Going Out

It's been pretty chilly around these parts lately. Yesterday it was in the 30s when I took the pooch for a walk. So, because it's been so cold we have all been going a little stir crazy in the house so we have been venturing to shall we say, interesting venues with Q in tow to get out of the house. This past weekend we checked out Lowe's. Yup, that's the life we are kicking these days. It's fun to let your kid play with saws, drills and other pointy objects when someone else's liability is on the line. It's really unbelievable how big a Lowe's is and how much enjoyable family time one can spend in a 30 acre store. Shockingly, Lowe's didn't cure the cabin fever so we decided to go out for dinner.

When you go our for dinner at 5pm with the hope your one year old will not get crabby until after you get home you are afforded the best deals (happy hour!) and you only have to body check the over 65 crowd to get the best seat in the house. There is that and with it being fairly empty your service should be improved. So we went to a quasi bar-b-que Florida restaurant and decided to order the Qster some mac n' cheese. He insisted on eating it with a big person, awfully pointy fork. I obliged because dad's are pretty much here to push the envelope, let kids do what they aren't supposed to and give them a BB gun at far too early of an age to see if the old mother's adage of "you'll shoot your eye out" is true. So, of course I gave him the giant pointy fork. I was astounded to find out that the kid actually knows how to use one effectively. He was stabbing that pasta like he's been using one for years. And he was getting them into his mouth even though his fork was four inches longer than it needed to be. So our son is officially part of the civilized world. He uses eating utensils.

He wanted down by the end of dinner so I put him on the floor and this is the kind of place that allows you to discard your peanut shells on the floor (that's where the quasi part comes in) so he's digging the crunching noise. As Q is taking his sweet time winding his way through the tables trying to get out and avoid the speedy staff (it was like frogger because no one is looking out for someone 30 inches tall) the ladies are taking notice. Everyone is lovin' on little Q. He's got his farmer red/black plaid coat on and being all adult like cruising around so they are getting a kick out of it. We finally wind our way to the entrance and with it being early there is an abundance of hostesses; approximately 5. The oooh's and ahhh's come out in full force and he's loving it. So he just stops and poses, smiling for a bit giving them enough time to soak him all in. So handsome! One wants a hug and so he waits her out and goes in for the hug. Uh-oh. We are going to have to work on our stranger danger later. He wouldn't leave. Here we are like 5 feet from the door but he can't pull himself away from the lady action. He's a chick magnet. We'll have to take him to the beach when it gets warmer.

We finally get why people have kids - so they can get the chores down faster. Here he is outside raking the lawn for me. What a great helper!

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

A fundraising conference was hosted in Tampa this week so I had clients and colleagues in town. Instead of me traveling to them all of them traveled to me. That was a nice change of pace. Yesterday I spent the day at the conference and had lunch with some clients and then took a prospective client out to dinner to try to woo them into becoming one of my own. Since I was out late I didn't get a chance to see Quentin after saying our morning good-byes. My dinner went well, so I was happy to come home and share the events with Carrie. Quentin was of course fast asleep. As we were heading off to bed I picked up the monitor to take a look at the little rascal before hitting the sack and he was sleeping in tripod fashion. He was totally balanced on his forehead with his butt up in the air, essentially standing on his legs. I just figured this can't be comfortable so I set out to lay him down properly, cover him up and say good night. Carrie warned me not to do it. She said he'll wake up but I was confident I could sneak in there and push him down without him being any wiser.

Well, it turns out wifey knows best. I was ninja quiet entering the room, picked up the blanket and with Swiss watch making preciseness gently laid the blanket on top of him. In a flash he jumped up and I immediately realized why he was sleeping in the tripod formation. It was exactly for this moment. He sleeps that way so he can spring upon you like a cat waiting for its prey. He pounced on me. It was dark I thought I could blend into the darkness of the room. I was in a dark suit. I froze. Seconds seemed liked hours. I thought there is no way he spotted me. I must have nearly got caught, but still escaped. But no, my watch dog kid totally busted me. The water works came on in full force. "Why won't you hold me? Why are you imprisoning me in this crib? How come you don't love me?" he wailed. I tried the goodnight I love you approach but to no avail. The crying started at 10:30 pm. It was still going on at 1:30 AM even after numerous visits to comfort him. We brought him into bed with us as a last resort. Anything to hit the sack. Q is religiously getting up between 4:30-5 AM every single morning so to still be up at 1:30 AM and knowing our human alarm clock is going to actually get up at 5 AM at the latest thrusts an enormous amount of stress and anxiety upon you as you ponder how you will get through tomorrow's work day on three hours of sleep.

