Quinn, Troubadour

I'm back to work now.  Week 2.  Week 1 was a half week.  Everybody seems to be adjusting well.  I'm going in earlier and getting home earlier, which seems to be working well for everybody so far.  Quinn was sad as I left this morning - he and I played a lot together while I was off and that is a hard part of the adjustment.  For me too.  I promised to play with him when I got home and off I went.

Bec, Quinn and Rilla went to the children's museum today, one of Quinn's favourite places.  They had a blast and Quinn ran everywhere.  As they sat down for lunch Quinn sang The Marilla Song that I sing to her all the time.  He did a pretty true rendition of it and Bec was impressed.  "Daddy would love to hear that I'm sure" said mommy.  "Can I phone him at work and sing it?" asked Quinn.  And so he did.  It was a welcome break, and it was a pretty true rendition.  Quinn can now add it to his repertoire of "Me and my pickup truck, we don't pick up much", "American Pie", Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Old McDonald had a farm, pickle edition (with a crunch crunch here...).

Good clean fun, mostly

Quinn and I were playing space lego, his new favourite thing.  He was bouncing around like he always does when he has to pee.  I figured he's big enough that he should be able to go to the bathroom when he needs to.  He always seems so put out when you ask him if he needs to pee.  While he has been capable of going to the bathroom on his own for quite awhile now, it's only recently that he has chosen to do so again (with a little prodding).  Finally he stated, unprompted, that he really needed to pee.  Off he went.  It was quiet for a time.  Then I hear "I think I need new underwear".  Then, "I think I need new shorts too".  Followed by "I think some went on the floor".  And at last by "actually I think it's a lot on the floor".  Off Quinn went to get clean clothes.  Off I went to get clean floors.  It was a sizeable puddle.  It's very unusual for Quinn to have an accident - in fact it's the first one since he toilet trained as far as I know.  I gently suggested to Quinn that perhaps the next time he doesn't need to wait until it's an emergency before going to the bathroom.  He agreed.  Hopefully it's a life lesson learned.  A now we have a clean spot on our bathroom floor.

Then it was bathtime.  Rilla and Quinn were going to have a bath together.  Bec decided to weigh herself with Rilla to get a weight for her.  Surely it can't hurt to take an extra minute Bec thought.  Rilla peed.  Rilla peed a lot.  Mommy needed a new shirt.  Mommy needed new pajama bottoms.  Some went on the floor.  Actually a lot went on the floor.  How can such a small girl hold so much pee?  Some went on the sink, the scales and various other places.  Mommy, accustomed to bodily fluids, continued with the bath.  Off I went to get clean floors.  Again.  Now we have two clean spots on the bathroom floor.

Quinn and Rilla had a blast in the bath.  Rilla really seems to like it.  Quinn squirted her in the belly.  Mommy and Rilla squirted Quinn back.  The first couple of baths Rilla squawked briefly upon getting out, but now she doesn't even do that.  Mommy got some dry clothes, and I admired the floors.

The name game

When we chose Quinn's name, Bec was adamant that we choose a name that was unmodifiable.  And largely we succeeded.  He still gets "Little Bear", but any Quinn derivative or modifier elicits an "I'm just Quinn" from Quinn himself.

Marilla however is so far known as:
- Rilla
- Rill
- Rillabean
- Rilla-bo-billa-bo-banna-banna-bo-billa (Quinn's favourite)
- Miss Marilla
- Rillapooh
- Rilla Jane
- MJ

All in all, her name seems very natural to us, a perfect fit in all its various forms.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's back to work I go...

Sadly, my month off is up.  It's been great and I don't want it to end.  I have spent a whole lot of time with Quinn and that has been fantastic.  Sure, there were lots of times when I thought my head would explode with one more 'why', but he is a great little boy (not so little any more!) and I've had the opportunity to bond with him this last month more than any other time during his four-and-a-half years.  We've gone to three museums (five if you count the three museums at Civilization separately), gone to the park a lot, gone for a bike-ride/water taxi adventure, and we even had fun grocery shopping today.  We've played soccer, water play, lego, moon buggy, helicopter rescue, pillow fight, jetpack.  He has become quite attached to his green OLPC computer, and operates it quite proficiently ("I'm recalibrating the mouse" he says triumphantly as he resets the finger pad driver with a keystroke combination...substitute mouse ordered...).  We watched Daily Planet, helicopter rescue videos and some Olympics.  He calls me "Dave". I fall asleep with him every night and wake up / get up with him every morning.

