Day 625 - What We Have Here is a Case of Mistaken Identity

The great thing about writing these little introductions for each and every blog post is that whenever I hit a case of writer's block, there is generally some movie that pertains to the topic at hand. Therefore, I can just somehow weave said movie into the narrative of the blog and make it all work out. I was initially going to use the sci-fi cult classic, 'Galaxy Quest' starring Tim Allen. However, after miniscule consideration, I decided instead to use 'Chuck'. 

'Chuck' if you are unaware is the story of a Nerd Herd employee (think Best Buy's Geek Squad) who unwittingly downloads the entirety of the CIA and NSA databases into his head. Early on in the series, there is the case of mistaken identity where both organizations think Chuck is a legitimate person of interest. They therefore send hitmen after him in order to protect their secrets. That brings us to today and our own little case of mistaken identity.

In order to get to the mistaken identity, I'll first tell you how we went to Crown Center to take in the free exhibit based upon yet another television series, "Clifford". And yes, I do mean the Big Red Dog. This exhibit, similar to ones that have preceded it, is a series of free activities designed to make children feel as if they are actually residents on Clifford's home of Birdwell Island. Between the slide made out of Clifford's tail, the mail delivery station, the restaurant/kitchen, and a life-sized ship, Ellie had a grand old time living out the adventures of one of her favorite TV characters. 

Once our fun began to wind down at Clifford's, I decided that it would be fun to take a stroll through The Link over to Union Station to check out the remodeled model train exhibit. With Ethan strapped to my chest and Ellie happily trotting alongside, we made the trek all the way to Union Station. Once there, we found our way to the model train area and wandered inside. 

The first thing we noticed is just how much things had changed. It used to be that right when one walked in, there was a set of long benches where one could sit and have a snack. At least that's what Ellie believed was the only purpose in going there. Well, you can imagine her surprise to see that the set of benches was now down to one. Unfortunately for Ellie, there was one more obstacle to be overcome before we could reach her bench. That being the large family of eight standing in our way.

Now, I should mention here that the large family didn't mean to be in our way. They were just enjoying the train display as anyone would. However, that didn't stop Ellie's nerves from kicking in. As she slipped away from me, I watched as she reached the middle of the family and began to panic. She frantically began searching for me. I should mention that I was actively trying to get to her. It just so happens that I wasn't quick enough. 

Before I could get close enough, Ellie saw an open hand and grabbed hold. At this moment, Ellie looked up at the owner of the hand at the same time he looked down. Despite the smiling face of a random grandpa looking down at her, Ellie began to freak out. She immediately let go and began turning frantically, searching for me. By this time, I had cut through the family and extended my hand for Ellie to grab hold of as we headed to the bench for snack time.

It should be mentioned that prior to doing so, the middle-aged gentleman and I exchange a knowing glance with some laughs over the case of mistaken identity. For the record, he assumed it was his grandson grabbing his hand. It was mistaken identity all around! #DaddyWrite

I absolutely have to include this photo in this blog post even though I forgot to write about it. I carried Ellie inside after our morning out and sat her down on the step before running out to the car to get Ethan. When I came back inside, this is what I found.

Day 623 - Villain: Thy Name is Bread Machine

There are times when one has to be jealous of Ethan. Yes, he has no ability to talk, read, or write. Yes, it's true he has no concept of how to use a toilet or feed himself. He can't even sit upright on his own. However, he's still got it made in a lot of ways. He can pretty much nap whenever he wants. People are always ready to play with him and tell him how cute he is. He gets all of the hugs he can handle. He also gets carried anywhere he wants to go. Last but not least, he is loved by all and has no enemies. Actually, after making it through today, I'm not so certain about that last one.

First of all, I feel compelled to share that this was not my easiest day ever as a stay-at-home dad. In fact, just so you have a reference for how I felt about the day as a whole, look at the Homeland Security Advisory Scale and imagine me pointing to orange with a frown on my face. By the way, don't take me using that as a reference to be inconsiderate. It was just a nice way to get my point across.

I should actually install a Homeland Security Advisory Scale in my home as well.

I left at 5:26 in the morning to head to the gym with Ethan apparently deciding to start his day approximately five minutes later. Therefore, by the time I got back home, he had already been up for nearly an hour. If you don't know, Ethan being awake for an hour means that his mood can turn on a dime. Lucky for us though, he was pretty content and stayed awake until Bethany left at 7:00 for work. That's when I laid him down in his crib, shut the door, and expected not to hear from him for a few hours.

