Day 647 - A Whole Lotta Zoo and a Little Bit of Food

Big things are happening in the Holt household. Or at least in Ethan's mouth and stomach. Yesterday marked a huge day for Ethan as he took his first bites of "solid" food. He even kept it down and everything. However, I don't want to get ahead of myself, so one thing at a time.

Yesterday was noteworthy in more ways than one. One reason being that Bethany actually took the day off work to spend the entire day with us. For the record, her main reason for doing so was so she could watch the kids while I went to the dentist. However, that appointment was cancelled (by the dentist, not me) leaving us with an entire day to fill. So with that in mind, what does one do with that time? For us, there's no better answer than to go to the zoo!

Now I know we've been to the zoo dozens of times. Plus this was a day with Bethany at home meaning it technically shouldn't noteworthy per the infallible bylaws of #DaddyWrite. However, the fact that there were 12 kids and seven adults in our party definitely makes it noteworthy. I know you're thinking, "Wait, that math doesn't add up." It'll make sense in a minute, I promise.

In a quest to make her day off work special for Ellie, Bethany came up with the idea of seeing if anyone would like to join us at the zoo for a day of fun. Fortunately, after a quick Facebook post on Monday evening by yours truly, we discovered there were plenty of people who would be excited for just that. With that, Bethany took the lead in plotting a time leading to us finding ourselves at the zoo at 9:00 am sharp.

It goes without saying that with so many people involved, there was no way we would all show up at the same time. Therefore, after waiting outside the zoo for a few minutes, the four of us decided to head inside and just meet up with the rest of our party later. Seriously, we had to! You try keeping an active toddler preoccupied while standing outside the zoo. It's akin to dangling a juicy piece of prime rib in front of a hungry dog.

After a few minutes, we made contact with the first part of our group, Danelle and Callahan. Ellie and Callahan became pretty tight during our Thursday night LifeGroup last semester. Therefore, they were more than stoked to hang out. In fact, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility to see them running, hugging, and even kissing each other during the course of the day (I may need to have a serious chat about that last one). 

Little did Ellie know that Callahan wasn't our only friend on this zoo trip as we eventually met up with our friends, the Blackwells, the Marks, and Kari. From there, our little zoo trip began to metamorphosize into an exercise in co-parenting. For one, Ellie and Callahan were constantly switching strollers. For another, any time we made a stop, it was all hands on deck as we all helped keep eyes on each other's kids. For the smaller members of our party, any set of open arms would do when the time came to gaze over a fence at animals.

After a fun-filled morning including playtime at the playground, carousel rides all around, and lunch under the trees, it was time for our little motley crew to go our separate ways. With that, Ellie and Callahan bid a heartfelt farewell to one another and we headed for the exits. 

Closing thoughts, even though it could be exhausting at times helping to keep track of 12 kids, it was definitely a fun experience. Ellie and Bethany would likely say the same. As for Ethan, he's pretty happy wherever he goes. Oh yes, speaking of Ethan, I realize I promised stories of him eating. However, I see this blog post has already grown to a somewhat unwieldy length and I should probably cut it off. Never fear, I'm guessing there will plenty more opportunities to blog about Ethan's eating skills. #DaddyWrite

Mmm...

Day 641 - Man on an Island (a.k.a. Alone at The Grove)

I think it's a very normal thing for parents to worry about the development of their children. There's probably thousands of articles on the internet studying that exact phenomenon. Interestingly enough, that's not something that seems to subside as time rolls on. Instead, as Bethany and I recently learned in a parenting class, the rules of the game continue to change and evolve. 

The good thing for us though is that we're currently in a stage of life where the rules and/or questions are relatively simple. Instead of having to deal with the stressful topics like dating, driving, and drugs, we instead get to worry about more trivial things. Stuff like wondering if our child respects us. Or if she has a well-balanced diet. Or whether or not our child is good at playing with others. It's that last one that rings true for me today. 

