Feeding Quinn can be beyond entertainment at times. This was demonstrated last night during her dinner. Now that her mouth is equipped with 6 chompers (4 on top, 2 on bottom), when I feed her, the spoon often gets trapped. Please observe the sequence of photos below to see how the feeding unfolded.

The End.

Where to start?  It’s been a while since I’ve posted a “skillz” update and honestly, it feels like this girl has been gaining a new skill every 15 minutes.

Fine Motor Skills. There’s no doubt we’ve got a good eater on our hands and she’s been refining her fine motor skills by eating as much finger food as I can give her. Currently at the top of her list are blueberries (cut up) and grapes (also cut into tiny pieces). It is the cutest thing when she carefully reaches for the berry or grape with her thumb and index finger, then slowly raises it to her mouth. Right now she manages to get the small piece of fruit in her mouth about 70% of the time.  The other 30% of the time it falls to her bib. What is so funny about these times is that she thinks it’s in her mouth and chews, chews, chews until moments later she realizes that there’s NOTHING in there. At which point she fuses asks for assistance from mom.

The motor skills are also in full effect when she’s playing. Guaranteed enjoyment is grabbing two hard toys and banging them together. While she is very satisfied by the noise that is created by doing this, her little eyes blink in slight surprise every time the objects crash together.

Sitting up on her own.

After 2 months of this move, she has finally figured out the roll-to-your-side-and-push-yourself-up technique. Up until a couple of weeks ago, any time she wanted to sit up, she would get into this pilates move and whine until you sat her up… Which got old, you know after the first 6 weeks! Anyway, it’s her new favorite move. So much her favorite, that whenever I put her on her tummy to practice crawling, she says, forget this, and just sits up. Hehe…

Military Push-Up’s.

Ok, so she isn’t doing Jillian Michaels type push up’s, but she does push herself has as high as she can go… on her toes with arms fully extended. She stays in this position for as long as she can stand it before collapsing. Then repeats over and over if the mood strikes her. I know she’s wearing black pants in this picture, but if you look carefully, you can see my dirt/dust particals underneath her. Hehe – I sweep/swifter every other day, but it’s a losing battle folks.

On The Move…sort of.

As of about a week ago, she can very effectively push herself backwards when on her tummy. The problem is that she appears to WANT to go forward.  So when she ends up further and further away from the object or person she has set her sights on, she get’s frustrated. In the photo above, she is moving away from Daddy and under the couch. Problem is that Daddy’s got the darn ball she wants. She can actually get moving very quickly when she’s on the hardwood floor. As for me, I’m trying to savor these last few weeks of limited mobility and finish baby-proofing the house.  First on the list is mounting our tv to the wall.

Chompers. She’s got 5 teeth now. 3 on the top, 2 on the bottom… And I’ve got the bite marks to prove this. The other night she got her hands on a magazine, tore a page and was eating a small piece of paper. This all happened within about 15 seconds. I quickly laid her over my lap and stuck my finger into her mouth to retrieve that piece of The Economist, only to be bitten so hard that she drew blood. I quickly pulled out my finger, cursing under my breath while she continued to suck/chew. I went in again, and this time was smart and went in from the side, where molars will someday be. I was finally triumphant and she was pissed.

Bath Time. Part of Quinn’s nightly routine is a bath every night. Our current arrangement for the bath, is either Jake or I hop in the tub with her. Each night she seems to discover and obsess over something different…  Sometimes she want’s to stand the entire time and play with the faucet.  Sometimes she wants to repeatedly push the “plug” switch thingy, down, to release the water. Sometimes it chewing on her toys… However the newest and most unpleasant new activity that she’s discovered is, while sitting up, she puts her mouth down to the water and drinks up. Last night Jake was bathing her and no matter what distractions he placed in front of her, this activity would not cease. So the bath ended sooner than later last night. Tonight I’ll bring in her sippy cup with the hopes of teaching her, “Are you thirsty? Here, drink from your cup. Not the bath water, which I’m 99.9% sure you’ve peed in”.

