Peek-a-boo!

So many things have been going on with Babygirl these days. She's taking more steps each day, she's into figuring out how things open, gathering things and putting them in various containers, she continues to love slides at the playground, and she's learning new words each day. I've also had some nice extended times/day hanging out with her.

Lately she's been against having her diaper changed, so like most things, we had to make a game out of it. While she's laying on her back, getting ready to be changed, we play peek-a-boo. Something she manged to learn at 11month, and several months later, she's still hamming it up, and loving the game of peek-a-boo. Sometimes she even covers my face so that I can play peek-a-boo with her. As you can imagine, it's full of laughter, smiles, and it's all so cute.


On a side note, it's been difficult trying to stay fit and exercise. Something that has been helpful is squeezing a stress ball at work with one hand, working the forearms. Such a simple exercise and a mild burn in the forearms has led to them getting stronger, which has helped me push past my previous threshold of the number of consecutive push-ups I could do. Perhaps all this time, it wasn't about me being weak but more the stabilizing muscles that allow me to do push ups were weak, any thoughts?

Other than that if I didn't commute by bike, who knows what I would look like or feel like. As we approach almost 2 years of living in our condo, I'm quickly approaching the approx 2000 mile mark of biking. My lifetime mileage of biking is probably closer to 2700 miles. Other than my life with my family, faith in God, prayer, and biking have been one of the most important things to healthy/happy living. Any other dads commuting by bike?

Doubleback

For whatever reason, my schedule allowed me this past Sunday to run errands with Babygirl. I got out of work early, and Babymamma had some assignments to finish, so she sent me on the monthly Trader Joe's run, while also stopping at the New Balance Outlet Store to return some shoes.

You can only imagine that Babydaddy was excited to go out alone with his Babygirl. Babygirl was well behaved in the car, we sang some songs, and ran our errands. Despite the craziness of crashing carts at TJ's, and mad white people sporting Patagonia, Mountain Hardware, North Face, Marmot, and Arc'Teryx all for a shopping trip on a cold Sunday in the city via car(not by bike, snowshoeing, skiing, etc. This is obviously a whole different topic, but c'mon is it really necesary?).

Anyways, after a successful trip and many laps around the store, we left feeling good. No meltdowns, no crying, Babygirl was happy with some pretzels and a bottle of water. On the way home, I glanced back and noticed her sleeping, and also that a shoe was missing! I waved my arm towards the floor hoping that Babygirl had kicked it off while I was still driving, no shoe. When we arrived home, there was no shoe to be found anywhere, but Babygirl was still asleep.

After handing Babygirl to Babymamma, I said, "We lost a shoe, I'm going back to TJ's to find her shoe." She was like "Really?" "Ya shoes are expensive, . . . peace." In the back of my neurotic mind I was thinking, "Great, the one time that I go out with Babygirl I lose a shoe, this will be the last time I'll get to go out unsupervised, or more importantly it shows how I'm really careless, or can't multi-task, etc., etc."

Doubling back to TJ's with some traffic, I got to the parking lot, and lo and behold, found the shoe underneath a Porsche SUV(what kind of outdoorware do you think the owner was sporting?), the shoe must have fallen off when I hastily took Babygirl out of the shopping cart and into the cat. Not sure why I was hurrying, yes it was cold outside, but it's not like the car was warm.

Lesson learned, no more hasty exits from the shopping cart, therefore avoiding to double back, waste gas, waste money, and waste time on a Sunday. Worst of all, by the time I came back, Babygirl was already in bed, doh!

Am I still in the running for Babydaddy of the year?

What's in a Shoe?

Babymama informed me that other day that Babygirl ". . .did not want to grow up any more, simply stay a baby." I inquired very perplexed how Babygirl could have conveyed her desires to be like Peter Pan.

Well, apparently Babymamma decided to help Babygirl with her walking, she would get her out of her soft soled shoes, and upgrade up to big girl shoes with the firm sole. I guess Babygirl had opinions of her own and was inconsolably crying and just not having any of this firm sole shoe stuff.

Since then Babygirl has been reluctantly wearing her big girl shoes whenever she can, she's still intrigued with these clunky things on her feet, but I think she'll grow to like them. The move to big girl shoes got me all excited for a the 4 pairs of Converse All Star hightops I got her in an array of sizes(they were on sale), I think by summer, she'll be the cool kid sporting her black Chuck Taylor's.

Surprisingly, when I showed Babygirl her new shoes, she was really excited, and even gave her new shoes hugs and kisses. Perhaps this is just the beginning of a life long Babydaddy approved relationship with Chuck Taylor.

