Creative Kimpire: May 2023

🙄🤦🏻‍♀️.

We’ve had the most exciting progress in the last few days: Ash is FINALLY walking 👏🏻. Well, except for when he wants to go really fast, then he crawls. It is still very weird when he comes walking into the room 😄. He was struggling to stand up on his own in the middle of a room or outside without pulling on something, but he even has that figured out now. It was like he just decided to walk one day and never looked back. He had been practicing, of course, but now it is his primary mode of transportation, so we can consider this milestone reached ☑️. I was beginning to be concerned because Quinn was walking well at 12 months and Ash was approaching 15 months before he finally got the hang of it. According to Baby Center, an app I trust for development related content, the age for a typically developing walker can range from 9-15 months, and sometimes even happen at 16 or 17 months. So, there was no need to be concerned, and I wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t been comparing Ash to Quinn, which I need to be mindful not to do.

Reaching milestones is a measurable commonality between the two, but the similarities otherwise are sparse. Quinn was so chill. Ash…is not 😆. He’s dramatic. He’s fearless. He’s full of personality. That doesn’t mean Quinn isn’t a character of his own, he very much is. His just didn’t develop it as early as Ash has. He’s a handful plus some. That first year is so, so hard and once they become a little more independent, life gets easier in some ways. Like, he can feed himself most things, he’s great at communicating what he wants (maybe a little too good at it 🙄), I don’t have to carry him around 24/7, and he can even play by himself or with Quinn for about 10 minutes at a time before he remembers I exist and has to come find me 😆. Those are all great things that allow me to accomplish a little bit more than just keeping the children alive, which is the only goal I achieved in those first 12 months with baby #2. However, now I have to worry about him climbing on everything imaginable, including the kitchen table 🤦🏻‍♀️. Going outside or really just anywhere other than home, is a huge hassle because he doesn’t sit still. I’m constantly having to chase him to keep him safe. There is no sitting at the park and letting them play during this phase. It’s following Ash around, making sure he doesn’t try to go off the side of the equipment, or fall off the slide, or put anything in his mouth. You can’t take your eyes off of him. Ideally, he would play on the smaller play sets, when available, but that’s never the case. He wants to be where big brother is, and trying to keep him away is just frustrating for everyone.

The orneriness just pours outta him 😄.

Even though he thoroughly contributes to the vast, premature graying of my hair, and considers me an all-night milk machine, I love him so big. He is learning so many new skills, it’s hard to keep track. Some of the typical abilities of his age range that he has are identifying body parts (he knows belly, toes, eye, ears, nose, mouth, and tongue), and identifying animals and their noises (he knows duck, cat, dog, and pig really well on our felt board, and squeals like a monkey if asked if he is one or is called one).

Some of the more unusual knowledge and habits he has include: answering, “Who, who, who, who, who,” when asked who let the dogs out, pretending to eat people, making werewolf, dinosaur, and pirate noises, wrestling with stuffed animals, and doing his version of Hulk’s move that we’ve termed his “Ash Smash!” Quinn was not this rowdy as a one year old 😂. However, he didn’t have anyone living in his household who regularly mutated into other beings, either 🤷🏻‍♀️.

Ash is a confident little bean. He’s sure he’s entitled to anyone and everyone’s food or drink. While at the farmers market, he relentlessly pointed and squealed at the WVU Extension intern, Emma’s, cookie that she was eating, until she gave him a piece of it 🤦🏻‍♀️🙄. Don’t worry, I know her. I didn’t let him con a stranger out of their treat 🤪. I could see him trying though 🤷🏻‍♀️. He is very drawn to men, regularly throwing up his “pick me up” hands at familiar men, like his Juju and our friend Farmer John, but he also made friends with a dad at Playgroup who I don’t know 🥴. Again, he’s someone I’ve seen before, so I wasn’t concerned. I just find his antics amusing sometimes.

I had to get him his own cookie at the market so he would leave a Emma alone 😂.

He cracks me up most days when we go for a walk and how he greets his dad. I take the boys around the block in the stroller while Philip cleans up dinner and gets Sophie ready. He then walks her down to meet us on the trail, and as soon as Ash spots him, he starts yelling, “Da!,” to which Philip yells, “Ash!,” and they banter back and forth.

