The Parent-Toddler Communication Barrier

07/09/2015 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

“Avery.” I said in a stern, but not scolding voice, “Please pick up your duck from the kitchen and put him in your basket or I’ll take him away.” Never thought that would be a sentence I’d have to say.

Avery’s resulting facial expression said it all….

After repeating myself just to give her another chance and waiting for 5 minutes (felt like an hour!), I had to take the duck and put it on top of the bookshelf.

You’ll notice the bag of blocks already there from a similar standoff we incurred earlier in the day.

And before that, we received a package at the door so I let her play with the box. I told her as long as she keeps off the couch and doesn’t tear the things off the box, she can play with it. I should’ve known better….

She also handed me a piece of tape and cardboard strip she tore off. She’s lucky she’s so cute!

This, along with 10,000,000,000 other standoff-type occurrences have become part of the daily routine. Going Mom and I try to maintain composure and do quite well most of the time, but, well, c’mon, patience can only be tested for so long.

Parents, I am sure you know exactly what I’m talking about here. And to think we only have our one, my heart goes out to you with multiple! Your patience must be like that of iron! Or just really good. 🙂

I assume the communication barrier parents face with their toddlers is a commonality we all must experience to turn our ~~hair gray at a faster than normal rate~~ fully appreciate parenthood. It may not be needed (or necessary), but I took it upon myself to create a visual representation of the barrier with a quick video. By simply taking a ball and asking Avery to catch it, you see the barrier in full effect.

What do you think? Did I capture the parent-toddler communication barrier accurately?

It does help to keep calm and politely ask your little one to do as told. Then, once (if) they follow through, be sure to praise them and let them know how good they are. You just might be rewarded with super cuteness!

Do you have any parent-toddler communication barrier examples of your own?

What ways do you find best to get them to listen better? Or are you still searching?

Life, Parenting

How Not To Start Co-Sleeping With Your Toddler

07/08/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Picking up from my last post about the 4th of July 5k, we took off right for G-Ma’s right after receiving our medals and drinking free beer. The beer was good, but I guess I’ve lost me desire to have beer for breakfast.

We were invited to our neighborhood friend’s house to swim just like the last Fourth of July, and we were ready for a dip after that hot run. First, my mom had a chore for me to do which she knew I’d be a sucker for. I love anything that can be called a “workout”, and moving brush from her house to the Caldwell’s fire pit was the task at hand. I made several trips and ran back after dropping off a load (that sounded bad!). It was enough to have the floodgates of sweat flowing down my face and entire body. Time for the pool!

Glad to have my beautiful girls along to cool off in the water!

Avery could still care less to pose with a smile for either of us. But get her alone and…

I don’t know. She’s confusing. As is most toddlers I assume.

We swam, passed Avery around for us all to get in a great upper body workout, and finally went back to my mom’s to eat and attempt a nap. Surprisingly, the wonders of Going Mom’s nursing and loving comfort worked to get the ~~wild~~ wired child to nap.

We kept her up late on the 3rd to see fireworks, woke her up a few hours earlier the next day for the 5k, and took forever until just one nap. Parents of the year here! After nap time, we lounged around and entertained Avery the best we could until it was dark and time for fireworks. Then we went back down to the Caldwell’s to watch the sky light up with bright-colored explosions all around.

My mom’s house is out in the country where fireworks are allowed and neighbors all around apparently felt like they need to throw down hundreds of dollars to celebrate our independence. Fine with me, the light show was brilliant! Unlike last year, Avery watched as they lit up the sky, but she only seemed fairly amused, and only at first.

Tiredness was obvious, but I thought she’d be more into watching the fireworks than she was. We told ourselves “next year” last year, but now we’re saying it again for 2016. At 2 1/2 years old, I’m sure she’ll love them then, right?

Not long after watching the explosions all around, Avery’s crazy-tired mode set in. She was running off into a dark field as Kelley and I took turns chasing and holding her. G-Ma helped restrain the mini deviant as well. It was well past her bedtime (again), and with hardly any sleep and a lonnnngggg day, we took her back to get ready for bed.

Kelley took a bath with Avery since outside everything feel nasty and we were down wind of the giant bonfire. As I mentioned in my post about being scared for the Fourth, we did not have a portable crib this time. Instead, we laid a queen mattress on the floor where Kelley planned on sleeping with Avery.

We’ve slept with Avery before, but that was when she was only months old, and that one time I tried in her crib…

If you are wondering, it didn’t work. Not in her crib, and again, not for Kelley at G-Ma’s this past weekend.

We followed routine and I read a book before telling my tired wife and daughter good night and I went to another room to read before going to sleep. It was quiet for a couple hours, but just as I finally shut my eyes, I woke up to Kelley holding a screaming toddler and not sure what to do.

Avery had been screaming for a while and nothing my wife offered would console her. Not even the magical boob! I came in to lay on the other side of the floor mattress to keep Avery in between, but she just rolled around scaling over our bodies and falling off at least 4 times. Each time was accompanied by louder screaming and streams of tears.

Not being able to calm our child was upsetting, and Kelley hated not having a solution. She eventually told me to go back to the other room thinking Avery wanted more of her own space. I went back, but sat awake listening to the crying ensue.

Avery kept this up for 4 hours straight. Constantly thrashing around, screaming loudly, and not giving any indication of what she needed. Was it sunburn, bug bites, hunger, thirst, too much change in sleeping arrangements, firework overload, over-tired, teething, or just toddler?

Whatever the cause, I ended up falling asleep on the mattress with them, and Kelley said she watched as our overly exhausted girl sat, got quiet, and slowly fell over to give in to sleep.

