Category Archives: Parenting

Crib to Bed to Floor & A Cold Pool

We made the transition from crib to bed a week ago with mixed feelings about how our two and half year old girl would take to the change. It wasn’t a huge change since we have a convertible crib, so it just took a little rearranging/removal of the existing crib parts.

crib to bed, cute, kids, toddler

Still the same organic mattress she’s had since birth, but we’ll be upgrading to a brand new full-size Naturepedic mattress in a few weeks. Stay tuned for a review of their top notch mattresses for kids. Safe sleeping material is more important than I ever knew before I read up on how vital it really is.

I made the switch right before naptime with high expectations that Avery would put on a good show through the baby monitor. Much to my surprise, she was excited to get in her big kid bed to read a story before nap time, and never even got off of her mattress after I left. I could see her thinking about it through the monitor, but in less time than she usually takes to finally fall asleep, she was out quick.

crib to bed, sleeping, kids, toddler, cute

Such a precious girl. When she’s out, she’s out! Hence the reason I was able to get such a close shot as she slept. Of course, I couldn’t stop there, this moment called for a daddy-daughter selfie, even if she didn’t know it was happening.

crib to bed, selfie, funny, cute, kids, toddler

The first night went quite well too. She took longer to actually fall asleep, but still kept on her bed the entire time. The next day she started to test the waters more and more and got on and off the bed before finally giving in. Every night since, she’ll wander around her room, put stuffed animals we said were too big back on her bed, and sing aloud restlessly before she sleeps.

Despite wandering all over her room, which I suspect is normal at this stage, she has taken to the freedom of her big kid bed really well. Going Mom, on the other hand is a little more reluctant for the change. Gone are the days of rocking our little baby to sleep as she sings to her, Avery now demands we read to her in her bed and refuses getting rocked. They grow so fast is a cliche saying we find ourselves repeating several times a day. As always, it’s bittersweet.

Apparently, sleeping on her mattress is bittersweet as well. A couple nights in a row, I peeked at the monitor in the middle of the night/early morning to find Avery nowhere in sight. Naturally, I go to check on our missing tot to find her on the floor. No blankets, just face down with legs curled or stretched out. The first night I quickly moved her back to her bed, but the second night, I had to capture the moment first.


Instagram was an obvious outlet to share with the world.

Hopefully she doesn’t start trying to make a break for it by opening her door. We have a door knob cover for her door, but those only last so long until those little hands figure them out. We can’t wait to get her sleeping on the bigger Naturepedic mattress, hopefully that will give her more wiggle room on the mattress and keep her from wandering all over. Hopefully….

It’s been abnormally cooler than usual for mid-May in Texas, but we made several attempts to swim in our recently opened neighborhood pool. The first time we ventured to the pool, the sun was out, but still not that warm. She insisted on wearing her floaties, but only made it so far.

swimming, kids, cute

The timid look on her face says it all. I’m not going a foot further!

I plunged into the cold water in an attempt to get her to join, but no luck. We were in and out of the pool in 5 minutes.

The next trip was sunny, until we started walking down for a swim. As we walked, dark storm clouds rolled in right over us. WTF!? But being the stubborn guy that I am, we went for it anyway. Avery gave another shocked look upon first getting her feet in the still very cold water…

feet in cold pool, swimming, kids, water

But this time I held her to get all the way in and although she was super tense the entire time, we enjoyed a little splashing around together in the kid pool. Then we went over to the adult pool for a daddy-daughter swim with plenty of throwing her in the air. She had fun…..for a few minutes, but the increasing wind and dropping temps had her shivering, so we ended the swim and made our way back home hoping for warmer days ahead. Not sure if it was a sign, but we saw this poor dead snake on the walk back.

dead snake

And if it was a sign, who knows what to make of it. I sure don’t. As a reptile lover, I don’t think it’s a good one though. Poor guy…

The forecast is showing warmer temps are coming, as if there’s any doubt in Texas, so I’m sure our third attempt will yield a successful swim. Although, I don’t mind a nice cold plunge myself.

DSC_2222

Have you made the transition from crib to bed for your kiddo? How’s it going?

How do you feel about cold swims?

How Not to Start Baby-Led Weaning with your Baby

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.

baby-led weaning, feeding, babies, kids, parenting, solids

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.

DSC_3289 (Medium)

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!

DSC_1298

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.

DSC_1302

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…

DSC_1280

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….

baby-led weaning, feeding, babies, kids, parenting, solids

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.

Top Chef finalist here!
Top Chef finalist here!

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!

DSC_1352

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?

DSC_1356

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.

DSC_1358

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.

DSC_1354

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.

DSC_1362

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.

DSC_1364

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?

Slapped in the Face by a Virus

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?