I have so many emotions and not enough words. I’ve wanted nothing more than for this pregnancy to be over with for months but now that is almost is, as in, one day away from being so, I’m overwhelmed. Well, truthfully, I’m overwhelmed by many things, as we had an unexpected situation present itself last weekend that I’m not going to share right now but it has taken a considerable amount of processing and will continue to do so as details work themselves out. We hope for it to be a positive situation, but the timing was a bit jarring.

Knowing that tonight is most likely our last “normal” night, is distressing. I won’t know for sure what time my surgery is on Tuesday until tomorrow, but my chart says 7:30am, which would necessitate Quinn spending tomorrow night away from me since I would have to arrive at the hospital at 5:30am on Tuesday. As I laid with him this evening at bedtime, my arm under his pillow, his hand holding mine, I fought to hold back my tears. I’ve cried more this past week than I have in a very long time and unfortunately, it has affected Quinn. I’ve assured him that I’m okay, but he has definitely been curious and stressed by it. I know that once I drop him off to Lori, the next time I see him he’s going to seem so much bigger, and it makes me so sad. I know that everything is temporary, and things will get easier, I’m just barely hanging for the ride on this emotional roller coaster.

I wanted to just write one more post before our lives change forever because I don’t want to forget anything when all of the newness starts. I think Quinn has finally started to connect time-out as being a consequence to his actions. He has almost always reiterated the cause that got him put into to time-out when we allow him to come out of it, but he’s a good memorizer and we always tell him what he’s in trouble for when we sit him down. Now, on the way to his consequence, he often says, “I be a good boy!” It doesn’t work, but I almost feel a tinge of pity for him. Except for when he hits me, which is the reason he gets put in time-out about 90% of the time now. He isn’t liking being told that I won’t do something these days. He demands, I decline, he hits, I discipline. Repeat. When he isn’t trying to assert control though, he’s sweet as ever. The way to his heart is through food, as the saying goes for most men 🙄. Quinn loves sour cream and onion chips. He was eating them one day and I was in the bathroom, peeing, (seriously, guys, so many stories happen in the bathroom, it’s ridiculous. However, I do spend a lot of time in there as this baby sits permanently on my bladder), and here comes Quinn to tell me about them. In he barged, with his hand outstretched, trying to give me a chip and said, “Mama! Taste this! It’s so good!” 😂😂🤦🏻‍♀️ I said, “I know, bud, I’ve had them before,” so he ate it himself. I’ve literally eaten them WITH him, but I guess they were just overwhelmingly good that day and he couldn’t keep them to himself 🤪. How nice of him to share….in the bathroom 🤦🏻‍♀️.He was watching a show the other day, and someone had a watermelon. He asked me if we had watermelon and I told him we didn’t. I went grocery shopping later that day while he stayed home with Philip. I bought a watermelon for him and when he saw it in the bag when I got home, he was so excited. He exclaimed, “There’s a watermelon! Thank you, Mama!” 🥺❤️ In fact, he’s been a very polite boy with his thank you’s lately, telling me, “Thank you Mama, I not cold anymore,” when I decided to grab his jacket last minute and put it on him in his stroller before our walk, even though he insisted he didn’t want one a few minutes before. He even says, “No, thank you,” occasionally; once when I asked if he wanted whipped cream on his ice cream, but not before giving it a few seconds’ thought 😆. 

He balances his sweetness with saltiness though. I was in a rush a few weekends ago, trying to get a shower and grab a bite to eat quickly so that I could take the recycling downtown to drop it off before they closed. I scarfed down a sandwich but then grabbed a small bag of Doritos to eat in the car on the way down. Quinn saw them in my hand when I told him I was leaving and would be right back and said, “I want that snack!” I told him he couldn’t have mine, but he could get one for himself and he told me, “Stop being sassy, Mama.” He loves telling us that now 🙄. He also loves telling us that that we’re something that sounds like a “full muck,” something neither of us has any idea of what it is. I don’t think Q does either though because when we ask him, he just says, “It’s the same one.” However, I’m pretty sure it’s an intended insult because of the way he says it, hurling it at you, accusingly. He asked me how old one of his favorite toy dogs, Clifford, is but I reversed the question back to him, asking how old he thought he was. Quinn told me, “Ninety-four.” I asked how he even knew the word ninety and he said, “He’s as old as Mama!” So, I’m a really old full muck, apparently. 🤪 Speaking of made up words, his favorite to say is, “Baduh, baduh, baduh,” when he is, self-described, “all wound up!”🤦🏻‍♀️

Quinn went outside with his dad today while Philip was installing the car seat bases in our vehicles for the infant carrier. I’m the former car seat tech and would have done it but I wasn’t feeling well this morning, so I was resting on the couch. It was in the thirties and Philip said the wind was awful, but the sun was out.  They didn’t stay out long because of the wind but when Quinn came in, I heard him tell Philip that it was a beautiful day outside 🥰. He’s been talking all the time about how when it gets warm outside, we can do this and that. I’m with him; anxiously awaiting warmer weather. We still get developmental updates on Baby Center about Quinn and this week talked about how toddlers his age are starting to understand time, like yesterday means past and tomorrow means future. Quinn has had this perception for a little while now and has advanced to saying, “It takes a long time to get warm outside.” I know, buddy, I know. He is using the word, “earlier,” correctly occasionally but still says, “last night,” for things that happened the same morning. He surprised me the other day by telling me he wanted to watch the “first one,” in the lineup of suggested videos on YouTube. This isn’t really time, rather than placement, but still number related. 

