Day 161 and 162 - I'm an 'American Ninja Warrior' (audience member)

As any parent well knows, sleep is a luxury. In other words, you may or may not receive it and regardless, you have to just soldier on.  Under normal circumstances, I could likely blame cute, little Ellie for me receiving a lack of sleep. Not this time. Instead, my failure to achieve adequate sleep is 100% on me. Simply put, I decided that it was more important to me to see ninjas instead of zzzz's. You're probably asking something along the lines of "Why would you do that to yourself?" or "Get your priorities in order." Both could be accurate. In light of this, I thought rather than having an Ellie-centric blog today, my eighteen readers might instead enjoy being regaled with tales from my experiences at two consecutive nights of 'American Ninja Warrior' tapings. If you're not certain what that is, this video should enlighten you...

To start off with background, 'American Ninja Warrior' returned to Kansas City for the first time since 2015 to tape shows to be aired this summer. Once I discovered this information a few weeks ago, I immediately went online to reserve free tickets for the tapings. I was a little late. The primetime audience slots had already been filled so I was stuck with a 12:30 am time slot for the preliminaries and a 10:30 pm time slot for the regional finals the following night. Of course, since I'm a stay-at-home dad, void of most responsibility, I saw no issue with me essentially staying awake for two consecutive days.

No one wants to watch ninjas by themselves so I had reserved four tickets for each session. Unfortunately, I didn't anticipate the level of difficulty I'd experience finding people brave enough to go with me. Fortunately for me, Facebook had provided me with willing participants. Unfortunately for me, said willing participants had to back out leaving me flying solo. Never fear, I pride myself on my ability to make friends in situations like this and make friends I did.

I arrived at Union Station for the preliminaries at 11:40 pm on Monday night. Since I'd been in 2015, I realized the importance of being in line early. As family members of ninjas and earlier audience members gradually clear out, spots are replaced by those in the ticket lines. Of course, since I was alone, I decided to engage in conversations with those around me as it was likely they would be surrounding me all night. Before long, I'd made friends with a college baseball player, his girlfriend, and a former high-level Chipotle employee in charge of opening stores. 

12:30 am came and went with no entry. Finally at 1:15, we were given our wristbands for entry and escorted into the taping area. Only half of the course is used for the preliminaries with the full course being utilized for the regional finals. We were initially seated in an area near the unused section of the course making it difficult to see anything of value. It didn't take long until we were moved to our permanent home for the night near the infamous Warped Wall.

Stock photo of said Warped Wall from a prior season...

Once we were in place, we were treated to a veritable laundry list of rules and regulation before the fun could begin. Rules which included the likes of no personal photography or filming, no funny faces on camera, no causing a distraction while filming, and a few others that I can't remember. Cut me a break; it was 2:00 am. With that, the film crew began having us use our imagination to create fake reaction shots of the crowd for television. Once that was done, it was time for some ninjas. The three page (front and back!) document I signed says I can't give away any particulars of the course. I will tell you I saw four ninjas out of over forty actually complete it. Also, I occupied a position right on the security barricade so my potential for television time is definitely impressive.

I finally called it a night around 5:15 am when the walk-ons began their runs. For the most part, the walk-ons fail pretty much immediately and I wasn't in a good spot on the course to see their failures. Therefore, I decided to head home and catch some sleep instead. Unfortunately for me, I arrived home and crawled in my bed only to nearly crush Ellie underneath my impressive girth. Obviously, she woke from her slumber and a nap was out of equation.

Fast forward to Night 2. I showed up at Union Station around 9:20 in anticipation of my ticket entry time of 10:30. What I didn't plan on was the copious amounts of rain that came in. In fact, the rain and lightning was so substantial that the producers pulled all ninjas from the course and moved fans inside Union Station for shelter. During the delays, I made friends with a non-traditional college student from UCM who was also flying solo. Finally around 12:30 am, the rain seemed to clear and test ninjas began running the course to ensure it was ready to go. However, my bad luck (and lightning) struck again as the rain began pouring again. 1:20 am hit with the producers announcing they didn't actually know when filming would commence.

