Tag Archives: crawling

The Morning Phases of Our Baby: Wake Up, Smile, Fart, Crawl, Cry, Happy

06/24/2014 R.C. Liley 5 Comments

As all parents know, babies are not predictable as they are constantly changing physically and mentally. But, there’s usually some sort of routine you have established which helps ease the mind at least a little.

Right now, at 7 months, we are usually greeted with a smile upon entering Avery’s room first thing in the morning. Even if she is already awake and crying, she’ll stop and flash her pearly whites rosy gums at us. The smiles may quickly turn to screams and cries as we try to feed her or set her down after changing her diaper, but those smiles are priceless.

Yesterday morning I captured what a typical morning for Avery and me is like during the workweek, when Going Mom is at work.

Starting with smiles upon seeing one of her parents, I then try to feed her a bottle, which 9 times out of 10 proves unsuccessful. Then I’ll change her into a new cloth diaper, set her down on a blanket to put the dirty diaper away and wash my hands, listen to her cry as I leave the room, and then stop and act like all is well once I re-enter.

She’s become very clingy and will let the whole neighborhood know she’s not getting enough attention; it’s fun! After she’s changed, we will play on the floor for a while to release some energy and work on crawling. Eventually, I’ll bring her to the kitchen and set her in her jumper while I clean whatever dishes are in the sink. I am OCD about dishes in the sink and feel that I must clean them immediately!

Once that’s done, we go into the garage and I’ll workout while she’s next to me in her jumper. Not sure why, but for whatever reason, Avery is usually happier in her jumper when it’s in the garage as opposed to in the kitchen area. It’s great since trying to focus on lifting heavy is difficult when you have a screaming baby to contend with, but I wish she’d be good inside too! After working out, we’ll go back inside where I clean myself and try to stop sweating so much before feeding Avery.

She’s better about taking the bottle at this point, and sometimes even falls asleep while eating. If she does, we’ll go to the nursery to change her and lay her down to sleep. If she’s still awake, we’ll either play a little more or she will watch me make something in the kitchen. Not much longer and she’ll be yawning, rubbing her face, and most likely getting fussy; all signs it’s time for a nap!

I don’t eat my first meal of the day until after she’s asleep, which is typically around 1 or 2 pm after factoring in the time it takes to cook my meal. It works thus far, and I usually have 1.5 – 2.5 hours before she wakes. But this post is about the morning, so I’ll stop there.

To help you better visualize Avery’s morning phases, I will share the video with you here:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Cc65AAukQw&w=560&h=315]

Our daughter’s morning phases at 7 months. She’s learning to crawl and even lets out a nice fart. She’s going to resent me in a few years…

Does your baby have any particular morning “phases”?

Have you established a daily routine with your kid(s) or at least tried?

Life, Parenting

Weekend Recap and My First Donut in Years

06/23/2014 R.C. Liley 1 Comment

Right now, if you know me or have been reading my blog, you might be thinking “What?! Going Dad had a donut after talking so much about eating healthy?!”

Well, it’s not that kind of donut, so you can breathe again; or go on not caring in the first place. 🙂

After an already seemingly long day out with Avery on Saturday, I walked out of the Tom Thumb to find my precious Subaru with a flat tire. Good thing I didn’t have any frozen veggies or anything perishable. Oh wait, I DID! At least Avery thought it was funny….

Luckily, I’ve put in my time working on several types of cars and had the spare (a.k.a. donut) on in no time.

So yeah, I’m not a hypocrite because I didn’t have one of those sugary fried dough confections. Of course they taste good, but I simply don’t derive satisfaction from something that’s non-nutritive and even harmful to my body.

Backtracking to Saturday morning, Going Mom and I were treated to a longer than usual sleeping baby which gave us an extra hour’s sleep! Mornings like these have become scarce, but they’re always well received.

When she finally woke, we went about our normal Saturday routine; Kelley fed and changed Avery as I made a batch of chocolate banana protein pancakes. Kelley brewed our black gold in the French Press which we both readily consumed…..maybe too fast. After a couple hours, it was time to grab the Fiskars Reel Mower and kick some grass.

After kicking the grass, I then mowed it. Since Kelley was home and kept Avery, I didn’t wear her in the Onya, so I wore my 20lb vest instead. Just preparing for when Avery hits the 20lb mark; I’ll be ready!