Naps. For quite a long stretch of time she has taken between 3-4 naps a day.  Each nap would range from 40 – 70 minutes. This would allow mommy to get all of the 1000 things done on her list, including the work I do for LP at home. I know that all good things must come to an end, but I was at least hoping for a gradual change. For a week now, Quinn has been napping in her crib and not only are the naps shorter (30-45 minutes), but she seems to want to only nap twice in the day.  Yes, I know this is the natural progression, and that soon, she’ll be down to only 1 nap a day, however how in the world am I going to get all this stuff done??? Do I hear laughter from the veteran parents??

People, where does this time go??? With her learning so much, so fast, things seem to be whizzing by us. I want to pause and rewind so many moments of each day. Oh and by the way, can I officially mark the day as her being “Daddy’s Girl?” No one can seem to bring a smile to her face like Daddy does and it honestly melts my heart beyond recognition.

And like clock work… I can hear her rousing on the baby monitor. But this is good news folks… it’s 8 a.m. I’ve had a whole hour and a half to my wee-little self.

Last weekend we spend a couple of days at the beach. We had a great time. Quinn loves the ocean, loves the sand and loves the swimming pool. I booked a “studio” room at a hotel and were pleasantly surprised when they shoved us a key for a 2 bedroom unit. Quinn was a champ even without her normal naps.  We hung out with Grandpa & Grandma Lint, and Bubba (the dog). Quinn loves Bubba and the feeling is mutual.

The weather at the beach was insane. Mid-70’s, not a cloud in the sky… If your feet never touched the water, and you were in the sun long enough, for a split second, you might mistake the beach for Hawaii.  Hey, I said, for a split-second.

So we returned on Sunday and proceeded with the week which promptly turned to shit. Tuesday I walked across the street to my neighbors to pay forward a good deed and handed over some diapers that Quinn has outgrown. When I was leaving, I was rolling there 1000 pound gate closed when my toe decided to get acquainted with the wheel. My little, ity-bity pinky toe got crushed by the wheel. I tried to pull my toe out from under the wheel, but it was stuck. So I oh-so-carefully rolled the gate back to RELEASE my toe. OUCH!

As if my child isn’t getting difficult enough to carry at nearly 19 pounds, let’s throw a gimp foot into the mix. SWEET!  Jake and I were convinced it was broken, but I think I got lucky. For the first two days I couldn’t bend my foot, however today things are much better. Thank god.

Then all of a sudden it was Thursday.  And Thursday night was the night. The night we would begin weaning Quinn from our bed, into her crib. This has been a long time coming, and as bedtime approached, my stomach began to turn. I don’t have a stomach for the CIO (cry it out) method, so I knew I had a long night ahead of me. This is something that both Jake and I are ready for, but it still is not easy on me.

So, in the bath she went at 7:30, then PJ’s and playtime until 8 o’clock. I worked on getting her to sleep between 8 – 9. Finally at 9 o’clock she passed out. She then woke up at 10:15, 10:50, 11:50, 1:30, 2:00.It was at the 2 a.m. waking when I realized I had a fever… Aches, chills, VERY sore breast. Mastitis, which is an infection in the breast. I grabbed her and took her to bed. Partially because I was so exhausted due to my sick boob and also, just because it was 2 a.m. and I hadn’t slept yet.

We have not returned to the crib because I’ve continued to get very sick. The awesome side-effect of mastitis is that you feel like you’ve got the flu. This is along with massive breast agony. Anyway, on Saturday I spent 2 hours waiting to be seen at Urgent Care. The doctor saw me for 3 minutes, and told me what I could have told them over the phone — that I’ve mastitis and I need antibiotics.

This is day two of antibiotics and I’m starting to feel better, my toe continues to heal, and my daughter for the most part is napping in her crib.

Wish Quinn luck as she continues to learn what it’s like to sleep in her own bed.

She just might have wheels on her butt. When I sit her down on the hardwood floor, she glides backwards… until she bumps into something.