When Did Our Toddler Get So Smart?

We had just come to terms that our baby is toddler, but now she’s transforming into a smart/tricky toddler of sorts. Smart, because she’ll call out all letters of the alphabet, numerous colors, stack blocks (instead of just destroy) and speak in complete sentences sometimes.

DSC_1785

In Mary Katherine from SNL style – Superstar Smart!

Tricky, because, well, she’s figuring out how to delay things at night when it’s bedtime, and how to use her cuteness to get her way.

Smiling on kitchen floor
Stop what you’re doing and just play with me!

But make no mistake, Going Mom and I are not complaining. We couldn’t be me happy to see how our little girl is growing physically and intellectually. But also make no mistake, it drives us insane at times!

Mainly, the nighttime toddler delay tactics. She has this thing where she likes to do a “jump” into her pajamas after bathtime, so Mommy will let her jump once, but then she says “Again”, and she goes again. But two is not enough, and she’ll continue going until one of us makes her stop. Some nights, she’ll accept it, other nights, you’d think she’s auditioning for an opera.

Then, we normally only read one book, but now she turns on the bottom lip to try and delay the inevitable; sleep! Well, at least going into her crib. We had a nice few weeks of an easy transition from putting her in the crib and she’d go to sleep soon after, or at least not throw a fit. But now, WOW, this girl makes her demon days look like a cute and cuddly kitten!

When her screams aren’t radiating throughout the house, she’ll pace around her crib and talk to herself. We consider this much better than the alternative, and even nice to see how her brain has developed. Just listen to her talk amongst herself to decide if she wants the blue plate or pink plate tonight.

Saying “Blue plate tonight” has become the majority of our daily conversations. I ask her if she wants water, it’s “Blue plate tonight”.

Me: Did you go poop?

Avery: Blue plate tonight.

Me: Do you want to go for a walk to see the moon tonight?

Avery: Blue plate tonight.

Me: *Silence*

Avery: Blue plate tonight, blue plate tonight, bluuuuueee plate toniiiiiight!

You get the drift.

Don’t get me wrong, she says more than Blue plate tonight, but those three words are repeated all day long. Other popular phrases are:

  • Crazy football
  • See you tomorrow, goat cheese. (Now she says “See you tomorrow, blue plate”)
  • More goat cheese. Please, goat cheese.
  • The moon’s a coming.
  • Biceps and triceps.
  • Clean the boo-boo on the butt.
  • The light’s on!
  • I’m a crazy Avery.

I could go on with a few more, but these are the ones that stand out right now. Needless to say, this girl truly is crazy, and we’re loving how much fun (usually) she is.

With the increased fun/craziness, means decreased blog posts, or at least shorter in length. Naps are becoming scarce and I’m keeping busy with other things. But don’t worry, I’ll be around to post updates when possible and even share product reviews, workout ideas, and maybe even recipes.

Hope you’re having a wonderful holiday season so far with more good times ahead! Oh, and here, Avery wanted to say bye-bye with Lamby.

DSC_1779

Black Cyber Week: A Melting Pot of Sales

The below was originally posted on December 2nd of 2014, but the bombardment of never ending sales/deals/things-i-would-never-buy-but-now-feel-I-must-have-them, I felt it appropriate to repost. Plus, why not for Throwback Thursday?

Did you know the first official Cyber Monday was in 2005? After 10 years, you’d think they would just consolidate Black Friday and Cyber Monday into one big week. Oh, wait…..THEY HAVE! Amazon has their Cyber Monday Deals Week and just about every other retailer around has their own version.

Yes, I’m guilty of “buying” into Amazon’s deals, so sue me, but I refuse to actually set foot in a store. I rarely ever do to begin with, and certainly not now with all of the chaos. Okay, I’m rambling, before this turns into a whole other post, I’ll stop. Hope you’re having a great week!


 

I’m a semi-hypocrite. The after Thanksgiving extravaganza crap-fest deals ummm, deals always strike a chord with me in a negative way. Instead of simply enjoying good food and drink with loved ones (which, in and of itself is stressful work!), so many people have one thing on their mind instead…..SALES!!

No thanks to commercials constantly spouting out about how stores open the evening of Thanksgiving to kick-off their great deals and our endless hunger to snatch everything for everyone on our list, it’s something to expect every year. And every year I scoff and bicker at the commercials or people talking about where they want to go first or who has the best deals. It drives me insane!

But then, I get sucked in. It starts with an innocent click on some ad that somehow knows I was looking at those Ninja Turtle toys on Amazon, and before I know it, I have 20 different items in my cart and if I add just one more I’ll get a free gift with my order. “Free gift”, sounds redundant to me, and very gimmicky. No matter, I want that free gift and I’ll be damned if I don’t get it!

This happened to me several times leading up to Thanksgiving, the  Black Friday “week” deals, and like a fish in front of a rubber worm, I took the bait; multiple times. Since I do have some dignity, I only kept to the online deals and kept away from stores at all costs. I actually had to go to Costco with Avery on Black Friday, and on my way, made a quick change in direction to go to a small grocery store instead. Best decision ever!

Keeping out of the physical stores allows me the status semi-hypocrite, right?

My wife usually sides with me on the absurdness of the deals, but her and I both had our eyes asphyxiated to our screens in search of gifts for each other. My eyes still burn and don’t feel like they’ll recover soon.

