Day 193 - How to Hide in Booze Aisles with a Baby

I consider myself to be a pretty social fellow. I mean, like everyone else, there are times where I just need "me time". Those occasions where one just needs to unwind and decompress. Overall though, I really like people and enjoy being around them. Which is probably good seeing as how there are quite a few of them. It seems like Ellie may be following in my footsteps in that regard. You know by now that she too likes being around people and is super happy any time she's out of the house. I actually love that about my daughter. However, I never realized until today that there are times we're out of the house when I really need Ellie to be silent and well-behaved. If not for her good, then definitely for my own.

There's nothing quite like the smell of freshly-baked, homemade bread. The way that it permeates into the air, filling every last crevice of the house with golden, soft goodness. If you couldn't tell by that statement, I was really stoked to bust out the bread maker and produce some homemade bread this afternoon to couple with the roast in the crock pot. Unfortunately for yours truly, my biggest cooking-related Achilles heel struck again: the inability to confirm availability of all necessary ingredients. Upon discovering the absence of milk, I loaded Ellie up and headed to Sun Fresh to stock up. Although, believe it or not, I did take inventory of all other ingredients before leaving. Yay me!

We all do, Oprah. We all do.

A little background; I've been feeling bad lately because I've had Ellie out and about a lot lately. Between car rides, stroller rides, and cart rides, the poor baby has spent quite a bit of time strapped down. I had every intention of letting her stick around home all day so that she could crawl and play to her little heart's content. Therefore, as I unstrapped her from the car seat, I made a verbal vow to my daughter. That vow being that we wouldn't be in the store long at all so that she could go home and play.

With Ellie loaded in the cart, I grabbed my milk first thing. Then, I decided to make a brief detour down the cereal and ice cream aisles before leaving. With nothing of interest in the cereal aisle, I then headed down the ice cream aisle. Finding nothing, I turned the corner to find none other than our next-door neighbor, Loretta, standing right there with her back to me.

Now, I'm not going to lie. I really don't care for Loretta. To put it nicely, she's that stereotypical, angry widow that always lives next door on TV. The very day we moved in to our house, Loretta showed up at our door complaining about weeds in our landscaping getting out of hand. She then proceeded to yank them up and wave them in our faces so that we would know what a weed was. Knowing Loretta the way I do, I knew I would have great difficulty in escaping if she was to see me.  In fact, history dictates I would be sucked into conversation for a minimum of 20 minutes.

All you wanted was some homemade bread...

At this moment, I began to take stock of escape routes. I couldn't go back the way I came because that might draw undue attention my way. I also couldn't go around Loretta because she would inevitably notice Ellie. If I had been alone, I would have just pulled my Royals cap lower, slouched down, and walked past as quickly as possible. Realistically, only one safe route remained: the alcohol department.

I crouched down as much as possible, creeping behind Loretta towards my destination. Once I finally reached safe haven, I was still hesitant to stand up all of the way for fear she would recognize my bobbing head as I walked by. At this point, Ellie decided she had some very important things to tell me. My blood pressure spiked as I feared Ellie's loud voice would draw Loretta's attention. I softly whispered "Shhh" to Ellie and placed my finger to my lips. Ellie's immediate response was to laugh in the face of my fear. Finally, I realized it was now or never and I had to make a break for it. Peering between the bottles, I saw Loretta turn the corner into an adjoining aisle. Knowing that her back was completely turned to me, Ellie and I hightailed it to the check-out station, paid for our milk, and exited the store.

Is the coast clear yet?

This little adventure filled me with mixed emotion. First of all, I felt a little like Indiana Jones, risking life and limb to reach back under the rapidly-closing stone door, all to grab his fedora. How is that not a sweet feeling? On the other hand, I feel a bit lame hiding from a septuagenarian in the booze aisle of our local supermarket. Do I lose coolness points for that? Hopefully the wicked awesome Indiana Jones reference helps me save face. #DaddyWrite

 

Day 192 - Balling Like a Baller

Question, how young is too young for one to suffer from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder? I'm not asking for myself or anything; I'm asking for a friend. One that may or may not be about two feet tall and may or may not weigh a little over 16 pounds. This hypothetical human being (or is it?) could also have blonde hair and blue eyes. It's primary mode of transportation could be via four limbs. By the criteria given, it's possible I'm referring to a small dog or a cat. Ok, you caught me. It's Ellie that I'm asking for. Truth be told, I'm doubting she's suffering from OCD. It's much more likely that it's some kind of weird side effect of being a baby. Confused yet? Let me explain further.

