Our Toddler’s Daily Blue Plate Special + WIAW

11/04/2015 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

Our toddler is getting a little more sophisticated around here. Before, we could just use her high chair tray as a “plate” for her to eat off of, but now she insists on using a plate. And not just any plate, and blue plate!

Actually, as long as the plate is next to her, she will still accept eating from the tray, but her plate must be blue. Pink or purple is a surefire way to set her off like Katie Ka-Boom from the Animaniacs (please, someone tell me they know the reference), so she gets her blue plate every day for at least dinner. Then wash, rinse, repeat (literally).

It doesn’t stop with just her plate either, she insists on sitting in her blue chair, drinking green smoothies from her blue bottle, wearing a blue shirt, and favors her blue cloth diaper over the other colors. And I lost count of how many times we are told the sky is blue and she has blue eyes. I know she’s too young to call it official, but for the time being, blue is definitely her favorite color.

Back to the blue plate. I’ve enjoyed sharing our toddler’s eats for past What I Ate Wednesday’s, so I figured I’d share her blue plate fare (rhyming rocks!) for this week’s edition.

Breakfast – Banana, homemade chocolate protein pancake, homemade NuttZo Banana Bread, and sprouted raw pumpkin seeds.

I’m always a bit worried about the pumpkin seeds since we’ve had several tipped plate experiences already, but lately, she’s been much better at putting her pincer grasp to use.

Snack – Tiny But Mighty Heirloom Popcorn with more NuttZo Banana Bread.

So it wasn’t a plate, but a blue lid seemed to pass her stringent color standards of….um…blue.

Lunch – Lots of slow-cooker veggies with black beans and a 50/50 mash of cauliflower and potatoes mixed with nutritional yeast, goat cheese, and several spices.

Please note the blue fork. I found it on Amazon and had to buy it for the name alone; Air Fork One. She loves it too!

Big Girl Snack – hard boiled egg, diced apple, slow-cooker butternut squash, steamed veggies, and cut cherry tomatoes.

I swear, she eats more than most adults! She’ll finish off a plate like this and simply look at us and say “more”.

Dinner – chicken thighs from a local farmer, baked apple, and more slow-cooker veggies.

Dinner time is when she tends to get a little ornery, so we keep more food to the side or feed her from our own plate/bowl. This time, however, she was all about the chicken and the veg and used her Air Fork One very well.

Picking up the cargo..

…dropping it off…

…and then back out for another load. Or she’s threatening us, not sure.

Who knows how long the blue plate phase will last, but I guess it could be something much, much worse, so as long as she keeps eating so well, blue plate it is!

Hope you have a great day, we’re getting over the hump now!

Does your kid have a particular item they must have at all times?

Ever see the Air Fork One or something like it?

Goals, Going Strong, Life

Squat Every Day is Done + What’s Next

11/03/2015 R.C. Liley 1 Comment

Back in Mid-September, I wrote how I had started Cory Gregory’s Squat Every Day Program. As you might gather based off the name, it’s where you squat….every day.

We’re not talking body-weight squats either, it was all about heavy barbell work where you hit a max single for most days. Of course, there were some days I strayed from the routine like when I was in Raleigh, NC at the National At-Home Dads Convention where I used the heaviest dumbbells in the hotel gym for split squats, goblet squats and sumo squats. I also performed several sets of heavy triples, used the common 5×5 approach, or even bottom position squats on saw horses some days.

Deviations aside, I still got under the barbell (besides the 3 days of dumbbells) to do heavy squats for 50 consecutive days. I planned to stop at 30 days, but then kept on finding myself starting each workout by doing squats. I’d say this is the last day, but then do the same thing again the following day. Finally, I hit 50 days and the physical and mental aspects simply caught up with me; I was done.

I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I have increased my front squat by 25 pounds and back squat by 15 pounds. For someone who has been lifting for several years, that’s pretty good gains, especially since I still suck at increasing my food intake to make even better gains.

Sunday, November 1st marked my 50th and last consecutive day of squatting, and out of all of the many variations I performed, the squats with a 10 second (yes, 10 full seconds in the bottom part of a heavy squat!) was by far the most difficult both physically and mentally. Doing front-to-back squats (perform a front squat, rack the weight, and then go right into a back squat which makes one rep) is a close second.

No, I don’t expect anyone else to really care about how many days I’ve squatted, but I’m proud of myself for sticking to it and have a new place for squats in my heart. It feels weird to not go right to the squat rack in my garage, but I won’t lie, it’s a little nice too. Actually, I’m taking it somewhat easy this week, but think I’ll commit to a video-based program utilizing dumbbells.

