Day 211 - The Tooth Hurts

Sometimes I love just how differently Bethany and I can view Ellie.

You need evidence? I'll give you evidence. Case in point.

Bethany: I love Eleanor.

Jesse: Why do you love Eleanor?

Bethany: She's just so happy and smiley all of the time.

Jesse: Do you have any evidence to support your claim? I kind of disagree with your statement.

I'm not saying that I don't love my daughter because we all know that's not true. Instead, I'm just saying that Ellie can be and is kind of a handful. At least she is for me. The moment that Bethany walks in that door, Ellie immediately changes into the perfect child. In fact, that has never been more prevalent than this week.

If I come across as slightly on edge, I'm sorry. It's just that Ellie's teething right now. I know that this is something that most kids that are Ellie's age have already gone through. However, we're still waiting on that first tooth to completely arrive. There's been a multitude of false alarms but I think it's finally happening. If I needed confirmation, the tiny patch of white on her bottom gum should be sufficient to confirm it.  

It's funny. Until this tooth began to poke through on Ellie's gum, I never realized just how sharp a baby  tooth could be. I seriously think that Sammy, my cat I had when growing up, has teeth that are less sharp than what Ellie is sporting right now. Now, of course, if my only complaint about Ellie teething were the bite marks all over my nose, ears, fingers, and anything else she can chew on, I'd be doing well. Unfortunately, the biggest issue I have with Ellie's teething is more due to her attitude.

Obviously, I don't have a ton of experience with children that are teething so I'm not sure what's normal and what's not. All I know is that my daughter is not a pleasant human being to be around right now. Her days between the hours of 7 am and 5 pm are basically dominated by epic screaming fits, refusals to get ample sleep, and today, a refusal to even eat. 

Now, I'm willing to be patient with Ellie. In fact, I'd love to just sit and hold her and let her know it's all going to be ok. Unfortunately for me, Ellie's busy nature keeps me from doing just that. The moment I try to hold her, Ellie begins to wriggle, cry, scratch, claw, and scream until she finally gets loose of my grasp. Keeping that in mind, I've had to find ways to distract Ellie during the day. Luckily, Ellie made sure to tell me what she wanted in her own particular way. 

With the high temperatures this week, Ellie and I have basically kept to the basement of our house. Not only is it the coolest room in the house but it has plenty to keep both of us occupied. For example, I can watch television while Ellie happily gazes out the floor-ceiling windows. Normally, she's perfectly content just doing that for hours on end. That was not to be the case today though. From the time Ellie started looking out the window, she stood and beat on the glass while screaming with great intensity. I tried to pull her away and distract her several times, but it just ended up being in vain.

Finally, I decided to just try taking Ellie outside to her new swing on our covered deck. As I strapped her in and began pushing, I was shocked to see the sudden change in Ellie's demeanor. She was smiling and even laughing as I pushed her higher and higher. It was unfortunate that we couldn't really stay outside for longer due to the warm temperatures. However, Ellie did get to go outside later on in the day to hang out in her swimming pool for about 40 minutes. She probably could have stayed even longer, but I just got tired of chasing balls down our driveway just to return them to the pool so we could start that process all over again. 

I'm hopeful that Ellie's easy-going personality will return soon. However, until it does I guess I'm destined to undergo mental and emotional anguish at the hands of my one-year old while counting down the days until the weekend. Whoever would have thunk it? A stay-at-home dad actively counting down the days until Saturday. That's probably normal though, right? #DaddyWrite

Day 210 - My Daughter, The Cow

Ok, maybe this isn't the best title for a blog. In fact, the more I think about it, it's pretty heinous. If I've learned anything in life, it's that you never call a woman of any age a cow. However, I've already typed it out and I don't really want to hit the backspace key. I mean, that's some unnecessary key pressing that doesn't particularly need to occur. Especially when you consider Ellie's lack of reading ability. By the time she's actually able to read this and comprehend it, maybe she'll also be old enough to comprehend her father's weird sense of humor. 

I should probably provide a tiny bit of background as to why I'm referring to nice, little Ellie as a cow. It's not because she's big because we all know that's not the case. That being said, there are certainly times that she eats like a cow. The girl certainly loves her food and her milk. Instead, I can thank Chick-Fil-A for me calling Ellie a cow. You see, today was Cow Appreciation Day and Chick-Fil-A celebrates in a very unique fashion. If you come into the restaurant dressed like a Holstein cow (like the ones in their advertisements), you receive a free meal for having done so. 

