Toy Thursday #1 - The Playhouse

My plan with this site is for every Tuesday have a new adventure up.  I would like to have other things going on as well.  So from now on, Thursdays will be known as Toy Thursday.  Basically, I will share something Kristin and I have either gotten Kaylee, or that someone else has that keeps her attention, or she likes to play with.  Maybe it will work for you, maybe not.  There are no guarantees with this, since every kid is very, very different.

So here goes!

For Christmas, Kaylee was almost one and she got her first "playhouse."  It is made by Fisher-Price and called The Little People Happy Sounds Home. It looks like this:


They also make a pink version that looks like this:



The house makes all sorts of sounds while your kid plays with it.  I constantly hear the toilet flushing, the washing machine buzzer going off, etc.  This thing has been amazing!  Kaylee will sit there and play with the little people and the house all by herself.  It is a nice little break for myself and my wife.  Now, our daughter has always been very independent, so another kid my not like it as much.  I just know for us, it has been amazing!

That's all for now!

Be looking out for the next adventure this upcoming Tuesday...

Dad And The Elmo Alien Invasion

I love Sesame Street, I really do. I think it is pretty amazing even after all these years. The show helps kids learn in a very fun way, and I know it keeps my daughter’s attention. My only problem with Sesame Street is Elmo. Yes that red monster who has completely invaded my home. You want to talk about an adventure? How about fighting off a mind controlling alien invasion. You may think that lumping in Elmo with the likes of other aliens who have tried to take over the earth in various movies, TV shows, and video games since the age of media is a little harsh, and I see your point. Elmo after all has never blown up the White House like in Independence Day, or made people where tin foil on their heads like that movie (I think it was “Signs”) with the aliens that looked like Power Ranger villains. If you don’t believe me about that last one just google it and leave some comments below with your apologies for doubting. Elmo may not have done any of those things, but he is slowly invading household by household. He already defeated Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Bert & Ernie, and every other Sesame Street character that used to be ahead of him when I was a kid. Now, I’m afraid to admit my house is under siege. Elmo’s plan is simple, invade and then mind control. It is already beginning. Here is how I know:

Step 1: Invasion
80% of the things in my home now have a picture of Elmo on them, and my daughter runs around the house saying “elmooooo”. Well, technically she doesn’t say it, it is more of singing it. Which is pretty impressive, since she can’t really talk yet. In fact, we are pretty sure Elmo was one of her first 5 words. She has multiple Elmo toys, three of which are stuffed dolls of various sizes. You may say, well it is easy to stop this invasion, just don’t buy her any more things with Elmo on them. That won’t work. She is 14 months old as of writing this and Elmo has worked himself into the American culture. When someone wants to get Kaylee something, the default is Elmo. Elmo is on t-shirts, singing toys, stuffed animals, plastic action figures, DVDs, etc. There is no stopping him!

Step 2: Mind Control
The other night we sat down to dinner. As a general rule, we try to put away all electronics and turn off the TV. We want to do our best to establish dinner time as a family time, and be, at least for the moment, disconnected to the outside world. Most nights this works out and it is great. Kristin and I laugh at our daughter as she learns to use spoons and forks, and mashes food all over the place while our dog, Alf, does his best to get every scrap she drops. It is an adventure every night.

But then came the night where the fog lifted from my eyes and I realized what Elmo was truly up too... world domination through mind control! Kaylee was sitting and eating when all of a sudden she looked over at the TV. It was not on. She quickly started pointing to it and saying Elmo? It technically sounds like em or elm or sometimes just o, but we know what she means. We told her she needed to finish eating, which she immediately did her arms in the air signal that means “I’m all done!” We then tried to explain to our 14 month old child that she had seen enough TV and we were going to play some games that had nothing to do with Elmo or the TV. That didn’t go so well. She immediately went over to the living room and pointed once again to the TV and very calmly said, Elmo? We once again said, no honey lets play with your toys over here. Now she got serious by grabbing the TV remote, pointing it toward the TV, mashing buttons, and then looking at us and saying in her still calm voice, Elmo? We once again assured her that we could watch Elmo later, but right now we were going to have lots of fun playing picnic and catch. Now the mind control escalated. She went to the cabinet where her Elmo DVD is stored and started pulling out, and throwing, every DVD case until she found the one she coveted... Elmo's Music Magic. She then pushed on the sound bar speaker we have (she thinks this is the manual way to turn on the TV) waving the DVD in the air saying over and over again in her still calm voice Elmo, Elmo, Elmo! Before we could once again try to explain and play with her, she put the DVD on top of the satellite box, hurried over to my recliner with remote in hand, climbed up by herself (this was one of the first times she did this. Apparently Elmo mind control gives super human strength), pulled a blanket over her lap, and then pointed the remote at the TV. She then said again in a calm voice while looking at us with her big brown eyes, Elmo?

