Day 300 - Hug Your Favorite Snack Food Today

Whoa. Day 300 of me staying at home with Ellie has arrived. Or at least what I'm believing to be day 300. Remember that tabulation is just counting days on which I'm the baby's primary caregiver. Now, that being said, there is every possibility I've miscounted at some juncture along the way. It can get difficult to add one number to the total each day. After all, it's not like I used to deal in numbers for a living or anything. Oh wait, I just remembered I did in fact do that. Oh well. 

While my primary duties as a stay-at-home dad is to take care of Ellie, there are others responsibilities I (and Bethany) have entrusted to myself. Laundry, dishes, and other housework are some of them. Another is that I try to take it upon myself to help keep the house stocked with necessary groceries. You know, if we have a quick errand that needs to be done in between large shopping trips, I generally take care of it.

The thing about grocery shopping with Ellie is that employees at all of the places I go are beginning to recognize her. In some cases, the same person has seen her at least once a month since she was really little. One of those places to which I'm referring is our local Aldi's.

A little background. It's common knowledge that all people have a favorite snack. Me? I really like a good bowl of cereal. Ellie? The girl is absolutely obsessed with Goldfish crackers. Somewhat ironically though, she doesn't really like the name brand. She instead prefers the Aldi's brand which is shaped like penguins. You're probably wondering how exactly I know this? The name brand are much saltier than the Aldi's brand resulting in her normally leaving some remaining in her bowl. That's never been the case with the Aldi's penguins. They always disappear rapidly leaving Ellie begging for more almost immediately.

Ok, after that little detour, I can now inform you that at the top of the Aldi's shopping list today was Penguin crackers. In fact, I decided to go ahead and buy two bags just to have some stockpiled. From the moment I placed the bags in our shopping cart, Ellie was attempting to spin around in her seat and reaching out for the bags of crackers. Honestly, that was amazing in itself seeing that she remembered the bags to a 'T' after not having any for over a month.

Once Ellie realized no matter how much she stretched, she changed her plan of attack. She then went from trying to get the bag on her own to guilt-tripping her daddy into giving it to her. And guilt-trip me she did. Between the sad puppy dog eyes, the protruding lower lip, and the pitiful moans, I finally handed one of the bags to Ellie for her to hold on to as we continued throughout the store.

An approximation of Ellie's sad face.

It wasn't long before Ellie and I reached the checkout line to initiate our payment process and therefore exit the store (who talks like that anyway? Initiate payment process). Once we got in line, I made my first attempt to relieve Ellie of her precious cargo. Her response was to immediately tighten her grasp on the bag. Of course, I didn't really take no for an answer and tried again. Then Ellie proceeded to protect her prize by clutching it tightly to her tiny chest and also leaning forward to protect it.

Once we reached the front of the check-out line, we were greeted by our favorite check-out lady, one whose name I'm never able to remember. I warned her that she'd need to scan the second bag of penguin crackers twice because I didn't think there was any way I was getting Ellie's bag away from her. Of course, she said that was fine and as I pulled our cart around for her to load it, she asked me, "What do you think she'd do if I tried to take it?". Now since we've seen check-out lady a lot and she's always nice to Ellie, my response was basically that I didn't know but she was welcome to try. 

With that, she then began asking Ellie nicely for the bag of crackers to which Ellie offered only a sideways glance. Then, she actually reached for the bag. Ellie then turned to face the opposite direction and curled up into a sitting version of the fetal position, all while clutching the bag. With that, check-out lady laughed and initiated a peace offering of handing Ellie the second bag of penguin crackers as a peace offering. Ellie responded by quickly grabbing hold of the bag and offered check-out lady a gracious smile as a thank you. With that, we left the check-out line, bagged our groceries, and left the store. 

Of course, I had to relieve Ellie of her prize before I could put her back in the car seat. However, that was just a matter of saying something along the lines of "Hey, look over there." Believe it or not, that trick actually works pretty well on Ellie. As long as she's outside that is. Silly, gullible baby. #DaddyWrite

Day 299 - Keeping Healthy While Fidget Spinning

Nothing like the week of Thanksgiving to really keep a certain someone from keeping up with #DaddyWrite. Call it busyness. Call it ambivalence. Call it a lack of time management. All of those probably work just fine.

Now, there are plenty of things I could blog about that have occurred since I last blogged. I could write about Ellie's never-ending cold that she faced. Man, did it never end (until it did in fact end). Or I guess I could write about Ellie's fascination with two things you really wouldn't expect a baby to be utterly fascinated with: Emergen-C tablets and fidget spinners. 

