Category Archives: Life

How Not to Start Baby-Led Weaning with your Baby

05/19/2016 R.C. Liley 16 Comments

This was originally posted on May 18, 2014. Thankfully, we are long past the baby-led weaning days!

I’m writing this from the comfort of our couch on Saturday night after a long and busy, but mostly good day. Avery is as mobile as she can be without being able to crawl, and she surprises us by sitting right up immediately after we set her down.

Crazy kid, we love her so much, but she can really wear us out! It helps that I’m celebrating World Whiskey Day with my Breckenridge Distillery Bourbon to wind things down though.

So, um, yeah, baby-led weaning (BLW), is not off to a great start for us. I get that this was our first day and first try and blah, blah, but I still got my hopes up ready to watch Avery grasp a green bean and eat it like she does her red plastic bird.

But the exact opposite happened; she refused to even touch the food I set in front of her! Mommy’s water cup? Sure, she’ll grab at and try to put it in her mouth all day! Food you are actually supposed to put in your mouth? Nope, not having it.

What did we do wrong that made her so repulsed by our food offering? I’m not certain, but maybe trying right at her bedtime had something to do with it. What do you think?

Not to mention her usual 2 – 3 hour morning nap only lasted 1 hour; in which she cried some during that hour. A tired baby is a cranky baby as all parents know, and that’s what we had for parts of the day.

I want to sleep, but I also don't!!! — I want to sleep, but I also don’t!!!

Okay, she wasn’t fussy all day, but she had several of her “moments” just to let us know she was tired and not happy. Since she obviously didn’t want to be in her jumper (see picture above), we moved her to her play yard to give her freedom to move around and practice her sitting up skills.

She got right to sitting up, but still cried while doing so. I had several things cooking in the kitchen and Going Mom was hard at work cleaning the living room, so we had to let her cry for a few minutes. Then Kelley turned on the vacuum which always gets Avery to quiet down and look around.

Ahhh, the loud whir of a vacuum never sounded so good. Apparently Avery thought so too; we looked over and she was sound asleep!

We haven’t had to use the consoling power of the vacuum for a while now, and it surprised us to see how passed out she was! Obviously, I had to give it my thumbs up of approval.

Kelley didn’t want to turn off the vacuum while she slept, so now we have a really clean living room! The nap helped, but it wasn’t even 30 minutes, so we weren’t too hopeful for a happy Avery.

We finished our to-do’s and went for a walk with Avery in the Onya Outback where she had a 15 minute power nap. Upon our return, it was just past 7pm and Kelley went to clean up as I put the highchair together. Avery commenced with crying…

30 minutes later (about the time we usually get her to bed), we strapped her in the highchair for the first time and excitedly prepared for our first BLW experience! I don’t think she was too excited though….

I had steamed a bunch of organic baby carrots, green beans, and broccoli earlier, so I pulled a few pieces of each to serve her.

Avery was already in fuss-mode as I brought the veggies to her, and it only increased with each passing second. I at least expected to see her grab at one of the specimen in front of her, but to no avail. She wouldn’t even look at them!

Pretty sure I knew the reason, I told Going Mom it was just her bib making her upset. Simple solution, just remove the bib, right?

Wrong. I gave this the thumbs down of disapproval. Not being one to accept no for an answer, or “no” as expressed by a baby, I tried dangling a green bean in front of her to get her attention.

If a baby can look repulsed, this is the look. Her hands remained idle making sure she didn’t give even the slightest reach to raise our hopes. On the last straw, I attempted to show her how the food is meant for her mouth, but she wasn’t too receptive.

Might as well of been a cigar because she wasn’t having it. At this point, we called our first attempt a failure and gave up. Luckily, our pet box turtle, Tash, was looking for some good food and she happily accepted Avery’s outcast veggies.

I spent a little time playing with Avery before her bath, and then she seemed to cheer up for a while! And she made sure to put everything around her in her mouth; figures. But our time was limited and only our dog, Abby, could keep Avery from letting out another whine.

Dog kisses just make everything better, huh? Unless you’re me, I don’t care for the kisses too much.

So if you’re about to introduce your baby to solids for the first time, don’t do like us and try when it’s their bedtime. Even more so if their naps have been short or even non-existent! At that point, it’s just smart to put it off for one more day and save everyone the stress.

And that’s what we’re doing. As you read this, we will be making our second, and hopefully successful, attempt at introducing Avery to solids. Avery is usually the happiest in the morning, so at least we should see some smiles! As always, I’ll let you know how it goes.

Any tips on how to get your baby interested in grabbing food?

Do you have any first time baby successes or failures to share?

Life, Parenting

Slapped in the Face by a Virus

05/16/2016 R.C. Liley 1 Comment

Have you ever been slapped in the face by a virus? I don’t recall ever having parvovirus b19 lay a ~~finger~~ dna strand on my face as a kid, but apparently it’s a common infection.

