Well, I haven't written in a long time because life has been busy. Tonight however I wanted to make sure I got this important story down.
You know the little tiny hair clips? The ones that are only 1/4"? Well, Michelle has a lot of them and tonight while trying to work, Maggie approached me holding one in her mouth. I immediately removed it from her mouth and told her she could not put it in her mouth. I gave back to her and said she could play with it only if she didn't put it in her mouth. I gave her the choice and she accepted by taking it in her hand.
She turned around and started to walk away from me. Only 5 steps away with her back towards me, she slowly moved the hand holding the mini hair clip towards her mouth. I simply said, "Maggie". She barely turned her head to glance at me over her shoulder and while smirking, she lowered her hand a little while repositioning her head to look away from me. I was proud of myself from using a calm reminder to keep her from putting the clip in her mouth. She then started to return her gaze on me while she brought her hand to her mouth. Before I could say anything she popped the clip in her mouth and grinned in contentment that she successfully got it in. I jumped towards her while still being connected to my phone headset for work. She got passed me and continued to giggle gleefully. I pulled my cord so I could get closer to her and put my hand out in front of her and asked her to spit it out. Her grin grew even bigger. (side note: my mother-in-law says I only know how to smile with my mouth open and that Maggie does it as well) Luckily for me, her mouth started to open as her grin got bigger. I then went in and wrenched the clip out of her fierce mouth.
I then reminded her of the choice I gave her and that because she chose to put it in her mouth she could no longer play with the hair clip. I set it up on the piano and continued to wait for a phone call for work. Because I had taken it away, she began to cry. I took her in my arms and started to play with her on my lap. AFter a few minutes her eyes landed on the tiny hair clip I had just placed out of her reach. I unknowingly continued to play with her. She then lunged for it and lost her balance. As she fell towards the ground I caught her and slowly placed her where I thought she wanted to be. I was still oblivious that she had spotted the hair clip. As soon as she was on the ground the water works turned on. I pulled her up again and then noticed her eyes dart towards the clip. Now knowing her intentions to wanting to be up on my lap, I simply reminded her that she had chosen to not play with the clip by placing it in her mouth. She obviously didn't like what I had to say and continued to scream while big crocodile tears ran from her face. I then did the only thing I knew that would help. I took the clip from off the piano and threw it across the room. Thus putting it out of sight and out of mind.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
Spoon Feeding
Maggie has quickly learned that feeding herself is a lot more fun because it usually makes a bigger mess. Michelle usually would bring out two spoons when feeding Maggie. This was so she could have one to play with and "feed herself" while the actual feeding took place. Well I continued this practice and most of the time she was very cooperative. There were times however, when she definitely wasn't.
In the middle of June Maggie decided that one spoon was not enough. She began grabbing at the spoon I was using to feed her while chewing on her own spoon. It made things really difficult. Many times she would successfully grab it out of my hand and throw it. Most of the time when it launched out of her hand it was full of baby food. We quickly learned that having carpet in our "eating area" was a terrible idea. There are beautiful colors of orange and green from puréed carrots, green beans, butternut squash, peas, peaches and more all over. I thought maybe feeding her the less vibrant colored foods would be a smart idea. So I looked for foods that would blend in with our beige carpet. I quickly learned the smell of turkey, chicken, beef and other baby food meats were not pleasant. That's when I learned to have a wet washcloth handy to clean up as she threw.
Because she wanted to feed herself so badly we let finger foods slowly move into her diet...
Monday, June 21, 2010
Cloth Diapers...yes, we really use them.
None of my stories will really go in order since I am already 2 months behind. I thought I could put a little thought up each day about what happened but that really isn't going to happen.
So while Michelle was on bed rest last summer she had a lot of time to think and one of those thinks turned into the cost of diapers. She made several phone calls to different places like Walmart, Costco, Babies R Us, Target and other retailers to find out the typical cost of diapers. She then call several family members, friends and neighbors to see how many diapers they went through a day at different stages. Anyway, it led to a few pages of notes and an explanation to why cloth diapers would fit our budget better. I took a look at the numbers and thought, this completely makes sense because my part-time work is definitely not going to be able to pay for disposables.
Michelle checked out a few dealers and found a person in American Fork called My Diaper Piper. She has a huge selection of brands, colors and sizes that she sells from home. After Maggie was born, Michelle went with her parents to go check them out. We found out Maggie was too small for the one size fits all so we had to spend a little extra than we had planned. But after a few weeks we realized that this whole saving money on diapers was really a
Pause...While in the middle of this sentence I saw something falling towards the computer and it was our lamp. Maggie had army crawled over to it and pulled on it and it almost smashed into the computer! Everyday is a new adventure
Resume...good idea.
Now that I am the one taking almost all of the responsibility at home I've found cloth diapers are more work than those first few weeks. First of all you're washing these things about 4 times per week. Because we don't pay our utilities we're still ahead on cost of disposables but if you forget to put them in the wash on time you have to use disposables while they're washing and drying. We always get a couple packages of disposables when we go on vacation and then use them when needed afterwards. It would be impossible to do cloth on vacation.
