Category Archives: Throwback Thursday

Life, New Life, Parenting, Throwback Thursday

6 Throwback Thursday Posts from August 2014

08/27/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Is Throwback Thursday bittersweet for any other parents out there? Bitter, because so many things happen so fast and your baby (even if they’re a teen, they’re still your baby, right?) is growing up. Sweet, because so many proud moments have happened and well, it’s also great that your kid is growing. Not to mention we’re getting older too! Bleh!

Looking back a year ago, we were still holding Avery and rocking her to sleep for naptime and at night, but now that’s a thing of the past. Going Mom has been successful a few times, but I have had no such luck. But that’s what memories are for, right? And since parenting seems to zap our memories sometimes, that’s where the internet (blogging/social media) lends a hand.

Let us now travel back a year to see what I was blogging about in August of 2014. Here are 6 of my favorite posts…

My Wife Wins Again, Our Baby Throws Food, and More Banana Fun Facts #5 – She always wins, and other dads even agreed with this one thing when you have a house of girls. Avery has changed a lot, but she still throws her food every now and then.
Goodbye, broccoli!!
Uh Oh, Our Baby’s First Cold! – We waived her coughs off as no big deal, but then it happened….sickness! Luckily, it ended with this…
Learning to Walk: Is It Wrong to Place Bets On Your Baby? – The funny thing is, I would’ve totally lost all bets since she didn’t start walking until around 3 months later!
Walker in training.
How My Daughter Is Saving My Life – Stress, it had built up for years before Avery, and although having kids is no walk in the park (unless, that is, you’re walking with them in the park), it’s a different kind of stress. I write about that here.
Daughter vs Dishes….hmm, easy choice!!
Free Food And Booze Plus A Flat Tire: Our 7th Wedding Anniversary Recap – How could I not relive this experience as we celebrating moving beyond the itchy phase of marriage?
Having A Daughter: Learning to Conquer The Fear of Fatherhood – I proudly got this published on The Huffington Post, and hold the words near and dear to my dad heart.

August was a big month last year and it turned out to be a big month this year as well. Maybe I’ll share some of the posts again when August 2016 rolls around. No rush though! Year hear that, time? Easy does it now….

Hope everyone’s week is going well. Going Mom comes back home tomorrow!!! Yay!!!!

Life, Parenting, Throwback Thursday

One Year Since We Began Baby-Led Weaning #TBT

05/21/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Can you believe it’s been a year since we first started baby-led weaning with Avery?!

Oh boy was that stressful! Wait a sec, it’s still stressful, if not worse. She hardly touched the stuff at first, so it was only us doing the picking up part. I know, that’s NOT BLW then!

Instead of not knowing what to do with it, she now picks up food, fully aware that it’s meant to be eaten, and throws it instead. In retrospect, I kinda miss the BLW days.

In true Throwback Thursday fashion, I am going back in time to when we first started down this road of having more than just breast milk for Avery’s food. We still have a long way to go, but she’s actually a really good eater compared to some of her peers.

Giving her an assortment of veggies from the get-go has paid off as she happily (usually) eats them all and never cries for some sugary packaged snacks. Because we don’t have those in the house and never will!

Avery still eats plenty of steamed veggies, mostly broccoli, carrots (her current favorite), and cauliflower. For a real treat, it’s banana with NuttZo and she can really put it away! But we’re not talking about now, this is all about then….a year ago.

Maybe I’ll have a post a year from now and we’ll go over Avery’s ability to make a whole banana with lots of NuttZo disappear fast! For now, have a look back to May of 2014 with me and enjoy the posts detailing the start of our baby-led weaning journey.

To kick things off, I started looking into our options and shared my top ten Pinterest picks on Baby-Led Weaning. Avery then had to give her input about Beyond Breast Milk where she tries non-food items…..like my finger.

Things were a bit rough for a while and I cursed how easy things seemed when looking all over Pinterest. Instead of happily picking up the food we put in front of her, Avery just sat there and looked at us. This led me to try putting a piece of food in her mouth to help show her what it’s for. Of course this is not BLW as I already mentioned, which is why I created How Not to Start Baby-Led Weaning With Your Baby.

Time passed and we were seeing little progress. Naturally, I blogged about our BLW Fail but also shared Avery’s first experience with our then pet turtle.

We were beginning to think Avery would never eat solids on her own, and I was convinced that babies are fully aware of yo-yo dieting. But then, it happened, someone made positive progress in the BLW department. Do you know who?

Good job, Avery, it was you!

From there, we’ve been on a crazy roller-coaster ride (such is parenting, huh?) with her eating good some days and throwing it in our faces on other days. But after a 10k race I did on Memorial Day last year, Avery made great progress and even stuffed her face!

She’s come a long way from a year ago, and now she’ll eat the same thing I make for my wife most of the time. Some days she’s picky and others she’ll gobble everything in sight. From the experienced parents, I hear it’s normal and accept it as such…….kinda.

It’s still nerve-racking to have things you spend time cooking just thrown on the floor or given to the dog. Hopefully I’m not alone here. I’m sure it’s easier if you just pick something up at a fast food chain, but that’s something she’ll never be given by us, so I’ll continue to put my care into the meals I make my family and know it’s world’s better than what you’d get at some restaurant.

How did you start your kids off eating solids?

Do you find it hard to watch food you make go by the wayside?

Life, Parenting, Throwback Thursday

I Thought We Had A Deal, Bottom Lip!! #TBT

04/30/2015 R.C. Liley 6 Comments

My wife and I knew it the time it came out over a year ago, our daughter’s bottom lip was going to be trouble.

In an effort to work with her bottom lip, I wrote a note in hopes that we could come to an agreement. For a while there, it seemed like it understood to stay tucked up so that Avery’s already irresistible cuteness didn’t transform into an all out war to test the health of our hearts.

See? Doing perfectly fine just like that. As the months rolled one, things were pretty good, and although there was the obvious crying, that lip didn’t do “it’s thing” for the most part. This, I can take…

…kinda. But that bottom lip is something else, it’s…..EVIL!

Anyway, long story short, it’s been coming out a lot the past few weeks which I guess means my note has gone by the wayside. That lip has become a renegade with its own agenda, separate from the parents raising the kid it inhabits.

Not only that, but Avery is now fully aware of the ultimate cuteness that ensues when she flips that lower mouth flange of hers. First she’ll try being cute by saying “Hi” and smiling since she’s caught on that Going Mom and I react with big smiles and ooooo’s and ahhhh’s. But when we are able to hold in, Avery’s next line of artillery is that damn lip!

We’re fighting a losing battle with that thing and there’s nothing we can do about it. Well, I guess we could ignore it in hopes that she stops using it to her advantage, but that’s an arduous task not to be taken lightly.

Until we figure it out, I guess we’re stuck with that cold lip until it “cracks” and starts working with us instead of against. At this point, my wife and I had better be prepared for the long haul all the way to when she’s caught sneaking out of the house, like I mentioned in my note.

Do your kids have a signature “pouty” face that tends to get them out of trouble?

Do they know it?