Happy Birthday!

Today is Quentin's 2nd birthday. It's amazing how much he has grown since he was born, but especially over the past year. He is very much a little boy now rather than a baby. He runs all over the place now and can go up and down the stairs upright with no help (he does hang onto the railing, but doesn't need either Aaron or I to hang onto). He is quite adept at opening and closing zippers and doors and enjoys coloring books and putting together puzzles. Right now he is BIG into trains and cars of all kinds. Since they started building a house next to ours he has enjoyed watching the construction equipment and frequently asks about the bobcat. He can follow instructions (when he feels like it) and loves "helping" us unload the dishwasher and doing laundry and vacuuming. Quentin is quite the talker and is fairly easy to understand (at least I think so - I'm the official interpreter)! He strings together several words at a time. Overall he's a very good mimic and will say just about anything he overhears or is asked to say. He knows all his colors, can somewhat count to 10 (numbers get left out a lot, but he can say every number), and he can say all the letters of the alphabet. He also recognizes all letters in capital form and numbers 1-9. We're working on potty training, but he is quite sporadic about it and rarely actually goes in the toilet. Hopefully by this time next year he'll fully potty trained. He loves to ham things up especially when pictures are being taken! Over Christmas he was shouting cheese over and over when anyone was taking a picture of him. He is also getting quite good at expressing emotions to us when he is upset. He'll tell us he's crying or he's sad or mad. And he's really good at saying thanks or no thanks and recently I'm sorry. It's been a frustrating year at times what with his weight problems, but hopefully those are behind us now (he gets weighed again at his 2 year checkup on Monday). Overall it's been a great year! Happy Birthday little man! Can't wait to see what you get into in 2010. Love you lots!

Self Portrait

Yesterday Quentin got a hold of our digital camera, turned it on and took pictures of himself.

Q Got a Bed and Other Pics

Photos!

Quentin and I spent some time outside today - wonderful day out, a little cool, but the sun was out some. In other words a perfect day to spend some time outdoors! (The one picture was taken last month - another no pants day!)

Quentin showing off his belly



Stomping on spiders (there weren't really any there, he's just seen me do it!)



Swinging



We were playing peek-a-boo



Checking out the leaves in the tree

Flu and Fleas

We've had a pretty busy last week, going up to Ames so Aaron could do the career fair for work at ISU. While there Q and I spent time with my sister and her boys.

The very next day Julie calls to tell me that she had to take her middle son to the ER and he came back positive for pneumonia. Not 20 minutes later my mom calls to tell me that Julie was back at the ER and she and my dad were meeting her there to pick up the other two boys.

A little later we find out that Julie's son had influenza in addition to the pneumonia and because of how fast it came on and that it's not flu season just yet, they are fairly certain that it is H1N1.

In the meantime I'm watching the other 2 boys and the youngest was running a temp and weezing. Julie comes by later to pick them up and take them to the doc to have them tested for the flu too and the youngest comes back positive for that. All this time I am not feeling so great myself, but I just had cold symptoms so it could have been worse. Later that evening Aaron, Q and I head back home.

The next day I'm still feeling aweful so Aaron stayed home to take care of Q. We made him an appointment with his pediatrican who put him on Tamiflu as a precaution and is going to have him get his flu shot this Friday. She also suggested that I see my doc and make sure that all I had was a cold and not H1N1 since it can start out with cold symptoms.

Off to the doc I went. I was there FOREVER feeling worse each passing minute! Then comes the flu test; sticking a cotton swab up my nose and wiggling it around! While not exactly painful, it was one of the most uncomfortable experences ever. And I was negative for the flu. I come home to find Aaron starting to feel bad.

Thankfully only Aaron and myself were sick and Q has been just fine the entire time.

BUT! Saturday night we notice that there are a lot of blood droplets in the sink in our bathroom where our cat Harvest likes to drink. Now I had noticed a couple droplets in the past couple of weeks here and there after she would drink, but just thought maybe she and Paprika had been fighting. She also was leaving little bits of fur around the house, but again I just thought she had been fighting.