On Saturday, I found something while garage saleing (again with the saleing?) that I was absolutely certain Ellie would enjoy. Any guesses what it was? I can wait a minutes (or at least 56 seconds) while you get your guesses in.

Ok, I won't leave you in anticipation any longer. The item that I procured for Ellie was a package of 125 plastic balls for the negotiated sum of $2. To calm your fears, these are balls somewhat like what you would find in a ball pit at a fast food establishment. There's absolutely no way she could swallow one short of unhinging her jaw like a python and just cramming it in. Anyway, after Bethany washed the balls up in the bathtub, we actually dumped all 125 into a small travel bed of Ellie's for her to play in. Actually that's a small lie. Before putting them in the travel bed, I purposely turned the bag of balls upside down and watched each and every ball cascade down the stairwell into the living room below to Ellie's great amusement. Truth be told, I greatly enjoyed it as well.

Ellie has absolutely taken to her ball pit since Saturday. She can crawl in and out of it whenever she wishes so it's not like she's trapped. One of her favorite things to do is to throw herself down into the pit while Bethany or I bury her under a small mountain of colorful spheres. Then, she'll happily emerge from underneath the pile with a broad smile across her face and both tiny arms raised in elation. Then she'll flop back down for it to happen over and over again.

Wait, so all of these balls are mine?

While that was a  great game, Ellie's now discovered a brand new game to play in the ball pit. However, I can't say I enjoy this one nearly as much as she does. Today, Ellie climbed into the pit just as she always would. Instead of throwing herself down, she sat upright and looked around at the balls completely surrounding her. Then, with the smoothest of motions, she reached down and plucked one blue ball. She rolled it back and forth in her tiny hands before calmly dropping it outside the box. She followed that up by picking up a yellow ball and dropping it outside the box. 

Ellie would repeat this procedure 122 more times until only one green ball remained in the box. She then carefully extricated herself from the box before reaching back in, grabbing the green ball and carefully depositing it on the floor. She followed that up by looking around the living room at the mass of balls surrounding her, laughing at the havoc she had wrought. Then, she crawled out of the living room towards the kitchen, likely on a mission to see what havoc she could cause next. In case you're wondering, I did not pick up the 125 balls. Instead, I waited until Bethany got and outsourced it to her.

I know it's pretty unlikely my baby has OCD. However, the patience and determination she showed in removing 125 balls from a box in one sitting cannot be underestimated. I guess if nothing else, Ellie just wanted to ensure that she had a clean box. After all, aren't boxes meant to be completely void of anything inside? Oh wait, they're not? Guess I need to communicate that to my daughter...#DaddyWrite

As long as Ellie's not doing this, I probably don't need to be concerned. Right?

Day 190 - Day 187 (Yes, the title is Day 187)

As Bethany would be more than happy to tell you, I often fail to properly read things before diving headfirst into a project. Now, I would hate for you to make the same mistake with this particular blog post. Therefore, I offer up the following important disclaimer for this particular edition of #DaddyWrite. 

You see, there are times where I simply don't have a whole heaping ton to write about for a certain day with Ellie. That's especially true in a week such as this when she's been super, mega grouchy more often than not. As a result, I find myself pulling from a past experience instead of just utilizing the current day. In addition, I find myself feeling unusually creative today. What to do, what to do? I guess I'll just be creative and work as many references to 'Back to the Future' as I can into this edition of #DaddyWrite. After all, that's the mature thing to do.

First of all, we must take ourselves back in time to Friday, June 7th. Hardly a date of cosmic significance. No, instead it marked another rite of passage for young Ellie; her first time garage saleing (and yes, I'm fully aware that saleing is not spelled like that). As Ellie grows, we become aware there are things here and there that would be handy to have for her. In this instance, I was specifically searching for an umbrella stroller, any age-appropriate toys she might like, and some good quality pajamas if available. So with that in mind, we set out through our neighborhood. You know, not in a DeLorean, but on foot with Ellie in her stroller.

It didn't take long for us to stumble across the first garage sale as it was only four or five doors down the street from our house. I will say that I vastly underestimated just how difficult it would be to get a stroller around the tiny walkways available at garage sales. I mean, it's not like I'm trying to acquire plutonium in 1985, but it is hard. It's especially more difficult once you consider Ellie's desire to reach and try to touch as much as possible. Luckily, we made like a leaf and got outta there without Ellie pulling anything off the tables. Even though we were unable to find anything on the list, I did procure three 1000-piece puzzles for the bank-breaking sum of $0.50. That's $0.40 to $0.44 higher than the cost of a Coke in 1955!