He lied to me three times today, making three different excuses as to why he couldn’t clean up his toys: he had a boo boo on his knee, he got sick, and while playing with his play doh, he went and put on his construction hat and declared, “I can’t clean up right now because I have work to do right now.” 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️

I can’t imagine what sort of things he’ll come up with when he has a new family member to blame for things 🤔. 

Aside from the emotional turmoil, I suppose I’m as ready as I can be for the baby to come. I have questionable nesting tendencies, focusing on ridiculous things to clean, such as the blinds above the kitchen window, as if an extremely judgmental baby is coming in for an inspection before he decides to accept us or not 😂. This house is about as clean as it’s getting though because each day I feel more and more exhausted and accomplish less and less. 

Send us some good vibes and happy thoughts that the next couple of days go smoothly. We sure could use some smoothness after the past week and a half. 

The next time you’ll hear from me, I’ll be a mama to two and have lots of new things to complain about, which I’m sure you’ll all be dying to hear 😉🤪. 

Quinn saw his baby pic in this collage and said, “That’s my brother!” 😂

 

I have a baby date. I HAVE A BABY DATE! The countdown is on. Not that it wasn’t on before but now it’s definite. Baby #2, who is still unnamed, will be here on March 1^st. While I’ve obviously known this day was coming, having a date makes it REAL. Like the realist it has been. I think because of the miscarriage, I’ve been very disconnected with the idea of it being over. It’s kind of a defense mechanism to keep in the back of your mind that something could still go wrong. With just days left, everything now feels suddenly very urgent. I came home from my appointment and was like MAKE. ALL. THE. LISTS! Having things out of my head and on paper (or in my phone, some place I can see them) helps ease my anxiety. They aren’t even big things, just lots of little things, like, ya know, packing my hospital bag, the baby’s bag, Philip’s bag, Quinn’s bag to stay at my brother’s house for a few days, re-washing the baby clothes I saved from Quinn and the cloth diapers that we’re going to give another shot. Ordering a new dresser to house the boys’ clothes. Buying new bottles in case I have to pump again. Well, that’s not entirely accurate as I do plan to pump some, so that Philip can feed the baby, I’m just hoping not to have to do it exclusively this time. I need to set up the bassinet but that’s a last-minute to-do because I don’t want to have to fight Quinn about crawling into it 🙄. This is all minimal, really, which is why I didn’t feel like it was too pressing, but there’s nothing more motivating to this procrastinator than a looming deadline 🤪. 

The countdown I made for Quinn. He’s very happy about getting a mini Reese cup every day until his brother comes 😂. 

I’m sure my anxiety about getting all the things done contributes to some of the irritation I’ve felt toward Quinn on some days. He is so moody sometimes and I’m like, “Could you just stop?” Ugh. When it’s 9am and he’s already on my last nerve, I can put myself in time out, right? Thirty-four minutes? I can’t wait until my birthday next month, so I get another minute added 😂. 

Other days, I feel the struggle between wanting to get things done but also feeling like I’m wasting the last of the time I have with just him by not focusing on him 100%. There’s too much pressure to make the right choice. It physically hurts my heart thinking about how I’ll have to spend two nights (at a minimum, assuming everything goes well) away from him 😩😭😭. He falls asleep snuggled up to me and when he stirs in the middle of the night, he finds me like a magnet, inching his way back to me. He often says, “I love Mama,” in his sleep, and the other night when I was sleeping with my back to him, he told me, “Mama, I wanna nap with you,” so I would turn over to snuggle him 🥺🥺🥺. He’s a very flexible kid and I know he’ll be just fine and use Lori as a surrogate while I’m in the hospital, but I will miss him terribly. Depending on how he’s feeling, Philip may go home the second night and stay with him but that’s a tentative plan for now. I’m just crossing my fingers for a smooth delivery, successful breastfeeding, and healthy baby. I’ve had a few people react questioningly when I’ve said I will be having a repeat C-Section and while I don’t owe anyone an explanation about that choice, I’ll tell you all why that will be the case. While it’s possible to have a vaginal birth after cesarean (or VBAC), it doesn’t come without risk of rupturing your previous incision, which can result in a hysterectomy. Not that I want my parts any longer anyway but 🤷🏻‍♀️. Playing the biggest part in this decision from the doctors’ standpoint is the fact that I have gestational diabetes. I am controlling it well with medicine (that I still hate with every fiber of my being), but the baby was measuring very large at my last growth scan. Vaginally birthing a big baby brings the risk of shoulder dystocia, which happens when the baby’s shoulders get stuck in the birth canal, causing risks to him and a good chance of a needing a C-Section. I want to get my tubes tied, which can be done during the same surgery and wouldn’t require me to go back for an additional procedure. My biggest reason for wanting a repeat Cesarean is that I had a VERY traumatic induction experience with Quinn that I don’t wish to repeat. Due to my diabetes, the doctors want me to deliver at 38 weeks as he will be full term and they don’t want to give him a chance to grow any larger due to my condition. With Quinn I was given meds to try to ripen my cervix, which caused an allergic reaction; a very painful one. I sat in the hospital for three days waiting for it to work, having periodic cervical checks that felt like someone was stabbing me in the crotch due to all the swelling. I endured that while also being 0.2 points away from having a high enough creatinine level that would’ve required me to be transferred to Ruby, a hospital with a NICU, in case my kidneys started shutting down. So, when someone asked me, “Oh, you’re not even going to try?” when I mentioned having another C-Section, the answer to that is, “No. No I’m not.” You can have whatever opinion you want on the matter, but you know what they say about opinions 🤷🏻‍♀️. Opting to have a major abdominal surgery isn’t ‘taking the easy way out,’ no matter what some people think. 