Several areas in the house have been bothering Kelley, and I told her I’d take Avery out for some errands while she cleaned to her liking. I try to keep a clean house so she doesn’t have to worry about these things on the weekend, but in reality, I suck at most cleaning. Literally, I vacuum a lot.

I’ve been wanting to make an activity board for Avery for a while, so I went to Home Depot to find a few items that would be great for her to play with. I wasn’t exactly sure what all I would find, but door stops were an obvious choice. Every time we set her down in her nursery, Avery will head right toward the door stop and pull it and release.

Door stops should be located in the toy aisle. — I wonder what would happen if I put my face next to it when I let go….

One of our neighbors had given me some extra MDF to use for the board, and bought another piece from the scrap wood from Home Depot. Have you ever checked out the scrap section at a hardware store? You can get some great deals on quality wood!

After we left Home Depot, we went to Tom Thumb where I came back out to the flat tire. The culprit was a shiny screw from all of the new construction around our neighborhood….yay. I’m going to Costco today, so hopefully they can patch it to be good as new….or close to it!

Going Mom was still “going” with the cleaning when we arrived home, but she had a lot done and we just needed to finish a few things. We did our best to keep Avery entertained the rest of the night, which is getting more challenging than usual.

I'm sorry, did you say something? — I’m sorry, did you say something?

After an already long day, we pushed our luck and tried to see if Avery would improve her new crawling skills before bedtime. Nope, she was tired, fussy, hungry, and wanted nothing to do with us. So off to bed she went and with how tired she had to of been, we were sure we’d have another day of sleeping in.

Silly parents, when will we learn? Avery was up talking to herself and moving all over her crib nice and early. We laid in bed, listening to her noises until they turned into cries, at which point I brought her to Kelley to eat.

It was a perfect lazy Sunday morning with cloud covered skies and rain falling steadily. I cooked pumpkin teff and my wife, knowing the key to my heart, brewed coffee in the French Press. We sat outside to enjoy the coffee and watch the rain with Avery. She kept pretty active as Kelley held her squirmy body, but eventually she gave in to her tiredness and was out fast!

Kelley was able to carry her inside and put her in the crib without waking her, so we did what any couple would do with a sleeping baby; Kelley cleaned and I went for a run in the rain.

6.5 miles plus 31 burpees, pushups, and squats later, I returned, drenched from non-stop rain, to find Avery awake and with Kelley in the kitchen. The nap was short-lived, but both girls seemed to be in a good mood. Phew!

Besides going on a long walk together after the rain cleared, we hung around the house the rest of the day and finished a few chores while having classic Donald Duck cartoons playing on YouTube through our TV. Donald Duck quarreling with Chip and Dale are the cartoons I remember growing up on, and hope to get Avery into watching them more often with us. So far, we’re off to a bad start as she doesn’t understand she needs to face the TV to watch it…

But I’m not too concerned since we don’t want her having a lot of screen time anyway! Once again, we pushed our limits with our daughter and tried capturing her crawling in action. This time was better than Saturday night, and I went a little video crazy on Instagram. But hey, our little girl is getting the hang of this crawling thing!!

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A post shared by RC Liley (@going_dad)

She wasn’t fussy, but it was late, so we called it a night and Kelley laid her down to sleep after feeding her. Now it’s back to Monday and Avery and I are already missing Mommy; hopefully she’ll be home on time!

Even as a stay-at-home parent, I still feel the dreadful effects of a weekend coming to an end just because I’ll be without my wife/partner in crime the next day. But we can’t sit and sulk, instead I’ll celebrate the fact that we had a pleasant weekend together and look forward to another great weekend ahead!

Are you an at-home parent who is still affected by a typical workweek?

Ever have to change a tire, or something worse, in the middle of a parking lot…..with kids?

Monthly List, Parenting

7 Memories from my 7th Month Since “Going Dad”

06/16/2014 R.C. Liley 6 Comments

Really? Another month already?!

Geez, who needs a time machine for the future when becoming a parent “apparently” yields the same effect? Avery is now over the half-year mark and is becoming more active (and vocal!) every day.

On my 6 Memories post, I anticipated that one of my 7 memories for her 7th month would include her crawling, but it hasn’t happened yet. Seriously, the 8 month post is sure to have a memory of her crawling!

I think I'll just stay in this position and do nothing else. — I think I’ll just stay in this position and do nothing else.

