Tag Archives: family

The Best Little Boo-Boo Kisser

11/09/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

It started about a month ago, Tuesday, October 13th, to be exact. The day I acquired my boo-boo while rescuing my daughter from the scariest of slides 50 stories high!

Just look at that thing, it’s treacherous! Poor girl could be scarred for life having to endure something so horrendous.

Okay, it’s just a small playground in our neighborhood with this slide that hardly lets you slide, more like slowly screech your way down the green plastic as it grasps on to your skin. But that wasn’t Avery’s issue, she just simply did not like being up there without Mommy or Daddy up there too. As referenced by the frowny face….

As I climbed up to join her so we could slide down together, my foot slipped on a step which resulted in a bloody right shin. I’ll spare you the pictures, but geez, that thing hurt for days! And what’s with shins taking so long to heal anyway?

Fast forward to this past week and weekend, and Avery has started to take a notice in all things boo-boo related, included the scab on my shin. I told her how it’s my boo-boo since she would watch me clean it every day, so, naturally, she picked up on saying it.

At almost two years old, she’s been picking up on a lot lately, and even forming sentences! Not only that, but she’s starting to understand things better. I explained the concept of kissing boo-boos which she didn’t exactly get at first, but now she’s really caught on.

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Seeing her sweet self want to help make my boo-boo better (whether she really gets it or not), simply warms my from the inside out. As gushy as it sounds, it’s the truth. Parents, you know what I’m talking about.

Avery as even enlisted Lamby, her current favorite stuffed animal to help kiss my boo-boo multiple times throughout the day and right after reading at night, before Going Mom sings to her. As an aside, Lamby just recently took the lead as a favorite, giving her good friend bear the shaft. I’m not so sure about this Lamby though, she seems a little rebellious and I fear she could cause trouble when Avery is trying to sleep.

But I must say, between Avery and Lamby, my scab is gone and the shin is almost fully recovered. The constant kissing of my boo-boo gets slightly awkward at times, but only when she leans in really slow and all I can do is stand there, as if I’m expecting of a kiss on my shin. I can’t turn her away though, she’s downright insistent on offering her healing powers.

This weekend, I counted over 10 boo-boo kisses as I went about getting dinner ready and on the table one night. How I managed not to step on her as she leaned her face into my leg each time, I’m clueless, but it was sweet and my wife and I both love how much fun she is giving us.

While going about prepping food for the day and weekend ahead on Sunday, I opted to skip my usual podcast listening to enjoy hearing Kelley and Avery spending time together in the other room. Just from the joy in both of their voices while playing and reading books, I couldn’t stop myself from grinning from ear to ear. Until I cut myself for not paying attention when chopping veggies. Good thing we have our own little boo-boo kisser and Lamby side-kick to make it all better!

Do you have your own little boo-boo kisser?

If so, do they have a stuffed side-kick to help out?

Life, Parenting, Soft Star Shoes

The Only Treat in Her Halloween Basket

11/02/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

Last year might have been her first Halloween, but this year was more exciting for sure. We were able to use the same pumpkin costume as last year (no Elsa here!), but that’s where the similarities end.

Avery’s First in 2014

Avery’s Second in 2015

Good to see she’s growing! But maybe a little too fast, she’s already expressing herself a bit much.

Fine, Avery, you can pick your own costume next year, geez!

During the day on Halloween, we carved our first pumpkin as a family.

We tried to get Avery to stick her hand inside to help pull out the pumpkin guts, but all she wanted to do was stick her head in and sniff.

Not wanting to waste the insides, I spread the seeds on a baking sheet to roast them. Avery was happy to sit and observe.

I told her we were going to cook and eat the pumpkin’s guts. Although she didn’t look the slightest bit interested, she couldn’t stop eating them once out of the oven.

Due to my lack of tools, skills, and overall desire to get elaborate, we kept it simple with a traditional jack-o-lantern look. Kelley drew the lines and I completely jacked up the outline with my unsteady knife hand.

The end result was nothing mind-blowing, but hey, we did it together as a family and that’s what matters most.

