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15 Memories From My 15th Month Since Going Dad

Another month and numerous memories has come and gone with our growing toddler. Here are 15 to celebrate the number of months she’s been making us smile.

Avery, you give us more than we could ever count, but here are 15 memories that stand out….

1. You finding out just how fun it is when you wave a string around a cat. Even fat ones like ours will chase a string around, and you were cracking up at fatty Lou.

2. For most of the month, during nap time and nighttime, you fought sleep with a burning passion. Instead of calming succumbing to your tired state, you’d kick your legs wildly and talk to yourself for up to 45 minutes before giving in. Or it was because you pooped, and then we of course came in to clean you. Remember that when we’re old!!

3. I entered you in a local baby photo contest put on by Metroplex Baby and Kids and you won! Thanks to all of our friends, family, and followers for supporting you and your infinite cuteness!

Avery-Photo-Contest-Metroplex-Baby

4. This past month I announced that am a proud Nuttzo Ambassador for 2015, and couldn’t of made it without you. As a result, there’s been plenty of NuttZo powered meals around here with many more to come. I think it’s safe to say you don’t mind one bit though.

5. I mentioned just last month that your jumper days were numbered. Shortly thereafter, we said goodbye to your jumper and I made a nice space for you to roam around in the garage. Now I can work out and so can you! And you still enjoy my weight belt just like when you were in your jumper.

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6. Speaking of working out, we got you your own kettlebell and you’ve been a rockstar at doing swings, squats, and even dancing! You get the biggest smile on your face when you pick it up, and it makes me beam with happiness!

toddler, kids, parenting, funny, humor

7. Apparently, your confidence level has sky-rocketed since you’ve been swinging your kettlebell because now you act as a personal trainer for Mommy and Me. We’ve worked out inside several times and you make sure to push us by climbing all over as we grind out HIIT-style workouts.

push-ups, workout, fitness, parenting

8. The February weather has been brutal to the North, but here in Texas, we’ve been graced with a lot of beautiful, sunny weather. We made full use of the outdoors and took you to the playground and right in our back yard many times. We’ve confirmed you love the outside, and we’ve also confirmed you HATE going inside.

playing, parenting, toddler

9. Papa had his 60th birthday celebration at a nice restaurant and many friends and family were there. You wore everyone out just running around the entire restaurant and received a lot of praise on your cuteness. You have your Mommy to thank for that! I think you can also thank her for your crude hand gestures at the restaurant too!

Steve's 60th

10. Speaking of Mommy, you also take after her love of goat cheese. You can outright reject a plain carrot, but top it with goat cheese and you can’t eat it fast enough!

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One night we even made mini goat cheese sandwiches with my homemade bread that you easily devoured.

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11. On the topic of eating, you surprised me when I offered my raw fermented veggies and you loved them. So much so, you cried after I stopped giving more. Between Mommy with her goat cheese and Daddy with my fermented foods, you make your parents super proud!

12. You have become quite the chatterbox all day, and even when you should be sleeping! No full on real words yet, but every day now, you point up, usually at lights, and make a slushy noise with your mouth as if saying something. Mommy and me just nod and say yes, those are lights. Sorry if that’s not what you’re really saying, but at least we acknowledge you.

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13. Mommy started asking “where is Avery” when you were rubbing your face one day, and now you do it to play hide and seek. Every time we say a key word like “boo”, “where are you”, “hide”, and others, you cover your eyes as if you’re tired to play along. Sometimes you keep them on there really long and it’s hard to tell if you actually are tired or still playing. Either way, you’re cute!

14. Yes, cute even when you do something like throw up. Your first real food puke happened in the middle of the night when G-Ma was staying over after watching you for Mommy and Daddy’s date night.  You ate really good for G-Ma, a little too good,  and it all came back up. We could hear the noise the first time you did it in your crib, and after cleaning everything up, I heard it the second time when you did it all over Mommy while nursing. Despite the sickness, you gave us plenty of cute, flashy smiles right after expelling your food. We could resist but to smile back at you.

15. And for the final memory this month, it’s another bodily function first. The night I became ill and was lying on the playroom floor, you decided to squeeze out a stinker as Mommy was giving you a bath. She said it scared you and definitely surprised her, but she handled it smoothly and cleaned things up quickly.

Avery, you’re growing up fast, too fast, and we enjoy watching your see and do so much every day. You’re constantly learning and hopefully that trend continues for a very long time! We love you, happy 15 months, dear!

