Tag Archives: july

8 Memories From My 8th Month Since Going Dad

07/15/2014 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Okay, things are getting interesting around here now! Just as I was hoping, Avery started crawling only a few days into her 7th month and now she’s as mobile as a mouse!

I’ve never heard of or used that saying before, but from what I see, mice can be pretty mobile. True?

Since she’s started crawling, we seem to see less of that demon of hers because now she will simply crawl to us if we walk out of sight. It’s almost been 6th months since I’ve actually left my job and become a full time stay-at-home dad, and I have been impatiently waiting for Avery to do more.

I’d say she’s definitely doing more, and it seems only a matter of time until she’s taking her first steps. Maybe in another month?

Walker in training. — Has anyone seen my other sock?

Once she gets that down, we’ll be doing burpees together in no time!

Lets start, shall we?

1. As I already proclaimed, you’ve become an official crawler, and WOW, you can really get places now! If Mommy or Daddy set you down and there’s a cord, cat, or dog in sight, your face lights up and off you go.

Because of this, we are getting a great lower back workout from having to pick you up and set you back down elsewhere……or it’s just hurting more. We are extremely proud of how far you’ve come, Avery, and you continue to amaze us and steal our hearts every day.

2. Now that you’re mobile, I no longer have to set you in your booster seat while I’m in ~~my office~~ the kitchen. All we need is to setup a couple barriers so you don’t wonder too far, and you just hang out in the kitchen. At times, you’ll get fussy, but as long as you have a toy/wooden spoon, you’re content for a while.

Practicing how to taste test on the spoon.

One thing that scares me is that you gravitate toward our feet and I fear the day we accidentally step on your precious fingers.

I just happened to want to be in this spot, promise.

Hopefully that will never happen, but I apologize in advance if it does. This also makes me realize a major con to having leg hair since you like to practice climbing on anything! Yeah, I might have a few patches on my legs.

3. Mommy and I aren’t sure whether you like or have a personal vendetta out for your bear, but now that you can crawl, you’ve really been handing it to him. First, you “wrote” an instructional post on how to fight a bear, and then you had a rematch where your fight was caught on video.

Maybe you’ve grown tired of seeing him next to you the same time each month as we take pictures of your new monthly age. We’ll never know for sure, but the smile on your face and excitement you show when you make eye contact with your bear is priceless. Mom and I love watching you roll around and play so well!

4. Now that you’re getting better at eating those colorful veggies we put in front of you, we are making it a point to sit down as a family for dinner. I still have my different eating schedule where I eat my main meal after you go to sleep, but I have raw veggies to munch on while sitting down.

You’re also really good at “finishing” everything we give you…..until we lift you from your seat to see you were sitting on everything! This makes the steamed broccoli a blast to clean, and we have a nice trail all the way to the bathtub every night as a result. Fine with us, we’re just happy to see you at least eating some of the healthy veggies so well!

5. I had seen baby activity/busy boards on Pinterest and knew I wanted one for you. One weekend, I brought you with me to the Home Depot to get supplies and a few days later, as you slept in a while, I put it together.

I wasn’t sure how you’d like it, but I guess having door stops made it an automatic win!

6. After seeing you begin to crawl, a light turned on in my head letting me know this meant it was time to build a fort! The Ninja Turtle blanket was a must, and I only hope we can enjoy the classic TMNT movies and cartoons one day soon.

As you grow, I expect we’ll build more intricate fort structures and insist Mommy joins us immediately upon arriving home from work. Obviously, you’re never too old to play in a fort…

7. Even though you had a tiresome day at G-Ma’s on the 4th of July, we were able to keep you up to experience your first Cliff Notes version of a fireworks show. The bright lights and sounds caught your attention, but a half smile was all you had left to give by the end of the day.

The sun seemed to take forever to go down that day, and after we were able to let you see a few of the big blasts, we brought you in to take a bath and get some much needed rest.

8. And finally, after we’ve been thinking you had teeth coming in since you were 4 months, your first tooth has made an appearance!

Your top front right tooth is the most prominent, but we can see your two bottom front teeth emerging as well. That is, when you aren’t hiding them with your tongue and looking like you already had your wisdom teeth removed.

It’s exciting, but you are also very cranky. I know it must hurt though, and we are hoping for the pain to go away fast. It looks like you are too…

I don’t know if one of my memories at 9 months will be of you walking, but you can rest assured we’ll work with you every “step” of the way.

