Crazy Legs Crane

We went to a skating party today for a friend of Quinn's. In anticipation, we bought Quinn some real hockey skates, used, a junior stick, and a skate trainer (one of those chair-like things you push around when learning to skate). Today, the big day, we measured and cut off his stick and taped it up. He seemed quite keen on the whole thing, walking around the store in his skates, and keenly interested in his new stick.

As soon as his skates touched the ice his feet started going a million miles an hour, even though he was travelling zero miles an hour. A couple times I was able to get him to stand up, but the least little movement triggered ol' crazy legs again. He was game though - he had a big grin on for much of it. Bec & I had to trade off often due to the resulting back strain. He would hold his stick and whack at a hockey ball we brought while we were holding onto him. Eventually I just sat him down on his bum with his stick in his hand. We skated around him and he whacked the ball to us / near us / nowhere near us, again with huge grins.

He seemed keen to watch the other kids playing. It's the age old thing where a tiny little bit of watching is worth a ton of telling. I tried hard not to be too excited - it's a game I love so much and have had so much fun playing, but I don't want to pressure him into it. It felt so good to get my skates on again and it was so good to see his big smiles, but I was stressing about how to teach him and felt like I was doing it all wrong. Bec was really good with him though and made it all about having fun on the ice, which is all it should be right now. While I wouldn't rate the first experience on hockey skates as a rousing success, it was about as good as could be expected, and he perhaps shows some instinct with a stick.

We played a little hockey in the living room when we got home and I thought he got it a little more. Fun was had and we didn't overdo it, so I think there will be a next time. Que sera sera.

There's a gourd in my shoe

Quinn has taken to putting a recently acquired gourd in my shoe. It has become a running joke. Every day I say "There's a gourd in my shoe!" and look incredulous. Quinn giggles and says "How did that get there?" "I don't know", I say. "Quinn did it!" he gleefully offers. At night I leave the gourd in his shoe for the next day. One day he made me carry it to work in my sweater pocket. I forgot about it until I was getting ready to go home and it made me smile.

He's got a pretty good sense of humour. He gets a kick out of making his mother laugh. He cracks up over certain passages in books. He giggles when something is out of place. It shows good judgement, that he knows the difference between normal and abnormal. It's a handle we can use to deal with certain otherwise possibly stressful situations. It's a bridge to the important people in his life. It will serve him well his entire life I'm sure. May we continue to cultivate it. Gourds in my shoe will keep him from going out of his.

Fun at the store

We went to Canadian Tire today. Quinn was a little wound up. He was mostly good while we were shopping. He was climbing into the plastic bins we were looking at buying. Every now and then he'd bolt off with a glint in his eye, requiring some hot pursuit. Then one time he took off at full speed and just kept going. Bec went flying after him and bystanders giggled as Quinn dove full-length into a shopping cart outfitted with a "car" for kids to drive. A few minutes later they came trundling back with grins all around.

As we were heading for the checkout Quinn caught sight of the lawn tractors, much like grampa's. Nothing would do but we had to go see them. And sit on them. And daddy had to sit on the next one. We had pretend races. We made tractor sounds. At one point two employees came down the aisle and I realized they probably couldn't see Quinn. As they passed I said "I bet I looked pretty silly until you saw the two year old". "We see grownups do it all the time" they said.

Quinn can really motor now. We walked home from the neighbourhood pub after dinner tonight and Quinn ran pretty much the whole way. He had a couple of face plants, but one was on grass and the other didn't slow him down for long. He's growing up so quick it seems!

Excellence with Grampa

Grampa took Quinn to the fair today. Four hours they were gone! They took the bus there and back. Grampa fed him candy apple, mini donuts, ice cream and a beaver tail. Oh yeah, and one bite of cheese from the supper Bec sent along with them. They saw lots of animals. Quinn had his picture taken with two parrots, one on his shoulder and one in his hand. They saw lots of noisy rides and lots of people. Grampa got him Buzzy the Bee (yes, yes, it's a Stuffed Animal Moratorium Violation, but we'll make an exception for A Day At The Fair With Grampa...).

Quinn had a great day and was good as gold apparently. I think both he and grampa were pooped by the end of it, but smiles were had all around. I don't think it should be called The Fair - it should be called The Excellent.

What's bigger than big?

Why, Big Big of course. Then comes Big Big Biiiiiiiiig. After that is Huge. Then Enormous. And just tonight, we had EnormousNormousNormous.

Today, with visiting Cousin Caroline, we also had firetrucks rescuing hapless cars from the Pillow Monster's pillow-and-blanket fort. And also apparently one of Quinn's toots flew out the window, down the driveway into a puddle and was chased by some squirrels.

