My blogging goals have been falling somewhat short lately in that I’m not capturing the happenings of our daily life as much as I used to. Instead, I have a Word document filled with several pages of blog post ideas I keep thinking I’ll write. You see, I’ve been trying too hard to write some deep, insightful post on things like “Why Dads Should Encourage Breastfeeding” or something related to being an at-home parent instead of just writing about our life.

I still type my ideas on the Word doc as they pop into my head, but until the time arises, I’ll stick to what I intended to do when creating this blog. Sharing the story of my at-home dad life with a beautiful working mom/wife, Kelley (a.k.a Going Mom) and our precious daughter, Avery. In addition, I’ll frequently write reviews on parent-related products and healthy food as well as my thoughts on the fitness and nutrition world.

I feel I have a lot to share when it comes to food and exercise, and hope anyone reading is able to benefit from what I have to say. Please, if you ever have any questions or thoughts of your own, feel free to share and I’ll respond as best as possible.

Now that we have that out of the way, lets talk walking. No, Avery’s not a full-blown walking yet, but she sure is close! First, I commend her for never giving up as you might’ve seen on Instagram….

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A post shared by RC Liley (@going_dad)

But just a couple days later and she has shown improvement….

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A post shared by RC Liley (@going_dad)

It’s been a lot of up and down (literally) since then, and although she still doesn’t have walking mastered (does anyone?), she’s getting better each day. Sometimes she gets really confident and even tries to bust out a few dance moves.

She also thinks she owns the place now and has been doing some rearranging of the furniture.

I guess having a stool beside the oven and refrigerator could prove useful. Maybe she’s just lashing out at my decision not to put a shirt on her. Sorry, Avery.

This past weekend was fun seeing her take a few steps, fall, and get up to try again without thinking twice, and I’m glad Going Mom and I got to experience it together. Another thing we got to experience together was Avery’s first visit to see Santa Claus, and we even received a pleasant surprise from our growing girl.

She freakin smiled! Of all the facial expressions we were prepared to see once we handed her over to the strange guy with a giant white beard and a red suit, smiling was not one of them! All it took was the photographer, one of Santa’s not-so-little elves, to ring a bell and wham, she smiles!

We were shocked! It made standing in line for over an hour in the cold as we passed our squirmy, increasingly heavy, daughter back and forth all worthwhile. It even rained on us a little. But, $20 for one 5×7 photo of our smiling baby on a stranger’s lap made our day complete. Sounds weird, huh, that something like that would make parents happy?

No matter, we’re told next year is when she’ll probably cry once she understand more of what’s going on. Looking forward to it! Sense my sarcasm.

How long once your little one starting taking steps until they got it mostly down and began terrorizing the house and any pets you have (or had)?

Any good visits to Santa stories you’d like to share?