Tag Archives: funny

How to “Walk the Walk” As A Baby

12/23/2014 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Hmmm, daddy’s shoe is pretty cool, I wonder if I want to take it….

Oh, hello there, baby peers. Have you started walking yet?

That’s cool if you haven’t, but you’re really missing out. I just started and I’m already working on my dance moves.

Remember when I talked about surviving the first 5 months of your life? Or when I shared my thoughts as a crawling baby? Well, that was cool and all, but I’m obviously past all of that “child’s play”.

And it’s freakin’ awesome…..Haaayyyyyy!

Okay, just had to get that out of the way. I’m done.

Just kidding, one more time!! Heeyyy…..Oooohhhh!!

Seriously, I’m done now.

Now that we’ve established I can walk *cough* and dance *cough*, I’ve noticed an increase in my ability to get what I want and figured I share a few of them with you other, less advanced, babies. I’ve even been taking notes in my cool book to remember all of my new findings.

First off, as a walker, you can reach things you never could when you were floor-bound. Speaking of, I’m a little hungry, let me just grab something from the fridge. Oooo, I see a nice jar of NuttZo calling my name!

It’s okay, daddy bought it, but it’s mine because I said so. I even had him make me some tasty Pumpkin NuttZo Oatmeal Bread like this.

Since I’m high-maintenance, I care for sugar laden food in my diet, so I make sure he only sweetens with high quality stevia like Pyure Sweet. Another tasty dish daddy made is this chocolate black bean puree with NuttZo and Pyure Sweet mixed in.

Before I eat, I need to take my shirt off so I don’t get it messed up.

It’s my choice, I swear, I like to keep my clothes clean! C’mon, dad, I’m trying to give advice here, hurry with food!

Ahhh, seriously?! Can’t you just get one good spoonful in my mouth? This is annoying and embarrassing when I’m trying to talk here! We’re done, put it up, dad, I’m leaving.

See, when you’re walking, you can be more upfront and demanding. Plus, if you don’t like how something is being done, now you have more options in expressing your disdain. For example, since daddy sucked at getting the food in my mouth, I’m going to move this stool in front of the fridge.

Yep, that’ll show him. And I still have my shirt off even though I’m a girl. Like I said, whatever I want, I do! Grrrrr!

I am also learning to take matters into my own hands. If I am trying to play and find that something around me stinks, I make a point to find the source.

Obviously, if you’re smart like me, you go to the trash first.

But nope, can’t find anything there. Maybe under the rug?

Negative. I hate to admit it, but I’m a little stumped.

This is a good time to bring up another pointer; when you begin to question whether you have what it takes to rule the house, go find something and pick it up.

The bigger the better, and try walking it with it if you can.

If you’re as good at ruling as I am, go for a one-hander and make sure mommy and daddy sees you in all of your glory!

Uhhh, crap, I think that just helped me find the source of the stench from earlier. It’s in my diaper. Which bring me to another thing I’ve picked up on………I can take my diaper off whenever I want!

If I’m in the kitchen and feel like pulling it off, well, I’m gonna do just that! Mommy and daddy reallllly don’t like this, so I do it more. For some reason, when my diaper is smelly and I take it off, that means I have to take a bath. I don’t understand exactly, but I like baths anyway.

Even if I’m enjoying the bath, I keep my parents in check by showing them what happens if they make me mad.

What? You think I’m kidding?

I NEVER kid!

One time, daddy was being annoying with the camera….

I told him to stop or I’d eat the turtle’s (his favorite animal) head.

When I heard the camera shutter after I warned him, I showed him I was serious!

Then I slowly started walking (because I can do that now) closer to him to show the now headless turtle. But….

Surprise, I never bit the head off!

You might think I chickened out, but in reality, my reasoning is two-fold. Smiling and pretending to be cute makes your parents forget all bad that you have done, and I enjoy the tasty food they hand me.

Because, without the food, I resort to my sleeve, and that just doesn’t taste as good.

In sum, as a walking baby, you have to make freedom for yourself. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself stuck in your crib with a stuffed bear all day.

So heed my advice, babies, or suffer the consequences. You have been warned!

Life, Parenting

#TBT: Fighting Sleep at G-Ma’s House

12/18/2014 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Since she was born, we have only made a handful of trips to spend the night at G-Ma’s (my mom) with Avery. But, G-Ma has come to stay at our house numerous times and we are forever grateful for all of her help. We really appreciate her watching Avery when Going Mom and I have a couple’s night.

With each visit we’ve made to G-Ma’s house, my wife and I always have the same question to ponder; will she sleep? Granted, that’s a daily concern for any parent anywhere, even at home. But, the difficulty level seems to increase ~~three~~ infinity fold (it’s a thing) when we go to G-Ma’s to spend the night.

Last weekend we spent the night there and, as expected, Avery did not go down easily or quietly. I get it, sleeping in a different place with different surroundings is tough for anyone. Plus, having to sleep in a small play yard instead of her crib with solid wood rails that she can kick like a kangaroo only exacerbates the issue. I mean, before I go to sleep, I have to kick something in bed really hard for a while first. My poor wife, huh?

Just as we thought, Avery fought sleep as my awesome, breastfeeding wife stood the front lines and ran the course of nursing her to sleep like she does every night. Lately, Avery will be out cold in her arms, but the moment she goes to lay her down, you’d think she set her on a tack.

