Dads, Not Babysitters!

After much anticipation, my official Dad-Blogs shirt finally arrived. And conveniently it arrived just in time for the very first extended Daddy-Daughter Day. Today, Mommy went to get a 90 minute massage from her favorite massage place (Hillsborough Massage Therapy) to redeem part of her Mother's Day gift, which meant that Daddy and Kaylani (and Padrino Tim) were alone with Kaylani for a whole 4 hours. Sure that doesn't sound a lot, but it was by far the longest Mommy has been away. But I wasn't babysitting today, I was Daddy-ing (Fathering? Papi-ing? I dunno, but it wasn't babysitting).

To many of you, babysitting may sound like the right term for what I did today, but it's not. Babysitting is what someone does when they just watch Kaylani. But as Kaylani's Dad, it's about more than just watching Kaylani. I'm her Dad, which means that I'm going to love her, take care of her, teach her, guide her, and be there for her whenever and wherever she needs me. Some babysitters do that, but still not the way Dad does.

I could get into a whole rant about the way society views Dads as babysitters, but there are a host of posts already on the topic over at Dad-Blogs. So instead, let's recap just how Daddy and Kaylani's day went today. It started at 5:30am when Kaylani decided she wasn't going to wait until noon for Mommy to leave and for Daddy-Daughter Day to start. But since she's still not a pro at the sippy cup (and because Mommy and Daddy had grand visions of her nursing then going back to sleep until 7am), Mommy nursed her and Daddy-Daughter Day started at 6:30am. From then until 8am, we played with blocks, blankets, other blocks, animals, curtains, the exersaucer, the jumper, and finally a doll before it was time for cereal. After that, it was Mommy's turn to nurse her before Kaylani's first nap.

The real Daddy-Daughter time (without a safety net) came at noon, and was comprised of some more blocks, some more jumping, lunch (mmm..green beans), some flying (courtesy of Padrino Tim), and then a nap in the car as Daddy the realtor showed Padrino Tim the neighborhoods. And to round out the time, Kaylani got to see Auntie Meredith and Katie before a trip to Panera for lunch. Soon enough it was time to say bye bye to Padrino Tim and Auntie Meredith, and hi to a new, refreshed, relaxed Mommy. After a trip to the park and some time in the swings, we were back home for a nice dinner of carrots and prune juice (poor baby needs to POOP!)

Now Kaylani is doing the one thing that Daddy can't help with...nursing. As hard as I tried today to do everything just like Mommy, I couldn't bring myself to get her to latch on (which was probably for the best since we avoided something like this happening). So Daddy-Daughter Day is over for now. Soon enough she'll be a pro at this whole sippy cup thing which means Daddy-Daughter Day could be extended even longer. I hope it's soon because I had a blast. Plus, I've got another Dad-Blogs T-shirt to wear, and these times are perfect to show them off.

Much overdue, but check out pictures from the last many days. They include pictures from today obviously, as well as her first Veggie Puff, real apples, and everything else that's happened. And don't forget to click over to Dad-Blogs to read my latest Sports IllustraDad post on the rules of golfing with a baby! Oh, and lastly, if you want your very own Dad-Blogs "Dads, not Babysitters" T-shirt, buy one now from The Dad-Blogs store! They make great Father's Day gifts! Just saying.

From Booby to Nuby!

Kaylani hasn't had a bottle since she turned 2 months old. Well, she hasn't had more than an ounce or two of milk in a bottle since then, and it's not something we've tried very hard to remedy. Mommy's been okay with breastfeeding for now, even though she had previously said she would try and ween Kaylani off at the 6 month mark. And honestly, we haven't even tried the bottle for a few months ever since our last experiment failed. But with Mommy feeling pretty tired lately, we thought we'd give it another shot so Daddy could help out in the mornings or at night. But this time, we mixed it up a little bit.

For the most part, Kaylani's been decent at drinking water out of her Nuby sippy cup. If you watched the end of the Veggie Puff video, then you can see that she likes to shake her cup around, turn it upside down, and maybe take a few sips every now and then. Well that's all fine and good when it's just water (except when she grabs the spout and makes a giant mess), but when we decided to try it with breastmilk (or liquid gold as we like to call it), there would be little shaking and leakage tolerated.

On Tuesday morning, Mommy gave Kaylani 1 oz of breastmilk in her Nuby sippy cup right after she woke up. And wouldn't you know it, she took it! Sure she shook it around and there was a little spillage because Mommy couldn't see her, but she took it. First thing Wednesday morning Daddy gave it a go. He gave Kaylani 1 oz of breastmilk to start, and after Kaylani grabbed it and pumped most of it onto her bib/shirt (oops), she took the refill of 1.5 oz just fine. And this morning, Kaylani took almost 2 oz of breastmilk from her Nuby sippy cup. So after 3 attempts, I think we're ready to call the Booby to Nuby experiment a success!