Well, the worst part of cloth diapers is that whatever goes in them has to be washed out. Most of the time if it's solid in there you can just dump it in the trash but sometimes it's not solid. What do you do then? You have to kind of rinse them out before putting them in the wash. Sometimes I just wish I could fold up the whole thing and throw it away but then I think of the money we're saving.
Maggie is now in the one-size-fits all and things are going great. The biggest problem now is trying to hold her still while changing her.
So while Michelle was on bed rest last summer she had a lot of time to think and one of those thinks turned into the cost of diapers. She made several phone calls to different places like Walmart, Costco, Babies R Us, Target and other retailers to find out the typical cost of diapers. She then call several family members, friends and neighbors to see how many diapers they went through a day at different stages. Anyway, it led to a few pages of notes and an explanation to why cloth diapers would fit our budget better. I took a look at the numbers and thought, this completely makes sense because my part-time work is definitely not going to be able to pay for disposables.
Michelle checked out a few dealers and found a person in American Fork called My Diaper Piper. She has a huge selection of brands, colors and sizes that she sells from home. After Maggie was born, Michelle went with her parents to go check them out. We found out Maggie was too small for the one size fits all so we had to spend a little extra than we had planned. But after a few weeks we realized that this whole saving money on diapers was really a
Pause...While in the middle of this sentence I saw something falling towards the computer and it was our lamp. Maggie had army crawled over to it and pulled on it and it almost smashed into the computer! Everyday is a new adventure
Resume...good idea.
Now that I am the one taking almost all of the responsibility at home I've found cloth diapers are more work than those first few weeks. First of all you're washing these things about 4 times per week. Because we don't pay our utilities we're still ahead on cost of disposables but if you forget to put them in the wash on time you have to use disposables while they're washing and drying. We always get a couple packages of disposables when we go on vacation and then use them when needed afterwards. It would be impossible to do cloth on vacation.
Well, the worst part of cloth diapers is that whatever goes in them has to be washed out. Most of the time if it's solid in there you can just dump it in the trash but sometimes it's not solid. What do you do then? You have to kind of rinse them out before putting them in the wash. Sometimes I just wish I could fold up the whole thing and throw it away but then I think of the money we're saving.
Maggie is now in the one-size-fits all and things are going great. The biggest problem now is trying to hold her still while changing her.
Friday, June 18, 2010
At the beginning...
Just to explain real quick, I thought this blog would help me remember all the great times I got to have with my daughter for an entire summer and I stay home. It actually is making me feel guilty everyday that I don't put something down and I now I can't remember when things happen. So I will just start from here. As I remember a funny story I will add a new post.
Let's start with a little bit more background. This last school year Michelle has been home everyday taking care of Maggie and the apartment managing stuff. Every morning she would wake up with me and while I would shower she would pack a hearty lunch, get breakfast ready, feed Maggie and get my clothes figured out. We would eat breakfast together and then I would be gone for up to 18 hours some days! Michelle did this 5 days a week for 32 weeks this school year. You can't ever repay someone for that kind of service, but I'm starting to learn how hard of a job it really was and Michelle is only gone 20-25 hours a week.
Day 1:
Alarm at 5:45! You've got to be kidding me, who wakes up at 5:45 when they don't have school or work? I do. Time to roll out of bed, start packing Michelle's lunch, pray that Maggie sleeps a little longer, prepare breakfast, open my eyes, find the a suitable container for Michelle's lunch (I ended up using a small insulated pouch from Similac that is made for taking bottles, but there was no way I was going to let Michelle use my HSM lunchbox. What if it got lost?), eat breakfast with Michelle and send her on her way to her first day of classes.
The next thing I knew I was awakened by a hungry little girl needing a diaper change. I quickly ran into Maggie's room and changed her diaper and carried her into the kitchen to prepare a bottle. This girl loves her bottles. When she's hungry and she sees a bottle she starts this really excited squeak, laugh, pant then cry until it is in her mouth while trying frantically to grab the bottle. I learned very quickly to find a place to set her down, then go into the kitchen and prepare the bottle before she sees it. That first time I wasn't smart enough to place her elsewhere and tried to make the bottle while holding her in my arms. She threw a fit and a few punches at me while trying to get the bottle out of my hands. Water was everywhere and I barely got formula in and the lid on before she pried the bottle out of my hands.
I set her down in the living room to drink her bottle and dashed for the shower because our office for the apartments opens at 8am and it was already 7:50. Michelle warned me that the days you are not ready is when someone comes knocking at the door and I didn't want to be caught with my shirt on backwards because I was so frantic to put some sort of clothing on. I was able to take a quick shower and get dressed when I remembered I left Maggie in the middle of the floor with a bottle.
I quickly returned to the living room to see Maggie about 10 feet from her bottle trying to reach some extension cords by our air conditioner. She was caught and the look on her face was priceless as she realized that I didn't want her playing with the cords.
The rest of the day was usual routine and she actually followed her nap schedule well. After surviving day one I realized this wasn't going so be such a bad summer after all.