He's swimming in the bed. We have a giant bed, but it's not big enough for our son. At 2:30 I give up and take refuge in my man-room and let the real man of the house have three quarters of the bed as Carrie is now a refugee on the remaining quarter. I wake up in my Bucky Badger chair, because of course any self respecting man room would have one, around 3:30 am and listen intently to see if I can hear the throws of lightest sleeper in the world still tossing and turning. I find I have the TV tuned to black and white WWII coverage. I still love history, even at 3 am. I sneak back downstairs (notice the irony of dad banished to upstairs and child laying claim to adult downstairs) and climb into bed. Guess what? Q got up at 4:30 AM. Unbelievable. He was ready to go to like he had just gotten 12 hours. I don't think I am going to survive this child. Even the dog bolted out of the room and hid out in the bathroom all night trying to catch some Z's. It's quite disturbing but I actually find myself jealous of the dog sometimes in that he sleeps all day and can find R & R corners in our house when I, well I just can't. You really shouldnt' be envious of your dog.

We had a few left over Christmas presents so we gave Quinny one the other night - a basketball hoop. Here he is for the first time learning to shoot.

The Florida State Fair is Number 1!

Let me start by saying the blog has had some trouble viewing the videos. There is a solution. Click on the title of the post and the video will reload and play. I'm not sure what the problem is but this will work. So, if you click on the title, "My Dog is a Metro" the video will reload and then play.

I am way behind with my blog postings so I am hoping I can get caught up this weekend on some recent events. Last weekend we attended the Florida State Fair. We are in the midst of the 6th coldest winter on record since 1890 so we weren't sure if we could brave it with Quinny but decided to forge ahead on a cold, windy overcast day with temperatures in the mid to high 40s. Brrrrrr. We didn't know what to expect, which is one of the reasons we wanted to attend. For example in Wisco there would be lots of barns and things you could do inside to get out of the cold, so we were hoping for a similar environment.

Let's start with the food. Our state, it turns out, is far from healthy. We had delicious treats at the fair such as fried butter, cheese burgers with donuts in place of buns, fried brats, fried candy bars and fried dough. Where to begin. The fried butter took 3-4 patties of butter, breaded them and then deep fried them. You could get a basket of 4 (16 patties of butter) for $4. We passed. My doctor applauds. (Notice the people in line, though). The cheese burger was the most ingenious replacing the bun with two full sized (top & bottom) Krispy Kreme donuts. Yumm! We passed on that as well. I actually have had deep fried brats before so I didn't go that route either. Keep in mind a single brat alone is sporting 28 grams of fat and I'm a two fister. We did bump into a Wisconsin cheese stand so we indulged there and had some curds. We settled for some Gyros, candy including jaw breakers that were bigger than you could fit in your mouth even trying to cram it in there, chocolate covered peanuts and the aforementioned cheese.

Quinny was a dream and we remarked how few and far between we will be at a giant amusement park with no tears and an entire family of happy campers. We did view a couple of petting zoos where Quinny got up and personal with some goats, chickens, a monster turkey, cows and crazy creatures from around the world. We visited the craft barns, the FAA kids with their show animals, the bunnies and made our way through the games. Would you believe they had a freak show? I know right!?! What era is it? We didn't pay to go in but the advertisements were like going back in time. "See the bearded lady for $.50! or the world's smallest horse for a quarter." Just weird!

We had a family picture taken but they deleted it by the time we went to view it. Umm, fair people you may wish to work on your marketing. We were there for a chilly 4 hours but we were glad we went. They had some crazy rides that we just stood and watched and couldn't believe that people would pay to go on, especially after spending an hour or two "admiring" the carnies. They are some crazy looking carnies. Picture super deep gravely voice from the 4 packs of Marb reds getting smoked daily..."Come on dude show your male prowess and win a lice infested, china made, lead filled bear for your wife and kid!" That gets em' every time! Ahh, the fair. You can't take the country out of the fair, but you can take a little of the country home from the fair.

Here is a picture of Q checking out the shark tank. (This is the Florida fair). To the left of that they had live alligator wrestling shows. The best was visiting "Cracker Town" where you could see how real life Crackers live. Or I could just visit with my neighbors.