At the Butterfly Pavillion

Today we went to the Butterfly and Insect Pavillion. Quentin had a great time. In addition to seeing the butterflies, he got to touch a sea star and a horseshoe crab, and he got to hold Rosie the tarantula (bottom picture).

Long-Overdue Update

Quentin's speech has really come a long way in the last few months. His vocabulary has really grown and he often speaks in more-or-less complete sentences (although it isn't always easy to understand him). My favorite new word that he just started using in the last couple of weeks is "yes." He says "no" often enough, it is a nice break to hear "yes" once in a while. He has mostly mastered his colors now (he isn't too good about yellow or pink yet, but he has the other basic colors--plus burgundy--down). He can count to 12 with help (he needs someone to point to whatever he is counting and repeat the numbers after him to keep him on track), although he sometimes says nine where five should be. He likes to sing the alphabet song and, although it is mostly gibberish to the tune of the alphabet song, we can hear more and more actual letters in there every day.

We went to the playground after daycare today. Quentin loves to climb on the playground equipment and then slide down the slide. He learned to go down the slide feet-first on his belly and we're having trouble transitioning him to sitting, but he has a great time either way. Recently he has taken to going head first on his belly.

He still loves science-fiction (robots, monsters, etc...). Yesterday morning he was playing with (Matthew's) Godzilla figure and decided he wanted to watch Destroy All Monsters (A Godzilla movie featuring a wide array of monsters--it really isn't as violent as it sounds, especially not the part he usually watches). I decided to let him watch a few minutes of it, and as soon as the Godzilla theme started playing (any Godzilla fans will know what I am talking about), he started singing along (it doesn't have lyrics, but he knows the tune). I managed to get a few seconds of video before he stopped me. Here it is:

"Bye Tortillas, See You Later"

The picture was taken on Monday (Cinco de Mayo). The quote ("bye tortillas, see you later") is what Quentin said about 10 minutes ago when I was putting away the tortillas after dinner.

My Son is a Nerd

Quentin has inhertited Matthew's interest in science fiction. For a kid who really just started talking a couple of months ago, he knows an inordinate number of sci-fi/fantasy words (his pronunciation isn't always clear, but it's consistent):

Gorgo (the British equivalent of Godzilla)

Gigan (a monster from Godzilla)

Dinosaur (refers to dinosaurs and also Godzilla)

Space Dinosaur (Space Godzilla)

Robot Dinosaur (Mecha Godzilla)

King Kong

Destroy [All] Monsters (a Godzilla movie)

treasure

pirate

spaceship

Planet (as in Forbidden Planet, a classic sci fi movie)

Planet Apes (as in Planet of the Apes, another classic sci fi movie)

Ankylosaurus

Triceratops

Raptor

Nychus (as in Deinonychus, a dinosaur)

castle

knights

Cyclops

Rodan (another Godzilla monster)

I'm sure there are more, but that's all I can think of now.

[OK, so dinosaurs aren't exactly science fiction, but he kind of lumps them with the Godzilla monsters]

Bats in the Belfry

We have a bunch of toy bats at home in various styles and sizes, and Quentin has become obsessed with them recently. So much so, in fact, that they led to his first three-word sentence! While playing with the small plastic bats in the bath a few days ago, he realized that I hadn't given them all to him. Hence the sentence "more bats please." He has also followed up with "more cheese please." We're getting more two-word phrases as well ("more cake," "open treasure"). I tried to count up his entire vocabulary and came up with just over 70 words (and I keep thinking of things I forgot...). Although the range of "normal" for kids his age is huge, this is well within that range. Hooray! He took his time about starting to talk, but now he's really taking off.

He also counted to three for the first time today. We were counting bats in the bathtub (surprise) and he counted them "one, two, three, two." Two seems to be his favorite number--I have trouble getting him to start at one. Several times he counted "two, two, three, two, three, six." At least he's got the two-three sequence down! And he got the "one" part right a few times (including the first time).

2!

Quentin turned 2 today. He had a construction site cake (fun and easy!). He also got more presents, most of them with wheels.

Why use a fork when you have a bulldozer?

Happy New Year!

Testing Q's New Boots

The new boots work great. Now if we could only get him to wear his mittens...

Christmas Part II

Here are some pictures from our second Christmas celebration at Grandma Cindi's house.

Merry Christmas!

Quentin's second Christmas was a lot of fun. His supply of trucks, cars, and especially trains increased considerably, which suits him just fine! We got to see a lot of family and are looking forward to a belated get-together at Grandma Cindi's house on Sunday.

Investigating his stocking.

Quentin still doesn't quite "get" presents (although his understanding seemed to increase considerably throughout the day). At the time this picture was taken, they were mostly just a good surface for rolling things on.

What could be in here?

If it has wheels, it must be good.

I think at least half of his presents were related to trains in one way or another. Here he is pulling a "Thomas" engine (this one is Percy), coupled with a set of aquarium cars from our friends in Lawrence (thanks Rob, Tina, and Tim!).

We decided to take Percy and the aquarium cars to Grandma and Grandpa's house, which turned out to be a good idea, since there was a train table waiting for him there!

He hardly left it the whole time we were there, and this morning Grandpa and Uncle Scott delivered it to our house.

He is one lucky kid!

(And we're not even done with the Christmas presents yet, let alone his birthday next week. Where are we going to put them all?)

Words

Quentin's vocabulary is finally taking off. Here's a sampling of his favorite words:

bird
cat
dog
cow
octopus ("opus")
squid ("kid")
push
pull
key
pizza
car
truck
train
go
no
bye bye
drink
tree
bulldozer


Of course, that's just a few of them, but I can't remember them all right now (and he's constantly learning new ones anyway). It's nice that he can finally talk to us! "Bird" is one of his favorite words. There are some bird ornaments on our Christmas tree and for a while one of his favorite things to do was walk around the tree touching them saying "bird," "bird," "bird," occasionally interspersed with his word for snowman (which we can't quite figure out, but seems to be consistent). Here are a few pictures that have nothing to do with talking.

November Montage

Here are some assorted pictures of fun in November

Playing in the leaves.

Getting ready to blow some bubbles!

Reading the Lego catalog. A new favorite (seriously! It has pictures of trains, fire trucks, planes, helicopters, and dragons!)

Asleep with frogs.

Rites of Passage

Quentin got his first stitches on Tuesday evening!

Here's how it happened:

Quentin was running out of Mommy and Daddy's Room (most likely planning on running To Rest of House). He caught his right foot on the Book Case, and went flying into the Point of Impact. From there, we went directly to The Hospital (illustration below).

Fortunately, there happens to be a brand new (just opened in late September) state-of-the-art Children's Hospital right around the corner from us (literally). Everybody was very nice and, as emergency room visits go, it was not so bad. Quentin said "hi" and "bye" to several people (something he doesn't usually do), and except for the parts where people were interfering with his play (like binding him up and sewing his forehead), he had an OK time. Fortunately, he was holding his toy bus when the accident occurred, and wouldn't let go of it until after we got to the hospital, so he had something to keep him occupied while we waited. He ended up with a total of 7 stitches, and one new toy fire truck the next day.

Happy Halloween!

Here are some pictures of Quentin in his dragon costume (and one of all of us with our jack-o-lanterns). On Saturday we went to "Boo at the Zoo." Quentin isn't really into collecting candy yet (no complaints about that!), but it was fun to have a chance to take him out in his costume (and see all the other kids in costume too).