Day 467 - The One Where My Baby Babysits a Baby

I know I've written these exact words before but I kind of feel like there aren't a ton of firsts left for me to experience with Ellie as a stay-at-home dad. That statement is obviously incorrect but it's still easy to feel that way at times. After all, in whatever you do in life, it's easy to get into a groove or pattern of doing the same thing, day after day. It's certainly a continuous struggle to find the new in each day. 

That's probably part of the reason why it has become a little more difficult to find something to write about each day from Ellie's life. Don't fear; I have no intentions of stopping #DaddyWrite anytime soon. There are just going to be days here and there without a story. However, that is certainly not the case for today.

I've learned quickly as a stay-at-home dad that there are many other stay-at-home parents at there.  Obvious statement, I know. Of course, part of being a stay-at-home parent is the occasional pawning off of your kids on other stay-at-home parents. I've been guilty of doing so before but I'd never actually taken my turn until today.

With our friend, Malachi, working a contracting job near St. Joseph for the next few days, it left his daughter, Cassie, without a place to stay. Therefore, I was more than willing to step up and take a turn as Malachi and his wife, Tabi, have watched Ellie for us plenty of times. One challenge in doing so is that Cassie is still only a month old and it's been a long time since I've been responsible for an infant. Also, I had never been responsible for both an infant and a toddler at the same time.

Cassie arrived this morning around 8:30 with a few instructions from Malachi. Namely feed her when she's hungry, there are plenty of diapers in the bag, and don't use chloroform on the baby. Actually, he didn't say that last one; I just thought I'd add it in to make him seem more thorough. As soon as Cassie arrived, Ellie was immediately enamored by our guest. After spending some time just staring at Cassie and patting her affectionately, Ellie took it upon herself to take inventory of everything in Cassie's diaper bag before turning her attention to playing on her own.

Around 9:00, Cassie began crying pretty hard. Normally, that would be no problem for a seasoned child rearer such as myself. However, in all of my foolishness, I had kind of forgotten a couple of things about babies. One of those being that babies tend to cry. Second being if you don't do a good job diagnosing the cry, it makes them cry worse.

At this point, I started running through a laundry list of everything I could do to soothe poor Cassie as Ellie nervously looked on. First was the obvious stuff like offering her a bottle and checking the diaper. Not the issue. Second, I tried gently bouncing Cassie in my arms hoping the steady motion would rock away all of her concerns. That didn't work either.

At that point, creativity kicked in. First I found myself scampering to Ellie's room to dig her old jungle-themed playmat out of storage. I hoped that the bright colors and things hanging overhead would distract Cassie from her sadness. When that didn't work, then it was time to pull out the big guns. I briskly headed downstairs to retrieve Ellie's baby swing from storage. That little piece of machinery had been the savior of my sanity on many an occasion. It only made sense to me that it could do so again. Unfortunately for me, Cassie and Ellie have different things that they find relaxing.

Finally, it was time for my last ditch gambit: Ellie's old bouncy seat. Normally I would have led with the bouncy seat. However, I took it apart when Ellie had outgrown it, storing it in its box. Therefore, some assembly was required before Cassie could use it. By the time it was assembled and Cassie was in it, I was starting to feel pretty bad about my childcare abilities. Those feelings intensified as Cassie kept on crying.

Finally, thinking back to Ellie's babyhood, I remembered one last thing I could try: swaddling. Ellie had always hated being constricted in a blanket and I had been warned that Cassie felt the same way. However, at this point, I wasn't sure what else to try. I spread the blanket out on the floor before placing Cassie on it and wrapping her up tightly. I picked her up and held her in my arms, gently putting my hand on her chest, and listened. What did I hear you may ask? Silence, deafening silence.

