Cinnamon Life Cereal

Cinnamon Life changed their packaging, now Quinn's favorite cereal is invalid. Yup, that is the logic that we live in.

Cute / Sick Quinn

Quinn woke with a fever today. She didn't go to school, so she is hanging out with us. Currently she is asleep on the floor in my office while I'm working. She is such a great kid.

Daddy / Daughter Dance

We did our first daddy daughter dance tonight. I went in having the expectation that I might get a dance with Quinn, but hoping that we'd dance all night. Quinn had a blast dancing with her friends and eating desserts. I got 1/4 of a dance, split across two songs (so that would be an 1/8 of a dance each). I guess this was better then my expectations, yet still disappointing. Maybe she will actually dance with me at her wedding :)

G/T Testing

Quinn took the G/T test today. It was a 40 minute test, that Quinn described as a lot of "find the ...." She said that it wasn't much fun, at least not as much fun as we made it out to be. We will find out in March what the outcome is

Cheese toast with Parsely

Huge milestone today. Quinn tried cheese toast with visible parsely. She said that there was more cheese than green things, so it was okay. THERE IS HOPE!

the role model that sticks

trying to teach Brock not to put stickers on the furniture, Quinn pointed out that Drew's labeling stickers were teaching Brock that it was ok to put stickers on the furniture. Looks like there are labels coming off today.

welcome

before a dinner party the kids wanted to draw on the drive. Quinn took our welcome mat so she would know how to spell welcome.  resourceful!

allowed sleep

Quinn: are you done sleeping yet?
Pam: Yes, we've had all we are allowed.

Well duh moment - scrapbook == scraps

When you give a kid a scrapbook for Christmas, I guess I didn't think through, what you end up with is..... scraps....

While she loved the gift, and actually made a good Princess / Disney scrapbook... we did and do have tons of paper scraps left over from this art project.

Water cycle braclet

Super cool water cycle (hydrologic cylce) bracelet came home from school today.

Quinn beaded the bracelet as follows

yellow = sun
iridescent = water vapor
ivory = clouds
pink = rain
white = snow
brown = erosion
indigo = oceans
baby blue = lakes
rainbow = puddles
green = plants.

Yea! science!

Orion and simile

While walking tonight, Quinn proudly identified the Orion constellation (proud papa). She was asking who he was and I said that he was a hunter. She asked if he was bad (she is very much into good vs bad), and I said he was good. He was a hero (making this up, but why create bad people?). Quinn says that as selfish as Mother Gothel was in Tangled, that was as good as Orion was.

That is pretty deep. And I'm pretty sure that creating a simile and making that association is well above her age level (I have no basis for this, but I feel it must be true :))

Parenting is like a balloon

Somedays I feel like parenting is like being an inflated balloon that someone hasn't tied. You are all good and full of patience, then all of a sudden there is a massive release... you bounce wildly around the room, making hissing sounds - then you are deflated, spent, and at wits end. And you wonder what happened, for just a moment ago, life was good and full. Yup... you reconnected with the kids at the end of the day.

city center

at city centre Houston Quinn pointed to the buildings at the side and exclaimed that that must be city side since the grassy place is city center. very observant!

Suess Themed Christmas Dinner

This year's Christmas dinner was themed Dr. Suess.

So here is our menu


Munchies :  The 500 hats of Bartholomew Cubbins - Bugles and cheese dip
Salad : Gertrude McFuzz berries - Pomegranate & poppy seed salad
Main entrée : Who roast beast - Christmas rib roast
Veggies side : The turtles of Sala-ma-sond - Cashew Green Beans
Starch side : truffula trees - sweet potato puffs (using rosette tip of pastry bag)
Starch side 2: Who-hash - wild rice patties
Fruit : truffula fruits - Feijoa ( a tropical fruit with a pear like texture)
Bread : Yertle the turtle - pagnotta (from central market)
Dessert : Who-pudding - Chocolate pots de creme

First Movie

Successfully watch Arthur Christmas in the theaters today. What a great birthday present

Teaching Brock to play

Quinn, is a little rough when playing with Brock. I told her that she is teaching him the way to play, so when he is 4 and as strong as she is- he will be hitting her.

Quinn's response: "You won't remember"

"Maybe, how does my not remembering change the fact that he will hit you?"

"Because, you'll put him in timeout for hitting"

Clearly, I'm dealing with a mastermind here. She is only 4.5!

Content with coloring

Wow, never thought we'd get to the point where we could be happy coloring without getting bored. There is hope

Three Wishes

Quinn, having rediscovered her wishing stones from the Ren fest has these 3 to offer:

1. Wishes she could visit a princess castle
2. Wishes she could be a nurse
3. Wishes Adrienne was part of her family

Eating and incentives

So we've started a new incentive program this week.

Just as a refresher, Quinn is extremely particular about what she eats, and will often refuse food based on look, mood, or any other whim. So we incentivized it.

I struggled about this, and I think/hope I have a good solution. Basically bites for minutes... Here is the gist.

She loves to watch videos, and they are usually restricted to the weekend. But with the new incentive she could watch them during the week.

If she eats (swallows) a food that she has had before, she gets one minute for the whole meal.
A new grain / protein/ dairy = 1 minute per bite
A new vegetable = 2 minutes per bite
A new "mixed" food (Casseroles, sauces,etc) = 3 minutes per bite.