We may have declared success, but we're still going to work on it just a little bit. 2 oz is enough to hold her over so Mommy can sleep an extra 30 minutes to an hour in the mornings, but it's not enough to let Mommy get away for some solid Mommy time. Once Kaylani gets up to the 4-5 oz mark, then I think we'll be officially ready for a full half day of Daddy-Daughter time. And after that, maybe it'll even mean there's time for Daddy-Mommy time. That'd sure be something!

So we'll keep you posted on how our Nuby experiment goes. Hopefully she won't be a noobie with her Nuby for too long so I can give Mommy a real break and spend some good Daddy-Daughter time with Kaylani. But until then, we're more than okay with a whole lot of family time. And since it's Thursday night, that means its time for me to wish everyone a Happy Fatherhood Friday! Don't forget to check out Dad-Blogs for all the other great FF posts. And while you're there, check out my latest Sports IllustraDad post on why Lebron James sucks for brainwashing kids!

Daddysitting

I've been alone with Kaylani for an hour or two all by myself before. And usually during that hour or two, Kaylani would sleep and I would sit and watch TV. It was a pretty sweet life. But today, I had Kaylani for 3 hours by myself. And those 3 hours happened to stretch from the end of one nap time straight through dinner. All in all, it wasn't so bad.

As a little treat for Mommy, we decided that once Daddy got home from work she would go get her hair cut (and colored). Kaylani had been sleeping for about an hour by the time I got home so the plan was to wake her up and let her nurse before we lost Mommy. And just like anyone waking up when they're not ready to, she cried. Not off to the best start.

She ended up nursing just fine so it was the beginning of Daddy-Daughter time, and this time, we didn't have our safety net. The first 20 minutes or so were spent wrapping up some loose ends from work while Kaylani laid on the bed next to my desk and stared at me. Then, Kaylani spent about 20 minutes in her exersaucer before she started to look pretty tired. I mean, she had been awake for almost a full hour by this point.

After Kaylani spent 20 minutes in her pack and play trying to fall asleep on her own (she didn't and screamed the whole time), Daddy gave up and moved her to her swing. She fell asleep instantly, which meant that Daddy could spend the next 1.5 hours finishing up his taxes and watching the Yankees game. That left about 30 minutes before Mommy would be home, so we started cooking dinner (frozen pizza for Mommy, pre-seasoned salmon for Daddy, and barley cereal for Kaylani). When Mommy got home, dinner was almost ready, and Kaylani was almost done eating. Everything looked great...especially Mommy's hair!

So Daddy's first real shot at babysitting alone went as well as it could have. Part of me thinks that it's because we have the easiest baby ever, but the other part of me thinks that it was all a ploy between Mommy and Kaylani so that Mommy could leave us alone more often. I'm okay with either right now, but whenever Kaylani has one of her bad days and we don't have our safety net, we're going to need a Daddysitter for Daddy the babysitter. Any volunteers?

Even if you don't want to Daddysit, check out these pictures from the last couple of days. And don't forget to check back over the weekend. I'm sure we'll have some great pictures from Easter!

Daddy Day Trip

This morning, Daddy and Kaylani took a small little trip out by ourselves. Normally, I would just describe it as a quick trip to Wegman's to buy a few things, but this trip was more than that. It was our first real trip alone. Previous Daddy-Daughter trips consisted of a quick drive to Dunkin Donuts and back, or from the office to home when Mommy and Daddy ended up in separate cars. Today, we got out and did something "substantial" together.

Okay, so buying oatmeal cereal for Kaylani (we've given up on rice cereal...more to come on that in the future) at Wegman's may not seem substantial to anyone but me, but it was substantial on a few levels for us. For one, Daddy got to walk his little girl around for a bit in the grocery store, and field the comments about her by himself. He particularly liked the one where the cashier said Kaylani looks like Daddy, just giving more fuel for his debate with Mommy (and no, I don't care that she's never even seen Mommy so her opinion actually means nothing).

Also, the Daddy-Daughter trip allowed Mommy to do something that she doesn't do very often, and that's shower without having to entertain Kaylani. Typically during the week, Kaylani sits in her bouncy in the bathroom and Mommy plays peek-a-boo with her while she takes a very quick shower. And for anyone who knows Mommy, they know how much she likes long, hot showers. So the fact that Mommy got to take a nice shower and wash her hair without having to say "Where's Kaylani? There she is!" every 10-15 seconds meant quite a bit.

So I think Daddy-Daughter trips are going to be somewhat of a regular thing in the future on the weekends. Mommy will get some time to herself back, and Daddy will get to spend just a little bit of time alone with his little girl. I'd say that's a win-win for everyone involved. Hope Kaylani thinks the same...