Gavin had his nine month check up today and he's growing up fast. He has four teeth coming in on the top and has his two front ones on the bottom. He's starting to copy us when we do things like shake our head no. Every day he gets more alert, curious and mobile. About 10 days ago he made the plunge from stationary to regular army crawler. He's not officially crawling yet but he can go pretty much where ever he likes. He's mostly focused on things on the floor like the dog bowls, dog toys, any kind of paper (he likes the rustling noise), and of course Quinny's toys. So far they share pretty well. Quentin does like to take away whatever Gavin's playing with I think just so he knows who is the man around here.
In the mean time we are focused on getting the place childproofed. Quinny was pretty good about staying out of the cupboards but we know we have an uphill battle of keeping him out of places he shouldn't be. This time around with Quentin leaving a constant trail of destruction we'll have a more challenging go of it. We've already struck out twice trying to barricade the stairs off. Our gate from Tampa along with an extension isn't wide enough. We ordered some more parts but they don't fit either so it's back to the drawing board.
We've been doing quite a bit of driving around with the whole family in tow this summer whether that's up at Carrie's parent's place in Prairie Du Chien on the mighty Mississippi or heading back and forth between here and Lake Geneva. The boys have been pretty good but the dog has been a massive pain. He's such a spasz in the car. He's constantly trying to get into the back seat with the boys drooling on them, breathing stinky breath on them and generally doing anything but lying down and relaxing for the sometimes 4+ hour trip.
This past weekend we headed up to Gilbertville, about an hour drive, to celebrate Carrie's Grandparent's 60th wedding anniversary. If I make it to 91 years old Carrie and I have a shot at matching that number. I can't imagine there are too many people out there that are married for 60 years. Good for you guys. So we get about 20 country miles out of town, essentially just far enough to not be able to easily get home when a stench of monstrous proportions hits me like a sledge hammer. Oh my. What is that? Keep in mind Stinky wasn't in the car so we couldn't blame the dog. It was bad. I mean really bad. I told Care we have to pull over. I am never going to make it another 40 minutes with that in the car. We know there is a gas station 5 minutes down the road so it's plug your nose city until then. It's about 110 outside. (It's so ironic that it's 20 degrees warmer here in the summer time and 80 degrees colder in the winter than Tampa. I asked my buddy yesterday what's the most enjoyable month to live here. He replied, "The one you go on vacation)." Ha!
Anyway, I have the window cracked because this car needs some fresh air. Carrie is in the back middle with one boy on both sides. She, apparently, decided she needed a closer look. Um, I'm not sure what that was all about but not a great idea. She soon discovered why it stank so bad. There was a blow out. I'm not talking I need to change a tire with your run of the mill blowout. I'm talking poop was easing out of every orifice this kid's got. I mean it's like we made a stewing pot of pooh and then placed our child in it for the ride to Grandma's house. Gavin is directly behind me so I can't really see but I take a look back at Care, who just happens to be wearing a white skirt for the occasion that has a few new alterations, a rather notable six inch streak of pooh stew on it. At this point there is some swerving, some speeding, some nose holding and a minor amount of sheer panic. We finally and I mean finally get to the gas station and don't forget it's a 127 degrees outside because Iowa turns into Mexico in the summertime and then we realize we can't even figure out how to get him out of the car without spilling the special sauce all over the upholstery, which we definitely don't want.
I get out and carefully get him, still contained in the car seat out, so Carrie can climb out of the middle and we open the back hatch and place him there. At this point we unbuckle him and are holding him like he's the first human on the planet to come down with the plague as in by two fingers holding him as far away from our bodies as possible as we lay down a roll of paper towels to place him on. At this point Quinny wants out of the car to watch. And the other families in the parking lot want to too. It was a pay-per-view event. I take Quinny into the gas station to get something to eat and they have a popcorn machine in there so he wants popcorn. Normally that would be great but we are knee deep, literally, in poop so everyone's hands in a bag of poopcorn, oops total typo, sounds like the most unappealing snack of all time at the moment. By the time we get outside we have one naked boy in the back of the tailgate and one garbage bag filled to the brim with nastiness.
The kid has to go back into the car seat and man, let me tell you, we're going to need a hose and not any old hose but a power washing hose to get this thing clean so we ultimately decide to sacrifice the diaper bag changing section and line the car seat with that so we can leave the gas station. Then the impossible. Carrie wants to salvage the $6 outfit he was wearing, which ultimately means poopy pants will be riding in the car. She's sentimentally attached to the outfit because it was one of Quinny's. Uh-huh. Well, there's certain things you don't mess with the wife on and this request seemed to rest firmly in that category so after rummaging around we found a one gallon Ziploc bag and put the offending clothes in there, sealed it up tight and put it in the spare tire compartment. This was a story about a blowout remember? Outside of the wife running around with a camouflage streaked white skirt we were, shall we say on our way to a clean getaway.
Oh the joys, the wonderful joys of parenting! The video is of Gavin enjoying lunch with his momma. What can we say? The kid enjoys a good chuckle.
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