Quinn: Her last day @ age 1

I can't believe it has been two years since this sweet face made an appearance in our lives! How in love with you we all are.

The sweetest thing happened yesterday. While I was doing my daily 5:50 PM routine (trying to get dinner cooked with two grouchy girls, both wanting to simultaneously be held, eat a snack, play outside, go potty, and push a babydoll stroller), Quinn was following me around, arms upstretched, wanting to be held. Usually, I am conditioned to drop what I am doing in order to give good hugs... but it was 5:50 and I had just put hamburger in the skillet to brown, and I could not immediately stoop down to scoop her up.

To me, Quinn was announcing, "Hold me!". When I didn't, she went straight to Cora, saying, "Hold me!". Cora obliged. My heart melted.

At dinner, she kept saying to Cora, "Sissy!!!", then would out-stretch her arms, and insist Cora come and hug her. It happened so many times that Cora started setting limits, "This is the last time, Quinny, OK? Not again." Then it would happen again, and they'd repeat the pattern.

At nearly 2, Quinn's cuteness is at an all-time high.

She isn't tall enough to see over the counter in the kitchen or the bathroom, but that doesn't keep her from checking out her landscape. Quinn totes around a stool and/or one of the chairs that go with her little table, following me around to see what I'm doing. She doesn't let her size hold her back. I found these pics on the camera card from October - I don't think I ever posted them. Look at how proud she is of this old stool I keep in the laundry room.

She is loving the rhyme and motions to:

Five little monkies swinging from a tree.
Said to Mr. Alligator Can't Catch Me (Quinn takes her index fingers and buries them her cheeks)
Along came the alligator quiet as can be... shhhh (Quinn thinks she is making the shhh motion, but instead she just points to her nose)...
AND SMACK THAT MONKEY OUT OF THAT TREE!!!
(Quinn claps hard and cackles)

She also claps everytime at the end of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider", loves to do books that have noisy buttons to push, and would push a babydoll stroller or shopping cart for hours.

In the last two weeks, her language has improved dramatically. We're frequently getting "I want a snack", and she has gotten much better at communicating what she wants rather than just crying (e.g., coming into the kitchen to get her own fork, spoon, bib, etc. She now says, "I'm hungry".

We have a colorful baby animal book. When Cora was Quinn's age, we would go through the book identifying the animals (e.g., Which one is the monkey? Where is the macaw?). Landon was putting Cora to bed last week, so I had Quinn one-on-one (admittedly, this isn't usually how it happens). I had the chance to get the baby animal book out, and was expecting a tinge of guilt at how few of the animals Quinny would know. To my surprise, she knew almost everyone! Either Landon has been practicing the book with Quinny, or she is destined to be a zoo-ologist someday!

Quinn is very into jumping right now. She will run a few steps, then leap, land on both feet, and yell "BOOM!" then laugh. She also prefers to take a two-footed jump from the top of stairs.

In the bathtub she always wants to play with the yellow frog named "Alli" (Sorry Alli Turisk, but I think Cora named it after you, and the name has stuck).

She recently announced that her lovey's name is "Flower".

In Kentucky, mom's favorite memory of our last visit was of early mornings with Quinn. Quinn and Cora have little cots at my parent's house; this was Quinn's first time to move from the crib to the cot. Mom slept in the bedroom with the girls and the cots. When Quinn would wake, she would climb in bed with Mom. Mom said every few minutes her head would pop up, she would grab Mom's face, give her a big smacker, then lay her head back down and doze.

Mom let her bring back to SC mom's childhood babydoll. All plastic, with one arm missing and wearing one of my baby outfits (a two-big knitted outfit). It is nearly as big as Quinn - Quinn tries to carry it with us a lot.

She is starting to play more with blocks, and she is starting to play make-believe. One of her favorite things is the little tiny baby that came with the Loving Family dollhouse. We are losing it frequently, and it is because Quinn carries it off.

The girls' play kitchen is in the breakfast nook, and they often play there while I finish my dinner. Quinn has started pulling the kitchen away from the wall so she can peek behind it and put her head through the "window" above the sink, smiling and screaming, "hi".

Quinn is a very happy girl.

