oh. boy.

quentin has been quite a pain in the butt for the past 24 hours. i think his teeth are really hurting him so he is exceptionally crabby and screamy. he got up at 3 this morning. and i had hardly even gotten to sleep by then. i went to bed around 11 last night but couldn't fall asleep right away. then abby was panting like crazy and moving around the bedroom - keeping me awake. quentin started crying at 3 and i hoped he'd fall right back asleep but it became apparent that was not his plan. i got up to make sure he wasn't stuck on something in his crib and didn't have a fever or anything. he was fine, but he was wet so i changed him. he was gnawing on his hands like crazy so i put him back down in the crib while i went downstairs to get the tylenol and a bottle just in case. he was quiet when i got back upstairs so i crawled back to bed. but he started crying again just a few minutes later. so i gave him some tylenol and the bottle. after that he was happy, but wide awake. he wanted to jump and play but i didn't want him to get the idea that 4 a.m. is time for jumperoo so i just rocked him in the glider until he finally fell asleep again around 5. of course, i usually get up around 5:15. i managed to get about 20 minutes of sleep before it was time to get up and start the day for real. i was sooooo tired all day at work. now tonight he has screamed non-stop until just a few minutes ago when he fell asleep again. i have the worst headache ever. he is lucky he is so damn cute. can't wait until these teeth just come in already.

another cousin!

quentin is excited to introduce his newest cousin, born yesterday! welcome to the world baby jake!

update grab bag

monday real estate update only one showing last week. but we're not complaining. even 1 a week is better than we were doing towards the end of the time with the 1st agent. then it was more like 1 a month. abby update she goes for her 3rd dose of chemo tomorrow and she seems to be doing really well. her tumors are much smaller and she acting perfectly "normal" (and by normal we mean freaking bonkers.) lemon jetta update all seems well. for now. snow update last night we got about 3 inches on the ground. and an inch on our screened in porch due to the crazy wind. work update i'm starting to understand what is going on. i actually completed my first bit of work today after a couple week of meeting and greeting co-workers. quentin update he's cute. took lots of photos this weekend. maybe i'll get them onto the computer tomorrow. public service announcement if you are in the market for baby goods, i recommend you steer clear of babyage.com. we ordered quentin's high chair from there because it was $50 cheaper than any other place we saw it. unfortunately, when it arrived it was cracked. no big deal, just call them and they'll be happy to remedy the situation, right? wrong. after several weeks of calling and emailing them daily i have given up. they do not call you back. they do not email you back. if you google them, there are hundreds of similar stories. we finally just went straight to the manufacturer, even though we had to pay the shipping to return (just some parts, fortunately) of the broken one. writing a strongly worded letter to babyage and cc-ing the BBB is on my list of to-do items once i have a fully functional chair within my possession.

a lesson

snow + wind = cold that is all.

will i ever get used to early mornings?

2 weeks of this crazy commute and getting up at 5 and i am beat. will i ever adjust???

still lovin the jumperoo

so serious

and so cute :)

the lemon strikes again

so my jetta and i have had a long and storied history of issues. i named her jaime when i bought her and since then we learned that the jetta is manufactured in mexico and have thus amended her name to be jaime (pronounced in spanish - hi-may) limon due to her utter lemonocity. at this point i think i've spent more on repairs than i paid for the car brand new between the engine-transplant, the window falling into the door, and other assorted problems. don't buy a mexican jetta. my anti-freeze light came on on the way to day care this morning and the car was smoking violently when i arrived. i refilled the coolant reservoir and went on my merry way. it seemed to be fine until the light came back on halfway to work. when i left work this afternoon i went to a gas station and bought another jug of antifreeze and poured it in. that's when i noticed that it was flowing straight through into a puddle under the car. yeah, a leak! so i had to call AAA and get towed to our VW dealership 56 miles away (thank god for AAA premium and their 200 mile free towing!) unfortunately the service department was already closed for the night as was every car rental place not at the airport, so jeremy picked me up. tomorrow i will have to get up with him at 4 a.m. and drive him to the train station. he will pick up the rental at the airport tomorrow night when he gets off work. and who knows how long my car will take to fix since we don't even know what's wrong. sigh. but at least we had 4 showings at the richmond house last week. and abby had her 2nd dose of chemo today and seems to be doing well with it. little victories.