What's in a face?

When Babygirl was born, I told Babymamma, that now that we have a baby, and we'll be so busy, I think I'll forgo getting a haircut. I had grand dreams of pony tails and looking like a samurai or asian biker gang dude or something like that. Of course not even after 2 months, and probably going almost 3 months without a hair, the hairs got cut.

After another busy week, and more product in the hair due to it's length, the dilemma of how to fit in a haircut with my salon lady while working so much arose. Of course it doesn't help that salon lady also had a baby and only works 3 days a week.

So Babymamma suggested, "Why don't you just shave your head?" I looked at her, cocked my head upwards as I thought about this idea, and responded cooly, "OK, I'll shave my head."

4 years in college right before Valentine's day, I would buy whole pack or razors, and shave nearly every sq inch of my body. No this wasn't for my once a year S+M hot wax, chocolate sauce ritual with Babymamma, but more I was a swimmer, and our conference meet always landed on the wknd before Valentine's day. So my body has a memory of getting rid of hair every Feb, and since I've graduated I've probably shaved my head in Feb 3 times. People think it's drastic, but to me it's normal, and not a big deal. Of course it helps that I don't look bad as a bald headed guy, nor do I have an awkwardly shaped head.

Of course the next morning I was looking fwd to how Babygirl was going to react. When I went to pick her up from her crib in the AM, she just went through her normal routine and that was that. She didn't cry, "where's daddy!" or anything of the sorts. If anything she's come to patting my head now, or perhaps she thinks my head is a drum.

Which got me thinking, what is it about me that Babygirl recognizes. Since she's been born, I wear contacts when I go for a run or play ultimate, and she doesn't seem to mistake who I am without my glasses. She also doesn't seem to mind if my hair is down, I'm wearing my hat, my hoodie, or if I've buzzed off all my hair. Is it simply my facial structure and facial features? What does it take for a brain to remember a familiar face? Quite fascinating isn't it?

Well as the girls have gone off to the Midwest for a funeral, I'll be missing the girls the next 5 days, but I know that even after 5 days of no daddy time, Babygirl is going to remember her daddy, and there's nothing sweeter than that!

book binder?

If someone had asked me what fatherhood comprised of, I would most likely have answered them with the following possible answers:
-a gentle caring role model who is always there to protect their child
-someone who's fun but fair
-someone to help in the development of a child's personality, morality, character, values, etc.

Never would have I thought that it involved rinsing out cloth diapers, scheming ways to fattening up Babygirl, or letting her go to bed with my chapstick. I always knew that there would come a time when I would fix her bicycle, untie knots, fix broken zippers, crazy glue science fair projects together, but never would I have thought that I would venture into the world of book binder.

To be exact, I've yet to bind any books, but I do some magic work with clear packing tape, especially with babygirl's pop-up books. Sure pop-up books are visually stimulating and add depth to what's going on in a story book, but c'mon, babies like to grab, rip and tear.

I guess in reality fatherhood is comprised of many little things and perhaps a few very big things. I wonder when I'll get to start fixing things with duct tape?



Headshot for Spy Kids audition

Suck Day

Today is not Babydaddy's best day. He woke up late, and didn't get to hand out with Babygirl. He came home, and Babygirl was asleep. He was home for all of 10mins, before heading back out the door, to go his other job. Here I am waiting out a no show, boo!

I did get to see Babygirl in the highchair, but that was about it, and by the time I get home, Babygirl will have probably been asleep for 1.5 hrs.

I miss that little girl.

525,600

Last night and this morning I officially went to bed with the numbers 525,600 in my head, as in the number, as in the number of minutes in a year, or as they repeat over and over in Seasons of Love.

Babymamma and I have officially spent five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes with our babgirl, or 365 days.

About 75 of those minutes, occur when I go to pick up Babygirl from her crib in the mornings. Babygirl will either be yelling/crying or just letting us know that she's awake, and I'll typically go in and greet her. That first minute where we're saying goodmorning usually looks like this.

Babygirl is sitting in her crib with her pacifier still in her month, she'll have turned on her little crib music things, and when I see her, she'll usually let out some kind of excited grunt or noise. By the time I actually lean into her crib, she'll offer me "George", Curious George, whom I"ll take and give him a hug a kiss. I'll then give George back to her, which she'll snatch back up and give George a hug and a kiss as well. I'll then pick her up, remove her pacifier, and then we're on our way to morning rituals, and the beginings of yet another day for Babygirl.

The "Good Morning" routine, has yet to get old, and it's just one of the many repetitive minute(s) that I've enjoyed with Babygirl.