Category Archives: Life

If My Baby Could Tweet and Use Hashtags

05/29/2014 R.C. Liley 5 Comments

It’s the coolest thing lately, using hashtags for everything! Every show has its name in hashtag at the top of the screen and people even talk in hashtag; me included.

I used to make fun of hashtag use and seriously got annoyed because I’ve always know it as a pound sign. Mainly because, IT IS!

When you get an automated voice on the phone, it doesn’t say “Please enter your password followed by the hashtag”. Not yet at least.

But, I have succumbed to its use and do it daily. #igiveup

See?

So I started to wonder what my 6 month old daughter, Avery, would say in hashtag if she knew how. And thus, my post was born! Here’s my attempt to put hashtag words in Avery’s mouth for some of our recent pictures.

Enjoy!

Dad called the hashtag a pound sign! #WTF

#SomebodyPayAttentionToMe

#Damn

And picture number 1,033 for the day….#StopDad

I’m still here. #PhotoBomber

Go ahead, cat, make the first move. #KittyCompetition

I didn’t actually mean for you to make a move! #GiveMeTheRedDot

I have to feed myself with this?! #BringBackBoob

Just doin what I do. #RaspberrySelfie

It stinks. #WhoFarted

It was me. #BroccoliMadeMe

What, another picture session? #DontLookDontLookDontLook

Those stupid waving fingers always get me. #Crap

I think I just have to fart…..oops. #ChangeMyDiaper

Not all toys are fun. #IMissTheRedDot

Yeah mom, I love the bow. #Ppthhhppthhhppththpptthh

Go ahead, ask me another question you already know I can’t answer. #BabyProblems

Now that I use hashtags on a daily basis, I get how useful they are for social media and business, but there will always be a part of me that questions how and why the ever originated. But, like most things with technology, you just have to go with the flow.

What are your thoughts on using hashtags?

Any personal stories?

Don’t you call it the pound sign?

Life, Parenting

What Was It Like Before Baby Monitors?

05/28/2014 R.C. Liley 4 Comments

Sunday night, the night before my Memorial Day 10k, we ran into a little problem, the baby monitor broke! Well, kinda, the video worked but there was no sound.

The thought never crossed my mind on what we’d do sans baby monitor, but here we were with mounting anxiety over not being able to hear our baby. Actually, that’s not true, we spend a lot of the night in our living room and can hear Avery’s wails just fine without a device, but it still got to us. Plus, I was planning on going to bed a little earlier to get a good rest before waking up to run.

That night, we slept slightly longer on the couch than usual, and finally migrated to bed where I am sure we were both wondering if Avery was crying or not. Thankfully G-Ma was staying the night and her room is right next to Avery’s, so that helped comfort us a little.

Avery never woke up crying that night (or maybe we did and we didn’t hear), but we felt it urgently necessary to find a replacement. A lot of times, when something breaks, we try to figure out some way of being able to return the faulty product in exchange for a new one. Since we bought our monitor online and didn’t know of any stores that carried it, that option was out the window.

The next day, when we arrived home from the race, I thought I’d tinker around with the device to see if I could “fix” it. My tinkering entailed lightly hitting it and blowing into the speaker holes as if they were an Original NES Nintendo cartridge. Going Mom joked that you know you’re an 80’s baby when you do this, and it’s true!

source: http://blog.logitech.com/2013/10/08/six-gaming-myths-every-gamer-should-know/

Did you know that blowing into the cartridge was actually part of the problem? Apparently every time we did blew, some of our saliva would coat the game which made it hard for the system to read. There, learned something new today…unless you already “knew” that.

Back to the monitor, blowing into it and hitting didn’t work, obviously, so I did the next best thing; try pressing all of the buttons. Lo and behold, this actually fixed the freakin’ thing!

Backtrack to Sunday morning, when the monitor still worked, Kelley and I were laying in bed listening to Avery blow raspberries in her crib. C’mon, I know other parents do this, right? Kelley was about to get up to feed her, but we thought we’d have a little fun and talk to her through the monitor. Cheap entertainment at it’s best!

That stare is kind of creepy, in a cute sort of way. Well, we had our fun and went about our day, but I guess that button stuck for whatever reason. I’m actually surprised we didn’t wake her while talking that night when we thought it was just broken.

So, after pressing the button to speak to your baby again, it reset and all was well in the world again! Phew, I was worried we were going to have to come up with a really good story to tell the store if we tried to return it.