So Sat. night Aaron and I take a closer look at her - she is biting herself an aweful lot and then we see the fleas crawling on her! We got both cats some meds to take care of the fleas that were on them as soon as we could. And we've been vaccuming the house every day since then. I pray that this gets resolved quickly and (fairly) easily! The war is on!

Possums!

The other night I went downstairs to feed the cats and heard this awful scratching noise coming from the other end of the storage area. I went and turned on the lights and looked around to see what was making the noise (my first thought was it was one of the cats scratching on a cardboard box). Instead, there was a possum going crazy trying to get out of the window well!

I told Aaron about it and he said just wait till morning and then call animal control to come get it out. So come morning I look on the internet to find the number for animal control and what I find is that I need to call the local animal shelter; that they do animal control for domestic and native animals in the area. I try giving them a call only to find that they don't open till 11:00 am.

Meanwhile, I go downstairs to check on the possum and see that it has left bloody scratches on the inside of the window well and our window. Quentin came down with me and he ran over by the other window well we have, and glancing out I find that there is a possum in that window well too! How crazy is that!

Once it was 11 I tried calling the shelter again and the woman I talked with said I needed a different number since they only delt with domestic animals. I then call the number she gave me and the woman I talked with there said she doesn't come get animals; she does rehabilitation for animals. So helpful!

In any case she suggested I put a broom or something of that nature down in the window well to let the possums crawl out on their own. Let me tell you, brooms don't work! The only other thing we had that was long enough was an aluminum ladder, which apparently possums will climb up. So we are minus one possum and hopefully tonight the other will take its leave as well.

What I've learned from this is that animal control in Osky for wild animals is apparently non-existant and the person they put you in touch with obviously does not know what she is talking about. Yes, the possums need something to help them climb out, but a broom isn't going to work! The other thing I learned is that we need to get those window well covers we've discussed getting sooner rather than later!

Child Health Specialty Clinic

The other week I finally heard back from the Child Health Specialty Clinic in Ottumwa. The woman I talked with wanted to know if I had any questions regarding what the nutritionist wanted us to do for Q. I told her we hadn't heard back from the nutritionist yet. She told me the info was sent to Q's doctor, but since I hadn't talked with the nutritionist, she would go over it with me now if I wanted. Of course I wanted to hear what we should do! So she tells me - have him drink whole milk (we're working on that), add extra butter to things for him (doing it already), give him fruits and vegetables with more fat in them (there are fatening fruits and vegetables?) and keep giving him 5-6 meals a day. Wow! How helpful was that?!? Everything Q's doctor had already discussed with us and that we've been working on with him. They also want to see him back in 3 months. My question is why should I do anything else with them when they haven't done anything different than his doctor has? It's about 30 min to get there, we were there for about an hour, took time to eat lunch and then 30 min back. So about 2 1/2 hours of my day ended up being wasted since I got nothing new out of it. I'm so disappointed about the whole thing and am not looking for a repeat thank you very much!

Potty Training!

A couple of days ago I went to change a poopy diaper of Quentins and noticed he looked like he needed to pee, so I put him on his training toilet and sure enough he went! I put him on his toilet two more times that same day and he went again! He's gone two more time since, one of which he actually told me that he had to go before we put him on the toilet. I'm so proud of him!

We Made It!!!

Quentin had another weight checkup this past week. Things went really well; he had gained almost 1 lb in the 4 weeks since our previous check. He is now 21 lbs. 12.2 oz. The best part is that he is no longer below the 3%! He made it back onto the charts and is in the 3%-5% for his age! I'm so happy about that, you can't even imagine! (Well, I'm sure Julie could)
We also had his iron and hemoglobin levels rechecked to see if there was any improvement. His iron is up, but the hemoglobin was down a little bit. The doc is wanting us to continue giving him Fer-in-sol (iron) and Poly-vi-sol with iron (vitamin suppliment with iron) plus give him iron fortified cereal at least once a day, but twice would be better.
In other news, the doc talked with the people we met with the other month down in Ottumwa at the Health Clinic. We still haven't heard back from the nutritionist, but I guess they've been restructuring and will be getting back to us soon. Hopefully we will be talking with them again in Sept. and finally get our feedback. I'm sure they will be pleased to know that Q now is really only interested in eating fruit (berries preferred), broccoli, cheese, cheerios, bread, pasta, and rice. And that's about it. Mealtimes are quite difficult needless to say.
Overall though things seem to be looking up. I just hope they continue!