From that point on, the rest of the day was relatively easy. You can't say totally easy as I was dealing with two dependents. However, Ellie certainly did her part to make my life easier. With a simple ask, she would run wherever to get whatever I needed for Cassie. It didn't matter if it was a bottle of milk, a blanket, a diaper, or a pacifier. My little golden retriever of a daughter did it all and had a perfect attitude to boot. She even volunteered to take a nap today at the same time Cassie took hers. Yes, that's right; I had about 45 of blissful silence and relaxation time to myself today, all thanks to Ellie.

In the future when it's my turn to watch another child again, it'll be interesting to see if Ellie's still feeling helpful or if it will be old hat by that point. For my sake/sanity, let's hope she still wants to be helpful. #DaddyWrite

Day 464 - Debate Me

My kid is weirder than your kid. 

I'm being serious here. Ellie's really weird. I'll fight you on it. Well, actually I'm not going to physically fight anyone on it. People like Allen Lindholt and Malachi Eliasen frighten me too much to fight physically. 

However, I will debate anyone on that point, anytime, anywhere. As long as there's podiums. And a moderator. There has to be a moderator. Otherwise, how would we know who won?

Moderate this...

I realize that I can't just make a broad statement insinuating that Ellie is weird without any evidence to back it up. Never fear, I have two such examples ready to go. On second thought, maybe this is just normal toddler behavior. It could be but I really don't know.

For exhibit one, let me flash you back to this morning. Of course, Ellie's internal clock started beeping around 4:30 this morning. Despite her epic tantrums, I was finally successful in getting her to lay back down for a little bit. The key set of words is 'little bit' as she was back up by 5:00. At that point, Bethany finally got up with her so the two of them could have a fun morning together.

After mother and daughter managed to read through every library book currently in our possession, the time had finally arrived for them to eat breakfast. However, it wasn't Cheerios or Mini Wheats that caught Ellie's eye. It wasn't even toast or fruit. No, the thing Ellie desired more than anything else at that moment were tacos. 

"Mommy make Ellie tacos?"

"No, we're not having tacos for breakfast."

"Ellie tacos."

"Ellie, it's 5:30 in the morning. I absolutely refuse to cook you tacos."

**with quivering lip** "Tacos."

Such wise words straight from the mouth of Snoop.

Now, I certainly understand Ellie's desire for tacos. Who doesn't love a good taco? However, most people don't call tacos a breakfast food. I'll concede breakfast burritos but never tacos. Despite Ellie's quivering lip and sad eyes, she never did get her pre-sunrise tacos. Lucky for her, we are going to make tacos for her on Friday as a result of this whole endeavor.

For exhibit two, let's flash forward to Ellie's bedtime. While that time of the night has always resulted in some weird stuff, I think it's just gotten stranger as time has gone on. For one, what used to be one simple bedtime story has now evolved into a long and drawn out bedtime routine. 

First, we do Ellie's nightly bible story in the rocking chair. Then, we do one or two more rocking chair stories depending upon the length. After that, the time comes to move to the bed where we read one or two more books. Finally, we each take a turn lying on the floor beside Ellie and saying our goodnight prayers with her. Oh, we also push play on "The Lion King" soundtrack sometime in there.

Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba

I admit that all of this seems pretty normal. Where it gets a little odd though is when you consider the amount of "beings" that Ellie shares her bed with and now refuses to go to sleep without. In no particular order, there's a pillow shaped like a cat, her blanket, a quilt, Sheepie, Leon the lion, Koco the bear, and a two -foot tall stuffed octopus. 

To take things further, Ellie's not just sharing her bed with all of these "beings". You see, she is actively holding Sheepie, Koco, Leon, and the octopus in her arms as she drifts off to sleep each night. Honestly, Bethany and I have no idea how she is even falling asleep with four stuffed animals stuffed in her arms.

As you can see, Ellie is truly weird from sunup to sundown. As I stated previously, this may be normal toddler behavior but I have nothing to compare it to. In closing, if you believe your kid is weirder than mine, feel free to let me know. Just make sure you have a podium handy before doing so. #DaddyWrite

Insert non-applicable cute baby photos here for posterity.

