Ryan thought it would be funny to take a picture of me taking a picture of Quinn. He said (and I quote) “so the people can see the mamarazzi Quinn has to deal with.” (Get it- PAPArazzi but since I’m a mom it’s MAMArazzi.) So people, here is proof that I really do take pictures of everything. Quinn eating breakfast is a rather mundane task that he does every day. And yet, I still take pictures of it. When he’s older and looking through his baby pictures, he’s going to wonder why there are 572 pictures of him eating breakfast. And then he and Ryan will make fun of me. (I’ve already accepted the fact that Ryan is going to be the cool parent and I’m going to be the lame one that the kids and Ryan make fun of.) But that’s OK- I’d rather have too many pictures than not enough.

We finally finished up Quinn’s room this weekend. Check it out:

The walls are tan, even though in some pictures they look pink/peach/purple. It was crappy lighting when I took the pictures. We have to paint the trim, are awaiting the new carpet and have a few minor finishing touches and it’ll be done. If only we could finish painting the rest of our house…

I thoroughly enjoyed having an extra day in my weekend and I don’t want to complain, but honestly, how come 3 day weekends feel even shorter than the normal 2 day weekend? We had a good 3 days- got some work done on the house, hung out with Quinn, ran lots of errands.

Ryan was on Quinn duty on Sunday while I went to the Hershey spa with my mom, my brother’s fiance, and her mom. I spent the day getting wrapped in a combination of mud and chocolate (AMAZING is all I have to say about that) and the rest of the time I was lounging and lunching in my bathrobe. It was such a fun and relaxing day. I think everyone should spend the majority of a day hanging out in their bathrobe- it does amazing things for the spirit!

Unfortunately, Quinn spent most of the weekend with a fever. He’s had a cold and I think it’s turned into another ear infection. I’m going to get him in to see the Dr. tomorrow and hopefully he’ll be feeling better soon. He wasn’t very grumpy, just cuddlier than usual (which isn’t a bad thing) and sleepier than normal (again, not a bad thing!)

This morning Ryan and Quinn jammed out to some Rusted Root. He loves to watch Ryan drum and dance and sing. I love to watch it as well because it’s pretty darn funny. Maybe next time I’ll catch it on video…

Quinn loving Ryan’s highchair drumming

Quinn got so excited he was just flailing his arms around, which explains the blurriness. Look at that smile!

showing off his “so big” skills

Quinn’s new favorite game to play in his room is the pull-all-the-books-off-the-shelf game. He then crawls around on top of them, occasionally stopping to open one up. He has this one book that has a little duck puppet sticking out of it and he always stops at that to give the duck a kiss. It is SO cute.

Goodbye long weekend. Come back soon!

Quinn is looking for his Cheerio. It was in his hand on its way to his mouth and, all of a sudden, it up and disappeared. If you’ve seen it, please let him know!

Quinn and I went up to Selinsgrove today to visit my friend Jeni and see the land that she and her husband, Todd, are building on. It’s a beautiful property surrounded by woods and fields with views of the nearby cows- very quintessential Pennsylvania. Todd was hard at work with his manly machines while Jeni, Quinn and I poked around. Quinn wasn’t too into the heavy machinery yet, but I’m sure if he were a year or two older this trip would have been the highlight of his year!

Jeni and Quinn at the spot of her future front door

me and Quinn- jeez, we’re pale!

For dinner tonight, Quinn had a four course meal all rolled into one. It’s called “black bean/garden veggies/sweet potato/applesauce delight”- and he loved it. Later when we were playing in his room I noticed that he had a piece of black bean in his ear. My first thought: how did that get there? My second thought (totally irrational): I hope food in his ear isn’t the cause for his previous ear infections. What can I say, moms are crazy.

On a somewhat related food night, I’ve been waiting for 2 months for this day to come. No, it’s not my anniversary, birthday, or vacation time (but it is Ryan’s sister’s birthday so Happy Birthday Kelsey!) It’s actually the first day of the CSA that we joined. Basically we became members of a local farm that grows organic produce and every Wednesday for 28 weeks they’ll deliver a box of produce to a site nearby for me to pick up. I have high hopes for all of these incoming veggies and fruits. In my head, they are miracle veggies that can miraculously make my stomach look like I didn’t have a baby 8 months ago, make Ryan have a newfound love for vegetables, make Quinn a super baby who is healthier, smarter and stronger due to the organic produce, make every meal we eat incredibly nutritious and, somehow, they can even put extra minutes in the day so that we actually have time to prepare a real dinner. But, back to reality- I’m just happy that we’re supporting local farming and will have fresh organic veggies every week.

my amazing veggies- aren’t they lovely?

