Raising Daddy

• 16Jul

  This kid is tough stuff

  6 to 12 Months No Comments

  A few weeks ago my babysitter decided to go on vacation. While her family was off somewhere where the sun shines bright, there is always a salty breeze in your face and girls walk around in bikinis I got to take the week off and tend to the baby. I was officially taking a staycation. In the few weeks leading up to my staycation, I actually anticipated having the time off. In the three years since I’ve been out of college, I have never taken a full week off.

  I also decided to take a few days that week and have the inside of the house painted. It turns out that even when hiring people to paint for you, painting the inside of your home is one of the single most stressful jobs you can undertake. All furniture has to be stacked in the center of the rooms, and everything was ripped from the walls. Window treatments that nearly drove you to insanity the first time you hung them are now being taken down and will soon be hung all over again. Shelves and pictures that you spent hours aligning and leveling once already are being removed and soon enough will also have to be remounted on the walls. It’s a horrible ordeal.

  Then there was Lainey. Lainey is used to spending all day with other little critters just like her. There is always someone’s hair to pull, a toy to steal or a hand to gnaw on when Lainey is at the sitters. Sadly, I’m just not that entertaining and being at home with dad all day must be a horrible drag for her.

  All week I watched Lainey weasel her way into anything that could burn, cut, smother, poison, crush, mash, choke, electrocute or completely obliterate her. That week I watched her get stuck inside our TV stand and get lost behind the couch. I freaked out as she took a few tumbles off the bed, chomped on a mangled beetle she found on the floor next to the washer and sucked on the shoelaces of my stinky tennis shoes.

  Lainey has so much energy that no one seems to be able to keep up with her. Her own grandparents seem hesitant to watch her at times. My wife has always marveled at the unparalleled amount of energy I have, but my child has me beat. I have no problem grabbing five hours of sleep a night, getting up bright and early and working the day away, but this kid even wipes me out. I need a vacation from my baby. Thank God I’m back at work.

  Check out these pics of Lainey playing with sharp things near poisons, sucking on a video game and struggling with all her might to get to heavy things that could smash her bundled in plastic bags that could smother her!

  

• 13Jul

  Chocolate Cake

  6 to 12 Months No Comments

  This past weekend marked my nieces fifth birthday and Lainey’s first taste of chocolate cake. As you would guess, it was a horrible mess. Sara plans on letting Lainey dig into a big cake of her own on her first birthday; I say no way. I’m not wasting an entire, delicious cake on that little squirt.
  

  Check out the picasa album.

• 05Jun

  Throwing Fits

  6 to 12 Months 1 Comment
  

  Mesmerized by the Lion King

  I am sitting here now, watching Lainey pitch the most insane little fit I have ever seen a person as tiny as her pitch. This is all new to me. A few weeks ago she only had a few emotions, now we see a few new ones come into bloom every couple days.

  During her fits she poofs her cheeks out, her face turns red and she snorts, huffing and puffing in and out, over and over. Her big, inflated baby head on her tiny body reminds me of an angry looking Buddha. I have to do a quick Google image search and see if I can find a pic of one, if such a thing exists! IT DOES!

  I have the day off today. It’s Friday which is normally the highlight of my week. Normally I would be having the time of my life but today was not a willing day off. I had to call out to cover for my sick baby sitter. Lainey refuses to eat, has decided she is too grouchy to nap and nothing is satisfying the little nerd. All she wants to do is grab the laptop, gnaw on the edges of it and smash the keys.

  If only there was something I could do to passify her…wait! DISNEY! All kids love Disney movies. It’s universal. Even I love Disney movies, minus the really old boring ones with too much singing. I have been ripping kid’s movie to my PC since before Lainey was born. When most father’s learn they are having a kid they think about creating savings accounts for college or making room for a nursery; but my first though was, “I’m going to need more HDD storage, we have to borrow and steal every Disney movie we can get our hands on and we’re gonna have to run Ethernet to another part of the house so I can move my computer to another room.”

  It’s a good thing I did all that preparation because it’s about to save me from insanity. I flick on my home theater PC and queue up the network folder where dozens of wonderful children’s movies live. Hmm…. What to watch.

  “What do you want to watch Lainey?”

  Lainey looks back at me, screams, cries some more then poofs her cheeks out at me.

  “Lion King it is. Hakuna matata!”

  And to my delight, the Disney effect immediately takes hold! From the instant those bold red letters spelling out “The Lion King” fill the black screen and the movie starts, Lainey is instantly glued to the TV. She rolls over in her walker and takes a front row seat for the show. Boy do I love this movie. I remember going to see it with my Aunt Tammy during the summer between 5th and 6th grade. That was 16 years ago and the movie has not aged a bit.

  God, I am getting old.

  
• 28May

  Almost time to childproof

  The First Six Months 1 Comment
  

  Almost Crawling!

  This morning I witnessed something that I have been warned is coming. As I munched on an unsatisfying breakfast of stale toast slathered in margarine, I watched Lainey scoot right over to the entertainment center in her walker and proceed to knock my video games off the lower shelf, one by one. She swatted wildly at the cases, hoping to get a good grip on just one so that she could cover it in slobber. I immediately started looking around and realized that in a few short months, I was going to have to change quite a few things around the house.

  Not too long ago, it was safe to leave Lainey alone for a moment. Now, even though she isn’t quite crawling, she still finds a way to move around. She uses a clever little routine where she thrusts back and forth, pumping her legs like she’s trying to gain momentum, then finally she bursts forward, a few inches at a time. Then she counters that little move with a flop onto her back and another roll over onto her stomach. Each time she moves maybe a foot in whatever direction.

  Now that she is somewhat mobile, I have really started to pay attention to all the things I have lying around the house that can kill her. Step ladders, metal decorations on low lying shelves, electrical sockets and chemicals… It’s pretty annoying to think that I have to either find new places for all our stuff or lock it all up one way or the other. It is fun to see her learning new tricks and getting bigger though. Before I know it she’ll be walking and back talking. Good times.

  Here’s a nice video of Lainey performing some of those moves I mentioned above:

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