The imagination stage is here in spades.

The Camping Experiment

It went about as well as could be expected I suppose, and we learned a few things. Quinn had a blast, but sleep was difficult, which is pretty much what we predicted.

We arrived at Fitzroy Harbour Provincial Park mid morning and went to the beach. Quinn had a blast. Of course he wanted nothing to do with his own sand toys and prowled the whole beach in search of others' toys. In the end that worked out ok though - he's getting pretty good at interfacing with other kids, except for the part where kids don't want the forced trade...but he's getting better at it. It's a process. We went for a swim and Quinn loved that. We ate some lunch at the beach and then went for a walk, hoping Quinn would stroller-nap, but that was not to be. At least he got some quiet time, except for his own constant babbling. So we went to our site and set up.

After setup and snack, keeping Quinn corralled was difficult. We realized we need to bring stuff for him to do on-site. We elected to go back to the beach. This was a hit all-around again, except for the lack of shade on the blazing hot day. Returning to our site for supper, Quinn very nearly fell asleep in the stroller - awkward timing, post-nap, pre-bed, so we kept him awake. We roasted hotdogs over an open fire using sticks. Quinn didn't like the smoke much, and gave the fire a lot of respect by staying well away from it (how do impart that safety importance without terrifying a toddler? I'm still searching for the sweet spot in that tradeoff...) but he still had fun. Clearly he was tired though. Great we thought - maybe the upcoming bedtime will go ok.

Yeah right! Putting him to sleep in broad daylight, in a tent, in the heat, amid numerous neighbours' radios, was a complete non-starter. First we tried him just laying down on the floor of the tent. Moments after Bec left the tent we heard a 'zzzzzzzipppp' and then the cute little mostly-naked imp peeked around the corner of the car at us. Attempt #2 was in the travel crib. Again he wanted mommy to leave, and moments later he climbed out of the travel crib and....'zzzzzzzipppp' again. After a stroller stint, another travel crib attempt and two and half hours of trying, he finally fell asleep during the second stroller stint, just when we were debating whether we'd need to abort and return home. He stayed asleep during the transfer to the crib and stayed asleep all night.

Unfortunately Bec fretted about Quinn being cold all night and didn't sleep well. After a blazing hot day and a hot bedtime, it got coolish at night, so Bec kept putting a blanket on him and he kept pushing it off. Then of course, he was up with the sun. With a missed nap and a short sleep, he was a mess. Bec and Quinn went to a shallow stream that looked interesting but he wanted nothing to do with it. So they went to the beach while I tore down. I caught up with them at the beach, we had a short lunch there, and then hit the road, hoping for Quinn to have a car-nap. He wailed "don't wanna leave beach", "don't wanna go in car", etc etc, but he was asleep within a minute and a half in the car. We took the long long looooong way home and all was well after that.

It was a massive prep for about 24 hours of "wildernessing". The prep should be easier next time around though - first time camping in awhile, especially car-camping, and first time with a toddler, extended the prep. I think Quinn really enjoyed it though. With some more entertainment for Quinn, and just not attempting to put him to bed til it's dark, I think it could all go a lot better. And first experiences for Quinn are often "groundwork". Next time we'll all be a little wiser. It's all part of the process for all of us I suppose.

Sneaky Trucks, Collapsing Bridges and Playing Pillows

One of Quinn's favourite things to do right now is play "sneaky trucks". I have no idea where the name came from. It must be some offhand thing we said that he glommed onto. Anyway, it involves someone being the cement truck driver while Quinn operates the front loader. The cement truck driver has to drive around with a load of wooden blocks. Then Quinn/front loader driver announces that he needs a load of blocks. The cement truck driver backs up, complete with back-up beeping, and then the driver gets out, goes around to the back and operates a pretend lever to dump the blocks into the front loader. Then the front loader driver goes crazy, shaking the blocks out of his bucket all over. In the original version, the cement truck driver had to collect the blocks up from all over. In a continuing effort to not play games where Quinn does all the ordering and everyone else does all the work, we've compromised on the cement truck driver collecting nearby blocks and the front loader driver pushing the rest over with his front loader for collection. He'll play it for 20 minutes straight. He'll play it every day. He'll play it several times a day.