My favorite trait of Ash’s is his loving nature. Actually, both boys can be the sweetest sometimes. When Ash has been out of my presence for a few minutes, and comes to seek me out, he always wants a hug and holds onto me so tight! He even pats my back sometimes with his little hand, like I do to him 🥰.

*Squeezes*

Lovin on a baby at the Dollar Tree

Lovin on Damon, Quinn’s doll.

🥰

He really loves his brother 🥰.

In this second half of Quinn’s year 3, he started regularly telling us he loves us, randomly. He’s especially likely to say it if he’s tired, but he says it at other times, too. My favorite is when we’re all together and he just says, “I love you,” and Philip and I both say it back, and then Quinn says, “I was talking to Mom.” 🤣🤣🤣. One day he was outside with Philip and said, “Hey Dad, I love Mom.” 🤣🤣🤣. It cracks me up. I know he loves his dad, too, though, and Philip is a good sport about it.

One day, I was giving the boys a bath on the deck in totes, one of my favorite ways to do it 😉, and I threw a tray of pizza bagels in the microwave for them to snack on when they were finished. I was eating one when Quinn said to me, “Don’t eat them all! Maybe Dad wants some for lunch!” 🥰. He can really be thoughtful sometimes.

It’s a good thing Quinn has such good redeeming qualities or I’d be looking to trade him in right about now. Just about 2 months prior to turning 3, Quinn began an emotional phase that lasted for the better half of the year. While the tantrums have calmed down some, I think we’re into the next phase as he transitions into 4. He whines So. Friggin. Much. He tattles on other kids. He even started hitting for a hot minute but I think we’ve nipped that one in the bud. He had a pretty rough day full of extended time outs and then an early bed time, which seemed to have nixed that bad habit 🤞🏻. He has a 5-10 second delay with anything involving impulse control. If we tell him not to do something he is doing or is about to do, it takes that amount of time for him to stop himself. It’s so frustrating.

Just recently we’ve begun a new battle involving potty training. He was doing really well, going days without accidents, but then he just stopped caring. He would use the potty or pee off of the deck occasionally, but more often than not, he just kept peeing in his Pull-Up. When asked why he didn’t use the potty, he said, “When I have to pee, I just pee. I don’t care.” 🤬🤬🤬. Sooooooo, that lead to our next transition, which was into underwear, something he has never wanted to wear. Now, he doesn’t have a choice unless it’s bedtime (because I’m not looking to have to wash sheets every day). We forewarned him that if he pees in his underwear, it’s going to be a big mess, and his jeans will also get wet. For the second summer in a row, he is refusing to wear shorts, so we told him he would run out of jeans if he isn’t careful, and then he’d have to wear shorts. He doesn’t like this new development, obviously, and I can relate. I felt so defeated before we came up with the underwear plan because I can’t truly control this situation. I can’t MAKE him use the potty. There can be consequences for not doing it, but that’s not really the way I would like to handle this, if possible. I don’t want to use shame and guilt to make him comply. However, the intention behind it really matters. He isn’t having accidents if he’s intentionally peeing in his pants. He knows better. So, anyway, this is where we’re at currently and we’ll see how it goes.

It feels like most things Quinn does nowadays irritate the hell out of me 😅. When he’s not tattling, whining, and testing my patience, he’s asking me 15 questions a minute, many of which he already knows the answer to (like when we spent 20 minutes getting things packed up to go to the zoo, Quinn knowing full well where we’re going; we talked about what animals we might see, etc., and we were pulling out of the driveway and he said, “Mom, why are we in the car?” 🤯). Philip and I can’t have a conversation without him asking about something we’ve said. He says my name 75 times an hour. He makes bold claims and argues them, despite having absolutely no experience with what he’s talking about (ex. “There’s no bathroom at the lake,” when we were discussing his potty needs. He has never been to a lake before). He often proclaims, “Watch this!,” and it almost exclusively precedes something he isn’t allowed to do 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️.

