Preconceived notions

We try to avoid preconceived notions with Quinn. Trouble is, the beach in Nova Scotia holds so many memories for me that it was difficult not to push things at him. In the end I think it worked out just right.

The first couple days we were there, we showed him everything. The dry sand at the top of the beach; the wet sand on the sandbars; and the clay. The tidal pools; the streams draining tidal pools; and swimming at high tide. The hermit crabs and ticklefish and starfish and jellyfish. Throwing rocks from water's edge. Boat rides. Grandparents and cousins and friendly strangers. The whole 9 yards, fully all 27 feet. As you can imagine he was a little overwhelmed - the biggest sandbox in the world, the biggest swimming pool in the world, and full-court-press family attention. This was me struggling with the preconceived notions.

By Day 3 he was crabby. We decided to take a day off from playing on the beach and stayed in the yard instead (something he's also not used to having given our postage-stamp-sized lawn...but at least it's more familiar). The next day we returned to the beach and let him find his comfort zone. He gravitated to throwing stones into the water from water's edge. Later he began exploring around the edge of sandbars, throwing Bec's sandals into the water and watching them float away (sometimes even retrieving them). Then he started venturing deeper into the water and climbing up on rocks. You could watch his world begin to expand. By the time we left he was eager in the water, jumping off a raft into Bec's arms, trying out a floaty-thing. He's amazingly adaptable, as I suppose all kids are at that age. I was impressed at how quickly, really, he went from overwhelmed to completely at home in his new surroundings.

Grampa's got tractors, and Uncle John's got a boat and is a fireman; Grampy's got a lawnmower and a fireplace. I was beginning to wonder what Daddy brought to the table. Maybe my preconceived notions are the best I've got. Maybe that's why so many parents seem to push their kids into things that the kids aren't so much into. But for desperately wanting him to like the beach and everything I loved about it growing up, I realized I had to let him discover it for himself. Thankfully, he seemed to arrive at the same conclusions on his own. Maybe a preconceived notion's not so bad after all, so long as it's not forced too much.

Gifts from Daddy

I had an appointment near a toy store this week, so I bought a couple gifts for Quinn. They are quite possibly the first gifts I have ever bought for Quinn. That might sound a little strange, but with the deluge of gifts from all fronts there just never seemed to be an opportunity. There was a brief span of a couple days where nobody was buying him anything and I spied my opportunity.

The first gift was a slinky. A good old fashioned slinky. Quinn loved it. He was so excited he squealed for a solid 15 minutes. We got it to 'walk' down a couple artificial steps we set up on the counter and he loved it so much we had to do it again and again. 175 times. It mattered not if you didn't get the stepping to work right - the topple-overs elicited even bigger squeals.

I was going to hold off a day on giving the other gift, but Quinn had already caught sight of it so the jig was up. It was a set of kitchen toys (plates, bowls, cutlery, etc) to go with the big play kitchen Bec found at the second-hand store the other day (and carried home several blocks precariously perched on the stroller, much to the amusement of several witnessing mommy-friends along the way). Well Quinn just loved those too. We had pretend tea and pretend breakfast and pretend dinner. He poured and sipped and cooked and ate. His understanding and imagination amaze me.

I woke up this morning and heard the clink of the slinky. I came downstairs and there were kitchen toys strewn everywhere. Looks like I did pretty well with my opportunity. Next one should come around when he's, oh, twelve or so. I'll have to start working on ideas soon.

Moah

Or 'more' that is. It's one of Quinn's heavily-used words. More food, more of the thing you just did, more of the thing he just did himself, or sometimes just a random uninterpretable 'moah'. One time he even said it in his sleep while at the cottage in Nova Scotia, which struck us as a great "zest-for-life" moment.

It's a solid life philosophy I suppose, or at least the start of one. Find out what you like and do more of it. The next steps after 'more' are to figure out what is "too much" and how to stop at "enough". One can get carried away with the figuring and stopping parts though - I could use more 'more' in my life, in areas at times. But one can also easily fall into 'too much'. I guess the skills of finding that balance and exercising restraint are among the most difficult parts of parenting. Then it becomes a lifelong thing for each of us, with the transition from parents managing it to managing it for one's self often being a primary point of conflict.

Hopefully we can properly imbue Quinn with these skills as he grows up without being overly restrained or overly permissive. Until then we'll try to get him as much 'moah' as we all can handle.

The Orange Juice Dance

While we were in Nova Scotia, one morning Quinn's grampy was shaking the orange juice container to mix it up. Grampy made it into a little dance with a little ditty to accompany it. Well Quinn got a kick out of that, sitting in his high chair. After some demonstrating and coaxing, Quinn started to move his hands back and forth, up and down, along with grampy. Everyone got a big kick out of that and Quinn basked in the attention. After a while he was getting right into it, with an intent look on his face, leaning forward and sticking his tongue out (a sure sign of concentration). Soon the whole table was doing The Orange Juice Dance, and a new shtik was born. This recurred several days leading up to our departure.

Once we got back to Ottawa we were all eating supper and Bec and I were reminiscing about the trip and the Orange Juice Dance. It took a little thought to remember the ditty but we eventually came up with it. Upon hearing it, Quinn immediately started moving his arms in Orange Juice Dance fashion. We were a little surprised at how well he remembered, over and above how well he understood what we were saying.

Even better - today at breakfast I got out the orange juice to pour some, and Bec and I tried to remember the ditty again. Quinn started humming it! We were completely blown away! I smiled about it all morning at work, and even phoned nana to tell her about it (grampy was out). Ordinarily having such a ditty stuck in my head all day would drive me nuts, but this particular day it was a great thing as I beamed with pride about my son and smiled at the memory of Orange Juice Dancing around the dining room table in NS. Doo doo doo...doo da doo doo doo...doo dah doo...

Back to the grindstone

We spent two glorious weeks in Nova Scotia (more posts to follow - I kept notes this time so as not to lose the experience like we did at Christmas...presuming I can find the notes that is...). Today I returned to work. I awoke early and came downstairs to spend some time with Bec and Quinn before work. When it came time to go to work I told Quinn "Daddy's gotta go to work" and he said "nooooo" and ran over and hugged me, and gave me his camera to play with. As if I needed further disincentive to return to work after a particularly fun vacation... :)

It may have been more because the family full-court-press had dwindled to just mommy and daddy, and now it was dwindling further, but still it felt good and bad at the same time that I would be missed. While Quinn speaks only a few words (but growing fast), he clearly understands a remarkable amount. This was one of the first times he seemed to show understanding of my temporary daily absence. It tugged at the heartstrings, for sure.