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, Parenting

7 Month Photo Session and How to Fight a Bear

06/18/2014 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

Avery stepped into month 7 of her life the same day I celebrated my first Father’s Day, so we had two reasons to celebrate. Okay, three if you count not having a giant tortoise to care for in our back yard!

Before G-Ma, Paul, and our friend, Margaret came over to ~~wish me a happy Father’s Day~~ see Avery, Going Mom and I took advantage of Avery’s current good mood to take her monthly progression photos next to her stuffed bear. We asked her if she was ready as we sat in the living room and she gave us her typical constipated raspberry response.

We took that as a “yes.”

In the nursery, Kelley sat Avery in the chair and went to grab the stuffed animal bear. It was obvious Avery was just as excited as we were about her 7 month photo shoot.

Maybe the bear would help excite her?

Meh; a little better, but even blowing raspberries would’ve been better than this poker face. But then she opened up and seemed interested in her soft, friendly bear.

At least, we thought she was just interested, but apparently she had some aggression issues with her stuffed bear. What ensued for the remainder of the photo session was basically a bear mauling. Maybe Avery was giving a tutorial on how to fight a stuffed bear should the need arise. I mean, hey, you never know!

As you can see from the picture above, you must first act like you just want to pet the unsuspecting bear. Then, when you have good leverage, slam his face down in your knee and smile while doing so.

Then grab your bear prey from behind while he’s stunned….

….and throw him in a corner while staying as close as you can to prevent him from taking any swipes. Maybe bite his face a little.

From there, drive your shoulder into his neck region to let him know you’ve only just begun to show him who’s boss!

Don’t stop, keep really driving your body into his and don’t let up by any means! This is a bear, after all, and they can’t be trusted.

Having shown his jugular a thing or two, push him down from behind and bite his head! Trust me, you’ll “bear-ly” taste a thing.

At this point, you’re probably a little tired, so give yourself a break by just laying right on top of the big lug.

Keep laying there if you need to; bear fights are exhausting.

Once you’ve established yourself as master of all bears, prop the poor sap back up in a corner and go let everyone know your big feat!

Oh yeah, oops, learn how to crawl or walk before trying to get off the chair though. Thanks, mom, for catching me!

Have mommy or daddy help you down from the chair instead of trying to crawl right off of it and get to the nearest phone to tell everyone you know. Just so happens, Avery had her chance to use the phone when we changed her into swim clothes to go outside and try her new giant turtle pool.

After you’ve made the calls…..eat the phone.

And that sums up our 7 month photo session and tutorial on how to fight a bear. Here’s Avery at her 1 month session; she’s a little more lively now!

Wow, I will never get over seeing how much she’s already grown!

Do you have a certain prop you use to help mark your child’s growth each month/year? Or did you?

Life, Parenting

No Giant Tortoise for Father’s Day

06/17/2014 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

The sound of my Vibram-clad feet running on a hiking trail with a light breeze whispering in my ears and the sound of grasshoppers flapping to move out of my path. This is how I spent part of my first Father’s Day; alone and at peace enjoying a sweaty run on a nearby trail.

6.5 miles and 31 pushups, air squats, and burpees later, I was ready to go back to my beautiful girls to celebrate “my” day!

Before I left for my run, Going Mom made me a lot of coffee with the French press and gave me my Father’s Day gift.

Pretty sure I drank a full carafe by myself!

I’m a sentimental kind of guy, and gifts from the heart mean more to me than something that can bought and wrapped up. Don’t get me wrong, there are many things you can buy and wrap that do require thought and care, but I don’t “need” those things and would rather have something made just for me.

Kelley knows this and was spending a lot of time in our front room for the days leading up to Father’s Day. She prohibited me from entering the front room for about a month since it also housed my 30th birthday gift. I was clueless what it could be, but instantly loved it when she gave it to me that morning.

A photo book with picture of just Avery and me starting at day 1 in the hospital and having our skin to skin time.

