Rookie Dad: I've never seen so much snot

It's not like The Youngling has never been sick. No, indeed. This is the second time that the little destroyer has found herself with a cold and this one is a big one. I think I counted a dozen sneezes in a three hour period this weekend. All but one resulted in gobs of snot pouring out of her tiny nose. To make matters worse, she has developed a disdain for her old man after I've had to wipe her nose just shy of a hundred times in recent days.

Each time I hear a sneeze, and I hear then from two or three rooms away sometimes, I reluctantly grab a tissue and plod through the house careful to look under tables where she may be hiding. She knows what happened and she wants it gone. That's obvious by her wiping her nose on her hand, her sleeve, the couch, my sweatshirt, my coat, mom's face or the rug. But when she sees that white tissue careening towards her it's like Kryptonite. The Youngling wiggles and scoots away and begins screaming. Hey, I don't like doing this any more than she likes having it done but the snot isn't going away on its own so it needs to happen.

I don't beat around the bush when on snot patrol. With one hand on the back of her head, I pinch my fingers together on the outside of the tissue and hope that I've made some progress and she shakes her head and tries to wriggle out from under my not-so-gentle wiping. I've come to grips that this is the first of many year of my daughter hating me. Until she needs some of my non-existent money, then I'll be the bestest dad in the whole entire world. But I'm not holding my breath on that one.

Rookie Dad: The box is more exciting than the gift

By a child's second Christmas, that particular child should be able to open his or her Christmas presents without assistance. I have that sort of high expectations - even though The Youngling is a mere 13 months old. She is already getting in to everything in the house and seems almost passionate about destroying things - particularly photo album pages - so why shouldn't she be eager to tear through some colorful wrapping paper and find a box waiting inside that's far more entertaining that the toy it holds?
Maybe my expectations about The Youngling's dexterity and eagerness to shred paper are lofty but that little girl is ahead of the curve - even if she isn't walking unassisted yet and is stuck at having only five teeth.

But we've planned ahead for her love of everything but toys as presents. I'm fairly certain that everything under the tree is a box full of random bits destined for the recycling bin: soda bottles, empty soup cans and a couple of graham cracker boxes. We've even (well I have) planned ahead for her lack of ambition when it comes to tearing off wrapping paper - I've pre-tore most of the paper on her gifts so she can easily get to those boxes and bits of recycling material. I'm all about boosting that little lady's ego.

Rookie Dad: It's been a year

It was a year ago yesterday when The Youngling finally graced us with her presence. I won't go in to alot of details from that day other than to say that the 22 hours leading up to her birth was, well, lengthy. I don't care to ever sleep in a hospital room recliner again. It's just not as comfortable as you think it would be.

But in the end it was all worth it because we got to see her eat a whole bunch of cake on Sunday. Us and about 20 others, actually. Yes, we broke the big rule that I've seen in parenting newsletters and magazines that says "just have the grandparents there and keep it small, your one year old will be riddled with anxiety and likely cry and crawl in to the corner with a huge crowd around her". Those magazines and newsletters aren't worth the ink or bytes used to create them.

The Youngling showed no signs of anxiety and was totally herself. Right down to refusing to eat anything on a plate. So the cake went directly on the tray of her high chair and she meticulously ate the frosting then got all up in that cake's chocolatey business. The wedge of two-layer cake was eventually smashed in to a gooey mass and she was working on building a coffee grounds-style beard but with cake.

The most impressive fact was that The Youngling kept her hair clean in spite of taunts and encouragement from her aunts to do otherwise. The clean-up was easy, too. Rather than try to clean her with a wash cloth or baby wipes we just gave her a quick bath and got back to the grind of opening her presents. After those hours of excitement she took a three hour nap and we cleaned up cake.

Rookie Dad: She's got her shots

Nobody ever looks forward to shots - unless you truly enjoy pain. I know I don't particularly like shots and I've been know to pass out having blood drawn - I'd make a terrible intravenous drug user. So it's no shock that The Youngling screamed her head off when she got her one year shots earlier this week. I actually did the whole good parent thing and read the information sheet provided for each shot - MMR, Hepatitis A, H1N1 and Chicken Pox.

That's when I was informed that some toddlers get a rash from the MMR shot - it's nothing to worry about and some toddlers have a reaction to the Chicken Pox vaccine a couple weeks out. All in all none of it sounded too bad.

