solid poop (a 300th post spectacular)

after an extended moment of silence in honor of abby, i'm back with a big ol' update. it also happens to be our 300th post. woo hoo! yesterday, for the first time in 13 days, quentin had a solid poop! it's sad when you get excited about something like poop, but after nearly 2 weeks of diarrhea, real poop is a happy thing. we don't think that he was sick, we think it had to do with teething because... poor little guy is currently cutting 5 new teeth, bringing him to a grand total of 8 teeth. so glad i'm not nursing :) and now that his digestive system is back to normal, we're pushing solids again. he has devoured his rice cereal the past couple of days. i have also purchased a food processor and a couple of make-your-own baby food books. seems like it will be fun. i might have to add quentin's meals to our 2-week meal plan... which by the way we are still rockin' - it makes life so darn easy. we love it. i have also started a list of other potential things to add to the rotation, potentially expanding to a 3 or 4-week plan. playing a big role in the 3-4-week expansion will be the chest freezer we plan to buy with part of our tax refund... speaking of... taxes freaking suck. i have gotten them basically done, but i need to double/triple check them. probably should have paid a professional this time around but i'm cheap. with the move (2 houses worth of mortgage interest, 2 states to file + the moving expenses deduction) our filing got way complicated. stupid richmond / virginia... no major updates on the real estate front this week. we had 2 more showings last week and nothing else exciting. still can't believe the peeps who made an offer last week did not expect us to come back with a kick-out clause. crazy. i hope their condo sits on the market for a year see they can so how it feels! we have decided that in the spring we will build the "abby bagel memorial veggie garden". we thought about planting a tree or a shrub in her honor, but there was almost nothing in the world she loved more than veggies from the garden. she plucked every last tomato from the plants we had in the yard in richmond and also helped herself to a box of freshly picked maters from my parents' garden last summer. we'll get a plaque or something to go with it. vacation coming up soon. very excited. quentin will go on his first long car ride - all the way down to richmond. and it will be only the second time he's left the state of massachusetts (though the first time was hardly exciting - he and i went for a ride to connecticut to find the nearest wachovia in order to get a cashiers check for buying the house - tons of fun!) did you know... on my daily home-daycare-work commute i pass 7 dunkin donuts but not a single mcdonald's? i'm not talking about ones off of highway exits, just ones immediately on the road i'm on. not that i have the cash to allow frequent visits to either dd or mcd's, i just find it interesting (and counting the dd's gave me something to do on the brutally long trek!) happy leap day! oh as a result of the extra day, quentin's 1st birthday will be on a saturday this year. while i haven't settled on a theme just yet, we will be doing some sort of big ol' party. any and all are welcome!

We'll Miss You Abby

Today we lost our friend Abby. She fought very hard against an angry tumor, but in the end the cancer won. She was a horrible disobedient dog and that's why we loved her. We'll never forgot you, and we'll never stop loving you.

got home at...

1:30! less than two hours total, with a longer than normal stop off at day care. not too bad! friday is the busiest day at day care so when i got there things were in full swing. there was so much action that quentin didn't want to leave. can't really blame him - i am sure mommy is a ton more boring than watching all his friends!

it's 11:30...

and we've all been told to go home due to the snow. anyone want to make a guess as to when i will actually get home? my trip home normally takes 1.5 hours including the stop off at daycare. i'm guessing 4 hours minimum.

you knew it was too good to be true

the peeps have withdrawn their offer on the house. we knew when we didn't hear back last night and not even first thing this morning that this would probably be what was going to happen. apparently they didn't like the kick-out clause. guess they thought we would be happy to just sit around and wait for their condo to sell. guess they thought after 10+ months on the market that we had gotten oh so good at waiting. whatever people. your condo could take 10 months to sell and we're not waiting for that without the ability to continue to show our house and accept other offers. damn it.

