Things are going good around these parts. Quentin is walking everywhere which is totally fun and totally frustrating. Mostly fun though. Having a toddler is much more fun than I ever thought possible. After spending all that time taking care of toddlers during church while I was in nursery I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy this stage, but while there are times when I can't wait until nap time/bed time over all I am really enjoying getting to know Quentin and his little personality. He makes us laugh all the time as he claps every time we say good job or yay or he sees other people clapping, either on tv or in real life. It's really fun seeing him doing new things and experiencing things for the first time. I love that he likes to be around us and know that it won't last forever.
We're still in an apartment, which isn't bad, but we're really looking forward to moving into a house and having space for Quentin to run around and play inside and outside. We bought a little dining set on Craigslist and I'm so happy to have chairs so we can actually eat around the table together instead of in front of the tv. Quentin is learning how to eat dinner without the tv on, it was a great means of distraction and he always ate so much better so we let him do it forever and now he's addicted.
Quentin has been eating pretty well. He has one snack a day generally. I had him eating those vegetable sticks, but I think he's gotten sick of them because he won't really eat them now. I did buy some freeze dried bananas from Trader Joe's and he loves those. He likes to eat oatmeal so that's good to have for breakfast since it fills him up. I put peanut butter and bananas or apple sauce in there and he likes that. I haven't given him any juice since we rarely drink it ourselves and I finally found a sippy cup he can use by himself so he's been drinking more water lately. For whatever reason he couldn't/wouldn't lift the other one high enough and when I filled it up with more water it was too heavy so I bought one with a straw and that works great.
I've decided to nurse him until 18 months and then we'll probably start cutting down. I haven't started having my period yet, which is awesome, but we'd like to have another kid sometime next year so hopefully cutting down on breastfeeding will help that.
He still wakes up every night at about 5 AM to nurse. Our walls are paper thin so I can't let him cry-it-out and it's not too big of a deal since he goes to bed by 7 PM. He'll probably stop doing it when he stops nursing since there won't be any reason to wake up anymore. He usually sleeps until 7 AM lately and that makes a world of difference for me and for him. When he wakes up at 6 AM he's always really cranky and I just have a really hard time waking up before 7.
He usually only has one two hour nap at about 11 AM, but I think he would probably like to have another one since he usually has a major break down at about 4 PM. It's just hard because my husband comes home from work at about 3:30 PM and then he wants to play with his dad and then it's dinner time followed by bath time and bed time. I'm not sure when to slip another one in.
We go to zumba at a church on the west side of Albuquerque three times a week and that's been nice for Quentin to get out and meet other kids and play. I don't really talk much to the other women, but it's good to have somewhere to go and have extra motivation to exercise. Quentin has had some diareah problems and has had major blowouts in the morning so cleaning up poop has become a regular thing.
We went to the pediatrician on May 21 and he's still low in the weight percentiles and normal in the height. The doctor says that's normal for kids who are nursed and that the percentiles where set up in the 1970s using only formula fed babies. Quentin did not enjoy any of the doctor's visit but I thought the doctor was really nice and reminded me of my cousin Jake who is doing his residency in pediatrics. We went to a practice that has three locations so we'll probably go to the west side location once we move.
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