If At First You Don't Succeed, You'll Have a Mess to Clean

"No, I will not 'smile for the camera,' daddy. That trick is so last month."

We've decided to jump into the next step when it comes to feeding the little one and are trying to have her feed herself!

Are we early for that? Late? Should we hand feed her for the rest of her life and never teach her how to use utensils?

I have no idea except that I'm pretty sure that last one is not an option. Pretty sure.

So far we've taught her that once food is on the spoon or fork she can help us guide it into her mouth. She will sometimes try to guide it into her hair or lap but mostly she's gotten this whole "food goes into the mouth" thing.

What we haven't been able to teach her (yet) is that if we hand her the spoon and put the suction-cupped bowl on her tray, she should eat the food from the bowl using the spoon. I am fairly certain that at this point she believes that handing her the spoon with the food means that she should fling the food at the cat, via some catapult-like spoon maneuvers, then put the spoon down and eat the remaining food with her fingers.

The cats are unsure whether to be happy or upset. It often seems to depend on what we're trying to feed Lois. Bacon or ham products are a happy occurrence, whereas oatmeal seems to be a bit of a downer.

Actually, as the one who cleans it up? I agree with the cats.

When The Baby Sleeps

Today was a normal day at the beginning. Begrudgingly getting up. Some coffee for Laura, some breakfast for Lois, and me sitting in the chair going "Blergh."

Eventually Laura went to work. Lois lay down for a nap. And I came to life.

It started out pretty normal. I wanted to take a picture for my Green Mountain Coffee BzzCampaign and I thought that a picture of me balancing a hot cup of coffee on my head while juggling would suffice. As you do.

I thought the photo was kind of funny so after sending it off through the series of tubes that is the internet I posted it up on Facebook, labeling it "What I do when Laura is at work and Lois is asleep.*"

Laura wrote back "Well done. Now balance a second cup on the first one and do it again."

Because that's difficult?

Not content with me showing off my awesomeness, instead of praising me she responded "Now do it on one foot."

Thank you very much.




















Now if you'll just pardon me, the sound of coffee cups crashing to the floor seems to have woken the baby.






*Let's pretend this label is less accurate than it actually is, okay?

Zombies vs. Toddlers by ChaosLife

I Have Some Great Friends

Click to make bigger and read. I have great friends.

As you may or may not know, I have officially adopted my little girl and have legal papers that name me daddy.

This doesn't change anything at all except from a legal standpoint, which is a huge change all at the same time.

We had a party over the weekend with some of our closest friends to celebrate and I was surprised to see that they had shown up with presents.

Lois notices the important thing in the room; the camera.

They all laughed at me when I said that I was disappointed most of the presents were for Lois. I forgot the most important thing of being a parent: even if it's MY party, everyone's actually here for the baby.

I forgot that I am no longer a singular entity, I am a dad. It is always all about her.

And that's pretty great, really. She deserves the world.

Plus, my friends don't know my size at ALL.

Suddenly I Feel A Bit Better

It's not often that I just link to something written by someone else but today I'm going to do just that. Take a moment and feel better, my friends and inexperienced parents.

Duh!

Well, of course the first thing I did was grab my camera:

Babies are miniature parkour artists.

Happy (Early) Halloween!

She dragged that inflatable cat around for about an hour.

I'm writing this post last night.

Well, from your perspective I'm writing it last night. From mine I'm writing it right now.

Let's just call it a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff and move on with it, okay?

Okay.

We went to a Romp 'n Roll celebration tonight* and bought our little miss a pretty Minnie dress. It came without the ears but I doubt those would have stayed on longer than thirty seconds anyway so that's okay.

The gym was absolutely packed full. Children running everywhere, parents trying in vain to keep up, or giving up completely and slumping against the walls in defeat. My little girl ran around the room, pursued by me, Auntie Amanda, and mommy while she dodged in and out of the (literally) barrels of children (at one point she was run over by a soft barrel that had a child in it and one pushing it so I'm allowed to say "literally") without getting a scratch or bump on her**.

Lois and her favorite Auntie Amanda.

She was so exhausted after an hour and a half of frantic play that we got home, had a small dinner, a short bath, and then she fell asleep on her Auntie Amanda on the couch at 7pm (a full hour before bed time!), causing Auntie Amanda  to have a late dessert because she couldn't bear to put the cuteness to bed.

Mommy must have gotten pretty tired too because she just went to bed (remember, I'm writing this right now, which is last night to you) at 8:30! It was pretty hot in there with all those people so it probably sapped the energy right out of both of them!

Perfectly timed shot of my ladies.

Then again, as shown in the picture to the left, today has kind of been a lazy Sunday. I think the only reason we got Lois into any kind of non-pajamas outfit was because we had to go out into public.

Is that bad? I mean, personally I feel okay not necessarily getting Lois all dressed up in day clothes when we're just chilling at home and nothing big is going on. She's warm and comfy in her PJ's, so I just let her keep them on some days.

If we're going out though, I dress her. We all know that daddy gets comments from strangers if he doesn't make sure his daughter is well-dressed when we go out. Comments like "Mommy must have been tired this morning to let daddy take you out like that, huh little sweetie?"

Have you ever had to remind yourself that it's not okay to shout at old ladies in the grocery store? Is that normal?

*Last night.
** Not counting the bump that's on her.