In case you're wondering, I was using Emergen-C tablets at least once a day in an attempt to stay healthy whilst Ellie was sick. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, it's a tablet with 1000% of one's daily intake of vitamin C that dissolves in water much like an Alka-Seltzer tablet. Also, in case you care, the berry flavor is seemingly much tastier than the orange flavor (I don't know if that says much or not). 

How many Alka-Seltzer tablets in a bathtub would it take to achieve a Jacuzzi effect?

From the time I would drop the tablet in a glass of water until it dissolved around two minutes later, Ellie would be mesmerized by the process. As the bubbles began to erupt from the capsule, Ellie would inevitably cock her head to the side, studying the process. As the color began to change, Ellie's gaze would intensify. Finally, as the capsule began to dance across the cup as it broke into smithereens, she would audibly laugh each time another big chunk broke loose. At this point, I would begrudgingly consume my beverage with my daughter begging all the while to share with her (fruitlessly). 

Now, as for the fidget spinner, that's a different story. I will admit that I was pretty late to jump upon the trend. I instead preferred to shamelessly mock my friends who did while gazing longingly at the tiny object as it spun in their hands with the force of a small airplane turbine. Actually, that might be an overstatement, but you get the point. 

Basically, I picked one up for $3.00 at Target in an attempt to keep myself from spending so much time on my telephone in the evenings while Bethany and I hang out. It seems to be working well thus far if anyone is interested. Plus it has a picture of R2-D2 on it so there's that.

Is R2 or Darth Vader the official mascot of Star Wars? Anyone know?

While I knew I would enjoy it, I underestimated how much Ellie would enjoy it. I assumed she would enjoy watching it spin, but I really didn't figure it'd be something she would want to play with herself. I was wrong about that. At least once a day, I catch my daughter running around the house waving said fidget spinner in the air as if it's the greatest thing she's ever seen. That's not all that she does with it though.

Once she tires of running amuck with the spinner, Ellie will sit down and begin spinning the middle part, laughing as she watches it go around. What's odd is that you'd think she would tire of this activity relatively quickly. Wrong! I've actually seen her spend 15 minutes or more doing so. Given Ellie's strong love for the spinner, I'm glad I purchased one that is very child-safe with all of the parts well-contained and not visible. 

That being said, I don't really want her to play with the spinner unsupervised. Yes, I don't want her to accidentally hurt herself in some manner by playing with it.

Also, I'd be sort of sad if she lost or broke it because I'm lame/childish like that. #DaddyWrite

Somewhat random pic that has nothing to do with anything. I just felt like sharing.

 

Day 295 - Zoo-Based Free-Range Parenting

I have some words of wisdom for you, faithful reader, to take to heart. I know, I know. You're thinking, "Oh man. The guy with a blog is going to teach me a special life lesson. Should I just stop reading now and spare myself?". If I was forced to answer that question, I think I'd say "Probably?". The beauty is that since you've already taken the time to click on the link, let the web page load, and read this far, you're probably already committed.

Ok, words of wisdom. If you ever decide to start a blog and insist upon sharing facets of your life as commonly as I do, don't be surprised if you occasionally get made fun of. Truth. Although, occasionally if someone does choose to give me a hard time (all in jest, of course), they shouldn't be surprised to end up mentioned in a blog post. Today's recipient of that dubious honor would be Steve Cochran. 

After a conversation back and forth which resulted in me jokingly referring to my parenting style as free-range parenting, Steve said maybe I should make that the title of my blog. Since I'm irrationally fond of the #DaddyWrite name, I won't be changing that. However, there's nothing saying I can't use the concept of free-range parenting as a title for today.

A nice definition for your benefit...

As you probably gathered from the prior day's blog, I've been a little bummed out and experiencing some form of cabin fever/Stockholm syndrome. So, with a warm fall day popping up randomly, I decided we should take advantage of the niceness by heading to the zoo. So, after a $2.00 pizza courtesy of the new Firenze, I loaded Ellie up and headed towards the downtown area.

Once we arrived at the zoo, I began the process of getting Ellie dressed in her jacket and her bag ready to head in. At this point, I found myself confronted by an important decision: to stroller or not to stroller. Over the past week or so, Ellie has found herself wanting to travel on her own two feet more and more. Taking that into account, I thought she might really enjoy being able to walk around the zoo. I did worry about her getting tired or what we would do if there were a lot of people around. Therefore, I took the stroller along as well.

If this was Ellie's stroller, perhaps I wouldn't mind it near as much.

Our first stop after entering the zoo was to go visit the penguins, mostly because I knew that was a great place to check Ellie's diaper and change her if necessary. After that was done, I parked the stroller, let Ellie loose, and began to follow her all around the penguin house. Top level, second level, top level, outdoor penguins, second level, bottom level, weird stomping on penguin game, bottom level. With that, Ellie started looking towards the exit. Therefore, I scooped her up, grabbed the stroller, and headed outside.