As I looked through, I relived each moment and joy filled my heart; I love it! Even this picture of me wearing Avery in the Baby Bjorn which I will never do again for the potential hip issues it causes babies, put a giant grin on my face.

Now I wear her in an Onya most of the time as well as an Ergo sometimes. Both are great options and seat the baby with their knees higher than their bottom and supports the hips. They are also more comfortable on you, the babywearer.

The time and thought my loving wife put into this means so much to me and (I’m looking at it now and smiling) makes me grateful for our small family. Even the card had to of taken some time and puts my homemade cards to her to shame!

Yep, I didn’t get a giant toolbox from Sears with all of the coolest Craftsmen tools or a new tablet with a super-ultra-mega-pixel burn-your-eyes-out screen and a faster than lightning processor, I got something better; a gift from the heart of someone I love dearly and can’t be duplicated. Thank you, Kelley/Wife/Wonderful Mom!!

For a while, I played with the idea that maybe her and my mom (G-Ma) had gone in together to get me a giant tortoise for our back yard. Why the hell would I think that? It seems ridiculous to me now, but I had mentioned several times how I want a giant tortoise for our back yard. It was always just laughed off (me included) because that would be crazy and I’m pretty sure illegal here in Texas.

But then, my mom’s boyfriend, Paul, recently showed us a picture of his son’s new back yard tortoise. They kept talking about it and how they put a lot of work into their yard to make a great home for the big guy and it was awesome.

Giant tortoise in back yard with their dog having a peek

For some reason, with the enthusiasm my mom and Kelley were telling me about the tortoise, I had thought they had something up their sleeve. Turns out, nope, nothing up their sleeve at all!

As cool as it would be, I was getting worried when I thought this was a reality; what in the world would I actually do with a giant tortoise in the back yard? We have a small box turtle, Tash, and she’s all we need. Plus, she’s the perfect size for Avery to watch and learn about.

After I returned from my better-than-therapy trail run, we spent the rest of the day together just enjoying each other. We did end up with a giant turtle in our back yard, but in the form of an inflatable pool, not a tortoise.

I didn’t take a shot of the pool alone, but you can see it there behind our happy baby. I promise, she really is a girl, it just doesn’t help when we choose blue and green. Oh well, we refuse to overwhelm her with pink!

I couldn’t get a smiling picture of her and me in the pool, but she flashed her rosy gums with mommy!

After getting enough of the outside, we all gathered back inside for the evening. G-Ma was with us to spend the night and we sat around the kitchen with food and drink just enjoying each other’s company. We even had a good Father’s Day brew from a local brewery, Rahr and Son’s, to share a cheers.

No, she didn’t have any beer, but she was really loving on the cucumber we gave her. This was her first time trying, and I’d say it was a hit!

I had a wonderful first Father’s Day and love our small family. Now that I have something to compare to, next year will be hard to beat! Hopefully there’s not giant tortoise then either!

Did you do anything for Father’s Day? Get anything cool?

What would you do with a giant tortoise as a back yard pet?

Monthly List, Parenting

7 Memories from my 7th Month Since “Going Dad”

06/16/2014 R.C. Liley 6 Comments

Really? Another month already?!

Geez, who needs a time machine for the future when becoming a parent “apparently” yields the same effect? Avery is now over the half-year mark and is becoming more active (and vocal!) every day.

On my 6 Memories post, I anticipated that one of my 7 memories for her 7th month would include her crawling, but it hasn’t happened yet. Seriously, the 8 month post is sure to have a memory of her crawling!

I think I'll just stay in this position and do nothing else. — I think I’ll just stay in this position and do nothing else.

Scooting, military crawling, and forward thrusting while on her hands and knees are all there and fool us into thinking “this is it” every time. Soon, baby, soon.

With my 30th birthday and first Father’s Day behind us now, hopefully the rest of June will be a bit calmer and we can focus on our little girl crawling. Oh, and she’ll be helping me clean up our neighborhood too.