First Kiss

Over the weekend we had friends from college come and visit since we hadn't seen each other in about 4 years (for most of them). Kevin and Maureen have an adorable little girl Madeline who is 2 years old. She and Q seemed to get along pretty well and Sat. night they kissed! It was so cute! I wish we had gotten a picture of it.

Pictures

Kissing

Quentin has learned how to kiss! He's really gotten into it lately, giving kisses to his toys and having me kiss the toys too. He also gives me kisses, just not that often. Today he was giving Harvest kisses. Harvest didn't seem overly thrilled by it, but I thought it was way too cute!

Pictures of the Week

Busy, Busy, Busy

Looking at the calendar it seems like all our weekends are filled with stuff to do. Friday we're meeting up with Julie, Jared, Jonas, Jesse (maybe Brock?) and probably my parents as well at the zoo. We've never taken Q to a zoo before so I'm excited to see his reactions to the animals.
The following weekend is a family reunion. They have it every year and I haven't been able to go in a long time.
Then we're off to Elgin for a family picnic. Although I'm wondering if we're going to end up missing Jonas' birthday party. Did you pick a weekend for that Julie?
The next weekend is my birthday and while we don't have anything planned, I'm sure something will come up!
August brings a wedding and my 10 year class reunion on the same day. We might just go to the downtown pub crawl the evening before and not make it to the cocktail party.
We're getting tickets to the Iowa State Fair and Aaron will probably take a day off of work so we can actually make it there.
And finally...we're going to be heading to Omaha for a customer appreciation thing that Cargill wants Aaron to go to.
Aaron and I are also hoping that we can get some of our college friends to meet at our house for a day sometime this summer. Plus I want to take Aaron and Q to Living History Farms and the Science Center. Where we're going to fit in all of this, I don't know. As for now, I'm procrastinating getting a grocery list put together so I can go to the store. :)

Swimming!

We took Q out on the deck this afternoon to "swim" in his whale pool. He had a great time going in and out, throwing toys to make a splash and getting into a bag of birdseed that was sitting out nearby. Then he took a second nap. :)

Pudding and Other Cute Pics

Child Health Specialty Clinic

Earlier today Aaron and I took Quentin down to Ottumwa to a Child Health Specialty Clinic. The lady we met with asked a bunch of questions about his eating habits, development milestones, etc. She watched how he played with toys, how he ate and drank and did doctor-y things like look in his ears, eyes and mouth. She then proceeded to tell us what Q's pediatrician did: either he is not consuming enough calories or his body is not processing the calories he consumes properly. Thanks so much. So far completely unhelpful.
On the up side they had us do a 3 day food diary of what Q eats and drinks and they are going to pass it on to a nutritionist. The nutritionist is supposed to get back to us in a week or two with her findings. I really hope she actually has something useful for us to try, cause I don't know what to do anymore.
In the meantime, we're to add butter to everything we can, try to get him to drink more whole milk, and see if he'll drink any shakes or smoothies.

Weight Gain!

After being sick with an ear infection and barely eating anything for about 4 days, Q has been eating super well (for most meals) and today we found out that he gained almost 1/2 a pound. He now weighs 20 lbs. 13.8 oz and I couldn't be happier! He is still in the less than 3rd percentile for weight for his age, but hopefully this improvement will continue. He has actually been drinking milk (only 1%, but it's still milk!). Next week we will be taking him to a clinic in Ottumwa where they will watch him eat and give us some tips/suggestions on how to get him to consume more calories. Hopefully this will help and we won't have to keep going. Keep on eating well Quentin!