no wonder this state's population is dwindling

it costs too darn much to live here. our local newspaper is doing a series on the obscene state of affairs in the day care system. not surprisingly, massachusetts is THE most expensive state in the nation when it comes to day care. for monday through friday 9-5 care the local average is $15,821 annually for an infant, with the lowest they found being $11,700 and the highest $18,929. i feel so lucky that we found our day care. quentin loves it and it's a much more reasonable price!!

soquid!

we gave quentin "solid food" for the first time today - some rice cereal mixed with formula - more of a soquid, really. he didn't really get it at first but he seemed to like it. he really enjoyed playing with and chewing on the spoon. and of course he made a giant cute mess of himself. we've also captured it on video, we just haven't figured out how to upload the vids from the camera to the computer just yet. baby steps.

a new tooth has been spotted!

quentin has been exceedingly crabby today but we've seen the culprit. even though the two top teeth are supposed to be the next ones in, he appears to have his 3rd tooth coming in to the right of the two teeth he already has. to make it even more enjoyable, he has a touch of diaper rash - which he always gets when a new tooth is coming. i hope he screams all day tomorrow too! (sarcasm should be obvious!)

another vet visit

abby went back to the vet today for another round of chemo, however she did not actually get it because her white blood cell count was too low to sustain another treatment. low white cell count is an effect of the chemo and makes her vulnerable to infection. but the really good news is that the chemo seems to be working. her tumors are noticeably smaller. plus her lymph nodes are no longer swollen and her liver and spleen seem a more normal size. she'll go back to the vet - probably on wednesday - for the next round, giving her body a little more time to recover from the last dose, but still keep fighting the good fight. but over all, she seems to be doing very well. she's spunky and happy and the tail is still wagging!

quentin and "aunt" jodi

i love the look on quentin's face!

death by frozen piddle puddle?

that's got to be a new one, right? i know i am the girl who once sprained her ankle while pumping gas, but this has got to be even worse! i was carrying quentin in from the car this evening and nearly wiped out when i slipped on what i believe is a frozen piddle puddle in our driveway. fortunately a tv stand we had ordered was delivered today and the huge box was in just the right place to prevent me from falling, and to save quentin from flying through the air in his car seat. good job dogs / freezing cold temps! but thank god for delivery people who leave packages in the middle of our driveway instead of putting them on the porch! also, i think i now understand how sanjaya lasted so long on american idol last year. if there's a baby in the room screaming at the top of his lungs, one cannot easily discern who is actually a good singer and who is woefully lacking in the vocal department. i heart teething.

a return to normalcy

i took another good step towards life as i once knew it today by starting back to work in the actual office. i think i am really going to like my new job, though it is daunting since it's completely different than my previous roles. once i learn a little more about the business up here i should be good to go! i sure do miss my old commute, where i could get up at 8:15, shower, take the dogs out, and still get to work by 9. i got to the office right at 9 today, but i had to get up at 5:15 to do it. at least i'm not getting up at 4 like jeremy! and if anyone has any ideas for entertaining myself in the car for 3-4 hours a day, they are appreciated!! the news radio station is good to listen to, but they repeat the same few stories over and over and over. that's gonna get old quick! :)

monday real estate update

another couple of showings last week which continues to be promising. the house 2 doors down is also still on the market - they seem to be suffering from the same fate as us - no one seems to want to buy a nice, newer house in our area. two houses in the area have sold recently but they are both the classic historic houses that have the "charm" that everyone seems to be looking for. screw charm. we have walk-in closets and a huge attic, and a brand new freaking air conditioner. :) at least consistent showings are a good sign.

my driveway was a giant slurpee

more snow today. but not the light, fluffy pretty snow. nope. instead it's the yucky, heavy, wet, back-breaking snow. our neighbor came over with his snow blower but this stuff is just too heavy so it didn't really help. this is shovelling snow. we've gotten about 4-5 inches of this stuff so shovelling was like trying to remove a massive slurpee spill. it was so heavy. but at least i got the driveway done in time to go get quentin. hopefully the roads will be better than they were this morning when i brought him to day care. i was slipping and sliding everywhere!