Scooting, military crawling, and forward thrusting while on her hands and knees are all there and fool us into thinking “this is it” every time. Soon, baby, soon.

With my 30th birthday and first Father’s Day behind us now, hopefully the rest of June will be a bit calmer and we can focus on our little girl crawling. Oh, and she’ll be helping me clean up our neighborhood too.

If you haven’t entered to win an awesome Outback baby carrier from Onya Baby, click here and do it now! I wear Avery in our Onya everyday and it allows us both to get quality father-daughter bonding time.

Okay, lets get started…

1. Most of our nights now have us in the living room before your bath time where we play on the floor. Depending on how the day went, you can be really fussy or a happy baby. When you’re happy, I will hold you in the air and let you jump on my stomach or just try to entertain you with toys.

As it gets later, or you just had a rough day, getting on the floor with you does nothing for your temperament. This is when we break out the laser and get Lou (the fat black cat) involved to help us keep you calm. It works well, and “Fatty” gets some exercise.

Don't move, you might scare it off! — Don’t move, you might scare it off!

2. Just recently, you have started grabbing at my face while I’m trying to feed you a bottle. I start to make weird noises and act like I’m going to eat your hand and you laugh every time. It’s cute, and no matter how ridiculously annoyed I am that you won’t take the bottle, I forget all of my frustrations and just give you a kiss on the head.

As an aside, you also grab at anything and everything in your sight; other people’s faces included. You may or may not have grabbed a bottle of beer as mommy was trying to take a drink and spilled it on the both of you. But don’t worry, the beer was safe!

Daddy's face can be boring, I'll grab at Paul's. — Daddy’s face can be boring, I’ll grab at Paul’s.

3. We were in our first race together and won 1st place! Sure it was a small race with very unenthusiastic competition, but we rocked it, baby! Thanks to G-Ma, Paul, and Mommy, we had the best spectators out there, and they made the day even more special.

Besides it being our first race, we’ll never forget this day because of how much we stood out from the rest of the cheerful attendees. 🙂

4. You got to experience your first trip to a brewery! The same day we won the 5k, we went with G-Ma, Paul, and Mommy to the Martin House Brewery in Fort Worth as part of my 30th birthday celebration. I had more than my fair share of good beer, and luckily mommy drove us home safely. I did help direct her out of our tight parking spot though!

As you can see, you were thrilled to be there! Even with live music and clusters of people drinking and talking all around you, you managed to sleep quite well.

Actually, when live music stopped is when you seemed to wake up; coincidence? We’ll never know!

5. You had been to Nana and Papa’s pool before, but this past month was your official first dip in the pool. Mommy, You, and I all walked down to our neighborhood pool where you happily splashed around in the baby pool just like it was your own giant bathtub.

You must’ve really enjoyed yourself playing, because you were out before we made the walk back home.

We brought you back again on my birthday and you still loved the water like before. I have a feeling we’ll be making many trips to the pool since you obviously enjoy each time we go; even if you’re “too cool for pool”.

6. Avery, caffeine and you don’t make for good times……ever! Along with all of the other firsts the same day as our race and trip to the brewery, mommy had more than one cup of coffee for the first time since pregnancy and it became apparent that night. Caffeinated boobs are lethal!

You woke up crying more times than you had in a long time, and despite mommy’s many attempts, you wouldn’t stay asleep very long. This, in turn, resulted in starting my birthday earlier than any of us had planned (or wanted), but the day ended up being great. I even got to try out your crib with you in it for the first time.

Since then, mommy has been keeping her coffee consumption to one cup or less per day. Phew!

7. You ate your first solid food! We started to introduce you to solids through baby-led weaning, and at first we felt like you’d never eat what we gave you.

But after several encouraging commenters on the blog, we kept at it and eventually you took your first bites. You also gagged a little, but that was expected, and you didn’t let that bother you a bit!

As I write this, we are waiting on a hair chair mommy ordered since what we were using wasn’t working out, so hopefully we’ll have the new one soon and start feeding you healthy foods once more.

Okay, so I’ve exhausted my “7 things”, but I must add one more thing. You are becoming more vocal about EVERYTHING! Yes, if we so much as think about stepping on foot out of your sight, you’ll turn into hysterics and scream as loud as humanly possible. The sound resembles that of a cat screeching when you step on its tail mixed with a very frustrated baby bear trying to growl. Not a pretty sound.