I’ve been having some Braxton Hicks contractions but nothing major. The baby startles to loud sounds, especially when I grind my coffee beans in the morning, which is sort of amusing. Yes, I drink one cup of coffee per day; no, I don’t care what anyone thinks about that either 🤷🏻‍♀️. The Metformin, although nausea inducing, is helping control my diabetes really well and I’m thankful for that. In the practice that I go to, they like to rotate you through the doctors since you don’t know who will be on call during delivery (this obviously doesn’t matter in my case since it is scheduled). Unfortunately for me, my favorite by far has been the midwife, who can’t perform my surgery. I cried to her several weeks ago when I felt like life was just super overwhelming and the diabetes was extremely hard to handle. She told me something that I really appreciate her saying and that was, “None of this is your fault. Your placenta is producing hormones that caused this to happen.” That was a welcome relief when I was constantly blaming myself and feeling like I did everything wrong. Moms don’t need anything else to contribute to their guilt, believe me. 

One thing that has really helped relieve the stress of having weekly appointments, especially ones that require me to be there at 8am when I have an hour drive, is that Philip has been able to take half days off from his job to stay home with Quinn. While it was nice that he was able to attend lots of my appointments for Quinn, not having to get us both ready and drop him off somewhere at 6:45am is a major stress reliever. Not that I wouldn’t want Philip to come, it’s just easier this way. His previous job that he had for over 10 years would never have allowed for that to happen and it would have fallen on me to figure everything out so I’m just really appreciating this point in his career. I have enough anxiety, not to mention depression, which can make life seem very lonely sometimes, even when you have a bunch of people around you who are willing to help. I’m not good at asking for help, even when I know I should. If you’ve never experienced depression, you may not understand where I’m coming from. Mine is under control most of the time at this point, thanks to many years of trial and error and finding the medicine that is right for me, but there are still times when I fall into a mental black hole and have to try to climb my way back out. 

The only part I enjoy about those long drives is being able to listen to music and sing as loudly as I want 😂. Before Quinn, I used to go shopping by myself quite often and did that. COVID broke my shopping addiction and my ability to just go anywhere, anytime. Well, that, and having a baby, of course. I’ve missed Taylor Swift and Maroon 5 🙂. 

This is most likely the last pic you’ll see of me pregnant. This is my friend, Megan, and I at story hour at the library this week showing off our prego bellies. Megan enjoys making an effort with her appearance and looked nice and cute. I, on the other hand, had showered, washed my hair, and wasn’t wearing my husband’s clothes: the maximum amount of effort anyone should expect from me 🤪.  Our boys will be born about 5 weeks apart. Megan and I are neighbors so they’ll be forced into being BFFs 😉.

Anyway, I’ll get to what you’ve all come to actually read about and that is my funny boy 🤪. I know in just a few weeks’ time he’s going to seem like a really big kid, so I guess the timing was good to get him a new stool for the kitchen. Thanks to those three inches he grew in the last few months, his other one was putting him a little too high for the counter. Unfortunately, it isn’t adjustable so if anyone is contemplating buying one, look for one that is if you don’t want to have to invest in two. This isn’t really a problem for me since we’ll need a second one eventually anyway. Quinn was so excited when I put it together for him, moving it all around the kitchen saying, “Look where I can reach!” 😂. I guess he forgot he could reach it before, and some things were even easier to get with the higher stool . His favorite part about this one though is that he can jump out of the back of it if it’s not pushed against the cabinets 🤦🏻‍♀️. Luckily, the tallest step is only 11” high so it’s not too far of a jump. It is, however, just high enough to enable him to climb over the side of the couch more efficiently, much to my annoyance 😩🤦🏻‍♀️. 

🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

He’s still cracking us up every day with the things he says. Some examples:

Q: “Mama, I can have some ice cream?”

M: “Maybe after you eat your dinner.”

Q: “It’s up to you whether I have ice cream.”

M: “Yeah, I know, and I said maybe after you eat your dinner.”

Q: “It’s up to you.”

M: 🤦🏻‍♀️

Q: “Quit making a funny face at me.”

*I’m in another room*

P: “Make sure you don’t touch that bowl, it’s hot.”

*I walk into the kitchen and see the bowl with hot food on the counter*

M: “Quinn, make sure you don’t touch that bowl, it’s very hot.”

Q: “Dad already told me that!”

M: 😂

Q: “Mama, I can have some cereal?”

