A step in a direction toward organized

I'm the first to admit that I'm not the most organized person there is. But, I LOVE feeling organized, I just don't know if I've ever actually been.

This is a problem when you are a domestic executive.

There's no one keeping your schedule. There is no one checking in to make sure you clean and cook and laundry and do all the things that should be done, meanwhile keeping the child stimulated. For the folk who know how to do this, you're my inspiration.

I recently read a book titled "Sidetracked Home Executives." This was written in the mid-seventies by two sidetracked sisters about a card filing system that tracks your daily, weekly, monthly, etc. tasks. It sounded like a neat system, but let's be honest; I'm not organized enough to develop some kind of filing system.

The part of the book I really liked was a list of habits they created. It was decided that if you do something 21 days in a row, you can consider it a habit, so they tried to develop productive habits. A few that resonated with me:

1) Close cupboards, shelves and drawers before leaving a room.
2) Pick it up, don't pass it up
3) Put away your food makings before sitting down to eat.
4) Review tasks for tomorrow the night before.

In our time of transition between my wife's jobs, we have been living at my parents house. I've done my best to implement these habits even though it's not my house and guess what, I feel there is a certain appreciation for having a relatively tidy place with a two year old running around.

If you feel the need to read a really old and slightly outdated book, I highly recommend seeking inspiration with "Sidetracked Home Executives."

Newfound jungle gym

Let me start by saying that there's most likely loads of people who will disagree with my new and exciting toy for my daughter. Let me assure all you nay-sayers, I could give a crap about you and whatever you say nay to. Kisses.

With that, I have a fun and exciting new jungle gym for my daughter; our car. A new routine I've established in our day is I drive my wife to work and come home (we have one car, so this kind of makes sense). Once I park, I turn off the engine and take the keys out of the ignition (a very important step). However, the car keeps the radio and most of the electronics going until I open a door.

So instead, I reach back and unhook my daughter from her carseat and then climb into the passenger seat. She then proceeds to climb from the back into the driver's seat, and while she explores the exciting world of "driving", I sip my coffee and listen to NPR. It is great.

After about 8 minutes, the electronics shut off, and that is more or less our cue to get out and do something different. It's a fantastic routine.

The one downside: whenever my daughter sees our car, she wants to play in it desperately. "Cah!" she screams whenever we're near. Quite cute, but unfortunate that we have to limit that special playtime.

What isn't to love about staying home?

I'm going to mention a few taboo thoughts I've had in regard to being a stay at home dad. Whether this applies to similar thoughts that moms have, or other dads, that really isn't my call. I'm just calling it as I see it in my own life. 

First, staying at home is lonely. For a guy whose major hobbies are playing guitar and writing poems, there aren't people knocking down my door to go out on the town. Besides that, my daughter does not prefer going to loud, busy places. Let me rephrase that; I don't like taking my daughter to crowded, loud and obnoxious places. Social interaction based on my choice of hobby is limited.

Next, when you live in a more conservative town, it seems that there aren't as many stay-at-home dads, nor groups for dads. This is probably more related to my own social network, or significant lack thereof, but of the parenting groups I've come across, they are specifically called "mom's groups". This is pretty dejecting. I won't say that I've ever been turned down from joining a mom's group because I've never even tried to join one. Quite frankly, I'm not particularly interested in hanging out with a bunch of moms all day. I mean let's be honest, though I'm extremely involved in my daughter's life, I'm not interested in "mom talk". 

This next item obviously will vary from family to family, but during the day, I'm the parent which means that I'm the one who says "no" all day, and redirects, and cooks and plays and walks and whatever else we do all day long. Unfortunately, I'm not mom. So when mom comes home from work, our daughter immediately abandons my umbrella of authority, and becomes mommy's girl. I can hardly complain about this because it gives me a break I've craved all day, but I can't help throwing myself a pity party in the corner as my daughter has apparently forgotten about me. I probably shouldn't complain about this, but part of me can't help wondering what it is about mom that dad can never fulfill. If she stayed at home and I was gone all day, I doubt the roles would reverse. She would greet me when I got home, but still be mommy's girl. It's not a competition, but I can't help wondering how to compete at times. 