We just enjoyed seeing how involved and interested Avery was with the whole process, and you could tell how excited she was about our carved gourd.

Maybe “excited” is not the right word, but she Iinterested, I swear! She really became interested as we prepared to go trick-or-treating, especially with all of the costumed big kids (parents too) out and about going door to door. Outside at the front of our house, she just stood in her pumpkin suit and stared as Elsa’s walked with Mummies, and The Hulk had apparently settled down and shrunk in size.

There was no carrying around like last year, this time she was ready to walk on her own.

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We have an almost half mile loop around our house that she walked most of on her own with only a few tiny trips. Those darn feet!

Avery still doesn’t know what candy is, she just calls out the color of the wrappers if she sees some, and we never expected for her to get anything on her trick-or-treating adventure, it was all for the experience. That said, one of our neighbor friends, Jason along with his wife Jennifer, had asked what she could have so they could have something to give her to put in her bucket, and I said she loves bananas. This simple, yet generous offer was extremely thoughtful and appreciated by Going Mom and myself.

He and his wife have two little girls, Natalie and Zoey, and I’ve mentioned how we’ve been over to jump on their trampoline and play a few times before. Their house was the only one we actually stopped at that night, and Avery happily (with a confused-about-her-surroundings look) accepted her banana treat to fill her Halloween basket.

Kelley and I were trying to chat for a minute, and in that minute, Avery was already trying to eat her treat without even peeling the thing. We stopped her after she already had her teeth sunk in the peel, and I took it away to “unwrap” the wrapper so she could have a bite. Bad move, that set off our impatient pumpkin.

Crap, meltdown! Luckily, the crisis was averted by her brown-spotted treat once it was in her belly.

Good thing I didn’t mistake that other, more round pumpkin next to her as my costumed daughter or she would’ve been outraged when I tried to feed it her banana.

Happy once more, we set off to complete the loop with Avery doing mostly good on foot. We ran into some friends all around her age and as we stopped to talk to their parents, they conversed amongst themselves as well.

On the right is Natalie, and the middle is another friend/neighbor, Emma. Not sure what they discussed, but none of them looked exactly happy with us.

Soon after, we completed the loop and thus, Avery’s first experience of trick-or-treating. I’m sure next year will be even more eventful and probably not as easy to get away with just a banana for her basket, but only time will tell.

Did you take your little ones out to trick-or-treat?

Any fun/exciting/hopefully not bad stories to share?

Throwback Thursday

How Much Will A Pumpkin Grow in A Year? #TBT

10/29/2015 R.C. Liley 2 Comments

For her first Halloween, we dressed Avery as a pumpkin, and this year we’re using the same costume again. For one, it saves money, and two, we’re taking advantage before she has a say in her choice of costume.

It’s already happening with her clothes and diapers, and if we pick the wrong color, you’d think the apocalypse had arrived! Just like last year, Going Mom’s work had a fun Halloween event for the kiddos, so Avery and I made a trip to the event to see Mommy and friends/co-workers.

Selfie with my little pumpkin before going in to Mommy's work! — Selfie with my little pumpkin before going in to Mommy’s work!

She might’ve been in the same costume, but a lot changed since the first year. The biggest change was that she could use her own legs to walk around instead of carrying her everywhere. We thought she’d be shy around all the other kids and adults, but she proudly stated “I’m a pumpkin” when people asked, and she was quite playful.

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She even played football with a baby boy.

He was clearly not interested in the oblong ball as his costume makes it apparent he’s into basketball.

We had a few breakdowns while there, mainly because she wanted to go up and down the stairs (just like her dad!), but all in all, it was a great time. I enjoyed seeing/meeting everyone and getting to show off our beautiful, constantly growing pumpkin. Here she was in the costume last year…

….Fast forward to this year and….

Whoa, it takes a totally new camera angle! So, to answer the question of how much will a pumpkin grow in a year, I’d have to go with A LOT!

Our family pic with “the pumpkin” last year looked a little like this…

When compared to this year’s pic….

…..yeah, must be something in the good food and breast milk. Not only did our pumpkin grow more than double in size, she grew in terms of crazy too.