While we were slowly going crazy when the monitor was still “broken”, my mom (G-Ma) mentioned how all she had for me was audio. She’d have to peak into the nursery any time she wanted to actually see me; crazy, huh?

Being able to hear your baby rustling around but unsure if they are just readjusting themselves or fully awake would drive me nuts! And what about before there were any monitors, how did parents do it?

Okay, I know monitors aren’t necessary, but I sure do feel spoiled after considering how little our parents and grandparents had when raising us. Now we can watch our babies through video on the internet and be on the other side of the world!

It was nice having our monitor with sound and video again, and I hope to never have to experience a time without the monitor when we’re home. Ha, I just realized we actually do this when we spend the night at G-Ma’s house! But that’s only a day, and we can still hear Avery from anywhere in the house, so I’m not counting then!

Have you ever been without a baby monitor or do you even use one?

If you do use one, any stories of a time when you couldn’t?

Life, Parenting

1st and 2nd Place and Our Daughter Feeds Her Face

05/27/2014 R.C. Liley 12 Comments

Rhyming, it just comes naturally as a parent, don’t you think?

So, um, wow, the weekend is gone! Going Mom had four days off and now they’re all gone; what happened?! I guess that’s what happens when you’re having fun….

On that note, Kelley, G-Ma, Avery, and I had a fun and exciting Memorial Day. The day started not bright (because the sun wasn’t up) and early as we had to get ready to head to my last 10k race in my twenties. Kelley actually had to wake Avery up for a change, but she didn’t protest about it at all! I would’ve lost that bet.

It was a cloud-covered morning with a light rain at the race, and it didn’t let up until after everyone finished running. I, for one, happen to love running in the rain as long as it’s not cold, so the conditions were perfect to me. We arrived a little early, so I just hung out with my beautiful support crew for a while.

Luckily, my concern about using the bathroom before the start was never an issue and I was “relieved”! I don’t know, do you think I was just a little too excited about this?

Maybe I was, but it’s better than being really bummed, true?

The race started with both the 5k and 10k runners at the same time, and then we split about 2.5 miles out. I had a great pace to start with and was able maintain it through the finish. I really had not clue how I would do since I only had a few solo runs and the rest have been with Avery in the stroller and our dog, Abby.

I didn’t say it out loud, but my goal was to finish in under 40 minutes, and I just barely made it with a time of 39:59.7! Holy crap, it’s hard to get any closer than that! With an average pace of 6:26/mile, I surprised myself and am very happy with my time. My wonderful and supporting wife, mother, and daughter were at the finish to cheer me on which helped give me that extra push.

I was maxed out at that point! A big thanks to my wife for snapping this action shot! My time put me 1st in my age group, 25 to 29, and 2nd overall. It wasn’t a huge race, but I’m still proud and feel good about it being my last solo race before getting bumped to the 30 to 34 bracket.

Even though I was gassed, I knew I had to get my daily dose of 30 burpees in while I was still warmed up, so I found a spot on the sidewalk and went to work. Thanks again to Kelley for capturing the moment.

Then, probably against her will since I was still sweaty, I posed for a picture with my beautiful mom.

It took forever for all of the awards to be announce, but finally they got to the 10k runners and announced my name. I brought Avery with me and she was given the medal for placing.

She deserves it for being such and awesome baby the whole day! Love our little girl!

Speaking of awesome, our little girl is catching on to eating solids more and more each day. I just posted about her first actual consumption and how I had to “help” by holding the food to her mouth, but now she’s using her own hands!

This was on Sunday before G-Ma arrived to witness what I thought would take forever! But, without my assistance this time, she brought both broccoli and carrot to her mouth and actually ate a little of both!

And, as we all know, along with the consumption of solids, comes the ejection of poop! Avery blessed us twice with the confirmation of her new food groups and needless to say, I installed our diaper sprayer posthaste. Now I finally get to put our Spray Pal through its first test! I’ll let you know how it goes soon!

Since G-Ma missed out on Avery eating on Sunday, we decided to try another BLW moment after we arrived home from the race. I’d say she’s definitely getting the hang of it now; look at that firm grasp on the broccoli and her delicate bite into the floret. Attagirl!!

Good things happening around here! It’s sad when a great weekend has to end, but I know there will be many more great times ahead! Times like spraying a poopy diaper for the first time……or something like that. :/

Okay, I’ll leave it at that for today. Hope everyone enjoyed an extra day off and made sure to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. Have a great day!

Any plans for a race of your own yet? Do you even care?

I’m still being stubborn and don’t want anything too sweet, but any suggestions on what to try feeding Avery next?