M: “Yes, I’ll get you some.”

Q: “After I eat all the cereal, Imma drink the milk. It’s delicious!”

Q: “Mama, you like skeletons?”

M: “Sure, I like skeletons. Do you like skeletons?”

Q: “No. I. Don’t.”

M: “Oh, I don’t like them either then.”

Q: “Mama, I like skeletons now. Do you like skeletons?”

*We’re driving to my Farmers Market meeting*

Q: “I’m all wound up!”

M: 😳

*Quinn gave Philip a painting we did earlier that day*

P: “What did you make me?”

Q: “It’s a paint and a cardboard.”

M: “Duh, Dad.” 🤪🤣

*Pretending to be a doctor*

Q: “I looking for French fries in your ears” (something Dr. Gary always says to him).

M: “Did you see any?”

Q: “No, I just saw ear wax.” 

*Philip and Quinn were sharing an ice cream sandwich*

P: “It’s almost gone. I’m going to finish it.” *He knew this would rile Q up*

Q: “No! You know I eat the last bite!”

*Quinn comes to me looking all sleepy*

Q: “Mama, what time is it getting to be?”

M: “It’s almost nap time. Are you ready to lay down?”

Q: “No!” 

M: 🙄🙄🙄

Q: “I don’t like dinosaurs.”

M: “Are you lyin’?”

Q: “No, I a boy!”

M & P: 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Q: “Why you think that’s funny?”

*Quinn and I were in Walmart, and he was talking entirely too loudly, being hyper*

M: “You need to calm down, mister.”

Q: “You need to calm down, mister Mama.” 

M: 😆😆

*Playing with his farm toys*

Q: “Mama, I can’t find my lawnmower.”

M: “Look over there by the barn.”

Q: “I just had the lawnmower in my hand!”

***This is a funny observation considering he has literally asked me where his bink was when it was in his mouth 🤦🏻‍♀️***

He has picked up saying, “So,” before the start of a conversation, “Oh my gosh, what happened,” “Oh, that’s cool,” whenever he hears my timer go off, he says, “Time to check your sugar, Mama,” and thanks to watching stupid Steve and Maggie, “You’re a naughty, naughty, naughty, naughty, naughty bird.” 🤦🏻‍♀️Man, do I hate that show 😝.

Steve and Maggie taught him the finger song, and if you have or know a toddler, you probably know it, too. Quinn makes up his own versions though and instead of the standard Daddy, Mommy, etc. fingers, he says things like, “Grogu finger, Grogu finger, where are you? Here you are, here you are, how do you do?” I’ve also heard cheese, blue, car, and vampire versions, too. Quinn loves songs and we have a family song we sing to the tune of Wheels on the Bus. It includes lyrics like, “The Quinn in the bed goes snore, snore, snore/ snore, snore, snore/ snore, snore, snore/ the Quinn in the bed goes snore, snore, snore/ all night long.” His favorite verse is about Sophie though because she goes toot, toot, toot all night long 😂.

Even though I hate Steve and Maggie, I think Cocomelon would be a far worse show to endure. Quinn loves music though so I try everything I can to keep him from wanting to watch that. He’s not usually into cartoons, preferring instead to watch shows with real people, however, he does like the Wheels on the Bus episode of Cocomelon. The timing of him discovering that one coincided with Quinn’s need for a new toothbrush and Burst coming out with a new toothbrush for kids that features Cocomelon. Philip and I have Burst toothbrushes and really like them, so we planned to eventually buy one for Quinn when we knew he liked his Spinbrush from Walmart. The Burst one is more expensive; however, you can get replaceable heads for it whereas the Spinbrush just has to be thrown away when you need a new one. You guys know I couldn’t deal with that wastefulness 🤪. Not to mention, I got it for him in November and had already replaced the batteries in it twice. Five dollars seems like a good deal, but it isn’t really when you factor all of that in. Anyway, I didn’t want to encourage his Cocomelon discovery, but I wanted to ask him what color toothbrush he wanted. I tried only showing him the blue, pink, and purple ones but he saw the green, not even realizing it was Cocomelon, I’m pretty sure, and chose that one 🤦🏻‍♀️. He tells me nightly that he likes his new toothbrush. Luckily, it hasn’t seemed to influence his tv preferences 😉. You parents who suffer through that show daily are mentally stronger than me. It gives me major sensory overload. I can’t imagine what it does to some little brains 😳. 

Quinn still thinks that I’m capable of creating anything he could possibly want. The other day he requested I make doors for his helicopter toy. That one wasn’t too hard, I just cut some out of cardboard and taped them on. However, when he asked for a Halloween party made of kinetic sand, I had to insist that I do, indeed, have limits to my creating abilities. The Halloween episodes of Steve and Maggie are his favorite, so I know that’s where he got that idea from. His interests vary from day to day, usually getting stuck on something for about 2-3 days and then moving onto something else. Most recently he was really interested in his barn, animals, and tractors, but now he has spent the last several days playing with his counting bears and kinetic sand. He loves hiding and finding things so that’s what we often do with them. Philip had a fun idea to hide the whole bucket of bears and make a trail leading to them so Quinn could find them. He really liked doing that. Quinn and Philip play hide and seek most nights; they add their own twist to it by barking like a dog when they’re ready for the other to come search for them 😂. 