Day 462 - Breaking Silence and Narrating Life: The Ranch Dressing Story

Who here likes silence? 

I don't mean simple quiet. I mean absolute, deafening silence with no ambient noise whatsoever. As long as I can remember, I've found total silence to be slightly unnerving. There's something about experiencing complete sound deprivation that really gets me kind of stirred up. 

As you can probably guess, the early days/months of Ellie's life tended to drive me nuts from time-to-time. That'll happen when one is basically prohibited from making noise for fear of waking a sleeping baby. It didn't take long before I realized that narrating my day aloud to Ellie helped to not only pass the time, but also helped to eliminate the total quiet of our house during the day. 

Obviously as Ellie grew older, she developed more in her speech patterns to the point of being capable of conversation. Therefore, my narration of my day has shifted away from being for my own benefit to now being designed to help teach Ellie. Of course, as parents likely know, regardless of how good your intentions are, there is still plenty of room for misunderstanding. For an example, look no further than me accidentally teaching Ellie about race (sort of) today.

Flashback to our lunch today consisting of Taco Pie. For the initiated, this entree consists of a cornbread crust, beef with taco seasoning, salsa, and cheese. Once our food was heated up, Ellie and I sat down as the table to eat our meal. Of course, as we ate, I found it necessary to keep "conversation" flowing between Ellie and I by describing the Taco Pie and all of its ingredients. Now, keep in mind that Ellie probably couldn't care less about the ingredients of our lunch. 

That being said, there is something about our lunch (besides consumption) that Ellie does find interesting. That is the color of our lunch. 

I've been working with Ellie on colors on and off for quite a while. She still hasn't totally grasped it yet though although she does get yellow right about 35% of the time. However, that doesn't stop her from being interested in trying to learn more. 

While the Taco Pie was certainly a hodge podge of colors, the other things on Ellie's plate were much easier to pin down a primary color on. Carrots? No one will ever dispute they are orange. Watermelon? Still a pinkish-reddish color. Ranch dressing? That will always be white. 

As you might be able to guess, it's that last one that gets us in trouble. For reasons I don't completely understand, after I taught Ellie ranch dressing is white, she responded with two simple words: "Mommy white." My first thought? Well, she's not wrong. My wife is definitely Caucasian.

Now, it's possible Ellie meant that as commentary on how pale my wife's complexion can be at times. Or perhaps, she is ascribing to that whole you are what you eat idea. There is an episode of Scrubs (and House) where a patient's ailment was that they turned orange from eating too many carrots.

Honestly, the most likely scenario is she was just confused and said something foolish that didn't make sense. That being said, I'd still love to know what the original thought in her head was and what the logic behind it was. 

Oh, to look inside the mind of a toddler. What a scary place it would be. #DaddyWrite

Day 457 and 458 - Basic Mathematic Properties of Home Runs & Chicken Sandwiches

As everyone already knows, one of the most important parts of any relationship is finding common interests. It really doesn't matter what kind of relationship it is either. Friends, spouses, or parent and child. Each and every one of those relationships require some kind of common ground to function in a healthy and proper manner.

Second to finding those common interests though has to be simply having shared experiences. Yes, it's true the shared experience may benefit one party more than the other. However, there's still something to be said for how experiencing life together can bond people closely. The concept of shared experiences benefitting one party more than the other is certainly fresh on my mind after the events that Ellie and I shared on Monday and Tuesday of this week.

For Monday, I feel it imperative that I provide a little background. Over the past few years, the fantasy football league I participate in has chosen our yearly draft order through some random means. Examples: the Olympic Steeplechase race in 2016 followed by a Dad Joke competition in 2017. 

Stuff like this is the exact reason we picked the Steeplechase...

