Category Archives: Parenting

Ninja Turtle Puzzles at G-ma’s

03/02/2014 R.C. Liley 5 Comments

If weather here could talk, it would’ve said “Screw you, suckers!” this weekend. Saturday’s high was in the low 80’s and beautiful for our drive down to G-ma’s. Then, the very next day and we’re in the single digits! Thank you, Texas weather, for teasing us with 2 wonderful days of gorgeous weather and then WHAM!, we’re slipping on ice as we step outside.

Weather aside, we had a pretty good visit at G-ma’s. Avery wasn’t quite the outstanding baby I asked for in our conversation the day before, but she did flash us some smiles and let G-ma hold and feed her.

The only time Avery visited G-ma’s house was at 5 weeks old. Now that she’s 15 weeks old and aware of her surroundings, we think she was a little overwhelmed and got upset as night came around. One minute Avery was enjoying her time with Kelley and my mom (G-ma), and the next minute she bursts into crying.

Avery showing her Liley lip curl with G-ma

Of course, we never really know what makes a baby burst into the cutest yet nerve racking ball of tears, but we do our best to act like we do. We’ll say “Oh, it’s just colic.”, or “She probably has a dirty diaper.” Or maybe it’s because we missed a spot while dusting the mantle! Hell, babies just cry sometimes because that’s what they do. Yes, it sucks, and yes, I also try and make my own diagnosis for screaming baby syndrome.

Kelley and Avery chillin at G-ma's — Kelley and Avery chillin at G-ma’s

Although, Avery’s outburst was something abnormal for her at that time, so it just seems fitting to say it was from being a different environment. She carried on for a good hour as we passed her around like a hot potato trying different “techniques” (i.e. the same damn thing we all do with a crying baby, make weird sounds in her face and offer a boob or bottle while sniffing her diaper), until Kelley was finally able to soothe her to sleep. Oh yes, miracle boob strikes again!

Since Avery was sleeping in the room next to the living room, we kept the T.V. off for a while to make sure she was in a deep sleep.

Crap! What do we do with no T.V., you ask? What any normal group of adults would do….. We had drinks and put together 3 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) puzzles, of course!

Drinking and cartoon puzzles is where it's at! — Drinking and cartoon puzzles is where it’s at!

Growing up, I was a huge TMNT fan like most boys around that time. I remember my mom bringing me to Toys R’ Us if I had a good report card to let me pick out a TMNT toy. Lately, since we had Avery, I’ve been turning back into a kid again and have been hoping my TMNT toys were stowed away somewhere at my mom’s. I was determined to find something from my past when we visited.

Not long after we arrived, I was on the hunt for my childhood toys. After rummaging through the house and attic, I only came up with 3 Ninja Turtle Puzzles covered in dust. It was apparent that the original owner (me) didn’t do a good job at putting the right pieces back in the box, so we made a night of putting the puzzles together.

As I’ve mentioned in a past post, puzzles mean a lot to Kelley and me, and I thoroughly enjoyed the evening with her and my mom as we worked on these together.

We eventually retired into the living room and Avery slept better than expected through most of the night. We woke up in a seemingly different state with freezing rain and blistering winds so coffee was a given before we were going to do anything else. After a cup of coffee (three for me), we visited a little longer while Avery had a Cliff’s Notes version of her usual morning nap, and then we trekked our way back home in the cold.

Overall, we had a pleasant visit with my mom and hopefully next time Avery will be familiar with her surroundings and not transform into a ~~wicked terror~~ cute little crying baby. But if she does, I’m sure it will just be because she’s colicky….. 🙂

Keeping cozy with G-ma before heading out into the cold

Has your baby ever cried out after bringing them to new surroundings?

Do you ever try and diagnose a crying baby when you really I have no clue? Almost every day here!

Parenting

Humming in Harmony

02/26/2014 R.C. Liley 5 Comments

Do you have a certain way of putting your baby to sleep? Maybe a song, using a deep hum, or a soft “shhhh” sound?

humming, baby, babies, parenting, Sleep=Good — Sleep = Good

I normally sing random, made up songs using her name and a lot of rhyming. Sometimes the words I use to make the rhyme aren’t even real, but it works! Kelley sings as well, but she uses real lullabies; I should look into that. Nah, I love making things up on the fly. I just wish I could write some down, I’d make……….ummmm….probably $10 at the most.

Kelley and I also use humming as a sleep tool. The humming usually comes second after our singing did most of the work and Avery is mostly asleep. But, what if we are mostly asleep and trying to get Avery to go back to sleep?

It just so happens this dilemma occurred last night. For bedtime, Kelley will feed Avery one last time and lay her down to sleep in her crib right after her bath. Lately, Avery has been sleeping pretty long in her crib and when she wakes up hungry, I will get her and bring her to our bed so Kelley can feed her. Once she’s had enough, Avery usually will just go back to sleep with us in bed until Kelley gets up for work. Keyword, usually.