Weight Loss

Quentin had another weight checkup today and he's lost a little bit of weight again. On top of that he has a bit of a temperature and the doc thinks he has a bit of an ear infection. Not a happy day. Any tips on how to get a toddler to eat? Specifically the doc wants him to drink more milk and eat more meat and in general eat more calories.

New Teeth

Quentin just got two more teeth poking through! Hopefully that's why he was crankier than usual the other day. This brings his total up to 14 and I'm pretty sure he's going to be getting the bottom two any day now.

Weight Update

As a quick weight update for Q - his appointment on Friday went quite well. He gained just over half a pound. I guess the Scandical calorie booster stuff I've been adding to his food is helping out. Although it sure would be nice if he would just eat what I give him without any problems like he used to. At the very least I hope he continues to gain like he did this last week. Another weight check in 2 weeks this time.

Weight Update

Today was another visit with the doc to check on Quentin's weight. He did gain 2 oz which was good and puts him at 20.35 lbs. On the other hand he's still not weighing in where the doc would like to see him so we're now going to be giving him 5-6 small meals a day and we need to go out and buy some product that we're to put on all his food that adds extra calories. Hopefully this will go well (giving him pediasure did not, which is what she had us try last time). And so we have another appointment in a week to recheck his weight again.

Fun Filled Weekend

We had a lot going on this past weekend. First we had a visit from Aaron's mom who bought some new toys for Quentin. One toy was a swing that Aaron put up on our tree in the backyard. Quentin started out not wanting to sit in it to laughing with joy as he was pushed back and forth. Then Aaron, Quentin and I went to the Pella Tulip Festival on Saturday. Finally, on Sunday we drove up to Ames and went and saw the dinosaur exhibit they put up at Reiman Gardens with my parents and our 3 nephews.

Improvement (Sort Of)

Quentin had his iron levels checked again this past week and they were up! We're still giving him iron and a multivitamin with iron every day and hopefully he will continue to improve with that. On the down side the doc said he had lost a little bit of weight (I don't know how much since she didn't say, but don't think it was very much). So for now we're to give him only Vitamin D milk and Pediasure to drink - no water and no juice. Hopefully that will help!

Pictures!

Quentin's weight checkup last Friday went well. He gained more weight and is now on the charts at the 3rd percentile. Way to go Q!

Failure to Thrive

Quentin had his weight checkup this morning which went sort of well...He gained 10.5 oz in 10 days which was great, but unfortunatly he is still below the 3rd percentile for weight so they still consider him as failure to thrive. So we need to take him to have blood drawn and they are going to test several things (I don't recall all of them): his thyroid levels and iron levels and a couple more things. Hopefully things will go well with this and we can get him back on track soon! He has another weight checkup next Friday that I hope goes well.

15 Month Checkup

So Q had his 15 month checkup this past Wednesday...and while he is doing well, the doc is concerned about his weight. He lost weight again (and I don't know, but think it might be due to the diarrhea he has been having this week). He is now 19 lbs 1.2 oz which is in the less than 3% for his age. So of course the doc is throwing out terms of "failure to thrive" being a possiblity and is having us wright down how much he eats and drinks. So naturally Q is being stubborn this week and not eating quite as well as he usually does, but he has done much better today. I have to take him back this coming Friday for a follow up. Keep your fingers crossed that he'll have gained some weight by then!

Teeth!

Yesterday I noticed a new tooth in Quentin's mouth. I felt around a little and it turns out that that 3 of his molars came in! Maybe that's why he hasn't been sleeping the best lately...or at least I hope that's the problem. :) This brings his tooth total up to 11!

