All posts by R.C. Liley

I'm an ex-mutual fund accountant who left the cubicle world to be a stay-at-home dad to my beautiful little girl, Avery, who entered our life on 11/15/13. Also happily married to my wife, Kelley, for 7 years as of 8/17/14. Sorry ladies... :) Fitness and nutrition is of the upmost importance in our family and we strive to reflect this in our daily life. I always prepare our meals at home and only go out if it's a special occasion, and even then I tend to not get much. Food should be fun and a joy to eat, not something quickly consumed from a fast food chain or scarf down before the next meeting. I have come from strictly logging high miles to train for the next marathon to keeping exercise varied and focusing more on strength. I still enjoy going for a run when I can, but nothing crazy, and I prefer hill sprints while pushing my daughter, Avery in the stroller. She loves it and I get a great workout! I want to show the world how to appreciate their body and feed it real, wholesome food while moving more throughout the day. In doing so, everyone would be healthier, happier, and we'd all live in a better place as a result. I blog mainly about my life as a stay-at-home dad and frequently include reviews, participate in campaigns, and share my thoughts on fitness and nutrition. If you ever have any questions or thoughts to share, please reach out as I'm always open to listening or helping others however possible. That is, when I have free time since Avery is and my wife are the number one priorities!

Life

Happy 1st Valentine’s Day, Avery, and Kelley Too!

02/14/2014 R.C. Liley 1 Comment

red-heart — **Yep, I went with the corny heart. #noshame**

I know I complain about Avery not playing and being impatient, but I can’t believe she’ll be three months tomorrow, February 15th. And today is her first Valentine’s.

Avery with Mommy at less than 2 weeks old.

Yeah, not really a big deal, but as I’m sure all parents know, a first anything is a landmark we MUST get excited about.

I’m running short on time today, but I wanted to post my V-day wishes to Avery and hope we can have a great one. Tomorrow we’ll be visiting her grandparents from her mom’s side, and it’s supposed to be beautiful weather. Hoping for some nice sunshine and a great visit. I am always a little hesitant to throw her off of her routine since that makes nap time and therefore nighttime harder. Sometimes it’s not a big deal though, we’ll see.

Speaking of sleep, instead of the normal swaddle with snaps that we have been using, we tried the Woombie we bought a while back. I also used the advice from this video on YouTube for the inside layer to keep her arms down. This is a perfect combo! No more snaps coming undone either since the Woombie zips up!

Keeping those crazy arms down is a chore, and so far so good. Avery even slept in her crib from 9pm to 5am, that’s the longest yet! High five us! But I won’t get too excited until it’s consistent.

Crazy arms in action. So freakin' cute though! — Crazy arms in action. So freakin’ cute though!

Well, that’s it for today, I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine’s Day and great weekend ahead. I’m excited we’ll have Kelley at home for an extra day, we sure do miss mommy around here!

Do you get overexcited about counting 1st’s for your baby? What’s the most random first you can remember?

Parenting

Tummy Time and When Can We Play?!

02/13/2014 R.C. Liley 5 Comments

We are just about 3 months into being parents and I’m already restless wanting to play with Avery. Am I being to impatient? Anyone else have these feelings?

I try and play peek-a-boo, nothing. I open a book to read and she looks everywhere but right in front of her at the book and then usually gets fussy; fail. I jump from around a corner and say boo; bad idea, she just starts to cry.

For some dumb reason, I thought it might be cool to pop those plastic air-filled packaging things for a “fun” and surprising pow sound. Nope. She made her bottom lip turn over just like you’d see a sad cartoon puppy do and started crying. It didn’t last long, but I felt bad. Kelley and I have started calling her sad face the “Hector Face” because it reminds us of the old guy named Hector on “Breaking Bad.”

Okay, her lip goes down more than this and she's a lot cuter, but the name is stuck. — **Okay, her lip goes down more than this and she’s a lot cuter, but the name is stuck**.

I know I must have patience, and everyone keeps reminding me of this, but I keep trying every day anyway. Since I am stay-at-home dadding, there’s only so much to do. If she’s sleeping, I can’t be too loud, I don’t even flush the toilet! I spend most time in the kitchen making lunch/dinner for Kelley and myself, as well as get in a workout in our cold garage. If Avery naps well, that is.