With that, I decided to head home and close the curtain on my Ninja Warrior audience experience. It was definitely enjoyable but the days after of a tired daddy dealing with an unhappy baby made me question briefly if it was worth it. After much contemplation, I decided that the first night was definitely worth it. Possibly because I was acknowledged favorably by the hosts after yelling "Celebrity Apprentice" at Matt Iseman. The second? Not so much, not so much. #DaddyWrite

 

Day 159 - A Simple White Box

Ok, I definitely need you, faithful reader, to level with me right now. I may or may not be suffering from some form of insanity. I'm definitely not mentally ill or anything like that (and I don't want to make light of people who are). Extreme foolishness or irrationality? That's possible from me at times. Although if I'm being truthful, I think that's the case for all of us. I should probably also confirm that I'm not suffering from insanity as a result of doing the 'Insanity' workout (it's the hardest workout ever put on DVD). No, I'm talking about insanity as defined by Albert Einstein, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results." Perhaps I should clarify.

Yes Shawn T. I likely can do it. But do I actually want to?

I'll start with this; our house is a mess. Not because of neglect or anything like that. It's more the result of having a very cute, but very mobile child around. Ellie likes to begin her day the exact same way each morning. She wakes up, eats from her mom, and plays a bit while Bethany gets dressed for the day. Once I get back home from the gym, I take over and as of this week, feed Ellie her breakfast mixture of applesauce and a Nutri-Grain bar. Don't worry, it's not cinnamon since I learned babies can't have cinnamon. 

After Ellie finishes her breakfast, I set her loose for some pre-nap playtime. This pretty much consists of her immediately tearing through our living room, flinging every toy out of her toy box along the way. Once that's done, Ellie will contentedly sit down in the middle of the carnage she has wrought, proudly taking it all in. Then, she will find the apple of her eye, sitting underneath a chair patiently waiting for Ellie to find it. 

Ellie swiftly flies across the carpet, extricating her prize from its resting a place. At first glance it's just a simple white gift box until Ellie removes the lid and all chaos breaks loose. An explosion of used wrapping paper, ribbons, and junk mail spring forth with my daughter screaming in delight. Her little hands work overtime flinging the contents from the box until it's finally empty. Then, Ellie looks around at the remnants of paper surrounding her, sighs happily, and grins mightily as I look on. 

Not long after, I'll put Ellie down for her morning nap and begin my daily ritual of cleaning up after her. I realize that the idea of doing so is somewhat pointless. However, my reasons for doing so are twofold. Number one, I just like the idea of a clean and straight house. Obviously that's somewhat difficult with a ten-month-old but I can dream. 

Number two is more about Ellie. I deeply enjoy watching her have fun. Mostly because it means she's not crying and screaming. For some reason, a simple box filled with recyclables brings her more joy than a lot of things in the world. Therefore, I'm going to cram the wrapping paper, the ribbons, and the junk mail back into that box three or four times a day. Just so I can see her have the enjoyment of tearing it open again and strewing the contents all over creation.

Now you understand why I'm identifying with Einstein's quote? It's not that I'm expecting a different outcome necessarily. More so that I find myself doing the same thing over and over and over again. If nothing else, I'll be an expert in redundancy by the time it's all said and done. Just like corporate America taught me. #DaddyWrite

Day 157 - Oil Changes and Airport Shuttles

Every so often, I find myself having to have a serious and deep conversation with Ellie. Otherwise, she's not going to learn the important things in life that one needs to learn in order to make it in this world. Classics such as "Don't eat that!", "Don't put that in your mouth!", and "Stop chewing on that!" never go out of style. I will admit that "Don't try to go down the stairs by yourself" and "You don't really want to lick that light socket" do get a little tiresome. Given my propensity for getting out of the house, especially now that it's nice, Ellie has tired quickly of "You only have to be in your car seat for a few more minutes."

Everyone knows you can't put the baby in the front seat...

A couple of stories here. After picking up my free movie tickets yesterday, I had one more important errand to do; getting my car serviced. You see, I'm a largely incompetent person when it comes to most manly activities. I'm not what one would call "good" at repairing and fixing things. In fact, that's probably the exact reason why the gate to our backyard hasn't closed properly in about three years (If you have any ideas that trump the cinder block keeping it shut currently, let me know). My lack of skills is also prevalent in auto maintenance. While I've changed oil in my lifetime without issue, I'm more likely to just pay to get it done. Those words are especially true now that I have Ellie in tow.

I was worried about dragging poor Ellie somewhere she'd have to sit in a shop all afternoon. No one wants their baby to go through that. Instead, I took advantage of a mailer coupon and went to the Valvoline drive-thru service station to get the work done. Since this was the first experience in an auto shop for Ellie, I even rolled down her window while in the service bay. Believe it or not, it was mildly thrilling to watch Ellie's reactions to everything around her. With every bang and squeak, her eyes darted around wildly in an attempt to see what she was hearing. Finally, the job was completed and the manager came to the car window to garner payment. As he did so, he was immediately distracted, shoved his head inside the rear driver's side window to look at Ellie, and spouted off a few baby words in her direction. All of this before accepting my payment for services rendered.

