Day 29 - The one with the (likely) broken toe...

I think one thing that is understated about being a stay-at-home parent (re: not just a stay-at-home dad) is that you often reach the point where you're ready for some adult conversation.  It's possible for me to talk to Ellie all day long but she is not good at holding up her end of the conversation.  She largely doesn't stay on the topic being discussed, is easily distracted by shiny or colorful objects, and sometimes just falls asleep while I'm talking to her.  In the immortal words of Stephanie Tanner, "How Rude!"  Overall, I really don't mind staying home with Ellie at all.  It's actually pretty rewarding but there are definitely times where you would love to have an adult conversation of some kind. 

John Stamos can say it too...

Fortunately for me, Ellie and I have been lucky enough to have some visitors stop by to see us over the past couple of days.  My parents swung in yesterday to see Ellie and stayed for a few hours.  She's met them before so no big deal there.  However, today she got to meet a person that should be very near and dear to her heart, my former roommate, Joey.  I had only gotten to hang out with Joey a couple of times since Ellie was born so it was really nice to spend some time eating Jimmy John's and catching up on life.  I do kind of have this fear that I'm going to lose an ability to relate to people in being a stay-at-home dad.  Being able to converse with people well is probably just like anything else; if you don't use it, you lose it.  What's awesome is that Ellie seemed to like Joey quite a bit and didn't even mind it when he held her.

Truth be told, Ellie likely has no strong feelings about Joey one way or the other after one short meeting.  That may just be me being delusional.  Breaking your toe will do that to you.  Probably at this moment, you just found yourself saying "What?".  If not, I'll pause here and give you a chance to do so.  I'll even leave you some elevator music.

Ok, now that you've had plenty of opportunity to process, back to the matter at hand.  Yep, pretty certain that I broke my toe today.  I've always been a little accident-prone.  It probably means that I move too quickly and don't pay enough attention to what I'm doing.  Anyway, while Ellie was asleep in her swing today after Joey left, I spent some time getting things done around the house.  As, I was heading down the stairs from our top level, my jeans leg became caught under my foot (Curse you, Relaxed Boot Cut!).  At this moment, everything slowed down as time came to a halt.  I threw my hands out in an attempt to grab anything I could as my body began ragdolling down our treacherous six step elevation.  As I hit the third step, I saw my middle toe disappear briefly under my left foot before reappearing.

Finding myself sprawled at the bottom of our steps, I picked myself up and prepared to walk.  As I put my left foot down to take my first step, I felt immense pain shooting through my foot.  Quickly laying down on our couch, I proceeded to began poking my toe as a child would poke a dead bird.  Pain continued to radiate from the area which led to intermittent bursts of laughing and howling in pain.  Weird response, I know.  Once I finally built up the courage to climb the stairs again, I taped up my foot, took some ibprofin, and now sit here elevating it watching Ellie snooze away.  She never even awoke despite the bizarre sounds coming from above as her daddy dealt with his pain.  I guess it's a good thing I didn't pass out or Ellie would be on her own.  

I also find myself wondering just how Brett Favre can sling a football around in his Wranglers and I lack the ability to walk down a set of stairs in mine.  What?  Life just isn't fair at all.  #DaddyWrite

Day 27 - I am alive!

Sometimes I am a bit of a procrastinator.  Ok, most times I'm a lot of a procrastinator.  I feel like that's fairly normal given my strong Type B personality.  I'm not a big scheduler.  I kind of just roll with whatever and call it good.  Of course, Ellie's not a big fan of me procrastinating around her.  She is extremely Type A or, you know, just a normal baby.  When she wants food, she wants food.  When she wants sleep, she wants sleep.  When she wants a new diaper, she wants a new diaper.  When she's #MissingMommy, she is #MissingMommy.  Ok, my point is now made effectively.  As a result of Ellie's strict schedule, I find myself willing to procrastinate in other areas of my life.  One such item that has been on the list for at least a month is to get Ellie's birth certificate.  Up until this point, we've been lacking one of those for her.  So I guess it's like she doesn't even exist without it, right?  ;)

Get it?  It's a cat that's procrastinating?

Obviously, in order for us to go get her birth certificate today, we had to begin the day according to Ellie's daily planner.  It'd be much easier if she either wrote down her schedule or saved it in her hypothetical phone but alas, she does not.  So that's where that strong Type B personality comes in handy.  Once Ellie woke up from her morning nap around 11, I immediately broke out the bottle to give her some sweet morning sustenance.  In the past, I've always preferred to change her first but Ellie has developed this nasty habit of urinating all over my hands and her changing pad following her morning nap.  Somewhat understandably, I've been getting tired of the feeling of having my hands (not to mention Ellie), covered in urine.  Just in case you're wondering, it doesn't really act as a moisturizer for my hands.  Not to mention the smell's pretty hard to get rid of.  

Anyway, after Ellie got her fill, we headed to our room to get her out of her pajamas and into some different clothes.  On most days, Ellie just gets a simple onesie and I call it good.  Since today, we were on a very important mission, I decided to make Ellie look nice.  Digging into her three month clothes, I discover a new onesie with pictures of fruit on it and a pair of baby blue cargo pants.  Once Ellie is dressed, I take her downstairs all the while feeling pretty good about myself.  Just to show off, I snap a quick photo of Ellie and send it to Bethany.  I eagerly anticipate the reply of how cute Ellie looks today and how I did a great job.  My phone finally dings and I open the text from Bethany and engage in conversation.

•  "Lol what an outfit"
•  "Is it bad?"
•  "No just made me laugh. Are her pants too short or just the way she is laying?"
•  "The way she's laying."