The final item on today's list is when I recap daily activities with mom once she gets home. When my daughter and I go out to play, I am pretty over-protective; I'm not embarrassed to admit it because I'm constantly swirling around her as we walk, and anyone can clearly see I have apron string issues. But still, I manage to put my child in some kind of danger that I am completely oblivious to. So when my wife comes home and I tell her what we did, what seems like 75% of the time, my wife will express "YOU DID WHAT?!?" and proceed to tell me how bad of a decision I made that day. In general, she's right, and up until that point, I thought we had a pretty nice and safe day. Silly me. I'm apparently not as protective as I thought.

Today being a rant day, I want to conclude by expressing how incredibly grateful I am to have the opportunity to be able to watch my toddler grow before my eyes. But to anyone out there who envies my situation, you should know that poop is just as stinky on this side of the fence. 

Hiding yuckies in the yummies

My daughter is not a fan of "green" food. That means everything except boogers, which she's apparently taken a liking to.

The one green I can sometimes hide is spinach, which I literally hide in everything possible. Pasta, oatmeal, pancakes, tacos. Cauliflower is the other saving grace because it's a white vegetable. How cool. Thanks Mother nature.

Today's success was cauliflower in a cheese quesadilla. I use the boil, mash and ice-cubify cauliflower so that it's available to throw into anything. I thawed out two cubes, and spread it on the quesadilla, quickly covering it with cheese. To push my luck, I put two slices of avocado on top of the plate, which were immediately "discarded" or hucked across the room.

Short summary, hidden veggies are the only way my kid eats veggies. Therefore I hide yuckies in the yummies.

My stance on staying home

I'm going to confess something. I thought it would be fun to start a blog about being a stay-at-home dad. I thought this for a few reasons. First, to share the various exploits of staying at home with a little one. But second and more selfishly, to see if enough people were interested in my life to actually help pay some of our bills.

Shameless, really.

But what's funny is that there are many, many "stay-at-home" dad blogs that are wildly successful, and they go against something that I feel strongly about: offering parenting advice.

I personally despise anyone offering tips on how to be a better parent. Thanks for your help, but it's more appreciated when I ask for it. I'm not afraid to ask for advice, but I'm not willing to listen to unsolicited advice.

Is that selfish?

Yes.

But I dare any parent to gratefully and graciously listen to nosey-nelly's great advice. It's 99% of the time not appreciated when it's unsolicited.

I'm ranting for no reason. Circle back to point.

Parenting blogs tend to do this whole "this is what I do and how it's great and you should do it too." That's nice, except don't tell me my business.

I don't feel comfortable telling people what they should do, but rather share what I do. Therefore, I'm not a successful blogger.

That, and I post one thing a month or so. That's probably my bigger downfall.

Speaking of awesome things, my daughter is great. I'm going to spend all day with her, which is probably the best thing there ever was.

That's my random thought of the day.

Sick Daze

Living in Virginia this past year, it's been sad to be removed from our families located on the west coast. Though Skype and other face to face conversations keeps our daughter aware of other people, it does not provide the same experience you have when you actually play with other kids. So we were really excited to come visit the families in conjunction with my wife graduating from her doctorate program.

To summarize the trip in a nutshell, we saw all of our immediate families, and a handful of other folk in a whirl-wind of hand shakes, hugs, cake and coffee. Before we knew it, we were on a five AM flight back to Virginia. It was a Monday.

That is about when it began. 

Sometimes when I wake up early, I may get a little nauseous, especially if I try eating something and then get hurtled 30,000 feet up into the air. Whatever the reason was, somewhere over Nebraska, I was gripping my barf bag, praying to God that I didn't lose whatever I put in me yesterday.

Fortunately I left the plane more or less the same weight as when I started. After roughly 12 hours of planes, buses and automobiles, we made it home and went to bed. 

