We’re back on schedule with meeting our monthly sickness quota 🙄🙄. We all got hit with the stomach flu over the last three weeks. Quinn caught it first. He had been complaining about his belly hurting for a while that day. We were in the living room when he told me he wanted me to hold him. As he was coming over to me, he said, “I think I have a bug in my belly.” I started to pick him up when he gagged, so I put him back down and he vomited all over the floor 😑. Four times. I had to shampoo the rug because the mess was so big. We took a nap after I got everything cleaned up, but when we got up, Quinn said he wanted to go lay back down again. I told him I was going to put an extra blanket under him, in case he got sick, so it could contain the mess. He ended puking on it, too. When he got up again, he earned himself his very first puke bucket—his Easter basket 😂. It got used as well. He said he felt better after the third round, and we were all good until about 3am. He woke me up saying, what I thought was, “Mom, I think I have to puke.” I jumped up out of bed and hustled him into the bathroom. Not wanting to push my luck by taking more time to move his potty seat and stool away from the toilet, I told him just to puke into the bathtub. Confused, he got into the bathtub and stood there. He asked me why he needed to get in the bathtub. I told him I didn’t mean for him to get into it, but for him to throw up into it. It was about that moment when my nose alerted me to the fact that he must have said, “Mom, I think I have to poop,” not puke, which makes sense because he always calls it “spitting up,” since that’s what he heard so much about Ash doing 🤦🏻♀️.
Anyway, his was a short lived sickness, thankfully. Ash may have had a little run in with the stomach bug the following day because he spit up a time or two, but not even enough that I would call it vomiting, just the typical way a baby does. When I said aloud that I hoped Ash wasn’t getting sick, Quinn took it upon himself to prepare an area for Ash. A few minutes later he told me he had put a blanket on the floor for Ash, in case he got sick, so that it would “contain the mess.” 😂 I found it hilarious that he said my same words.
It took five more days for the virus to catch up with me, but when it did, it got me bad. That is one nasty, awful bug. I was up three times during the night getting sick. I couldn’t sleep from the nausea, along with chills, sweats, and muscle pain. The following day left me exhausted and miserable. I was so thankful Philip was able to take half a day at work and come up to tend to the boys so that I could sleep. Being a stay at home parent doesn’t come with any sick time, and parenting while sick is the worst. 0/10 would not recommend.
Before Philip was able to come relieve me, Quinn and I had a moment that left me thinking about it long after it happened. He said that he was hungry, but quickly declined every option that I offered to him. Frustrated and irritable from my sleepless night, I yelled at him. He started sobbing—not his usual whiny cry, like real, full of feelings tears. I asked him why he was so upset and he said, “I don’t like when you yell at me.” Sometimes he says things to me that aren’t profound, yet they spark a philosophical awakening in me. I don’t like being yelled at either. I’m pretty sure no one does. I don’t even like when Philip yells at Quinn. He doesn’t do it often, and when he does, it’s for reasons that I would also yell at him for, yet it scares me when he does it. I’m not afraid of him, I know he would never hurt any of us. I just don’t like it. So, I understand where Quinn is coming from in saying that. Sometimes I think we forget that kids are actual people, and we justify our own poor behavior because it’s in reaction to their poor behavior. However, if we can’t control our own emotions, how are we ever going to teach our children to? This is a question I don’t have the answer to. Mostly because my kids can drive me to the brink some days. It’s just something I’ve been more mindful about lately. I don’t pretend to think I’ll never yell him again; I’m just making an effort not to. I said before almost all of Quinn’s outburst can be attributed to one of three issues: he’s hungry, he’s tired, or he needs attention. When I know it’s hunger, like when he’s been awake for a bit and declined to eat, and starts being grumpy, I’ve begun helping him recognize the issue. I’ll tell him, “I think you’re hungry, so let’s find something to eat and fix the problem.” I think this strategy is starting to work because he told me the other day, “I think I know what the problem is, I think I’m hungry.”
