the mighty Quinn

3 generations

Sam — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:41:13 +0000

Last weekend we had 3 generations of Pudloski drummers in the house- Quinn, Ryan and Ryan’s, Paul (or G-pa, as Quinn calls him). Despite Quinn’s fever, he felt well enough for a jam session.

my facebook status update (since I’m not on facebook)

Sam — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:57:57 +0000

Since I’ve been MIA in the blogworld recently, I thought I’d give a status update of what’s new with us. Warning: it’s not very exciting!

Quinn: Still awesome. Still hilarious. Still the cutest boy ever. Lately he’s been coming up to me, giving me a hug and saying “You’re my love”. It’s pretty much the sweetest thing ever and could melt any heart. And he now tells me that “maybe” when he grows up, he’ll be a rockstar. Or an astronaut. Dream Big, mighty Quinn! He just got over a virus and high fever (104.4) but seems like he’s on the mend. And no, it wasn’t the swine flu.

Baby Girl Pud: She’s becoming quite the active one…I’m feeling lots of kicking and Ryan was actually able to feel it the other night as well. I think by this time with Quinn we had already picked out his name and had his nursery almost completed. Sorry, kiddo, we’re a bit behind with you! We have her name narrowed down to six choices though, which is a start.

Me: Getting bigger by the day. I’m feeling pretty good but my pregnancy craving is super lame: iceberg lettuce. Weird, right? Other than that, things are pretty status quo.

Ryan: Still flash developer by day, rockstar by night. And still super dad- Quinn strives to be “just like daddy”. He copies his actions and words and it’s so sweet. And really funny. And sometimes inappropriate (if Ryan forgets that Quinn is listening)!

Fenway: Still lazy and overweight. But he’s taken to sleeping in Quinn’s room at night, right next to his bed. Quinn loves it.

Timmy: Still a tortoise.

That’s pretty much what’s going on with us. Looking forward to all the fun activities that come with the holiday season. We’ve been reading Santa books for a few weeks now so we’re definitely getting into the holiday spirit at our house.

7 and a 1/2 years later…

Sam — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:56:02 +0000

7 and a 1/2 years ago we were walking across the quad at JMU on the way to our graduation, after having spent the past four years walking across the quad on the way to a night out with drinks in hand. Fast forward to today when we walked across the quad with kids in hand…

And gave Quinn a time-out for not listening across the street from one of the most popular bars at JMU (this is what happens when you make the threat of a time-out in the middle of a sidewalk and your kid takes you up on it)…

And carried our babies (in and out of utero) where we used to meet up for frozen yogurt between classes…

How times have changed!!!

Quinn had a blast exploring the campus.

Future JMU’ers Quinn and Ben:

We hit up some of our favorite places and discovered that other favorites are no longer there. It made us feel old. Although I think the fact that we had a 2 year old, a 1 year old and a 4 month old in tow and had to make pit stops to change diapers and breast feed babies made us feel even older!

slow

Sam — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:12:56 +0000

The time from when I pull into the driveway after work/daycare pick-up to when both Quinn and I actually get into the front door is on average about 10-15 minutes. And it’s not because our driveway is far from the front door…it’s really only 15 feet max. So why does it take so long? Because Quinn is a dawdler. He takes sooooo long to do everything and is easily distracted by anything…toys that fall out of the car, bags and coats and packages that I’m carrying, where the sun is, the chalk on the sidewalk. His typical walk into the house includes taking one step forward, stopping, taking two steps back and so forth. Repeat 3 times and then he’s at the front door….where it takes him another 5 minutes to actually step into the house because it’s just too fun to stand there and let cold air in. And then there are times when he does this:

It’s kind of hard to tell but, nope- his feet are not on the ground. Yes, he’s hanging on my car’s door handle with his pants half off. And apparently I don’t care enough (or have enough energy at that point) to make him stop right away but instead I grab the camera and take a picture of it. So if you happen to see my car and it’s missing a door handle, you’ll know why!

christmas shopping

Sam — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:40:20 +0000

The Christmas toy catalogs have slowly been trickling in to our house and whenever a new one arrives, Quinn must thoroughly inspect it. They usually keep his attention for about 30 minutes and if he has already looked through one and saw something that caught his fancy, he’ll bring it to you and ask you to find the page that the toy is on. He currently has his eye on a toy rocket ship- this kid knows what he wants!

