Category Archives: Life

I Survived the 1st Year As a Stay-At-Home Dad!

02/02/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

More importantly, we/us/our family has survived a year having me as a stay-at-home dad. Nerves were high for all of us a year ago as my wife was returning to work from her maternity leave, and I was leaving work to stay home with our daughter, Avery.

It was obvious how unsure I was looking back at my first post from my first day at home. The world revolved around nap time and I heavily depended on Kelley’s breast milk soaked shirt laying in Avery’s crib to provide comfort and help with keeping her asleep.

Poor wife, I wouldn’t dare let her have that thing back for quite a while! On the second day, my confidence-o-meter was still in the negatives, as well as many subsequent days after.

If you checked out the links I provided from my first and second days as an at-home dad, you might notice a common theme that’s present with most parents, especially new ones; a difference in parenting styles. Yep, it’s a big one, and doesn’t matter if one is staying home or both are working, parents tend to disagree on one thing or ~~another~~ a miliion, and that’s just how it is.

Kelley and I still have our own ways of dealing with Avery and we’ll sometimes argue over how the other is handling a situation. Damn wife, she’s usually right (at least I admit it…..eventually), but sometimes I get the 1-up. Not often, but sure does feel good when I do! Parents, don’t you agree?

~~Fighting~~ ~~Arguments~~ ~~Quarrels~~ Misunderstandings aside, Kelley and I make a great team and have learned a lot along the way. Is anyone ever done learning when so much is changing every day? In parenting and relationships, I vote NO! But that’s part of the fun, right? 🙂

In my year as a stay-at-home dad, I’ve made many mistakes and figure I’ll make many more. But from the ones I have made, I have learned and grew stronger as a result. For instance, babywearing, something we fully support and love in our home, took me a bit before realizing I was doing it wrong at first. I was wearing Avery all over with legs dangling and front facing.

Too cool for school...or anything. — Too cool for school…or anything.

As I shared on my post about Why I Wear My Baby, there are many studies showing the problems with a baby’s development when worn like this, especially the dangling legs!

And there are plenty more (I’m picturing my wife nodding her head as she reads this) mistakes that I’ll share in a separate post soon. Hopefully other parents, whether at-home or at-work, will learn from my mistakes and avoid making them their selves.

Today I want to call attention to making it an entire year with our arrangement and to express my deep, deep appreciation to my lovely wife, Kelley, for working so hard for our family. Some times are extremely hard with work, keeping up with breastfeeding, and dealing with an unruly husband (me!) and she is great at keeping everything together.

Kelley, I can’t thank you enough, and just want to say I love our life together and having such a crazy, yet sweet, daughter to raise with you.

Are you currently or can you remember being a parent to a baby/toddler?

What are some ways that you and your significant other pushed through the tunnel of stressful times to emerge from the other end, happy and sane? Okay, maybe a little crazy. 😉

Life, Parenting

Does Your Toddler Have a Super Bowl Pose?

01/31/2015 R.C. Liley 3 Comments

They may not have a clue about football, but toddlers can still rock an awesome cheering pose for the Super Bowl. My wife and I have captured several action shots of Avery practicing her pose during the Big Game.

Some are blurry, but we wouldn’t dare delete them because….cute, duh. Don’t tell me you’re not like that with you kid or kids….c’mon, you can’t fool a fellow parent. Okay, you can, but not when it comes to saving more pictures than you will ever need. Imagine if they were the old-school Polaroids. Yikes!

Since we have quite the collection, I’m asking you to help us decide what Avery’s best pose is so she is prepared to cheer for…..don’t get mad, Seahawks fans, the Patriots! We’re Cowboy’s fans first, but for this game, we’re rooting for the Pats.

Please help Going Mom and me out and tell us one or two of your favorite Super Bowl poses. We will then commence with blowing up the winning picture of her pose and train Avery to duplicate that exact stance with each scoring drive by the Patriots. Maybe we won’t go that far, but makes for a good visual, huh?

Whatever Avery chooses to do, I expect to see plenty of Patriot touchdowns to make the Seahawks wilt (Get it? Birds….wilting? No? Damn.)! Hopefully, just like the Super Bowl ticket prices, the balls stay inflated. Sorry, had to. 🙂

And now for the poses…

These 10 are the best we have so far, and I’ll be damned if it’s not hard to pick just one. I mean, look at the happiness, not to mention skill in some, of these poses!

