Altitude: 2'6"

Quinn has reached his cruising altitude of 2' 6" - for the first time today he cruised along the furniture! We were excited and he was quite proud. They were little shuffling sidesteps, but by the time he'd done it three times he was going pretty fast. It's funny - he didn't seem that proud at first, but once we made a big deal out of it he realized that this was one of those "learning things" and then he wanted to do it over and over. It seemed the perfect melding of nature and nurture - doing it was innate, but encouraging it expedited it.

Occasionally while holding a toy in each hand and another in his mouth, he reaches for a fourth toy while standing, resulting in accidental free standing for brief instants. Full blown walking can't be far away.

Toys Daddy Loves too

Quinn got some great toys for Christmas. Toys that daddy loves too : a great big dump truck and beginner lego; a wooden train set complete with an intersecting road with railway crossing and train bridge (I've finally learned how to put it all together - in spite of Quinn tearing it apart as fast as I can assemble it); some great books; a wack-a-ball toy - complete with an extended lesson from Aunt Caitlin on how to properly whack the heck out of the balls (he's picking it up quite well she'll be pleased to know - his relatively quiet and reserved parents lack the requisite whacking panache...).

He also got a xylophone that's actually properly tuned, which I'm very excited about. Perhaps unreasonably excited. We have another xylophone that's tuned to three consecutive minor thirds and two augmented fourths. Who does that?? It sounds absolutely satanic. Anyway, the new one is metal and sounds quite nice, and has the notes C through A in the C major scale. It comes complete with some song sheets for a few songs that can be played with those notes. As a bonus it floats, so it can be used in the bath. However, he's still scratching his head over the bathtub book he got, and I'm a little concerned we're going to find his whole library shrivelled up in the tub one day, but I'm sure with some careful coaching all will be ok.

Very generous and thoughtful gifts, all. He still gets a kick out of his spatula and a stick though, which I can't say I'm entirely disappointed about in this materialistic age. More careful coaching in store.

Two stage manipulation

Quinn wanted onto mommy's lap. Gramma was between him and mommy. He crawled over to Gramma and put up his arms to be picked up, brightening Gramma right up. Unfortunately once picked up he then immediately put his arms out to be taken to mommy. He's done that once with me too. Smart kid. It didn't take him long to figure that out.

We're also having to train him out of pointing and screaming to have something brought to him. I think the family blitz of Christmas in Nova Scotia has taught him why do anything himself when it's quicker and easier to have someone do it for you. Except for the things that he insists on doing for himself of course.

As an engineer, I guess I can't argue with his logic. Over time we'll have to make sure he uses his powers only for the the forces of good.

Constructiveness

This evening Quinn made up a new game. Bec & I are both exhausted tonight after our return train trip from Nova Scotia with Quinn. It all went well but it took a lot out of us. I was in the kitchen doing something or other, and Bec was in the living room with Quinn. I heard her cheering him on through some game, and then heard "this game is great now that you've learned to pick it up yourself". I looked into the living room, and there was Bec flaked out on the couch while Quinn alternately earnestly struggled his blue sweater to the top of the ottoman, and then triumphantly flung it onto the floor to the great cheers of his mommy.

Previously he has enjoyed the game of pulling stuff off of the ottoman and throwing it on the floor as we pick it up repeatedly. Today was the first time he did the constructive part of the activity as well as the destructive part. He also assembled two of the megablocks he got for Christmas for the first time today. He still is rather insistent that every single one of his plentiful books be strewn all over the floor immediately after we stack them back up, but the sweater game is (hopefully) an important first step.

The sickies

Quinn's been sick for most of December. It started as a cold, then got better, then got suddenly worse. We started on one antibiotic, but it gave him diarrhea and didn't appear to work. We switched antibiotics and it appears to be working and causing less other problems, other than the fact that Quinn hates it. We should sell tickets to the charade we go through to get it into him. Poor guy.

We've had our first trip to CHEO for a chest xray but it's apparently not pneumonia, as the longstanding, persistent, productive, hacking cough and rattly breathing might indicate. He's had a few miserable days and nights over the last while, but he definitely seems to be on the mend now. I've been some degree of sick for a month and Bec's caught it presently, but I think we're all improving now.

Sleep habits definitely went out the window during his sickness, just in time for going farther out the window for Christmas. Oh well, hopefully retraining won't take too long - that progress was hard-won.

First wave

Every night at bedtime, just before Bec nurses him, I wave goodnight through the doorway. Last night for the first time Quinn waved back. It was a backwards wave, so the hand action he sees when he waves is the same as when people wave to him. He definitely gets 'bye bye' in that context. Now we'll extend it to other situations.

He is also developing other situational awareness. Like the impending end of bathtime for instance. He shrieks as if saying "Run away, run away!" and crawls like mad to the other end of the bathtub. He arches his back and shrieks some more as we pick him up. Not the most endearing behaviour, but he certainly loves his bathtime.

He's beginning to cruise ever so slightly while standing alongside furniture. Bec also found him standing on the first stair the other day too. He's developing so fast. I'd heard it was a blazing pace of development at this stage but it is truly amazing to watch.

Conductor

Quinn waves his hands along with music and singing now, like he's conducting. I'm not just sure where that comes from as it's not something he sees us do. It must be a natural thing I guess. He also taps in time with music on occasion. It's difficult to say whether it's on purpose or not, but it seems to happen more often than chance.

He also likes big trucks. We stopped to watch the big city snowblower clear a street the other day, with a grader and dumptrucks and a sidewalk plow. I'm not waiting to see if nature or nurture steers it that way :) I was cheering Quinn on as he made his 'interested' sound and pointed. Rebecca wouldn't let me chase them down to the next street :) but the seed is planted I think.