I was able to recreate legs and a tail using pipe cleaners on his cow that Sophie had chewed off 😂.

I also made him a new barn from a cornmeal container. 

He loves mowing that grass and we flip it over for “dirt” since it’s glued onto cardboard. 

I made a potty for Damon out of cardboard and duct tape—neon yellow, at Quinn’s request. 

Most of his toys tried it out..

Including the one he calls “my dad” 😂.  Quinn tried to sit on it, too, of course. 

Some of his fave hiding spots: the trash closet,

Underneath the kitchen table,

Underneath his stool 😂. He will direct you where to look for him, too. Like, “Mama, look in the cabinets.” 

We’ve been busy doing all kinds of fun activities so far this month, focusing on heart shapes. 

We celebrated the start of the month by making heart shaped sugar cookies. 

Quinn’s favorite part was just eating the icing. He said, “I just want icing and no cookie.”

We made salt dough heart ornaments to paint to decorate the fireplace. Quinn learned there are different kinds of dough and salt dough doesn’t taste good 😂😂😂.



We practiced catching hearts on a hook and hanging them on a “tree.”

He rescued candy hearts from a trap…

They were Smarties hearts and he had never seen them before so he didn’t know they were candy at first. When I told him he could eat them, he said, “It’s like Halloween!” 😂

We attempted a lint roller/sticker/stamping activity. It would’ve worked better with a good quality lint roller. No worries though, Quinn decided to just make hand prints 😳

As you can see from the color choice, it looked a bit like a crime scene on my kitchen floor before he was done 😂. It cleaned up easily though. 

I made him a matching game with all of his favorite characters from the shows he watches. 

Thirty spots is quite a bit for his age so we did it in reverse. Instead of uncovering them to find matches, we covered them up.

I made him a target and arrows to throw through it. He wasn’t a big fan of this until we took it to Lori’s and Kate and Lincoln played with it, too. Sometimes the activities I attempt don’t last for more than 2 minutes and that’s okay. It’s always up to him and his interest. We just try again later if it’s a miss. 

This was the cardboard and paint he made for his Dad 😉. He’s often a regifter when it comes to artwork. He’ll tell me he’s making something for me but then when we show it to Dad later, he says it’s for him 🤪.

We threw in a puffy paint resist picture by putting a heart shaped piece of contact paper on the card stock and painting all around it, and then peeling it off when the paint dried. 

Just for a change of pace, we brought the water table inside from the building and put colored ice cubes, letter ice cubes, squirt bottles, and several other kitchen tools by time he was done, as is his style. Have I mentioned our dishwasher is broken? 🤪🤦🏻‍♀️

We tried heart stringing—felt hearts onto a silly straw. 

We did a painting in a bag for a different experience…

That wasn’t enough though, of course; he had to actually paint. I put the enormous amount of packing paper Amazon likes to send to good use. 

We reused our pipe cleaner hearts from the tree activity by filling them with kinetic sand to make beds for bears. We talked about how many would fit on each due to their different sizes. 

For Valentine’s Day, I made him an edible sensory bin with different textures and flavored candies. Some of them were sour 😂. 

To add to our activity from last month, I decided to make him a vinegar spice jar. I didn’t tell him what was in it and instructed him to smell it and tell me what it was. He knew immediately that it was vinegar and answered, “No,” when I asked if it smelled good 😂.

He loves using the spray bottle to “clean” his toys so I gave him water to spray on the window and we counted the foam hearts as he stuck them to the water. 

We did an experiment with baby oil and colored water. 

The dropper didn’t last long and he just poured them in to make brown 🤦🏻‍♀️  But we had a good discussion about the oil floating to the top. It was fun until he got some on his feet and decided to run across the kitchen, away from me, saying, “I think that’s funny” 🤬🤦🏻‍♀️.  Thank goodness for blue Dawn. 

I made a jumping game in our hallway with foam hearts from the window. He liked seeing how far he could go, getting all the way to six at one point. 

All of his animals had to take a turn, too. 

He jumped for about 30 minutes straight. Obviously this was a great pre-nap activity to wear him out 😂. 

Sophie was very confused by the all the animals blocking her path 😂.

Another great activity that wasn’t an activity was giving him a balloon to try to blow up. He spent over 20 minutes telling me he was blowing it up, that he was doing a good job, and then, when he pushed out the minimal amount of air he managed to get in it, that he popped it 😂. 

He said it was full. Maybe full of slobber 😆. 

Today was a really great day with Quinn. Yesterday he woke up with the squirmies at 6am, filled with full moon feelings, I guess. He spent the entire day being sassy while the girls felt the need to be touched every five minutes. Sansa is shedding globs of hair, driving me crazy. By the end of the day, I was ready to rehome all three of them. But then today, Quinn miraculously woke up in a completely different mood. He was sweet and polite and happy all day. I enjoyed him so much 🙂.

As usual, the last few weeks have been a roller coaster of emotions, for both Quinn and me. Most Mondays, or whatever day Philip goes back to work after having a few days off, are typically pretty exhausting. After the long weekend with the Martin Luther King holiday, Quinn was in a terrible mood on that Tuesday. I asked him what was wrong, if he was just sad and he said, “Yeah.” When I asked why he was sad, he said, “I just wanna see Dada.” 🥺🥺🥺 Talk about heart wrenching. I texted Philip to tell him what Quinn said so when he got a minute, he came upstairs and Quinn asked him, “Stay home with me now.” 