Who needs a baby monitor when you can hear the shrill screams reverberate throughout the house and probably next door too? The crying gives Going Mom anxiety, but it doesn’t affect me too much. Must be a motherly bond thing; anyone else experience this?

After going back in to offer the comfort of boob, Kelley nursed Avery to sleep once more. And, upon lying her in the play yard, Avery shot right back up and started crying again. Maybe there is a tack in there? #fail

This time we let Avery run her course of a screaming fit for 30 grueling minutes until she finally succumbed to sleep. G-Ma somehow fell asleep during the long spell, but Kelley and I were wide awake, listening to our daughter’s excellent, ear-piercing vocals.

Despite the sleeping (or lack thereof), we had a great time with G-Ma and Avery even got a “new” smartphone from G-Ma. It was her old, non-working iPhone, but she was adamant about keeping it with her the whole time. Avery spent plenty of time walking around the house to point out things that needed baby-proofing and show off her new walking skills.

Got my iPhone and I can walk....I Rule!! — Got my iPhone and I can walk….I Rule!!

We were all impressed and scared at the same time since you can’t hear babies as well when they are on their feet vs crawling on their hands and knees. How do they get around so quickly and quietly?!

What? Did you not hear me walk over here and sit right behind your feet?

It’s hard to believe that Avery was just a frumpy baby hardly rolling around when we spent the night at G-Ma’s last March and put old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle puzzles together. Avery fought sleep that time too, even after I had a long conversation with her before we left home and she promised to be good.

She's grown since.... — She’s grown since….

As you can see, we had an action packed night!

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

The next month, April, we visited G-Ma again and were excited for Avery’s increase in activity from only a month ago. She was more attentive to her surroundings and could sit up much better. At this point, it was exciting because we could lay her on a blanket and watch her roll around. Sleep, as my might’ve guessed, was still an issue.

Ahhh, the times of having control of where our baby could go! Now, on our last trip, she had us moving from room to room and picking up debris along the way. What a destructive little girl!

Good thing G-Ma is very, VERY patient (she raised 2 boys after all) and didn’t mind Avery’s rearranging of the house. That, or this is just a forced smile…..nahhhh

We aren’t sure when the next time we’ll be spending the night at G-Ma’s is, but one thing’s certain, we’ll still fear nighttime!

Do you have trouble staying the night at your relatives’ house with your kid?

Any advice on how to make it easier; for the kids and parents?

Life, Parenting

How to Make a Christmas DAD-vent Activity Calendar

12/10/2014 R.C. Liley 3 Comments

Do you have an Advent calendar or some sort of Christmas countdown craft in your home?

As a kid, we never had one in our home, but I want to start a family tradition of having something to count the days down until Christmas starting with December 1st. Last year, I wrote 24 different activities for Going Mom and I to do each day until Christmas. They were folded up, placed in a big glass vase and we’d randomly pick one.

Problem was, though, the activities required time and more effort than we could give on any particular day. If there was one we couldn’t do, we’d just push it off and plan on doing several during the weekend. Nope, that never happened either!

While it was a fun though, I didn’t think it through enough; some things were just too complicated. So, this year, I thought ahead and made my own Advent/Christmas Countdown craft with things we could easily do each day.

Instead of randomly picking an activity, I assigned the tasks for each day. I didn’t get creative with the list, and actually just made things that we would most likely do that day anyway. It’s a win-win, right? Hey, this way we’re not pushing anything off!

To give you an idea of my activities, at least 10 of the days is just us working with Avery on walking and finding a reason to cheers each other. We normally split a beer or have some wine and will cheers each other every day; it’s tradition now!

The weekends are a little more involved, and include things like watching a Christmas movie or taking Avery to see Santa. We were left with just enough paper plates from Avery’s 1st birthday party and I figured they’d be great to use for making my own “dadvent” activity calendar.

With the help of Google and Pinterest, I collected enough paper plate craft ideas to put what we had to use.

Here’s what you need:

25 paper plates
A printer or just pen and paper
Almost empty glue stick (bonus points if it’s purple)
Some sort of twine or string (had some Kelley bought for the birthday party)
Mini clothespins (also from the birthday party) or another way to hang the plates

That’s it! Of course you could definitely use more, but I specialize in not-so-pretty DIY crafts, so this is how I do things! 🙂

As you might imagine, creating a dadvent calendar is fairly simple; all you do is print or write out 25 activities of your own to do with your family every day in December up to Christmas. The last days don’t matter since Christmas is over and we have new things to play with now.

Take your plates and either with printed numbers or a marker, number the back of each one from 1 to, yep, you guessed it, 25!

Cut your activities into strips and glue them on the opposite side of each plate. If you have activities you want for specific days, I suggest numbering each one so you don’t mix them up.

In numerical order, attach the plates to your string and you’re done! This is what we did on the 8th…

I planned on hanging them across the fireplace or make them in the shape of a Christmas tree somewhere on one of our walls, but that seemed too complicated and my wife does not allow holes in the wall. So I figured it was best not to hang and just let them lay on the floor.

Every day since, Kelley has gone into the room to pick the plate of the day for us to follow, and unlike last year, we’re doing great at keeping up!

Here are a couple of my inspirations….