Providence & other musings

About two weeks ago a social worker (SW) called on a Saturday and asked us to take a 4 day old foster child home from the hospital. Ian and I said yes and started getting ready to go get him. We had everything but a car seat we borrowed from a friend. When I got to the hospital I discovered that the baby had been exposed to an infection I didn't want to bring home to Quintin, so feeling guilty I asked the SW to find another home. As it turned out, she found a couple that had been waiting for a baby and they thought he was the cutest thing in the world. I think that was meant to happen.What an odd part I played in that plan. The little guy had been born 4 weeks early and after 4 days in the hospital was Quintin's birth weight! I had no idea gestational diabetes was that extreme. We agreed he resembled a walrus...

For Easter Ian and I built sugar cube castles instead of decorating eggs. I had some left over from a Science experiment at school. We made some bright colored icing and went to work. Ian's was all purple, but he tried to tip it over to add more supports and it crumbled. I was planning a competition and having you vote, but oh well. Here's mine.Ian was in our ward's road show last week. It was incredible! I don't understand why our ward didn't win. They told the most adorable story about a couple realizing they weren't losing all their dreams by starting a family. I was cracking up watching, and cried at the end. I'm so proud of my hubby and all the incredibly talented friends I have at church. What a privilege to know them! The next day Ian was incredibly sick and it's lasted 7 days plus, he's still trying to get it all out of his system.

Two weeks ago our next door neighbors gave us one of their extra baby gifts; a baby gym. (Their son is 2 weeks old this week!) What perfect timing! Quintin is just at the stage where he wants to look at things, it's perfect! If we set him just right he kicks the side when he thrashes and that jingles everything around. He sits here for an hour looking around, and sometimes gets mad if you try to take him out.Just this week he's started grabbing for things. He was grabbing with his feet first, ha! This weekend he's actually been successful holding onto something for a period of time. He's also started to move himself when he's on his back. We have to be careful leaving him anywhere now.

Is this not adorable?

Whatever is between fist and mouth, gets sucked on, too.A couple nights ago I missed my alarm clock for my middle of the night wake-up to pump. I woke up at 5am, WAY late for my schedule. I don't know how regularly feeding mom's do it, but since I'm only pumping I have to watch everything. On a regular schedule I get about 6-7 ounces per session. This particular morning's session I got 19 ounces! Goodness gracious! That's over a pound of milk! It's amazing I wasn't falling on my face!I've actually been getting so much more milk since I went back to work that we had to use part of our tax return to buy a mini freezer to store the extra in until Quintin needs it! It's already almost half full!

My co-worker was telling me about her friend who's baby wouldn't take her milk in a bottle. She was frustrated about all that waste, so she started using her stores to make the kids meals! Like Mac & Cheese! Ewww!
Someone else was telling me there's a website to buy human milk cheese!
Double Ewww!As you can tell, these guys are BEST buds. They love to play together, sing songs, read books, nap, eat, and giggle. Quintin LOVES his daddy and knows he has the best Daddy ever!In addition to using his hands a lot more now, Quintin has also started this silly 'cockroach' pose. Of course I think that anything he does is adorable. He's pretty cute with everything sticking up in the air for no reason. He'll have strong abs! Maybe he's trying to catch his toes...they're pretty hard to catch!

We took Quintin to a BabySigns class a week or two ago, it was pretty cute. I hope we go again, I'd really like to start using them with him.

Last week was CA standards testing in our school, glad that's over. We also had a writing assessment, which I got to help a student with directly. This particular child is usually extremely rude, but when he found out that I was going to help him by scribing it for him he was the cutest little thing. He really showed how bright he was, it was a pleasure to work with him. Ironically he got in big trouble with the principal for doing the very thing he was writing about in his assessment! Weird timing.
I was looking in the mirror recently and discovered that my glasses are hiding the development of crows feet! Ahh! I knew it would happen, but I hoped it wouldn't! Yuck. At the same time my arthritis has come back raging. I finally started back on Reliv again when I returned to work and it helps a LOT, but I'm not taking enough to kick it completely. My toes have actually started going numb, which didn't happen last time. It's a really weird feeling to have a numb toe all the time.We're loving spring time. This is an extremely wet one compared to the other three we've had, but it's still great. I've discovered living here that I hate mockingbirds. I remember seeing a girl hate one in a movie and not knowing why, but I have NOW been educated. It seems like there is no other bird within a mile of our place except the one mocking bird a block away bleating himself away at all hours. At first I thought it was cool because I could hear a variety of bird calls, but then I realized it was all copy-cats by one bird. That makes it not so cool anymore, it's like listening to the same radio station all day. You know how they have their set of about 10 songs they play over and over and over and over? That's a mocking bird. Ian's even heard it copy car and train sounds! I know I'll never get around to actually researching this, but I wonder what advantage that gives their species?This is the beautiful view from my new school, looking north. It doesn't do it justice.

We went to see the new pediatric urologist this week. He was not very clear and not nearly as approachable as our old one, but basically Q's dilated kidney will most likely resolve itself but they still have to monitor it to be sure. He doesn't have to take the antibiotics anymore. That's good because we struggled to give them to him consistently! He was adorable in the office and of course he wouldn't sit still in his many poses.This FUZZY picture almost looks like "Mom! Quite trying to take my picture! I'll never sit still!"

I absolutely love it when his face gets all squished up on Daddy's shoulder. We were just remarking about how his neck/double chin is climbing toward his ears!On the table he was pursing his lips over and over. He'd never done that before, silly boy. I never did get a good picture of it -that stupid digital camera delay thing. He does have a cool ghost-arm in this one.A friend of mine has a one month old that is losing his hair on top in front (he's starting to look like an old man). I noticed that he and Quintin are opposites. Quintin is loosing it in back and on the sides! In many of his pictures he's starting to look like he has a mohawk or a bad toupee.