Fast forward to today and Ellie had a little more time in the car ahead of her. A long standing tradition for Bethany and I is to be those friends people ask to take them to the airport. Believe it or not, we don't mind. It's a good way to serve our friends and really doesn't require any time commitment. This afternoon was one of those days so I loaded up Ellie around 4:15 and headed to our friends' house to pick them up for their mission trip to Argentina. 

Ellie had actually been crying the entire trip over but immediately calmed as soon as I entered their driveway and turned off the ignition. It probably had something to do with the fact that she was immediately getting attention from our friends Randy and Melanie, as well as their nine-month old daughter, Alison. In fact, Ellie was extremely happy once she realized Melanie and Alison would be sitting in the back seat with her on the way to the airport. It warmed my heart to hear the abundance of laughter coming from my baby girl as Melanie played with her in the back seat. Honestly, it also made me extremely happy to know that Ellie is never going to have a shortage of people around that love and care for her.

Of course, once we left our passengers at the airport, Ellie immediately chimed in with screams and tears that seemed to say, "I want out!" At least if nothing else, it gave me the opportunity to practice saying "You only have to be in your car seat for a few more minutes" some more. I think I'm starting to get really convincing! #DaddyWrite

car seat.

Day 156 - Similarities of Animated Simians and Sleep

Everyone reaches that moment in life where they find they have outgrown something they love. When that time comes, it's up to that person to decide whether they want to part ways with it or hold on for dear life. For example, when I was younger, I slept with a stuffed Abu. To confirm your suspicions, yes, I do mean the comic relief monkey from 'Aladdin'. However, the day came for me that I had outgrown sleeping with a stuffed animal and instead just found myself with my arm around a spare pillow. For me, there's absolutely no issue with outgrowing things but for Ellie there might be. You see, it's a problem because Ellie has  now decided that she has outgrown sleep.

You know, this is pretty similar to how Ellie eats...

This morning, not long after Bethany left for the day, I began the process of putting Ellie down for her morning nap. It used to be that a quick story and a little rocking would do the trick but that is no longer the case. Now, Ellie immediately associates the combination of the rocking chair and a story with a nap and chooses to protest in the best way she can think of. Unfortunately for both of us, the best way Ellie can think of is arch and contort her body before violently slamming her head into my sternum over and over again. It might be an understatement but by the end, both of us are very, very sore.

On normal days, Ellie will eventually give in for the nap. Today was not to be though. Repeated trips into her room for consolation would not calm her. Nor would relocating her to other areas for said nap. I'm honestly not certain if she's afraid of sleep or maybe just afraid of missing out on something fun. Finally, after two hours of attempts, I found myself tapping out and acknowledging defeat at the hands of my infant daughter. She had bested me.

"Cash Me Ousside" has got nothing on Ellie...

 What Ellie didn't know is that I had one more proverbial bullet left before I was out of options. The car ride! I won movie tickets a couple of weeks earlier and had held off on picking them up mostly because I hadn't had a great opportunity to do so. Now, it seemed like the time was perfect to do so. Loading Ellie up in the car, we headed to retrieve my prize. With about a half hour in the car ahead of us, I was certain Ellie would fall asleep. After all, she can never withstand the allure of a car ride.

15 minutes in, I glanced in the rearview mirror only to find Ellie still wide awake. After 20 minutes, Ellie was still gazing out the window watching scenery fly by. Finally, at the 25 minute mark, I gazed back to see Ellie slumped over in her car seat fast asleep. Of course, that moment occurred pretty much simultaneously with me pulling in the parking lot. I removed Ellie's car seat from the car very carefully, taking great care to not wake my precious cargo and actually made it inside the building without her moving an inch. 

As I boarded the elevator, I believed I would be home free. As the doors slid closed and I hit the button, the elevator's chime rang through the steel box we found ourselves in. Ellie immediately awoke with a start, looking around as if to say, "Where am I?". Of course, I could do nothing other than roll my eyes and sigh at my luck. 

An accurate depiction of the look on my daughter's face...

All I can do is hope that Ellie will eventually decide that she hasn't outgrown sleep. Similar to how I decided I hadn't outgrown Abu when I was suffering from mono. Don't judge me; I was sick, pathetic, and mopey. Of course, he did go back in the trunk once I was healthy again. Where I'm pretty sure he still remains today. Maybe my logic's not foolproof. #DaddyWrite

I'm sorry that I put you back in the trunk, Abu.