Tag Archives: avery

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?

Food, Parenting

Crap My Baby Will Never Eat: Frozen Pizza Bites

05/30/2014 R.C. Liley 6 Comments

Are we all so desperate that we have to rely on frozen processed food to feed our kids and ourselves? There are many products I can (and most likely will) speak on for being unhealthy snack options, but today I’m focusing on the ever popular frozen pizza rolls/bites. Mainly, Bagel Bites (H.J. Heinz) and Totino’s (General Mills).

Have you seen the Totino’s commercial with a mom on the phone with her hungry kids? I first saw it about a year and a half ago, but I’m sure there’s still something similar playing now.

The kids are looking for something in the freezer and are saying there’s nothing to eat, but of course Totino’s is right in front of their face. Apparently her kids are too dumb to see the bright yellow packaging until she tell them the exact location. Then they are all happy and the kids go off to make their food-like substance pizza rolls.

Here is the nutrition info for their basic cheese party pizza…

….and that’s the one with the least ingredients!

The seemingly most popular pepperoni pizza rolls look even worse….

….and you know being little bites that it’s easy to go over the standard serving size.

Bagel Bites are the lesser of evils here, but still have no place being called real food. They even pit themselves against Totino’s in an ad trying to make us (the consumer) feel like the are the better (and only) option. No thanks to either.

And really? Are they assuming we’re stupid and only eating cheese? NO! Here are the rest of Bagel Bites’ ingredients:

“Bleached Wheat Flour, Water, Mozzarella Cheese (Milk, Cultures, Salt, Enzymes)Tomato Puree (Tomato Paste, Water)Pepperoni (Pork, Beef, Salt, Spices, Water, Dextrose, Seasonings [Oleoresin of Paprika, Natural Spice Extractives, BHA, BHT, Citric Acid]Lactic Acid Starter Culture, Sodium Nitrate)2% or Less of: High Fructose Corn Syrup, Modified Cornstarch, Salt, Soybean Oil, Yeast, Whey Protein Concentrate (Milk)Nonfat Milk, Flavor Enhancer (Potassium Chloride, Ammonium Chloride, Yeast Extract, Maltodextrin [Corn]Lactic Acid, Citric Acid, Calcium Lactate, Natural Flavor)Methylcellulose, Citric Acid, Red Pepper, Natural Flavor, Dough Conditioner (Ascorbic Acid)Enzymes.”

Unfortunately, I am guilty of having these years ago and sure, they tasted good. But, I was also fat and out of shape. Now I make plenty of delicious snacks that taste great and offer wholesome nutrition I feel good about.

Right now we’re just starting to get Avery into eating solids through baby-led weaning, but soon she’ll be helping daddy cook in the kitchen and I can’t wait to teach her the benefits of real food. I will show her the frozen non-food “food” when we shop and explain how and why they are not a good food option.

Some, okay, a lot of people might call me anal when it comes to food, but why shouldn’t I be? You don’t know what you’re getting when someone is preparing food for you and I’m not okay with that. I am more at peace when I make everything myself and know exactly what goes into my meals.

The few times I do go out, it is rare to actually get what I order via special request. I don’t get why, because it’s usually asking to do less than the original menu item. If I get a salad, I ask for no dressing, cheese, croutons, and oils on the side. Sometimes that salad arrives with a seemingly extra amount of each!

I could make a full post over this (maybe I will), but for now my message is that I will not succumb to feeding our beautiful girl any processed junk. I realize many parents face time constraints, but obtaining healthier options is not that difficult.

This is why I’m working to start Avery on healthy veggies now and trying to put off the sweeter foods like bananas and other fruits. I will definitely share the joys of sweet fruits, but it’s veggies first. My mode of thinking is that she will grow up only knowing these nutritious foods and not craving something she can just throw in the microwave and mindless munch on while watching TV.

There will be more of these posts as Avery grows and I hope I am able to help parents strive to offer better, nutritious food for their little ones and themselves! I am already nervous about how I can keep her from having anything containing the worst ingredients in processed food when at a friend’s home or at school, but luckily, I have some time.

Back to the pizza rolls/bites; you can quickly make your own that can be frozen or cooked as needed with simple ingredients. Here are a few easy and healthy recipes to try with whole grain tortillas:

Tortilla Pizza

No-Bake Spinach Pizza Rolls

Another Easy Pizza Roll for the Road

What do you think about these types of foods?

Any tips on how to keep your little ones eating healthy when you aren’t with them?

Am I crazy?

Avery Talk, Monthly List

Beyond Breast Milk Part 1: Non-food Tasting Notes

05/16/2014 R.C. Liley 1 Comment

Baby peers, I made it, I’m now half a year old! For you younger, less experienced babies, that means 6 months. Yep, no more counting by months for me, now I can count by half years!

