Friday, October 10, 2003

Ok – an update at last. I compose regularly in my head and not at all on the computer. That said…

Quincy’s language has been the thing really fascinating me the past month or so. Mid to late August he really ramped it up and started trying to say most words that you said. Julia Reiff tells me that Ellie started her parrot stage mid-August. Her language skills are much more precise than Quincy’s (other people can understand her easily!). I sort of felt for a long time that Quincy must have been an Hawaiian in a previous life. He has every vowel sound going down pat but only about 5 constants – and almost the same ones they use. For a long time now Quincy has had possessive words down – mine, my, our, mommy’s, Aidan’s, etc. “My Turn” gets a good work out. But he is putting together 5 word sentences these days no problem. I seem to remember Aidan’s early longer sentences being full of nouns and verbs – “orange light blue truck” – leaving out the word “on” in the middle. Quincy has the “on”. He says things like “put it down right here” although it sounds more like “puh ih down righ here”. He often says “read A book”. And he’ll use “the” as well. He has picked up most of his colors along the way without any particular effort on our part. Perhaps because often he and Aidan will have matching things but in different colors – or he needs to tell us which color cup he wants. He clearly knows that the yellow chair belongs to Aidan and the green one is his. Both kids can get rather upset when the other uses their stuff although I think Quincy might even be more aware of it than Aidan when it comes to toys – he picks up a yellow car and tells me it is Aidan’s – but then asks where Quincy’s (pronounced Keency) red car is. Aidan would be happy to play with Quincy’s car if he came across it and not necessarily think of it as belonging to Quincy.

Quincy looked to be stretching out his night time sleeping before our summer trip to Europe – which of course wreaked havoc with his schedule esp as he wasn’t getting enough calories at a lot of meals. Unfortunately he hasn’t made any move back and is waking 2 or more usually 3 times a night and wanting to nurse! He can go all day without nursing quite easily however… The boys share the double bed futon in their room most nights. Interestingly this past week (Pete has been out of town) I have brought Quincy into bed with me for convenience in the middle of the night – and somewhere in the wee hours Aidan creeps into bed with us too. Clearly Aidan misses the company as he usually stays in his bed all night although perhaps once a week we get a 4 a.m. visit.

Aidan has had his school days increased to 4 afternoons a week. He loves it as he goes the same days Theo goes now. I haven’t been quite as enthusiastic about that… Aidan and Theo were inseparable until lately when they have been forced to separate at snacktime. The “new” teacher didn’t realize that they were best buddies and she told me that she felt so bad for Theo the last month of school (when we were gone) as he seemed so lonely. Aidan does fine without Theo but the reverse isn’t as true. The were going pee together – in the same toilet even! A few times they bumped heads as they were even so physically close together! I liked having the day different where Aidan played with other kids, but Aidan is quite happy with the current arrangement. Theo has a 2 year old sister Lillian that Quincy likes. We hang out at their house sometimes as they live half a block from school. Unfortunately they have a yappy small terrier that both of my kids are terrified of for no good reason so I sometimes end up with a kid in my lap or within 2’ of me at all times.

We are getting to see a lot of Thomas these days as we arranged the kids’ schedules so that they share Acrosports class at 9 a.m. on Tuesdays followed by playtime at our house before heading off to school. Wednesdays we head down to their house in Redwood City – a 40 min drive south. At least the weather is usually a very nice change from the city – never any fog! On Thomas’ birthday party day our car read 60 degrees as we headed out of town (and we were in dense fog at 1 p.m.) but was up to 77 degrees when we arrived. Ahh. Both boys got “bigger boy bikes” at about the same week as it turns out and we usually take our bikes down there as they live on a dead end street on the flat. The biking interest has died down a bit – and Aidan is always a bit more interested than Thomas. We usually take our swim stuff too and use their pool. Quincy was VERY into that although we haven’t gone in the last 2 weeks. Unfortunately their pool guy comes Wed mornings and adds a bunch of new (cool) water so the pool isn’t as warm as “usual” (Sara installed solar heating). They now have a 5 bedroom home with a large downstairs play area. Quincy usually tries to drag me down their first thing (open door mommy!) as there is usually the train set up. Thomas still has trouble thinking of Quincy as anything other than a baby who eats toys (and Quincy never did much toy eating) and tries hard to exclude him often. The bigger boys often head right into Thomas’ room and SLAM goes the door in Quincy’s face. Aidan sometimes tries to intervene for Quincy esp if I have a little talk to Thomas about letting Quincy play with something – then Aidan will jump right into policeman mode and try to enforce “sharing”.

We joined Thomas for his Wednesday swim class once (and watched it the week before that). He goes to an outdoor (but covered) 92 degree pool. And this summer he really learned to swim – he does laps and is working on various strokes. We are just very excited that Aidan is no longer absolutely terrified of the water and is OK about getting his face wet! He is also willing to splash around now with just waterwings or a life preserver on – a huge step forward. Quincy given the right opportunity would be swimming by now – he loves the water and automatically goes into full kicking mode. He just gets cold (clue lips) very very easily as he has no body fat on him.

Now Wednesday mornings we go to our local park where Coach Jamie has Soccerkids Class. There are a couple of other kids from Aidan’s school and class is at least half girls (often much bigger girls!). Coach Jamie is GREAT. I am not sure we will keep on with it though. First class it took 30 of the class’ 40 minutes to get Aidan on the field. Next class Aidan insisted that I run along side him holding his hand (and carrying Quincy). 3rd class I got to stand out in the field with them (as opposed to all other moms hanging out back on the far sidelines) but I didn’t have to hold his hand nor do much running (still have to hold Quincy). This last time I was out there standing nearby for much of the class but was allowed to go to the regular mom area for some of the time. Hmm. Jamie does a lot of fun games like have the kids pretend they are dinosaurs collecting eggs (soccer balls) and raiding the other kids “nests”. I think Aidan thought these games were soccer. They finally had a “real” game this 4th class – where they also saw the goals for the 1st time and learned to “power” kick. Some of the kids have been taking classes for a while. Anyway toward the end of time they finally divided into teams and played a “real” game of soccer. I was horrified to see Aidan get knocked down and another kid fall over him but coach handled it beautifully and Aidan got a free kick off it that happened to make one of only 2 goals scored. Aidan had told me earlier in the class then he doesn’t really like to run after the ball after he kicks it (he likes to leisurely walk!) and I realized that soccer probably was NOT the game for him! Aidan is one of the few boys I know who does like to just RUN. He is pretty good at it and certainly enjoys running up and down our hallway with Quincy…

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