Previous to that, it was "collapsing bridge" that was the popular game. Quinn would "make a bridge" by stretching over the chasm between the couch and the ottoman. Mommy or daddy would then have to crawl underneath the bridge, upon which the bridge would collapse on top of mommy/daddy. Sometimes we'd just then lay there in a heap. Sometimes the bridge would get flipped back up on the couch to giggles. Sometimes the bridge would flop off mommy/daddy and run around for a flying head tackle on mommy/daddy. Right after supper became a popular time for "collapsing bridge" so one day daddy joked about pizza flying out his nose after one bridge collapse. That then became the ongoing shtik, with various food flying out of daddy's nose and the mysterious invisible raccoon whose favourite foods were nose pizza and nose cereal.

The classic "Playing Pillows" has also had longstanding popularity, both on the couch and on Mommy and Daddy's bed. It basically involves a big pile of pillows, and various front flops, back flops and flying tackles. Quinn then sometimes hides under the pillows to "go to sleep" (emulating his father's slightly odd pillow predilections methinks...), followed by a euphoric "Time To Get Up!" announcement and more flops and tackles.

Who needs battery-powered flashing and blinking to have fun?

Rover the Robot

I always wanted one. I finally bought a Roomba Robotic Vacuum. It drives around on its own, seemingly randomly sometimes, scooping up dirt with a little brush/vaccuum on its underside. It's got several sensors to avoid obstacles or react to bumping into things, and has "advanced algorithms" for full floor coverage. Watching to see if it eventually gets a plainly visible bit of dirt is a little like high-speed cow-chip bingo. It even returns to its docking station when it's done or its battery is exhausted.

It's been a source of great fascination in the house. I love studying how it goes about its business and trying to figure out how it's making its decisions. Bec loves to micromanage it, picking it up and making it go over missed spots (I'm working at getting her to be at peace with the Advanced Algorithms...). Quinn gets up on the couch and chatters excitedly about its progress.

We decided upon a name of 'Rover' for our robot. Rover has already become a part of the family. In fact, Rover might have already surpassed our perpetually-hidden cat Tulsa on the depth chart. We joke about Rover tickling our toes. Quinn woke up the other morning and said "Time to turn on Rover!" (or 'Woever' as he calls him). One other day Quinn was having a complete meltdown until I played the Rover Fascination card - upon which Quinn was completely galvanized and forgot all about his malaises. That was an unforseen benefit not shown in the glossy brochures. Even Tulsa, terrified of everything, seems to not even notice it.

As a side benefit, it's even actually not bad as a vacuum. It's not a replacement by any means, but it keeps a lot of the summertime detritus in check. Like all pets though, it has achieved status enough to likely warrant expensive repairs when the inevitable breakdowns occur. Until then, we'll keep studying, coaching and placing our cow-chip bingo bets.

Slobbery Harmonicas

Quinn was proudly playing his harmonica when I walked in the door from work today. "Daddy play" he said emphatically, triumphantly holding up a dripping, slobbery harmonica. "Uh, sure....daddy play... {ugh...}" says daddy. Fortunately the low 'C' seemed least awash, and even more fortunately Quinn was excited enough about his harmonica as to immediately want it back after one blow (ick) and one draw (ack! what was I thinking!) by daddy.

You just have to be immune to slobber with a two year old.

Ice Cream Frenzy

We went to dinner at a nearby restaurant last Sunday. We asked Quinn if he wanted ice cream for dessert. He said "YESSSSSS!!!!" in a way that made his ice-cream-loving mom proud. Out comes an amount of ice cream about three times as much as we'd hoped. Bec and I plowed through our own shared dessert as fast as possible to begin to defray the amount of ice cream Quinn ingested as much as possible. Quinn scooped huge spoonfuls of ice cream into (and around the general vicinity of) his mouth.

We decided to walk a bit before heading home. Quinn immediately went charging down the sidewalk full tilt in a frenzy that was anything but plain vanilla. At a used car lot he began weaving around the security posts, then circling back doing it the other way, over and over again. He ran around the posts and parking lot with hair flying and a huge grin for 10 minutes without pause. After a while I decided quite possibly he could walk the whole 4 km home under ice cream power. I retrieved our bikes and we started to coax him in the direction of home. Sidewalk running, raised curb balancing, and yet more empty parking lot careening ensued.

After achieving about a quarter of the distance home in anything but a straight line, we had to bundle him back into the bike trailer due to bedtime constraints. I honestly wonder how far we would have made it. It was about 20 solid minutes of sugar rush. On the one hand, we were alarmed by the reaction, but secretly a little gratified that he obviously didn't get a lot of sugar, which is somewhat difficult to achieve in this day and age. We'll have to build up his tolerance I suppose - both his daddy and mommy have had years of building such an immunity - but it sure is mighty entertaining at this stage.