Until the day after the shots when The Youngling was still groggy. One of the shots had caused her to develop a fever which she fought all day long. That particular day ended in a bath to cool her down and a few rounds of infant acetaminophen. She eventually pulled through all of that only to come down with what turned in to a full body rash. It looks like she was wearing carefully applied costume makeup all over her body but I've been reassured that it only lasts a couple days and she'll be back to her normal looking self. Even covered in a rash, The Youngling is still overly huggable and while people were happy to see us parents show up at a couple Thanksgiving shindigs yesterday they were downright overjoyed to see the baby. People cooed and played and crawled with her. Nobody crawled with me or wanted to bounce me on their lap. I'm starting to develop an inferiority complex.

Rookie Dad: Climbing the ranks

The Youngling is getting dangerously close to her first birthday and that means cake, messes and tons of progress that Rookie Dad is totally unprepared for.

The first progress, crawling, led to the initial gate leading from the living room to the dining room. That was easy. The second gate, from the hallway to the kitchen, was more involved (pricey). We wanted something sturdy yet easy for us aging adults to deal with. A metal swinging gate was just the ticket plus it's expandable for when we eventually have to corral The Youngling in to a smaller area by keeping her away from the hallway and the stairs leading to the second floor. I hear stairs can be dangerous for toddlers.

Then I learned that stairs are, in fact, dangerous for toddlers.

Last Saturday, as I tried to entertain the speedy little girl while her mom showered upstairs, I ran to the kitchen for some food (shocking). I figured that nothing could happen in the brief amount of time in which I was gone.

I was wrong.

In the 30 or so seconds I left The Youngling unattended she had crawled to the bottom of the stairs and pulled herself up to the second step. That elevation, while it nearly doubled her height, proved to be too much for her to handle. That's when I heard a solid "thud" and instant crying. Not just any crying but downright hysterical crying. The kind that makes the entire body shake. The kind of crying that happens with the eyes closed and fists balled up.

That's what can happen in 30 seconds. I think it's time to move the gate.

Rookie Dad: Get up, stand up

Even as our entire household fights off numerous bugs, infections and viruses there are milestones being reached every day. Just a couple nights ago - Wednesday to be specific - The Youngling reached yet another milestone.

As I returned from the kitchen I noticed that she seemed taller than usual. I looked again and sure enough The Youngling was standing up. Her motivation for this was that we had left the silverish TV remote on the coffee table and that remote, to her, is like crack.

Everywhere that remote is, she is climbing, crawling or pawing for it. She pushes the buttons, changes the television from cable to antenna settings (which nearly led to me calling the cable company), changes channels at pivotal moments during my favorite programs and simply bangs in on the floor and tables in the living room. It's much more than a simple household electronics device to her, it's hours of entertainment and unintentional motivation.

The standing all by herself event took place just days after The Youngling totally nailed true-to-form crawling. Yep, she's got the whole crawling on her knees thing down after months of her Army crawling throughout various rooms on our home's first floor.

And after standing soom comes walking. I really need to start moving stuff higher and take care of some baby proofing. That bag of broken glass on the first shelf of the bookcase isn't going to move itself.

Rookie Dad: The diapers are all about advertising

Since opening that very first package of diapers waaaay back last November I had wondered about the cartoon characters whose likenesses adorned nearly every inch of The Youngling's earth-destroying butt covers. When did this trend start? Are the diaper conglomerates paid to print the cartoons? Are the cartoons there for a reason?

Rather than do some sort of meaningful research about diaper cartoons, I chose to speculate. Diaper cartoons exist so that in complete darkness a parent can find the stack of diapers. But wait, wouldn't plain white be more visible at night than a myriad of colorful cartoon characters? Actually white is more visible so maybe the butt cartoons are all about he almighty dollar.

Let's assume that huge diaper conglomerates do receive some enormous kickback for printing Winnie the Pooh and Elmo on their products. What do we as parents gain from this? I can say for certain that we don't receive a lower price because paying $20-$30 for something that always ends up in the trash is the best scam ever - and even better if the diaper companies are getting a cartoon kickback and screwing parents.

The big three brands, Huggies, Pampers and Luvs, all have some sort of cartoons splashed across the available real estate of their respective diapers and it hasn't resulted in lower prices so maybe my kickback theory is backwards. Maybe the diaper companies, in some misguided effort to make their products more visually appealing, are paying to use the likeness of Elmo and Winnie the Pooh. If that's the case, I'd prefer my diapers how I like my rice - plain and white.