Earlier last week, our little girl had a few minor signs of a runny nose and unexplained crankiness which I think might be from a headache. At the end of the week, she was developing a little rash on her body and some on her cheeks.

The next day, that little rash exploded all over her body, was warm to the touch, and left our poor toddler with an extremely red and swollen face as if she had been slapped hard on both cheeks.

parvovirus b19, virus, fifth disease, slapped cheek, infection

As it turns out, this is called slapped-cheek disease aka fifth disease, which is said to be quite common in kids. Seeing my daughter covered in a bright red rash is bad enough, but her swollen hamster-like cheeks simply hurt my heart. Every time I look at the picture above, I feel that sunken feeling in my heart and stomach wishing I could make it all go away.

I’m usually the good one at maintaining composure when our child is sick, so you can only imagine how distraught my wife was all weekend. She was filled with constant concern and made sure to keep Avery happy as much as possible. Despite her ailments, Avery was her happy toddler self running around yapping about certain anatomy along with singing the intro to Little Einsteins at the top of her lungs. Kinda like this pic, but with a rash and swollen face.

virus, happy, parvovirus b19, fifth disease

She was scratching the rash, but Going Mom and was good about keeping her mind occupied with lots of reading and playing.

Avery with fifth disease virus_reading

Cousin Ashlee also spent the night and they had a blast playing together, so that helped tremendously!

All weekend long, the symptoms of the virus plagued our sweet girl. We were more concerned about the infection and mild fever than she was, but it sucked nonetheless. As I write this, we are on day 3 since the rash appeared and slapped her face, and I’m happy to say it’s slowly going away. Her swollen face is slowly returning to normal and the rash, while still all around her arms, legs, and back, has lessened.

With fifth disease, there really is no treatment other than letting it run its course. We’re doing just that and are thankful it hasn’t dampened her spirits one bit.

Have you, your kids, or someone you know ever had fifth disease?

Did you see lots of swelling in the face too?

Life, Parenting

Toddler Smiles: Fake vs Real

05/13/2016 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

At two and half years old, our toddler daughter is catching on to what it means when we say “smile.” We’ve only had the camera in her face since day one, so it only makes sense that her smiles are coming around.

toddler, smiling, cute, baby, parenting — Nope, not smiling!! What is this place?!

She’s come a long way in developing her smile since then, and even knows how to fake a smile. Like, for instance…

toddler, smile, smiles, cute, kids, parenting

Still cute, but definitely not a smile. We only hope she faked it on purpose!

Going through the recent pics we’ve taken, I have found several smiles that are fake and some that are genuine. Of course, after scrolling through, “Blog post!” sprung into my head. And now, here we are.

Let’s move on and see the fake vs real smiles from our toddler as of late.

smiles, toddler, cute, family

It’s not a super wide-grinned happiness smile, but this is in fact a genuine smile Going Mom caught on camera. A little unsure? Yeah, but real nonetheless.

Another real one here. Helping Daddy cook in the kitchen is a surefire way to put a smile on her face.

Fakers!! This is a result of her getting tired of me telling her to sit still and smile. I called her out on the fake smile which resulted in….

toddler, cute, eyes

Here boo-boos on her lip and face are from falling face first while riding her WOOM 1 Balance Bike. She wasn’t even moving, just sitting on it! She’s recovering fast and just has a little scab on her lip left now.

A photo posted by RC Liley (@going_dad) on May 6, 2016 at 3:09pm PDT

No question, wearing her new beach robe equals an obvious real, albeit cheesy, grin.

This is one I’m not sure on. It has both real and fake qualities. Maybe she’s unsure as well?

Real. Playtime in the backyard with Mommy always yields a happy girl.

This one seems rather forced, but I’d like to say playtime with Daddy in the backyard also makes her happy. I’m playing the ignorance card if it’s fake and just going for real here.

Okay, this is forced. Confirmed fake toddler smile here.

Phew, I think Mommy joined Daddy in the fake smile from our toddler club. Still both beautiful girls though!

And Mommy wins it back with an excited and real smile! She’s keeping her eyes on a spiderweb on our back porch roof which spooks her out.

Subtle, but it’s a half real smile from a cute little girl. I don’t think we even asked her to smile for this one. Oh wait, we ALWAYS ask for a smile.

toddler, smile

This is a Happy-to-be-me-and-free genuine smile! Running around like a wild child shouting “We’re having fun!” Love this picture!

A photo posted by RC Liley (@going_dad) on May 9, 2016 at 1:18pm PDT

Fake. She was doing it just for the NuttZo. Can’t blame her though!

As you can see, she’s getting it down. Soon she’ll perfect the fake smile and we won’t be able to tell what’s real and what’s not. Then we’re in big trouble. As if her bottom lip weren’t enough!

Luckily, we’re seeing more real than fake smiles from our precious toddler, and hopefully it stays that way. One thing I know is that our whole family smiles when we’re together.

magnesium, deficiency, anxiety, salt bath