And away we go...

Well, it's officially autumn now. The days are getting shorter, the sun is shining lower in the sky (but still shining!) and we've had to get the sweaters down from the attic. In the fall there's always such an exciting buzz in the air... everyone's off to school, back to work and on to new projects. This year it all felt a bit strange and overwhelming launching head-on into a thousand new things without having had a proper summer rest. I have jumped into rehearsals and preparations for my company's new piece, Jos has been on tour with his wildly successful one man show, The Art of Laughter, and Quinn of course has been up to all sorts of shenanigans. When Q's nanny got sick during my first week of rehearsals I almost had a mental break-down, but luckily my amazing parents came to the rescue and took care of the little one all week. Thank goodness for grandparents!!
Mr. Q's autumn has been full of excitement. He has his first tooth, more and more hair and he's crawling like nobody's business. Quinn's favorite thing though is his new-found ability of standing up. He reaches out for anything and everything he can get his hands on in order to pull himself upright... chairs, tablecloths, house plants, the oven, me...
Here are a couple videos of Quinn's exploits as well as some new photos of Mr. Adorable...

Movin' & Shakin'

When you have a baby everybody always says, "it goes so fast"... and wow, it sure does. I can't even believe that Quinn was ever a tiny little baby-thing. I can barely remember what that was like. And it was only 8 months ago. Give me 18 years and I'll really be in trouble!
In his newest leap out of babyness, Quinn has started crawling! It's so much fun. And he seems much less frustrated now that he's mobile. He does seem to like to go mostly for power chords, house plants and dirty shoes of course... and "no" doesn't really seem to be part of his vocabulary, but we're working on that. He's also sitting up and can play and concentrate on one thing for much longer... not that that's all too long of course... but it's definitely all relative! Soon this phase will just be a blur as well. Better get it all on video!

yum yum yum!

After a month and a half of purees and mashed food we have decided to go for the real stuff. So, for the past two weeks Quinn has been eating like a big boy... stuffing his face with chunks of steamed sweet potato and wedges of kiwi. We put several things on his tray in front of him and he chooses what he wants to eat and feeds himself. He seems to love it. It's perfect for a baby like Quinn who wants to do everything himself. He's now eating three meals a day of solids. His appetite varies from meal to meal and day to day, but he does seem to enjoy eating and likes just about everything so far.

Summer travels

Since June Quinn has been quite the cosmopolitan traveler...
Naples, Brussels, the South of France, San Francisco, Amsterdam...

Here he is in the plane for the first time on the way to Naples:





Enjoying the italian lifestyle...



Swimming in the South of France while I was on tour...



Eating oysters, chilling on the beach and visiting friends and family in San Francisco...

In Loving Memory

Jos' dad, Hubert Houben left this world on Sunday, August 9th at 4:00a.m.
He was a kind, caring and lovng man.
Jos, Quinn and I and the rest of the family were with him when he passed away.
Our hearts and thoughts are with him.
Always.

Cherry pickin'

It's June and our cherry tree is completely laden with ever reddening, big, juicy cherries. We can literally reach out our window and pick a cherry for dessert. We are probably some of the luckiest Parisians that exist! Jos got the ladder out last weekend and climbed up to where all the really good ones are. Quinn came and sat outside and took great joy in watching his papa at work. And then we all feasted away (well not Q yet of course... he just got cherry flavored breast milk).

What to call a grandparent.

In most countries you know automatically what your kids will call their grandparents... everyone calls them the same thing. In France it's Papie and Mamie, in Belgium Bomma and Bompa; but in the U.S. everyone calls their grandparents something different. It depends on their family's origins, tradition or whatever. We called my mom's parents Nana and Papa. My dad's mom was simply Grandmother Betsy (or Grandmother Beatsa to 3 year old James).
So we've been struggling since before Quinn was born with what he should call my parents. Nana and Papa was out since papa is dad in Flemish... Grandma and Grandpa sounded a bit boring to us... so what was left...? Well, we decided that we'd have to invent something. We've gone back and forth on a few names but so far our favorites are Omi and Bobo. What do you all think? Does it fly? Yeah, Bobo the clown does come to mind but I guess it's not completely inappropriate for Rick.
So here they are... Omi and a slightly blurry Bobo!
(yeah, Quinn sure does like posing for the camera)

We're back!