As a stay-at-home dad, I'm not lying when I say it's easy to feel like a man on an island. For starters, I don't have any close male friends choosing the same path. Yes, I'm friends with plenty of stay-at-home moms. However, I wonder if there's a certain degree of awkwardness calling them up and asking for a play date (There's probably a better way to phrase that sentence but I don't care). I know that I could always drop Ellie off with any of them and let her play for a few hours with their kids. However, I have a fear of taking advantage of those offers way too often and becoming a burden. As Bethany eloquently put it, I definitely struggle with asking for help.

In spite of all that, one thing that is important to me is that Ellie gets the opportunity to go and do things as often as possible. For a toddler, I'm sure there's nothing worse in the world than being stuck at home all day, every day. Fortunately, I'm becoming more and more comfortable with dragging two kids out of the house on little adventures. In the past couple of weeks alone, we've been on a zoo trip, a play-date at my sister-in-law's house, a few park trips, and story time at the library. Today, we had another little adventure of our own as we made a pilgrimage to The Grove at Zona Rosa.

I realize that with the cooler weather, today would have provided perfect park conditions. However, the overnight rains likely means that all of the park equipment was still wet. Seeing as how the last thing Ellie wants is a wet bottom, I decided an indoor playground made more sense. I always assumed The Grove opened for the day around 10 when shops began to open. With the aid of a quick internet search this morning, I learned The Grove instead opens for playtime at 8 am. With that knowledge in mind, I loaded up the kids and headed towards Zona Rosa as soon as Ethan woke up from his first nap around 8:15.

The first thing you should know about The Grove at 8:30 in the morning is that it is completely vacant except for you and your children. Let's face facts; not many people are going to want to be at a shopping center before any stores are open. In fact, the only other folks in the building were part of the cleaning crew. Ellie didn't mind in the least. She was able to play on the equipment for as long as she wanted without having to watch out for other kids. She was even able to go down the slide as many times in a row as she wanted.

As for Ethan, he's still a little young for playing at The Grove. However, he had a stellar time just watching Ellie play as he enjoyed a mid-morning feeding. It was actually really cute watching his head dart back and forth as his little eyes followed Ellie around the room. All I could do was affectionately pat his little head and say nine simple words: "Your day to play will come soon, little man." #DaddyWrite

"What's she doing, Dad?"

Day 638 - Your Toddler, the Workplace, and Dissociative Identity Disorder

Legitimate question here. Does anyone else wonder if toddlers have multiple personalities? You might be thinking I'm crazy but I actually have an entire school of thought that led me to this conclusion.

You see, it's fairly obvious that children are born relatively normal. Their lives basically revolve around eating, sleeping, and pooping. It's a simple life they lead meaning there's no real reason for them to be incredibly unhappy. However, at some point, that sweet baby takes some form of mental leap and becomes a raging lunatic. The type that cannot be calmed by conventional means. Before you know it, you're desperately trying to calm said toddler as their screams reach fever pitch and their tiny fists of fury wail on your anatomy over and over again.

I've never seen 'Fever Pitch' all the way through.

It's bad enough when these moments occur in the sanctity of one's home. At least there you can somewhat escape it. It's another thing when it happens in public. It's obviously embarrassing but you can rest in the solace of knowing that you're unrecognizable to anyone else in the vicinity. It's yet another thing when it happens at your work and in front of your co-workers as Bethany learned the hard way.

Every so often, we like to go and visit Bethany at DFA during her lunch break. It's a nice opportunity for all four of us to break out of the norm and do something a little different. Well, on second thought, Ethan doesn't really care. He's pretty much happy everywhere. For Ellie though, it's a huge thing. That's especially true when you factor in how much she's been begging to go to work with Bethany lately. 

Needless to say, as soon as we hopped in the car, Ellie began excitedly proclaiming "We're going to see Mommy!" over and over again. Meanwhile, Ethan took a short, little nap. Once we arrived and finally found parking, Bethany came out of the building to meet us so that she could help me with the kids and also so she could get me a visitor's badge. It was at the front desk while getting my badge that we should have noticed something was wrong. Ellie was begging Bethany over and over again to hold her. It became so intense that I finally had to take Ethan from her so that she could hold Ellie.

I even dressed the baby in cute clothes for the visit!