So, when you take all of that into account, it's a given I was going to take advantage of free chicken for Ellie. Now, keep in mind, that people normally don't have Holstein cow attire easily on hand. Luckily, we did have some clothes that would work. Between a pair of cow-print pants from our most recent batch of hand-me-downs and an unbuttoned three-to-six month onesie with a  homemade cow's head on the front, Ellie was looking pretty cute if I don't say so myself. So with that, I loaded my daughter up and headed to Chick-Fil-A.

Who's a good moo cow? Who's a good moo cow? Ellie's a good moo cow!

Something that I have noticed is that Chick-Fil-A has to be the unofficial eating establishment of stay-at-home moms all over the KC Metro area. Keeping that in mind, I decided to beat the rush by showing up around 10:30 to take advantage of the free meal. As we reached the restaurant, imagine my surprise when the place was already looking pretty full. After placing our order, I happily found a table alongside the window, but could not procure a high chair for Ellie. It was for the best though as I had forgotten both Ellie's bib and cup so it was slightly easier for me to feed her myself. Once our meals arrived, I slowly fed Ellie a healthy portion of nuggets and her fruit cup (keeping the apples for myself of course since she can't chew them) while trying to grab occasional bites of my sandwich for myself.

I say slowly because there was certainly plenty to distract Ellie on a day such as today. First and foremost would be the iconic Chick-Fil-A cow who was wandering around the premises greeting visitors. In fact, every time he walked by our table, "Eat Mor Chikin" sign hanging around his neck, Ellie immediately stopped whatever she was doing to stare at her new bovine friend. Couple that with about 15 kids wearing white trash bags with spots drawn in Sharpie and that one elderly couple with pictures of cows taped to their foreheads and you can tell that Ellie was easily doing more watching than eating.

Honestly, I love days like this. I think it's fun to go on weird little outings like this with Ellie. I know she'll never remember them but I should remember at least a few of them. I just found myself with one lone regret from the day; I didn't manage to get a photo op of Ellie and the cow enjoying chicken together. Does my failure to get a photo of a stranger in a cow costume holding my baby girl mean I'm failing as a parent? Probably does. #DaddyWrite

Ok, I lied. Look closely and you can see Ellie staring out the window happily watching the cow jump.

Day 208 - Nothing Like Going Back for Seconds...

As a stay-at-home parent, I've learned that there are certain days now and then where nothing of note happens during the day. That can be the case for various reasons. Maybe someone wants to give their child a rest after they had an exceptionally busy day yesterday. Maybe it's a rare day without any responsibilities to take care of or errands to be run. Or maybe, just maybe, a certain parent who will remain nameless decided their time was best spent typing #VoteMoose over and over again on Twitter. 

So, would that make me a Moose-itarian? Maybe a Moose-ican or a Moose-crat?

Regardless of which one of those you think is to blame for the slow day (probably option #3), the truth remains that there really isn't any story from today that bears telling. Therefore, I find it prudent to dive into my bag of stockpiled stories to find something special. **Insert Rummaging Sound Here** 

It's no shocker or great surprise by now that Ellie really enjoys her food.  She basically eats anything we put in front of her at this point. If Bethany or I are enjoying a snack, Ellie will stand at our feet, whimpering and begging until we finally throw her a scrap of some kind. It honestly doesn't matter when the last time she ate is. If food is present, she wants it. Seriously, we even have to sweep the floor daily to keep her from eating crumbs from the last meal. 

I feel like all of those things are probably normal for a one year old. At least, I really hope they are. However, I'm relatively certain this next activity isn't something that is normal for any child to engage in. Allow me to set the scene. The date in question? Wednesday, July 5th. Of course, I should probably lead with a disclaimer; this story is actually pretty gross.

We were preparing to head out on our adventures for the day with Ellie, but first, I decided a quick diaper change was necessary. Taking her to her room, I tossed her down on the changing table like normal and removed her pajamas to get to the diaper. I then open the diaper to find it contains a veritable confetti including whole chunks of corn and carrots. Now, I know that's a pretty normal thing to find in a baby's diaper. Especially if you consider said baby still lacks teeth. Stay with me here, this is where things get weird.

Lately, Ellie's been interested in confirming that she is still a little girl during diaper changes. Yeah, I hate it and think it's pretty nasty but I know it's normal. Therefore, I don't really do much about it. That's especially true when I have her rapidly moving feet to deal with already. So, while I'm holding her legs and cleaning her off, I didn't pay any attention to Ellie sneaking her hand down to her nether regions. Nor did I notice her pluck a sizeable chunk of carrot off of her diaper. I'm sad to say, I also didn't notice her lifting said chunk of carrot to her mouth.