Then it’s just feed, burp, change diaper, walk/talk/move around, swaddle, try to feed again, try to get her to nap, fail at my attempt, offer the bottle, change diaper again, do chores with her in the Baby Bjorn, attempt to play, fail at playing, and so on and so forth. That’s not a run on sentence, is it?

I’ve been trying to get Avery to move or roll over with Tummy Time sessions, but she just cries the whole time and sucks on her hand. She did, however, get really close to rolling herself over, if that damn right arm would be in the way! Kelley and I got all excited about this and I can only imagine how thrilled we’ll be when she actually does something. #beingnewparentsiswonderful

Why the pound sign talk? No clue, I’m not very Twitter savvy, but this is me trying. Yeah, I know they call it a hash tag, but I refuse to say that because it’s a freakin pound sign! Do you ever hear the automated voice on the phone say “Enter your password and press hash tag.”…..NO!

Anyway, I’ll let Avery cry for a while as she lays on her tummy just hoping she’ll do something magnificent. Nothing yet, but the day will come, I know it! Then that will be the start of maybe more playing.

We want to get her a bouncer really soon since she is pretty good about holding her head up on her own now. Anyone have any good recommendations? Can’t decide if we should go brand new or find a good used one. Or is that frowned upon? Let me know, I’m up for suggestions!

Okay, Avery is getting squirmy, so that means the end of this post. Off to go see if I will get a happy face or Hector Face….

As a parent, did you ever get anxious to start playing?

How long do you let your baby cry (if he or she did) during Tummy Time?

Parenting

Bottle vs Boob

02/12/2014 R.C. Liley Leave a comment

If you’re reading this post to see which one reigns supreme, here’s a spoiler, it’s the boob! The boob will always win over the bottle, no contest. Hell, without the boob, there would just be an empty bottle.

Yes, of course there’s formula, but since the ideal food source would be boob, I am not taking formula into account. For anyone who does formula feed, I’m not attacking you at all, so please take no offense. We feel very lucky that Avery is able to and willingly accepts breast milk, and I understand that’s not the case for all babies.

An issue Kelley and I have had disagreements with (she is going to hate that I’m blogging about this; sorry Kelley, I love you!) is how I feed Avery. In the mornings when we first wake up and Kelley is getting ready for work, I will start the first bottle of the day. Some mornings Avery is more fussy than others, but it always seems she is stubborn about taking the bottle.

Admittedly, I do try to get her to take it for too long which just makes her more fussy, or my position is wrong. Kelley has lectured me on this, and I am more accepting when Avery won’t take the bottle, I just give it a break. If Avery continues to be fussy, Kelley will get on to me thinking I’m still trying to get her to take the bottle, but that’s not it, she’s just fussy then.

Kelley will then say that she’ll feed her directly from the source, but I know she really needs to get ready for work. Anyway, after we go back and forth, Kelley will head to work and then I’ll try the bottle again.

Guess what? Avery is way more accepting of the bottle without mom around. I’m pretty confident that when mom is home, Avery knows she could have better than some plastic bottle with a fake rubber nipple; she wants the real thing! So, as we already know, the boob wins against the bottle hands down, but the bottle is also very necessary for us guys.

As a SAHD, I’m useless if I’m not armed with bottles to feed Avery, and I depend on the boob to reload those bottles every day.

Here are a few pros and cons to further prove the boob’s #1 status:

Bottle

Convenient and portable
Allows others to feed and give mom a break
Gets the healthy fat stuck on the side
Have to be cleaned afterward
Costs money
Not a boob

Boob

Convenient and portable
Nothing to clean once done feeding
Free source of the best stuff
No fat stuck on the side
Dad (or anyone else) can’t use to feed baby
Babies eventually get teeth

Obviously the boob is the preferred choice, and yes Kelley, I bow down to you and the almighty boob. I don’t want to argue about anymore and I no longer try to make Avery take the bottle if she is being unruly. I just give her a break and try again later. But I swear, she will chug the thing in one sitting when we’re alone!

Any other couples have this issue? How do you both come to terms on feeding?