Before you get too choked up, you should know that within the week, Quinn was constantly telling both of us to “Go away,” for no apparent reason. By the second day, we were contemplating taking him up on the offer 🤷🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️. I think he got this from a new show he’s been watching on YouTube, called Steve and Maggie; his favorite episode being one that involves a haunted house, and the man sings a song telling the different monsters to go away. I didn’t think I could dislike a show more than I did Blippi initially (he has grown on me though), but ‘Steve and Maggie’ is up there pretty high on my list. It’s an English man with a pet bird and he repeats himself 4-6 times for every object he comes across—like, “Say it with me: it’s a wooly sock. It’s a wooly sock. It’s a wooly sock. It’s a wooly sock.” I really want to punch him in the throat. Handyman Hal is another I can’t stand. He’s a Blippi rip-off who constantly says everything is “AWESOME!” I want to punch him twice. 

Anyway. You never quite know which Quinn you’re going get when you wake up, and if it’s the emotionally unstable one, prepare to spend the day being told he wants a hug but then refusing it, him randomly running away and crying while playing with him, him making intentional messes and having fights about cleaning up, and possible hitting or pinching when putting him into time out. Once he’s in a mood, he’s committed to it. Two-year-olds are so fun sometimes 🙄. He’s been in time out so much lately, he has started putting his doll, Damon, in time out, too 😂. He says that Damon tries to bite him. He has learned that time out doesn’t just exist at home, even though I’ve never had to put him in it anywhere else yet; he’s just been threatened. He’s usually really well behaved when we’re anywhere but home. We were in the drive thru line at Wendy’s one day and he kept kicking the back of the passenger seat. I told him to stop, and he kept on. I told him again and he asked, “They have time out here?” I told him they did, and he stopped doing it 😂. 

When Damon’s not in trouble, Quinn likes to pretend to nap with him 😄.

It’s amusing to watch him put Damon in time out and reenact some of the situations he lives but sometimes I feel bad for the things he retains and repeats. Like, sometimes, he’ll do something that he knows he isn’t allowed to do and when I tell him I’m upset with him, he’ll exclaim, “You’re done with me!” 🤦🏻‍♀️ I’ll say, “No, I’m not done with you, but I don’t like when you do XYZ,” and then feel badly that I’ve ever said that to him 🙁. 

I honestly haven’t even said that to him too many times, but this kid never forgets anything. He has a small John Deere tractor that he liked to haul around on a trailer. It came up missing several months ago, I had no idea where it was, and I know where everything is around here, apparently 🙄. I kept thinking it would turn up eventually and for like two months, Quinn would periodically ask about it. I finally asked Philip if he had any idea where it might be, and he said he could have possibly thrown it away because Sophie chewed on it. I told Quinn we would get him another one then since it may have not been his fault it got ruined. We went to Tractor Supply one day and got another one and wouldn’t you know it, a few weeks later, the first one turned up in a tote that I had taken out of his room and put in the basement. I showed Quinn when I found it and he said, “I’ll put it in the trash” 🤣. I laughed and told him, no, there wasn’t anything wrong with it, Dada made a mistake, and it was fine. This was at least a month ago and now every time he plays with it, he says that it didn’t get chewed up, Dada thought it did, but it didn’t. So now he has two tractors. 

Sometimes he just says things that we’ve haven’t talked about in while, out of nowhere. For example, he has been very excited about the snow and talks about it often. However, he was pronouncing it without the S sound and just saying, “no,” which was slightly confusing. I hear, “No,” often enough so I tried to get him to say the S, to differentiate. I explained how to make the S, like a snake hiss, and then add no. He practiced that day, but he didn’t really pick it up. About a week later, I was busy doing something so Quinn asked Philip, “Dada, please get me some sssssss-no? That would be awesome” 😂. Philip was impressed with his enunciation, and I was impressed that he retained it since it had been several days since we discussed it. 

He loves this snow but it isn’t keeping him from his mowing duties 😄. I asked how he was going to mow with all the snow everywhere and he said, “Right there.” Duh, Mom 🤪

We’ve had so many snow experiments. I got him a small snow baller and put dinosaurs in it. 

Quinn really liked melting the snow to find the dinosaurs. 

We also froze his snow ducks in the bottom of a container so he could use warm water to rescue them. 

We like using new tools so I showed him how to manipulate a syringe. I was helping by holding it for him at first but he got the hang of it and started doing it by himself 🙂.

His Nana had the same idea and sent him a pack of snow baller tools! He loved that hers made a duck shape. 

We got outside in that snow a few times, too 😉

Even at 37 degrees, he still has a smile on his face. 

Someone else loves the snow, too.

Her sister—not so much 🤪. “Please don’t make me go outside, Mom.”

The three of us were sitting on the couch the other night and I was telling Philip about how Quinn was laughing when we were laying down for a nap that day and I couldn’t remember what he was saying. I said something that wasn’t right, and Quinn piped up and said, “I said Sansa smell like poop, and I laugh so hard” 😂😂😂. I remembered then that that is what he was saying. He cracks himself up. Another day he told me, “I knocked Dada’s pirate sword down and I laughed so loud” 😆. 

