Does Your Toddler Have a Super Bowl Pose?

01/31/2015 R.C. Liley 3 Comments

They may not have a clue about football, but toddlers can still rock an awesome cheering pose for the Super Bowl. My wife and I have captured several action shots of Avery practicing her pose during the Big Game.

Some are blurry, but we wouldn’t dare delete them because….cute, duh. Don’t tell me you’re not like that with you kid or kids….c’mon, you can’t fool a fellow parent. Okay, you can, but not when it comes to saving more pictures than you will ever need. Imagine if they were the old-school Polaroids. Yikes!

Since we have quite the collection, I’m asking you to help us decide what Avery’s best pose is so she is prepared to cheer for…..don’t get mad, Seahawks fans, the Patriots! We’re Cowboy’s fans first, but for this game, we’re rooting for the Pats.

Please help Going Mom and me out and tell us one or two of your favorite Super Bowl poses. We will then commence with blowing up the winning picture of her pose and train Avery to duplicate that exact stance with each scoring drive by the Patriots. Maybe we won’t go that far, but makes for a good visual, huh?

Whatever Avery chooses to do, I expect to see plenty of Patriot touchdowns to make the Seahawks wilt (Get it? Birds….wilting? No? Damn.)! Hopefully, just like the Super Bowl ticket prices, the balls stay inflated. Sorry, had to. 🙂

And now for the poses…

These 10 are the best we have so far, and I’ll be damned if it’s not hard to pick just one. I mean, look at the happiness, not to mention skill in some, of these poses!

Oh, and I would ask for help choosing a good pose for when the Seahawks make a touchdown or do anything good, but we already have that one figured out….

Yeah, seems appropriate, right? Hope you’re having a great weekend, and remember, try to stay somewhat healthy during the game and, well, always! Try dipping some baby carrots and apple slices in NuttZo, or eat right from the spoon. And if you must have something with bacon since that’s the trend lately, NuttZo + Bacon makes a delicious treat!

This is part of the Brilliant Blog Posts Link up, check out other #brilliantblogposts by clicking the badge below.

Who are you cheering for tomorrow?

Are they the regular team you usually cheer for, or just your favorite between the two?

Do you even care about the Super Bowl?

Food, Going Healthy, NuttZo

Sugar Free Green Coconut Carrot Bread Recipe

01/30/2015 R.C. Liley Leave a comment

The other day I posted a picture of my Sugar Free Green Coconut Carrot Bread on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and promised a recipe was coming soon.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by RC Liley (@going_dad)

Since I like to deliver on my promises, I’m sharing it with you today. Consider yourself lucky, or maybe it should be forewarned…..hmmmm. Here’s the thing…..

I do about 90% of my cooking via the microwave. My main cooking method is steaming, mostly veggies, and microwave steaming is quick, efficient, and retains the most nutrients compared to roasting, sauteing, boiling, etc. I still cook with these other methods, just not often.

Now, many people avoid microwaves at all costs for fear that they’ll turn radioactive or some other harm will be done. This was a concern for me at one time, so I looked into it and was convinced it was a safe, if not safer cooking method. Think about the carcinogens resulting from grilling, roasting, or toasting, that’s not safe either.

Anyway, I wrote a post on my old healthy food blog, Just Add Cayenne, titled Is Microwave Cooking Safe that you can check out for my reasoning if you’d like. But that’s my preferred method, and that’s how I make most of my breads.

I’ll let you in on my little microwave bread cooking tool that I absolutely love; it’s a microwave omelet cooker! Yep, it’s the Nordic Ware Microwave Omelet Pan and you can get it off of Amazon for less than $7. The link is my affiliate link and I’d be ever so happy if you went through it to make your purchase. Check out my other favorites on the Amazon sidebar to the right.

I’ll save my microwave cooking details for a later post, but for now, how about that bread recipe? I adapted it to be cooked in the oven, so you’ll have to wait for my microwave version. It’s a lot faster, using less ingredients, and still delicious and healthy!

Sugar-Free Green Coconut Carrot Bread Sweetened with PyureSweet Stevia

Get These Ingredients….

1 egg + 4 egg whites
1 cup steamed carrots
1/2 cup steamed spinach, only drain a little of the excess water and leave the rest*
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 ½ cups oat flour; could probably use whole wheat, spelt, kamut, or high quality protein powder too
1/2 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut; I used the kind from Let’s Do Organic
1/2 cup PyureSweet Stevia; if using pure or liquid stevia extract, use the equivalent of 1 cup of sugar which can be between 1 to 2 tsp depending on brand.
1 Tbs Cinnamon; you can use less, but I’m obsessed
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
Pinch of sea salt

Now Do This….