Rookie Dad: She's in the Army

The Youngling is amazingly well-tempered. She will sit for 30 minutes at a time in the living room on the floor playing with what I affectionately call toy mountain. She doesn't care if anyone is around but she has her own special way of letting you know that she is either bored, hungry, tired, in need of a new diaper or is just curious what is happening in the other corners of the house. She army crawls to where she thinks you might be. But if you're not there, she'll put herself in a precarious situation.

Those situations have included almost climbing in to the refrigerator because I make my lunch for the day with the refrigerator door wide open. I'll chalk that one up to The Youngling being curious about my wasting of electricity.

She has also closed herself in her bedroom because one of her latest hobbies is opening and closing doors. Yes, she actually closed her bedroom door and proceeded to stay sitting against the back side of it. After a minute of being patient and slight pushing, The Youngling took the hint and crawled away ever so slowly from the door. Yep, just over ten months in and she's already trying to keep us old geezers out of her bedroom.

Rookie Dad: I'm a prisoner

It's official. We've finally walled off the living room. No, it's not my own recreation of the Berlin wall. It's actually more of a gate. In fact. it is actually a gate. One of two gates the we will eventually have in place to keep The Youngling from ending up stuck behind the dryer way out in the laundry room if one of us turns our head for a second or two.

Even though she is still in army crawl mode, The Youngling can really move. Just yesterday as I stood at the bottom of the backs steps of our house, after placing the little girl far away in the living room, she had made her way through about forty feet of house and was tapping her tiny hands against the screen door wondering what was taking me so long. I just turned my head and said, as if she could understand me, that the sweet corn doesn't husk itself.

These are the battles that occupy a weekend in our house. On a more proud note, after over nine months I finally gave The Youngling a bath all by myself. She didn't scream, she didn't attempt to drown herself and she came out at least somewhat clean - all without using the tub as a toilet.
Now if I can just find a gate to span the ultra-wide entry way in to the living room The Youngling will finally be contained - for a few weeks.

Rookie Dad: The case of the curious wino

It all started Tuesday. As I waited at home for the entire day to get The Youngling in to see a doctor (I suppose I should schedule her illnesses) I let the little terror crawl around the house. She seems bored and disinterested already with the stereo, VCR, DVD player and stack of various Nintendo consoles. Her new fascination is the wine rack.

The wine rack is one of those items in a household that can not be banished to some distant corner or some high up location. It's a necessity in the world of raising children but it also poses a certain amount of danger to a nine month old girl.

Her latest encounter with the wine rack found her pulling out a large carafe-style bottle of wine I picked up on clearance somewhere. I knew she had it dislodged from the rack when I heard a mighty "thud" on the dining room floor.

It seems that she knows what to go for and while I applaud The Youngling's good tastes, I should probably make sure she steers clear of the wine for about another 20 years - or at least until she is no longer in danger of crushing her hand with a large jug of wine.

Rookie Dad: The tub is not a toilet

Late on a Saturday is not the optimal time for bathing a nearly 8 month old child. There are so many other things I'd rather be doing. Having a front row seat to The Youngling using our tub as a toilet was not one of those things.

Chalk it up to a rushed 4th of July holiday or our own forgetfulness but whatever the case, our little girl got her bath just before her bedtime and apparently splashing around in the water at that time of the evening confused her. All was going well as we soaped her up and scrubbed her down. I had the in-the-tub duty of holding/controlling the squirmy splasher and the wife scrubbed from a safe distance.


Then it happened. Simultaneously we saw something dark on the bottom of the tub. It seemed to float from under The Youngling. Eww, eww, eww. We both screamed a bit which caused the baby to scream too. Out of the tub to towel her off and scrub the tub. A few minutes later we tried it all again. I stood in the water to hold the little scrapper and the wife again soaped and scrubbed her. Then we saw something again. For the second time in less than ten minutes something slowly crept towards my submerged feet. The darkness of this particular shape made us both scream eww, eww, eww again as the poop seemed to hone in on me. This bit of deja vu again led to the baby screaming again.
We then repeated the whole process over again.

I don't think I'll ever look at my feet (or the tub) the same way again.