Lax in Posting

So I've been a bit lax in my posting for the month of March. We went to Ames to watch the men's b-ball team play (they won, barely) and had dinner with some college friends. It was so good to see them again...I think we should have a monthly get together if it can be managed. Then we went to Elgin to say goodbye to Aaron's parents as they are (as of yesterday) hiking the AT. We are hoping they have a great time and make it back safely. Aaron's had to travel for work this last week and is leaving again tomorrow to go back to Dayton. :( I'm sure going to miss him. Otherwise it's been the usual here. Quentin is full of energy every day, climbing the furniture and running around. He has recently picked up some new words and can now say Mama, Dada, quack, boo, tickle, ball, uh-oh, up, pa (which he uses for pacifier as well as spoon I think), and something that sounds like kitty in a way. He has also been driving us crazy by not going down to sleep all by himself like he used to do as well as waking up sometimes in the middle of the night. I'm sure hoping that will get better soon!

Baby Gate.

Earlier this month we took a trip to Des Moines to get a different baby gate to go at the top of the stairs in the new house. It was a horrid trip - we forgot to bring a stroller (don't know what we were thinking) so Quentin was squirming around in our arms every time we went into a store. It didn't help that we went to many different stores looking for a gate we liked that would also fit into our wide opening. We stopped at Babies R Us first and naturally we decided after looking at Target and Wal-Mart that the one that would work best for us was back at Babies R Us. (We had also stopped to eat and see about getting a glass door for our fireplace during this trip) So back to Babies R Us we went, except Aaron took a different way back to the store and we ended up somewhat lost and spent extra time finding our way to the store. Quentin is fussing and crying the whole way, but calmed down somewhat to eat some Mandrian oranges we picked up while at Wal-Mart. And then as I'm opening another fruit cup of the oranges, Aaron takes a corner and the juice spills all over me, my purse and the seat (mostly on me). In the end we made it home with a baby gate - one that Quentin learned how to open by himself today. It's been a long day...

I'd like to add that I fixed the gate so Quentin can't open it anymore. Yay! Also for those who might have been wondering he didn't fall down the stairs at all, just kept opening the gate. Right before I put him to bed though he did start to go down the stairs on his own. Fortunatly, he was on his tummy and going feet first so it was the right way at least. Also I grabbed him before he got past the first stair. Somtimes I think he's too smart for his own good.

Sleeping Kitty

Paprika fell asleep "hugging" the remote!

Quentin Pictures

Happy B-Day Jesse!

A big happy birthday to my nephew, Jesse, who turned one today!

Dog?!

As the movers arrived last Saturday morning I opened the front door and the door from the garage into the house knowing they would need one or both open the entire time they were here. Aaron and I were standing in our new living room talking about something and I look over to see a smallish dog standing in our house! Aaron chased him out only for him to return. He did stay out after that, but I couldn't believe this dog just ran on into our house. Turns out he's the neighbor's dog and they aparently let him run loose all over the place. I took Q out for a walk this afternoon and the same little dog followed us part way. He never barked or tried jumping up on us or anything which was very good, but I still don't get why they let their dog run around wherever he wants to go all day long.

The Big Move

We finally made it to Iowa. It has been one long week for us. Two days of packing and loading all our stuff, one day of driving, one day running around town getting papers signed and various utilities set up, and so far one day of getting everything in the house and working on unpacking. A big thanks to our parents for all their help - it wouldn't have gone nearly as well without you!

Q Drinks Milk!

So the trick is to give it to him out of my cup and he drinks it just fine. Whatever works.

Weight Gain

When we took Q in to the doc for his one year checkup he had just been getting over a cold of which he hadn't eaten well for about 1 1/2 weeks. Therefore he had only gained 4 oz since his previous visit of 2 months earlier. So we had to bring him back in for a weight checkup. Since he's been eating like a little piggy the last 2 weeks I haven't been too concerned. This morning I took him in for the weight checkup and he has gained 10 oz in the last 3 weeks! His grand weight total is 19 lbs 6.5 oz. Go Quentin!

Juice

Back in Nov. Quentin said his first words - Bow wow wow and quack. Both come from the book Moo Baa La La La by Sandra Boynton. Since then I've heard him say la la la as well. Then on Friday he added a new word - juice. Which has nothing to do with a book he's heard repeatedly. I asked him if he was ready for some juice and O's (what I've been calling cheerios) and he replied with "juice".

Quentin in a Box, Plus Bedhead