Quincy's World

This is why you can’t give a two year old clippers: (click for large version)

Okay, so Quincy didn’t really give Ashby a buzz cut on his side. Ashby is getting older. He’s now 8.5 years old. Just like in people, older dogs can get various lumps and bumps. Ashby had a large cyst on his side that conveniently burst open late Sunday night. A trip to the vet on Monday got him shaved up and cleaned up. Dara and I have been cleaning his open wound regularly and now it looks much better. Ashby will only take his antibiotic in peanut butter.

Quincy, when he sees the wound, always says, “Ashby, boo-boo”. He has been good to leave that area of the dog alone, thankfully. On a side note, Ashby is off the prozac due to him throwing up all the time on our rug. And I need to find a new vet for him – I’m very unhappy where we have been going. So, now I have an unmedicated dog with an open wound at home. Yeah, I think we’re done cleaning it for a while.

Quincy loves the alphabet. He knows all his capital letter by sight and in any order. He even asks us to spell words out for him like “MAMA” “DADDY” and “ASHBY”. His Leap Frog letter bus is really cool too – all kinds of things related to the alphabet. Currently, he’s working on being able to sing the alphabet song. It is coming along, but he skips E F G and M N O and he sorta doesn’t know how to end it.

Care to hear it for yourself? This audio clip was taken today while he stood by the computer. He had no props in front of him – I just asked him to sing the alphabet song. I edited out the beginning where I was talking and I snipped the end where Quincy just started babbling about the MP3 player I was holding.

https://archived.quincyrock.com/audio/alphabet

I’m always trying to come up with new and interesting things to write about here. Quincy does neat stuff everyday, but nobody really wants and/or needs to read about the daily minutia that goes on here in Maine. So, that leaves the question: what is “post-worthy”? Well, fear not, loyal readers for I came up with a day long project to keep things interesting.

It seems that not long ago that Quincy could say “owl” and not much else. Somewhere along the line things just got out of hand, word-wise. This past Thursday (10/18) I decided to write down every unique word that Quincy said during the entire day. I carried around a little pad and pen and set about my task. Warning: the list is long, but as you read it (if you choose to do so) you can almost see what we did during the day. These words are words that he spoke without prompting from me and does not represent his entire knowledge base, but simply a random sampling.

Here is this list from dawn ’til dark:
[quote]yeah Elmo uh-oh he fell down side daddy Thomas Tank birdy big whoa fly chick mulch Ashby yes hey no milk spoon coffee beans all done mama over there work sure really eat one two Percy move please chair help reach high watch fall bear horse frog duck cat dog fish monkey poop play bee floor Ernie Bert boot walk almost five splash water big crack Gordon James couch Henry Topham Hatt driver cow moo tree neigh read light on sit potty shirt pant bye shower hair wet toes me gate up eyes nose head Bob Larry pool car heavy know you color nine owl bear hoot golf ball tennis berry carry sandbox sand banana yogurt sauce burp excuse me bread sock off shade up pen draw baseball sleep love book glasses neck chest train ears myself jump race three four six eight nine ten money farm farmer Jed pumpkin ditch bus rock wash plane oink Buzby rug boat fix bridge toot bone ring cheese fork hot more soup fish flower moon hello talk my boot flip.[/quote]

So, those were the unique words he used that day. Today, he watched a VeggieTales and actually understood what happened in the story after we had turned it off. It was the story of the prodigal son and Quincy kept saying, “Back home” after the son had gone back home. We just looked at one another and were surprised he could grasp such a concept.

Dara’s mom and her friend Ruth did a lighthouse trip thru Maine in September. Quincy, naturally, was on the list of sights to see. They stayed at our place for 8 nights. Quincy took them to the Bog Walk (by now you know he loves going there) while they were here.

Ruth had never been to Acadia National Park so that was a trip we did with Quincy also. The weather was great except for all the one ginormous cloud that had enveloped Cadillac Mountain. It was like being on the inside of a cotton ball. Bar Harbor had a lot of people walking around and that soon became apparent that they were all from the huge cruise ship in the harbor. Needless to say, that was the largest ship Quincy had seen to date. Check that – Quincy has seen the battleship New Jersey (April 2006).

These pictures were taken at Bass Harbor Light on Mount Desert Island. In order to get really good angles, I had to walk/climb way out on the rocks. Quincy really liked watching the lobster boats go by.

Quincy had a great visit and was sad to see them go, but he’ll get to see her and more family in December when we head to New York.