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 and handsome little boy, Wes, who joined our family on 11/19/17. Also happily married to my wife, Kelley, as of 8/17/07. Sorry ladies... :) Fitness and nutrition is of the utmost 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!

Parenting

Making A Rash Decision and Duct Tape Diapering

04/21/2015 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

Guess we celebrated Avery’s recovery too soon. No more fever, but she started to develop a rash on her lower belly. It was good to see she was back to being active, but her eating was and still is not up to par.

Despite what it looks like in the picture, Avery was not scratching at or even acknowledging her spreading rash. But, Going Mom did enough worrying for the both of them and was worriedly searching Dr. Google for an answer.

Since it was the weekend and the rash didn’t seem severe enough to act immediately, I said we should just wait until Monday and reassess then. My wife, still showing signs of concern, as any loving mother would, agreed to give it time. Meanwhile, she used several forms of home remedies/treatments in hopes the rash would suddenly disappear.

Coconut oil and her homemade solution of essential oils to diffuse may or may not of helped, but her rash was hardly visible by Monday. Phew! Kelley took off from work and neither of us wanted to spend her day off going to the doctor for our poor daughter’s rash. It had already been a long, stressful week for Avery, and an impromptu visit to the doc would only add to it!

In other news, Avery started undoing her cloth diaper again. This happened a few months ago and we used packaging tape as the solution. The tape sucked and fell off easily, so we’ve upgraded to duct tape which seems to work much better.

duct tape cloth diaper — So it’s come to this…..

Or so we thought…..

Apparently you have to duct tape all around or Avery will simply just pull the tape right off. Smart girl. Now she gets duct tape full circle around her cloth diaper.

Like any toddler, she doesn’t make it easy, but handing her the roll helps keep her still long enough just to make sure everything’s secure.

Once she’s all wrapped up, she then likes to get down to rap.

Okay, not really rap, but that’s the only thing that would work for my corny dad pun/joke. So sue me! Actually,please don’t. 🙂

Besides the mystery rash and finicky eating, we had a great family weekend together. Even though Avery didn’t have a fever, I think it was best we didn’t bring her to our friend’s kids’ 2 year old birthday party since she hasn’t been 100% quite yet and we didn’t know whether the rash would spread or not. Instead, we enjoyed playtime and coffee during the day, and a lot of The Walking Dead after Avery’s bedtime.

Seriously, we are hooked for the long haul and almost to season 4 at this point. It’s bad when we set a limit of 2 episodes and end up watching 2 more. The crazy life of parents with a toddler, huh? That said, I enjoy having a good show to get into with my wife, and it’s nice to stay off of the computer and watch something good with her instead.

Really quick before I wrap things up, I went on an hour long run in my new Soft Star Shoes Dash RunAmocs with a bullhide leather sole and find these better than my Moc3’s I reviewed previously. I’ll have a full review of the Dash RunAmocs eventually, but will be running a half-marathon in them on Mother’s Day before publishing anything. Until then, I’ll keep wearing my Soft Stars and Avery will wear hers as we exercise and play together each day!

Has your kid ever had a mystery rash that didn’t seem to bother them but looked bad?

Any other kind of rash?

What do you think about taping your toddler’s diaper to keep them from undoing it?

Parenting, Photo Journal

17 Month Photo Session: No Go With The Bow

04/20/2015 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

This is the second month we’ve had to push off Avery’s monthly photo session. Last month, my wife and I had a date night paint night (King Kong even made an appearance), and this month Avery was too ill for us to subject her to pictures in the chair.

Once our little girl was back in action and running wild, we knew it was time for her photo session. She’s still not eating right and it’s obvious her current teething is the culprit. Poor kid, can’t catch a break.

I have to hand it to her though, aside from her stubborn eating, she bounced back from her fever rather fast and won’t let anything slow her down. She made sure to make her photo session difficult just to prove that she’s not sick anymore and we can’t just take pictures as we please like I did the other day. Taking her away from the book she was “reading” probably didn’t help either….