Another thought process that has started to sink in is essentially rooted in minding his own business 😂. Quinn gets worked up about things Ash is doing, even when I’m right there beside him, in control of the situation 😑. I tell him, “I am in charge of Ash. You just worry about Quinn.” I got confirmation of his understanding this concept when he told it to Philip last weekend 😂. We are often visited by pretend superheroes in the morning, and that morning was the same. He told his dad that Hulk was coming into the kitchen. Philip suggested that Hulk go outside because he often breaks things, but Quinn informed Philip, “I’ll worry about Hulk, you just worry about yourself.” 🤣🤣🤣 When Philip told me about this later, he said he knew exactly where Quinn heard that before 😆.
He is always picking up phrases or pieces of phrases, and it cracks me up. The other day, he wanted to go outside, but Ash had just fallen asleep for nap. I told him we could go out on the deck if he wanted, but I couldn’t go any further because I needed to watch for Ash to wake up. He told me he wanted to, and then asked, “Will I need shoes at that point?” 😂.
I was trying to keep Ash occupied while I mowed the backyard, so I sat him down with some toys. Quinn was playing in the sandbox, so I told him if Ash came over there to play with him, to make sure Ash didn’t put any of the seashells he was playing with into his mouth. Quinn informed, “I don’t need the whole situation,” so obviously, I had nothing to worry about 🙄🤦🏻♀️😂.
One thing he says often is “Thank you very much,” which is sweet, but usually said for something mundane, like getting him some cereal or something. I guess he’s extra grateful for it 😂.
We were getting ready to go outside one day and Quinn asked me to help him put his socks on. He had left said socks in his shoes from the day before and was preparing to rewear them 🫣. As I was coming to help (and suggest he get a new pair 🤦🏻♀️), he began chewing on one of them 🤢. I told him not to chew on socks, that it was disgusting, and he said, “But it’s my sock!” I told him that didn’t make it less gross and to get it out of his mouth 🙄🫠.
Disgusting is another word he has started using, and I’ve never questioned where he picked it up from 😂. He also uses words like massive and gigantic, typically to describe things that are, in fact, not massive or gigantic 😆.
I mentioned that superheroes visit us most mornings, well, yesterday was no different. I wasn’t aware, however, and incorrectly greeted my child as “Quinn,” when he came into the kitchen. He said, “Hi Mom,” and I said, “Hi Quinn.” He said, “I’m not Quinn, I’m Hulk. You’re not very good with your mouth because you keep calling me Quinn.” 🤣. My bad.
I definitely feel like I’m not very good with my mouth sometimes. We had a situation happen last week that involved lots of questions that I wasn’t prepared for, so my answers may have been subpar. One morning when we were outside, Quinn noticed a cat around the shrub of my neighbor’s house, and it was tossing something around. Of course he wanted to know what it was doing, so we went to look—-it was a baby bunny. A dead baby bunny. I told him to leave it alone and not touch it. I had to go in and put Ash down for a nap, and when we came back out, the cat got spooked and ran away. Quinn wanted to check on the bunny again and we discovered that the cat had eaten most of its head 😱. Quinn was very invested in the situation, so I told him we could bury it. He helped dig the hole and watched as I put the bunny in it, and then cover it with dirt. He had about a million questions and was extremely angry at the cat. He kept asking me to take him around the block so we could find it. I asked what he was going to do with it if he found it and he said “Put it in a hole, too!” So, moral of the story, don’t make my kid angry or he’ll want to bury you alive 🤷🏻♀️. He kept saying “I hope the bunny is okay.” I told him several times that it wasn’t. He wanted to take it to the vet and get it a band aid 🥺 and I had to tell him those things wouldn’t help. This was the first time he really saw something dead up close. Sansa just went away and didn’t come back, he didn’t see her body, so he had a hard time wrapping his mind around it. He still asks about her occasionally and wants to know why she doesn’t have a body anymore. I didn’t want to be too graphic about her cremation, and I was very vague. I told him that eventually the bunny would turn into dirt, so he asks every other day if the bunny is dirt yet 😂. When we were digging the hole, I told him he needed to make it kind of deep so that another animal doesn’t dig it back up. He drew his own conclusion about how they would do that when he said, “That cat might dig up that rabbit? It would be silly for a cat to use a shovel!” 😂😂
I’m not surprised Quinn was ruthless with his intentions towards the killer cat, feeling a need to right the perceived injustice toward the rabbit. That aside, he just has a propensity towards violence these days. He is always wanting to hit, kick, and smash things. It’s annoying AF 😂. He asks me 347 times a day if I want to play with him, but when I ask what he wants to play, it always involves “darring” (what he calls sword play) something. He gets too rough, though, and always ends up hitting too hard. He just has an abundance of physical energy that randomly appears in spurts. He can’t walk across the yard, or even the living room 🙄, without a stop, drop, and roll, like he’s practicing a fire drill. I hope this phase passes quickly 🤞🏻.
