no. truck shirt.

i was getting quentin dressed for church on sunday and was looking for a nicer shirt in his drawer. i pulled out a respectable polo shirt and he looked at me defiantly and said, "no. truck shirt." he then started pulling shirts from the drawer and throwing all non-truck shirts to the floor. thankfully for me, there was a lone truck shirt lurking at the back of the drawer, saving me from the otherwise inevitable toy-throwing, sister-hitting meltdown. this was the first time he has ever expressed any interest in the selection of his outfit. the look on his face in this pic is one we are all to familiar with these days. it's the "on the verge of a tantrum from hell" look. we see it several dozen times a day. i think his teeth are really bothering him because he does say, "hurt" from time to time. but in general we have reached the dark depths of the terrible twos. man they are terrible. quentin can be altogether unbearable. thankfully, he's still cute.

sitting pretty with the kitty

use your noodle

caroline tried minced up pasta for the first time a couple of days ago. we were all eating leftover noodles for lunch and she was drooling over them. she was a big fan, as she has been with every type of food she's tried. she really enjoys feeding herself finger food.

bish on ice!

last wednesday, we took quentin to disney on ice - finding nemo. between monster trucks on saturday and bish a few days later, i think this kid was in heaven. the nemo show was set to the actual dialogue of the movie and followed the script as close as a live production on ice really could. as soon as Q heard the first line, he whipped his head toward the ice and never stopped staring. he was transfixed. the only time he got squirmy was during the intermission, and he calmed right down when daddy came back with cotton candy.

righteous! righteous!

it's like wicked dark down there, you can't see a thing. how's it going, bob?

mine. mine. mine. mine.

don't bother me, mom! i'm watching bish!

last set of molars

ugh.

8 months old!

caroline is 8 months old! she's become such a big girl. she's not quite crawling yet, but she does scooch and launch herself forward like an inchworm so it is only a matter of time. she is extremely interested in what's going on around her, especially what ever her brother is doing. she really likes to play with toys and is very interested in exploring how they work. and she definitely prefers to play with Q's toys rather than her own baby toys. we have to pry monster trucks out of her hands all the time. she also loves finger food. she eyes the can of gerber puffs until you give her some, and she'll have a fistful of them as soon as they hit her tray. she and quentin are currently spending a few days with grandma and grandpa while jeremy and i work on getting the house ready to go on the market next monday. we're going to pick up the babies tomorrow but not before we take quentin to see bish on ice (disney on ice, finding nemo edition.)

MONSTER JAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As our loyal readers are likely aware, Quentin LOVES monster trucks. We watch an absolutely horrible video about them at least three times a day. We've now seen it so much I could probably type the entire script from memory. There is also a video at daycare about them that he watches all the time as well. He also now has lots and lots of monster truck toys. His favorite one is Grave Digger, or in Quentin-speak "Digger." I got him a toy Grave Digger a month or so ago that has become attached to him, often ending up in his bed at night. With all this in mind, about three months ago I started looking to see if the monster trucks were coming to a town near us and they were. The Monster Jam was coming to the DCU Center in Worcester February 19-21. I checked my schedule and saw that I was amazingly not on call. So we got tickets. When grandpa heard about this he decided he was coming too!! So as part of an elaborate plan to go see monster trucks and dump the kids at the grandparents' we met grandma and grandpa for dinner right next to the DCU center. I got even more excited this week when I saw a commercial for the event saying that Grave Digger was going to be there. In addition, the Monster Mutt was going to be there. Not surprisingly, we have three Monster Mutt toys, I mean it is a monster truck that looks like a dog with floppy ears, a wagging tail, and tongue that moves! After dinner, the three boys went to see the trucks and the girls headed back to Western Mass.

I had a little trepidation going into this event. While I knew he would love to see the trucks, I was worried it was going to be so loud that he would freak out. Well, he loved it! I put some earplugs in his ears and amazingly he only took them out twice. As soon as he saw the Monster trucks, his eyes did not move away for one second. While I saw a parade of kids leaving because it was so loud, Quentin never flinched. We were seated in the first row of the second level and there was a guard rail in front of us. The only time he got upset during the two hour show was when I would peel him away from the guard rail so he wouldn't plummet onto some unsuspecting jabroni in the first level. I tried my best to keep him in my lap but occasionally I had to give in so he could look the rails and jump in sheer excitement. Grandpa bought him a Grave Digger flag that he waved with pride. He even caught on the idea of waving his hands to try to get the guy with the T-shirt cannon to shoot a shirt his way. He's really been going through a stage where he is pushing his boundaries and can really be a pain in the ass, i.e. like at gym class earlier in the day. However, last night reminded me how amazing being a father is and how much I love my son. Please notice that there are very few pictures of the front of his face because he would not turn away from the action for one second.

no seriously, we must be terribly boring

at the beginning of lunch today

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fading fast

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- actually chewing while snoozing - - out -

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to be fair to us and our mealtime conversation, the kid got up some time prior to 4 today. this is his new thing. he gets up somewhere between 1 and 4 and just stays up. he does play in his room for a bit before he starts calling for me, but still, today i gave in and went into his room at 4:26. we can't figure out what his deal is.

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also note that instead of eating his PB&J, he merely licked the peanut butter and jelly off the bread.

no shirt, no shoes, no service