Bec bought a second small replica hockey stick today. However we can't find the old one we had. So grampa and Quinn played hockey with a whack-a-toy mallet, the hockey stick and a blue rubber ball. Seemingly a combination of hockey and croquet, we dubbed it "hocquet" (or croqhey).
I got to play some hocquet with Quinn when I got home. Now, it's always fun to do things with Quinn, but this didn't require any pretending - it was truly fun!
Quinn's got another ear infection, which combined with a full body rash last week warranted a couple visits to our family doctor, Dr. Assemi. The maladies have turned out to be nothing serious, but Quinn won over the entire audience by saying "Dokker Semi" several times.
He also has a doctor kit at home with several play doctor instruments in it. He now gets it out and we play "Dokker Semi".
One morning recently, right out of the blue, Quinn looked at a group of things in a book and said "One....", (I noted it), "Two....", (I thought 'very good, counting to two is impressive'), "Three....", ('wow, he's really going!), "Four!" (Holy cow how far is he going to go??). Then he stopped, but I was completely flabbergasted. He had counted one a lot, two on rare occasion when aided, and here he went right to four all by himself! With some aid he got right up to eight! I'm not sure it would have all been identifiable out of context but I was impressed nonetheless.
Today Bec sang the alphabet song and stopped at 'P'. He sang 'koo arr esss, tee ooo vee, dub eck wyyye zee, now no ayy cee sing see". He did it again for me at suppertime. We made a big thing out of it, as you can imagine, and he looked so proud.
It's truly amazing how fast kids learn things at this age. I have no idea how Quinn's progress compares to norms, and I'm trying very hard but not quite successfully to dwell on it at all, but I personally am truly impressed at how well he's doing. I am most happy about how he gets a kick out of it. I so hope we can keep that alive.
Bec went to Montreal with her mom and sister this weekend. It used to be a tradition BC, but she missed last year because Quinn was too young for her to be away. Flash forward one year, and well, we weren't entirely sure Quinn wasn't still to young for her to be away. We'd talked grand designs of prepping Quinn and Daddy for a solo flight, but too much work and a general lack of round tuits and here we were holding our collective breaths as Bec left for the train.
We'd discussed that probably having Quinn watch her board the train without him would be too much. However I fear we went a little far in the other direction. Bec's parents picked her up at home, and she said goodbye to Quinn, but then she just left, with us being hesitant to make a big deal out of her departure for fear of meltdown. I briefly considered waving with him from the window, but we were reading at the time and he gets in a reading zone, so we just kept reading. In the short term this seemed quite effective. He asked for mommy a couple times over the next few hours and I explained that she was away until tomorrow. He considered that for a moment and carried on.
Later, just before nap he was going up the stairs and he stopped. He turned around and looked at the door and waved and said "bye bye". It was said in a tone loaded with meaning, and it is one I will remember forever in the "emotion sears memories" sort of way. It was soft; it was vulnerable but confident; it wasn't sad; it was a bit resigned, but also content; and matter-of-fact - all at the same time. Then he turned and continued up the stairs. He went down great and had a great nap.
I didn't immediately identify it with mommy leaving, and in fact it's still not totally sure in my head. Just prior to that he'd been pointing to the light and smoke alarm on the front hall ceiling and said something that seemed to indicate he thought someone was out there. I briefly wondered whether it was one of those "I see dead people" moments from the movies with or without the macabre part, which freaked me out in a number of ways but I was able to quickly banish those thoughts. So when he waved bye bye I wasn't sure whether it was The Imaginary People or not. Only later did I piece together that he was probably waving to mommy, and perhaps even imagining mommy there. Whatever the case, I now wish we'd let him say goodbye more. Who knows, maybe he *would* have melted down; maybe there isn't a black and white answer.
In any event, he and I have done just fine together, and I am so glad he feels that comfortable with me. I think I'm much more boring than mommy, but I think I have managed the care and feeding of our son effectively over the weekend. I even recovered a couple minor meltdowns. My biggest fear was that he would lose it and want his mommy and be completely unrecoverable, but that didn't come to pass. In the end, after much anticipatory gnashing of teeth, I think it has been good for us all, and we'll all be excited to see one another in a couple hours' time.
Last night Quinn picked out the "Dr Suess's ABC" book and brought it over to the couch for us to read. As he walked he said "dok soos E-R-P".
Today Bec spelled out "p-i-e" in conversation with me at suppertime, to avoid Quinn fixating on the idea in lieu of dinner. Quinn looked at her and said "E-R-P".
Whatever this ERP thing is, he certainly has caught on to the letters and spelling idea.
Quinn is learning to communicate quite clearly. Developmental books we read talk about toddlers getting frustrated when their ability to communicate can't keep up with their understanding and desire to do so. With a combination of Quinn's inventive ways and some solid parsing by Bec, this doesn't seem to be the case for Quinn.
