Science Fair

Our dusty old fixer upper of a house let out another groan yesterday as our water heater had a wazzering incident. Did we forget to wrap that thing in depends? I entered the garage to get the lawn mower to cut the grass when I remember that we didn't have a swimming pool located in our garage. If we were so fortunate we definitely agreed that we would put the pool in the back yard. Hmm, what could it be? My first thought was we really have a problem with our roof but then I realized we were in the middle of a drought as witnessed by my sorry excuse for a lawn. I thought, well, a roof is probably very expensive so that was a relief. What else could it be? Then I realized we had a 40 gallon tank of water in the garage. Well, correction, it was a 40 gallon tank of water. Now, it's just a 40 gallon tank of air, grime and grit as the water, well, I was wading in the water. That nice warm spa water. One would think it would be relaxing to finish a hard day of work and have an instant spa installed in your garage, but it wasn't pleasant at all.

We played the $259 Million dollar Powerball lottery just that morning. I looked online and knew that there was one winner and the Powerball was 27, which we had on a ticket. Yes, today is the day I retire! Then reality...We weren't the Powerball winners, we were the water heater losers. It doesn't sound as glamorous but we did have some guys show up in a big truck, but they wanted a check instead of presenting one. That is the definition of buzz kill. And so we are now the proud owners of a brand spanking new water heater, which was immediately wrapped in depends in case this one doesn't know where the potty is either.

Since there was water all over the place and many things bathing in the water that ironically, don't like water there was some clean up that needed to take place. We realized we have some junk so that got tossed and in the process I came across a snake skin. Carrie, caught a snake trying to sneak into our garage coming home the other day. It may have been actually sneaking out. The entire snake skin was in there and since I had my tools out I had a tape measure handy. The skin was 29 inches long. I wonder what the odds are of that thing getting in your house? That doesn't seem like a very small snake and since it was shedding its skin that means it's getting bigger right? Cue creepy music now. Can that thing eat my boy? No, it wasn't that big, but we saved the skin for Q's first science fair. Kind of neat and kind of gross. I guess every water heater failure has a silver lining.

I would like to congratulate Mr. and Mrs. Sloppy on the birth of their first child, a girl named Jalina, which we nicknamed Sloperina to go with the family theme. This is their first child so they can kiss their sleep good bye for eternity. Congratulations!

The picture is of Q and Carrie at the Rays game last weekend.

Crawling

Alright here is the video, which is a little grainy and slightly outdated. He's actually quite a bit faster than this today, but it gives you an idea of how he his technique looks gimpy. I shot a great video this weekend but had the camera tilted and as soon as I finished taping it I realized I had the camera on an angle and you can't change the view of the picture so unless everyone wanted to tilt their head I couldn't upload it and of course Q didn't want to replicate it. He is all over the place and can cover a lot of ground in a hurry. One would think he would be a lot more tired and sleep sounder, but he's still struggling in that department.

The kid is a magnet for the dog bowls. This morning he was running around the master bedroom bathroom, busted out the door, through the bedroom, out into the living room where he traversed a good 20 feet, around the corner and straight into the kitchen to find the dog bowls at 7:30 this morning. It's all this kid thinks about! He must of woke up and been like I can't wait to get into that swimming pool! We need to invest in a baby gate, but for the moment we have put one of the stools for the breakfast bar down on the floor between the dining room and kitchen and he hasn't attempted to break in yet so that's the best solution to date.

We also set up the new furniture and of course Q was immediately determined to bust into the new cabinets for our TV components. He has to get really close to the cabinet doors to be able to pull them open but then when he does he's too close for the door to swing open. When he pulls them open his balance is off because the door swings so wide so he takes a backwards header ending in tough guy tears. Then he recomposes himself and goes right back for the cabinets. So far the cabinets are winning though. Parents 1-child-0!

This past weekend we took a trip to Tropicana Field and watched the Rays beat the Jays in exciting fashion hitting a grand slam in the bottom of the 8th breaking a 1-1 tie. It was fun to watch and Quentin was a big hit with the fans. Sundays are family days so you can play catch on the field with your kid an hour before the game and after it ends run the bases. He's not quite there yet, but soon we'll be out there. We of course, got yet another free Rays hat as kids 14 and under (have that base easily covered) received a Rays' visor so Q got one of those. He has quite a bit of room before filling that one out, though. We had a nice time and Q made it through the four hour game even taking a nap in the stands for about 45 minutes at one point. He had a whole section of fans admiring his smile. Cow bells are big and he had one ringing it constantly getting all kinds of compliments on his technique. Enjoy the video!

Ghetto Swimming Pool

Our child crawls like Captain Gimpy and I don't think he's going to perfect his style. He drags one leg like it's paralyzed and pulls himself with his hands. It's not efficient but it doesn't appear to be slowing him down at all. Yesterday we found him in the kitchen sitting in Lucky's food bowl splashing around his water bowl. Check out the video. He was enjoying his personal day at the spa.

He is also learning how to share with his older brother. He is in direct competition with Lucky for Lucky's toys. He has zero interest in the toys we buy him. We went to great lengths to make sure Lucky understood that Q's toys were his and not Lucky's. We have had 99% success. We didn't think Quinny would be quite so enamored with Lucky's toys. The Luckster has this purple rubber bone and Quentin is at tantrum throwing strength when the dog has it and he doesn't. Q will crawl all over the house chasing it down. The dog is pretty good about giving it up when Quentin gets really crabby but I don't think we really want the dog sharing his well drooled on toys with Quinny.

Due to Quentin's new mobility we had to buy some new furniture. Out with the "dangerous" coffee table with its sharp edges and head splitting corners and in comes Mr. Storage Ottoman of similar size. Lucky's real estate has shrunk because he can't get under the table (ottoman) any more but the ottoman has room for all of Q's current level of toys and some extra space for blankets and such. This past weekend Quentin pulled the DVD player off the open entertainment center so we bought a new one (entertainment center, not DVD player) with cabinet doors that we can lock but are glass so the remotes still work. We can't have Q destroying the Direct TV receiver during football season! That would classify as a true emergency! The NFL ticket might be the most valuable thing in this house outside of the humans and of course our beloved pooch. Tomorrow the outlets get covered as Quinny took a shot at sticking his fingers in the outlet directly above Lucky's bowls after playing in his water bowl. Is that bad? Again, we are really after that parent of the year award and if your kid electrocutes himself I think that automatically voids you of winning. We don't want him to look like Yahoo Serious either. After all we did just cut those locks! We also need to lock down the rest of the cabinets in the kitchen. I don't know what's next, we just take things day by day.

Tomorrow I will add some video of Captain Gimpy crawling with his peg leg. I couldn't resist the water bowl video today.