If there’s one thing having little boys teaches you, it’s just how fragile everything you own is 🙄. Why do they feel the need to step on everything? And hit everything? And pull on everything? 🤬🤬🤬. He was outside waiting on me one day when I saw him pull on my car door handle through the kitchen window. I yelled for him to stop doing that, something he has been told repeatedly, and he said, “How did you see me do that?!” He knowssssssss not to 🤬🤯.

He gets fixated on an object for a few days and carries it around with him constantly—a Bluetooth number pad he called his phone, a hairbrush he says is a sword, etc—but then he is unable to do anything two handed. Putting it down is not an option, obviously 🙄. At least not to stubborn, irrational little boys.

Most annoying of all is the boy never stops talking. Like, ever. Some days he starts the moment he opens his eyes. I remember the phrase, “She never shuts up,” being used about me often when I was growing up, so I guess this is my karmic retribution. But damn 😂. The only upside to it is he can play outside on the patio before I’m ready to come out because he talks to himself the entire time, so I can hear where he is 🤣. And since he’s outside, the noise level is lower inside, which is another plus 🤣🤣.

He talks so much that he had to start making up his own words and phrases, and Philip and I don’t know what they mean. He says, “Chia baa warr,” constantly, but he did explain that it is the song that foreshadows the coming of a werewolf 🤷🏻‍♀️. He got on a kick saying it for so long one day that I begged him to please say anything else 🙄🤦🏻‍♀️. Another one he says, “Breaking tear (teer) nits.” Even he doesn’t know what that means 🤦🏻‍♀️😂. He uses it almost like an expletive, like in the place of “Damn it!”

I can’t believe it has taken him this long, but Quinn finally dropped his first f-bomb last week. He wasn’t even mad, but he did use it correctly. Philip and I were talking and Quinn just randomly said, “What the fuck?!” Doing my best to stifle my laughter, I told him he couldn’t say that, it was a bad word. He said, “Why? Why can’t I say the-fuck? What’s the-fuck?,” speaking as they were one word. He accepted that it just wasn’t nice to say for a bit, but then a few days later he and I were sitting in the car waiting for Philip and Ash to come out of the store, and I heard Quinn whispering, “What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck,” from the backseat 🙄🙄🤦🏻‍♀️.

I honestly won’t care if he cusses one day when he’s older and understands when it’s acceptable to do so, but we got his Little Red Schoolhouse acceptance email for next school year recently, so now isn’t it 😂😂😂.

As usual, Quinn had some funny quips and turn of phrases over the last few weeks.

Quinn: “Hey Mom.”

Me: “What, Bud?”

Quinn: “This is a Dad question…” and then proceeded to ask me something about a superhero.

Me: “Yep, that’s a Dad question.” 🙄

Quinn: *rambling on about something while I’m driving*

Me: “Uh huh.”

Quinn: “Glad we got that cleared up.” 😂

We tell him that sarcastically when we ask him something and his answer isn’t at all clear.

We took an impromptu trip to Pittsburgh Zoo last week. As we were leaving to head home:

Quinn: “Dad! Be careful. You were driving crazy, and I was trying to get a drink, and I almost spilled it!”

Me: 🤣

When we got to the zoo, I got out of the car and then got Quinn out. I was wearing a pair of shoes Chris gave me, and I had never worn them before.

Quinn: “Mom! Where did you get those shoes?!”

Philip: “I have never noticed your shoes before.”

Me: 🙄. “I was beginning to think Quinn has some of my tendencies. I guess this proves it.”

For context, I’m really good at noticing details, which is why I’m great at finding 4 leaf clovers. I see them without even trying sometimes. That doesn’t mean I can’t also miss something huge, right in front of my face 😂. But I can tell you, nothing in this house is actually lost unless I can’t find it.

*Nap time*

Philip: “Quinn, it’s time to go lay down for nap.”

Quinn: *typing gibberish on his toy laptop*

Quinn: “I would like to, Dad, but I have lots of work to do.”

*Time to go get our Walmart pick up order*

Me: “Quinn, get in the car, it’s time to get our groceries.”

Quinn: “I would like to, Mom, but I’m riding my bike.”

*At Playgroup, after seeing the visiting tortoise*

Mimi: “Quinn, do you want to come hold the tortoise?”

Quinn: “I would like to, Mimi, but I’m busy eating my snack.”

