Quincy's World

I’m delinquint. I admit it. I have no excuse, really. Quincy’s one year doctor’s visit was back on August 23rd. I suppose I didn’t feel any sense of urgency to write about it because it was so, well, boring (in a good way). We had no surprises at his visit. He is doing just great for his age. I think the only information I have to pass along are his stats: Weight = 21lbs / 21st percentile, Height = 31″ / 83rd percentile. So, he is tall and lean. Not to worry, he likes his food and eats just fine.

We’ve been told that he seems much older than a year. We believe that is due to his having walked at 11 months and the large mane of hair he has. In fact, we have his 2nd haircut schedule for September 13th – Uncle Bill’s birthday! Quincy hasn’t really said any words yet, but his babbling has picked up quite a bit. It’ll only be a matter of time before I’ll be pining for the days when he couldn’t walk and talk. 😉

As you can read from the front of Quincy’s site – he is now over 1 year old. August 16th made it official. His actual party, however, was on Saturday, August 12th. It was a well-attended affair: uncle Ryan, aunt Debbie & Isaac and Nathan, Gramma Dorcas, and Grammie and Grampa Rock. It was a good number since we live in the apartment right now. Oh yeah, poor Ashby was relelgated to being leashed up outside for several hours while there was food around and gifts to be opened.

We had a lot of food for everyone to eat and then it was on to opening presents. It was a good thing his cousins were here – Quincy didn’t care about opening anything. He had more fun walking laps in the apartment. Isaac was one of the official new toy testers. Now, Quincy really likes his new toys and plays with them a lot. He is getting to be an expert tower builder out of blocks, but he likes to demolish daddy’s towers more. After presents, it was time for the cake.

We made a banana cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert. It was a two layer cake, and rather than let Quincy dive into the entire thing, we cut him a generous sized piece. He didn’t really know what to do with it. He got some frosting on his fingers and rubbed his hands together, but didn’t really eat much of it. He did eat some cake when it was fed to him, but otherwise didn’t eat it himself. That’s okay – more for us and our guests!

Later that afternoon, we took Quincy (and Ashby) over to a local park so that Quincy could swing and walk around. It was his first time really getting some mileage in the green stuff, and he really walked all over the place. We lost track of time and just barely got him home in time to get ready for bed!

All-in-all, it was a very fun day for everyone. We didn’t do much special for him on his actual birthday, but we did save him a piece of cake – which we ate ’cause he didn’t want it. It was dry, but with enough milk it went down smooth. 🙂

Thank you to all who sent cards and/or presents for the little guy. We appreciate all of you who think about us and he.

In case you already didn’t know, I have posted 27 pictures from his party under, where else, the photos section. You can get there via the photos page or use this link if you like.

Okay, so it has been a while since a post. I’m not really sure why – seems like something always gets in the way of sitting down at ye olde computer and typing away. I even toyed with the idea of shutting down the Playpen once he turned one. I was talked out of it by Dara.

Quincy turned one on August 15, but we had his one year pictures taken on August 9th. The reason? In case it was a a total disaster, we wanted the flexibility to go back and try again around his actual birthday. We had heard from a number of people at how bad their experiences had been, so we were prepared for things to not go well. It started out ominously…..

We had all gotten up as usual on Wednesday – around 6 something. We were sitting down to breakfast in the kitchen when I saw Amanda (lives next door, friend of ours and who we rent the apartment from, along with Alva) coming up to our door. She didn’t look happy. I figured something bad had happened. I told Dara she was coming up to the door, and she went and opened it. Dara looked at her, saw her serious expression, and said “What’s wrong?” To paraphrase – our hot water heater died. Hmm – that’s not good.

We were lucky for a couple reasons: #1 – Dara had bathed Quincy the night before – he was ready, #2 – Since Alva and Amanda are friends of ours and they live next door, she told us to use their bathroom to shower and #3 – We would be gone all day, giving Alva time to install the new hot water heater. We felt lucky to have narrowly averted that potential roadblock. We were, however, a little nervous about what kind of day we were going to have from that point onwards.

Luckily, nothing else bad happened that day. There were minor inconveniences, like slow traffic and construction, but we managed to get up to Rochester in plenty of time to have lunch first, get cleaned up and then head over to J.C. Penny for the picture. We not only had pictures taken of Quincy, but had some family shots taken as well. Dara had wanted us to all wear matching outfits. To that end, we ordered, from L.L. Bean, long-sleeved, white polo shirts. We wore those along with denim pants. We changed at the restaurant after we ate. We really looked like we belonged in some kind of cult or something wearing those outfits. Funny, but most people didn’t even notice or pay any attention to it.

We got to our photo appointment early and they were able to take us early. The same photographer Quincy had for his 6 month pictures did these as well. We did the family photos first and then singles of just Quincy. Quincy did very well. Since he is highly mobile, keeping him sitting or standing in one place is a challenge. When he did cry, the photographer would bring in his stuffed animal dog and bark at Quincy, who would then smile as the photographer jumped back and snapped the picture. He got a lot of good shots.

Dara picked out the ones she wanted, having made her list beforehand so as not to be overwhelmed by all the options (remember what happened at 3 months?). We then spent the rest of the afternoon visiting with Ryan & Debbie and his cousins before we had to head home. Basically, it went better and more smoothly than we could have drawn up ourselves. We return to Rochester on August 30 to pick them up.

Last Thursday I decided that Quincy and I needed to go on a road trip and do something. Now, there is very little to do in the immediate area, so we had to drive a bit to get somewhere interesting. I felt that Quincy really needed to visit his first museum before turning one – his first airplane museum. We drove over to the Elmira-Corning Regional Airport where there just happens to be a museum – Wings Of Eagles (used to be called the National Warplane Museum).

I have been to this museum once before and was excited to show Quincy the B-17 that they own. They also have several other vintage aircraft along with some modern ones on display. Well, we were gipped. The museum sold their B-17 to get out of debt and they were selling their PBY as well. There really isn’t going to be much left soon. I took Quincy to the static displays before the guided tour of the restoration area.

The F-4 Phantom was cool. Some (okay, my dad & Frank) have a weird love for this plane. I’ll never get it – it is okay, but how dumb was it to originally construct it without a cannon in the nose? The F-15 out front is cool. The engines are gone – apparently Uncle Sam takes engines for spare parts as they last much longer than the airframe.

The guided tour was good. There were eight of us including the guide. Besides the guide, Quincy and I were the only men there – which I found kind of odd. Quincy was well behaved as long as he had his Cheerios fed to him at regular intervals. Since the restoration area was not air-conditioned, we both wilted before too long so we were quite happy when it was finished. They have a MIG-17 that is being restored by the owner. He’s worked on it for 12 years. One of the ladies in our group asked him (he was there working) if the plane had a name. His answer? “The Aluminum Mistress. At least, that’s what my wife calls it.” We took off pretty quickly after the tour since it was getting to be past Quincy’s normal nap time. He slept the entire way home. Here’s a few more pictures.

I hope to take Quincy to a better museum sometime and then to an airshow. I’m sure they must have airshows up in Bangor since the airport was an old military base.