Another phase that can pass, like yesterday, is the “What did you say?,” one. It’s like the automated replacement to, “Why?.” He knows what we say, yet he asks anyway. It drives me insane. I’ve started asking him, “What did I say?,” and he’ll repeat it. If he says, “Can you say it again?,” I will, but usually he already knows.
Completing the trifecta of annoying phases, impatience has to be one of the worst. The repeated asking for things I’ve already agreed to do, just not at the pace at which he expects it to be done 🙄. Philip and I are both ready to lose our minds with that one. I know it’s age appropriate but mannnnnnnn is it annoying! I don’t want to hurt his feelings by telling him that I’m getting annoyed by his behavior all day, but I also want him to quit his shit 😅.
They’re so damn cute, though, it makes up for some of his antics.
I was such a sensitive child, it didn’t take much to hurt my feelings. Maybe that’s why I don’t care about people’s opinions of me anymore, I spent too much time caring when I was young 😂. Quinn got his feelings hurt by friends for the first time recently and it hurt my mama heart for him. He and the girls next door had spent several days playing together and I think they just got sick of one another. Everyone was bossing the others around, or trying to, and just generally not being good friends to each other. There came a point when they decided they didn’t want to play with him anymore, which is understandable. While I don’t blame them at all, I was sad, too, when he cried over it 😞. They took a break from each other for several days, and they’ve since been back over, so all is forgotten. I do hope a smidgen of that life lesson stuck though, and maybe he’ll be nicer next time. It’s our job to help him gain social skills, so Philip and I both explained to him why the girls were choosing not to play with him. We also refuse to play with him if he becomes too aggressive or cantankerous. On a side note, my mom used to say cantankerous a lot and I always told her it wasn’t a word. Look at me using it now 🤪. I had never heard anyone else say it, and I thought it sounded made up for some reason. I can’t remember a specific instance, but I can confidently bet that she used that word so much in attribution to teenage me 😬🫣. Would she be surprised to know it still applies to adult me, when my children’s nap schedules don’t align, forcing me to miss mine? 😂. Probably not.
It’s such a vicious cycle, the putting the kids to bed/staying up too late/kids waking up too early one, that happens every day. Every night I tell myself I’m going to go to sleep earlier so I won’t be tired the next day, but it rarely actually happens. I’m woken up all night long by movements from our bed invaders, robbing me of restful sleep. I don’t even remember what it’s like to wake up feeling refreshed and as though I got enough sleep. I look forward to our afternoon nap as much as they resist it. I believe Ash is in a transitional nap phase right now, sometimes taking an early morning one, along with the afternoon one later. Sometimes he doesn’t, though. And sometimes he takes a 5 minute cat nap in the car, in place of his morning nap, and then doesn’t want to take an afternoon nap. Sometimes he sleeps for 3 hours in the afternoon. I never know what’s going to happen. If Ash doesn’t lay down for his morning nap, Quinn gets confused in the afternoon. I put Ash down first, letting Quinn watch tv while I do so. When I come back to get him, he’ll tell me, “It’s not nap time! This is Ash’s first nap!” He acts put out about it but then takes a 2-3 hour nap, and then still goes to bed at 9:30 🤷🏻♀️. I always thought I would dread the day he stopped napping, but unless Ash sleeps too, it does me no good 😅.