Once we were outside, Ellie began hinting that she wanted back down. Therefore, that's what I did. This is where Ellie got really brave. In fact, I watched as she was willing to wander fifteen to twenty feet away from me at times. I even had to quickly put the brake on the stroller and run after her at one point. Finally, I got her directed towards the jungle house and along we went.

Once we were inside the jungle, I once again parked the stroller and happily followed Ellie around the building. And by followed, I mean we spent close to 25 minutes staring at the gibbons, one of which may have been suffering from some extreme form of depression (Now after the fact, I wonder if maybe I should have informed someone about that). 

I think they're trying to communicate...

Once we finally exited the jungle area, Ellie reached her fill of walking and sought the sweet relief of her stroller. Pretty impressive considering she had spent over an hour free-ranging. With that, there were only two more stops for us. Stop one being the tiger enclosure to watch a tiger eat his afternoon bunny which I enjoyed in a somewhat sadistic fashion. Stop two was more Ellie's speed as we headed to the 3:30 sea lion show. 

MMM, bunny.

Man, was that little girl stoked to see sea lions. Throughout the entire show, we stood at the fence just a few feet away from a trainer. Therefore, we had a great view of all of the tricks with Ellie erupting in her distinctive cackle every time the sea lions would roll over. Once the show ended, it was time to hit the road and head for home.

While I've been trying to free-range Ellie for a while (within reason), this was really the first experience doing so in a public setting. Perhaps I've stumbled upon the next wave in parenting. Either that or this is something all parents eventually do. #DaddyWrite

Day 294 - Baby-induced Stockholm Syndrome

Ok, so I'm officially exhausted. Everyone (who's everyone anyway) always said that you need to get all of the sleep you can muster when you have a kid. I will agree that was definitely the case during early months of Ellie's life. Those wake-up calls every three hours for feeding were a nightmare. Even though I wasn't the one doing the feeding, that didn't really stop me from feeling the effects. I'd even try to hang out with Bethany while she was feeding Ellie to help her stay awake. 

So, yeah, that was one example of being exhausted. However, my current exhaustion flows from a much different source. In fact, it's not sleep related at all (although I'd never turn down getting additional sleep). Instead, I feel the need to attribute it to more of a mental exhaustion. Or perhaps some kind of Stockholm syndrome. What's that, you want me to explain further? Ok, I guess I can do that.

TV's Tom Bergeron teaches us about Stockholm Syndrome.

Ellie is beginning to rebel. Well, of course she's beginning to rebel; she's a toddler. It's not like she's dying her hair strange colors, wearing all black, and putting spacers in her ears. No offense to anyone with spacers, but I'm hoping she ignores that fashion trend someday. Ellie's actually a very well behaved baby and listens quite well. It just so happens that what she is rebelling against is like a personal attack on me. The thing as to which she is rebelling against is naps. **gasp**

I'm very aware that I've long been spoiled by Ellie's exceptional nap routine. How exceptional? An average of two naps a day combining for at least three and a half hours. And how wonderful those three and a half hours could be. As I've mentioned previously, Ellie can be an insanely light sleeper meaning the house needs to be bathed in pure silence during her naps. That means no dishes, no laundry, and definitely no vacuuming. In fact, if it's any louder than a mouse breathing, I'm assuming it would wake my daughter. Although, if it's Mickey, his breathing probably would wake her. He is a human-sized rodent after all.

Why yes, Mickey. I may be going crazy...

While the whole Ellie not sleeping thing isn't the end of the world, it can feel that way at times to yours truly. For one thing, I've become accustomed to having that baby free time set aside each day for recovery. Because if there's one thing all stay-at-home parents know, it's that some recovery time is necessary just to give you a mental break from your baby if nothing else. More importantly than that though is that the baby honestly just needs sleep.

Needless to say, I do get tired of being with Ellie at times although I still do love her. In fact, as I voiced to Bethany earlier tonight, I think it's possible that parents do suffer from a form of Stockholm syndrome. I say this because as we sat watching TV, I came to the conclusion that I missed the baby even though she was just asleep upstairs in her room. Not to mention the fact that she had spent basically the entire day driving me insane.

It was at that this point I realized parenting is essentially 18 years of Stockholm syndrome. You're essentially a captive to this tiny human's every beck and call. Judging from the advice of parents with teenagers, that won't change anytime soon either. In the meantime, I guess I should figure out a new way to combat/deal with mental exhaustion. Either that or I just need to permanently get used to the concept. #DaddyWrite