Me: 🙄🙄🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️

Me: *cleaning ball pit balls that got muddy in the backyard*

Ash: *Throwing balls down the sidewalk so that they roll into the driveway, while I’m trying to clean them*

Quinn: *comes over by me wearing a police vest*

Me: “Hey Quinn, will you get me those balls over there so I can clean them?”

Quinn: “I would like to, but I’m a police and I have lots of stuff to do.”

Me: *pulls out my pretend phone* “Ring ring. Police?”

Quinn: “Yeah?”

Me: “A bad guy threw my balls down the driveway! Can you help me get them back?”

Quinn: “Yeah!”

Me: 😃

Quinn: *comes over to me carrying a hairbrush*

Quinn: “This is a phone. Wanna see a video of Captain America slamming a Wookie?”

Me: “Sure.”

Quinn: *pretends to show me*

Quinn: “My phone doesn’t work. I only get spam calls on it.”

Me: “Same.”

We’ve had a few adventures for Sunday Family Funday, or whatever order those words are supposed to be in.

This one actually happened on a Saturday, because The Fat Apple Bakery isn’t open on Sundays. It’s in Bridgeport, OH, and and hosts two floors of fun. They have the biggest assortment of candy and baked goods I’ve ever seen. It was hard to make a decision. Philip and I both chose a Samoa cheesecake brownie, which was incredible. The boys each got a cookie. They don’t have good taste yet 🤪. The second floor houses old timey mechanical rides, which include characters from our childhood. Some are free and some cost a couple of quarters to ride. They also have an ice cream shop in house, as well as a build a bear. Ash got a red panda, and Quinn found the biggest $(/?!&@ parrot ever and wanted it 🙄. Making it the 4th gigantic stuffed animal we now own.

It doesn’t look so big compared to Quinn, but…

It looks huge sitting by Ash 😆.

Quinn wasn’t really into the rides at the bakery, so we stopped at BK on the way home to let them play in the indoor playground. Asher climber all of the way up the slide for the first time ever 😩. There were other kids there, so it was annoying trying to keep him from climbing up while they were trying to come down. He wants to climb on EVERYTHING 🤬.

We went to the Pittsburgh Zoo on a Tuesday, so we’re really screwing up this Sunday thing 😂.

Quinn was a little unsure about the Komodo dragon, asking us to make sure it couldn’t touch him 😆.

The bottom middle is my favorite picture from our trip 😂. He was all freaked out about the tiger coming up behind him.

Quinn was really excited about seeing the elephants.

And Ash loved seeing the giraffes, his favorite animal.

It is impossible to get them both to look and smile at the same time 🙄. Quinn wouldn’t stop pretending to be a butterfly.

We saw the sea turtle in the above position, and I was whispering to Philip about how I thought it was dead. I was hoping not, we’ve had enough life lessons in that department recently 😑. I was relieved when I saw the sign in the bottom pic 😂.

We stopped at Cold Stone Creamery on the way home, and the boys were very excited about it.

Ash kept looking up at Philip and smiling really big 😆.

We went to the last Story Hour at the library before the break started that precedes the summer reading program.

Quinn is doing a great job staying in the lines when he paints and colors 😃.

We got to meet Little Kevin at Playgroup a few weeks ago. Mimi offered to let Quinn hold him with her help, but he was too busy eating his snack 🙄. Ash was so excited about the tortoise, he crawled up on the table after him 🤦🏻‍♀️.

We got visit with Uncle Nate’s and Aunt Carly’s chickens, dogs, and cat. Quinn liked going inside the chicken coop and trying to pet them 😆.

We went to Dino Day at the local book store. Quinn was psyched about his free dinosaur mask! If you haven’t checked at The Book Store, you definitely should! For all of my Gilmore Girls loving friends, it’s like something out of Stars Hollow. Love it!

We got to watch our favorite high school senior graduate! 👩‍🎓

And I took two more sets of pics for her:

I worked really hard to get this pic 😂. Girlfriend cannot follow directions 🤪. Love you, Haleigh 😘

I made these memorial charms for Haleigh so that my mom and Lori’s mom could be at graduation with her ❤️.