I’d say, if there were a major theme for the month, resisting sleep and confusing Going Mom and I would be it. Seriously, the “terrible twos” really do start at 1!  But of course, we wouldn’t change it for the world!

Do you have any favorite memories from your kids for the month? Please share as I’d love to hear!

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Thanks, Similac, For Welcoming Dads Into the Sisterhood

“The Sisterhood of Motherhood”, that is. Yeah, that sounds like it has a giant “Welcome Dads” sign held high right? Wrong; High not five Similac!

Similac, in its latest ad campaign titled “The Sisterhood of Motherhood“, created a video depicting various parent cliques coming face to face on the playground. There were working moms, stay-at-home moms, breastfeeding moms, “crunchy” moms, and even, yes, dads, all lashing out and talking down to one another.

As the lashing out reaches a climax and all of the close-minded groups charge at each other, a baby in a stroller begins to roll down a hill. Suddenly, the imminent brawl amongst clashing parent styles quickly ended as all groups rushed to save the runaway baby. The video ends with a quote saying “No matter what our beliefs, we are parents first.”

Or that’s when it should have ended. Instead, Similac went the extra mile and welcomed us in to the “Sisterhood of Motherhood.” And by us, I mean moms, apparently. Those dads in the video, they weren’t really there, or they were actually very masculine women.

Besides the dad wearing his baby facing out, which I am firmly against (click here to see why), the video was entertaining and you could even catch a smile on my face. Until that damned ending welcoming my clique, dads, into some sisterhood of motherhood. What the crap?!

So why even add a small group of dads in the video at all? Which, by the way, if I wanted to really nitpick, there’s more than just one group of like-minded dads, we have our own cliques too. But whatever, basically the ending would make more sense to read simply “Welcome to Parenthood”.

The large group of Dad Bloggers I am a part of on Facebook have all had their say on the video with most of us obviously not accepting of the closing words. One dad blogger, Chris Routly, who runs the blog Daddy Doctrines, goes into detailed analysis on where the video goes wrong and why it matters. Check out his post here.

As a caring father, I agree with Chris’ thoughts 100%. I get that dads are still the minority when it comes to ad campaigns, but that doesn’t mean we like it one bit.

So, thank you, Similac, for welcoming dads into the sisterhood to #SisterhoodUnite, but I think we’ll pass.

What are your thoughts on this video?

Do you agree the better approach would be to make the campaign gender-neutral by using “Parenthood”  in place of the prefixes “Sister” and “Mother?

Stay-At-Home Dads Are On The Rise In 2015!

According to a survey published by Yahoo.com, the rise in stay-at-home dads is expected to continue in 2015.  And this is not just because dads can’t find work (23%), it’s because we WANT to stay home (21%) with the kids and we can do a damn good job at it too!

It’s true, check out this PEW Research Foundation report published back in June of 2014 for proof. Stay-at-home dads actually represent the biggest increase in those caring for family.

We may not be capable of breastfeeding (also a “Hot in 2015” trend), but we can handle every other aspect just as well in our own unique, fatherly way.  More families see the female earning more than their male counterparts and just do better in a work environment.

I’m fortunate that this is the case in our family as Going Mom handles the work stress better than I did and I tend to handle the stay-at-home life stress better. Although it is stressful in both cases!

The very common and extremely annoying negative stereotypes of stay-at-home dads is decreasing every year, and with this survey, I’m hopeful it will continue it’s downward trend. Dads staying home only seems weird b/c it goes against what most of society has been raised to believe. Remember how smoking was “hot” (pun kind of intended) not many years ago? Yeah, that’s the power of society painting the image of how things “should be”.

As a member of several social media groups with other dads, I can proudly say at-home dads will continue to grow and we’ll snuff those negative views right in the sandbox where they belong!

The one downside to having more stay-at-home dads? A most likely increase in the number of kids telling corny jokes. Besides the jokes, dads do play an important role in a child’s development from newborn to college-bound, and that’s an extremely important role indeed!

Oh nothing, just working on Avery's development for later in life...
Oh nothing, just working on Avery’s development for later in life…

Among the other parenting trends for 2015 is breastfeeding in public being more socially acceptable (as it should be!) and school lunch being highly debated even more than previous years. Breastfeeding and nutrition are of the utmost importance in our home and we value them dearly.

I can’t say it enough how proud and grateful I am that Going Mom is able to continue breastfeeding Avery past a year and can see our daughter’s healthfulness (and crazy energy) shining through each day.

What do you think about Yahoo’s survey? Please share your thoughts below as I’d love to hear your views.