He’s so funny 😊.

He’s been really amused lately by Philip using a bunch of alternatives to expletives. He particularly likes, “Darn it,” “Fiddlesticks,” and “Drats.” He’ll be playing pirates with Philip and knock the “sword” out of Philip’s hand and tell him, “Say darn it, Dada” 😆. Pretend play is his favorite way to play, especially with his dad. He likes to make Philip “disappear” by throwing a blanket over his head. Quinn will tell me, “Oh no, I don’t have my dad anymore!” He’ll then pick up a tv remote and hold it to his ear like a phone, pretending to call Philip, and say, “Dada, you can come help me? I’ll be right there! Beep,” before ripping the blanket off his head 😆. Another scenario he likes to play is where Philip holds a blanket up over a doorway and Quinn crawls through his legs, into the room, and asks, “What is this place?” They’ve visited lots of people’s houses, but everyone inside is usually napping, according to Quinn. He sure has a good imagination. Probably his very favorite is a game called, “You Go This Way, I’ll Go That Way” 😂. Our house goes around in a circle, so he always wants Philip to run the opposite way and then meet him back where they started. I’m glad this is a game he plays with Dad and not me 😉. 

I didn’t escape the disappearing blanket game though. He kept putting it on my head and pulling it off to make my hair full of static 😄. 

While he loves his play time with Dad, Quinn will sometimes get upset about something and come tell on him to me 😂🤦🏻‍♀️. Really makes me excited for when he has a brother to tattle on 🙄. While I was in the bathroom the other night, Quinn told Philip he was finished with his snack and handed it to him to put on the sofa table behind the couch. Quinn then ran into the bathroom and told me, “Dada took my snack!” He was legit upset about it. We had to explain to him that he gave it to Dada, and that’s not the same thing as him taking it from him, and that he could have it back if he wasn’t finished 🤦🏻‍♀️. Sometimes he will get upset when he’s tired, but he doesn’t know how to accurately express what he means. If I ask him why he is upset, he’ll say something like “I no wanna see Dada.” I was trying to convince him that a nap sounded nice one day and said we could go snuggle in the bed with the soft blanket. He told me, “I no wanna snuggle with you. I no like the soft blanket.” This is not true, he loves the soft the blanket, he just didn’t want to take a nap 🙄. 

He tells me he doesn’t want to nap most days but then falls asleep within 5-10 minutes of laying down, sleeping anywhere from 2-3 hours. He’s the funniest when he’s sleepy; he suddenly needs to profess his love for everyone and everything. He always tells me he loves me, Dada, Sansa, and Sophie but one day he told me he loves my tall hair 😂. He asks silly questions, too, like: 

Q: where’s Sansa? 

M: on the floor 

Q: where’s Sansa’s face? 

M: …...on her head?

Q: When we wake up in the morning, we can see her face. 

M: Yep 

You know what sucks to hear when you’re hugely pregnant, lying in bed with a toddler who you’ve just gotten to fall asleep, and you’ve carefully extricated yourself from their grasp? When you’re just about to take a step away from the bed to your nighttime freedom from the demands of a 2-year-old? A sleepy little voice saying, “Where you going, Mama?” *sigh* “Nowhere, baby.” Now you have to climb back in bed, a task not nearly as easy as the first time since he has splayed himself out and encroached into your spot, something that would usually involve my signature spatula/ forklift maneuver, but that’s too risky now. You can’t chance waking him further, so you just lie uncomfortably, waiting for the telltale drop of the bink out of his mouth to signal he’s asleep again.

Speaking of his bink, there are 3 left in this house, only 2 of which we know where they are. Quinn bit holes in the ends of those 2, forcing the need for me to cut them off, as they were a choking hazard. I’ve been telling him for months not to bite them because we can’t get anymore. He seems to have accepted this and still wants them at bedtime, although he tells me every night that they have holes in them. I tell him that I know but I can’t do anything about it. I’m hoping this is our last stop to being weaned from them but I’m sure the third one will make an appearance just as soon as he’s over them. 

Maybe I should try bribing him with an entire bag of gummies. He loves gummies and I don’t let him have them often or many at a time. We had some that were shaped like letters, and he loved asking me who’s name started with each letter as he ate them. In an effort to reinforce the concept of understanding the quantity of 3, since he has mastered 2, I only allow him to eat 3 gummies at a time. We also have a talk about how we’ll have to brush his teeth really well before bedtime since he ate gummies. Now he tells me this when I give them to him, and when I tell him it’s time to brush his teeth, he’ll ask what he has on them. I made a game for him to practice with a dinosaur mouth, where we draw on the teeth with different colored markers, saying something like, red is ketchup, yellow is a banana, etc. and he rubs the marker off with an old toothbrush. He loves this game. We used to really struggle with getting him to brush his teeth, but ever since he went to the dentist and I got him an electric spin brush, he complies without issue. I try to take good care of his teeth and want to try to prevent him from having many cavities, if I can. I had a ton as a kid so it’s just an issue that I’d like to avoid. 