With all of that finished, we headed to the lunch table to sit down with Bethany's co-workers. From the moment we sat down, Ellie began suffering from some kind of weird panic attack. She wouldn't eat. She wouldn't drink. She wouldn't even make eye contact with anyone, including me. In fact, all she wanted to do was bury her face in Bethany's chest. This actually continued until each of Bethany's co-workers left the table to head back to work. Between that and the promise of chocolate milk, it was at least enough to convince Ellie to turn around and eat her lunch. Unfortunately, she had completely missed watching Bethany eat lunch and was convinced that the lunch she was eating belonged to Mommy. Confusing stuff for a toddler, right?

There was one good thing to mention from the trip though. Trips to DFA normally end with me awkwardly dragging Ellie out of the building with her screaming all the way. Instead, today ended with a happy smile as Bethany accompanied Ellie to the car and buckled her in. That allowed Ellie to contentedly fall asleep on our trip home instead of me having to hear whimpers all the way. 

Good stuff, right? #DaddyWrite

 

Day 634 - Fear and Loathing at the KCZ

Everyone has weird fears. For example, probably around the time I was five or six, I was terrified of going into the basement of my parents' house. It wasn't for the normal reasons that most children are afraid of the basement though. No, for some weird reason, I didn't want to go down there because the Nintendo resided down there. Still sound weird? For some strange reason, I had this irrational fear that Bowser, the spiky-shelled nemesis of Super Mario, was going to magically going to pop out of the console and come after me.

Don't lie; you think he's terrifying too!

It just goes to show how everyone has fears, no matter how irrational they may seem on the surface. For more example, allow me to share about my first solo trip to the Kansas City Zoo with Ellie and Ethan. At least I'm pretty sure it was my first solo trip. Sorry if I'm mistaken about that.

I, for one, was kind of fearing this trip. Even if it wasn't really my first solo trip to the Zoo, it did have somewhat of a 'first time' quality. This was the first time with both kids that I wouldn't be taking a stroller. Instead, I had the bright idea to strap Ethan in his carrier while Ellie trotted alongside. Honestly, I had no idea how this would go as Ellie occasionally shows a lazy streak where she absolutely does not want to walk under her own power. Lucky for me, that wasn't the case today. Instead, Ellie ran ahead of me most of the morning, only taking brief breaks in the penguin house, the carousel, and the train.

Speaking of the train, that leads us to Ethan and his somewhat random fear of the aforementioned train. In case you don't know, the train I'm referring is not the massive kind traversing the country as we speak. No, this is instead a much smaller version made for slowly pulling families around the zoo whilst they "Oooh" and "Aaah" at all the animals.

Since we were the only people at the station, we had our choice of seats. Ellie quickly chose a row safely nestled in the middle of the train. Since I knew we would be riding for a while, I decided to take Ethan out of the carrier, letting him sit on my lap so he could happily look around. Ethan was more than happy to oblige or at least he was until the train started moving. Once the whistle blew and we began to rumble down the tracks, Ethan began making a rumble of his own, crying loudly as we chugged along.

Happier times on the KCZ Express.

While one would think Ethan's crying would diminish as we traveled along, that was far from the case. In fact, his crying just rose in intensity with every tunnel, curve, straight stretch, and kangaroo crossing. Yes, that's correct; we did have to make an emergency stop so the conductor could shoo kangaroos off of the track AND away from the gates. The only thing that ultimately calmed Ethan was the end of the train ride.

The rule-breaking marsupial in question.

That brings us to Ellie. Like Ethan and I, the zoo brought its own set of fears for her. Although, hers were more pedantic in nature. For example, chief among them was not riding the African Sky Safari, or big swing as she calls it. However, since we weren't traveling to Africa on this day, that was not a legitimate concern. 

Don't worry though, she did have one additional concern. 

"Daddy, where is the polar bear? Why is he inside and not outside? Will he stay inside all day?"

Oh, the simple concerns of a toddler. Pretty adorable, right? #DaddyWrite

Ellie did have one additional concern I failed to mention. That being what carousel animal she should ride. The cheetah won out.