Unfortunately, that was not to be the case. One thing about having a baby and a toddler is that the toddler seemingly takes it as a personal challenge to wake the baby from any and every nap. At least that's how things seem to be with Ellie from time-to-time. By the time Ethan had been asleep an hour, she was running up and down the hall screaming in joy. Needless to say, the baby woke up and could not be persuaded to go back to sleep even though his nap is two or three times that length. It's ok though because that's one of the risks you run as a parent of two. I also couldn't be too angry because I knew we were only an hour or two away from the next nap. Unfortunately for me, I was wrong and the next nap ended in the same dramatic fashion.

At this point, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't irritated. Actually 'irritated' isn't the proper word for what I was feeling. I was instead feeling a mixture of emotions, ranging from anger all the way to apathy. Regardless of my emotions, the next couple of hours moved fast as my parents stopped in for a quick lunch. Once they took their leave around 1:00, I successfully put both kids down leaving me absolutely ecstatic. However, that wouldn't last.

Part of my duties as stay-at-home dad extraordinaire is to make certain dinner is prepared most evenings when Bethany gets home from work. The items on the menu on this occasion? Roast and homemade bread. Let me go off-topic here and just spend some time thinking about the wonders that is homemade bread. For my money, there is not much more pleasing in the world than a nice, warm slice of homemade bread. That's especially true when it's straight out of the bread machine. I'd be willing to bet there is no one in the world that hates homemade bread. Or at least I would have said that before today. 

You see, our bread machine has a slight shortcoming in its construction. For some reason, when the time comes for it to turn on, it radiates a loud, pulsating beep that rivals most alarm clocks. Unfortunately there is no way to silence said beep until the bread machine decides it's done making the noise. As the beep rang throughout the house, my nerves kicked in and my body tensed up. Finally, as the final beep echoed, I exhaled and listened for any signs of life from Ellie and Ethan. At first, there was nothing. Then, with precise comic timing, Ethan's shrill screams radiated from his bedroom leaving me with no alternative other than to rescue him from his crib.

Oh, in case you're wondering, the length of his nap was a paltry 30 minutes. In fact, Ethan would stay awake until almost 4:00 ensuring that the only amount of time I had to myself the entire "working" day was a grand total of 30 minutes. If that's not the textbook definition of defeat, I don't know what is. #DaddyWrite

Day 622 - Perpetual Motion and Dearly Departed Traffic Patterns

Perpetual motion is defined as the action of a device that, once set in motion, would continue in motion forever, with no additional energy required to maintain it. I'm guessing everyone has heard of the concept at one time or another. 

For me, I'm pretty sure my first introduction to perpetual motion was in Mrs. Tushaus' 9th grade science class, sometime after the unit where I couldn't light a match but before the one where I put vegetable oil and water in a Coca-Cola bottle. True story, the aforementioned match scenario was when my college roommate, Joey, and I first met or at least his first memory of me.  I tried and tried as hard as I could but I lacked the basic ability to both light a match and keep it lit. 

When Ellie was a baby, the concept of perpetual motion was crucial to our sanity. As long as Ellie was in her swing and it was moving, she was happy. For that very reason, Ellie spent 92% of the first year of her life buckled into her swing. While Ethan doesn't believe in the concept of perpetual motion to the degree that his sister did, it is still quite important to him. That can be seen by taking a glance back at the events of our morning.

Early this morning, Ellie made a relatively simple request. What she wanted to do more than anything today was go to storytime at the library. Obviously, that's a pretty normal request in our home and as such, it was one I was willing to oblige. As the morning went along though, Ellie's zeal for going to storytime waned. In fact, at one point she flat out said, "I don't want to go to storytime today." Oddly enough though, before another 30 minutes had expired, she had changed her mind and we were going again. There was still one minor roadblock though. It's name? Ethan. 

One thing you should know about Ethan is that he really likes his morning nap. In fact, he normally wants to go down in his crib within an hour of Bethany leaving for work. On this occasion though, he was sleeping as soundly as a deaf camel in a sandstorm. I actually don't know how good that comparison is but it sounds good, right? Obviously, the last thing I wanted to do was wake him. Therefore, I sat and watched the clock as potential storytime starting times passed us by. Finally, as the clock read 10:40, Ethan awoke from his slumber and requested a bottle in his own special way.

Very quickly, I fed Ethan a bottle and got him dressed so that we could hop in the car and head to Woodneath for storytime. Knowing that we were in a bit of a time crunch, I chose to take the back roads thinking I'd avoid traffic. Unfortunately for us, that was not to be on this day. As I approached the overpass for I-435, I was dismayed to find traffic coming to a complete stop as part of a funeral procession. This was not your normal funeral procession though. The police not only had the road blocked from both directions but also had between 12 and 16 motorcycle cops on hand. I can't be certain as to the number as it's hard to count something like that behind the wheel of a car.