If you haven’t entered to win an awesome Outback baby carrier from Onya Baby, click here and do it now! I wear Avery in our Onya everyday and it allows us both to get quality father-daughter bonding time.

Okay, lets get started…

1. Most of our nights now have us in the living room before your bath time where we play on the floor. Depending on how the day went, you can be really fussy or a happy baby. When you’re happy, I will hold you in the air and let you jump on my stomach or just try to entertain you with toys.

As it gets later, or you just had a rough day, getting on the floor with you does nothing for your temperament. This is when we break out the laser and get Lou (the fat black cat) involved to help us keep you calm. It works well, and “Fatty” gets some exercise.

Don't move, you might scare it off! — Don’t move, you might scare it off!

2. Just recently, you have started grabbing at my face while I’m trying to feed you a bottle. I start to make weird noises and act like I’m going to eat your hand and you laugh every time. It’s cute, and no matter how ridiculously annoyed I am that you won’t take the bottle, I forget all of my frustrations and just give you a kiss on the head.

As an aside, you also grab at anything and everything in your sight; other people’s faces included. You may or may not have grabbed a bottle of beer as mommy was trying to take a drink and spilled it on the both of you. But don’t worry, the beer was safe!

Daddy's face can be boring, I'll grab at Paul's. — Daddy’s face can be boring, I’ll grab at Paul’s.

3. We were in our first race together and won 1st place! Sure it was a small race with very unenthusiastic competition, but we rocked it, baby! Thanks to G-Ma, Paul, and Mommy, we had the best spectators out there, and they made the day even more special.

Besides it being our first race, we’ll never forget this day because of how much we stood out from the rest of the cheerful attendees. 🙂

4. You got to experience your first trip to a brewery! The same day we won the 5k, we went with G-Ma, Paul, and Mommy to the Martin House Brewery in Fort Worth as part of my 30th birthday celebration. I had more than my fair share of good beer, and luckily mommy drove us home safely. I did help direct her out of our tight parking spot though!

As you can see, you were thrilled to be there! Even with live music and clusters of people drinking and talking all around you, you managed to sleep quite well.

Actually, when live music stopped is when you seemed to wake up; coincidence? We’ll never know!

5. You had been to Nana and Papa’s pool before, but this past month was your official first dip in the pool. Mommy, You, and I all walked down to our neighborhood pool where you happily splashed around in the baby pool just like it was your own giant bathtub.

You must’ve really enjoyed yourself playing, because you were out before we made the walk back home.

We brought you back again on my birthday and you still loved the water like before. I have a feeling we’ll be making many trips to the pool since you obviously enjoy each time we go; even if you’re “too cool for pool”.

6. Avery, caffeine and you don’t make for good times……ever! Along with all of the other firsts the same day as our race and trip to the brewery, mommy had more than one cup of coffee for the first time since pregnancy and it became apparent that night. Caffeinated boobs are lethal!

You woke up crying more times than you had in a long time, and despite mommy’s many attempts, you wouldn’t stay asleep very long. This, in turn, resulted in starting my birthday earlier than any of us had planned (or wanted), but the day ended up being great. I even got to try out your crib with you in it for the first time.

Since then, mommy has been keeping her coffee consumption to one cup or less per day. Phew!

7. You ate your first solid food! We started to introduce you to solids through baby-led weaning, and at first we felt like you’d never eat what we gave you.

But after several encouraging commenters on the blog, we kept at it and eventually you took your first bites. You also gagged a little, but that was expected, and you didn’t let that bother you a bit!

As I write this, we are waiting on a hair chair mommy ordered since what we were using wasn’t working out, so hopefully we’ll have the new one soon and start feeding you healthy foods once more.

Okay, so I’ve exhausted my “7 things”, but I must add one more thing. You are becoming more vocal about EVERYTHING! Yes, if we so much as think about stepping on foot out of your sight, you’ll turn into hysterics and scream as loud as humanly possible. The sound resembles that of a cat screeching when you step on its tail mixed with a very frustrated baby bear trying to growl. Not a pretty sound.