Pokey

Last year, we introduced you to Pokey. Quin got Pokey for Christmas, and never looked back.

18 months later, Pokey is still Quin's closest friend. He goes absolutely everywhere, and is known as "Pokey", or more frequently "Bear!" He loves Pokey so much, that his heart literally aches after just a few minutes apart. He walks (read runs) around the house calling "Beeeaaarrr" like a search party looks for a lost child. If he doesn't find Pokey quickly, it becomes [whining, crying, exasperated] "Bear!" Oh, poor Quin, feel my brow! I can imagine it now, Quin will someday be the star in his school's rendition of "Streetcar Named Desire", and he'll scream "Stella!", mimicking his calls for Pokey as a toddler.

Pokey sees so much Quin time that we have two Pokeys (don't tell Quin). One gets a washing while the other gets to see Quin. One time Quin was down in the laundry room with Elizabeth, and he accidentally saw Pokey's twin hanging from a hanger, drying, by one ear, like some morbid scene in The Blair Witch Project movie. He was quite taken aback by this horrendous display of creepiness. Thankfully, he seems to have forgotten.

You may notice if you look through our photos of Quin that Pokey appears in a good portion of them. They really are best friends.

Pokey is to Quin as Hobbs is to Calvin. Imagination has taken over, as Quin frequently feeds Pokey, giving him a few bites of his graham cracker. Unfortunately, sometimes he decides yogurt is what Pokey is yearning for.

A few months back, Pokey was injured in a freak flying accident. A large wound appeared in his armpit after traveling across the room and careening into the wall. (Seriously now, would you constantly throw your loved ones across rooms?) Quin walked around holding Pokey gingerly in his arms, telling us Pokey had an "Owee". Some anesthesia, stitches, a few minutes of recovery time, and physical therapy later, and Pokey was good as new.

I wonder how long it will be before Quin gives up Pokey. Will we have to ween him off the bear? When I was a kid, my favorite blanket was cut into progressively smaller pieces. Will we have to resort to the gruesome tactic of slowly amputating Pokey's limbs until a disembodied bear head remains? Will he have to carry around a single ear in his pocket? Will his lucky charm be a bear foot on a key chain?

Ugh. Should have got him a blankie.

The Spastic Gymnastic

Quin has been introduced to gymnastics. Saturday mornings for the last two weeks he has gone to do his little class.



The first week, he was still figuring things out. But the second week, he jumped right in and ran with it! He gets to walk on a balance beam.



He gets to do somersaults. He loves these.









During the (very) few lulls in the action, he runs around like crazy taking advantage of the padded room.



But his absolute favorite part of the whole class is the giant pit of foam blocks. It's impossible to move around in this thing, it's like quicksand. Quin loves to get buried and throw the blocks.





By the time we get back to the truck to go home, he's pooped. This is by far the most fun activity we do now as a family. The park is cool and all, but gymnastics is just a blast!

To see all the photos from gymnastics class, check out Quin's photo album. The photos are at the bottom.

Quin The Lush

The Scene: Cory and Jen's house for a get together

The Crime: Underage drinking...heavily

The Criminal: Quintin M. Solley

At approximately 14:12 Tim and Cory began a game of "cornhole", a horseshoe-like game where the players throw bean bags toward a hole.

At 14:30, Cory placed his New Belgium Mothership Wit beer bottle on a storage tub in the grass while he took a turn at cornhole.

At 14:33, all witnesses present at the party witness Quintin M. Solley, defendant, with Cory's beer bottle tipped at 180 degrees, "chugging" the beer. Large quantities of the liquid cover his midsection, face, and neck. Approximately one half of the bottle is now empty. It was a fresh beer.

According to the defendant's parents, similar behavior has been witnessed in the past.

Subsequent to this violation, Quintin was again witnessed committing the same crime. This time the bottle was empty. However, photographic documentation was made, and is shown above.

Quintin was released on a warning for this offense. The defendant shall receive no less than five minutes of timeout and a 100 goldfish fine for any future offense.

Silly Boy!

Quin makes me laugh on a daily basis, for one reason or another. He is such a silly little boy. Recently, he discovered a Diet Coke bottle on the counter and thought that it would be fun to drink it. Luckily it was empty, but it was pretty cute!

He also enjoys walking around in shoes that are too big for him. He really enjoyed his grandma's shoes while she was here. Last week he actually tried to step into my heels, but couldn't figure out how to get them on.

Denver Aquarium, Round 3

I know this was a while ago, and I should have posted this before now, but things have been a bit crazy! While my dad and Lisa were in town we took Quin to the Denver Aquarium (our third visit since moving to Colorado). Tim had the day off work, so it was a nice outing that we could all enjoy. As always, Quin wanted to go a million miles an hour. Whats the point in stopping to look at fish when you can run past them all, catching a glance of a particularly cool one here and there. As always, his favorite part was looking out of the SCUBA gear.