I remember when Black Friday used to be for in-store deals and Cyber Monday was for online deals, but now they’ve just become one big melting pot of sales from the week leading up to Thanksgiving and the following weekend. The coined terms are irrelevant and I vote for a change.

How about removing Friday and Monday from the names and just say “Black Cyber Deals Week”? Technically, that’s exactly what it’s become. The good news is that I got everything covered for Going Mom’s gifts, and she’s the one I want to get something for the most. My mom (G-Ma) is the other one and I think we’re good there too.

Have I gone on long enough? I’m going to say yes.

*Steps off soapbox*

In other news, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving with just the three of us at home and great food cooked by yours truly. We didn’t have a big spread, but just enough for seconds and leftovers. Mmmmm, cold turkey is the best!!

Avery has been taking a couple steps at a time now and I feel a “She’s Walking!” post will be coming soon. Stay tuned. In the meantime, here she is searching for leftovers to make a cold turkey sandwich.

Where is that mustard?
Where is that mustard?

What are your thoughts on all of the sales?

Do you go to the stores or stick with online only; or nothing at all?

Still have a lot of shopping to do or are you all set?

Simple Elements of Our Thanksgiving Tradition

Yeah yeah, I know, Thanksgiving was last week and Black Friday and Cyber Monday are already in the past. Unless, that is, you count the desperate retailers “extending” Cyber Monday through the week. Ugh……..I love to hate it. Hey, it’s hard to say no to something you want that’s on sale, right?

I’ve enjoyed not worrying so much about getting a blog post out there, but missed it at the same time. Another love to hate thing I guess. Anyway, we hosted a whole two people for Thanksgiving, my mom (G-Ma) and little brother (Uncle Preston).

DSC_1693

As you can see, Uncle P was very into the Thanksgiving spirit. He was trying to get tickets to the Cowboy’s game or at least go tailgating at the stadium, but no luck with tickets and the rain stopped any tailgating action. So Plan B (or would it be C?) was our house. Despite being 3rd choice, I’m happy he joined us as I feel we never get enough brother time.

I think it’s best Uncle Preston missed paying to see our Cowboys lose to the Panthers anyway. It was a disappointing game (especially for Romo, ouch!), but that didn’t dampen the spirits of G-Ma and Avery.

DSC_1635

These two had a lot of playtime together which, as you can see, made both of them happy. It also wore G-Ma out; it didn’t take long for her to fall asleep that night. So much for watching How I Met Your Mother with us!

I was a little tired too since I wanted to take on making all of the Thanksgiving spread. It’s stressful, but it’s how I like to do things. I looked like this for a lot of the day….

DSC_1648

Thankfully, I had these lovely girls to keep me company as they snacked and patiently waited.

DSC_1618

Maybe “patiently” is not the best word for Avery. She kept giving me that staredown.

After spending a good hour carving the 14 pound beast of a turkey (hey, it’s a lot for 4 1/2 people) and keeping bones to make slow-cooker bone broth, we were finally ready to eat. If it wasn’t for my awesome wife getting everything heated, set out and setting the table, it would’ve easily been another hour of waiting.

Thanksgiving spread 2

Our Thanksgiving spread, and what I’m hoping will become tradition in our home, included:

  • A free-range organic turkey roasted in the oven
  • Goat cheese mashed potatoes
  • Mashed cinnamon sweet potatoes
  • Crock Pot cumin black beans
  • Roasted Brussels sprouts
  • Sugar-free spiced cranberry sauce (I used a can of Orange Zevia that turned out awesome)
  • Crustless NuttZo pumpkin pie squares (I used blended steel cut oats and gelatin to thicken)

I was happy with how everything turned out, and judging by how everyone went back for seconds (thirds for Uncle P), I’d say so was everyone else. Can you guess my favorite dish?

R.C.'s T-giving meal

Probably a tie between the Brussels and turkey. Although, when paired with the cranberry sauce, I say the turkey was and is my favorite part. Oh, and the NuttZo pumpkin pie squares were up there. So much so that I forgot to take a pic before digging in.

Gelatin Pumpkin Pie

Going Mom had our camera setup with her new tripod and remote shutter release to capture our quaint Thanksgiving gathering.

DSC_1682

Oops, that’s one of the 1000 times Avery got a hold of the remote. Here we are actually ready for the shot…..

DSC_1675

Avery was a little blurry, but we call it a win just for the fact that she turned around. She kept busy eating turkey and mashed potatoes with her hands on her blue plate.

DSC_1666

But she had an important phone call on G-Ma’s phone that she had to take at the table.

DSC_1703

Probably already talking to her toddler peers about how to delay going to bed. We’re currently experiencing this part of the toddler phase; I’ll go into more detail later.

It was nothing extravagant, but that’s exactly how we wanted it. Good, healthy food made from scratch being shared with loved ones. I’m forever grateful to be able to spend it with my beautiful wife.

R.C. & Kelley_Thanksgiving

And of course my crazy beautiful daughter, mom, and little (who’s bigger than me) brother.

DSC_1725
Thanksgiving 2015

I’m hoping to do the same spread for the fast approaching Christmas meal with the same loved ones too. The only change we’re considering is making a ham instead of turkey. I love turkey, and the bone broth is awesome, but geez, it sure it time consuming for the entire process! I’m not sure yet, but will have to figure it out soon….after getting my gift buying complete. Ahhh!

Do you have large or small gatherings for the holidays?

What do you think? Turkey or ham for Christmas?

 

An at-home dad on a mission to keep it real when it comes to food, fun, and raising a healthy, happy family.