Marilla is doing well.  One month old.  Wow the time flies.  Sleep is still sketchy - last night was bad for Bec.  She started smiling about a week ago, at least for daddy and Quinn.  Much to mommy's chagrin she doesn't get as much smiling, which has been hard for her given how much she does for her.  It's the novelty factor I'm sure - I remember going through that with Quinn too.  With respect to breastfeeding, Marilla is in the transition period from a one-boober to a two-boober.  Her stomach hasn't quite grown to two-boob stature yet and as a result the entire contents quite often erupt.  Poor little girl - she looks up so plaintively amid all the scurrying around it causes.  She continues to be largely readable and consolable.  She has had a couple of sustained crying episodes (that I know of) but even those weren't off the scale like I remember some of Quinn's.  The best part for me is that she seems to now recognize "The Marilla Song" that I sing her every day, and she smiles when she hears it.  It lights up my heart.

And now I head back to work.  It's going to be hard.  Hardest on Bec, especially with respect to sleep.  She has been making up an hour or two of sleep in the morning, which won't be possible with Quinn up.  Quinn has been fantastic with Rilla, but I'm worried that she will become more competition now.  My days will become hectic again, once again squeezed for time on all fronts and feeling inadequate in all roles in my life.  But as I keep stressing to Quinn, we are family and we stick together and help one another.  We'll get through it.

Late breaking news: it's 4:30am and Rilla (and mommy) slept 10 til 4!  Maybe this is a good omen...amen to that!

She's a snoozer...

...during the day at least.  First excursion outside: slept.  First trip in the car: naptime.  First trip to the pub for dinner: snooze city.  First trip in the stroller: yawwwn.  Midwife visit: zeds, excepting some grunts while being weighed (10 lbs at two weeks - growing like a weed!).  Park? Snooze.  Beach?  Soporific.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for nighttime hours.  Sleep all day, party all night.  We're having a bit of difficulty getting this girl's clock turned around.  Not unusual I suppose.  It seems about every other night Bec gets a 3 or 4 hour stretch.  She seems to be holding it together pretty well somehow with some scattered sleep and an additional stretch in the morning.

Quinn's handling the whole transition well but he is very definitely four-and-a-half.  He's a high-energy handful.  He's had a couple of play visits with friends, some visits to the park with friends and I've taken him to two museums for extended outings.  Gramma and grampa had him overnight again this week and he had a great time out there.  Meanwhile we all got as much sleep as possible.  How did we ever think one kid was difficult??

Squirt! Crash course in multi-kids

On Marilla's third day the scorching heat wave finally abated enough to introduce Marilla to The Outdoors.  Not a big trip - the back yard.  She dealt with it the way she seems to deal with most everything so far - she snoozed happily away.

At one point Bec went inside for a well-deserved snooze and left Quinn and Rilla with me.  And the motion-activated sprinkler.  Quinn is of course fascinated with all things aquatic, and played happily with sprinklers and hose sections and nozzles for quite awhile under daddy's watchful and wary eye.  He was very good, being quite careful to not shoot water into the neighbour's shed upon my prodding (why daddy?).

Then he found the motion-activated sprinkler.  Gramma and Grandpa had brought it in to help us discourage our very cute but destructive neighbourhood groundhog.  I had hooked it up temporarily as a test and Quinn was very excited about it.  Now Quinn started to set it up again.  I half dozed off for a minute and when surroundings came back into focus I saw Quinn turning on the motion sprinkler that was teetering back and forth in an inadequate mounting hole in the ground.  I had visions of a wind-blown leaf triggering the sensor, the sprinkler tipping over and all heck breaking loose.