I have a feeling things are going to start changing around here now that I’m half a year old. For one thing, I hear mommy and daddy saying things like “solids”, “food”, “high chair”, and “big poop”. I’m not sure what it all means except that food is mommy’s milk and poop, well it’s poop. Oh no, I hope poop isn’t what they are going to make my food now!

That sure would stink (ha ha, see what I did there?). Nah, they love me to much anyway!

Another thing I’ve noticed is that in the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to eat everything around me! I don’t know where the urge comes from, but I could just be hangin’ in my jumper next to a toy like the worm in an apply G-Ma got me….

….and next thing I know, I’m trying to eat it!

Then I caught daddy looking and quickly had to pretend I was just rubbing it on my cheek.

Phew, I think he bought it.

And that’s not all, I’ve tried several other things that, having found out the hard way, are not food. You’re probably thinking the things had to of at least looked like the typical boob or bottle we currently get our food from, but they didn’t!

So, I’m taking it upon myself to share with you my tasting notes on these non-food items. I hope it helps you make a wise choice when you are presented with similar things and feel “the urge.”

First off, the obvious one is your hand. My hand is what started me on trying other things and I can’t seem to get enough of it anymore!

Tastes like fresh breast milk at first, but can be gross if you put your hands somewhere before your mouth. When I’m not craving hand, I opt for just a finger to hold me over.

Same taste, just not as intense. Be careful here, if you stick your finger in your mouth too far, something weird happens and it doesn’t feel good. Trust me, I know….

So the hands, I recommend them for any baby to start with, and then you can move on. For me, I figured if I like my hands so much, maybe daddy’s will be just as good, or even better! Given the opportunity, I tried it out…

Initially, it didn’t seem too bad, but it still wasn’t the same. It tasted like something, but I couldn’t quite put my finger (ha ha) on it.

Then it hit me, spoiled breast milk! Yuck!

I won’t be trying that again anytime soon. Thinking that maybe daddy just has bad hands, I decided to try Uncle Preston’s hand as he held me one day.

Nope, no good either. That was a first and a last for me!

Take it from me, only eat your own hands, everyone else’s just don’t taste the same! Ready to move on to non-hand items, I tried a taste of the teddy bear sitting next to me one day.

It was hard to reach his neck, so I tried for the paw instead.

Yum! This is a keeper, I highly recommend teddy bear for a tasty treat. Tastes like fresh breast milk.

With how delicious the teddy bear was, I figured I would enjoy all stuffed animal toys I have. That was, until daddy put this thing next to me…

Is it a dog, alien, or some weird baby? Mommy and daddy call it a dog, but I’ve seen a dog and I’m pretty sure they don’t have hands like it says on this one.

I didn’t even try tasting that thing.

Once daddy took it out of my crib, I sat up in joy!

Yeah, I’ve seen our dog, Abby, and I’m pretty sure she just has four paws, not hands and feet!

After having enough of the soft, fuzzy toys, I decided to move on and try my smooth, shiny toys. I’ve been playing with these rings for a while now, and just lately, they seem appealing.

The obvious first choice was the orange one since it was on top.

Yep, this was like breast milk from the bottle. Not bad, but nothing great. That said, I still go back to it.

And daddy always talks about the blue one being his favorite, but it seems no different to me. I’d like to see him try it once!

Bottles seem to be something I can’t get away from since that’s all daddy can give (trust me, I figured out the hard way), so I’m okay with these shiny rings. If you have some, give’em a taste.

While in my jumper (which is a lot!), the red bird hanging to one side caught my eye and I just had to eat it!

Holy yum, this thing is great! It can’t even be compared to milk, it’s in a league of its own and I like it!

Seriously, I just can’t get enough of it now!

By all means, if you have a plastic red bird hanging anywhere around you, eat it!

Speaking of things around you, I bet you have some sort of cloth with arm holes pulled over your head every day. Right? Well, just happens you can eat that too! Seriously, I just figured this out several days ago and can’t believe I’ve been missing out on chewing something attached to me. No work needed, just put in mouth and chew.

Depending on if I just ate from a bottle or from mommy, the taste can range from fresh milk to not so fresh milk. Either one is okay with me, just as long as it’s not like daddy’s hands!

In sum, when you start having these random cravings to put things in your mouth, choose your hands, no one else’s, at first. Then move on to things like what you wear, hanging red birds, and colorful rings when you have to.

I’m still trying to figure out what mommy and daddy are up to with their “new food” talk, and I have a feeling I’ll find out soon. I overheard them talking about this weekend and setting up a “high chair” while I pretended to be busy working on something.

How many chairs do I need, really? I’ll let you know how it goes if I make it through whatever is happening. For now, I leave you with some words of wisdom; always cry long and loud when you poop and make sure to blow raspberries to really make your point!

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