Meet the wild boy of Harrisburg…

Last night, Ryan had band practice so his bandmate’s wife and daughter came over to hang out with me and Quinn.  Quinn started off slightly grumpy, due to 5 teeth coming in and the fact that he fell and bit his tongue so hard at daycare today that it bled for 15 minutes.  But as the night went on, he warmed up to his friend, Angelica, and started to share his toys.  And as the night when on further, and we got up to Quinn’s bedtime and past it, Quinn turned into a true wild man.  We are lucky in that Quinn usually doesn’t get grumpy when he gets tired- he just gets crazy.  Like run all around the room screaming and giggling crazy.  He’s usually at his funniest when he is exhausted.  Which was what last night turned into for him.  Just check out his antics when I ran upstairs for a second to get the camera…

And his sweet, calm friend, Angelica

This is what they considered playing together:

And this is what Angelica thought of Quinn’s craziness…

Quinn ended up in bed about an hour and a half later than usual, which turned out to be a great thing because he slept an hour and a half later this morning and didn’t wake up until a blissful 7:30.  His wildness must have worn him out!

My office was closed today because of snow and ice so Quinn and I got to enjoy a little snow day.  It didn’t go as well as planned- I spent too much of the day working on a project for work and Quinn spent too much of the day trying to avoid his nap.  Luckily my project is now finished and Quinn is now napping, so I’m looking forward to the rest of the afternoon.  We did, however, take a break to go outside and see what this snow day was all about.

This first picture is right after we got outside.  Quinn has yet to notice that we were in the snow.

A few seconds after that picture, he started crying because the snow was hard to walk on.  We managed to last about 5 minutes tops before I started to worry that his tears and snot might freeze onto his face.  This was how much Quinn liked the snow:

I’m thinking our upcoming outing to a ski slope isn’t going to go too well!

And I don’t want to hear any comments about our matching snow attire!  Yes, I know that a mother-son matching clothes ensemble is something to majorly make fun of.  But in my defense, I bought my jacket years before Quinn was even an idea.  So obviously Quinn was copying me!  My second word of warning: it was cold and that hat (which is Ryan’s) is very warm.  If you’re giggling at my attire, you clearly don’t know that one of the rules of a snow day is that if you manage to get dressed, anything goes.  (And, I’ll admit, my pj’s were on under my snow gear- as were Quinn’s.)

Fenway was jealous of our fashion-forward attire so I let him try on the hat.

As you can tell from his excited expression, he loved wearing it.

Dino is Quinn’s new friend.  They do everything together – eat, sleep, dance, play ball, chase Fenway and give lots of hugs and kisses.  Tonight they shared a delicious dinner of pasta and veggie balls.

But poor dino was thirsty because Quinn refused to share his milk.

Even dino’s evil stare couldn’t convince Quinn to give him a swig.  Luckily dino quickly forgave and forgot and now both are all cozy and tucked into bed.

This afternoon, we went to the children’s exhibit that is inside the PA State Museum. We’ve never been to the State Museum, and because there was a little wait to get into the children’s exhibit, we took a stroll around to see what we could learn about our great state.  We saw a dinosaur fossil that was brought in from Colorado, a collection of smoking pipes, and a mock summer kitchen which the museum called “the woman’s domain”.  I thought PA had some cooler artifacts than that and we left the adult area less than impressed with our state!  Luckily, the children’s exhibit was completely different- and by that I mean it was really cool.

Quinn was very unsure of it all when we walked in.  It always takes him a few minutes to warm up to something new.  He started out by drawing on a clear plexiglass wall.

Then- JACKPOT!  Quinn spotted the huge Thomas the train exhibit.  He ran over to it, ignoring everything else- including that giant chick in the background.

We couldn’t get his attention…he was focused on building a Thomas train.

After playing with Thomas awhile, I literally had to pick him up and move him to a different area so he could check out the other activities.  But no, this boy only has eyes for trains and he kept trying to run back to Thomas.  Luckily, we found a room geared toward littler kids and it had a transportation theme.

Do I look like a mom or what?!?  I don’t know why my hands were on my hips like that but I look like I’m about to do some major nagging!

Tunnels are very serious business…

Obviously things aren’t so serious for Ryan, who was having fun with the puppet we dubbed “the lunch lady”.

The other exhibit that was a hit for Quinn was the truck exhibit.  Notice a theme with his interests?  It was a build-a-truck activity, but Quinn just liked to make them run into each other.

Pondering what kind of truck he should build…

It was a fun little place and must have made quite an impression on Quinn, because instead of taking his usual nap this afternoon, he spent part of the time in his crib shouting “choo choo, vrrrrooooommmm, choo choo”.

Quinn proved to me that boys must have certain things innately programmed into their brains that they think are funny- including farting sounds.  This afternoon on the drive home from daycare, all I heard was the noise of Quinn making farting noises on his hand and then lots and lots of giggling.  He was cracking himself up!  Boys will be boys, I suppose.  I have a feeling I’m going to be saying that phrase over and over again for the next 20 years!