Add wet (first 4) ingredients to the bowl of a food processor and puree until mostly smooth.
Whisk all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
Add your puree to the dry ingredients and mix with a large spoon or spatula making sure everything is incorporated.
Pour into a loaf pan and bake 50 – 60 minutes in a preheated oven at 350 degrees.
The bread is ready when a fork or knife comes out clean when inserted in the center. Cover the top with foil for the last 20 minutes to avoid burning.

*The water from the spinach helps retain volume and moisture since baking with stevia requires less bulk than if using sugar, honey, maple syrup, etc.

Give this to your kids and call it “Green Monster Bread” or something fun like that and feel good knowing they’re getting healthy food for their constantly growing body. Avery knows what’s up….

And of course, this bread’s deliciousness is only compounded when you put a think layer of NuttZo on top. Remember, save yourself 15% on the best organic nut & seed butter in existence and used code liley15 when purchasing from their product page. It’s good for you, good for me, and everyone loves it! Winning all around! If only I can get Avery to give me back the jar…

What are your thoughts on microwave cooking?

Have you made bread in the microwave before?

Since we never go out to eat and I take on cooking mostly all meals in our house, it’s a must and I swear by the microwave. Never mind that odd glowing I get around 3am……

Life, Parenting

Potty Training is a Crapshoot

01/29/2015 R.C. Liley 5 Comments

We had our first shot at potty training the other day, and after our failed attempts, I’ve deemed it a crapshoot.

Taken right from Dictionary.com, the definition seems fitting….

crapshoot

[krap-shoot]

noun

1. Informal. anything unpredictable, risky, or problematical; gamble.

verb (used without object), crapshot, crapshooting.

2. to play craps.

3. Informal. to take risks; gamble.

I bolded the words that stand out the most to me when it comes to potty training. I bet all of you experience parents with plenty of potty training time on your latex-gloved hands are all laughing thinking “just wait”, and I can’t argue.

But, I also bet you agree that potty training is indeed a crapshoot, true?

Honestly, I haven’t looked at one resource on potty training, and we have yet to officially decide when to start attempting to get Avery to sit on the pot. I’m not even sure what age you’re supposed to start, and the more I think about it, it’s just another one of those “each child is different” scenarios.

Isn’t that how it is for almost all of parenting? We get bombarded by advice from what worked for others, but, taking advice from the thousands of internet parents is, wait for it, a crapshoot!

“Oh, my little princess (or DD as most forums call their daughters) was easy to potty train. I just told her to watch me and then she went all by herself! She even wiped, flushed, and cooked us dinner!”

Okay, I might’ve slightly exaggerated, but you get the point. All parents have their own parenting style! It might work for other parents too, but nothing is set in stone.

Anyway, Avery has been somewhat consistent with a morning and evening poop, and every now and then she’ll throw us a curve ~~ball~~ turd with another stinker somewhere in-between. One morning this week, she was in her Pooping Chair when I heard the poop grunts begin.

It was too late to even attempt to move her at that point since her face was already beet red from squeezing, so I just allowed her to go about her business. Five minutes later, I assumed the deed was done since her normal complexion had returned, and I brought her to be changed.

Diaper off with just a little pooplet (didn’t seem like her normal size), crazy legs in the air, and what do I see? A tiny turtle starting to emerge!! Crap (ha ha), time to attempt potty training session number one! I cradled Avery by holding her back and legs so that she remained horizontal until we made it to the toilet and quickly (but safely) rushed to the bathroom. Almost on the pot and then…..

….the turtle’s head fell off on my arm and rolled on the floor, next to the toilet. Damn. Since she had only two smaller nuggets so far, I sat her on the pot just to see if she had anything else to deliver.

She went from whining, to pointing at the bathroom lights, to crying, to hitting my face as I held her, to pointing at lights, and back to crying. I finally gave up, changed her into a new diaper, and thoroughly washed my pooped-on arm as I thought about how I could’ve approached that better.

Back in the kitchen and living room area, I set Avery down so I could finally cook her breakfast. Of course I get to eat some too, which is why I love using NuttZo as an ingredient and to spread on my creations. But not one minute after setting her down, Avery’s face turned dark red, she let out a grunt followed by her usual “poop shivers” indicating she was done.

Breakfast was put on hold once more as I changed Avery’s massive load. I think I found the body that belonged to that turtle head! I asked her why she didn’t do that when I had her on the pot, but she just pointed to the light in her room and said “Shdlislek” or something like that.

That night, while Going Mom was playing with her, Avery had her round two. Kelley attempted putting her on the pot to finish any unfinished business, but it only resulted in crying.

Two failed attempts and probably many more to come. Yeah, it “stinks”, but we might as well try when we can. I guess the first order of business (geez, I keep making myself laugh!) is to get a potty training toilet so we don’t have to hold Avery over our adult throne and risk dropping her in. Stay tuned for more adventures in poopland!

Are you past, in process, or still waiting for potty training with your kid(s)?

To you experienced parents, any tips you care to share?

What age did you start and what’s a good training toilet, method, book, etc?

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