But she's a tough girl, too. Everyone comments that Quinn can take a pretty hard knock with practically no reaction. A few weeks ago she came home from daycare with a big bite bruise on her arm. I noted it with her teacher the next day, in case Q decided to retaliate. Her teacher was surprised, but said that Q may have reacted with a mad cry, but not a hurt cry. That didn't surprise me - she holds her own.

Speaking of tough... I took these pics the day after I started this blog post. This is a few minutes before Quinny's second birthday party. She had just woken up from her nap, and all-of-the-sudden went from happy to furious over the birthday dress. I decided to not try to get her dressed, and instead tried to put her head in piggies. That didn't go well, either. I returned to getting her dressed - and this is what happened.

I grabbed my camera seconds before she flung herself on the ground in an all-out tantrum.

Well, Hello There, Terrible Two's! It's so great that you decided to arrive. I am impressed by your punctuality!

It's my party and I can cry if I want to!

Happy 2nd Quinny! We can't wait for your party, even if you aren't so sure about this dress.

Heaven

Tonight I was rocking and reading to the girls at bedtime. Two books; then 2 songs. Cora always asks to lead off with Away in a Manger (Cora knows every word; Quinn is hitting some and singing in rhythm).

After Away in a Manger (ending in "bless all the dear children in thy tender care and take us to heaven to live with thee there"), Cora was trying to prolong her time before the second song...

Cora: mommy, let's talk about Away in a Manger.

Me: ok. What do you want to talk about? Heaven?

Cora: yeah, heaven.

Me: ok, what is heaven?

I should stop to tell you that I was gearing up for a great happy convo about heaven. Streets of gold. Mansions. Christ shining as the sun (my girls love to sing Amazing Grace"). She'd asked earlier who Mia's mommy was, so there was going to be a heaven cameo from Grandma Eb...

This is how it went...

Cora: (with a bit sinister voice) it's where people go after they die!!!

Me: so wait, is heaven good or bad?

Cora: BAD!

Me: no heaven is good! We want to go to heaven. That's where Jesus lives!

Cora: why?

I gave a long pause. It hit me that her whole raccoon incident last year could still have her confused (I.e. The raccoon went to heaven; daddy threw the raccoon over the fence; pearl went to timeout; the raccoon's mommy was over the fence, too...). Heaven is tough to explain.

That's when I saw her face starting to crumple and big tears starting to well in her eyes.

Cora: I want my daddy... I don't want to die... And I don't want Jesus to die either! 

Folks, this whole celebrating the death and resurrection of Christ is going to make for a long Easter season at the Messal house. 

*******

In Itsy bitsy spider (my post- heaven talk recovery song) Quinn is starting to do the dramatic and enthusiastic yelping of OUT.  

Super cute!

Uncle James

My grandfather's brother, James, and his wife Mable have always been a great part of our lives.

They didn't have children. They had a dog (Suzette) that died when I was in college and I have no recollection of Uncle James & Aunt Mable before Suzette. Aunt Mable passed away a couple of years ago; Uncle James soon moved to an assisted-living facility in our hometown. Uncle James is now around for a lot of family events.

Over Thanksgiving, Cora was spinning the corner-cabinet lazy susan at my parent's house.

Mia: Cora, you're going to cut your finger off!
Cora (with big eyes): Like Uncle James!?!?!

Uncle James lost a finger years ago. I don't even know how (machine work? a war?). Two things always stood out about Uncle James 1) his little dog Suzette and 2) his missing finger.

Uncle James had a big laugh when he heard that she'd noticed; he said that they hadn't talked about it directly, but he'd noticed her eyeing it with fascination.

On Friday night, Dad met me halfway between Paintsville and Charleston, parked his vehicle and drove me the rest of the way to Kentucky. We do this trip several times a year. It was an adventurous trip this time. We were late meeting dad due to spring break traffic leaving Charleston. Then at Chik-fil-et the manager and I collided while I was carrying Cora, she flung out of my arms and hit her head, and then because he wasn't dressed in official gear and was a bit grabby in trying to help us up, I thought he was trying to kidnap her (I was on the brink of making a huge scene) (in my defense, he looked like what I think a creepy kidnapper would look like and he was probably overly trying to help because, well, he was the manager and probably thought we'd sue... and I imagine he didn't think of himself as someone who looked like he might kidnap children). This was a trip for the memories.

