22 Memories From My 22nd Month Since Going Dad

Only two more monthly memories posts after this one until I take a different approach. Much like the memories, I’ll never stop sharing, but we only have a finite amount of time each day, and an increasing number of memories will take more than I’m willing to use. Plus, it’s better spent making new memories with my family.

Our little flower is blossoming more and more, and just like I’ve probably said in the past several all of these posts, growing so fast and doing so much! Well, like I said, there’s only a finite amount of time, so I’ll get to it.

1. Right after we got back from our Colorado family vacation, Mommy had to go on a business trip and was gone for almost a week. This was the longest time we spent apart, and we missed her dearly.

2. In order to get our Mommy/Wifey fix, we utilized Skype each night. It was always late, but I’d sit on the kitchen floor with you as video-chatted together. Of course, you’d hardly sit still, but you did give kisses to Mommy through the phone.

3. Before school was back in session, we made use of the playground at the elementary school nearby. You climbed up the equipment and went down the slide non-stop for the first time and obviously had a blast.

4. Then, as school started and everyone was posting pics of their kids’ first day, we rubbed it in that it was just another fun day together at our house.

5. While Mommy was still away, I brought you over to our friend’s house to try out their trampoline. As active as you’ve become, I thought you’d easily get right to jumping, but it turned out that you must be afraid of being above ground.

Yeah, I'm fine right here, thank you.
Yeah, I’m fine right here, thank you.

6. At least you had fun playing catch with their dog. I think he enjoyed it too!

Throwing ball to Arkus

 

7. I captured my favorite picture of you to date and had it printed and framed using Pictli. Now we have it right above the sink to enjoy each day.

my sunday photo, #MySundayPhoto, toddlers, parenting

 

8. Mowing with you had always been tedious as I didn’t feel safe having you outside as I cut the grass, but with Mommy gone, I decided to give it a try. Turned out to be no problem!

9. Keeping with the “firsts” trend, we walked around our .4 mile loop together in our Soft Star Shoes. That was the most you walked at once and you did great!

10. You wouldn’t keep anything in your crib for the longest time, but this month you finally gave in and accepted the company of your My Happy Pillow bear. Yay progress!

11. Something that has yet to change, is your crazy demon stare into the monitor as you resist sleep.

12. Since you did so well on the school playground equipment, I thought I’d bring you to another playground to climb up and slide on. Instead, your fear of heights came out and you wouldn’t even allow me to go through the obstacles with you. Regression!

13. One of our neighbors was giving away their playhouse and swing set with a slide, and thanks to Mommy for seeing the post, we got it! Only problem was, our slightly sloped backyard made it hard to find a good spot to put it. Until then, we just used the slide by itself where I would lift it with you at the top and Mommy caught you at the bottom.

14. It used to be that we had to read a book out loud during dinner while simultaneously feeding you, but now you enjoy reading the books yourself. And you eat much better too!

15. After going back and forth, we finally settled on a good spot for your playhouse. Now that it’s together, Mommy and I wind up pushing you on the swing and helping you down the slide every day. Sometimes you even try to swing by yourself!

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16. We knew it was coming, and this was the month it happened, you started saying “No” to us. Let this mark the beginning of the backtalk. I hear it ends right around after college….

17. With all of the outside playing, we think you were bit around the diaper lining area which seemed like nothing major at first, but turned into a staph infection. We spent our Labor Day at the ER having it drained and cleaned. Thankfully you’re all better now, but that means all 3 of us have had a bout of MRSA this year. I think Mommy’s love helped your recovery a lot!

Mommy's Comfort in Hospital

18. Randomly, I took your diaper off at an attempt to start potty training you with a method I read about. Several pee puddles later, that was the last attempt for now. We’ll try again once you’re 2 years old. 🙂

19. Feeling confident that you were ready to attempt the trampoline again, I brought you to the Urban Air Trampoline Park. You started off timid, but with the help of the bigger kids, you finally warmed up!

20. Every time we try to comfort you after a little fall, because you’re upset, or something big like staph, we always say “It’s okay.” by habit. Well, you picked up on it and now you say it all the time. When you’re really frustrated or scared, you’ll say itsokay really fast with a strained voice. It’s funny, sad, and, well, funny again.

21. Mommy taught you how to be even more adorable (how is that possible?) by putting your hands to your cheeks. Cuteness galore!

hands-to-cheeks

22. And finally, one of the best animal noises you’ve done up to this point is the bear/lion sound. You make the best (and cutest) roar ever!

Time can be a real jerk for never slowing down, so it’s up to us parents to make the most of our time together. Getting hugs from Avery is the best feeling in the world, unless, that is, it’s getting hugs from Avery and my wife. We have a family hug almost every day that I wouldn’t trade for anything else.

Now I’m off to make more memories, see you back here in another month!

What is your kid currently doing or recently done that you absolutely love/hate? Please share, I’d love to hear!

1st Week of NFL Football and I Don’t Care

The 2015 NFL Football season has arrived! This means it’s time to gather round and sit in front of the TV to watch the big game….or a small one if you haven’t upgraded to an 80″ LED 2160p TV. 🙂

Going Mom and I enjoy watching a good game, but we don’t schedule our weekend (or a Thursday / Monday night) around it. For us, a new football season is exciting because of the changing weather and seasonal produce starting to sprout. We still care about football, but we don’t care about all of the excitement from the 1st week of the season. I was involved with sports betting a few years ago, and hated how much it ruled my life, so no more betting or fantasy leagues for me. Although, a lot has changed in the betting world since I dabbled in it. For example, now that sports betting tennessee websites are up and running, this would make it a lot easier for me!

