Lotsa Laughs

I got home a little late from work tonight, but I still made it home before Quinn's bedtime. First we had a horsey-ride, with mommy holding Quinn up while daddy got down on all fours and carried Quinn around, which he loves. Then we choo-choo-trained our way up the stairs which got some giggles. Then came bathtime with new bathtoys and more smiles. Then mommy played 'elbow' on the change table with him - for some reason he giggles when we point our elbow at him and say "Elbow!". We finished up with some bye-bye / peekaboo through his bedroom doorway.

It takes the exhaustion right out of a long workweek to be able to come home to a happy, smiling family. Life is good.

Mommy vs the noseboogers

Bec is constantly on the lookout for Quinn's noseboogers. Quinn hates it. He will do anything to avoid having his mom pick his nose. I can't say I blame him a whole lot. However there is one part I just don't get - I can understand many of the built-in baby instincts, but I just don't get babies' natural aversion to having their face washed (of which the nosebooger-picking-aversion is a close relative, I'm sure). Quinn has *always* hated having his face washed. I just don't get it.

Well, we have 80% of the downstairs hardwood floor job complete. It should be complete tomorrow. It's been some upheaval for the last few days but it looks fantastic. Quinn seems to approve as well - he can push himself backwards on the slidey hardwood at a pretty good rate. It's not going to be long before he's crawling.

Thinning out

No, not my hair. Quinn is. He now has less chins than a Chinese phonebook. I wouldn't go so far to say only one chin, but definitely less chins. He doesn't seem taller but maybe he is a little. After being off the growth charts for the early going, I suspect he's back on them now. Not anything alarming I don't think - he could stand to have less rolls on his knees. Perhaps the standard charts don't reflect breastfed babies' growth rates - I seem to recall reading something in the news about that awhile back.

That thing he does

Quinn does this hilarious thing where he muckles onto his mother's face with both hands and then pounces on her chin with his mouth. It's really quite dramatic. It's usually followed by her rubbing her chin on his shirt to dry her face off and saying "rub, rub, rub!" which sends him into giggles. Now it's like he knows it's coming when he starts to go after her chin as he seems to have a glimmer in his eye from the outset. And the mere mention of the words "rub, rub, rub" bring a smile to his face even out of context.

I wonder if he thinks he's kissing his mom like he sees his dad do? Or maybe it's just a positive association thing for him now. We'll never know. It's pretty cute though.

Almost 8 months old

Quinn's almost 8 months old. Amazing. Time really flies. Why don't all of us measure age in months? Otherwise time just sort of passes by without noticing. Maybe if we all measured our ages in months it would make us appreciate it more. I'm almost 467 months old. See, that has a pretty good ring to it. As we get older and stress about our ages more, stating our ages in months removes all the stigma in our own minds and in others' minds because the number has no meaning.

I'm surprised the commercial world hasn't grabbed hold of this idea because buying everybody a gift every month would be a financial gold mine. Maybe this is the way out of the current global financial crisis. The monthly birthday. You read it here first.

It's not about the ducks any more

Quinn made a beeline for the toy drawer when I put him on the floor in his room before bathtime. Then he got distracted by the jolly jumper bar that knocked a couple cans with paint-can-style lids over, dislodging one of the lids. He got ahold of one of the lids and it was his new favourite thing. He took it into the bath. He held it throughout the bath. He held it after the bath and completely ignored the rubber duckies except for a few shovel-like bats at them with the lid. He held the lid after the bath to the change table where he held onto it during the wrestling match known as dressing and diapering. He then shrieked mightily when it was taken from him before bedtime. Is the rubber ducky era over? Who knows? Watch this space for further gripping developments...

Beyond calf roping

Ok, it's beyond calf roping now. We're more into wrestling-hold territory. Bec hasn't had to yet, but even she's dreading changing a full-on poopy diaper solo now. And that's at home let alone out and about. Upon being put on the change table, he immediately does a quick spin/roll to get onto his belly. With one of us to pin his shoulders and the other to pick up his feet we can usually get a poopy diaper off without spraying it around the room and everybody. He's constantly twisting and turning while looking at everything while holding onto something while grabbing for something else while kicking his feet while whacking the wall with whatever's in his hand. Mayhem.

He's pretty cute though. And interested in everything. That is a good thing most of the time currently, which may downgrade to some of the time when he officially achieves mobility. I'll try to focus on the upside.

Bec commented that we didn't properly appreciate the inanimate blob months when we were in them.