much better today

abby is doing much better today. she's actually acting like herself, well more of a muted version of herself, which is kinda good since she is usually such a freak! she was very ready for dinner tonight and finished every last morsel. and the best part no accidents or vomiting today!

abby update

abby's chemo went well yesterday, but today she is not feeling very well. she's been vomiting a ton today which i am pretty sure is a side effect of the chemo. she didn't want to eat dinner tonight either. i managed to get about half of her normal dinner into her before she went back to the couch to rest some more. it's so hard to know if we're doing the right thing with the chemo. the chances of full remission are super low but there's always that chance. poor big bear.

the cancer strikes back

abby went back to the vet last night for a check-up, but we already knew it would be bad news. she's already got a handful of new tumors growing where the other one was removed which means it had already spread. plus, for the first time in the history of earth, abby turned her nose up at dinner. keep in mind that this is the hound who broke into the food closet and helped herself to like 10 pounds of dog food last summer. she's also been shivering and moaning a lot more than usual. the vet also said her liver and spleen were enlarged. so we had the chemo talk again. we're past the place where radiation is an option since they would have to zap her whole body. jeremy and i had said last time that we wouldn't spend a ton of money just delaying the inevitable, but somehow when faced with the actual decision we had to go with our hearts and give it a shot. abby started vinblastine chemo this morning. thankfully it is a lot less expensive than radiation, though still more than we probably should spend. we think we're doing it more for us, than her. we need to feel like we at least tried. but chances are, she won't be around long :( as hard as it will be, we'll put her down as soon as it's obvious that she's suffering. she's still at the vet now, so they could monitor her after her first dose. they are supposed to call me with an update by 2 or 3.

another dose of cuteness

linda set up her doorway jumper for quentin yesterday given his love of bouncing. she tried to get some pics yesterday, but they all came out blurry since quentin was jumping like crazy. she finally got a clear one today. the other picture is q's friend mikey. the other little guys at day care love quentin, and he loves it when they are there! loves the action!

naptime... in the jumparoo

tired after all that jumping? just take a little nap!

enjoying the beautiful day

linda just sent me these pics from day care. quentin is enjoying the beautiful weather. it was 68 degrees last i looked! there are 5 other kids at day care, and quentin is the only one who notices and cares about their dog, jessie. guess jessie likes quentin too :)

winter?

yeah it was zero only 5 days ago. today it's 63. seems about right.

monday real estate update

still nada. had another showing last week. no offer but the people are still undecided and looking, so it's not a complete dead end. we also had a showing for it as a rental property but the peeps mentioned some credit problems and the realtor hasn't heard back from them since he gave them the application and credit report authorization forms. sounds like people we wouldn't want to entrust our house to anyway. and so it goes...

have we mentioned how much we love our jumperoo?

we all drove out to western mass today so that i could attend a baby shower. quentin had fun watching football all day with his daddy and grandpa, but there's no jumperoo at grandma grandpa's house so we had to settle for sitting in laps. when we got home, i tried to give him a bottle - and he HAD to be hungry - but he was not at all interested. he was wiggling like crazy looking over at his jumperoo. i bailed on the bottle and put him in the jumperoo. he jumped continuously for a half hour! so much pent up energy - i hope he sleeps tonight!

what's in a name?

a lot of people have asked us where we got the name quentin. some people have even thought that we just made it up. others think we must be huge "pulp fiction" fans. it's really not an exciting story - we just liked the name :) - we wanted something classic but not super common. we also wanted it to be a cute name for a kid but also a name we could picture as a respectable adult. neither of us like the trendy names that are out there (jaden, brayden, anything that ends in ayden) for our kids so i played around on baby name websites and made lists of boy and girl names i liked. jeremy and i just both really liked the name quentin. plus how cool is "q" as an initial?!?!?! add in joseph as a middle name - after jeremy's grandpop - and there you have it! - after about the 10th time i had to explain to someone that quentin is in fact a legitimate name and not something i made up by playing with refrigerator magnets i decided to scour this fine internet to assemble a more extensive list of existing and recognizable quentins. here are some of the highlights of what i found for "quentin" on wikipedia:

• quentin tarantino, director of movies such as pulp fiction, kill bill, and reservoir dogs. he's the quentin most people have actually heard of. he also once played an elvis impersonator on an episode of the golden girls. awesome.
• quentin lee cook - aka fat boy slim of the rockafeller skank fame - coincidentally in one of my fave teeny bopper movies of all time "she's all that" starring ironically rachael leigh cook (hahaha see it quentin lee cook, rachael leigh cook... i think it was meant to be!) i love a good modern-day shakespeare adapation. (see also: the leo version of romeo + juliet and 10 things i hate about you.) i also love a good inexplicable choreographed dance scene in said teeny bopper flicks, which "she's all that" has to you guessed it, the rockafeller skank. (see also: romy and michele's high school reunion and superstar.)
• quentin richardson is a basketball player for the new york knickerbockers
• saint quentin is a minor christian saint who gives his name to a town in france
• quentin blake is the beloved illustrator of many children's book including those authored by roald dahl including matilda, james and the giant peach, and charlie and the chocolate factory
• quentin jammer plays in the NFL for the san diego chargers
• quentin compson is a character in faulkner's "the sound and the fury" and "absalom! absalom!" who ironically went to harvard. there's actually a plaque on a bridge over the charles river in boston that commemorates his "life" and "death". we'll have to go find it one day!
• there's a town in pennsylvania named quentin as well as san quentin in california, home to the infamous san quentin state prison where johnny cash played as concert in 1969 and where metallica filmed its "st. anger" video in 2003.

of course none of these people influenced our name choice, but still fun to know some random quentin facts!

xmas card photos that didn't make the cut

i was lucky to get one good one. quentin kept trying to turn around and look at the tree. he also wouldn't take his hands out of his mouth. oh and he spit up all over his sweater about 5 minutes into our photo shoot!

n-ice

5 months old!

can you believe it? i sure can't!

-

quentin is so big and he has such a little personality now. he is a very happy baby. every day when we get him at daycare, linda comments about what a good baby he is! he loves to smile at people, even ones he's just met. he also LOVES our dogs. he "pets" them which ranges from him just lightly touching their fur to him grabbing a handful of their fur and skin and squeezing with his little claws. i've got to give the dogs credit - they are very patient with quentin. none of them have snapped at him, or even growled, and i know from experience how bad it hurts when quentin grabs a fistful of your skin. the dogs also like to give quentin kisses, which he also enjoys.

-

about his onesie in these pics - i saw it on oldnavy.com over the summer and thought it was cute so i ordered it in the next size up (3-6) from what he was wearing at the time. then i read in my how to be a mommy book that they don't teethe until 6 months or later. i was kicking myself because i thought he would outgrow the outfit before he ever had a tooth. but of course he surprised us by getting teeth at 3 months. by the time he outgrows the outfit, he'll likely have a few more teeth to go along with the 2 he already has!

happy new year!

1. hope everyone had a wonderful new year's eve, and hope that 2008 has thus far been kind!
2. pics from christmas will be forthcoming - jeremy and i were too busy hosting to take any pics so i am waiting on my mom for the ones she took :) hint, hint mom!
3. anyone else still eating christmas leftovers? 'cause we are!
4. monday real estate update - again on tuesday - we had some more showings over the past couple of weeks despite the holiday. business seems to have picked up recently, which can only be good! new air conditioner is also installed, and hopefully stays that way!
5. a little bit sad - i just packed up all of quentin's newborn and 0-3 month clothes. they look so tiny now! heck, it's almost time to pack up the 3-6 month batch! it's truly amazing how many clothes one little doodle has!
6. there appear to be more teeth coming. yeah! except it means very fussy baby at night.
7. abby wants to be a painter. jeremy painted our stairway a lovely sage green yesterday to match the living room and i guess abby wanted to help. she managed to brush one of her floppy ears up against the wall so she has a green ear. she then wagged her tail repeatedly into the freshly painted wall, so 1/2 of her tail is also solidly green. to make the art experiment complete, she then wagged her tail against the beautifully stained front door, so that too has streaks of sage. what a train wreck is abby!