On another shopping note, I went to check out girl clothing since this baby will need some non-boy clothes and I have one word for you…rufflebutts. Generally I’m not a ruffle type of girl but baby pants with ruffles on the butt- the cutest. You can bet that I bought a pair…or two!

it’s a…

Sam — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:00:56 +0000

I had a wonderful ultrasound done today. Baby is healthy, growing on schedule and…she’s a GIRL! We are thrilled and, I’ll now admit, even though we also would have been thrilled with another boy, I was secretly hoping it was a girl. I mean, c’mon, girl clothes are so much more fun! And the shoes…don’t even get me started on little girl shoes! We know Quinn is going to be a fabulous big brother to his sister…once he gets over the disappointment of her not being a train named James. So without further ado, please say hello to our beautiful baby GIRL:

halloween extravaganza

Sam — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:29:50 +0000

Even though Halloween is still 2 days away, Quinn celebrated big today. It started out with a daycare party, ended with some trick or treating and included lots of candy! candy! candy! (as Quinn says). I was slightly nervous about how today was going to go costume-wise, considering that for the past week Quinn has been telling me that he wants to be a boat- a submarine boat to be exact. Aside from the fact that he already had 2 costume choices ready and waiting for him, there is no way I am crafty enough to make a submarine costume for him and not enough time to buy one…if they even sell submarine costumes. So I was expecting a full blown meltdown about the lack of a submarine. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised when he happily chose to wear his dog costume and didn’t mention the submarine again. Lesson learned: don’t buy a costume for a toddler 2 months before Halloween because they are sure to change their mind about a hundred times.

In order to prep for our before-Halloween extravaganza, we carved our pumpkin last night. Quinn loved scooping the seeds and said “ewwww” everytime he got a good chunk of innards.

I forgot to take a picture of it, but we carved the pumpkin to be none other than Thomas the Tank Engine. Pretty awesome.

His daycare celebrated Halloween today with a party. All of the parents brought treats for the party and when I dropped Quinn off I scoped out the goods- spooky cupcakes, brain juice, spider cookies, ghost candy. I looked down at my contribution- apples, oranges and grapes. Yeah, I was that lame mom who brings something healthy to a Halloween party. Good thing Quinn is too young to figure it out…soon he’ll make fun of me for it, just like Ryan does! Anyway, I stopped by briefly during the party and was able to get a picture of all of his friends in costume.

After work/daycare, Quinn’s buddy Angelica came over to go trick or treating with us. Her dad brought flashlights for the kids and they were the hit of the night!

Trick or treating went well, even though it took us about an hour to hit up 10 houses. Quinn got into it and by the end was saying “trick or treat” and “thank you” without me prompting him. Then he came home and screamed for candy! candy! candy!, ate some m&m’s and went on a sugar high for the next hour. Bedtime was really fun…not. I’m sure we’ll have some more Halloween activities over the next few days and by the end of it all will have mastered the sugar consumption to bedtime ratio. Until then, wish us luck! I just might have to take one for the team and help his belly out by eating some of Quinn’s candy. Cause I’m a good, caring mom like that!

Quinn’s vote

Sam — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:51:35 +0000

Voting on Baby Pud’s gender is at a tie- we find out on Friday morning so place last minute votes now!

I guess I should put in a vote for Quinn since he doesn’t quite have control of the mouse yet. Although he is getting way better at using Ryan’s iPod Touch! I’m thinking Quinn’s vote would be boy, since he named the baby in my belly “James” and he named the baby in his belly “Trevor”. Not so coincidentally, both of these names are friends/characters in his beloved Thomas the Train DVDs. He might be slightly bummed when his sibling doesn’t turn out to be a big red steam engine or a friendly green tractor!

big boy room

Sam — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:03:03 +0000

We finished up Quinn’s big boy room on Sunday. The only thing we still have to find is an old guitar to hang on the wall. We decided to do a rock and roll theme for the room (since Quinn is a rockstar) but we didn’t want to go too overboard with it. We’re pretty excited about how it turned out and Quinn loves it- he is sleeping great in his new bed and loves playing in there.

The idea for the room started with this:

Even though he will probably never understand what a record is, we thought it was necessary to have the Mighty Quinn album in the room.

Then we put a few more records up because they look cool. It’s amazing how far music has come…now even Quinn has an mp3 player that is way smaller than these records!

We used rain gutters to create book shelves that Quinn could reach. And of course his beloved train table needed a spot in the room!

We got the little pelican storage bin that hangs on the wall from Ikea, but decided to hang it a little higher because Quinn started out thinking it was a basketball net, and we were afraid he’d rip it off the wall on a daily basis.

And the big boy bed that Quinn is pretty proud of…

And a little storage station:

Last, but not least, Quinn’s roommate, Timmy. Quinn loves sharing his room with him…not sure the feeling is mutual, though!

So that’s the “big boy room”. We feel pretty on the ball, considering that we technically had until March to get him into a new room. It was fun to do, since it meant I got to take a trip to my favorite store, Ikea, and Ryan got to use his new miter saw. It’s the little things that really do it for us!

deep sea creatures

Sam — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:42:46 +0000

We had a busy day on Saturday, filled with aquatic creatures. First up, swimming class with Quinn, the little fish who now goes underwater and jumps off the side.

After swimming class, we picked up Quinn’s friend Angelica and her family, and headed down to the Baltimore Aquarium so Quinn could see “sharks with big teeth”. The kids had a good time, although the highlight for Quinn might have been the escalator and the revolving doors.

It was a fun day but we were all exhausted by the end. Something about chasing your kid through the aquarium makes everyone involved quite tired!