By this point, you're wondering two things. Number one, does he notice anything and number two, is this going where I think it is? The answer is yes, this is going exactly where you think it's going. At this point, I finally noticed Ellie with her hand in her mouth chewing on something. With great trepidation, I nervously move her hand away. I peer in just in time to see a chunk of carrot slide down her tongue and disappear down her throat with a gulp. Ellie must have seen the look of sheer disgust and mortification on my face at this point because she happily looked up at me with the biggest, poop-eating grin imaginable.

So, as you can see, Ellie certainly does like to eat. However, I really thought there were some limits as to what she would try to eat. Now I know that there are indeed no limits imaginable. My child will eat anything and everything, including her own feces. Good work baby. 

To future Ellie, you better hope that your future boyfriends don't read this blog post. Or maybe if I don't like the guy, then I will show him this blog post. It's always nice to have an ace in the hole. #DaddyWrite

Wrong kind of Ace...

Day 207 - But I Wanna Touch the Moose...

Technical difficulties are the absolute worst when one is trying to write. 

I sat down yesterday with the expectation of composing an epic opus declaring the adventures of Day 207. However, I found myself thwarted at the hands of the dastardly Windows 10 security update. Normally, security updates take a whole two to five minutes to deal with. Well, that wasn't the case with this one in particular as the update began (by accident) at 9:30 pm and was still running around 10:45 pm. Ugh. 

Therefore, it goes without saying that my epic opus reliving the events of Wednesday had to be put on hold until today. Well, wait no longer because I proudly present to you, Day 207!

I think it's a significant possibility that sweet Ellie is completely exhausted. Of course, I don't think I could blame her. She's had an exciting couple of days between the Fourth of July and then getting to spend the entire day with her Uncle Ryan the next day. 

Honestly, I love hanging out with my brother-in-law but I found myself slightly concerned about doing so alone for the whole day. It's not for the reason you think though. He and I have spent plenty of time together before. We even traveled to San Francisco without Bethany! Instead, I was worried that he would get really bored just sitting around with me and Ellie for the day. I say that because, well, because it can be really boring to sit around the house with an infant all day. That's especially true during Ellie's naps since a person really can't make any noise with living in fear of waking her.

So, to set the stage, we find ourselves sitting around quietly until Ellie wakes up, actively brainstorming things we can do for the day. Finally, we settle on driving out to Overland Park in an attempt to find a radio station I had won something from. And yes, this is a different radio station than I normally win things from. Therefore, once Ellie awoke from her slumber, we stuffed her in the car seat and set off on what we anticipated would be a short, little adventure. In fact, I expected it to be so short I didn't even pack Ellie's diaper bag.

Once we finally found the radio station and retrieved my prize ($25 gift card to Jazz if you're interested), we hopped back in the car to head home. At this point, Ryan asked exactly how close we were to Bethany's office because he was a little curious to see it. Since we had nothing else to do on the schedule, instead of heading home, I pointed the car towards the Legends district and Bethany's office. 

When looking at the clock on the way, I came up with the bright idea of picking Bethany up for lunch so the three of us (four if you count Ellie) could eat together. For that to happen though, we had to first kill a little bit of time. Ryan actually came up with the idea of going to Cabela's to see the stuffed animals and what an idea it was! Ellie actually loved it so much that she tried to wriggle loose every time we got close to a display due to her overwhelming desire to touch the animals. She even let her uncle carry her throughout most of the store to boot!

Baby and a moose...

Once Bethany was free, we picked her up and headed to Pepperjax Grill for some food. It was actually really funny to see Ellie's face as Bethany hopped in the back seat next to her change from one of confusion to one of pure excitement. After finishing our lunch and returning Bethany to her place of employment, I gave Ryan a quick driving tour of the Legends district before heading home for Ellie's naptime. By the time our adventure was done, what I thought would be an hour trek turned into a three hour detour. That was just fine with me though.

We weren't quite done with our adventures for the day yet though. Once Ellie awoke from her afternoon nap, Ryan and I loaded her up in the stroller for a trip to the park. It was nice because I just kind of sat back and relaxed while we were there as Uncle Ryan enjoyed some bonding time with his only niece. I didn't even have to push the stroller! 

Aww...

As a whole, I feel like the experience of hanging out with a guy besides me was really good for Ellie as she's been hesitant to interact with men lately. Even her "Uncle" Malachi and both grandfathers have been no exception to this. Hopefully she's finally coming out of her weird little shell now. Who knew that all it would take was a visit from her Uncle Ryan. #DaddyWrite