Big Pooper

I changed my first #2 diaper in awhile yesterday. I can now definitively say that the moniker "little poopsie" is no longer accurate. Quinn will henceforward be known as "Big Pooper". Other monikers still hanging on are Little Boobeedoop and its derivative Little Boop. "Little buddy" and "little bud" make some occasional verbal appearances now, but I think Little Boobeedoop will be the one he gets made fun of with when he's a teenager.

It's been a great weekend. Today he was pretty much a brochure baby, sleeping late, napping easily and long and timed perfectly to mesh with bedtime. He's in *so* much better spirits and is so much more capable when he's rested. Why can't all days be like this? I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree - I've been cheating sleep for decades now. I'm doing better now though, getting to bed *much* earlier so I can get up earlier to spend time with Quinn, and get home from work earlier to see Quinn and help out with bedtime.

We managed to get Bec a big sleep Friday night and yesterday. Are Quinn's matching big sleeps a coincidence? Who knows. There are always so many variables with a kid this young. He changes so rapidly that you can never pin anything directly together and instead have to rely on feelings and instincts. Today was a great day though so I'll dwell on that for now.

Permanence, temporarily

Quinn has learned object permanence. The upside of this is that he knows when an object goes out of sight that it still exists. The down side of this is that he now knows when mommy is out of the room. That does not go over well with him, especially when he's tired.

Which is most days these days it seems. We thought we had going-to-bed and naps pretty much nailed, and we were working on through-the-night and wakeup-time. Then everything went to hell again - naps got really short, meaning he was overtired all the time and sleeping fitfully because of it, resulting in a downward sleep spiral that we're still trying to extract ourselves from. Poor Bec is bearing the brunt of it again.

As part of the solution, we're trying to get him to bed earlier. So far it's not having much effect but it's early yet. What it means for me is that I get up at 7 and leave work at 5 (both unheard of times for me, those that know me will attest) and still don't see much of Quinn during the week.

Hopefully these too, are temporary, and shall pass.

Diaper change = calf roping

Quinn twists and turns and grunts and wiggles so much on the change table that it is pretty much a calf roping contest to get his diaper changed. Gone are the days where he just lay there like a blob.

Nature provides you with a pretty natural progression actually. For Diapers 101 for the first while, the poo is pretty pedestrian and the movement complication is minimal. You figure out how the diapers go on, how to get clothes on and off and try to avoid being peed on. For Diapers 201 you add the complication of doing it "under fire" while the baby shrieks at you. In Diapers 301 you add the particularly stinky poo and trying to keep their feet out of it. I think we're now at Diapers 401, where he thrashes about constantly in the roll, pitch and yaw axes, whether he's trying to reach toys, trying to look around, or just because he can. Soon he'll have mobility, which I'm sure will add a whole new dimension.

On the weekends it's a bit of Diaper Roulette as we alternate diapers - if he's on Day 3 of his two-days-off, one-day-on pooping cycle, it makes for particularly exciting wagering. Bec does the vast majority of diapers, which makes it particularly exciting when my turn comes around. I certainly notice a difficulty difference from one to the next, but so far I've managed to avoid any undue excitement.

Travelling without moving

For a little guy that's not officially crawling, Quinn gets around. It started about a month ago with what we referred to as "Hands" / "Pushup". The "Hands" part is where he lays on his belly and gets all four appendages in the air while waving his hands. The "Pushup" part is just as it sounds - he pushes himself up with his hands. The Pushup generally leads to him sliding backwards a little. I don't think he has put together that he can move with this mechanism, but I think he understands that when he does "Hands" / "Pushup" (usually with our verbal encouragement) he generally ends up with something new to look at.

He can now navigate clear across a room by rolling over. He can even retrieve a toy that's gotten away by rolling and incorporating half-twists as required. He can get up on all fours occasionally - especially in his crib - and he pushes himself backwards a little bit. He's so mobile in his crib I swear he needs a queen-sized one. Originally he was quite keen to chase the cats but he seems to have lost interest in them, choosing instead to eye the toy basket in the living room and the toy drawer in his room. He already has a strong tendency to get into things he shouldn't. It won't be long before we'll be asking ourselves why we were so keen for him to learn to crawl.

Our first date in 7 months

Quinn's Aunt Caitlin came over last night to babysit after he'd gone to bed, and Bec and I went out for our first date in the seven months since Quinn was born! Being a holiday, the nearby good restaurants were closed, but even the local pub seemed like luxury after all that time. Even though the pub is only blocks away, we drove to facilitate a quick response time if Quinn awoke. Bec was pretty good at being relaxed and not checking her cellphone every 5 minutes. We had fun!

When we got back we checked Quinn on the video monitor and I don't think he had even rolled over since we left. Caitlin has offered to do it more often, and next time we'll go to one of the *real* restaurants in the area. Woohoo!