It was at this point the mind control transferred from our little girl to us. We turned on the DVD for the 3,091,293,409,409,841st time, and sang and danced with her through the movie.

Elmo won again...

Sadly, resistance was futile.

How about you, has Elmo taken control of your house? If not what has?

Dad And The Belly Button

Adventures are something everyone looks forward too. My wife and I have had many adventures both together and before we met. We both have been to multiple countries, have enjoyed meeting new people, trying new things, and overall have done a great deal in our lives so far. We have been married almost 5 years now and decided 3 years ago to start the adventure of having kids. We work with children for a living as children’s pastors so when we decided to start our own family we weren’t sure how different it would be - we are surrounded by kids 50% of our time anyway, what would another 50% change right?.

So after a year of trying and 9 months of pregnancy (my wife, not me), our little girl, Kaylee, was born. What I thought would be one big adventure has turned into daily adventures of hilarity, insanity, tiredness, craziness and most overall awesomeness. With this site, I’m hoping to share some of these adventures as well as have a place my wife, Kristin, and I can look back on and remember the crazy amounts of adventures we have had with Kaylee, and our future kids.

One of the first most vivid moments I can remember is the day the umbilical cord finally fell off. First of all, how nasty are those things? I know they say people aren’t born with tails, but isn’t that basically what an umbilical cord is - a tail coming out of our stomach? Of course, the tail... I mean umbilical cord does come off after a short while, so dreams of being able to swing from trees from a stomach tail are only for those who are still in the beginning stages of life. We were instructed by the nurse to make sure to keep the cord clean by using a q-tip and rubbing alcohol. She told us to be gentle when touching the cord so we wouldn’t hurt the baby. She then very quickly said to not be so careful you don’t get it clean around the base. This of course is in direct violation of another nurse who said the q-tip and alcohol method was outdated and not to use it. That second opinion is in direct opposition of a parenting website which said to rub guacamole on it so it stays nice a moist, kind of like that facial stuff girls put on at night. Anyways, we went with the keep it clean method and constantly debated whether we were being gentle enough or if we were not getting to the “base” of the cord. The umbilical cord was supposed to fall off within 2-4 weeks, but we found ourselves around the 5 week mark with Kaylee’s stomach tail still hanging on for dear life. I guess Kaylee really wanted to swing from trees hands and feet free! Kristin and I couldn’t wait for the thing to go though, it looked like a shriveled up freeze dried banana that had been on the counter for weeks...

One night Kristin and I are getting Kaylee ready for bed. This included a bath, change of clothes, and all the other usual stuff. Kristin went to the other room to get her some pajamas while I finished up. Kaylee was getting a little upset and possibly a little cold so I picked her up after I had her diaper on. She calmed down pretty quick, so I put her down on the changing table, when I noticed “it” was gone. The stomach tail was missing. I quickly looked around. It was no where to be found (yes I realize those two sentences rhyme. I’m reading a lot more Dr. Seuss now a days). Her little belly button was bleeding a bit and overall was pretty disgusting looking. I still wanted to know where that tail was when all of a sudden I look down and see it. The cord was caught on my shirt! It was trying to burrow its way into my belly button. I quickly smacked the alien invader off, and then called Kristin in the room to figure out what to do with Kaylee’s new belly button. We weren’t sure how to react so we did what any other 20 something parents of the 21st century would do - we pulled out our camera phones and sent a picture to our parents to ask them what to do. While awaiting a response the inni and outi belly button theories others had mentioned came to mind. Supposedly if you, but a silver dollar over the belly button you are 100% guaranteed to make it an inni. After a quick rehash of the methods, we decided to let nature take its course as to whether Kaylee would have an inni or outi belly button.

We ended up just cleaning out her belly button, and all was well. My parents actually laughed at me for sending them a picture. Once Kaylee was set and heading to bed, I had to find where I had swatted the remains of her stomach tail... luckily Alf, our dog, hadn’t eaten it. In case you are wondering, I threw away the remaining umbilical cord. I know there are people out there that will save it and make it into a teddy bear or something, but that’s not my cup of tea. The thing did after all try to attack me.

Umbilical cords are not much fun, but they make for one great adventure!