It was around 1 AM when my daughter threw up all over her bed. We didn't sleep that night.

We thanked or lucky stars that my wife had requested the following day off to get adjusted to the time change, unpack, etc. But instead of having a productive day back, we all slept. That's how we spent Tuesday.

Wednesday, Nicole went back to work. She did fantastic. We were all feeling better and had rather productive days, though we were dragging a little, easily explained by the two previous days of limited activity. However, around 4 o'clock that afternoon, I got an urgent phone call: "Come pick me up, I'm on the verge of being sick." I rushed to the hospital, where my wife happens to work, and brought her home where she spent the next six hours intermittently asleep on the bathroom floor. We finally managed to transfer her to the couch around 10 that night. 

Three hours later, I took her place. It was about 6AM on Thursday when we all stopped expelling fluids. The rest of the day was devoted to sleep.

We awoke on Friday, alive. Thank the Lord. Nicole went to work, I cleaned the house, and Michelle terrorized the dog. It was practically a normal day, we just had difficulty figuring out what day it actually was. 

In summary, I have no regrets visiting my family, but sometimes there are unsaid perks to using Skype and Facetime, whether your 3,000 miles away, or 30. 

Love you guys.

Blood sugar, and its effect on the day

My daughter, like the majority of two year olds, is particular about what she eats. This little girl does not prefer to put anything in her mouth that is green. It can't be messy. It is best if it's plain. It's best if it's cold. It's best if it's exactly what she wants at the moment she wants it. Typically, the result is "nana", cottage cheese or just plain bread.

As our day progresses, I watch how much she eats, or rather how little. The child has ample opportunity to eat, but I am also stubborn when it comes to feeding her more than seven bananas in one day. After her nap, and after playing outside for a while, I always come in to start making dinner and she has her meltdown.

Ah the meltdown. This is where she screams, hits, suggests eating candy or any other garbage she can find, but when I simply say "not now, we're making dinner," she collapses on the floor in a rage.

My wife and I have concluded that this is her blood sugar crash. The amazing thing is that as soon as I find something that she is willing to eat, she becomes the sweetest thing I've ever seen.

So domestic dad finding of the day: blood sugar influences the quality of your day. If you are the kind of person who gets crabby when you are hungry, your child will become a nightmare until you fix it.

Today's solution was a scrambled egg. I'm going to take a moment to tell you how to make a perfect scrambled egg.

For a two year old, I like to add a dash of salt, pepper and garlic powder. Eggs without those three ingredients aren't worth eating.

For my wife, I add chili powder, and green onion. Cook to perfection.

That's all.

Holding back and packing up

I'm sure that my wife and I have held each other back from making the most and best out of our lives at some point in time. We have been together for over 12 years. Today though is the first time I feel that I've made her turn down a big opportunity because it wasn't right for our family and mainly for me.

Today is the day she matches for a post-doctoral position to finish up getting her license, and she turned down the job offered to her in Virginia plain and simply because as a family, I felt it best we move back to Oregon.

This is a terribly awful situation for me because I feel responsible for shooting down her goals and dreams for my own selfish reasons. Whether that logic is true or not, it's how I feel right now.

The worst part of the entire situation is that we don't exactly have a job in Oregon. We simply are hoping something will come about in the next few months. Meanwhile, we need to pack our stuff in anticipation of moving back across the country.

sigh.

Don't know what else to say.

Bi-polar day

I woke up this morning with the sun shining in through the window, and the smell of coffee in the air. I climbed out of bed, poured a cup of Joe, walked the dog and breathed in the crisp spring air. Ah! Nice way to start the day. We walked around the block and decided to head back to the apartment.

I came back inside and the baby was running around naked, soaking wet, and stopped to play in the dog food. Then my wife came racing out of the bedroom, "I'm running late for work!" I frantically threw a cookie at the dog, tossed the baby in front of "Cat in the Hat", tossed a PBJ sandwich and apple in my wife's lunch bag, and then we all raced out the door to drop her off at work on time.