27 April 2010
Let's start with a little bit more background. This last school year Michelle has been home everyday taking care of Maggie and the apartment managing stuff. Every morning she would wake up with me and while I would shower she would pack a hearty lunch, get breakfast ready, feed Maggie and get my clothes figured out. We would eat breakfast together and then I would be gone for up to 18 hours some days! Michelle did this 5 days a week for 32 weeks this school year. You can't ever repay someone for that kind of service, but I'm starting to learn how hard of a job it really was and Michelle is only gone 20-25 hours a week.
Day 1:
Alarm at 5:45! You've got to be kidding me, who wakes up at 5:45 when they don't have school or work? I do. Time to roll out of bed, start packing Michelle's lunch, pray that Maggie sleeps a little longer, prepare breakfast, open my eyes, find the a suitable container for Michelle's lunch (I ended up using a small insulated pouch from Similac that is made for taking bottles, but there was no way I was going to let Michelle use my HSM lunchbox. What if it got lost?), eat breakfast with Michelle and send her on her way to her first day of classes.
The next thing I knew I was awakened by a hungry little girl needing a diaper change. I quickly ran into Maggie's room and changed her diaper and carried her into the kitchen to prepare a bottle. This girl loves her bottles. When she's hungry and she sees a bottle she starts this really excited squeak, laugh, pant then cry until it is in her mouth while trying frantically to grab the bottle. I learned very quickly to find a place to set her down, then go into the kitchen and prepare the bottle before she sees it. That first time I wasn't smart enough to place her elsewhere and tried to make the bottle while holding her in my arms. She threw a fit and a few punches at me while trying to get the bottle out of my hands. Water was everywhere and I barely got formula in and the lid on before she pried the bottle out of my hands.
I set her down in the living room to drink her bottle and dashed for the shower because our office for the apartments opens at 8am and it was already 7:50. Michelle warned me that the days you are not ready is when someone comes knocking at the door and I didn't want to be caught with my shirt on backwards because I was so frantic to put some sort of clothing on. I was able to take a quick shower and get dressed when I remembered I left Maggie in the middle of the floor with a bottle.
I quickly returned to the living room to see Maggie about 10 feet from her bottle trying to reach some extension cords by our air conditioner. She was caught and the look on her face was priceless as she realized that I didn't want her playing with the cords.
The rest of the day was usual routine and she actually followed her nap schedule well. After surviving day one I realized this wasn't going so be such a bad summer after all.
27 April 2010
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Where it all began...
I don't completely know how to start this story, but I'll do my best to get the facts straight. One Sunday afternoon Michelle and I were on our way up to my parents' for dinner when Michelle mentioned that she was still planning on going back to BYU to obtain a degree. I thought, "Ok, she's still set on going back to school. That's good." She then said, "What do you think if I go back to work at Deseret Book the days I'm not in class?" I wasn't too happy about that because I wanted to have an out as well. I didn't want to be working as full-time apartment manager while Michelle would be gone 5 days a week. I told her that I didn't want to be stuck all summer and it would make more sense for me to work at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (JSMB) on the days she doesn't have classes because I make more money there than she does at Deseret Book. After a long discussion I realized I chose the wrong word... "Stuck" is exactly how Michelle felt when I was taking 19 credits and working 15-20 hours a week this last semester. She was ready for a break and we tried to organize a compromise.
A couple Sundays later was Fast and Testimony Meeting and also the baby blessing of our home teacher and his wife's baby. I don't remember anything that was really said but, our home teacher, Tyson Bringhurst, shared his story of being the stay at home dad, his wife, Alyson, shared her story of Tyson being home and then Michelle got up and shared her feelings of going back to school and us switching roles for the summer. Even though it hadn't started yet she said she knew I would do a great job.
Well, our compromise was to see how classes would go and then if Michelle felt like she could handle work at Deseret Book she could do it. Now we are almost done with her first set of classes, I'm home MWF from 7-3 and we are usually both home TTh before I go to work at the JSMB. Michelle isn't working at Deseret Book because there is still so much to do here for the apartments and we like to have some time together. I'm working mostly evenings at the JSMB about 30 hours a week and Michelle is picking up the slack around home while still doing really well in school. I never thought I would enjoy being a stay at home dad as much as I do. I'm just sad for when August 16th hits and I begin my student teaching.
A couple Sundays later was Fast and Testimony Meeting and also the baby blessing of our home teacher and his wife's baby. I don't remember anything that was really said but, our home teacher, Tyson Bringhurst, shared his story of being the stay at home dad, his wife, Alyson, shared her story of Tyson being home and then Michelle got up and shared her feelings of going back to school and us switching roles for the summer. Even though it hadn't started yet she said she knew I would do a great job.
Well, our compromise was to see how classes would go and then if Michelle felt like she could handle work at Deseret Book she could do it. Now we are almost done with her first set of classes, I'm home MWF from 7-3 and we are usually both home TTh before I go to work at the JSMB. Michelle isn't working at Deseret Book because there is still so much to do here for the apartments and we like to have some time together. I'm working mostly evenings at the JSMB about 30 hours a week and Michelle is picking up the slack around home while still doing really well in school. I never thought I would enjoy being a stay at home dad as much as I do. I'm just sad for when August 16th hits and I begin my student teaching.
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