Quinn had a rough day. I don’t know what it is but something has been up with him for the past 2 days. He’s just seemed a bit fussy and sleepier than usual. For now, I’m chalking it up to teething (which I feel like is my go-to excuse for any fussiness and now that he actually has teeth coming in, the excuse finally has some clout!) But the real reason for his rough day- he got his first black and blue mark. Somehow he managed to whack his head on his crib during his daily pre-nap banshee yelling. I was in the hallway outside his room when I heard a loud *thud*. It got quiet for a split second and then he let out a scream. Poor boy. When he woke up from his nap he had developed a nice welt with a black and blue mark. Then, to make the evening worse, he got smacked in the face with Fenway’s rope toy when the two were playing a little game of tug of war. That also caused some major screaming, but luckily was cured by bathtime. His cheek was a little red though. I hope it goes away, otherwise we’re going to have to help Quinn come up with a good story about his bruises to his daycare friends. Telling them he banged his head on his crib and his dog hit him aren’t very impressive stories.

Quinn’s expression pretty much sums up how he felt today. (Notice the bruise on the left side of his forehead.)

Just when I think Quinn can’t possibly get any cuter- he does!  He’s starting to share his stuff, as evidenced by this story compliments of Ryan:

The morning routine lately involves Sam or myself retrieving Quinn from his crib anytime between 5:30 and 6:30 – Sam will tell you its usually earlier as she is the one who usually gets him. Then I make a bottle and bring it back to our bed where Quinn lays in his boppy and drinks his bottle while we doze off and on trying to steal a few more minutes of sleep before bottle time ends and one of two things happen:

 A. Quinn goes back to sleep and Sam takes a shower and I get to sleep a few more minutes with him.

 B. What usually happens is that he gets bored with his bottle and starts using us as climbing equipment. Once in awhile he goes back to the bottle for a sip or two.

 B was the outcome this morning – but when Sam was taking a shower I was surprised when Quinn, laying right next to me, took the bottle from his mouth and put it in mine. He was sharing his breakfast! It was very funny – and in order not to discourage him – I pretended to drink some. He seemed to like that and then took the bottle back and continued drinking it himself.

He’s growing up so fast! I just hope he doesn’t start sharing his pureed vegetables with me – that stuff is nasty!

How adorable is that?!  I, however, hope he does start sharing his veggies with Ryan so he is forced to eat something nutritious once in a while!

Once again, I find myself on Sunday night wishing it wasn’t Sunday night. I feel like I need a weekend to recover from my weekend. We went to Zach and Amy’s Jack & Jill weekend- a combined bachelor/bachelorette weekend. We had a great time but I must admit that we were the lame ones who were the first ones in bed (although I still think 1:30 is pretty decent!) But I was also the winner of a very competitive card game for 3 games in a row (and by “competitive card game” I really mean a college drinking game), which should balance out my very uncool early bedtime. While we were partying it up, Quinn was spending the night with Gram and Grandpop. They had some friends over and I think Quinn was the life of the party. He seemed to have a good time because when we got home he was smiling. And so were Gram and Grandpop, which is good because we have a few more babysitting weekends lined up for them! Thanks mom and dad!

Bathtime in the kitchen sink

Quinn telling Grandpop a story

my waterbaby

hanging out with Uncle Zach

trying to steal Pop Jack’s hat

The newsletter for this month had some good stuff to say about Quinn. (Of course it’s good, we pay them enough that they darn well better write some good stuff!)

“Quinn is crawling and he amazes us how he can crawl in and out of some things! We never know how he will try to maneuver himself out of things. He should have a great sense of humor when he grows up. Quinn always manages to laugh at things, no matter what the situation is.”

And, there was a shout out to Quinn in a later part of the newsletter when they were writing about another baby in the room who is starting to roll around and working on crawling. It says, “Quinn has been teaching him the new crawling technique of the baby room.”

That’s my Quinn- already a leader! I hope he doesn’t teach all of the babies in the room to crawl around like he does, or his poor teachers are going to be exhausted at the end of the day!