Rilla snoozed placidly in my arms, and thusly prevented from taking direct action myself,  I asked Quinn to turn off the hose.  After the requisite "why daddy" and explanation delay, he started to, upon which it triggered and immediately did almost a complete 360, Quinn having played with the side-to-side governors.  It sprayed daddy, Rilla, the house and the general vicinity, and scared the crap out of Quinn who had memories of grandpa being squirted square in the face.  I shielded Rilla and took refuge behind the barbecue.  Quinn took refuge under the removed blue plastic half-roof of his playhouse.  The sprinkler stopped.

With the situation seemingly stabilized but not yet rectified, I took stock: Rilla - mostly dry and still sleeping; Quinn cowering but safe; daddy - a little wet; mommy - not contactable.  I asked Quinn to make sure the hose was turned off.  He refused. After much imploring he at last reached up from his safety of cover and determined that it was, in fact, off.  But how much was still in the line?  After much coaxing I finally convinced him to pick up the sprinkler and point it away from everyone.  After one spurt it quickly peetered out and the baptism was over - Quinn having faced a fear, daddy having faced an outnumbered situation for the first time, and Rilla sleeping happily through her first water fight with her big brother.

Introducing Miss Marilla Jane Matthews

At 6:01am on July 4th, Miss Marilla Jane Matthews made her splashy entrance into this world.  Quite literally actually.  We did a home birth and it was amazing.  There was not a hint of trouble in mom or baby in the leadup nor during the event itself.  Labour was 5 hours, as opposed to 20 for Quinn, and this seemed to have kept everybody's demeanor rosy from the outset.

So far 'Rilla' seems to be a good sleeper.  Hopefully that lasts, especially given the difficulty sleep has been with Quinn.  Early in pregnancy with Rilla we bought a cheap single mattress and I (predominantly) started sleeping in Quinn's room to handle his frequent awakenings.  This seemed to revolutionize the lives of all involved and so we have stuck with it to this day.  I'm not exactly sure what the exit strategy is, but I keep telling myself that almost nobody grows to university age with their parents still sleeping on their floor :)

Rilla has well and truly shocked mommy and daddy back into the diapers game.  Day 2 she surprised mommy with two change-table poops in addition to the original.  Day 3 daddy was ambushed with no less than 5 change-table blasts.  At least Quinn got a big giggle out of it.  And hey, I suppose it further confirms that all systems are 'go' for our new baby girl.

Bec's milk has come in already and feeding is going well.  It's amazing what a difference it makes the second time around.  Experience now tames things that once seemed so earth-shattering. Plus you trust your instincts a lot more and it keeps the overanalysis to a minimum.  Name selection seems emblematic of the difference in approach between our two kids, taking months of spreadsheeting and book reading first time, and a 5-minute conversation second time.  I'm sure Rilla will have her own challenges in store for us, but so far so good. 

Quinn is adjusting really well and being an excellent big brother.  He is helpful and careful and respectful, gentle, wants to be the first to make her laugh and smile.  He sings to her.  Omigod 'Old MacDonald Had A Farm' and 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' have never has as cute a rendition as Quinn's loving rendition.

On Day 2, as I took Rilla for an hour in the morning so Bec could get some sleep, I realized it was her first trip beyond the confines of mommy and daddy's bedroom since she was born.  We toured the house and she sensed the changing setting somehow.  Different sounds and smells likely, light too.  Though I understand newborns' eyes aren't fully functional yet, her eyes were clearly responding to her environment.  The manual stairmaster eventually got her to sleep (Bec's milk wasn't in yet) as we practiced counting to 14 about 75 times.

Tomorrow may be her grand entrance into the outside world.  Quinn's friend Phoenix turns 5 tomorrow and there is a party at a nearby park.  However, there is a heat warning still in effect in Ottawa, and Bec's still recovering so we'll just have to see where young Marilla Jane makes her next splash.

Big Boy Bed A Rousing Success

Quinn helped build his new big boy bed yesterday. As we were putting the sheets on the mattress he was impatient to try it out. "Is it ready yet? Is it ready yet?" He immediately snuggled into his bed as soon as it was ready. We webcammed briefly with Nana to show her her Quilt Full Of Love deployed.

He has seemed very matter-of-fact about his new bed. He hasn't been nervous or excited. During his brief afternoon test drive he was keen to try it out, and he spent awhile in it, but he wasn't jumping up and down either.

