Quincy's World

I am always looking for new things to do in the morning to shake things up and not go crazy being cooped up in the house. Remember, this is Maine, northern Maine, we don’t get spring until June. So, about a week ago, I decided that it was time to introduce Quincy to the concept of forts.

I can remember many a day building forts with my brother in our living and dining rooms. That first fort I made was okay, but could have been improved upon. Quincy really liked it, but he also made the mistake of jumping on the roof and collapsing the entire thing. Apparently, he wasn’t aware that the blanket on top was not on the ground.

This morning, I was sitting on the couch when Quincy walked up to me and asked me to build a fort for him. I decided to do it right this time. I used 7 chairs, all our pillows, 4 blankets and a bed sheet. Here are the pictures I took of version 2.0:

As you can see, it isn’t really a home until you move your guys in, which is precisely what Quincy did. He transferred his 1st tier stuffed animals from his crib into his fort. There was even room for me to crawl in and be somewhat comfortable.

The biggest improvement, besides just being larger, was using the sheet as the roof instead of a heavy fleece blanket like I did in fort 1.0 – the sheer weight of the blanket caused quite a sag. How much time did Quincy play in/with the fort? Not much at all actually. I think I was in it longer than he.

I’m looking ahead to fort 3.0 and that will include a cathedral ceiling, snack bar and a soft floor.

Quincy has known his alphabet for a long time. He knows uppercase. He knows lowercase. He can look at words and spell them to you. The only words he can look at, spell and tell you correctly what they are are: Quincy, mama, daddy and Ashby. He can spell complicated words too, but he has no idea what it says.

Yesterday afternoon, Quincy was playing with his big foam letters. These letters are for using in the bathtub, but he liked them so much that they never made it there. The set contains the alphabet and the numbers 0-9. So, we were in the living room and I was watching him pull letters from the pile. He had out the ‘U’ and the ‘I’. Then, he said that he needed to find the ‘Q’. He put the ‘Q’ before the ‘UI’ and I thought, “There’s no way he can get this.” Sure enough, he pulled out the ‘N’ ‘C’ and ‘Y’ and finished his name.

After he spelled his name, he said: “Q-U-I-N-C-Y, Quincy! That’s my name. I Quincy.” I praised him and wondered if he could do it again if I mixed all foam letters together. He did it again. I decided to test him further and asked him to spell ASHBY. He thought for a second and then said, “Dad do it.” So, he can “spell” his name. I’m hoping to get a video of him spelling his name soon. Keep an eye out for that at some point.

He also has a ton of his books memorized and “reads” them to us. We got him a new book recently that he’s heard maybe only 8 times and he can recite the major points back to us already. I keep telling Dara that he’s a nerd. What do you expect two nerds to produce? A little nerd. A nerdling if you will. He does have a leg up on his old man in the looks department though, so that is to his advantage.

Here are the 31 month old candid shots

The candid shots don’t seem to be very candid any longer. Once Quincy sees the camera come out, he’s all ready to smile for it and wants us to take his picture. He looks pretty good in these shots considering it was one day after getting back from our vacation.

Quincy got to do something he has never done before yesterday and it is something I really do not like doing at all. We spent the better part of the afternoon at a car dealership . Since 1996, we’ve owned Honda vehicles. We bought our first one on our 1st anniversary and named her Cypress after the color of the car: Cypress Green Pearl. We added the Accord in 2002 and since it seemed bland, silver and without nuance, it has remained nameless and of neuter gender. Go figure – just one of those things.

Well, Cypress failed the Maine state inspection last Friday due to rusted brake lines. After some deliberating and weighing the pros and cons, we decided to have the brake lines fixed. Besides rust and normal wear and tear, the car has been great. I got the call yesterday morning that in the process of getting to the brake lines, they discovered more problems. The total for the repair bill kept climbing upwards. We decided it was time to pull the spark plug and let her go.

So, ever been car browsing/shopping/buying with a toddler? Oh, it could have been very, very ugly. The first hurdle for Quincy was lunch. I drove to pick up Dara around 11:30 and then we went straight to the Honda dealership. The good news was that we had already wargamed out this scenario – about what car we’d get next. The sales guy was a very nice older guy who has many grandchildren – so he understood our situation. Fortunately for all involved, Quincy was in rare form. He’s usually shy and reserved around people he doesn’t know, but he kicked it up a few notches at the Honda dealership.

We took a nice test drive, Quincy included, and decided upon a purchase. We did not remember so much freakin’ paperwork, however. I think we signed more papers for the car than we did for our house. So, while we were waiting for various things to go through, naptime had come and gone with us two anxiously wondering how all this was going to play out.

The showroom had a lot of red, white & blue balloons up on the ceiling because they were having an unofficial sale that carried over the President’s Day holiday. Quincy loved the balloons. He did, however, keep referring to the large, white one as an egg. I tell ya, the chicken that laid that egg must’ve been gigantic. The lady who was manning (womanning) the reception desk saw how much Quincy liked the balloons and told us that she’d arrange to get Quincy a balloon.

I was thinking they were going to give him just a regular balloon. Oh no. It turns out that one of the guys that works in the service department as a door opener, greeter kind of person is also a shriner clowen and he keeps balloons on his person at all times – not normal balloons – the kind to make things. Quincy was fascinated as this man blew up these really long balloons and then proceeded to twist them and wind them over one another. Quincy ended up with a very odd looking balloon gun that slid up over his arm. He acted like it was the best thing he’d ever had. He got quite a bit of mileage out of those balloons – so much so that they were both popped even before we left the dealership.

So, the deal was finished, but we had to take Quincy home for his nap before our car was ready for us to take home. I drove a dealer vehicle home and then returned later in the day for the car – it was getting an interior/exterior treatment.

The hard part now for Quincy is getting it straight as to who drives what car. He always called the Civic “mama’s car” and the Accord “daddy’s car” – that is all changed. Dara now drives the Accord and Quincy and I will be using the new car. It will take him some time to get that straightened out in his toddler head I’m sure, but he’ll get there.

So while Dara and I dislike the car buying experience, Quincy did great. He took a later nap than usual, but went to bed fine. He even got up earlier than normal this morning, but he still took a good nap. He seems to have come thru this better than us – he’s too young to understand how stressful the situation actually was for us.

Now to Tango. The color of the new car is Tango Red Pearl – so we decided that Tango sounded fine. It fits with one of Quincy’s other names too. I sometimes will refer to Quincy as Alpha-Bravo. For example, if we’re driving in the car and I’m curious what his status is, I will asked Dara, “What’s going on with Alpha-Bravo?” I don’t know where it came from, but I use it from time to time.

Tango is a 2008 Honda CR-V. I think she’ll fit into our family just fine. She’s a bit shy, but I found a picture on the internet of her. The only difference I can find in the picture and our Tango is that we don’t have tinted windows – we like the UV radiation. That’s what we did yesterday. What did you do?