Howdy gang,
Holy
hell has it been a long time or what?! If you are following my on Facebook, you
already know that between work, the holidays, and the never-ending string of plagues
that have been terrorizing our home…I have managed to get way behind on my
postings. I’m not even sure where to begin honestly. So much has changed since
my last post at the end of November. My little lady has gotten big! She is like
an actual little person now. Her personality is really taking shape, she is
very mobile, she is eating real foods, and she is finally back on a semi-legit
sleep schedule! I guess I will backtrack a little bit to Christmas…
So, I
am not a fan of Christmas. When I was little I was, but what little kid doesn’t
like presents? As I got older though, despite her best efforts, I found out
what my Ma had to go through in order to put presents under the tree. She
really didn’t want me to know because she wanted me to have a nice Christmas
every year; but she worked extra hours, she sold plasma, she maxed out credit
cards, put things on lay away, borrowed money from friends and family. All so
that I could enjoy Christmas. After finding out what see was putting herself
through to accomplish this, it kind of put a damper on the whole season. Mix
that with my grandmother passing away just before Christmas and it makes for a
young dad that doesn’t care for the season in general. BUT, now I get it. I get
why Ma did all of that. When you are a parent, you have to put all of your shit
aside in order to make your kid happy. So I put on my best version of Christmas
cheer and did the whole thing. Put up decorations, bought and wrapped presents,
traveled around to the different families, and did it all with a smile on my
face. I did learn that buying presents for an infant is bullshit though. She
was way more thrilled with the wrapping paper and cardboard tubes from the
wrapping paper than she was with any of the gifts. We only did one large gift
for her, which was a Radio Flyer wagon. I am a firm believer that every kid
needs a Radio Flyer. I still have mine from when I was a kid, but there have
been some pretty insane advancements in wagon technology since 1988. Mine is
all metal, rusted to shit, and presumably full of tetanus. Hers is plastic,
comes with cup-holders and seat belts, and has bench seating. Kid is only 9
months old and is already spoiled as shit.
We have
also been passing around wave after wave of sickness in our house. It has been
utter nonsense. I got it first, gave it to Ewok, then my wife got it, then I
got it again, then my wife, then Ewok, then me again, then Ewok, and now my
wife is coughing again. My wife and I also got some weird stomach bug mixed in
there twice! I won’t get super graphic, but let’s just say that it was firing
out of both ends. We don’t know what the freaking deal is though. We have used
Lysol on everything in the house, sterilized all of her toys, washed everything
article of clothing and blankets in our home, even sani-wiped all door knobs
and cabinet latches in the house and we STILL keep passing this shit around.
The weird thing was, that at any given time it would be either my wife or I
sick when Elizabeth was, so there was always 1 healthy adult to take care of
the other 2. Which was kind of nice, because I couldn’t imagine both my wife
and I being sick with Elizabeth feeling spry and moving around the house struggling
to keep up. But it did make for a shitty couple of days for whichever one of us
was healthy since that left only 1 person to do EVERYTHING in our home. Kids
are seriously just little petri dishes. I have had to call in more in the last
6 months than I have had to in the previous 4 years combined! It is insane.
As I
said, Elizabeth’s personality is truly starting to form. She is generally a
goofy, happy-go-lucky, smiley, little lady. She LOVES to play peek-a-boo, hide
and seek (a infant friendly version of course) and she loves to play “chase
mommy” where I pick her up and we chase mommy around the house. She has become
insanely ticklish in the last few weeks. She giggles and giggles when you
tickle her neck and she kicks her feet and squeaks when you go after her feet.
She loves to be read to. I don’t usually make it home for bed time, but my wife
reads her 2 or 3 books every night before bed and she looks forward to it. She
will seek out and pull out books from her book box. She does pretty well at
flipping pages even! She is super inquisitive
and is always trying to figure out what Mommy and Daddy are doing. Now that she
is actually crawling, she tends to follow us around the house just to see what
we are doing. We do our best to always talk to her and explain what we are
doing. I’m unsure what she actually picks up, but my Ma and several books that
we read, claim that talking to infants about even your mundane activities
builds their vocabulary. So, we figure it is worth a try.
Speaking
of vocabulary… SHE FINALLY SAID DADA! She started saying Mama a while ago.
Usually she would only say it when she was fussy or tired, but she was still
saying it. My wife said she started saying Dada while she was playing. Just
talking to herself and saying “Dadadadadadadada”. Then we had a short stretch
where we are pretty sure she was calling me “Bop”, but then we got 2 confirmed
Dadas within a few days. I woke up and found Elizabeth eating breakfast , I
walked up and she said clear as a bell, “Dada!” and giggled. Then just last
week, I hadn’t seen her for almost 5 days when I overheard her saying Dada to
herself while my wife was getting ready in the morning. I dragged my ass out of
bed and went out to see her before they left. Elizabeth saw me, got super
jazzed, said “Dada” and crawled faster than I can walk over to me and started
tugging on my pajama bottoms until I picked her up. Seriously, that kid has me
so wrapped already. My heart melted.
So
along with her legit crawling like a boss, she has also started pulling herself
up on things left and right. We did end up having a small issue though two
weeks ago. You see, I stayed home with Elizabeth since she was sick, but this
kid was not my kid. She was possessed by some sort of shitty demon. She was
awful. She would cry for NO reason, she kept biting and punching me, there was
nothing I could do to console her. I had been texting my wife all day saying
how awful she was and how I was ready to, and I am quoting here, “put her
little ass in a kennel and leave her outside” when all of a sudden her normal
personality came through and she felt like playing. She pulled herself up on
one of her walker toys and got so excited that she pulled herself up all by
herself that she forgot to keep holding on and fell to the side and cracked her
head on the coffee table before I could swoop in. She ended up with a big old
goose egg and all I could think of was, “ there is no way that my wife isn’t
going to believe that I didn’t beat her!”. Of course, my wife knew as
frustrated as I was, that I would never lay a hand to my daughter and we
laughed about her first official goose egg. The real funny thing was that after
I calmed her down she wanted to keep playing and she managed to bonk her head 3
more times while attempting to crawl under the chair and the coffee table. She would look up at me like it was my fault
and I couldn’t help but laugh at her.
I need
to get better about getting these post updates up. This has been an extremely
cathartic experience for me. There are many times as a new parent that you feel
kind of trapped. Sidenote: Elizabeth, if you are reading this, I love you but
you are a serious time and money suck. This has allowed me to vent and so many
other parent have talked to me after reading one of my posts and said how they
felt the same way. So in that regard, perhaps it is just as cathartic for some of
you reading to know that you aren’t alone. I still wouldn’t trade any of this
for anything…except maybe a dog. I promise not to wait 2 months in between
posts this time though. As always, thank you for reading, check out Fatterhood
on Facebook, and PROST!