At bedtime, he went to bed completely normally, pretty much as if nothing was different. We recently started taking Quinn for a pee when we go to bed to get him though the night (improved sleeps for all!) and when Bec went in this night we had a laugh, as Quinn was sprawled exactly sideways half way down the bed on top of the bedclothes. Through the night, he fell out once (we don't have a side-bar yet) although he was very dopey at the time, and had no recollection of it in the morning.

At 815am, I awoke refreshed (an unusual sensation for me...). Quinn was still sleeping, a solid hour past a normal big sleep-in (my day to get up.....yessssss!!!). I peeked in to make sure he was still in there - he was - and then awaited his awakening (another unusual sensation). He woke up at 830am chirping like a little bird and has been in a great mood all morning.

It seems the new bed is a 'rousing' success.

Troubadour Quinn

As we speak, Quinn is running around in circles banging a tambourine yelling Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer at the top of his lungs while his piano repeats Jingle Bells at top volume. It's a good thing there's a high cute factor. He just wowed Brent The Electrician with an impressive rendition of The Wheels On The Bus. Oh - now he's onto Jingle Bells, albeit at a different rate than the piano. I'm getting heck for not playing my tambourine part right so now I'm resorting to 1-hnded hunt n pecking while I also play out of time...

It brings me back to Santa at the community centre. Quinn had studied the pianist's kazoo accompanist during the caroling. After the event was largely finished he wandered up to look at the kazoo. He got permission to try it. He blew and blew and blew harder. I told him to say the letter 'm' with a big finish. Quinn: blow. Mommy: 'Mmmmmm'. Quinn: blow. Daddy: 'Mmmmm'. Quinn: Blowmm. Eye twinkle. Daddy: "Yeah that's it". Quinn: MMMzzzz. Grin! And a kazoo star is born. He played it for 20 minutes solid, traipsing around the centre very earnestly, causing mirth for all. Now, I'm not sayin' I'm anxious to listen to it in the car all the way to Nova Scotia, but he did quite a fine job of it.

Reminds me a joke I once heard: "Zamfir, suppose I took up the pan flute at 7, how long would it take me to master it? Zamfir: Oh about 7:15.

Santa - a close encounter

A Christmas event at the community centre was on a Friday evening in early December. On the way there, Quinn was talking about the questions he was going to ask Santa - where does he live and why does he like the cold? There was a good crowd there - not overcrowded but enough to be a festive crowd. Someone was playing carols on the piano and people were singing. Quinn walked right up front to watch them and covered his sensitive ears with his hands, eliciting some smiles. The mother of a little girl the Bec takes care of sometimes played some rousing and animated solos on a kazoo shaped like a trombone. Quinn studied the kazoo at length from afar, and held his ears.

Then the announcement was made that Santa was on his way. The crowd parted and there was the right jolly old elf himself. Some kids ran up, some ran away. Some were excited and some looked like they were about to burst into tears. It's a big deal coming face to face with magic! Quinn sidled over but seemed unsure. He seemed to be leaning towards the "burst into tears" camp but he hung on bravely. Finally he told his mom he wanted to go home. Ok, she said. Mommy started a slow pace toward the door. Just before the threshold he caught sight of a table where kids were making a Christmas craft. It piqued his interest and he got up to make one. He focused very intently on it for quite a few minutes and did a good job on it.

After a subsequent two crafts, mommy asked if he wanted to go see Santa, who had taken up station on a largish-chair. They walked over to check it out. A few kids were still in line and Quinn had a chance to study the situation. Finally, it was his turn. Mommy got down and held him, and he slowly edged toward Santa, who got down low with welcoming arms (good ol' Santa knows how to do it!). Quinn, all by himself, edged over and talked to Santa some, and finally climbed up into his lap! They chatted for awhile and a picture was taken of Quinn with a great big grin.

It had been a definite progression. During the crafts it looked to me like he was still processing things out of the corner of his eye. But he did it all by himself. That night at bedtime I told him how proud I was of him that he went up to talk to Santa. He told Bec that he could go talk to Santa because she gave him a hug, which made her aglow and canceled out at least 150 dirty diapers right there.

It makes you wonder how we'd all react in the face of magic. Study and approach thoughtfully seems like a life skill that would stand us all in good stead.