Rookie Dad: She's a paper shredder

The Youngling has a new mode of transportation. It's called "rolling". She's been pretty gung-ho about this for the past week or so and it's gotten to the point where i f us adults need to get something done, we can lay her down on the living room floor and she entertains herself. She's practically grown up now.

The Youngling's rolling, though, isn't entirely fun and games. Last Sunday morning I wanted to grab a glass of juice so the logical thing to do was to lay her down on the floor with a couple toys so I can have my glass of Kiwi-Strawberry goodness. Gone for less than a minute, I returned to find The Youngling half way across the room from where I had left her with her head between the entertainment center and the magazine rack crinkling and slowly tearing pages out of the latest issue of Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine. It was both cute and infuriating. I hadn't even finished reading it yet!

This is the start of even bigger things. Before we know it she'll be crawling. She has already figured out how to push herself backwards so the next logical step is forward movement. I guess I can give up on reading any of my magazines - or I can relocate everything of value to the top of the refrigerator.

Rookie Dad: Is grass a friend or enemy?

So it seems that The Youngling is determined to become more mobile than dad is prepared for. In recent days, she has moved from the classic belly scoot to a full-on army crawl to the occasional real crawl. We've had to remove the magazine rack, vases, a lamp or two and will soon have to imprison ourselves in a gated fortress. Yep, baby gates are coming whenever dad gets sick of pulling The Youngling out of corners and away from items better left alone - including the coffee table which she stands at now and thrashes remotes about.

The items better left alone category is a broad one. In the past couple weeks she has unplugged controllers from my Nintendo Gamecube, ejected a DVD from the DVD player, stuck her hand in the VCR slot and pulled dad's classic Nintendo 64 system down to the floor. The quick solution was to park her walker/car in front of the entertainment center but that's like a band-aid on a hand grenade wound.

The definite way, thus far, to keep The Youngling firmly anchored in one spot is to sit all nine months of her in the grass. I'm fairly certain that she's either deathly afraid of the lawn or she is afraid of messing up the perfect order of the blades of grass. I don't really care which one is true or if either is true because anything that keeps her in one place for a few minutes without rearranging everything in a room is good for me. But winter is just around the corner so the lawn jail will only last so long...

Rookie Dad: She's a swinger

Maybe it's because I get extremely focused from time to time. That may be what caused me to buy a huge pile of lumber on Saturday in hope of transforming it in to a semi-mammoth backyard swingset complete with a tower, slide and a few other climbing activities.

Sure, a seven month-old won't be tearing down the slide or making her way up the rock climbing wall anytime soon but it's all about the future. Well, the future and the fact that this whole project stemmed from her experience last weekend in an infant swing which saw her both full of glee and trying out her baby gangsta lean. So really this project is essential.


While other dads were lying in a hammock sipping a glass of iced tea, I was covered in a manly mix of sweat and sawdust as I measured and cut varying lengths of lumber.

As of this morning, a pile of cut lumber is covering a section of my lawn and construction central has overtaken the garage. Can I get this project done in one week with the stifling heat and humidity trying to slow me down? I think I can.

Rookie Dad: The Youngling's famous

It was a hurried weekend and the mood of The Youngling on Friday night didn't help matters any. The wife was trying to get a squirrely and tired Youngling to cooperate and get her photo taken. After about an hour of trying, we both conceded failure and decided to try again Saturday morning.

Thankfully, her mood had done a complete 180 by Saturday morning. It was photo shoot time and the just fed and bathed 6-plus month old hammed it up for the camera. She squealed, rolled, cooed and played. She giggled, laughed and played some more.


When it was all said and done, we quickly perused the 100-plus photos and chose one to be printed. It was tough because there were a dozen or so that were worthy of billboards but we showed restraint and quickly uploaded the file to our favorite photo lab.

Within an hour the photo was framed and ready to be hung and on its way to... wait for it... an art show. That's right, the little handful, captured in black and white, is now locally famous. The Savage Arts Council art show opens this Saturday and The Youngling is officially a part of the photography category. I'd share the photo here but what fun would that be?

Check out my and the wife's photography at the Savage Arts Council art show at 4375 123rd St., Savage starting this weekend and running through July 18.

Rookie Dad: It was epic

During this recent reincarnation of the dust bowl, I've spent a decent amount of time watering the flowers down on the plantation. That's precisely what I was doing Sunday around noon when my wife yelled out the back door to me, "You have to see this!". Of course I threw down the hose and quickly made my way inside.