way behind... again

no matter what i do i cannot stay on top of the blog these days. i need to come up with a better strategy now that my time is completely eaten up by commuting, work, and general mom-ness. i'll think of something. there's too much going on to NOT post here :) so here's the crazy world of us: quentin's christening it went very well. he was not thrilled about sitting quiet and still in church following the actual baptism so mommy and daddy had to pace around the church to keep him quiet. by the end i had to take him outside because he wasn't even pacified by the pacing. he screamed through amazing grace, the final hymn. even though we weren't in there, everyone could here him. oops. he looked so cute in his special gown and almost everyone commented on how neat it was. i now want to take it to have his name and christening date embroidered on the inside slip, hopefully a starting a tradition for every baby who wears it going forward. sick sick sick we got our first daycare bug. quentin has had (a lot of) runny poop since saturday morning. fortunately he is acting totally fine otherwise. we thought it may have been a reaction because we tried barley cereal for the first time last thursday. then, unfortunately, jeremy was up all saturday night before the baptism throwing up every 45 minutes. he continued to be sick all day on sunday and even had to ensure he had planned an emergency route out of the church should it be necessary. at first we thought he might have had food poisoning from some fish he had eaten on saturday night, but when we got home late sunday night from the baptism i too was sick, so we knew it was a bug. since then everyone we were in contact with on sunday seems to have gotten it. fortunately it's a pretty quick moving bug. cancer hound abby went to the vet on tuesday for her 5th chemo treatment (out of 8 in the protocol.) unfortunately, she was very sick on tuesday (rejected her dinner, reluctantly ate it, and then threw it right back up) so they didn't do the chemo. the really bad news is that she has another tumor. they biopsied it and it's definitely another mast cell tumor which means the chemo is not working and the cancer has definitively spread. we could have this tumor surgically removed and then start an even more intense and painful chemo protocol, but we think we're done. she's not looking so good and we feel like another surgery and more chemo would just be torture. it's time to let our big bear go. :( job yesterday i got confirmation that my job is for real, and is not just a temporary role. woo hoo. another step towards financial stability. and no power suit shopping!!! extremely delayed monday real estate update we had 3 showings last week. still rocking the showings! and the absolute best news... we got an offer on the house!!!!!!!!!!!!! they low-balled us and also asked us to pay their closing costs and points. and buy them a home warranty. oh and it is contingent on them selling their house. not a great offer but it's something. at this point we aren't going to get a good offer. hell, any offer is a good offer at this point. we prepared a counter offer last night and we're just waiting to hear back. we added a clause into the counter offer that allows us to keep the house on the market while we wait for them to sell theirs. if we get another offer from someone else, these people would have 72 hours to secure financing no matter what is going on with their house, or their contract is null and we can accept the 2nd offer. fingers crossed!!!!

supermodel

we finally got off our lazy butts and took quentin for his first real photos. we've had plans to go in the past, but he invariably scratches the heck out of his face rendering himself un-photographable.

i know i'm his mom and a little bit biased, but i think he might just be the cutest kid in the world.

and here's a sneak peak at the christening fashion he will be sporting tomorrow for the big day.

best in show!

UNO!!!!

go uno!

uno the beagle won best of the hounds last night and will be in best in show tonight at the westminster kennel club dog show. it was the first time since 1939 that a beagle won the group and no beagle has ever won best in show. go uno - beagle power!

monday real estate update

2 more showings last week. the guy who looked at it as a lease-to-own last week really wants a garage, so he's still looking. who knows, maybe he'll be back if he can't find anything. sadly our listing expires this week so we will now be listing it for a 3rd time. but, maybe we'll get some renewed attention when it shows up again as a new listing. it's eventually gotta sell, right? unrelated... we learned this summer that ken's salad dressing actually started at a steakhouse here in framingham. tomorrow i get to go to a lunch there for work. very excited. yummy salad dressing, hopefully yummy steak! quentin's christening gown came today. it is absolutely beautiful. she did a really good job transforming my wedding gown. she also made a little girl's gown in case we ever have a need for that. matching bonnets for each too! i will try to take pics tomorrow - i am just afraid to take them out of the box because they will get covered in dog and cat fur.

press me

quentin likes buttons. anything with buttons or keys to press is a worthy toy... remote controls, telephones, the computer keyboard. he loves them all. fortunately he received a "cell phone" for christmas so he has something he is actually allowed to play with. he is sitting on my lap right now, and itching to type (monkey see, monkey do.) and i now give you a quentin original: 8l,u.nmj, b 5 not sure what that means, probably "feed me" or something similar. you will notice that he has a particular affinity for the space bar. last night while IMing with grandma he even used the "shift" key to make question marks! bnbbbbbbbbv kmj A N (translation: put me down. i want to jumperoo.)