We had a nice, long weekend.  For me, it started out with a dinner out with the girls on Friday night, which was very fun and much needed.  And being the lucky girl that I am, I came home to a clean home, thanks to a great hubby!  On Saturday, Ryan’s family came into town and the weekend was spent hanging out with Quinn, eating, visiting some small towns, watching football and shopping.  Quinn loved all of the attention his Meme, Grandpa and Aunt Kelsey showered on him.  And they bought him a potty, which he tested out by peeing next to it instead of in it.  He must have learned that by watching Ryan!

reading about baseball parks with Grandpa

secret handshake with Aunt Kelsey

Today Quinn and I had the day off, so we got to spend some quality time together.  We had some outdoor time of snow shoveling and a walk with Fenway, then warmed up with some playtime inside.  We bought Quinn a tunnel this weekend, which he loves.

We then went to meet Ryan after work and run some errands.  I told Quinn that he could take a toy with him in the car and this is what he came up with:

He couldn’t possibly leave the house without his soccer ball, orange ball and Thomas.  It took him about 5 minutes to figure out how to pick up and hold all 3 items at the same time.  I guess he’s indecisive like me and can’t decide which toy is most worth taking.  The funny thing is that by the time he gets up the stairs with his toys and puts his coat on, all of the toys are usually left behind and he leaves the house empty-handed.

trying to figure out how to get up the stairs with all his toys

Silly boy.

Quinn hasn’t wanted to eat much for over a week now because of his stomach virus.  His appetite is starting to get better but for the past week he’s been surviving on bananas.  Or “ahmas” as he calls them.  I know there could be so many worse things for him to want, so I’m happy with his love of ahmas.  As soon as he sees one, he points and shouts “aaaahhhhmmmmmaaaaa” and won’t let up until he gets it.

When he eats crackers we have to ration them a few at a time.  If we don’t, he’ll stuff as many in his mouth that will fit and this results:

But most of the time when we give him crackers, they end up in Fenway’s stomach.

I took Fenway to be groomed earlier this week and told the groomer I wanted as much fur cut off as possible because he looks so big with all of that extra fur.  The groomer looked at Fenway and said, “Well, um, he actually doesn’t have that much extra fur.  I think the reason he looks big to you is because he gained some weight.  You probably shouldn’t feed him as much.”  Ha, tell that to Quinn.  He’s the reason Fenway is a fatty!

Well, that and the other reason is that Fenway pretty much lays on the couch all day.  Sometimes Quinn joins him and they watch Elmo: Dogs- which obviously captivates both of them!

The good news is that after 3 days out of daycare this week, I think the stomach virus has finally left our house.  And that makes us all happy!

Quinn has a new bff (best friend forever for those of you not down with the lingo).  It’s Thomas the Train Engine.  If you’re not familiar with him, he’s a steam engine from England who lives on the island of Sodor with his other train friends.  They do things like “puff importantly” and their main goal in life is to be very useful engines.  Kind of odd but Quinn LOVES it.  So I knew I was about to rock Quinn’s world when I came home from Costco last night with a 10-DVD collection of the best of Thomas and friends.  Sure enough, he stared at the cases for minutes (which is like hours in toddler-time).  And when we actually turned the DVD on, Quinn was so captivated I was able to prepare dinner without someone hanging onto my leg.  And at that moment, I also loved Thomas!

under of the spell of Thomas the train

showing his approval of my purchase

I was wrong.  Boy, was I wrong!  Quinn’s stomach bug was not over yesterday  morning when I thought it was and it showed itself during our lunch out in a restaurant yesterday.  Literally, showed itself.  On the back of Quinn’s pants and shirt.  And on the highchair.  Luckily I was able to take him into the restroom to change him without attracting attention from the other diners.  When we returned to the table, my nurse friend said “Wow, in all of my nursing experiences, I have never seen it be THAT color”.  Way to keep it original, Quinn! 

We ended up going through another pair of pants during the remainder of our 2 hour outing which resulted in Quinn wearing an outfit made of articles of clothing that had been stashed in my car.  In some cases, the clothing had been put in there months ago, meaning Quinn looked like the person who dressed him was colorblind and expecting a flood!

Needless to say, Quinn is taking a sick day today.  Ryan and I are taking turns staying with him- me in the morning, Ryan in the afternoon.  So far today he has eaten more than he has in the past 4 days combined and has not had any more diaper incidents, but I said something similar yesterday and was obviously proved wrong.  Let’s hope this time I’m right and Quinn gets better soon- because he’s running out of clean pants to wear!

Quinn has some birthday greetings for one of his favorite people- his grandpop (my dad):

OK, so the birthday part didn’t go so well but happy and grandpop were pretty good!  Happy birthday, Dad!  Hope you have a great day and we wish we could spend it with you!

While I had the camera out, I thought I’d try to get Quinn to do some of his animal noises.  The camera died before he was done with his repertoire, so you missed out on fish, cow, elephant and a few others.  In case you were wondering, that first noise he makes is that of a very rare species- the wild Quinny!

So far our weekend has been comprised of changing some uber-stinky diapers that have kept us confined to the house.  Quinn is still fighting this nasty stomach bug and I’d have to say that the bug is winning.  Quinn went through 5 pairs of pants yesterday and I don’t even know how many diapers.  He was in a pretty good mood though, although I think the odor of yesterday is going to stay with Ryan and I forever.  Ryan said he went to take a sip of his beer last night and all he could smell was Quinn’s diaper.  Not good.  Not good at all.

This morning he seems much better.  We’re hoping to venture out of the house today to hang out with a friend.  Of course I plan on taking 3 extra pairs of pants and a lot of diapers.  Just in case…