There she stood with The Youngling half naked on top of her portable changing pad in the laundry room with the world's fullest diaper ever. Oh, and the smell - I am fairly certain I smelled it ten feet before I opened the door but I still went inside - I thought she was crawling or something really cool but I had been duped. If you'll recall the last entry, the little girl was experiencing a bit of a back-up. That, after Sunday, was no longer a problem and The Youngling couldn't have been happier.

She's always a happy little girl but after that virtual explosion she was positively giddy. She had expelled a good pound or two of stored-up inventory by virtue of everything being priced to move. I could have done without the stench but it's good to have everything moving properly again.

Rookie Dad: The case of the eating machine

The Youngling has finally taken to eating mushable solid foods. Beginning Friday, she has accepted the strawberry yogurt drops which we bought in June hoping that she'd be some sort of go-getter and be ready to tackle a drumstick by Thanksgiving. So what if we were wrong?

Whatever the case, The Youngling has started to mash and smash those almost instantly soft yogurt drops and even with the disgusted face she sports when she first slides the "dessert" between her drool-covered lips, she eventually eats it - and as a bonus she doesn't even gag on it!

We also found out that she is not a fan of water. This was discovered on Saturday in Waconia with The Youngling sporting her finest summer swimsuit as I dipped her feet into the water. This wise test of mine turned into a 60-minute crying fit. I chalk her dislike of the water up to the cool water after the previous night's heavy rains but she'll eventually turn into a little mermaid. She's in the wrong state if she doesn't.

Rookie Dad: The Play-Doh Fun Factory

There has been somewhat of a traffic back-up lately. No, not on 35W or 169 but with The Youngling. The combination of formula and green beans has caused a back-up within the baby's digestive tract. The little trooper has dealt quite well with it, outside of the occasional sore tush, and I'm very proud that she isn't a whiner.

The one thing I could do without during this whole ordeal is the Play-Doh Fun Factory effect. It happened just the other evening when, after being fed, I carried The Youngling upstairs to change what I deemed a smelly diaper and opened it up. Not bad as far as dirty diapers go. Then I heard a small noise along the lines of "poof". This was the beginning of the Play-Doh Fun Factory. I had a front row seat to how a 6 month-old's digestive process works and I really had little choice in the matter.


I should have been disgusted by the green matter being expelled but all I could do was laugh as the wife poked her head in and said "It looks like a human Play-Doh Fun Factory".

That's how odd terms are coined in our home.

Rookie Dad: Will that leave a stain?

The second "solid" food in The Youngling's new diet has been squash. Yep, those tiny tubs of pureed food at the price of 2/$1 are her favorite thing in the whole world. The only problem is that, just like the rice cereal which she now despises, she can't quite swallow everything which leaves pureed, watery squash slowly creeping down her tiny chin on to her tiny bib with more than enough squash making its way behind the bib and on to her once clean clothes.

I suppose my first mistake is consistently dressing her in white shirts in the morning which begs this question: why do the Chinese clothes manufacturers feel the need to even manufacture white clothes for kids? Kids of any age are messy. At best, 40% of the food destined for their mouth actually enters the mouth and stays there.

I just hope that squash doesn't stain because as I took over supper feeding duties last night for the first time this week, this dirty dad wasn't paying close enough attention and The Youngling has added some lovely orange splotches to her nearly new jammies.

Rookie Dad: It's sweet potato time

That really says it all. The Youngling has finally added flavor to her diet in the form of sweet potatoes. No, not whole, straight-from-the-can sweet potatoes but the finely pureed stuff bought in the baby food section of Target. And to this point she hasn't met a food she didn't like. There is no fighting with her to get that tiny mouth open and there's no spitting food out. Just like Mikey, she likes it and so far we haven't seen any symptoms of the far-too-common sweet potato allergy so all of us can sleep well at night.

As far as what The Youngling is doing between feedings of tasty sweet potatoes, she was getting plenty of attention on Sunday. Her older cousin spent the afternoon with us and we experienced, as a group, some time at a local park where I got myself stuck on a slide and after removing myself from that slide all that was left was one exhausted dad. Those couple hours gave me a look at what my future holds and apparently I need to start taking my Flintstones vitamins and drinking coffee. A lot of coffee.

