quinn was waking up. I felt so guilty because he likes to cuddle in the morning (and say weird things to me 😜) and I had to go, even when he asked me, “Come lay with me” 🥺🥺🥺. As you can probably guess, their morning was not so calm as Philip is the “fun” parent and it’s always playtime when he’s not at work 😆. They did a little bit of everything while I was gone and I was pretty happy about that since I was beyond ready for a nap when I got home and Quinn was, too 😉.
It’s too bad Quinn gets carsick because he would enjoy the drive to Marietta since there is so much heavy equipment along the road. It’s ridiculous that I notice these things now 🙄. I’ll be driving along and think, “Oh, there’s a backhoe. Quinn would like that” 🤦🏻♀️.
Because I have a history of gestational diabetes, they are monitoring the baby’s growth via ultrasound. His abdomen measured in the 89th percentile, meaning out of 100 babies born, 11 are bigger than him and 88 are smaller. This made the doctor concerned that my sugar may be running high (even though I’ve been monitoring it) and I was referred to an endocrinologist to determine whether I need medication. I’m curious to see what they say. During this ultrasound (28 weeks), they typically take 3D pictures, but the baby was not cooperative. The best pic they got was of his foot…on his face 😂. I have to say, I’m not the biggest fan of 3D ultrasounds as I think they’re a bit creepy looking so I wasn’t the least bit disappointed when it didn’t work out. However, I guess the techs (there were two because one was a new hire, with a veteran overseeing) didn’t believe me because they tried and tried to get him to turn his face away from my back. They pushed so hard trying to agitate him that my belly was actually sore the next day. I seriously didn’t want them that badly (or at all 😂).
Anyway, I’ll have bi-weekly appointments for the next two and then start weeklies at 32 weeks. Ugh. I hate all the driving, the hassle of having someone keep Quinn, the added appointments now for the endocrinologist ☹️. It’s too much.
Post-Christmas anxiety has set in and I’m trying my best to stay on top of it. Since I began decluttering a year or so before Quinn was even born, and it has been an ongoing effort, I struggle when things don’t have a home. I appreciate the gifts that people buy for us but they can be overwhelming when trying to figure out a place for them to live. Complicating the matter is the fact that we’re about to have another baby, so getting rid of things Quinn has outgrown, clothes and toys, seems silly as we’d have to repurchase them. Not to mention, nothing can ever be easy 🙄. For example, I got Philip a gigantic cutting board. He wanted it and it will be a nice addition to our kitchen. However, where should the gigantic cutting board be stored? We have lots of cabinets but they’re all filled. I’ve decided to rehome some mason jars to the basement, so I need to get them in the tote that holds our other canning supplies, but it’s blocked by the tote that our Christmas decor goes in. And when I put that away, then I can reach it, but we haven’t had Christmas with Philip’s brother’s family yet, so I’m leaving the decorations up until after this weekend when we do that. Not that I have the energy to take them down anyway, when I’m already working on just getting all of Quinn’s new stuff out of the living room 🤦🏻♀️. So, there ya go, my anxiety in a nutshell. The funny thing is, I didn’t even go all out decorating this year. I didn’t have the energy or the motivation. I didn’t bother even putting ornaments on the tree, aside from the few I made for Quinn out of felt. I have years worth of sentimental (aka breakable) ornaments and I didn’t want to risk displaying them with a toddler around. He really didn’t bother the tree too much but that very well could be because there wasn’t much of anything interesting to bother 🤷🏻♀️ He sure didn’t resist taking the stockings off the fireplace every single day so I still think it was a good call. The lights are what make it pretty anyway and we have enjoyed them. I crafted a few other decorations and put out the Christmas countdown. I think it was a perfectly minimal amount to still be festive.
My giant pine cone Christmas tree. My mother-in-law brought this pine cone back to me from a desert 🙂.
Tiny snowman clothespins
My felt string of lights.
The ornaments I made for Haleigh, Coen, Kate, and Link.
The ones I made for Quinn. You’ll notice there are duplicates because everything I made for someone else, Quinn had to have one as well 🤦🏻♀️.
Aside from all that, we had a great Christmas. It was awesome watching Quinn get excited about opening his gifts and I swear, unprompted, when he was finished, he said, “Thank you, Mama.” 🥺🥺🥺🥺 it was the sweetest thing and the best gift ❤️.
He was super excited about his new trampoline. I had one for exercising that he used to play on but he’s a wild child and definitely needed one with a handle.
❤️
He loves hats 🙂.
Not a Christmas pic but he loves to put on this hat and get his “target,” as he calls his guitar, and dance 🤣🤣🤣.
He liked digging for dinosaurs in the Dino eggs we got, but it’s definitely too hard for him to do alone.
His favorite gifts seem to be his basketball “hoot,” as he calls it, from Aunt Lulu and Uncle Greg, his laundry set from Nana and Juju, and a playdoh cash register from us. I don’t have a good pic of him opening the laundry set though. About 90% of my pics are blurry. Idk why he couldn’t just hold still 😜😜.
He even got a gift from our neighbors, Tina and Jim ❤️. He loved his Dino trucks!
He also liked his blanket from Pap Preston.
The girls got to open gifts, too. They got toys from us and treats from Haleigh ❤️.
What a difference a year makes ❤️. Love them all so much!
Some other things that kept us busy this month:
Color mixing with an eye dropper. He was laughing because I told him to mix them in the middle jar but he kept putting red directly into the green one, making it brown 🙄. He said, “I think that’s funny” 🤦🏻♀️.
Cookie cutter eruptions. He LOVES playing with baking soda and vinegar.
Pom pom ball color matching
Fake snow—shaving cream and baking soda—is serious business 😉.
Magnetic pickup with bells
He got lots of real mail…
And I crafted him some play mail so we could work on number identification.
We threw miniature snow balls at home…
And big ones at Story Hour at the library. We ended up picking up a set of those ones for home, too 😉.
We did crafts at home…
And crafts with his cousins
And made cookies with them. Although, Quinn wasn’t all that interested in doing it that day 🤷🏻♀️.
🤤🤤🤤.
Soph and Sansa had a really good time though. They were worn out after everyone went home 🤣.
😆
Amazon sent us two boxes that were big enough to fit 5 humans inside so we made a tunnel; protected by dinosaurs, of course.
We took lots of naps ☺️.
