What Makes the Best Dad?

Sitting down to read a book after a long day at work. Not even stopping to change out of shirt and tie.


Reading a story from Titus' favorite book {at the moment}, Nursery Tales Around the World.

Hello Little Pool Boy

Titus and I have found a shared interest. Our love for swimming. I remember as a kid wanting to spend hours swimming. Whether at the beach, the Chesapeake Bay, a pool or mountain creek. I have this one memory of being at Ocean City, MD playing in a hotel pool. We had gone as a family and the only memory of that trip that I have is swimming in the pool. I was probably eight or nine.

Lately Titus and I have been spending a lot of evenings at the pool. Just the two of us. It's been nice. Something we both enjoy. A time of bonding for us. I know he's only just turned three but as I watch him change now and mature I know I will have to find new things to do with him. New ways to bond with him. It won't be long before he no longer climbs up on my lap to watch a show or read a book. We will be doing things together. Going places, playing sports, doing homework. New forms of bonding. I will probably have to stretch myself and it will mean my doing things I may not entirely enjoy. But I want our bond to stay strong.

Right now, swimming is our thing.

A Whole Different Baby

The other evening during Quincy's bath time I called Titus in to see Quincy when his hair looked like this-




Titus said, "he's a different baby." I'm not sure if Titus really thought he was a different baby or that he just looked like a different baby. Either way, he does look really different when his curls are "gone." I remember doing the same thing to Titus when he was about that age.

Quincy loves his bath time. He splashes water everywhere. For his birthday, my mom sent him this little basketball net. It's perfect for him. I think he could stay in the tub playing with it for hours. :)





Off to bed-

And Then a Miracle Happened.

Today Titus had green day at school. I had his little navy polo laid out along with Steve's green necktie. As I was getting ready to take him to school this morning, I was thinking of how I needed to leave early to allow time to take pictures of him. Then it suddenly dawned on me that I didn't have a working camera.

I was determined to at least learn to use it in the one setting that was currently working {some of the time}. After dropping Titus off at school {in his adorable outfit} and putting Quincy down for his nap, I dug out my camera manuals. I played with it and tried everything...but still only got these types of pictures-




I looked again at new cameras online and felt defeated knowing that it wouldn't be wise of us to spend that much money right now. I cried for the first time over the broken camera. I prayed that God would allow me to somehow have a working camera again.

---later on---

Something on my To-Do list today was to e mail a lady about being involved in the CCA elementary yearbook. We were told about several opportunities to contribute to the yearbook at back-to-school night on Tuesday. Of course I wanted to help in the area of photography.

I e mailed.

Yet, I had no working camera.

During Quincy's afternoon snack, I sat at the table. My camera was there and I tried to play with it again.



I took a few pictures and then realized...it was working. I was afraid to turn it off for fear it wouldn't work again. But it has been...working...all evening.

Praise God.

Big Bear, Little Bear

Quincy is still known in our family as Quincy Bear. Or just Bear. Or Little Bear. Titus calls him any of the above, or Quincy Bear-Bear. It's not uncommon for Steve to walk in the door from work, be "surprised" by Titus and then say, "Hey Bear" to Quincy.

Quincy is snuggly and squeezable and I think that is why the nickname has stuck. Typically I hate nicknames. A huge consideration for us when naming the boys was the lack of nicknames for the names we'd chosen. Maybe since "bear" isn't a shortening of Quincy I'm ok with it. And the fact that only our family refers to him in that way. But really, it just fits him so perfectly.




Complete relaxation-

Friday Evening on the Beach.

Steve came home from work just as the boys and I were getting ready to walk out the door to the park. We chose the beach instead. And we were so glad we did. We stayed until it got dark.

Such a happy little one year old-

The boys hard at work-

Since we were on the beach late evening, the lifeguards were gone. Titus thought it would be fun to play "lifeguard" for a little. He loved it. He would look off each side "making sure everything was ok." -

Then when he was sure evything was good, he was off to play in the sand and water again-

The boy loves to wave-

But does not like his {Titus' old} sunglasses-

...or hat-

Sharing chips on the beach-

Boy bonding time-

Quincy performing-

Snuggling-

Quincy pushed that ball all around the beach-

I love how Titus' dump truck is sitting in the background here. Titus pushes the truck all over the beach but Quincy chooses the ball-

A crawling trail the sand-