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.