I then walked in the door for the second time that morning to a quiet house. Messy, but quiet. The baby went to her corner to play with her toys, and I proceeded my morning routine. 

My day is bi-polar. 

Saying goodbye

Today sucks. Our dog, Sophie, recently became very sick, and after several days' discussion, my wife and I decided it best that we put her down. The decision was extremely difficult for us, but we felt it was the best decision for everyone. It's been a very difficult day. Sophie was our rescue dog that we adopted five years ago when she was four. She literally doubled in size her first year with us. She groaned deeply when you rubbed her ears, she breathed heavily, pushed her body up against you, stuck her enormous nose in your face, and all in all had an amazing personality. By no means was she an "easy" dog, but she was so friendly, and quick to make people fall in love with her. She was our little bird brain, old man, rock star. 

 


Nicole and I both wanted to be there for her in the vet's office, which meant that we had to have the baby with us too. We brought our backpack and had her sit in there while everything happened. Exposing our daughter to the circle of life at 20 months hopefully won't screw her up forever. We told her Sophie was going to sleep, and to say goodbye. We left the room and Michelle looked at her, waved and said "Bah Bah". 

Tough times. 

Keeping a clean house

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a tidy person. Though if you give anyone who knows me a chance to say it, there would be a race between who says it first.

Bottom line, I am not a tidy person. Never have been. I like it when things are clean and organized, but every time I commit to cleaning and organizing, everything usually ends up worse than it was before. I've come to rely on my beautiful wife, whose cleaning and organizational skills far exceed my own. But since she works full time, it isn't exactly fair for me to make her clean when she gets home. I'm a good husband like that, after all.

So instead, as a method of adaptation, I have learned to live with a certain level of messiness. I put in a certain amount of maintenance to make sure stray deer aren't grazing in my living room, but generally speaking, things are cluttered.

Adding a two year old to the mix has not helped. But that's just how it goes.

How are certain people so clean? What is your secret to a clean house? A clean kitchen? A clean bathroom? I ask, but I already know the answer. It's maintenance. and I'm too impatient.

Gramma's visit: day 3

Awesome day. Purely and truly great. Woke up to a blue sky, went to the zoo where we saw the animals bask in the 72 degree sunshine. The smell of spring was thick in the air, so we too our time through the entire zoo. Michelle fell asleep in the 10 minute drive home so we decided to all take a nap after I put her down. Woke up and made chicken pot pie for dinner and then went out to frozen yogurt. Truly great.

Gramma needs to come visit all the time.

Gramma's visit: Day 2

It's been exciting to have gramma around this week.

Not only did we get to try on some new glasses, but we were way too excited to take a nap today. 

 

We watched a late afternoon movie to try and have some down time.

Though there were cuddles, there was no nap. Will it be an early night? Or just a loud and fussy one. Only time will tell.

Gramma's visit: day 1

Movie/Snuggle time

My mom came to town this week. Since we live circa 3,000 miles away from our closest family, our visits are not as common as we would all prefer. So when she saw an opportunity to come for a couple of days, gramma took it!

Day one has been pretty great so far. Perfectly content to follow our regular routine, we spent the first day chatting, catching up, give Michelle a nap and of course getting frozen yogurt. Thank you Skinny Dip for providing such a delectable frozen yogurt selection. Now we popped in a movie, and it's time for gramma to adjust the jetlag. I'm only a little jealous to give up my personal snuggle time so gramma can get her fill.

I don't know what all we have planned for the week, but we will play it by ear. It will be a fun week regardless of what we end up doing.

Anyone out there have a suggestion for fun gramma-daddy-daughter activities?

Out of diapers, now what?

I feel rather foolish today because I set my daughter up to fail.

First off, I need to address that we are rather unflinching when it comes to cloth diapers. We've probably purchased disposable diapers three times in the last two years. We feel pretty special about it, until of course we don't have any clean cloth diapers on hand, nor any disposable diapers as a backup.