Ash couldn’t hang while I was running the indoor farmers market two weekends ago. He passed out waiting on me to get home 😂.
I bought a toddler sized air mattress for Quinn, hoping to start his transition out of our bed. He would nap there during the day, but said he was scared at night, so we never got that far. It arrived right before the stomach bug, and once that hit, our mission was aborted. I haven’t restarted it but I need to 😩.
They’re so sweet when they’re sleeping 😂.
Missing nap really makes for a long day. At least the weather has finally improved so that we can go outside to help pass the time. That’s what I love most about spring—my world gets bigger. I’m not stuck in the house the majority of the time. The only thing I hate about playing outside is having to wear sunscreen 😂. I’m having a lot of skin issues now that I didn’t have before. I saw a dermatologist, who said that happens sometimes when we ✨age✨ 🙄. I have eczema on my scalp, back, chest, and chin. It’s itchy, and burny, and just all around shitty. Because of it, I don’t like the way anything feels on my skin except for moisturizers. However, I have a family history of melanoma and I myself have had surgery to cut out atypical cells surrounding moles I had removed, so sunscreen is mandatory in this household. Quinn used to try to run away when I tried to slather him up, but now he reminds me to put it on him. He’ll ask, “When are we going to put sunscreen on?”
Ash still tries to run, but I’m bigger than him 🤷🏻♀️. Not to mention, faster. He is walking independently for short spurts, but is still crawling most of the time. He’s much faster while crawling. If he spent more time practicing walking, he would get better at it, but it’s near impossible for him to practice in this house with his siblings, Quinn and Sophie. Anytime Philip and I try to have him walk back and forth between us, one of the other two always jumps in the way. Quinn wants Ash to walk to him, and Sophie sees an opportunity to lick people anytime they’re sitting on the floor. There’s never enough attention to go around 🤦🏻♀️. He can walk while holding onto anything, and pulls to stand using everything taller than him. It’s unfortunate that his hands reach exactly counter height now because he steals things off of my desk. He just comes over and grabs whatever he can reach, throwing it onto the floor 🙄.
That whole pile ended up on the floor 🤦🏻♀️.
Despite being a late walker, he can climb like a champ—up the ladders on the swing set and bunk bed, and onto the couch, the rack that holds the 5 gallon jugs of water for the dispenser, and the kid picnic table outside 🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️. While it’s not my favorite skills he’s learned, I freak out less now that he can maneuver back down feet first. He was previously descending head first, which was an accident prone strategy.
He climbed up there by himself
Good thing those weigh about 3x more than him 🤦🏻♀️.
😳. He made it all of the way to the top today 😩.
He is alwaysssss trying to climb up the slide. I told him his Kiki, former teacher of 3 year olds, would yell at him for that, but he didn’t seem to care 🤪. “Up the stairs, down the slide!”—teachers everywhere 😂
Ash is learning so much, so fast; it’s hard to keep track. He can give low five (not high five yet. If you try to high five him, he’s likely to just grab your hand and bring it in to cover his face 😂. I have no idea why he does that), stack objects three high, put round objects in a hole, and show you where his belly, ears, tongue, and mouth are. He is a great communicator and says lots of words, like banana, cat, dog, mama, dada, bubba, yuck, again, go, train, drink, yeah, bird, Steve, cheese, and Quinn. He points to the bedroom when he’s ready to sleep. He’s already great at pretend play, lovin’ on stuffed animals, howling like a werewolf on command, and imitating eating plastic food. I put his desire to make a mess to work for me and let him retrieve the clothes out of the dryer so I can fold them 😆. His self help skills are developing well—he can put absolutely anything on his head, attempts to put socks and shoes on his feet (unsuccessfully, of course), lifts his legs when I remove his pants while he’s standing by the tub, pushes his arms through the sleeves of his shirt, and he even got so mad at me one day that he figured out how to take his flannel off 😂.
He can also stack blocks, but this is more fun 😄.
Diy shape sorter-straws in a Parmesan cheese container. He was very proud of himself for getting them in there.
Thanks, Ash 😉.
This one is my fav 😅.