so far behind

it was a crazy week so as a result i am very behind with updates. i will attempt to get caught up now :) last weekend was awesome. quentin got to meet his uncle monkey and aunt bunny, who flew up from DC for a visit. we did lots of fun things and ate good food. we went candlepin bowling on saturday and quentin slept right through it. not only was there the loud sound of bowling, there were three simultaneous birthday parties of screaming kids. out like a light the whole time. he is his mommy's boy :) monday was sad because we had to let monkey and bunny go. and the whole state was in mourning from the super bowl. stupid eli manning. we also all started coming down with something - fun! on tuesday, we brought abby in for her weekly chemo. we really like this vet. last week he wrote us a prescription for the chemo meds that we could fill at CVS for much cheaper than the vet's office would charge. He also let us know that we could save $20 a visit if we came in at night instead of doing the morning drop-off. the chemo drug was only $44 at CVS and it's enough to finish abby's course. this week's visit cost $100 less than previous visits - awesome. my mom was coming down here to help with baby care for wednesday (more in a sec) but unfortunately she didn't get here before abby's appointment which meant quentin had to come with me. no big deal as i assumed it would be the same process as the previous week - drop her off for the blood test and pick her up in an hour or so when the chemo is done. i poured a bottle just in case. well, it was NOT like the previous week - we ended up staying the whole time, AND i am a huge dummy and left the freshly-poured bottle on the kitchen counter. quentin got very very hungry at the vet and nothing i could do would keep him quiet - rocking, singing, bouncing, nothing. finally one of the desk ladies came in and offered to hold him. he shut right up. loves other people! he was quiet for the remainder of the appointment, though very happy to see grandma waiting with a bottle when we got home! abby is still doing very well with the chemo. she's only got a few doses left! wednesday i had a "fun" day at work. we were meeting in the city at the museum of science for a quick meeting, then going to an IMAX movie, exploring the museum, and going to a yummy lunch at CPK. the issue was we had to be there by 9. i investigated a bunch of options but i couldn't find anything that would work with dropping quentin off in mansfield at 7:30 and getting into the city by 9. so mom had to come be our day care. it was a good thing too, because wednesday morning i woke up to the unmistakable smell of dog poop. i heard jackson get up but he usually just hops back in to bed and patiently waits for me to get up. this morning, he kept pacing so i knew something was up. sure enough, bloody diarrhea all over the bedroom. including the pile of my clothes on the floor (still working on getting the closet organized - it's a lot smaller than the old house!!) this is not jack's 1st experience with bloody poop - you may remember he had this last may and needed to spend a night in the hospital with an IV. and of course quentin woke up and started crying. i got my mom up to take care of Q while i cleaned up the room. not sure i would have been able to catch the train on time if i didn't have her help! jack is just fine. given our current financial situation, we decided to keep an eye on him before bringing him to the vet. last time they had us feed him rice and hamburger / chicken so i fired up the rice cooker and defrosted the ground chicken. he got better throughout the day so we did not need to go to the vet. phew! we spend too much time there as is with abby! quentin also went to the pediatrician on wednesday. he continues to be a big boy coming in at 26 and 3/4 inches, 19 pounds and 6 ounces, and 45 cm for head circumference (61st, 81st, and 82nd percentiles, respectively.) i think he is actually taller than she measured - her method is grossly inaccurate, but no big deal. he's doing very well. she wants us to start putting him to bed at 8 and seeing if he will sleep all the way to 5:30. i have my doubts but it would be nice to have a couple of hours at night to get things done while he sleeps! i think quentin must have missed his day care buddies that day because he made friends with everyone in the waiting room. before people left they were sure to say bye to their new friend quentin :) he is a very smiley baby, quite the little people person :) we have all spent the week trying to feel better. at this point the body aches are gone which is awesome. just the congestion and runny noses remain. quentin's christening is in one week. his gown was mailed out on friday and should be here monday or tuesday. unfortunately she sent it where a signature is required so hopefully we will figure out a way to get it before sunday! all week i have been trying to figure out what quentin is supposed to wear under his gown. at this point we have decided to go with a plain white onesie, socks, and white shoes. i also didn't realize that you need a special christening blanket and bib - who knew? jeremy's mom is bringing up the blanket that jer was baptized with, so that will be nice. Q will be wearing some of mommy and some of daddy :) i just hope he doesn't scream through the whole thing!!! and i have saved the biggest news for last... we declared last night as quentin's first official crawl. he's been so close for weeks and has become quite adept at scootching and pivoting. he also can get where he's going by barrel rolling. but last night he got up on his hands and knees and made forward progress. a couple of times he even tried to put his foot flat on the floor and stand. he'll be unstoppable soon enough. gotta buy those baby gates and get baby proofing!

toys, toys, toys

oh boy does he love his toys. i think he loves his play mat as much as he loves the jumperoo. we can lay him on it and surround his with various rattles and chew toys and he keeps himself entertained for a long time. and it's so cute when he discovers a new toy. the look of fascination on his face... it's like you can see the little wheels in his head turning trying to figure it out.

monday real estate update

two more showings over the weekend which continues to be positive. plus he will be showing it to someone this week who is interested in doing a lease-to-own arrangement. traffic continues to be good, considering it's been on the market for over 10 months and we haven't dropped the price in ages. the neighbors 3 doors down dropped their price again, but only by a few thousand dollars this time. judging by the small drop after weeks of holding steady, i think they must be in the same place we were a few months ago - pretty much as low as they can go but trying anything to move it.

6 months old!

quentin turned 6 months old today. he celebrated by sleeping through some candlepin bowling and then eating his first-ever meal in his new high chair. he really seems to dig the high chair!