With that, Ellie and I set out to the second garage sale on our street. Despite the presence of a lot of kids' clothing and toys, I saw nothing that Ellie just had to have. Truth be told, Ellie probably would have enjoyed having anything she could have touched. As we left the garage sale, I was met with two choices. Either I could return home or Ellie and I could set out upon the road to see if we could discover any additional garage sales. Since it was a nice day (and the earth's gravitational pull wasn't making things too heavy), we set out down the road to see what we could find. Unfortunately for us, we wouldn't find any more garage sales along the way.

It's not to say it was all in vain though. I mean, I wouldn't want to set the time circuits and go back in time to keep us from going on said walk. A nice gooey cookie from Casey's paired with a Mello Yello will do that for you. I will say that I did feel a little bad eating the cookie in front of Ellie without sharing. Just a few more weeks though and she'll get her very own birthday cupcake. That'll be something worth writing about and possibly even worth filling up Mr. Fusion to go see.  

By the way, thanks for reading and indulging me in my little project to combat boredom. Hopefully it helped you combat some boredom as well. If not, well, I guess you need to get Doc Brown to help you with that...#DaddyWrite

A very pressing question indeed, Doc...

Day 188 - Positively Descending

Do you ever have one of those moments where you start to feel a little bad? Not sick or anything like that. Although, in case you didn't know, it is quite common for one to feel a little bad when they are sick. Consider that to be your two cents of wisdom for the day. Better yet, you got it for free! 

What I'm referring to is actually a story from my Life Group this past weekend. Someone talked about how they were making strides to find at least one thing to be thankful for every day. I found that convicting as it's super easy for my pessimistic/sarcastic side to keep me from being thankful. Therefore, I decided to set out on a mission to find at least one thing to be thankful for every day. I just didn't expect Ellie to make me work so hard for it.

I'm actually going to lead with a simple, undeniable fact. This fact is true no matter where you're at in life. Mondays are the worst. And by the worst, I mean the absolute worst. Now, as a stay-at-home dad, I'm not required to do the whole 9 to 5, get in a car and drive to the office, guard your eyes from the harsh office lights, and earn a paycheck kind of thing. However, I still do have a definitive end to my weekends. My weekend officially comes to an end each Monday morning around 7:00 am as I stand at the window, Ellie in my arms, waving goodbye to Bethany as she disappears down the road. I'm generally able to put Ellie down for her long morning nap shortly after Bethany leaves for work. That was not to be the case today. 

When I laid Ellie down in her crib and left the room, I did so without hearing a peep. In fact, I wouldn't hear a peep until 40 minutes later when I was treated to violent screams emanating from Ellie's room. As I bounded up the stairs to check on her, I was treated to an undeniably terrible smell before even opening the door. Knowing what awaited me, I opened the door and lifted my screaming baby out of her crib. I then went to the changing table, laid her down, and changed what may be the smelliest diaper of all time. After that, I made the attempt to put her down and left the room. Alas, Ellie returning to sleep was not to be. She would actually only sleep a total of one hour for the remainder of the day. A side-effect of Ellie's lack of adequate rest is that I would find myself treated to a endless array of screaming and whining as the day progressed. 

I have a dream. Someday I can tell Ellie to "Stop Screaming!" and low and behold, she'll actually stop screaming. I know that it's likely a pipe dream, but don't take away my hope. (Yay for the longest caption ever!)

Don't worry, I promised I would find a positive in my day and I hate to lie to lie to you, my readers. The lone positive in my day is that Ellie finally learned to go down the stairs on her own. Well, sort of on her own. Also, I know what you're thinking; "Didn't she already learn to fall down the stairs successfully?" Well, that is accurate, but this time she actually made it down them without falling. As I placed her on the top step, facing upwards, Ellie began to gradually shuffle backwards. Step-by-step, she would head down, gingerly sliding down the steps, one knee at a time. Before she knew it, she had reached the bottom. Then, she scampered back to the top to practice her new trick again and again.

Never call it a trick...

See, I did find something positive in a day of screaming and whining (which may or may not have come from both of us). The challenge is actually going to be me keeping this up. Especially when you consider Ellie's not going to descend stairs for the first time every day. Although to her, the next time will probably feel just like the first. Yay for still-developing memories! #DaddyWrite