I suppose I shouldn't begin each post with an apology. It must get a bit boring after a while... but this time it's been an eternity. I know...You all thought we were gone forever. But we've finally made it back to the land of the living. I just can't seem to update the blog as much as I'd like to. Here I thought I was going to be writing something once a week... haha... lofty goals. I can't even seem to manage once a month! Well... I'll stop hitting myself over the head for now and fill you all in on the family news instead. Much more interesting.
Little Quinn is not so very little anymore. It's amazing how fast it happens (just like everyone says), but we can hardly remember what he was like as a little baby anymore. He is more and more a little boy and less and less a baby. We can't wait to see what he has to say and do once he can talk, walk and explore on his own. But let's not get ahead of ourselves...
In any case, he is sure is coming into his own. His features are clearer and his personality is starting to come through. He is curious and wide eyed, busy as a bee and a huge smiler. He also seems to be quite social... smiling and flirting with friends and strangers alike. I suppose it's no wonder that he likes people since he's been traveling and meeting people so much since he was born. Since I last posted Quinn has been to Belgium twice, Holland and England... and in a week he's off to Italy with us. He even has his own passport now!
In March Quinn met his grandparent in Belgium for the first time. He completely fell in love with them. And the feeling was mutual of course. We are so very lucky to be surrounded by such loving families and friends. What a gift. For Quinn and for us!
Part of the reason I've been having so much trouble writing (besides the general business of being a mom... and all the traveling) is that I've been working quite a lot. Jos and I created a musical piece with a rope artist and four cellists that opened in April (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ropeandstrings). Quinn came to the rehearsals with us and was an absolute gem. While Jos or I worked on directing Quinn sat and took it all in with his big eyes and toothless smile. He loves listening to music and so when he was surrounded by a group of live cellists he was enthralled. My company is also starting to work on our new show as well as preparing our tour this summer through Corsica and the South of France. Meanwhile Jos was working in England a lot until mid May and now he's finishing up the school year at the Lecoq school.
So we can't wait for some good vacation time where we can lay about and (attempt) to read a book or something equally frivolous. It'll happen soon because... Newsflash... We bought our tickets to the U.S. for this summer! Hooray! It's actually happening. We have one whole glorious month off. We'll be in San Francisco from July 24th till August 20th with a quick trip to NYC from August 10th-13th. We're so looking forward to being there and showing Quinn off to all you family and friends.

Here are some recent photos (finally) of the little cutey....




Here's the little fella with the family in Belgium...

With Bomma and Bompa when we first visited in March

Taking a walk with Bompa and aunt Lu in May

Chillin' at a café with aunt Marleen

Time time time

Oh dear... I've been meaning to post something new for three weeks now. Where has time gone?? There's so much to tell... Since I last wrote Quinn has acquired all sorts of new skills, met lots of new people, had his first cold and received even more hats. I've been trying tp find a moment to sit down and write everything down but I've had quite a bit of time home alone with Quinn these past few weeks so I've had a very hard time getting anything done besides nursing, changing diapers and doing endless loads of laundry. At the end of February Jos was in Amsterdam for four days working with the fantastically funny British theatre company Spymonkey, then he was in the hospital for three days getting a rather horrible heart exam (which all turned out to be ok thank goodness) and then last week he was in Naples for four days laying down the groundwork for a project he's going to do there next year. Poor man... running around like a chicken with his head cut off. Tonight he's off performing his one man show twice in two different cities outside of Paris. Crazy life... but we certainly can't complain... what an immense gift to travel, do what we love and get paid for it! Meanwhile though Jos is having fantasies of becoming a house-husband and spending all his time at home with the little one. And it's no wonder... Quinn is growing and changing so quickly... it's hard to keep track if you're not around for a few days. He's started spoiling us with the most gorgeous smiles these past few weeks. He graced us with first big one on my 30th birthday... what a present! And his big toothless grins are getting bigger and bigger and lasting longer and longer. It's like he gets a little fit of giggles and can't stop smiling... And neither can we obviously! Quinn's eyesight is also getting much better of course. He's started staring at faces intently and is completely fascinated with his mobiles...he can actually track their movement now. He's also started hitting and grabbing things.. like my hair for instance. We put a little figurine with a bell on it over his changing table and he seems to get endless joy out of batting it around while we change his diaper.

Quinn loves bath time. We get in the tub with him and he swims around like a little frog.

Batting around some toys.


Getting ready to go for a walk with Q in the great sling that my friend Alex
brought us back from the States: http://www.kangarookorner.com


The lucky boy was visited by his wonderful aunts, uncles and cousins from Belgium three weeks ago. This weekend we're finally going there ourselves to introduce him to his grandparents!Quinn and his aunt (and godmother) Lu

aunt Rita

aunt Marleen

the fam

A weekend in the country

This weekend Quinn went on his first outing! We packed up his cloth diapers, several changes of clothes and the car seat and we all took the train to visit the grandparents. My parents live in a big, gorgeous manor house that they've converted into a bed & breakfast (www.maisonconti.com). We hadn't made it out of Paris since Thanksgiving so it was a huge relief to breath some fresh, country air and it was a joy to give Quinn a little change of scenery. The weather was gorgeous on Saturday and Sunday and we took some nice drives and even had a winter picnic (Quinn and my mom stayed in the car). We spent most of our time this weekend all admiring this handsome little boy though. He is infinitely entertaining... and it's amazing how much he is changing every day. It's so special to watch him becoming more alert and interested in the outside world. He has more and more moments of quiet wakefulness where he seems to just love looking around and taking everything in. He is especially fascinated by light... from the window, a lamp, the tv... he stares at any light source with such a wide-eyed contented look on his face that of course we all cluster around and stare contentedly at him for hours on end. With less naps happening for Quinn I'm getting even less done myself. Today he only napped for a half hour twice... enough time for me to eat my lunch and take a quick nap myself, but not enough time to do the dishes, unpack the suitcases or take care of any other work. Right now I'm writing one-handed while he nurses. I'm getting pretty good at doing lots of things one-handed... this boy eats constantly! Days sure do go by quickly with a child in your life. Wow.


Here is the Quinn man basking in the light in his favorite spot by the window at my parents' place:




Playing around with daddy...

Quinn and his hats

Quinn has received a plethora of adorable hats as gifts. He looks so cute in them that we thought we should show them off... so here's a photo series of Mr. Quinn modeling his many hats...