Example: Monday night we were all returning from a dinner out and Quinn was walking (actually running top speed for a lot of it). To keep him moving along, we focused on the fire hydrants along the way, and specifically the ones up ahead. He steamed around the corner of one building, and then looked around quizzically, and said "ennn see" and shook his head. "Ennn" has long been his word for "again" or "another"; 'see' was quite clearly spoken and is a word he recently learned so it seemed a reasonably surefire assumption; the head shaking was plain as day. After Bec and I looked blankly at one another for a second, feverishly trying to crack this word puzzle, Bec blurted out "'again', 'see', 'no'...we were looking for fire hydrants and he can't find the next one". We pointed out the hydrant, which was behind a telephone pole, and he checked it out briefly before we sprinted to the next one.
You still need a large helping of Quinn-to-English dictionary, but he can definitely get his point across. This is a real-life word game that's so much fun to play.
Quinn has really had an explosion of language learning lately. A new toy he has is a magnetic easel with letters and numbers. In conjunction with the easel, we dug out the Dr Suess's ABC book, which he now pays attention to with renewed zeal with the extra added context. We've started to teach him some letters. He can repeat them after us, but the only one he consistently gets right unaided is 'x' (which he says as "eck"). Still though, I'm impressed at how well he's doing.
For some reason, when he sees letters on something, he points at them, and says clear as day "E-R-P". We're not quite sure why he has glommed onto that particular sequence, but it certainly appears he's referring to letters when he does. Maybe he got into a Swedish keyboard or something. We'll have to write our own alphabet song I guess.
With strong doses of his dad's counterculturalism and his mom's whimsicalness, it should be no surprise that Quinn comes up with his own ways of doing things. And we don't discourage it much either, letting him mostly express himself in whatever fashion he desires so long as it's not offending anybody. Sometimes though, the things we bear and grin don't fall into the grinning and bearing category for all.
One way Quinn likes to express affection is The Flying Tackle. It even has verbal accompaniment now, with a spirited "Tack!" uttered as he flops onto you. Unfortunately some of his playmates don't quite understand this behaviour, and, lacking the requisite size that we have to muster as defence, especially don't appreciate the involuntary physical relocation.
Another affection manifestion is bossiness. "Up up up", he says, tugging a sleeve, or pushing/pulling, or thrusting a toy into someone's hand to play with. Bec and I giggle, accept our Assigned Toy and dutifully play. It happens less so with playmates.
Quinn's also a big hugger. Not with just anyone, but with some playmates that he sees regularly and has come to recognize and know. Perhaps a little oddly, it never seems to go well. Kids are either busy doing something or they don't want some drooly kid draping themselves into their personal space. Of course he's not so much into hugging those that thirst for it, like parents, grandparents, etc.
Showing all his toys to the object of his affection is one of his more effective tactics with playmates. However, it was less effective with Caitlin's dog (although he stands in for it bravely) and our cat (she just flees in terror at any sighting of him...).
Smiles and laughing at everything they do is also a good one.
It seems a shame to train some of them out of him, but I suppose imbuing him with the whens and wheres of things is a part of growing up. It just goes to show you, though, that unappreciated behaviours in those around you might have a different meaning than you think. The trick is to do the imbuing without becoming an 'unbuing' as the ability to feel and show affection is the most important thing of all.
Quinn's Aunt Caitlin came over for a visit last weekend. At one point Quinn decided everyone should stand up and play, as is his wont, tugging on everyone's sleeves and saying "Up, up up". I grabbed my guitar and Quinn went to his musical instrument drawer and picked out some tambourines and shakers. We all marched in a circle around the ottoman, singing kid's songs. He was having a grand old time! As were we!
Aunt Caitlin decided to have a seat to take a rest. Well that simply wouldn't do. Quinn immediately ordered her "up up up". Little did she know this was Music Time Boot Camp! Up she got, and he went and got his piano and round and round we went some more. Quinn got his drum. It went on for some time before Quinn finally got a little tired of it. He wanted us all to keep going around in circles singing while he read some books but we weren't so much into that. Finally Aunt Caitlin, and the rest of us, got some respite! Hootenanying is hard work, especially under the strident guidance of our bossy little band leader.
Quinn really laughs at some things now. He was getting a big kick out of Bec saying "Zap" tonight on the change table while the bath was filling. Flying bath toys, the Tickle Bird game, roughhousing; words like "zap" and "plop" and "kerplunk"; anticipation of snooshing, snorgling and zurberting; sometimes he just giggles at random things. His laugh is evolving too, with the early smiles and giggles morphing into full-on belly laughs and hearty chortles.
He has really established a solid frame of reference regarding the world around him, such that he recognizes when some things are unexpected and therefore (possibly) funny. He also recognizes the facial expressions and verbal tones that indicate we're "funning" with him. Best of all, sometimes he initiates it himself, with a "whap" on his own head or his mom's, or a "flop" on his dad on the floor.
A good sense of humour's an essential ingredient for a happy life. It looks like Quinn will be well endowed in that regard. Long live laughter!
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