It started off as a letter activity but evolved into a hygiene lesson when he wanted put different colored “foods” on the teeth 🙂. 



He even wanted to brush the teeth on the new dinosaurs he got from Kiki. He told me they had big mouths and that there were gummies in their teeth 😂.

I feel so boring lately, there’s nothing going on and I’m sick of all the same old shit on FB. For this reason, I’ve dove back into reading, a hobby that gets neglected for long periods of time but always comes back. I’ve always been a reader, even when I was little. Some of my favorite memories of grade school include bringing home the Schoolastic book order form, circling everything I wanted, and giving to my mom, who somehow, usually managed to get it for me. That couldn’t have been easy as a single mom making minimum wage. I appreciate her supporting such an enriching passion of mine. Reading is definitely my learning style. Philip loves to watch videos and I look for the transcript 😆. I read 6 books last months, not having started until almost halfway through the month. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you stop caring what everyone else is bitching about on social media and just do something else with your nightly freedom 🤪. 

I know I should be savoring this “boring” time, because in about 4 weeks, things are going to be anything but. Quinn keeps telling me to take his brother out 😂. I tell him I can’t because he’s not done growing yet and he usually confirms with, “It takes a long time.” Don’t I know it 🤦🏻‍♀️. Even though I’m more than ready to have my body free from this invader (I’m kidding. Kind of 😉), I’m a little bit sad about my time alone with Quinn coming to an end. I’ve enjoyed learning and growing with him immensely. Interestingly, I never thought being a stay at home would be something I would ever want to do. After spending 8 years doing home visiting, I feel like this is the most important job I could ever be doing. That doesn’t mean I think it’s for everyone. I totally get that there are many different scenarios that are right for each family. I’m just so grateful that Philip is able and willing to help support this choice I’ve made. I’m thankful that he’s such a great Dad and picks up right where I fall short. We make a good team that way. I’m thankful he wears clothes that are bigger than mine and he shares them, too (not that I give him a choice 😉🤷🏻‍♀️). Although winter is damaging to my mental health, the upside is I can stay home and wear my husband’s clothes and try to be comfortable in this huge body I currently have. 

My big belly doesn’t stop our cuddles. I love this kid so much 🥰. 

Sophie doesn’t mind it either 😉. 

I think about all the ways my life is about to change again but can’t help but be reminded of how they already have. Like, I have a favorite dinosaur now. I mean, not really, but Quinn has a favorite dinosaur, so I like that one the best, too 😉. I can name like, so many, big trucks and machines 😂. I used to get really excited about hearing a new Taylor Swift song and now I only ever hear music in the children’s genre. My daily routine revolves around nap time, an essential for us both. I fuel my creativity by making activities for Quinn instead of creating yoga routines, art, or crafts. My morning alarm has even changed: instead of an annoying buzzing sound, I hear, “Mama, time to wake up,” whether or not it actually is time to wake up 🤦🏻‍♀️. Some days though, Quinn tells me, “Mama, I’m so happy to see you today,” and who wouldn’t love waking up to that? 🥰

We found numbers in rainbow rice. I gotta tell ya though, he isn’t allowed to play with rice again for awhile. After 3 instances of him intentionally dumping it all over the floor, it is now put away. I’ve said several times, I don’t mind messes from playing; I don’t tolerate intentional messes. Quinn loves cleaning it up with my handheld vacuum though, and I think that played a big part in his mess making 🙄. 

Now, if he would just clean the rest of his room 🤪. 

I made him 5 sensory spices—cotton balls with cinnamon, lemon essential oil, orange essential oil, butter extract, and peppermint oil. I might make him one with vinegar because he used to like to tease us while pretending to make food by saying it had vinegar on it right when we would pretend to take a bite. 

Making pancakes with his new spices. 

Making elephant toothpaste. He said, “it’s like a volcano!” 😊

Playing letter matching with the cards I made for him. 

I used pictures of people we know and household items, along with old scrabble letters that I bought for a craft several years ago. 

We painted with colored ice cubes. 

We made a makeshift ice skating rink by taping a clear garbage bag to the floor. Although, I think the actually floor was more slippery than the plastic 🤷🏻‍♀️. Quinn just liked wearing my socks and running across it anyway 🤪.

We found pipe cleaner snowflakes hidden in baking soda/shaving cream “snow” with colored vinegar. I asked Quinn if vinegar tastes good and he said no. Believe me, he would know 🤪. I lost count of how many times he has tried it. 

We laid the snowflakes on card stock and sprayed them with the vinegar to make a pretty picture. 



I put those empty bottle from his Christmas gift bath set to use by refilling them with colored water so Quinn could paint a cotton ball snowflake I had glued to cardboard. 

I made a days of the week chart and we sing a little song. Quinn knows Monday means the trash goes out and Saturday and Sunday mean Dad stays home all day with him 🙂

We have a weather chart too but haven’t used it consistently yet. 

I made some baking soda infused ice cubes so he could melt them with colored vinegar. I thought this was pretty cool but he didn’t love it 🤷🏻‍♀️  Sometimes activities only last for a few minutes, and I’m ok with that. Everything we do is led by his interest. 

I’ve got a whole month full of activities planned for February. Can’t wait to show him (and you) them all! 😉