On this trip, he was actually afraid of the diver cleaning the tank who waved to him. I'm not really sure why she scared him, but he was not happy. He did, however, love trying to pet the sting rays. Overall, we had a great time and he enjoyed spending the afternoon with Grandma and Grandpa.

Talker

Quin has become quite the talker over the past few months! His favorite words of the week are wow, fun, now, Chloe, Patches, bed, sleep, both, horse, book, bear, up, oh, bike, flower, bird, throw, cow, monkey, and hungry (even though he never wants to eat).

He tends to put two or three words together to convey his thoughts and demands. More often than not, now is put together with whatever he wants. Last week, Quin was in his crib after waking up and was asking to get up. He got impatient by the fact that I didn't appear the minute he asked to get up, so he started demanding "up now"! I went into his room and asked him what he is supposed to say when he wants up? Quin thought about it for a minute, sighed, and then said please. Who knew that a 22 month old could have so much personality!

I'll post a video of all his words in a few days when I have some time!

Photos of Colorado

Warning: Totally not Quin related.

I've started up a new photoblog (just a place where I can regularly post photos with a quick description) called Photowalking Colorado. The idea is that I take our old backup camera with me pretty much everywhere I go. I see something I find interesting, and take a photo. If it passes muster, it goes on the blog. What you end up with is some interesting shots of Colorado, especially areas near where we live.

So if you want to see a little more of where we've gone and moved to, check it out. If not, well that's cool too.

Poor Patches

Last week poor Patches got herself bitten by a rattlesnake. I didn't see it happen, but I do know it was somewhere near the house. Elizabeth and Quin were out and about with Roger and Lisa while I came home from work to do a little work on the Honda.

The dogs were running around as usual having fun. I made a quick trip down to the gas station to fuel up the car, and when I returned, Patches was sitting on the front porch, shaking uncontrollably, and looked like this:

I called an emergency vet and described what I saw. They told me it definitely sounded like a snake bite and I should get her in immediately. I did, and she spent the night at the pooch hospital fighting off the venom.

She was totally in shock until they gave her some injections to cool things down. She was swollen, drooling like crazy, and bleeding all over from her mouth, where the bite was located.

I brought her home the next morning and took good care of her. I had to take her to daily vet visits to do blood work for a couple days, when things finally turned around and started heading in a positive direction.

We kept her calm and quiet and gave her lots of love. She spent the better part of six days up in our bedroom lying on her bed. This is what she looked like for nearly a week. She's normally a mellow dog, but she was REAL mellow:

Kind of reminds me of when one of our dogs Sierra got (presumably) stung by a scorpion. We called her Quasimodo for days after she blew up like a balloon.

Patches is much better now, back to normal in fact. But she does seem a little willing to stray very far from the house.

General Update

I know that it has been a while since the last post, but things have been just a little crazy around here. Carl and Gwen came into town for a week (to stay at their house), overlapping for a few days with my dad and Lisa, who stayed for the better part of a week. Somewhere in there Tim and I had our 5th anniversary, several tornadoes hit around our area, we lost power for the better part of a day, Patches got bit by a rattle snake, and Tim and Quin got a bit of a cold. Sound like we have had a lot going on? Pretty crazy.

Quin is getting taller and taller (which is I suppose is what he is supposed to be doing since the alternative would be for him to be getting shorter). His 18-24 month pants are starting to look a little silly and his upper body is so tall that 18-24 month shirts expose his cute little belly!

He always has lots to say. He is such a parrot that perhaps he should be in a zoo somewhere. Everything that comes out of my mouth, comes straight out of his with surprising accuracy. He is now getting really good at putting multiple words together. A perfect example is when we go down the driveway to see if the baby foxes are around. If they aren't, he says "no foxes".

He still loves his Wonder Horse, and can now get on it himself (although he can't get down by himself). He rides it with such enthusiasm that when he is rocking he actually moves the horse across the wood floor. This is definitely his favorite toy right now.

His favorite foods change day to day. Yesterday he loved carrots and that was pretty much all he ate for dinner, then for lunch today he wouldn't touch them. He loves blueberries and blackberries, but isn't so thrilled with watermelon or cantaloupe. He likes tofu most of the time, but more often than not doesn't like chicken. I never know what to feed him!

Overall he is doing great. Day by day he seems to turn into more of a toddler. I love that he says please and thank you (often without being prompted) and asking for hugs and kisses. He is my sweet little boy and I wouldn't change a thing about him!