I’ve done it before, and plan on incorporating barbell work in the program because, well, I just love the barbell. I mentioned my injured shoulder about a month and a half ago, and I finally went to a chiropractor who confirmed it’s a strained rotator cuff. He said I can still lift, just focus on light weights and high reps. This is one reason I’m choosing the workout video that use dumbbells to lift in the 8 – 12 rep range.

At least I can still do heavy squats! Hopefully I’m as disciplined about going easy on my shoulder as I am about always exercising (too much if you ask most people) and I’ll make a full recovery.

Sorry for absence of cute toddler pics and blabbing on about my current squatting achievement and new routine. Speaking of our cute little girl, she’s the other reason I’m leaning more towards a workout routine to do inside. Now that it’ll be getting colder and she’s a ~~little~~ lot more vocal about what she likes and dislikes, I expect being inside and not in a cold garage would suit her preferences.

So that’s where I stand in the exercise world for the most part. Still on that quest to gain strength, just taking a new, hopefully smarter, approach.

Have you ever followed a workout video program?

Did you like or despise it?

Care to share details? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on different programs.

Life, Parenting, Soft Star Shoes

The Only Treat in Her Halloween Basket

11/02/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Last year might have been her first Halloween, but this year was more exciting for sure. We were able to use the same pumpkin costume as last year (no Elsa here!), but that’s where the similarities end.

Avery’s First in 2014

Avery’s Second in 2015

Good to see she’s growing! But maybe a little too fast, she’s already expressing herself a bit much.

Fine, Avery, you can pick your own costume next year, geez!

During the day on Halloween, we carved our first pumpkin as a family.

We tried to get Avery to stick her hand inside to help pull out the pumpkin guts, but all she wanted to do was stick her head in and sniff.

Not wanting to waste the insides, I spread the seeds on a baking sheet to roast them. Avery was happy to sit and observe.

I told her we were going to cook and eat the pumpkin’s guts. Although she didn’t look the slightest bit interested, she couldn’t stop eating them once out of the oven.

Due to my lack of tools, skills, and overall desire to get elaborate, we kept it simple with a traditional jack-o-lantern look. Kelley drew the lines and I completely jacked up the outline with my unsteady knife hand.

The end result was nothing mind-blowing, but hey, we did it together as a family and that’s what matters most.

We just enjoyed seeing how involved and interested Avery was with the whole process, and you could tell how excited she was about our carved gourd.

Maybe “excited” is not the right word, but she Iinterested, I swear! She really became interested as we prepared to go trick-or-treating, especially with all of the costumed big kids (parents too) out and about going door to door. Outside at the front of our house, she just stood in her pumpkin suit and stared as Elsa’s walked with Mummies, and The Hulk had apparently settled down and shrunk in size.

There was no carrying around like last year, this time she was ready to walk on her own.

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We have an almost half mile loop around our house that she walked most of on her own with only a few tiny trips. Those darn feet!

Avery still doesn’t know what candy is, she just calls out the color of the wrappers if she sees some, and we never expected for her to get anything on her trick-or-treating adventure, it was all for the experience. That said, one of our neighbor friends, Jason along with his wife Jennifer, had asked what she could have so they could have something to give her to put in her bucket, and I said she loves bananas. This simple, yet generous offer was extremely thoughtful and appreciated by Going Mom and myself.

He and his wife have two little girls, Natalie and Zoey, and I’ve mentioned how we’ve been over to jump on their trampoline and play a few times before. Their house was the only one we actually stopped at that night, and Avery happily (with a confused-about-her-surroundings look) accepted her banana treat to fill her Halloween basket.

Kelley and I were trying to chat for a minute, and in that minute, Avery was already trying to eat her treat without even peeling the thing. We stopped her after she already had her teeth sunk in the peel, and I took it away to “unwrap” the wrapper so she could have a bite. Bad move, that set off our impatient pumpkin.

Crap, meltdown! Luckily, the crisis was averted by her brown-spotted treat once it was in her belly.

Good thing I didn’t mistake that other, more round pumpkin next to her as my costumed daughter or she would’ve been outraged when I tried to feed it her banana.

Happy once more, we set off to complete the loop with Avery doing mostly good on foot. We ran into some friends all around her age and as we stopped to talk to their parents, they conversed amongst themselves as well.

On the right is Natalie, and the middle is another friend/neighbor, Emma. Not sure what they discussed, but none of them looked exactly happy with us.

Soon after, we completed the loop and thus, Avery’s first experience of trick-or-treating. I’m sure next year will be even more eventful and probably not as easy to get away with just a banana for her basket, but only time will tell.

Did you take your little ones out to trick-or-treat?

Any fun/exciting/hopefully not bad stories to share?