Rookie Dad: This little piggy

The Youngling did what any good little girl would do for her mom on Mother's Day, she took her out to brunch (and got her a framed photo of the one above). Well, a nearly six month-old can't actually take her mom out for brunch but you get the idea. There was a fabulous spread complete with breakfast foods, pork loin, prime rib, shrimp alfredo and a dessert selection that would make anyone hungry.

Not to be left out, The Youngling took part in her own meal. She quietly cooperated as mom took at least part of the day off and was, for once, allowed to eat the bulk of her meal in peace. Lately, she has been gobbling down milk and cereal at the rate of a much older child and we are currently taking bets on what her weight and height will be on her six month checkup next week. My guess is 16 lbs. 2 oz. and 28 inches long. You can leave your guesses in the comments.

Rookie Dad: More snot than you can shake a kleenex at

It's been six days since The Youngling came home with a cold. Well over eight months before catching some sort of ailment is a miracle considering that she spends her days with an older cousin who seems to have been sick continuously since being born.

We prepared ourselves for a long weekend complete with an uncomfortable, snot-filled little girl who wouldn't be able to sleep and instead would scream at hours normally reserved for sleeping. We couldn't have been more wrong. Oh, sure, she wanted to be held more than normal but she sneezed her way through the weekend and used about half of a big box of kleenexes.

By Monday morning it was decided that I should stay home just one day with The Youngling to make sure she gets fully healthy before going back to the normal daycare routine. The little trooper improved throughout the day. She spent time outside in her little red swing giggling and drooling. She spent time inside sleeping in the air conditioned house snuggled with her little green blanket.

In short The Youngling is back to herself. She's back to sleeping for ten hours at a time and pushing herself backwards all through the living room and destroying the occasional magazine.
I think I can put that box of kleenexes away... for now.

Rookie Dad: It's just a rash

I can't claim to know what it feels like to have your bottom sore to a point where it makes me cry but I do know that The Youngling, if she knew how to talk, could tell everyone she sees about her first ailment.

Monday night, when I arrived home, I was informed that we had ourselves a sore baby. I expected teething or maybe she took a tumble somehow but I honestly wasn't expecting diaper rash. In a world where a certain flu strain seems destined to make us all board up our windows and doors something as simple as diaper rash seems trivial but when a tiny princess has a sore bottom, it's a big deal.


Growing up sans siblings, I was and still am totally oblivious to what to do about most everything considering children. I've seen the tube of diaper rash cream/ointment/plaster in The Youngling's diaper basket but outside of using it to soothe her rashy armpits, I had never seen it in action.

I now know, after two days, that slathering the goo on her bottom is better than applying it lightly. Or so says mom. I won't complain because as I cringed in fear of wiping The Youngling's sore tush super-mom stepped up and did what I was too cowardly/unexperienced/proud to do.

One of these days I'll get back to diaper duty but not until that mess of cream is gone.

Rookie Dad: Her first sleepover

We lasted a solid five months before we sent The Youngling packing. Well, packing for the night. Saturday night was the first time in just over five months that the baby has spent the night away from dad or mom. And the amazing part is that we all survived just fine.

After five months, a break is deserved and after the day leading up to that break it was welcome. With two separate rounds of baby puke before noon on Saturday, dad needed a break.

I found it amazing that a little girl could vomit sometime during the night and sleep through it. She didn't stir and we didn't notice until she woke up around 9 AM (yes, 9 AM). Her tiny pajamas and tiny sheet along with her tiny mattress pad protecting her tiny mattress were damp but warm. 9 AM is the perfect time to begin your laundry if you were wondering.

Then after a morning nap, cereal and a bottle, we decided that the bottle - all five ounces of it - was a bit too much. She expressed those feelings on mom's new (thankfully) white shirt, the couch and the hardwood floor. Hooray, more laundry!

Luckily, grandma had a far drier time as The Youngling had her first sleepover. As for me, it's time to get back into the habit of feeding her cereal. This break is officially over.

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Rookie Dad: She's on a roll

Just days after the triumphant and much-ballyhooed five-month mark The Youngling has rolled over. All reports are saying that this was a totally unassisted roll and being that it happened when dad wasn't around, it actually counts.


Now with that last statement, there is obviously a story to be told and tell it I will.

A couple Fridays ago - the one before Easter - I was home with The Youngling and we were working on our rolling skills (her more than me). I was clapping like a kid having candy thrown at him and becoming quite exhausted when, with just the right combination of kicking and grunting, she rolled over. A classic tummy to back maneuver that would have easily scored nines in Olympic competition and when I told the wife later in the day what had transpired her reaction wasn't what I had expected.