I took the next set at my friends’, Mollie and John, farm.

She was so scared of that cow 🤣

Didn’t stop her from throwing gang signs, or whatever the hell it is she’s doing 🤪.

She did finally pet one though 😄

They lined up just so I could take their picture 😉. Floofy cows are the cutest!

The best part of the whole experience was riding in the tractor bucket out to the pasture 🤣.

We spent a ton of time outside.

273 hours!

This is my favorite outdoor space. I didn’t thoroughly appreciate this tree until we had kids. We have big plans for this area and I can’t wait to get started!

The weather has been perfect for water play:

“Painting” bricks with water kept Ash busy for a while.

Ash can’t be near water responsibly 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣. He wasn’t supposed to get in the tub at Kiki’s house 🙄.

I made Ash’s water table experience more fun by adding some slices of lime…

More fun as in entertainment for me watching his reaction every time he tasted them 🤣.

I switched it up another time by mixing up some pudding powder, cocoa, and water to make “mud.”I put some plastic bugs and frogs in there for Ash to find. I filled the other side with clean water and brushes (toothbrush, nail brush, and dish brush. Read: NOT a hair brush) for him to scrub the toys with.

Pic 1: what’s in here?

Pic 2: better taste it.

Pic 3: found a frog.

Pic 4: found a brush. It’s definitely for my hair.

Pic 5: now I’m ready to take over the world! 😈

We really didn’t need the buttons to be in water for him to practice dropping them through the slit, but everything is more fun with it 😉. This kept him occupied while I mowed.

We worked on letter recognition and gardening in the same activity 😉. Quinn used a squirt bottle to water the flower after he found the right letter.

ABCDE

We had water balloons at Quinn’s birthday party last summer, and I think he has asked every week since then if we could play with water balloons again 🙄. I finally caved last week. I tried so hard to get a good pic of an explosion, but it just didn’t happen 😆. The water kept spraying out of the opening instead. Quinn decided to just smash it with his bat 🤣. Ignore our ugly sidewalk, I have plans to clean it up, too 🤪.

He asks every day to get his pool out, too. “That was a fire in the hole!”-Quinn

I found a dino sprinkler in my closet that I had gotten as an Easter gift but forgot to give to the boys 😆. Quinn was all about it. Ash cried when I took him through it 😂.

We even got our friends to play with water with us.

It was a rowdy time with 6 boys 😄.

My child was the worst offender 🤦🏻‍♀️. He got in trouble for throwing water in others’ faces.

Once they were done soaking each other, some of them worked on painting a shower curtain attached to our fence. Ash was very into it 😆.

Quinn didn’t want to paint, but he always enjoys an opportunity to use the hose. He said he was a fireman putting out the fire 😆.

Most of our friends, cousins, and bonus cousins were happy to spend time with us.

We got to meet up at Story Hour with them,

And hangout in our driveway,

It’s pretty nice because it’s really long.

And we played in our bouncy house with them, at our house,

And at theirs.

We played ball (Ash’s fav),

And gave our fence another coat of paint.
Fun was had by all…except one.

The boys visited me at the market last week, where one of the vendors pulled some shenanigans for her own amusement. She asked Mollie and me if Iris and Asher could split a sandwich cookie that she made. After we foolishly said yes, Iris snubbed the offer, while Ash went in full throttle.

He tried really hard to share his half with her, but Iris just gave him the stink eye 😂. She ended up with some cream in her hair, thanks to his generosity, while he ended up needing a change of clothes and a wipe bath 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️. Sarah Morgan, you are now banned from the market ❌. Just kidding, she makes really yummy baked goods. Just don’t let her give them to your kids 🤪.

I really can’t blame Iris for being untrusting of Ash’s altruism because he has previously shown another side of himself to her 🤣🤦🏻‍♀️. They both climbed into the play equipment at Playgroup for the first time, together. Ash slipped backwards on the rounded floor, and then rebounded, giving Iris an Ash Smash in the process 😂. Iris was quite startled, lying still and hoping the animal attacking her might retreat if she played dead 🤣. It was a clever strategy, but I had to intervene in the end 🤦🏻‍♀️.

When he wasn’t assaulting his friends, Ash worked on refining skills, such as