If you’re a parent reading this, chances are you’re just as guilty as I am for staring at our smartphone with our kids around.
A recent post from Time.com shared the results of a study recording the behavior of 55 adult-child groupings at a fast food restaurant and captured how often the adult used their smartphone.
A new study from Boston Medical Center reveals that parents who get absorbed by email, games or other apps have more negative interactions with their children, making them feel like they’re competing for attention with their parents’ gadgets
Before this was published, my wife and I had already stopped all technology use at the dinner table, but we are far from innocent when it comes to using our phones as Avery runs around our feet wanting attention. And she deserves it, poor girl, nothing is more important than giving her our love!
Since reading the article, we have become more aware of our use when Avery is around, but I know we’re still not perfect. Just look at my Instagram or aother social media accounts and it’s easy to see I have my phone practically shoved in her face A LOT! Sorry, Avery, please forgive me.
Maybe it’s different if you’re using your smartphone with your kid, but I know simply setting the tech aside and just playing is always the better option. Does this mean I’m going to stop capturing pics and videos of her? Nope, but scrolling through Facebook or Instagram feeds will be limited when our sweet girl is begging attention from now on. I mean, just look at that sweet face!
Get off your phone swing kettlebells with me!
Are you guilty of using your phone or other device and not paying attention to your kids?
Do you have certain rules or guidelines on when/where you can use your tech devices?
I don’t know where we went wrong, but our toddler simply won’t hold her own bottle.
Okay, let me rephrase; she won’t hold her own milk bottle.
Dammit! Let me re-rephrase; she won’t hold and drink from her milk bottle. There.
Some of our neighbors with kids around the same age said their little ones have been holding their own bottle and drinking without a problem. I don’t know where they all are with breastfeeding and if that matters, but Going Mom is still breastfeeding so maybe that has something to do with it. If that’s the case, so be it, breastfeeding is the best source of nutrition for our kids, even as toddlers, and I’ll support my wife as much as possible!
But still, Avery has no problem with holding, grabbing, and throwing things. She’s even becoming a pro at kettlebell swings!
So why won’t she just tilt the bottle up to get what’s inside? We have a sippy cup with a straw that she drinks water out of just fine, but a lot of it ends on the floor too, so we’re reluctant to give her Mommy’s milk that she works so hard to produce.
I’ve tried bottle “training” by just putting water inside and letting her do whatever, but nothing good came of it. Just confusion and spilled water.
If that was milk, we’d have a sticky mess, and I don’t feel like cleaning the floors more than I already have to.
Kelley and I have attempted to let her hold the bottle with milk inside while we stood guard, and she just tried to drink from the nipple as if it were the straw on her sippy cup.
We try and correct her by making a motion of tilting something up and drinking, but that only seems to confuse her.
You want me to do what with what now?
And then, after several repeated attempts at explaining what to do with the bottle, she gives us this…
I mean, what the crap?! How do you not just smile, hug, and kiss this cute girl? After holding the bottle so she can drink, that is.
Anyway, we’re talking about weaning her from the bottle all together soon, and then she’ll have to use the sippy cup. Our cup has a spill proof nipple or a straw attachment, and she’s kinda getting that nipple down, but still just spits out the water as she drinks. I picture milk being in there and it sends shivers down my spine. Not out of fear, just because I don’t like cleaning, and I know how hard my wife works to make that milk.
The time to nix the bottle is fast approaching, and hopefully she’ll get the “big girl” cup down good enough to have milk in there.
Do you have a special “go to” sippy cup that you use for your kids?
What age did your little one start holding and drinking from their own cup/bottle?
Does your kid pretend to be a certain pet/animal or do they convey a pet-like quality by choice or unintentionally? When raising our children, most of us go through the common pet commands like “No”, “Sit”, “Stay”, and “Don’t eat that!”, which means we are at least partly at fault for this use of imagination.
Is it wrong? I don’t think so. When I was a kid I used to steal and eat our dogs’ Milk Bones, after waving it in their face, of course. In retrospect, I’m lucky I still have a face since we had a doberman. And I loved when my mom would set out a bowl of water for me to lap up just like a real boy puppy! C’mon, I know there are others out there who did the same if not worse.
When Avery was only a few months old, Going Mom and I decided she sounded like a Pterodactyl when she hunched forward. It was cute, and for whatever reason, a Pterodactyl was the first thing that came to mind. If dinosaurs were still around, I’m positive they’d be suitable as pets, right? Just imagine, that’d be a ginormous bird cage! Maybe they would replace parrots on a pirate’s shoulder…..
Food for my ptero-babies!
Or maybe not.
Sorry, I was drifting off trying to imagine a pterodactyl perched on a pirate as he sailed overseas. Cool visual, huh? Just me? Damn.
Anywho, Avery no longer expresses pterodactyl-like qualities but acts more like a kitty nowadays. As I mentioned before, us parents are at least a little at fault, and this is where I’ll take most of the blame.
Avery has been making squeaky sounds every time she sees our fat black cat, Lou (we call him Fatty), and she’s become quite intrigued by the fat feline.
Hi, I’m Fa…I mean Lou
One day, after spitting out a spinach omelette I cooked for her, I asked her to be a good kitty and eat her “kitty food”. Lo and behold, she perked up, made a squeak (how a kitty sounds, apparently), and gladly ate the green-egged concoction I created. Score!
Since then I’ve been using the kitty trick (is it really a trick?) to get her to eat the more savory items I make.
Being a good kitty.
She normally enjoys the food I cook, but some of the initial bites take some kitty work, so pretending our daughter is a kitty has proved quite helpful and cute as well!
Of course I had to share it with the world on Instagram….
I may have posted several takes, but it’s hard to resist!
I’m not sure how long Avery will let us use her being a kitty as a way to eat her food, but it’s nice not picking up so much food from the floor, and we’ll use it as long as possible.
I asked the Dad Bloggers group I’m a member of on Facebook and all of the responses had dads saying their kids act as some sort of pet/animal, or did at one time. One dad said all of his kids pretend to be some sort of animal, but his 4 year old has now moved on to her favorite band members. Hey, whatever works, right?
Other dads said their kids pretend to be anything ranging from a frilled lizard, a giant tortoise (love it!), and of course a dog, which the dad said he hates since they play the biting roll all too real. Ouch!
One of the dads even wrote on his blog, Daughter of the Beard, titled “The Hunger Games” about how they play a game pretending various animals are trying to steal his daughter’s food. Here’s part of his post explaining the game he plays with his daughter to get her to eat better:
BUT! We have a game. We have a game that works almost every time. All we have to do… is encourage her to steal and lie! You read that right, and I’m not sure how I feel about it either.
Here is how it works: First we put some food from her plate on her fork and say, “Phia, I think I’d like to eat this bite so keep an eye on it and make sure no one else eats it!” and then we turn our head to look at something else; she immediately STEALS the bite and eats it; she then taps the person on the shoulder and points to the empty fork and they say, “What!? Who ate my bite?”; then she will LIE and blame it on either someone else at the table or on some mythical squirrel/bear/bird etc… that did it. This repeats and escalates in incredulous disbelief at the disappearing bites until all the food is gone!
Tell me, what animals do your kids pretend to be? If they are grown, did they used to pretend?
Share your stories below, I’d love to hear.
An at-home dad on a mission to keep it real when it comes to food, fun, and raising a healthy, happy family.