Today was one of those days where all of Michelle's diaper covers were in the wash, and the diaper she had on was, how shall I phrase this, soiled to the point where putting it back on her would have been abusive. So instead I thought it would be fine to have her run around without a diaper on until the diapers were clean.

To back up a little bit, we've been passively trying to potty train our daughter. Her little training potty is out and about, and when she expresses that she needs to "pee-pee" we encourage her to sit on the potty. She is great at sitting on her potty for about 2 seconds, but will never ever let out a drip until she has a diaper on. I marvel at her ability to hold her pee for as long as she does. She won't let out anything until she must.

Today, there was just too much time between removing my daughter's diaper and the diapers getting clean. She sat on her potty probably 17 times, but never let out a drop. She finally made her way to our bedroom and decided that would be a more appropriate place to relieve her bladder. I guess daddy deserved that one.

Someday soon, she's going to decide that peeing on the potty is actually much better than peeing either in a diaper or on the ground. I'm hopeful. Though I confess that there's few more satisfying things than peeing on the ground.

Turn that TV off!

I have a confession to make. I allow my daughter to watch more than the highly discouraged two hours of screen time per day. This is a humongous struggle for me.

I've seen many studies on children watching TV, regardless of the content, or playing on phones, or whatever the screen time is, and the detrimental effects it has on their brain development, attention span, etc.

The truth is, I have no good excuses for allowing my daughter this screen time. I simply use it to distract her when I need to be productive. Nicole uses it when she is getting ready in the morning because otherwise Michelle would never let her out the door. I turn the TV on when I wash the dishes. I turn it on when I need a quick break in the afternoon. I watch TV in the evening for my own entertainment. The list goes on.

I think one of the biggest problems with our TV is that it's the central focal point in our apartment. When you walk in, it's the first thing you see. The feng shui in our home leads you to the TV. Short of throwing it out the window, I'm a little at a loss for what to do with our TV. I am more or less addicted to it, and rely on it to babysit my child on short notice. When we are at home, the TV is a constant temptation.

Though I try to make sure we go outside every day, we still spend much time inside. Every day there is temptation. And of course, if we ever go anywhere, there is always the distraction of our phone in case the kid ever starts acting up.

Does anyone have any suggestions for things that can distract a 20 month old, besides turning on the idiot box in the corner? Or is it okay to regain some sanity couple times a day by distracting your child?

A double standard

Our daughter has recently begun telling us when she soils her diaper, which is a pretty exciting time for parents. So naturally, we bought her a training toilet. At this stage of the game, we aren't exactly trying to potty train, but we're just introducing the idea to her.

Silly me, yesterday morning I was cleaning the kitchen and I said "Michelle, let's take your diaper off, just to see what happens." I then pointed at her potty and asked if she was interested in sitting there. After a scorching glare, she tore off in the opposite direction.

Not five minutes later, she came running from her toy corner, screaming and panicking about the gross stuff stuck to her feet. (Insert the knowing head nod here). After throwing my distressed child in the tub and washing away all her troubles, I couldn't help but chuckle as I proceeded to clean up a stinky pile, and foot prints that fled from the scene. This was a great way to spend my morning.

It was then that I discovered the double standard of poop on the carpet. If my dogs ever have an accident in the house, I get mad at them, even though it is usually my fault for not taking them out when they've expressed adement interest. But the baby poops and I laugh at my own mistake. I really felt wise.

Later in the afternoon, I took Michelle out to play, and when I returned, the dogs had gotten into our garbage, and had shred stinky debris all over our apartment. I was livid, even though I knew that I had pulled the garbage bag out to take it outside, but forgot about it in the kitchen.

It's quite a double standard. I don't feel wise anymore. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here: poop on the carpet stinks.

Full Blown DDD

I'm calling today a full blown Domestic Daddery Day, or DDD for short.

Up early to make breakfast and pack lunch for my beautiful bride, as well as helping her find the scarf to her ensemble. I then drove her to work, brought Michelle back home and made her breakfast. While eating breakfast, I cleaned the kitchen and am now running laundry. Of course I've had to break away a moment or two to change diapers.