Before this, while we were eating dinner at Chik-fil-et, dad and I were having a very casual conversation:

Me: How's Uncle James doing?
Dad: He's doing pretty well. He had the stomach bug last week.
Cora (with total nonchalance and in perfect cadence with conversation): Did his finger ever get fixed?

Clearly this  missing finger made an impression on her.

Three little kids, for the flavor

Our wedding song was Dean Martin's "Memories are made of this".
We'd argue it's the best wedding song of all time, but we're a bit biased.
Hard to dance to on our wedding day, but it's been a song that we are able to use.

We break it out at all of our best moments -
When we forget to close the sunroof, go into a restaurant, and there is a downpour.
When the shelves crash to the floor in the garage.
When we packed up on Canvasback Court to move.

When a stereo isn't available and something chaotic happens, we sing our favorite refrain.

"Meeeemories are made of this.
Sweet sweet, the memries you gave to me.
You can't beat the memries you gave to me".

Even this morning, Landon set his phone alarm to play it so that'd we'd wake up laughing.

And so when we talked about whether we'd have a third child or not, one piece of rationale that always got thrown in the mix of discussion was that in our song, there are three kids.

"Then come the wedding bells - one house where lovers dwell.
Three little kidsssss for the flavor.
Stir it gently through the days.
See how the flavor stays.
These are the dreams you'll saaaaavor. da da da da."

Seriously - we threw that in as rationale.

We're ecstatic that we're adding a third flavor to our family in early to mid August. So blessed.

*****
Speaking of being pregnant for the third time in 4 years...

Landon asked what I was giving up for lent yesterday. Was he kidding. Unlimited coffee. Wine. Vodka tonic with a squirt of lime. Soft cheeses. Sandwich meat. Yellow skittles, yellow M&Ms, and yellow jelly beans. Hot tubs. My figure. All my clothes for 9 months.

I usually claim Baptist during Lenten season anyways (especially on Fridays since I do not like fish). Actually, I claim Baptist for most Catholic days of obligation except Fat Tuesday - is Fat Tuesday a day of obligation? The first time I went to the Cathedral's Fat Tuesday pancake breakfast I didn't even realize that it was because everyone else was planning to fast and swear off sweets for 40 days starting a few hours later.

Still, I strongly believe there should be some universal law that pregnant women are NEVER expected to give up anything for lent.

It think Pope Francis would support this claim. I may have to write him.

"This is my sister Quinn. She can talk"

Quinny doesn't say much. She has the appropriate number of words, pulls surprise words out at random (she named her lovie "flower" this week) and has every-now-and-then phrases that shock us ("Smack that monkey out of that tree!"; "my turn").

We stopped by Dr Davis for an ear infection, and as he was writing the prescription I asked how many words we needed by 2 (20 with progress, by the way... We've got that, no problem). As he was answering Quinn got impatient and announced, "I want to go!".

 He gave me the "stop being crazy she's fine" look. 

But usually she let's C do the talking. Case in point. I had them in the back seat. Cora's turned her movie on (with her toe). Quinn started to whine.

Cora: mom she wants her movie.

Q: (escalating)

C: no, she wants my movie not hers

Q: escalating

C: she needs head phones

We totally have younger sibling syndrome. Cora does all the talking. 

A mom at church nursery told me that on her volunteer day C and Q were on a roll. They walked around to all the adults, doing this show:

C: hi. I'm Cora . This is my sister Quinn. She can TALK! You want to hear her? Watch this. Quinny, talk. Talk Quinny, show them!

(And Quinny would babble on demand)

The girls making pat-a-pizzas. When Q ran out of cheese, she took what Cora was putting on the pizzas.

Color confessions

Our sitter Lauren O. Informed us that Cora told her a very important secret.

"My favorite color is actually purple, but I always say my favorite color is Tennessee  because it makes my Daddy happy."

A sweet sleeping pic.

I need a minute

Last night I had an event and Landon had class so Lauren O'Grady babysat. Getting girls out of bath, Cora fell and bumped her head a little. Lauren said she wasn't hurt, but she was already tired so she had a little meltdown. 

Lauren and Quinn tried to console her; she was inconsolable. 

She walked in and crawled in her twin bed. When lauren tried to talk to her she sat up and said "I just need a minute".

Minutes later when Lauren started reading to Quinn, Cora came happily running to join. 

Sometimes mommy just needs a minute too.