Avery, we love you so much dear and we can’t say it enough. Therefore, we’ll just keep saying it over and over…..and over. We love you and are so proud of everything you do. Even if it’s poop 4 times in a day!

Do you have any favorite memories of your growing child? I’d love to hear other’s stories if want to share.

Life, Parenting

Weekend at G-Ma’s Part 2: The Best Cat Toy for Dogs and Babies

07/09/2014 R.C. Liley Leave a comment

If you don’t remember or never read Weekend at G-Ma’s Part 1, we started our second day at G-Ma’s with this…

Sharing a room with your baby is rarely, if ever, an enjoyable experience, and Avery made sure to keep reminding us. We try to let her cry at night if we know her needs are met and it doesn’t go on for over 20 minutes, but things sure are different when you’re right there with the cries!

Avery slept surprisingly well through the booming fireworks, but still woke up for a feeding around 4 in the morning. Thankfully, Going Mom was there to save the day as usual. I have a feeling those boobs can be thought of as a blessing and a curse.

Once we were up, my mom/G-Ma made all of us coffee. Even though she has a Keurig brewer, Kelley and I have been working on reducing our use of plastics (k-cups can be hazardous to our health)so she ground coffee beans to make French Press for us. She also has one of those stainless steel reusable coffee pods and used that as well. Phew, I’m a coffee lover, but don’t want to contribute to growing waste from all of those pods!

As we enjoyed our coffee, we sat in the game room to let Avery play while we watched old home videos of me as a baby. My mom had her VHS cassettes transferred to DVD, and she had been waiting to watch them with us. Meanwhile, Avery must of had a rough night because she went for a little foam rolling session.

G-Ma made sure to get a lot of playtime in with Avery now that she moves more, and I think Avery enjoyed having all of the attention. What do you think?

With the home videos still playing, that’s actually all we watched all day, Avery tried to make a move for the open cabinets. She’s a quick and sneaky baby!

But, G-Ma to the rescue! She found Uncle Preston’s recorder from elementary school and attempted to entertain Avery with her beautiful tunes. By beautiful tunes, I mean random noise, but Avery didn’t mind.

Then it was Avery’s turn to make some noise.

But she decided to just eat it instead…

Once the recorder became a bore (see what I did there?), it was story time with G-Ma. The chose book was an old Barney and Friends book from Uncle Preston’s childhood.

One minute later, and I think Avery was happy to be done with it. Phew, I don’t want to get stuck watching that show over and over again. Is it even on anymore?

Our day mostly comprised home videos and G-Ma playing with Avery. I went for a run on Renfro Street, (literally) my old stomping ground, with nothing but coffee as fuel. After the run, I completed 31 burpees, push-ups, and squats like I’ve been doing every day since turning 30 and then ran to jump in Tim and Melissa’s pool. Ahhhh, refreshing!

When we all needed a break from baby, we found a battery operated cat toy to be the perfect solution. Turns out, this toy with a “mouse tail” that randomly revolved around was great entertainment for Avery and Abby as well as us watching.

Luckily, we capture it on video. Here’s my shortened version with the best parts that I uploaded on YouTube.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRcdkowW2N8&w=560&h=315]

Avery actually had a nap late in the day, and she fell asleep with Going Mom rather quickly at night. But, once again, she woke up several times crying. Kelley tried forever to console her with “the boob”, but even that didn’t work.

I fed her the one tiny bottle we brought along and that helped. I think she was finally exhausted enough to give in and sleep. But she still let out her random cries throughout the night. Ahhh, this two night stay has been exhausting for all of us!

We’re convinced it might have something to do with the fact that we weren’t feeding her solids while at G-Ma’s. At home, we’ve been sitting down and feeding her broccoli, carrots, squash, etc. right before bed, and those must work to keep her satisfied over night.

Shame on us, I think we’ll be more consistent with that now! The next day we enjoyed more coffee together and gathered our things to head home.

Ughhh, unpacking is definitely no fun, and we were at it non-stop most of the day upon returning. Such is the life as parents, huh?

Do you have a pet toy meant for a certain animal but another animal (or human) plays with it?

What’s worse, packing or unpacking? Please share!