For 2018, our league had been brainstorming over the past month or so before finally settling on setting a draft order via the Home Run Derby. The lone problem with doing so is that the Derby was to be held on Monday night and as of noon on Monday, we still had no idea how it would work.

Therefore, as someone without a "real" job, I was tasked with figuring out how to make it happen.

First and foremost was figuring out ironclad rules for how an eight-man Derby could choose draft slots for thirteen fantasy football players. Once that was finally settled, it was time to see who each person's MLB representative would be. This is where Ellie comes in. 

As I didn't want the process of random selection to fall 100% on me (just in case things seemed sketchy), I found it imperative to have someone assist with the pairings. While that normally falls to Bethany, her work schedule kept her from doing so on this occasion. Therefore, the deed fell to Ellie which provided me with another whole set of problems. 

I normally do a live recording of the setting of the draft order but doing so with a toddler left way too much up to chance. Therefore, I had to get creative. First, I placed all thirteen members of our fantasy league in an individual envelope. Then, taking sixteen of Ellie's blocks, I taped a piece of paper with a Home Run Derby participant to each one and placed it in a hat. Finally, I tasked Ellie with choosing a block, one at a time, and handing it to me so I could stuff the piece of paper in an envelope with a league member without looking at either name.

Honestly, it's a good thing I chose not to do this little project live and on camera. Ellie spent approximately the first 57 seconds of the video sitting on a chair beside me with only her eyes peering into the frame before she lost interest and scampered off into the living room. Although, she did eventually return to hand me envelopes to open without me even asking her to do so.

Note the eyes in the bottom left hand corner.

For the record, Ellie did a great job picking players as she matched me up with Bryce Harper, enabling me to take home the #1 overall pick for the second consecutive season. I guess she really knew what I wanted at that moment without me even asking her to do so. And that leads us to Tuesday.

First, a quick public service announcement. If you have not yet downloaded the Chick-Fil-A One app, stop reading and do so right now. After all, it's due to that little piece of technology that we had Tuesday's adventure.

One of the nice little perks of the Chick-Fil-A app is that it's pretty common to receive freebie items that are available for a limited time. An even better perk is that a person can occasionally accumulate a large amount of freebies at once essentially allowing them to have an entire meal for free. 

That was the case on Tuesday as our Chick-Fil-A app had gifted us a free breakfast sandwich, medium cup of fruit, and a Peach Iced Tea Lemonade. Therefore, Ellie and I found it prudent to head to Chick-Fil-A for breakfast to revel in our newfound "wealth".

Upon receiving our freebies, we found our new favorite seat in the restaurant and sat down to eat our haul. After we ate our fill, it was time for the second part of our little adventure: letting Ellie play in the play area. Before she could begin playing though, I had to first convince her of two things. 

Number one, she absolutely had to leave her socks on to play. That one is non-negotiable. And number two being that there was absolutely no way for Daddy to go down the enclosed tube slide with her. I've tried them at parks before. I just don't fit and have to awkwardly walk/scoot my way down the inside of them.

Lucky for us, the play area was totally empty on Tuesday so Ellie was able to have the run of the place for as long as she wanted. She could climb up and down the stairs to her little heart's content. She could practice for her future career as either a NASCAR driver or an astronaut (I'm guessing you know which one I'd pick). And last, but not least, she could propel herself down the slide as many times as she wanted. 

While I definitely enjoy watching my daughter play, there are times where I get a little antsy. That's especially true if she's playing in a place where I really can't play too, a'la Chick-Fil-A. I finally put an end to our little adventure around 9:00 after being at the restaurant for an hour and a half much to Ellie's dismay.  And if I needed any further confirmation at all that Ellie had a good time, the immediacy of her falling asleep in the car provided just that.

Days like these two are always good reminders for me that even though Ellie gets mad at me quite a bit, she still likes to spend time with me and do fun/different things together. Now, the question is whether or not that will be the case when she's a teenager. Only time will tell! #DaddyWrite