Last night, Avery woke up earlier than she has been and I brought her in to feed like normal. After she finished, though, she just laid squirming around with eyes wide open. Not too fussy (yet), just moving and awake. Us, on the other, ready for more sleep!

This happened once before, several weeks back, and Kelley and I both started humming in bed trying to get Avery to go back to sleep. We were both using our deep voice hum, but since we were half asleep, we were trailing off at the end. After 5 minutes of the both of us humming in harmony (we’d make a great barbershop ~~quartet~~ duo), we both just started laughing out loud. Ahh, just 3 months into it and parenthood is already making us crazy. Or maybe we already were crazy…..meh.

Anyway, that first time, Avery did go back to sleep, but last night she wasn’t having our hum. Kelley tried holding her to no avail, and after several other attempts, I ended up on the recliner with Avery in the front room. Mommy needs her rest for work!

From there, Avery just squirmed for about 20 minutes and fell asleep. Then she woke up and screamed and thrashed for a good 5 minutes; then back to sleep. This happened one more time and finally it was time to get up. Yay.

I love holding our little girl and have learned to just appreciate the screaming while holding her (she has great lungs!!!), but man is she getting strong. Soon her kicking might hurt daddy in certain ways that are worse than others; gotta figure that one out.

Let me leave you with the reward of a good night’s sleep…..

I'm smiling because I pooped. — I’m smiling because I pooped.

Do you or your spouse ever have to take your baby to another room?

Any tips on how to handle these situations differently, or do we just need to deal with it?

Parenting

How Our Daughter Saves Us Water

02/23/2014 R.C. Liley 6 Comments

Avery has been sleeping pretty well in her crib at night lately and it’s throwing us through a loop. Despite not hearing cries at 4 a.m., Kelley has a hard time sleeping around this time since she’s waiting for “that” moment. I sleep pretty hard, but find myself waking with the expectation of having to go bring our swaddled princess to our room to feed. But, these moments have been slowly diminishing.

I fear getting too comfortable with this since the teething stage is just around the corner and who knows what that will bring. Until then, we’ll just try and make the most of it. Keyword, “try.”

Living the life of scared parents, when Avery is sleeping, we basically have adult quiet time, or at least try to. I suck at being quiet in the kitchen, and the animals suck at being quiet…..ever.

Amongst the things we do differently during quiet time is not flush the toilet. Have to pee? Sure, go right ahead, but please don’t flush, I’ll get it later. Yep, no lies, I even told my mom (G-ma) this as she stayed over for two nights. I keep thinking of her heading to the restroom and asking, “Can I flush in your bathroom?” Nope, sorry mom. I even denied her a shower and brushing her teeth at one point while ~~the mini demon was dormant~~ our daughter slept.

Too extreme? Maybe, but I don’t want to take any chances. Plus, as the title states, all of this not flushing is sure to save us some water. Avery’s helping us be eco-friendly and doesn’t even know it!

At night, not flushing isn’t too bad, but in the morning, I’m going (I am “Going” Dad, by the way) almost every 30 minutes. Not exaggerating, the several cups of coffee on top of multiple cups of green and black tea that I go through definitely keep the water works flowing. I’m a coffee lover and will drink the black stuff from our French Press like water. By the time her morning nap is over, our toilet is beaming with a vibrant yellow; unless I forgot my vitamins.

Maybe if you couldn’t hear everything through our house, I wouldn’t be so worried, but I even hold my breath as the pee splashes in the water. Too much info? Well, just speaking truth.

As a side note, G-ma confessed that she flushed several times while we were on our date night without Avery waking. So, maybe I am being a little paranoid, but I’ll stick to saving water, thank you.

Moving on, our little family of three had a nice day today. Not much happened, but I was able to get all of Going Mom’s lunches cooked for work while she cleaned a lot around the house. I’m just happy Kelley doesn’t ask for anything too fancy for her lunches. This week she’ll have brown rice with broccoli three times; two with wild salmon, and the other with chicken sausage. Then the other two meals will be something I make a lot of, quinoa with black beans and tomatoes. Such a quick, one-pot meal that’s healthy and doesn’t cost a lot. Wins all around!

We tried to enjoy a family run together in the outstanding weather we had, but Avery was not having the stroller today. When it’s just her and me, I’ll run with her at a good speed and she seems content, but we had to keep it easy as Kelley is working back up to it, and we were just too slow. So, that wasn’t the most fun 3 miles of screaming…..

I took Avery out and wore her in the Baby Bjorn for our walk with the dog and she stayed quiet, so I figure she was better. As always, we’ll miss mommy as she heads to work tomorrow, but at least Avery and I have each other to keep company until her return home in the evening.