Potty Training

Ohhhh, the time has come - Quinn actually wants to potty train! For the last days she has been going pee pee on the potty for us and for Tiana! Obviously, we have a long way to go, but the fact that she gets excited to go pee on the potty makes us very excited ourselves!

Mom, do you have no shame? I'm trying to GO here!

Ok, I'll pose. I guess we need to remember this day!

Now, the downside to this wonderful journey is that Quinn has learned to use "poo poo" and "pee pee" as a stall tactic when it comes time to go to bed. She is usually very good at bedtime, but within the past week or so, it has become quite a chore. She is staying up sometimes until 9-9:30pm! And almost every night she is stripping at least her PJ bottoms off. Last night she decided to take everything off - even her diaper! She peed ALL over the mattress so Kirch and I gave her a stern talking-to and we stripped her bed and re-made it. By the time we got her back into bed it was almost 10pm. This is getting old quick - I think we may have to show some tough love this weekend (which is just SO hard to do!!!) I talked to the nurse about it today on the phone and she told me to put her in a onesie, duct tape it, and explain to her that it's time for bed, and she can cry, but Mommy and Daddy won't be back into see her until the sun comes up. It's so much easier said than done... we'll see how it goes!

4 Days Late, but Happy Birthday, Mom

I thought about my mother all day on January 15th. She would've been 55. I can't believe she's been gone for 17 months now. I find myself wanting to call her all the time and tell her about all of the discoveries and new things Quinn is doing. When Quinn is sick, I want to talk to her - I want to ask her what she did with Eric and me in those same situations. When I have a general child-rearing question, I want to pick up the phone and call... When we went home for Christmas, I wished we could've stopped by to spend the day with her instead of stopping by her grave...

Anyway, Happy Birthday Mom - we love you and miss you every day. Your picture is in Quinn's scrapbook and she'll always know who you are.

The first and last time my Grandma held me...

Once-a-Week Blogger

I have found it so difficult since I started my new job back in October to find the time to keep up on this blog. That's mainly because I'm actually busy as hell at work - and that is a GOOD thing! But since now mainly I come home, play with Quinn, get her dinner made, give her a bath, and get her ready for bed, I don't even have the time or energy to get on the computer after all of that is said and done. So I have accepted the cold hard truth that I'm now a once-a-week blogger, if that. So here I am, on a Saturday afternoon, trying to get an entry in while Quinn is down for her nap. And I've already been interrupted about 5 times, with changing the laundry, answering the phone, answering the door, checking on Quinn... AND I haven't even really blogged about Quinn yet! Whew!

Anyway, got that off my chest. I'm thirsty. I need a drink before I can continue :-)

OK.

So, Quinn is very close to correctly counting to 10! She gets 1, 2, 3 out, then usually repeats 2 once or twice, then skips to 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. It's just so cute... 7 is "feden". And 3 is, of course, "fee". But she's super close. She is also getting clumps of her ABC's right. For instance, A, B, C... then she just screws them all up until, O, P, Q... She's getting there! I think she'll have a pretty good handle on them right around her 2nd birthday - which is only 7 weeks away! I can't believe our little baby is going to be 2. I can't get all nostalgic right now, it'll only depress me and remind me that my birthday is only 3 weeks away.

I am making Quinn her very own scrapbook. I'm putting pictures of people she doesn't get to see very often in it so she can remember and recognize mainly my family and friends that are in Michigan and Arizona. But, of course, I have all of her crazy Kircher relatives in there, too. It's been a really fun project for me and I look forward to sitting down at bedtime with her and going through the book, seeing who's names she remembers and who's faces she recognizes. Some of the pictures above will make it into her book!

It's All Over but the Shoutin'

Well, things just got more nerve-wracking for us at the Kircher Household this morning... Quinn climbed up on our very high-off-the-ground king sized bed this morning. I think it is now officially impossible to let her out of our sight for more than a minute or so at a time. This parenting thing is stressful! Currently she is on our spare bed in the computer room as I blog, asking to get down. Now isn't that how it works? She wants no part of our help in getting up, but once she's up there, it's a little scarier for her to get down on her own. The perils of a 22-month-old...

Quinn's language has really exploded since our Christmas break in Michigan. She finally started giving 2-word commands and copied just about everything everyone was saying. She's still a one-word-sentence kind of girl, but when she was talking to Pop's dog Farina, she'd say, "Yay down!" or "Wake up!" It's progress in the most precious way. She got the movie "Happy Feet" for Christmas, and now she walks around the house saying, "Happy T-Feet! Happy T-Feet!"

I can't believe we're less than 2 months from our daughter's 2nd birthday. She's so independent now. She has inherited the Kircher short temper and gets very frustrated quickly if things don't go her way. She also loves to dress up. Hats are her favorite. She will go into the winter hat/gloves basket at our front door and put a hat on - then she will seek me out to show me how stinking cute she looks!

Quinn also loves taking care of her babies - all 65,ooo of them, I swear! And, what is it with little girls taking the clothes off of their babies? All of Quinn's baby dolls are naked and Kirch and I are constantly dressing them!

I think Quinn's favorite words right now are, EAT, NO and AGAIN. Oh, and JUMP. She loves to hold our hands and jump up high and then say, "Again, again!" It's amazing the level of energy that comes out of a child. She keeps us running from dawn till dusk!

I can brush my teeth like a big girl!

Well, sure I'll pose for the camera in between feeding my babies!

Pretend Play

Quinn got a tea set (well 2, actually - one stayed at Grandma & Poppy's in Michigan) for Christmas and she just loves playing with it. It still just blows my mind how a 22-month-old "gets it." She pours the tea, and stirs it, then drinks it up! I'm trying to get this blog in while she's playing at my feet, demanding me to "Pyay! Pyay!" So I get about a line in and then have to get onto the floor with her to drink some tea.

We have yet to get her Dora kitchen set together. That is my mission today... it's been sitting in our dining room, still wrapped in the brown paper I packaged it up in when we sent it from Michigan. How pathetic are we? It's a good thing what she doesn't see sort of slips her mind!

And there it sits.... Bad Mommy & Daddy!

Here are some pics and a video from our early morning tea party just minutes ago...

Let me pour some tea for you, Mommy!


Would you like some sugar?

This is, by far, my best pot yet!