Potpourri

The Big Update

First, for the prerequisite apology. My wife and my mother both have scolded me for not having an update out here for going on 2 months now, so here is the big update.

Quin Does Music

Over the last 2 months, Quin has put his musical skills on display. He enjoys listening to music on his CD player in his room - last night he told his babysitter all about the music player he had in his room with at least 10 CDs! He also told her that he had a really big bed. Something tells me that he is starting to develop his pickup lines early. Anyway, he loves listening to all kinds of music, but some of his favorites are “Sexy and I Know It” by LMFAO (he sings it “Sexxies and I Know It”) and “Moves Like Jagger” by Marroon 5, which Quin sings “Moves like Quinton.” His moves are not to be taken lightly. He very much enjoys doing “The Booty Dance” for us (sorry, I don’t have a video), particularly when Ethan is showing us some of his moves. More on that later.

Quinton on Food

Quinny has become quite the food expert. He likes food - a lot. It takes quite a bit of food to support his ever growing body. He likes to tell me, “Dad, I’m growing bigger!” A recent trip to the doctor confirmed that statement to the tune of 45 inches tall and 45 pounds - his 4 year old checkup! I don’t like to brag, but he’s off the chart for height and at the 95th percentile on weight, though he is modestly at the 50th percentile on the weight per height metric. Anyway - food. Though I believe his favorite food continues to be spaghetti, a newcomer to the race is the corndog, which Quinton pronounces “Horndog!” I’m pretty sure it is among his favorites because of its ability to get large quantities of ketchup into his mouth. We were out with some friends a couple of weeks ago where Quin ordered a “horndog.” Though he was the only one using the full bottle of ketchup at the table, by the end of the meal, over half of it was gone…

Quinton on Climbing

Quinton has swimming lessons on Tuesday nights - Ethan has lessons on Thursdays. Our YMCA is equipped with a rock climbing wall, complete with auto-belay systems and equipment for all ages to climb. The first week Quinton had lessons, we let Ethan climb the wall for his first time - well, his first time in awhile. He did pretty well, but Quinton was entranced. He wanted to try it, but we had to go. During Ethan’s lesson on Thursday, Quinton got in trouble at school, so his punishment was no rock climbing (yes, meanest. parents. ever.).

Well, finally, a week later, Quinton managed to be good enough at school and home that we were going to try rock climbing with him during Ethan’s lesson. We walked up to get his equipment but were almost turned away as their policy had apparently only recently (within the last week) been changed to include 4 year olds in the eligible age group. So they strapped Quin up and put him on lane 5, the beginner’s wall. It’s still 40 feet high (I think), but the pegs are a little closer together and the wall doesn’t vary in and out all that much like the more advanced walls do. His first try he made it up a few feet before he jettisoned from the wall and was gently let down by the auto-belay system. The next time he did about the same. I figured he would be ready to go by then, but he just walked right back up to the wall again and again, determined to climb. By his 4th try, he finally escaped the gravitational pull of the ground and climbed about half way up the wall. The lady that was helping him was stunned - I couldn’t stop grinning. This 4 year old was laying waste to several teenagers attempting to climb at the same time. By the time he reached 15-20 feet, he again let go and gently fell to the floor - which I figured would be the end of it, but he went right back to the wall. A few more failed attempts and I convinced him to take a rest, but he was hooked, and had become somewhat of a local celebrity.

We went through one more session of this while Ethan was at his lesson and while Jenny ran upstairs, then I convinced him that we should go play in the family room where they have a cool tunnel toy and computer games. When Jenny came back from her run and Ethan was done with his lesson, I was relating the story to the two of them. At this point, the competitive juices were flowing through Ethan. He climbed well the week before, but had never “rung the bell” at the top of the wall, so he was going to climb. Quin wanted to climb again, too, and Jenny (kind of) wanted to see him do it.

Well, Ethan made it up to the top of several lanes as well as the very difficult rope ladder, for the first time, and Quin again made it up quite high, this time at least 2/3 of the way to the top. Below you will find the video of Jenny’s reaction to our newly turned 4 year olds newly found obsession.

Ethan

Ethan continues to stay busy. He continues to take piano lessons and has recently joined the school Swing Choir. While he hasn’t had a concert yet, he has been learning the moves to the dances, which he occasionally comes home to show us. Of course, when he shows us his moves, Quin immediately wants to show us his own moves, which are actually very good - sometimes he even ends doing some sort of Little Richard drop to the floor…

Cub Scouts has (finally) come to and end for Ethan and I when we celebrated his receiving of the Arrow of Light, Cub Scout’s highest honor. He was very excited to be done with Cub Scouts, but also wants to move on to Boy Scouts and eventually earn his Eagle Scout. We’ll see if he can stick to it, but right now that’s the plan!

Basketball is also (finally) over for the year. Ethan’s team took first place in their league, and also won the St. Killian’s of Hartford Tournament. In all he got 2 basketball trophies this year, the first for a second place finish in an earlier tournament. Ethan improved a lot this year, but still has a ways to go before he can compete with some of the other boys on the team. Most importantly, he learned a lot, and had fun doing it. I think he will probably try it again next year, and has actually been shooting around a lot since the season ended.

As a funny aside, the basketball tournament he had was in Hartford, about a 45 minute drive from our house. The way it worked, he played on consecutive Tuesdays, then played the championship game on a Saturday, so we were driving back and forth between Hartford and our house a few times during that tournament. The first game was what we thought was an 8:15 game, which turned out to be a miscommunication, so we got there late like almost the entire team did. That aside, they managed to win the game by 8:30, so Ethan and I were traveling back home through Hartford when we passed a sign that said “Free Scoop if your name is Ethan.” I pulled over, parked the car, and Ethan ran into the ice cream shop that was boasting the sign. Being somewhat more cautious, I casually walked up to the shop and noticed that they were clearly cleaning up for closing. A quick glance at the placard out front indicated that they closed at 8:30, and my watch read 8:45. So I hung out outside and watched the scene transpire. Ethan walked confidently up to the counter, talked with a girl in uniform. She nodded, he pointed, she built him a cone, handed it to him, then said something. He shook his head, nodded, then walked out. I later found out what the conversation entailed. After boldly entering the “closed” shop, without missing a beat, he ordered a single scoop of Blue Moon. After the girl behind the counter handed him the cone, she said it would be $3.25. He said, “no it won’t - my name’s Ethan,” and then walked out. I never did tell him that the shop was closed…

This basketball tournament was ripe with interesting conversation since we had 90 minutes to kill in the car each time we traveled up there. On one trip, I don’t know how the conversation arrived on the topic, but we started talking about sex. I remembered that we had our talk about our bodies with the doctor when we were in fifth grade, so I figured he was going to be getting a lot of information some time in the near future, so I asked him, “so, you know that sex is how babies are made, right?” He answered, yes. I then asked him if he knew what it was. He said, “kind of. Isn’t it that thing that people do with those weird balloons?” I didn’t know how to react, so I stuck with the blunt approach. “You mean condoms? Where did you hear about those?” He told me that it was in the movie that he and I had watched, “The Naked Gun” with Leslie Nielson and Prescilla Preslie. There is a montage scene in there where the two of them fall in love, and being released in the 80s, safe sex was being preached, so the comical ending to the falling in love montage had them performing safe sex with each other in full body condoms… So I’m not sure how much he still understands, but hopefully he’s not getting all of his information from the movies that I let him watch.