She wasn't sure that it was totally unassisted. I stated that I had helped with a few rolls and turned my head for a few seconds because Anthony Bourdain was interviewing some of the L.A. rollergirls and out of the corner of my eye I saw "the roll". Eventually we chalked it up to a fluke but did plant a sticker on that day's calendar space for the triumphant roll but maybe two times makes it officially official.

Whatever the case, I saw that first roll and while there's a very good chance that I could miss the first steps, words, graduation and a few other lesser events - nobody can deny that first roll because stickers last forever.

Rookie Dad: All about the aim

After five months, I am still working on my aim. No, this isn't about the mythical basketball hoop in my driveway. This is all about a little girl who "spits up" at random times.

Yesterday, while talking to a couple visitors, The Youngling managed to spit up no less than three times. Two of those times ended up on my fancy t-shirt.

This morning was no different. After getting her dressed for the day in clothes perfectly fit for the relatively cool and dreary day, she decided that is was prime time for puke time.

Amazingly her aim while lying on her changing pad is impeccable. Not a drop on the pad but the entire collar of her spiffly little shirt was drenched in warm milk. This led to mom dressing The Youngling for the second time.

Then came those fateful few moments before mom shoved off for work. She can actually sense baby puke making its way towards to exit and quickly aimed pukesy outwards as she produced four tiny but warm pools of milk on the laundry room floor. At least it allowed me to further hone my janitorial skills.

If my boss is reading this, that's why I arrived at work a few minutes later than usual.

Rookie Dad: For the love of cereal

Cereal is apparently the first step in solid foods for infants. Hey, everything is news to me but I've got a pretty firm handle on this "solid" food stuff. After all, I managed to buy the cereal not once but twice already.

It's been just over two weeks since The Youngling had her first meeting with cereal. That first time went surprisingly well and if that box of questionable looking Gerber Rice Cereal is an acquired taste, the baby has met her new favorite food.

Last night, as I quickly threw some chicken on the grill, I lingered for a minute or two outside and as I came back through the kitchen and past the dining room I was informed that The Youngling had eaten all of her cereal. Now I can't definitively tell you the quantity of cereal she currently eats I can say that it's between a couple ounces and a couple pounds and the fact that this sutbborn girl who won't eat cereal if dad is feeding her powered down this gruel in about two minutes time is nothing short of impressive. Even more impressive was the fact that she wasn't wearing the cereal. Previous times she'd had cereal from just below her eyes stretching to just above her waist. The prissy princess herself had managed to stay mostly clean and wasn't screaming. Score one for mom as dad was once again reminded that during some parts of raising a child, he's best left to cooking.

Rookie Dad: She's so done with Easter

Yesterday was the first Easter for the youngling. It may have been the first official Easter for her on the record books but I'm rather certain that she didn't grasp the whole concept of the day's festivities. She actually slept through a good portion of the afternoon which is probably good. Even when she gets older how is she going to entirely understand a day whose secular meaning boils down to ham and chocolate?

And how can I be expected to explain a giant bunny who leaves behind eggs? I'm no wildlife expert but I do know that bunnies don't lay eggs and chickens are just beginning to make their way into the Easter holiday.

At least the youngling had fun during the few hours she spent awake. By the end of the day her stark white sweater had red Jello-stains courtesy of her older cousins. Hey, at least I learned a lesson, children and white clothes do not mix.

Rookie Dad: It's mango-riffic

I'm stunned by the choices available in baby food. I made this discovery as I stood, my mouth very much open, in an aisle at the local Target store. Being a tight-wad, I compared prices between the two-packs of Gerber goodies in plastic tub two-pack form and single glass jars (which I am saving for a project). Numbers running through my head, I settled on the slightly cheaper plastic tubs and then stood befuddled struggling to choose what flavors to buy. I am not exactly a infant taste-ologist. I don't know what flavors are hot and trendy for the summer. This is meat and potatoes country but I didn't see a pot roast flavor so I bent over and began re-examining the flavor selection.

I know that The Youngling totally digs both carrots and sweet potatoes so those went in my basket. But those are vegetables and everyone knows that little baby girls also need fruit. I scratched my head as I tried to remember what fruits she had already been accustomed to by using the four meals rule. Pears were golden to her but I didn't see those in the stage two tubs.

