Fun last night

Last night with little Quint was really a whole lot of fun.

When we got home, he still wanted to play outside, even though he'd been outside for quite a while at Priscilla's when I picked him up. I wanted to get out the infant seat and install it in my car, so this worked. Quint looked thoughtfully through the laundry basket of outside toys and gardening type implements and took off for the back yard. There's one patch of soft silt just in front of our back deck lowest step. It's always easy to scratch up great play dirt. After a few minutes, I went to check on him and sure enough, he was covered in soft, dry dirt and was obviously thinking about trying to drink his little bucket of dirt. I wasn't really willing to deal with a muddy (dirt + spit = mud) boy and a bath and whatnot. My belly had felt really heavy all day and I just hadn't felt tip top. Also there was a huge mosquito on Quint's head. The mosquitoes are worse in the back yard than the front. Hmmm... what to do...

So I got out the swimming pool and turned on the hose to dribble quickly into the pool. This way, he could clean up himself and I wouldn't have to deal with mud, just water. I hauled Quint out front again, which he didn't seem to mind, and immediately picked out different implements for water play. For quite a while, he played in the water while standing outside the pool. The water was way too cold to be inside the pool, but after a while, he wanted to get in and tried with his shoes on. I talked to him about how cold it felt on his hands and are you sure you want to get in? Yes. So I took off his shoes, socks, and pants. I dipped his feet into the pool and immediately sat him on my lap again. He gasped and clung to my arm. I laughed. He laughed. Do you want to try again? Yes. Dip. Gasp. Giggle. The third time, he wanted to stay standing in the pool, the whole time saying, "cold! cold!" He had fun playing in the pool for probably 20 minutes. Occasionally he would try to go down on one knee, but would quickly shout "cold!" and stand back up. Very funny to me. He never did cry because of the cold, which was a relief to me. Typically when playing in the pool or bath, he'll fill a cup with water and dump it over himself. He only did this once with the cold water. He gasped and looked astonished, then laughed. He didn't do that again. Smart boy!

Later, inside, while I was trying to cook dinner, he was, as usual, very whiny and just cried because I was cooking. Why on earth does he hate to see me cook? Any cooking causes tears, including the 40 seconds it takes to heat nuggets. We had a lime and I had a brilliant flash. I cut him a slice of lime, showed him how to hold it to eat the pulp easiest, and he was happy as a clam! He loves limes and lemons. He sucked and chewed on that thing until it I was done cooking. He giggled, made faces, and roared like a lion the whole time. When we say lime, he hears lion.

After supper, his daddy called and he talked on the phone to his Papa. When he heard his voice, he smiled, picked up the phone and said, "whoa?" (his version of hello). Quint made several appropriate responses on the phone, including a "bye" at the end. Very fun for Papa.

About 7:15, 45 minutes before bedtime, Quint was down to thinking the only fun thing to do was run and dive at mama's huge belly. Very not fun for me. Quite painful and causing me to get more and more irritable. So it was time to pull out the secret weapon. I bought it a week ago and was saving it for some evening I had Quint alone and I was hurting pretty bad. The huge bag of 100 plastic balls! (Think Chucky Cheese ball pit.) I dumped them into the pack and play in the living room and plopped Quint in the middle of it. He was ecstatic! He swam through the balls, scooped them over himself, occasionally threw some at me. He kept shouting "BALL! BALL! BALL!" I got to sit outside the pack and play, not get beat up, and simply play by sticking my arms in occasionally. PERFECT!!

When Hubby got home, Quint said to him over and over, "Papa LOOK! BALL!" pointing to the balls at Quint's feet. Papa came over and played with him with the balls and also by pressing his face against the pack and play screen to make funny faces. Papa would lay Quint flat on top of the balls and spin him around like a washing machine. Lots of jumping up and down and dancing in the balls. At 10 unitl 8pm, we started trying to get him out of his own personal ball pit. At 8:05 we finally accomplished it. Papa hauled him upstairs and Quint wanted him to put him to bed. Fantastic for me! I went straight to the tub and floated my huge, horrible belly for an hour.

So despite me being miserable last night, I still had fun with my son. I even got the infant car seat base installed in the car and the carseat covers taken off for washing. That's the only thing I really got done last night, but eh...the non-hanging laundry is clean and sitting in our bedroom. It can fold itself later. Or not.