But that’s what parents do, right, we annoy the hell out of our kids. The first setup seemed promising and Avery put up a front as if she’d cooperate.

But not a second later, she was lunging forward with her crazy face.

It became obvious this session would be added to the another one of those categories, so we just managed with what we had. Basically, just a lot of re-positioning.

The only time she held still was when she was pulling on the bow in her hair.

Which, of course, led to it coming off.

Kelley only had to put the bow back on, ohhhhhhh, eleventy-billion times.

Which only made Avery increasingly interested in the little white thing clipped to her hair. Maybe it would be something good to eat?

Nope, maybe handing it to Daddy would be better.

Or maybe I’ll just hold on to it and give a quick pose.

Guess that was all we got, because things went “downhill” from there….

And hey, what’s with this bow always getting stuck on my head?!

So that was our photo session for her 17 month mark. I know there’s a lot of changes occurring each day in our growing girl, but does that mean she’ll be better or worse for her 18 month session?

I don’t know!

Life, Parenting

Recovery Mode From Boob Milk Magic

04/18/2015 R.C. Liley 6 Comments

After two days of a roller coaster fever and lethargic toddler, Avery no longer has a fever and seems to be on her way to recovery. I attribute much of her recovery from her Mommy’s boob milk magic since it’s full of antibodies and nutrition that’s hard to find anywhere else.

Avery was refusing most solids, so Kelley nursed more in place of the food. Not only did this give Avery vital nutrients to fight of the sickness inside, but it acted as a the perfect way to provide soothing relief from her ailment.

If I wore a hat, I’d take it off for my wife for being so bad-ass when comes to breastfeeding and just being a great mother all around. Actually, maybe that’s why I never wear hats, because they’d always be off anyway since she’s just great all the time. Well, besides when…nevermind….. 🙂 I love you, Kelley!

We were supposed to go to a good friend’s house for their son’s 2 year birthday party, but felt it best not to bring Avery out quite yet. Despite the healing properties of nursing, Avery is still not eating well and has had a case of “the runs”. Here’s a pic I took 5 minutes after I gave her a small bite of something soft.

Yeah, she simply refuses to chew and will end up spitting whatever it is right out on the floor after it sat in her mouth for 10 minutes. Damn teething, and poor little girl!!!!!

Yesterday morning was a slow start and Avery just wanted to be held most of the time, but she eventually became mobile and started playing with her toys. She even attempted to dance a little, always a good sign!

But right as I busted out the camera to capture our daughter feeling better, she went into a slump. At least her Catch-Me-Kitty was there to help comfort her in the box.

Such a depressing photo, huh? She never lets me put the camera in her face and will just turn around or be too squirmy resulting in a blurry image, but this time she kept still with a blank stare.

Double depressing! I kept thinking I was pushing my luck with the camera in her face, but she acted as if nothing was happening. Or maybe she simply did not care.

Just as my broken heart broke further into tiny pieces, she gave a glimmer of hope with a halfsie-grin-like-thing.

I must of scared whatever excitement she was working on away because the next shot had her back in slump mode.

That was too much, so I put the camera away and just read several of her new Sandra Boynton books. It didn’t help to get her to smile, but she sat snug in my lap the entire time and will hold on to that sweet memory for life. Just as my wife has the same memory from cuddling with our sick baby in bed the night before.

I wish we had our normal toddler back and we were celebrating at a 2 year old’s birthday party today, but Avery has a little more recovering to do first. The good news is that we’re going to find another time to go down and visit with our old friends and see how grown their kids are now.

Not much happening this weekend, just a trip to Costco and getting our little girl back to normal. By normal, I mean the crazy, rampant and overzealous toddler that she is!

Do you have any plans for the weekend?

Have you nursed or witnessed nursing that helped your kid recover from illness before?