Then, like a star guiding me to the holy land, I saw it. Mangoes. Mangoes! Babies apparently have rather advanced taste buds. I'm fairly certain that 30 years ago I wasn't sitting in a high chair eating and covering myself in pureed mangoes. The Youngling is a lucky little girl to have such a vast array of flavor at her stubby little fingertips and she better watch out because I'm always looking to jazz up my lunch selection and those tubs of mangoes are definitely tempting.

Rookie Dad: She's eyeing my food

The youngling is inching closer to the five month mark. She is still as toothless as my grandma was and has a bit less hair than my dad but she's quickly honing her tastebuds - both present and future.

While she's a bit over a week into the adventure known as rice cereal, she's already looking into the future. Already she has grabbed mom's bowl of ice cream and tugged it close to gum the decade old stoneware dish and last night she was contemplating whether or not her future included pizza.

As she stared at the large slices while we ate, I think she made up her mind that, yes, the future does include pizza. It may be quite some time before she earns her Italian food chops because I'm not big on sharing and I'm fairly certain that teeth are a prerequisite for pizza.

Rookie Dad: Baby needs a new pair of socks

The youngling has an ongoing obsession with her socks. Maybe it's more of a battle against them. Whatever the case, she seems to be either obsessed with her footwear or deeply despises whichever socks I wrestle on to her feet each morning.

No matter the true answer, the socks never stay on. Having recently discovered her feet, she incessantly tugs at her socks. Sometimes she wakes up with the socks nowhere in sight. She is either good at hiding them somewhere nearby or has eaten them while she sleeps. And before you think to yourself, "Hey, bub, there's no way a 19 week-old baby can eat socks" you need to realize how crafty the Youngling is. I actually saw her after she had silenty woken from a nap with her sock, liberated from her foot, in her mouth. Is this a problem I need to keep my eyes open for? I haven't seen any choking hazard-type warnings stapled to packages of tiny socks but if this baby is capable of anything, it's creating a need for one more product warning.

Rookie Dad: What goes down must come up

I always thought the phrase was "what goes up must come down". It has something to do with gravity. Gravity, though, is a rule that doesn't apply to my baby. Yesterday morning as I fed her she seemed abnormally hungry. She greedily sucked down most of the bottle's contents which meant it was time to dress her for the day. Some sporty sweats were just the ticket for an energetic 4 month old on the go.

She had other plans.


Before I could fully dress her, she began coughing. I have learned that this is a signal to sit her up and see what happens. Sometimes the coughing is due to her trying to eat her fist, sometimes it isn't. This time wasn't from her fist becoming a meal.

As I sat her up, she instantly expelled the offending material. That's code for "she puked up five ounces of milk". But I dealt with it and sopped up the warm mess and proceeded to try dressing her again. Success at last.

Until I heard the magical words as I showered. "Oh, crap." No further explanation, just a pile of baby clothes on the floor as I scoped out the situation minutes later and a raised voice from downstairs asking me to take the sheet off her mattress. It seems that this particular baby had now changed her mind about what she had for breakfast and was sending this meal back to the kitchen. Tough luck for her because the only thing on the menu at the baby cafe is milk and the menu doesn't change for quite some time.

If you're a parent, you know that things happen in threes. That was when baby puke was discovered matted in her hair on the back of her head. A quick trip to the Lil' Baby Hair Salon was now in order. So much for breakfast. That little girl is going to be high maintenance. But it gets easier, right?

Rookie Dad: an introduction

I optimistically entered into fatherhood in November. I knew little of what to expect and had heard plenty of nightmarish stories about babies waking up every two hours during the night screaming and foul smelling diapers that would scare veteran sanitation specialists.

Sure, much of my pre-fatherhood education came from the movie Knocked Up but I still felt reasonably prepared.


Fast forward four months to current time.

In those four months my education has been by way of trial and error. I've seen multiple surfaces soaked and/or covered in pee. I've been on the receiving end of diaper changes that ended up taking not one or two diapers but up to four because sometimes a little girl just can't stop a good thing.

Thankfully, the midnight feedings have been nearly non-existent. Sure, yesterday morning's first feeding found me as the recipient of a milk fountain from her mouth. Hey, at least it was warm but on the down side I was already dressed for work. Oh well.

If you're curious what other bumbling baby and dad adventures are happening, keep checking back here.