Every year, as the football season approaches, you can feel the excitement all around with stores stocking their aisles with “the essentials”, new TV deals suddenly seem more abundant, and Fantasy Football drafts going on everywhere. And that’s completely cool, but over the years, I’ve found that I’ve lost interest in football hubbub.

Yep, years ago we used to chime in with the excitement, but with each passing season, my wife and I shared the dying of the football flame. Like I said, we enjoy watching football, but most certainly can not sit through an entire game, and will only watch if doesn’t get in the way of whatever else we’re doing.

Take, for example, this past weekend with the first week of the NFL season, we totally forgot because we were focused on cooking, exercise, landscaping projects, and enjoy the outdoors. When we weren’t pinned down by our crazy toddler that is.

On Dad's Back_1

Besides, we are more college football fans, and follow our Oklahoma Sooners more than any NFL team. We missed the game against Tennessee (see above reason), but got the highlights, and wow, sorry we didn’t see it! Go Sooners! Although, Avery’s reaction to Mommy’s OU jersey isn’t very promising that she’ll be a fan of our alma mater.

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I grew up with a step-dad who sat around watching TV a lot which didn’t leave a good impression. Now, as a father myself, I don’t want Avery to see me staring at a TV when we could be playing together as a family or just sitting and reading to her.

We actually turned on part of a game this weekend and Avery fell silent and just stared at the TV. Our fun, rambunctious little girl turned into a zombie locked in on the bright screen with no awareness of what was going on around her. That was the end of TV for the weekend.

Again, we don’t hate football, and as I said already, enjoy watching a good game, but what I’m saying is that I don’t care that it’s the first week of the season. Probably won’t think much about the second week either. I’ll still root for the Cowboys (just checked and saw that was an awesome win against the Giants) since, by default, they’re our home team, and follow the Sooners a little more, but no matter the outcome, life will go on for us. I was involved with sports betting a few years ago, and hated how much it ruled my life, so more betting or fantasy leagues for me.

What did we do for the 1st week of the NFL season? Well, my wife planned out and started her next backyard landscaping project and I started a new strength routine along with cooking multiple meals including our local, pastured chicken from our CSA. I’m severely deficient with gardening and landscaping, so I helped in the form of manual labor. I see it as an extra workout, Kelley gets my help, it’s a win-win!

In sum, I feel it’s too easy to get wrapped up into the games as I have done in the past, and find it much more rewarding to keep away and be productive around the house. Then, once everything’s done, maybe we can sit down at night to catch the end of a good game.

Did you watch any football this weekend?

Excited about Monday Night Football tonight?

Do you like NFL or College better? Or, like me, don’t get too wrapped up in either?

Typical Conversations With Our Toddler

At almost 22 months old (seriously, time, just stop for a change), our toddler daughter seems to increase her vocabulary every day. Not that it’s a big surprise with how much time we spend reading to her as well as her reading by herself.

Mommy and Avery Reading in CO

Reading usually occurs sans animals, but Nana’s dog was adamant about sticking around for the ending.

I figured I would share some of the typical conversations we have with Avery at this stage in her toddler career. Obviously, they are less like conversations and more like us asking a lot of different questions with one syllable, hard to distinguish answers. Or just going through asking what noise *insert animal* makes.

When she’s getting fussy and we can’t figure out why or it’s just because she wants us to give her something she can’t have, we’ll bust out with the animal sound questions

  • Us: What does the kitty say?
  • Avery: La (sometimes it’s more of a meow, but not quite yet)
  • Us: What does the owl say?
  • Avery: Who-who
  • Us: Ummm, what does the dog say?
  • Avery: ruff
  • Us: How about the pig?
  • Avery: very soft snorting noise I’m not sure how to spell out
  • Avery: getting fussy again
  • Us: Uhhh……what does the bear say?
  • Avery: rooaarrrr <—-cutest thing ever!

Just recently, when we’re changing her and just took off her pajamas, she gets upset if she’s not wearing a shirt.

  • Avery: Shit, shit, shit
  • Us: What?
  • Avery: *pointing at our shirt* Shit!
  • Us: Oh, you want a shirt?
  • Avery: Yesshh
  • Us: Okay, what color do you want?
  • Avery: Pink (this was the first color she could say, so it’s always her first color question response)
  • Us: Would you like this green one with the Ninja Turtles?
  • Avery: Yesshh
  • Us: We’ll put it on right after changing your diaper. What color diaper do you want?
  • Avery: Pink
  • Us: How about this one, what color is it?
  • Avery: Pink………bllluuueee
  • Us: Yes, good job dear! You’re so smart!
  • Avery: I smaahht

And then, quite often, there are times where it’s just a drawn out guessing game. She’s fussy and only getting worse by the second…

  • Avery: Uh, ugh, ugh….bla
  • Us: What do you want sweetie?
  • Avery: bla baaa, laa
  • Us: I don’t understand what that is, dear. Do you want another book?
  • Avery: nnnn, bla bla baaa
  • Us: Still don’t know, does something hurt?
  • Avery: *reaching up but not really towards anything* blaaa laaa
  • Us: *finally realizing…we think* Oh, you want water?
  • Avery: Yesshhhhh

So apparently “W’s” are hard to pronounce right now. No worries, we have plenty of time to learn. Since a toddler is usually around the ages of one and three, I see follow-up posts in our future, and maybe by then she’ll at least have “water” down.

There are plenty of other “conversations” we have with Avery in a day, but these seem to be the most frequent so far. But with a constantly growing list of words she can say, including high chair, bear, book, swing, slide, mow, squats, shorts, mom, glasses, phone, trash, pig, squash, and most of the primary colors, our talks are sure to get more interesting. Oh yeah, she started saying No, which is already proving to be a problem. Apparently for the both of us….

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What are your little ones saying right now or what did they say when they were toddlers?

Any plans for the weekend?