Life, Parenting

Weekend at G-Ma’s Part 1: 4th of July

07/08/2014 R.C. Liley 3 Comments

Okay, it’s getting back to normal at home after our extended stay over the weekend. And by normal, I mean constant chaos from a mobile baby on the verge of teething. We keep blaming her fussiness on the possibility of her cutting a tooth, but have yet to actually see a tooth.

I guess since Going Mom is still breastfeeding, she’s probably not trying to rush those chompy incisors too much!

Our 4^th of July weekend started with us frantically gathering random things around our house and putting them in the car to take to G-Ma’s (i.e. packing) all while doing our best to manage Avery and give her the attention she needed.

I credit my awesome wife for tending to Avery most of the time and I’m not sure what I would do without my beautiful partner in crime parenthood.

Eventually, we had everything packed, including all of the cloth diapers we own, and were on our way to G-Ma’s. With virtually little to no traffic (uncommon for I-35W), we made it in around 40 minutes and were exchanging hugs with G-Ma and her boyfriend Paul.

Avery enjoyed a short nap on the drive and G-Ma wasted no time getting her Avery hug time in. But now that she’s a crawler, Avery was anxious to get down and explore new territory.

Our long-time friends and neighbors just a few houses down always have a 4^th of July party, so we were going to head down there to swim in their pool and watch the fireworks at night.

G-Ma lives in the country where anyone can shoot off their high powered artillery. Kelley and I were excited for this because it would be the first time Avery gets to experience fireworks. #StupidNewParents

After a failed attempt at getting Avery to nap, we walked down to Tim and Melissa’s, our friends/neighbors, to go for a swim. I just finished an intense workout in the heat, and was in yearning to jump in!

We all spent a few hours relaxing in the pool and having a few drinks as Avery made her rounds.

Tough to please, but she kinda smiles if you tickle her a little. But not much!

She started to get cranky, even after Kelley fed her, so we decided to go back and try for another nap before heading back down to eat and watch fireworks that evening.

Avery had different plans; how about no nap and just staying up with everyone else. She had 10 minutes of this, which looked promising, but then woke up crying.

Suckers, I'll wake in precisely 10 minutes!!! — Suckers, I’ll wake in precisely 10 minutes!!!

I guess she really wanted to see G-Ma! Despite her resisting sleep, Avery kept showing all signs of being tired, but she remained stubborn…..and awake.

With the sun starting to set and fireworks on the mind, we walked back to our kind hosts to enjoy food and fireworks. But first, we tried another picture with G-Ma in hopes of a smile…..fail.

Tim and Melissa have 4 boys with the oldest being Uncle Preston’s age and the youngest just about to graduate high school. Every year, for as long as I can remember, they would buy massive amounts of fireworks and always put on a big show. But this year, they said they were going to keep it low key….

Ummm, yeah, not sure what happened there.

Maybe we have different views of what “low key” means, but that looked like a lot to me. Oh, and that was just what they could fit in the wagon, there were more fireworks waiting to be loaded.

After eating grilled chicken and a colossal salad topped with their homemade salsa using veggies from their organic garden, we impatiently waited for it to get dark enough to have the fireworks begin.

Yes, “impatiently” because we had an increasingly fussy baby who needed to get some quality sleep!

But not before we made her wait to see bright lights and hear loud booms. Both great things to introduce to a sleepy baby, right?

Finally, the fireworks had begun, and instead of us watching as they exploded in the air, Going Mom and I were glued to Avery’s face to see her expression. G-Ma boldly held her as she actually showed a little sign of enjoyment!

The loud sounds and bright displays of light had her attention, but she hardly reacted as they went off. Not quite what we were expecting, but I guess that’s what happens after a long day of no sleep but a lot of swimming and having a fun time with G-Ma and Paul.

We hung around a little longer just to let “the experience” set in before Kelley and I returned to G-Ma’s for Avery’s bath and bed time.

As we walked back, it sounded as if we were in the middle of a warzone with the fireworks shattering in brilliant displays of light; not the best setting for a baby’s bed time.

With our white noise and a fan set on the highest setting, we hoped for the best as Avery was laid down for the night. There were fireworks still going off past midnight, but Avery actually slept through it all.

Kelley and I had to share the same room with Avery, which was difficult to try the whole “let them cry 10 minutes” thing, but we survived to speak of it today! I’ll share the day after in tomorrow’s post, and will leave you with what we woke up to first thing the next day.

How was your 4^th of July?

Do you have any babies that got to see fireworks for the first time, or remember when your kids experienced them?