His record so far is 3 at one time 😂.
Goofs
The insert to my bathing suit top 😂😂.
Quinn’s unicorn helmet 😃
Toys don’t have genders, and colors are for everyone. In case anyone needs a reminder.
His Nana and Juju are in town visiting us. We went to their RV, and the first thing Ash wanted was Juju’s hat he saw hanging up 😂.
He even stole Coen’s hat when he came to mow our yard. No hats are safe around this kid.
I bought him a bunch of these glasses with different trucks on them at Lucky Duck on dollar day. I thought they were just foam trucks. Surprise! He likes putting them on…
…but not always right 😆.
❤️
I worry about him not learning as much as Quinn did at his age because I have less time to dedicate to teaching him things. However, he learns a ton just from having an older sibling in the house. He has definitely picked up language quicker than Quinn did, but that’s not surprising since there is rarely a silent moment around here 😆😩🥺.
🤪
The stomach bug did not miss Ash, and he did not miss me with his vomit 😩. I had never been actually puked on before, aside from baby spit up, but I can no longer say that. I had been wondering about my milk supply (hoping it was dwindling 😆), and got confirmation that it is still full when Ash nursed and then immediately vomited an entire quart all over me and our bed 🤦🏻♀️😩. He kept wanting to nurse, but every time he did, I would get puked on 😩. I’m so glad it didn’t last long. If you’ve avoided that nasty bug, lucky you. Go buy a lottery ticket or something 🤪. Almost everyone I’ve talked to in the last month has had it!
We have spent a ton of time outside during the last three weeks. #1000hoursoutside
We’ve spent 186 hours outside so far this year!
Ash was a little bit leery of the foam soap at first, but he warmed up quickly to washing the dinosaurs.
Quinn was very into spraying the soap…everywhere 🤦🏻♀️.
I froze all of our little Blippi figures and the boys rescued them by squirting warm water on the ice blocks. Ash mostly liked drinking the water, but Quinn liked melting the ice.
Ash woke up from nap before Quinn, so we found something to occupy us while waiting for him. Water is always a hit for him.
Ash had his first encounter with sand. It went surprisingly well, in that he didn’t eat much of it.
However, all of us were covered head to toe in sand by the time they were done 🤦🏻♀️😅.
We collected dandelions for an art project…while laying down, because isn’t that how everyone does it? 🙄
Quinn made a cool “painting” by hammering the flowers, which left yellow smudges on the paper. I was appealing to his insatiable urge to hit things with this activity 🙄.
It also fulfilled a need for Ash, which is to throw things on the ground 🙄🤦🏻♀️.
Ash took his maiden voyage in the bike trailer. He seemed to enjoy it!
He’s always up for a wagon ride. Why can’t both children ever look at me at the same time? 🙄
We got to celebrate the 18th and 11th birthdays of two of my favorite girls ❤️.
Quinn helped me exterminate some weeds with homemade weed killer—just vinegar, salt, and dish liquid
We’ve had many snacks outside, but this one was my favorite 😂. Apparently, that apple was sour 🤷🏻♀️.
Who needs a soccer net when you can just kick inside the open gate? 🤷🏻♀️. We’re resourceful around here 😉. I’m gonna get him a soccer net for his birthday in a few months.
Quinn tried out his friend’s pedal go cart. If we didn’t have so damn many toys as it is, I’d wanna get him one of those, too 😅.
We’ve had so much fun with neighborhood friends!
Micah and Carlowe came down to play one day, too. Carlowe probably never wants to come again because Ash kept pushing him over 😅.
Our friends, Mandy, Harper, and Lawson visited us to play, too 🙂. I love that Harper played in the dirt box while wearing her skirt 😆.
I made Quinn a movement sidewalk course that he enjoyed doing.
We went to a health fair downtown, which had lots of fun stuff to do for kids. However, the only pics I took were when Ash spontaneously showed his brother some love 🥹.
Our tote has served as many sensory experiences. It is currently a Dino cave.
