Quincy's World

It was a roller coaster type week here in Hampden, Maine. Dara has been sick all week and hasn’t gotten better yet. Quincy was sick for a little while, but seems better. I am a smidge sick, but nothing bad. Doesn’t seem fair that Dara has it the worst since she has to work. Anyways, despite having that as our backdrop, we were able to get into the Christmas mood this weekend.

We, and apparently a lot of other people, decided to get a Christmas tree this past weekend. This was only the second tree we’ve had in Maine since we were gone last year. Remember the pictures from that outing? Quincy has changed quite a bit since then, obviously. Since there was no snow on the ground, it didn’t take too long to find a tree and cut it down. Nothing like the smell of a fresh kill of balsam fir in your house – smells like . . . Christmas. Quincy had fun after we got the tree ’cause they have a good sized shop full of Christmas goodies, including fresh doughnuts and hot drinks. Next stop – home to decorate.

It took a lot more effort to get the tree decorated this year. This was due to the fact that Quincy wanted to help. Ever seen a three year old decorate a tree? They tend to clump the ornaments. No matter, he had fun and thinks the tree is very beautiful – his words. There are pictures of the tree outing and decorating up on the site – so check those out too.

Still on Saturday, but after his nap, we made Steve’s favorite Christmas cookie – the honeyball. Quincy loves them too. He did a very good job helping to make them. Dara would roll them into the little balls and Quincy would then roll them in the green and red sugar sprinkles. Another milestone here – Quincy ate his first raw honeyball. That’s my boy!

And finally, we seem to be in a time of transition now. It appears that Quincy no longer requires a daily nap. He has been having a hard time at night going to sleep when he’s had a long nap. So, we’re going to drop the daily nap and play it by ear and see what happens. He didn’t have a nap last night, but had us in his room five times due to the strong wind and him being scared. He is still in bed as I type this at 8:00AM – which is way late for him. Now we’ll try naps on a as-needed basis and on the other days, he’ll still have to have “quiet time” in his room. I’m sure his being under the weather didn’t help either.

I do believe that covers all the events of the weekend. I guess Quincy sleeping in does have some advantages – I can add posts to his site. Have a great week everyone.

In case you hadn’t noticed, there are pictures from our Thanksgiving in New York. You can find them under the Year in Pictures section. Before I forgot, I wanted to write up a post about our trip.

First off – Quincy was awesome an awesome traveler. He didn’t fuss or complain at all over being in the car so much. If only I could say that about his parents. We stayed at Dara’s mom’s for the whole week. Quincy had his own single bed to sleep in – which worked out better than we could have hoped.

The Monday before Thanksgiving was when we had our Thanksgiving dinner. This was the best day for all parties. It was a large feast of your traditional turkey-day foods. In fact, I have pictures of the food, if anyone wants to see them. Thanks Ryan!

Quincy had such a great time playing with Isaac and Nathan. Plus, he finally got to meet his new cousin, Elizabeth, who he had been talking about all the time.

On Tuesday, we all went to the Strong Children’s Museum. Quincy has been there before, but I believe this visit was his most productive as far as getting a lot out of it. Plus, I got to play the original Pitfall from the Atari 2600. Oh yeah, old school games.

Wednesday was fun for Quincy ’cause he got to go see where Uncle Ryan works and sit in his police car. Dara and I were “locked” in the back while Quincy, Isaac, and Ryan sat up front and got to play with the cool stuff. I have to say, not a lot of creature comforts in the back of those vehicles – not even a cup holder.

We spent Thursday hanging out and had another nice meal all together. Quincy got to log a lot more play time with his cousins before we drove home on Friday.

Quincy skipped every nap except one on this trip too. It didn’t seem to affect him that much. He would sleep in extra in the mornings and he got caught up on the weekend we got back. But it seems like he can go without when necessary. Look for that to be a developing story over time. . .

So, round one of the holiday season went very well for all parties. Next up, Christmas!

I realized yesterday that we took zero pictures of Quincy in October. See what happens when you stop doing monthly photos? We had a consecutive streak going back to August 2005. Oh well. So, tonight I took a few snapshots while Quincy was redecorating our ottoman with stickers.

See? He hasn’t changed much since you last saw him. He’s gotten more toddlertude in him, but he looks pretty much the same.

For those of you who are familiar with the show Seinfeld, the subject of this post will make perfect sense. Since, however, I’m here to enlighten you all (ha-ha), I have found the portion of the epsiode from which I have taken this reference.

Jerry: So you won’t believe what happened with Whatley (a dentist) today. It got back to him that I made this little dentist joke and he got all offended. Those people can be so touchy.

Kramer: Those people, listen to yourself.

Jerry: What?

Kramer: You think that dentists are so different from me and you? They came to this country just like everybody else, in search of a dream.

Jerry: Kramer, he’s just a dentist.

Kramer: Yeah, and you’re an anti-dentite.

Jerry: I am not an anti-dentite!

Kramer: You’re a rabid anti-dentite! Oh, it starts with a few jokes and some slurs. “Hey, denty!” Next thing you know you’re saying they should have their own schools.

Jerry: They do have their own schools!

Okay, so now you are wondering where in the world this is even going and how it remotely relates to Quincy. First, I need to reiterate the subject – I am an anti-dentite. I do not like going to the dentist at all. I only go when I need to. Well, the time had come to take Quincy to the dentist for his first visit.

How in the world was I going to be able to hype up the great things at the dentist’s office?! Simple, let Dara do it. She has no fear or repressed memories about the dentist. She made going to the dentist sound like the best thing in the world. The main thing Quincy took away from all that Dara told him was that there were toys there. Yeah, well, my childhood dentist had toys too and let me tell you, that didn’t take away the noise of the drill or the smell of my teeth being ground into sub-atomic particles.

I was so nervous about going on this dentist visit that my original plan was to just wait in the car and let them go inside for it. You’ll be happy to know that I decided it was best to go inside and put on a brave face for him. It was a very nice office, for a dentist. That’s kind of like saying a broken leg is nice because it wasn’t a compound fracture. Anyways, the theme in the waiting room was decidedly Disney – mainly Mickey Mouse stuff, but not in a gaudy way. There was a TV playing Dora the Explorer and plenty of toys too.

How have pediatric dentists changed since the late ’70’s? Technology. No, not dental technology – those torture devices are still pretty much the same. I am referring to Quincy having his own LCD TV above him to watch while the hygienist was doing her thing. And how well does this distraction technique work? I would say great. They got to do everything that they needed to do. Quincy had his teeth scraped, brushed, polished, counted, indexed, the whole nine yards – all with minimal fussing from Quincy. For the record, he did bite down once on the hygienist – ata boy!

One thing that was really funny to me was the high level of energy and enthusiasm that both the hygienist and dentist had. I believe I described the dentist as highly caffeinated. I have no idea how they could maintain that energy level over a whole day. I guess I should also mention that Quincy’s teeth looked great – no decay, cavities, etc. Dara has a very rigorous hygiene program already in place. In the interest of full disclosure, I need to mention that I have been to our dentist here recently. The verdict? I just need a cleaning and to have two fillings fixed because they are cracked. So my plan of a cleaning twice a decade has worked out well so far.

So, Quincy did great and got off to a great start with his life-long relationship with dentists. I only wish I had that same opportunity. I blame my parents.