Photographic evidence of our plight.

As we sat in traffic, Ethan began to make his displeasure with our current state of affairs known. As long as the car was moving, he was fine. However, once we stopped moving, his discontent became obvious. As the minutes ticked by, I continually reassured my son that everything was ok and we would get moving again soon. Finally, the time had come and we could move again.

 You could probably guess this but our little delay made us late in getting to the library for storytime. Since I knew that was the case, I decided to attempt something new once we arrived at Woodneath. I normally just leave Ethan in his car seat or carry him in my arms during these times. Today though, I decided instead to strap him onto my chest and wear him into the library. 

While this mostly ended up being a good thing, there were a couple of shortcomings. Number one being that I had to be in that state of perpetual motion to keep Ethan happy. There was no "holding up" walls or sitting down for me. If I wasn't moving, Ethan was going to make his displeasure known.

The  second thing may or may not be a shortcoming; I can't be completely sure. As we headed into the library, Ethan on my chest and Ellie's hand in mine, we encountered a nice old grandma with her granddaughter. I don't pay much attention until I overhear Grandma's words: "Look at that dad. He's wearing his baby. He must be some kind of super dad." While those aren't necessarily bad words, they are mildly embarrassing. That's especially true when one hears variations of that comment several more times after entering the library. 

Hi baby friend.

If I really was Super Dad, you know I'd have the super power of effortless perpetual motion instead of having to put in the work. Oh well, at least it's a good workout. I'll bet it even burns lots of calories. #DaddyWrite

Hey, at least the three of us took a really cute selfie today.

Day 621 - Blast from the Past (a.k.a. The One Where Bethany Had a Good Idea)

It's official. My wife is full of good ideas. For the record, that was never in doubt. 

Bethany's had plenty of good ideas during the course of our marriage. For example, the tray that sits on the bookshelf in our living room holding our keys, wallets, and other important items. There was also that time she came up with the Excel file that we keep track of our bills with. I know that neither of those seem like groundbreaking ideas on the surface but they actually are quite good. 

I'm sure there are others that are much better. However, I can't think of any right now as it's 9:02 at night as I'm writing this sentence. I have saved the best for last though as tonight Bethany brought forth a great one that I had never thought of. The idea in question?

 "Why don't we go back and look at blog posts from when Ellie was the same age that Ethan is?"

 

That one is groundbreaking, right? Just think of the things I could learn about caring for Ethan just by seeing what Ellie was doing at the same age. In case you want to play along, the month in question would be November of 2016.

For the most part, blog posts from that time frame revolve around the idea of sleep training. From what I can glean through the thinly-veiled sarcasm, I was mildly frustrated at Ellie during the process of sleep training. On one day, it looks like I spent forty minutes fighting Ellie trying to get her to fall asleep for her to only sleep forty-five minutes once it happened. If that's not the epitome of defeat, I don't know what is.

The good thing about Ethan is that putting him down for a nap is the exact opposite of how it was with Ellie. In November of 2016, I pretty much compared it to a prize fight complete with introductions from Michael Buffer. Ethan on the other hand requires no such pomp and circumstance. I lay him down in his crib where he will spend the next four minutes crying before deciding to give up and go to sleep. That's it. It is literally the most amazing thing! I don't want to say we deserved an easy child after Ellie, but we kind of deserved an easier child after Ellie.

Of course, there are similarities between now and then. For example, look no further than my blog post comparing Ellie to an ankle monitor one wears on house arrest. A quick glance at it confirms two things. One being that I must have been in the midst of watching 'White Collar'. The other being that I felt like a prisoner in my own home since there were places I could and couldn't go. For example, I couldn't even step foot near the room Ellie was sleeping. If she was in her swing, I was not allowed anywhere in the vicinity of the family room. If she was in her bedroom, it meant the third floor of our house was off-limits.

Throwback photo alert!

Once again, the good thing about Ethan is that he will not wake up until he is good and ready. Even though that's the case, Ethan's naps are still stressful times for me as I try to keep Ellie moderately quiet in the meantime. It's not that she's a bad kid and won't listen. It's more that her default volume can only be compared to the T-Rex from 'Jurassic Park'. It might even be possible to see ripples in a glass of water from the sound of her coming just like in the movie!

Even if I don't get any useful information out of rereading old blog posts in the future, it definitely was fun to see what Ellie was like in this stage of her development and compare it to Ethan. Although, based upon things up to this point, I'm wondering if the two ever will be that similar. I mean, you need look no further than the fact that my presence is actually a soothing, calming presence upon Ethan. 

It was also nice to remember the time I went to the emergency room with severe headaches. That was in November 2016 too.. Good times, good times. #DaddyWrite