Tag Archives: humor

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

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….

And here’s my finished product!

Don’t be jealous.

Are you ready to make your own? I’d love to see pictures of what you have if you do anything similar.

FYI – I know we’re already into December and this is a late post, but that only adds to the awesomeness that is “DAD”!

Going Strong, Life, Parenting

Last Week’s Workouts and “The Bear” Complex with Baby

11/10/2014 R.C. Liley 5 Comments

This is the week! The week our baby turns 1 year old! On Saturday, the 15th, we’re having a small birthday party at our home and then we’re leaving her with G-Ma as we head to a friend’s wedding. Is that wrong of us? Nahhhh.

Last week’s workouts were a repeat of the previous week, just adding weight to most exercises in classic progressive overload fashion. I would normally continue in this pattern for the week ahead, but might need to improvise as we prepare for the big day.

Here’s what I have for last week….

Note: All workouts are in a fasted state. I have a homemade pre-workout mix of beta-alanine, bcaa’s, creatine, and pure caffeine powder and then I’m ready to go within 20 – 30 minutes!

Monday – 11/03

– Back Squat: 4 x 8 x 220lbs

– Straight Leg Dead Lift: 4 x 8 x 210lbs

– Dumbbell Lunges: 3 x 11/side x 45lb/side

Superset w/ Glute-Ham Raise: 3 x 12

– Double Kettlebell Swings: 3 x 31 x 25lb/arm

– 31 1-leg squats and Push-ups

Tuesday – 11/04

– Bench Press: 4 x 8 x 165lbs

Superset w/ Strict Chin-ups: 4 x 7

– Dumbbell Hang Clean & Press: 4 x 11 x 30lb/arm

– 1-arm Dumbbell Rows: 3 x 13 x 45lb

Superset w/ Bodyweight Dips: 3 x 13

– Man-maker Push-ups w/ 30lb Dumbbells: 3 x 11

– Dumbbell Twisting Bicep Curls: 3 x 12 x 20lb

Superset w/ Standing Triceps Dumbbell Kickback: 3 x 10 x 20lb

– 31 1-leg squats and Push-ups

Wednesday – 11/05

– 4 Tabata Rounds: 1. Bike, 2. Burpees, 3. 15lb Ball Slam, 4. Bike

– 31 1-leg squats and Push-ups + run/walk 2.3 miles

Thursday – 11/06

– Front Squat: 4 x 8 x 175lbs

– Dead Lift: 3 x 8 x 235lbs

– Clean: 5 x 5 x 125lbs

– 31 Bulgarian Split Squats w/ 20lb Dumbbells/arm and 31 Push-ups

– Walk/Run with Avery and Abby (our Golden

Friday – 11/06

– Overhead Press: 4 x 8 x 110lbs

– Barbell Bent Row: 4 x 8 x 135lbs

Superset w/ Dumbbell Incline Press: 4 x 11 x 45lb/arm

– Dumbbell Hang Clean & Press: 5 x 6 x 45lb/arm

– 4 Rounds: Close-grip Bench – 10 x 135lbs, Wide-grip Pull ups x 6, Kettlebell Windmill w/ 25lb/side x 10/side, Bike ~30 seconds

– 31 1-leg squats and Push-ups

Saturday – 11/08

– Walk 3+ miles with Kelley while wearing Avery on my back. She had a good nap….

– Quick conditioning workout of countdown/up:

->31, 25, 20….10, 5: Double 25lb Kettlebell Swings

->5, 10, 15…..25, 31: Push-ups

– 31 1-leg squats, burpees, and bodyweight squats

Sunday – 11/09

– Work on rearranging garage to make room for Avery’s play pen gate setup.

– 30 minute cardio/strength routine of 30s on and 30s off with different exercises

– 31 1-leg squats and Push-ups

I need to get Avery’s gate setup since she’s close to walking and I don’t expect she’ll have patience to sit in her jumper once this milestone is achieved.

Hmm, or maybe she’s already lost her patience. What do you think?

When she starts making these faces, it’s either nap time, a poopy diaper, or just plain bored. For the last one, when not finished working out or never having a chance to star, I have a solution…..combine playtime with your workout!

To me, barbell work is king when it comes to strength training, but as parents and really all time-strapped people know, we don’t always have time for or access to a barbell. And if you did, just what, with maybe 10 minutes of time to yourself, would you do anyway?

The answer is a complex where you complete multiple exercise back to back without stopping to rest. A classic example of this is called “The Bear” Complex where you perform a power clean, front squat, push press, back squat, and push press without setting the bar down to make 1 rep. It’s an awesome workout that, when done for 5 rounds of 7 reps at a challenging weight, is a quick, effective routine.

But when there’s no barbell or time to use one, grab the nearest baby/kid/toddler/teenager (preferably your own), and make them the barbell. Here’s a video I put together to show you how.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb9EU4eyKlg&w=420&h=315]

Avery enjoys the moves and hopefully your kids will too. You get to bond with your child through “playtime” while fitting in a full body exercise to boot. Not bad! Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Now it’s time to prepare for a fast approaching birthday; Going Mom has off Thursday and Friday to make sure things are setup right since I’m not the best in that area. Have a great week!

Do you have any favorite workouts you’d like to share?

Any tips on how to manage a first birthday party? We have the beer, what else is needed? 🙂