Cleaning the kitchen has helped me take a quick inventory of our produce supply, and I realize that I have several apples that are about to go bad, so I think I'll make an Apple Crumb Pie. Oooh yum.

Next this morning, I'll vacuum and put the kiddo down for her nap. Then I'll be able to spend a little time working on my goal of learning 100 songs in 100 days. I'm writing about that in my other blog: spoon-and-fork.blogspot.com. Shameless plug? Of course.

Today is going to be a good day. I've already had a productive start and I'm taking time to write a post in my blog. Granted, the post is super lame, and I highly doubt anyone actually cares about my morning. But hey, sometimes we need to write stuff down.

Until next time.

Play date night

Neighbors with kids are awesome. We arranged tonight to be a date night for one couple, and a play date for the kids. We are the hosts of the play date.

There's all sorts of reasons to be grateful for having a play date, but I think the best reason is to have a break from the normal. I'm happy for my friends who get to go out and have a date where they don't have to worry about slow service or one of them rolling on the floor or throwing a plate. It's got to be nice for them and I'm quite happy for them.

For us, it's fun to have a change of pace, too.

This little buddy we are watching is pretty awesome. I'll admit we are using the distracto-matic and put a few movies on, but whatever keeps us content I say.

Toodles for now. I don't have a ton of time to write. :-)

Laundry Detergent

This is quite possibly the most boring thing to write about, so I'll keep it brief. Cloth diapers are fickle. The diaper inserts we use are made of hemp and other materials that are extremely absorbant. The good part about this is the reduction of "mess" in the diaper, but the bad part is that it absorbs certain chemicals in detergents. If too much builds up in the insert, the result is a very ouchy butt.

Nicole found "Rocking Green" laundry detergent which is perfect for cloth diapers. Low carbon footprint, actually an okay thing to wash your diapers with, etc. We have completely switched out our normal detergent and use Rockin' Green for everything.

So there you go. One more dynamic regarding cloth diapers that we don't normally talk about; what kind of laundry soap to use.

Join me next time when I sell out on another product. :-)

Changing Cloth Diapers

Elbow deep in yesterday's lunch
shortly after breakfast.
A cleansing wipe or two and then
Our bottom is back to best.
Then it's dad to the toilet
Don't ask me what I do there.
But once again I'm elbow deep
inside the porcelain chair.
Wring it out, then in the bag.
Oh the ammonia smell is thick.
Time to rinse and wash and rinse again.
Three times'll do the trick.
Cloth diapers are great and all
if only 'tweren't for the poo.
But after all, that's what they're for
So I guess they'll have to do.

Nap time

There are certain things I plan on in my day, and one of them is nap time. Nap time is by far the most important time of day for me because that's when I shower and clean and write and do everything I want to do without extra help. Sometimes nap time lasts, and sometimes it's really short, but we all love nap time. What I don't love about nap time is when it never comes. Today, it never came. I like to blame the recent construction out my window.

My day has taken a dreadful turn because my daughter never took a nap. So instead of parenting and playing with my child, I'm griping about it on my blog. :-)

Cloth baby wipes equal less waste

If any of you are in the realm of deciding whether you want to use cloth diapers, don't take it too lightly. In my opinion, cloth diapers is a lot of work, but totally worth it. I am reminded of this every time I take my garbage out and find a huge bags of disposable diapers sitting in the dumpster. I doubt we have used enough disposable diapers to fill up a single garbage bag in our daughter's first two years. THAT'S why we chose cloth diapers.

In the first month of our daughter's life, we filled up a garbage bag with disposable wipes, and said "why not have cloth wipes too?" It turns out, they're really not that complicated. Nicole bought a huge sheet of fabric (brown), and cut it into squares. We doubled up the squares, sewed them together, and clipped the edges to prevent them from stringing out. In short, we made about 60 cloth wipes for the price of buying five. They have lasted us almost two years now, and have kept us from buying baby wipes.

I'm sure I'll talk of cloth wipes again. I just wanted to mention them.