Then for rewards we have

1 minute = Sesame Street video from the website, (most are about a minute long)
2 minutes = Zoodle (this is a kids app that usually pulls appropriate clips from YouTube, about two minutes)
5 minutes = Sesame Street podcast.
10 minutes = Mother Goose by Jim Henson available on Netflix instant download (she loves these)
30 minutes = Sid the Science Kid, Super Why, Dora, etc
60 minutes = Sesame Street episode, BackYardigans, Thomas, etc
60 minutes with at least 12 veggies = Feature length movie (Tangled, Princess and the Frog, etc)

Our goal is not only to get her to eat, but to not complain, try new foods, and eat a well rounded meals.

Learning objectives include

• New food can taste good
• How long a minute is
• Clock math (the tracking sheets are set up like a clock)
• Delayed gratification / accumulation (saving for a better video) (although that hasn't happened yet)

Learning outcomes so far

• Baked potato isn't good yet, even when mixed with jelly (barely even touched the tongue before it was rejected)
• Edamame isn't good yet, even though she was really hoping it would have worked for her. (she spit it out convincing herself that she was going to throw up)
• Corn, while vehemently opposed to it on principle, actually is okay. 9 bites == 18 minutes
• Chicken Florentine (Chicken, Spinach, Pasta, Sauce), is okay if you scrape off the spinach pieces and stick to the chicken. 4 bites = 12 minutes
• Accumulation hasn't happened yet. 
• Day 1: 2 minutes = 1 x Zoodle
• Day 2: 30 minutes = 3 x Mother Goose

Hopefully the reward isn't so great that she doesn't feel the need to save up.

But she is excited about earning minutes. This could be a good thing. 

New words

Not sure if she'll remember tomorrow but Quinn learned 2 new words today and used them several times: random and complicated. I used them once, explained them to her and she proceeded to use them in sentences of her own.

The Coasters

Amazing! On the kids mix, Yakety Yak came on, and Quinn identified it as the same artist who sang Charlie Brown. Awesome!

Ricochet Sandwich

From the song Rubber Biscuit, there is a phrase that says "A ricochet biscuit is the kind of a biscuit that's supposed to bounce back off the wall into your mouth. If it don't bounce back, (hee hee hee).... you go hungry!"

Quinn says "You don't have to go hungry... just make another sandwich" - LOVE IT!

Swimming

Btw, Quinn went swimming today! Crazy!

Accessible Movies Rock

So we went to Discovery Green tonight to watch Toy Story 3. I had very low expectations, as dinner was all about meltdowns. Anyways, the show was accessible to hearing and visually impaired,  which means that a "narrator" described everything that was going on for the visually imparied folk. PERFECT! Not a single "What's happening now", "Who is that", "Why did that happen", "What's going to happen".... it was all perfectly narrated.

I wished I had discovered this 30 years ago for my sister!

Food battles

I don't get it... I just don't. And it is frustrating as hell! Tonight's dinner fish sticks and homemade mac and cheese. Totally failed. Fish sticks are normally a very acceptable and requested food. Quinn ate every single ingredient going into the mac and cheese as we were making it, yet put it all together and it makes her throw up (actually she convinces herself that she is going to be sick if she eats it, and creates a self-fulling prophesy.

I honestly think that it is the fact that there is Halloween candy around (although thankfully not alot, thanks to the Great Pumpkin :) )... but she wants the candy for dinner, knowing that it happens after dinner, creates a power struggle that she wants to win.

Grrrr....

Theater Movie Failure

Took Quinn to her first theater based movie today( Lion King 3d). We lasted about 30 seconds (not even one full preview). She complained that it was too loud and she didn't want to stay.... bummer

Eye Quivers

I hope that she never loses it, because it is the coolest thing to see. When Quinn is tired, her eyes will occasionally quiver, especially as she is fighting sleep. It is not something that she can do consciously, but literally back and forth about 6x per second, usually lasting only a second or so.

I'm remarking on it tonight, because usually it is expected (to us) and don't remember to blog about it... but tonight / today Quinn isn't feeling well. She had a temperature since mid day and ended up taking 2 naps. (She normally doesn't take any). The last nap ended at 6. So by 9 (the time she is normally asleep (bedtime starts around 8:30), my expectation was that should wouldn't be tired. And she was meeting my expectation, was awake, not wired, as I still think that she felt off, even after the medicine, but singing and reading and otherwise fully engaged.

And that is when I noticed the quiver. I started singing some bedtime songs, which she sung along with me. Then the next thing I new she was sleeping. It kind of reminded me of the scene from "A Princess Bride" where he says laughing, "Never mess with a Sicilian when death is on the line", then keels over. (BTW I don't look at her while singing as it makes the bedtime songs less engaging, so when I did look back she was asleep - but moments before, she was singing with me).

Active Alphabet book

Quinn seemed to love the Active Alphabet Book that Popo and Tia Mandy wrote and illustrated (with Daddy's motto - "work to completion".) She read/sang it four times!!! It made all of us involved smile hugely. :-)

Ren fest

Even though we only got 5 hrs of sleep the night before, because of a sleep over, Quinn dud an amazing job of not crying or whining at Ren Fest. She traded dragon tears with all of the prettiest fairies (great idea Pam!), saw lots of shows, rode some rides... And of course got our face painted. She even did a good job of sharing the wagon with Brock and Adrianne.

Fireplan

Quinn was talking about fire safety at school and asked us what our fireplan is. So we talked to her about what we would do in case of a fire. It is interesting to watch a really good problem solver grapple with these ideas. We told Quinn, if she couldn't get to mommy and daddy safely, it would be okay to go out her window. Then she said, she doesn't know how to open the window, and we said that in a fire, she could break her window if she couldn't get it open, even if we showed her how to open it. We gave her permission to break the rules, if it meant keeping her safe. She seemed to agree.... and after she got to our neighbors house and made sure that 911 was called, she would call Abbycadaby from Sesame Street to come and fix the broken window.  I love the partial real world that she can live in :)