Oh, and I would ask for help choosing a good pose for when the Seahawks make a touchdown or do anything good, but we already have that one figured out….

Yeah, seems appropriate, right? Hope you’re having a great weekend, and remember, try to stay somewhat healthy during the game and, well, always! Try dipping some baby carrots and apple slices in NuttZo, or eat right from the spoon. And if you must have something with bacon since that’s the trend lately, NuttZo + Bacon makes a delicious treat!

This is part of the Brilliant Blog Posts Link up, check out other #brilliantblogposts by clicking the badge below.

Who are you cheering for tomorrow?

Are they the regular team you usually cheer for, or just your favorite between the two?

Do you even care about the Super Bowl?

Life, Parenting

Potty Training is a Crapshoot

01/29/2015 R.C. Liley 5 Comments

We had our first shot at potty training the other day, and after our failed attempts, I’ve deemed it a crapshoot.

Taken right from Dictionary.com, the definition seems fitting….

crapshoot

[krap-shoot]

noun

1. Informal. anything unpredictable, risky, or problematical; gamble.

verb (used without object), crapshot, crapshooting.

2. to play craps.

3. Informal. to take risks; gamble.

I bolded the words that stand out the most to me when it comes to potty training. I bet all of you experience parents with plenty of potty training time on your latex-gloved hands are all laughing thinking “just wait”, and I can’t argue.

But, I also bet you agree that potty training is indeed a crapshoot, true?

Honestly, I haven’t looked at one resource on potty training, and we have yet to officially decide when to start attempting to get Avery to sit on the pot. I’m not even sure what age you’re supposed to start, and the more I think about it, it’s just another one of those “each child is different” scenarios.

Isn’t that how it is for almost all of parenting? We get bombarded by advice from what worked for others, but, taking advice from the thousands of internet parents is, wait for it, a crapshoot!

“Oh, my little princess (or DD as most forums call their daughters) was easy to potty train. I just told her to watch me and then she went all by herself! She even wiped, flushed, and cooked us dinner!”

Okay, I might’ve slightly exaggerated, but you get the point. All parents have their own parenting style! It might work for other parents too, but nothing is set in stone.

Anyway, Avery has been somewhat consistent with a morning and evening poop, and every now and then she’ll throw us a curve ~~ball~~ turd with another stinker somewhere in-between. One morning this week, she was in her Pooping Chair when I heard the poop grunts begin.

It was too late to even attempt to move her at that point since her face was already beet red from squeezing, so I just allowed her to go about her business. Five minutes later, I assumed the deed was done since her normal complexion had returned, and I brought her to be changed.

Diaper off with just a little pooplet (didn’t seem like her normal size), crazy legs in the air, and what do I see? A tiny turtle starting to emerge!! Crap (ha ha), time to attempt potty training session number one! I cradled Avery by holding her back and legs so that she remained horizontal until we made it to the toilet and quickly (but safely) rushed to the bathroom. Almost on the pot and then…..

….the turtle’s head fell off on my arm and rolled on the floor, next to the toilet. Damn. Since she had only two smaller nuggets so far, I sat her on the pot just to see if she had anything else to deliver.

She went from whining, to pointing at the bathroom lights, to crying, to hitting my face as I held her, to pointing at lights, and back to crying. I finally gave up, changed her into a new diaper, and thoroughly washed my pooped-on arm as I thought about how I could’ve approached that better.

Back in the kitchen and living room area, I set Avery down so I could finally cook her breakfast. Of course I get to eat some too, which is why I love using NuttZo as an ingredient and to spread on my creations. But not one minute after setting her down, Avery’s face turned dark red, she let out a grunt followed by her usual “poop shivers” indicating she was done.

Breakfast was put on hold once more as I changed Avery’s massive load. I think I found the body that belonged to that turtle head! I asked her why she didn’t do that when I had her on the pot, but she just pointed to the light in her room and said “Shdlislek” or something like that.

That night, while Going Mom was playing with her, Avery had her round two. Kelley attempted putting her on the pot to finish any unfinished business, but it only resulted in crying.

Two failed attempts and probably many more to come. Yeah, it “stinks”, but we might as well try when we can. I guess the first order of business (geez, I keep making myself laugh!) is to get a potty training toilet so we don’t have to hold Avery over our adult throne and risk dropping her in. Stay tuned for more adventures in poopland!

Are you past, in process, or still waiting for potty training with your kid(s)?

To you experienced parents, any tips you care to share?

What age did you start and what’s a good training toilet, method, book, etc?

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