It was cool until Kiki showed up with Ash’s (belated) birthday gift—a Dino themed sand and water table! Ash loved it! Quinn happened to be at Kate’s soccer game with his Aunt Lori the tonight that we put it together, so Ash got to explore it all on his own for the first time. Perfect timing!
Quinn was very excited when he got home and saw it though 😅.
Nana brought them an ax throwing game. Quinn got very cocky about his perceived skills 🤣.
They had a great time playing with friends on our bouncy house and racing in the yard.
I had a fantastic Mother’s Day. I went shopping at the Highlands by myself in the morning (because time away from mothering was exactly what I needed on Mother’s Day), we had Chinese for dinner, and then played outside all evening. My tree, which was given to me by two of my best friends for my first Mother’s Day, sure has grown, and so has Quinn!
Quinn answered these questions about me to Philip. They made me laugh 🙂.
Some of the other activities and places we’ve been recently:
Quinn practiced finding and counting specific objects on some I-Spy pages. I should make him do these daily so he can practice looking for things because he sure as shit can’t find any toy he is ever looking for 🙄🤪.
Quinn sent mail for the first time to my friend, Michelle, who lives in MA. She sent him a video on the day she received it, showing him how it was in her mailbox and then she opened it. He has received mail lots of times, but he had never sent any before.
We practiced using scissors (although he still holds them wrong 🙄) by rescuing animals that I trapped in paper one day, and then yarn the next, when he wanted to do it again.
We made homemade slime with glue and liquid starch. I think I’ve played with it more than Quinn has 😂.
I was trying to work on fine motor and hand/eye coordination with some tiny clothespins for Quinn and balancing blocks on golf tees for Ash, but mostly they just liked throwing the little foam blocks at each other 🤦🏻♀️ Peep Ash’s mid throw face in picture 4 😂.
Quinn practiced letter matching, using the picture cards I made for him last year. He was able to find 7 sets before he got bored 😑.
We made some special treats for Family Funday Sunday (or whatever order those words are supposed to go in. Philip and I both change it every single time 😆). We made cakes in a coffee mug one week. They were delicious!
We made cupcakes in ice cream cones on another. The kids got to decorate their own with icing and dinosaur sprinkles. They were also delicious! You just prepare the batter as directed on the box, pour it in the cones (I stood them up in a mini muffin pan, which worked great), and bake for 20 minutes! The cones don’t burn. I do recommend only making the amount you’re going to eat that day, though. The cones were very mushy the next day, and we didn’t even ice them.
We played at the play place at the mall again and I captured a perfectly timed photo of Quinn 😂.
Picture 1: “Hey Quinn.” “What?”
Picture 2: “I like your ears.”
Quinn wore his Grogu jacket to the mall that day and 2 different strangers told him they liked his ears. Now we like to just randomly tell him that when he’s not wearing his jacket and he thinks it’s funny.
We went to the Discovery Center in Parkersburg, and if you have littles and haven’t been, you need to go! It was awesome!
There is a ball shoot that counts and when it gets to 250, it drops the balls.
The employees were wonderful!
There was a toddler area on the first floor.
Ash practiced walking while he was there.
There were multiple floors with different themes.
Quinn said his favorite was the water world because it had a pirate ship (that was actually just a stern wheel boat 😆).
Ash loves water.
🙂
Ash found a hat to wear, of course 😆.
We went to playgroup on Saturday, and the craft was putting handprints on a bag for the moms. Quinn didn’t want his whole hand painted, he wanted me to trace it instead. Handprints and babies are not always compatible, so I opted for Ash’s footprint instead ❤️.
Sophie PUPdate:
This picture cracks me up. Ash goes in with his mouth open 🤦🏻♀️, and it looks like Quinn is yelling, but he is waiting with an open mouth for a kiss, too 🤦🏻♀️🙄
Sitting by Dad. Philip is Sophie’s favorite human. I was offended by this until it occurred to me that it’s because she gets him all to herself, while I am rarely home alone with just her. That’s what I tell myself, anyway 🤪.
She is not good at taking selfies 😅
She’s such a baby. A dog 3x smaller than her scared her on our walk by barking at her 🤦🏻♀️😆.
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