Quinn has an idea

Quinn had an idea recently, to master the lightswitch. Sure enough he has, and the bulb came on over his head. "Push up, light on, push down, light off" has been the mantra during these antics, but three-way (double) switches confuse the mantra somewhat. At bedtime we say "Light off?" and he looks over at the switch. We hold him up to it and he puts his hand on it. He looks at his mom and dad to ensure he has the full attention of his audience. Then, when the moment is right he flips the switch, the light goes off, his parents cheer and he gets a big toothy grin.

"Light on" followed "light off" pretty closely in development. The current stage is "light on light off light on light off light on light off light on light off light on light off light on light off light on light off...". If it turns out he's OCD he has learned all he'll ever need to know. We've probably cut years off that bulb's life but hey, we'll be buying lots more expensive toys than a $5 CFL light bulb over the years.

Round peg, Round Hole!

To the great glee of Quinn and his adoring audience, he put the round block through the round hole tonight! He had his proud smile on after he did it, so I'm pretty sure he did it on purpose. I had laid some groundwork for matching blocks to holes a while back, knowing it was too advanced for him then, but Bec caught him doing it right by accident today, and with a little glowing praise soon enough he was doing it again a few times!

In other news, he seemed to be making his little frog jump along the side of the bathtub. Before throwing it on the floor for dad to retrieve that is...over and over and over :) He seems to be entering another level of cognizance. And cute too, as his nana would say :)

The Washing Machine

Here's an advantage of front-loader washing machines that they don't show in the glossy brochures - Quinn watches the clothes tumble around for 20 minutes at a time.Bec 's taking a short home-movie of this now. It should provide for years of entertainment :)

Toys du jour

Quinn has finally moved on from the cranberry juice bottle lid that he was mesmerized by for so long. Now he is magnetically attracted to a toy spatula that was mistakenly in with another toy we borrowed (at least, we see no connection between the spatula and the toy itself, but Quinn is not the least bothered by this). You can never tell what he's going to be galvanized by next.

Empty boxes and crinkly paper are popular, so Christmas will be a big hit. He loves a little truck we borrowed, and quickly caught onto opening the rear hatch to put small things inside it. He loves a rings-and-post toy, and a set of telescoping cups has had real staying power. They are the perfect example of kid-entropy: everything proceeds to great chaos - we build towers with the cups, and he takes glee in toppling them over. In fact he'll traverse the breadth of the room to knock a tower over. Unless he spies a beetle on the way of course, but most times he gets there to deal with the tower in his own spectacular little way.

He has started a new game with his dinner spoon which is both clever and cute. He takes the spoon and hides it under his high-chair tray, and gets this glimmer in his eye. We say "where's the spoon?" and he grins with glee. Then he triumphantly reveals the spoon from under the tray, holds it up over his head and gives a big toothy grin. Except sometimes he drops the spoon on the floor, or it gets caught somewhere along the way. His glimmer fades as he realizes he's losing the moment, and the triumph is a little muted when he finally succeeds (aided or not). But it's really something to see when he pulls it off. With an attentive and appreciative audience, and applied with the proper panache, this simplest of items contains all the magic you'd want in the world's best toy.

Pointing

Quinn points at everything now. Most times he just sticks his finger in some direction without event knowing what's there yet. He must realize we're going to begin naming things that are in that general direction.

He wakes up from a nap and immediately begins pointing in all directions, as if to say "We'll go over there...and then over there...and ooo there's a shiny thing over there and WHAT WAS THAT NOISE - we'll have to go check that out...gosh I've been asleep all this time - how much have I missed?? We'd better get moving!". Does that remind anyone of anybody? :) (not naming Bec's name of course...)

He's just soaking up vocabulary, it seems like. He listens intently as we describe everything. He's keenly interested in all the Christmas decorations, the things on the fridge, the things on the kitchen counter, the unending array of stuffed animals in his room, and, well, anything he can point his wildly waggling finger at. It's fun to watch him discover the world around him.

Phrases We Never Used Before, Part I

"Did you just pee on your toothbrush?"

(Part I of many I'm sure...)

Quinn Columbus

Quinn has entered the explorer phase. Boy has he entered it... He's into everything, and especially the things he knows he's not supposed to be in.

There is a small (~1.5" diameter) hole in the kitchen floor where an electrical wire used to pass through to the basement. When we redid the kitchen I took the easy way out and just covered it over with a tile, and over time the tile broke and got a hole in it. One of his kitchen toys is a wooden spoon. The other day Quinn discovered the hole in the floor and started reaming it out with his spoon, expanding it to the full size of the hole underneath. The next day he came back to the same hole with the xylophone mallet and dropped it through into the crawl space below. Looks like we've entered the Daddy-Retrieval phase of parenthood. Bec narrowly averted him dropping fridge magnets down the heating duct the other morning too.

He commando-crawls quite ably, and gets up on his knees to crawl occasionally now. He pulls himself up on furniture quite strongly now. That skill developed from nothing to quite capable in the short span of a week - the rate of development really is quite staggering! Before we know it he'll be staggering around on his own.

A little sickie

Quinn's had some minor sniffles before but this is a full-on cold. Mucousy cough, very stuffed up nose, *very* runny nose. Even a minor nosebleed, which caused some consternation - hopefully increasing the humidity in the house curbs that. This illness came out of the blue - he wasn't showing any signs of anything all day yesterday, but as he went to bed there were a few signs, and there were signs in spades this morning.

Telehealth Ontario is a great thing. This is probably not a case where we would have gone to a doctor, but it's nice to have the reassurance of being able to talk to somebody. I'm sure our emergency rooms have been filled with such naturally concerned parents.

Quinn is sedate and a little clingy but still in pretty good spirits. He can still laugh with proper prompting and point at things. He's a better sickie than me I think!