After that conversation, my excitement for getting Ellie dressed faded.  I realized that maybe it wasn't the greatest choice of outfit in the world but also wasn't going to take time to redress her.  Type B personality at play again.  With the morning stuff out of the way, Ellie and I successfully headed to the County Health Office, got a clean, crisp copy of her birth certificate and headed home.  I may not be the best fashionista in the world, but at least I can accomplish getting a birth certificate.  You know, once I decide to get around to it.  

Ellie is pulling this off!

Oh yeah, in case you're wondering, fashionista is both the male and female version of the term. #DaddyWrite

Day 26 - "Birthdays", Photos, and Fantasy Football

Happy three months of being alive Ellie!  And a hearty congratulations to me, myself, and I for keeping her alive all of this time.  Seriously Jesse, job well done.  There's no bonus coming your way but keep up the good work all of the same.  That's ok though.  In all seriousness, it's pretty nuts to think about just how fast the first three months of her life have gone.  People always say, "Make sure you enjoy every moment.  It'll go too fast."  I always kind of just thought that was one of those things that people just say because, well, because people just say things sometimes.  You know?  But alas, it is going relatively quick.  I'm already a month and a half into this whole stay-at-home dad gig which is crazy in itself.  

One of our little traditions each month involves taking a picture of Ellie in two separate places.  One being on a soft brown blanket and the other being in a big, brown chair.  Before you ask, no, I was not an UPS driver in a former life.  I think that the reason for having these photos on brown backgrounds is because it provides great contrast for whatever she's wearing at the time.  The first couple of months of her life, Ellie had her monthly picture taken in a light green onesie.  Accented her pale complexion and blonde hair nicely.  All that jazz.  

Well, this month she had outgrown it and had to change her wardrobe a bit.  Since I was at home today, I decided to mix it up a bit.  My choice, neon yellow complete with pink flamingo on the side.  Next time we have a power outage, I know what Ellie's going to be wearing.  Photos are always fun, especially if Ellie's in a good mood.  She's not exactly Derek Zoolander when it comes to taking direction from the cameraman.  Me getting good shots involves a lot of noises and silly faces to get her attention.  So largely what I do whenever I'm in a conversation with any of my friends.  

After pictures, Ellie and I sat down for some good father-daughter bonding before her next nap.  One thing that I've been told over and over is that it's very important to talk to your baby.  The problem is that I don't really know what to talk to Ellie about so I just talk about whatever I'm doing.  At this moment, I was dissecting potential waiver choices for my fantasy football league.  I have played with the same group of guys since I was in college.  Nothing on the line but bragging rights and as the defending champion, I intend to keep those all to myself.  Now starting the season with three straight losses has brought me to the point where it's time to unleash my secret weapon.  That's right, my daughter: the fantasy prognosticator!  Now, I realize that Ellie may not have the experience yet, but she's a very lucky baby.  After all, she does have me for a dad!  After some intense back and forth, pouring over the stats together, Ellie and I came to a consensus on whom to pick.  Now, I don't know how much she knew what I was saying, but she really does enjoy the time with me engaging her in any kind of conversation.  Even if no one in the world cares about anyone else's fantasy football team.  #DaddyWrite 

Day 25 - You may experience slight mood swings...

You know that it's been a rough go of things when you're wearing the same clothes that you went to sleep in last night.  I'm experiencing that right now as I type wearing an old Chiefs t-shirt and a pair of windpants.  To top it all off, I've got some epic bedhead going on.  You might be wondering why I'm not dressed and ready for the day.  All I'm doing is staying at home with a baby, right?  Well, hold your horses and I'll tell you.  Figuratively, of course.  I don't want anyone to mess up their back by picking up a horse.

 

According to the research that Bethany has done, Ellie's currently in the midst of her three month growth spurt.  So we are getting all of the side effects that come along with this.  Namely crankiness, insomnia, and hunger (I now feel like I'm in the middle of a drug commercial; Talk to your doctor about Blank-o-cil and find out if it works for you).  To further complicate issues is the fact that Ellie's daddy lacks all knowledge of proper volume control.  Meaning, I don't realize how loud I get when I talk.  In the past two days when we have had Ellie in a beautiful, wonderful sleep, I have decided that was the time to do one of the following.

• ·         On Saturday, I cheered like an absolute nutcase at the Kansas City Royals winning a game over the Detroit Tigers to keep their playoff chances in what is essentially hospice care
• ·         On Sunday, I sang 'Sweet Home Alabama' at the top of my lungs when I heard our worship band at church strumming it while working in the sound booth

Just in case, you're wondering, I probably didn't actually need to do either of these things.  I just don't really sit down and think through things before I act all of the time.  If I had done so, then maybe I wouldn't have done those things.  Maybe I still would have though.  Just saying I didn't have time to create a pros and cons list or anything.  As a result, we found ourselves with an incredibly sleep deprived baby on Sunday night that really could not be soothed for any length of time at all.  After drawing upon all of our parental knowledge, the only two things that really got her to rest were eating and taking a ride in the car.  On a side note, I feel like "taking a ride in the car" has such a negative connotation.  That's what you promise your dog when you're taking him to the vet to be put down.

Or you know, your dog walks the car instead...

Luckily, we finally got Ellie to sleep last night even if it was well after 10:00 and we had been trying since 7:00 pm.  I'd be lying if I wasn't scared of the same thing today.  As a result, I've been afraid to do anything that might make noise while she's sleeping.  Hence, the lack of shower today.  Watching television has been totally out of the question since it's in the same room as her swing.  Radio, also not likely.  Even something simple like running the microwave made me feel like I was in a horror movie.  Constantly looking over my shoulder waiting for the monster to come get me.   

In this case, the monster clearly being my three month old daughter who weighs approximately nine and a half pounds.  Oh yeah.  Am I a big, strong man or what?  Prevailing logic says that the answer will be 'what'.  #DaddyWrite