So, things not to do when deciding to co-sleep with your toddler for the first time in a long time (or ever) is….

do not keep them up late the night before you have to wake them up early
do not expose her to an new atmosphere (it had been 6 months since our last visit to G-Ma’s)
do not do it on a night when fireworks are going off all around you for hours on end
do not let them drink coffee in the late afternoon….or ever

Well, we didn’t let her drink coffee, but really, you should not do that if you want to sleep.

Later that day, Avery woke up bright-eyed and bushy tailed and immediately started chatting away like nothing was wrong. We downed copious amounts of coffee shortly thereafter as G-Ma entertained Avery with a little screen time.

After several cups, I suggested we do a little workout video which my mom was up for. So we did Cardio Challenge as Kelley kept Avery somewhat restrained in the room with us. But Avery had to join in right after we were done.

I followed up with a few sets of bench press…

….and Avery did her own moves on the stability ball.

She then proceeded to do bear ~~crawls~~ hugs.

Then G-Ma offered to play with her, but she was not impressed with the dog toy football.

She did, however, take the ball and give it to Reno, G-Ma’s highly anxious dog, who was in a ball in a cat bed.

So thoughtful of her. They played around a little more just to get that good love from G-Ma before we went back home.

Crazy, tiring weekend for sure, but we are all glad we experienced it together. Guess we earned a new parenting badge this 4th of July! Not sure what we’ll do about sleeping arrangements next time, but we have a trip to Colorado next month to see Kelley’s parents, Nana and Papa, so we better figure it out soon.

Kelley found a crib rental service up there which sounds like a good option, but hopefully Nana knows a neighbor who can let us borrow a crib. $15/day for a crib seems too high for my liking! Ha, get it, “high” and “Colorado”….”elevation……no? Whatever…

Do you have any co-sleeping fails to share?

Any successes?

What about tips….please?

Going Strong, Life, Parenting, Soft Star Shoes

3rd Place in our Fourth of July 5k Race

07/07/2015 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

We made it through the Fourth of July weekend, but what I feared most became a reality. The good news is my wife and I kicked the day off with a bang by placing in our Fourth of July 5k!

The night before the race, we brought Avery up the road in our neighborhood to see the local fireworks. It was past her bedtime before they even started and we were getting eaten by bugs, but I’d say she still had a great time.

Okay, maybe “great” is an exaggeration, but it was officially her first time to see fireworks since last year I don’t think she was too aware. Either shame on us for keeping her up so late when we had to wake her up extra early the next day or….no, never mind, just shame on us.

G-Ma met us at Martin House Brewery, where the race was being hosted, to hang out with Avery as Going Mom and I pushed our legs to the limits in the hot and humid weather. The race started at 8am and it was already sticky with most of the participants sweating from just standing around.

Isn’t my Mom beautiful? I can’t believe she’s turning 60 at this end of this month! Oops, was I not supposed to share that with the blogosphere? Sorry, Mom, I love you!

Before the start, we took turns posing together for pictures with Avery. Any picture with these three lovely ladies is one to cherish forever.

Avery wasn’t sure of what to make with Daddy not having a shirt on, but not like it’s anything new.

By the time we took our family picture, Avery had enough of the posing. She was probably pissed we woke her up so early too.

Kelley snapped a shot of my true fashion sense wearing brown and black. But hey, I was excited to race in my Soft Star Shoes Dash RunAmoc since the last race never panned out. Don’t I look proud?

After a quick warm-up jog, singing the National Anthem alongside 200+ already sweaty runners, and anxious to run, we were finally off. Kelley and I gave each other a good luck kiss and I dashed in the grass to pass slower runners and walkers.

Actually, I had to go off road a few times in order to pass people, and the Dash RunAmocs performed better than expected. With the Bullhide Leather Sole, I was worried traction would be an issue in the grass when I jumped to the side, but I never slipped once. The rest of the race was on a gravel trail, and they felt light with just enough protection from the rocks.

G-Ma was too occupied with an energetic toddler to ask her to take action shots of us racing, so I just have snippets from the Movin’ Pictures. As you can see, they are not paid for, just what you can find online, but I think they’re good enough.

What if, one day, it was cool to buy pictures with the word “Proof” across the entire image? I’d be ahead of the game then!

The shoes were great with their minimal weight and maximum performance. As long as it’s not wet (leather soles and water is like walking on ice), these are awesome. I do have other RunAmocs with a rubber trail sole which feel great when running too, but I like using those for lifting in my garage more.

The race itself was quick but the heat was punishing all of us. But that didn’t stop Going Mom from keeping on course and maintaining composure. I even have “proof” of her solid performance.

Both of us have hardly put enough running training in lately, be we have been rocking intense workouts with the barbell and kettlebells which gave us a great foundation to keep us going strong. And, as a result, our strength training paid off; we both came in 3rd place in our age group!

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It may not seem like anything spectacular to some, but I’m proud of the both of us and think it was a great way to kick off the Fourth of July!

Out of 261 runners, we came in 13th (me) and 59th (wife) place overall. I was hoping for a sub-20 minute run, but I’ll take 20:26. Plus, maybe that’s a positive sign that I’m doing better at my ultimate goal of gaining strength/weight.

Our favorite brewery, Martin House, had free beer for all runners. Kelley and I had a few drinks while sharing some much deserved beer with G-Ma while waited for the Awards to get our medals and take a photo. Of course, Avery had to be in there with both of us. Still rockin’ her “no smile” look.

After taking advantage of free craft beer (#winning), and talking with other runners, some who were quite interested in my brown Soft Star running shoes, we took off to G-Ma’s house. This is where we spent the night what I was scared of happening, happened.

Lets just say that sleep was very rare that night. Of course, our sweet angel did take a nap on the way home the next day.