In the 2nd and final half of Liapalooza 2010, I’m happy to report that it was not only a strong bonding and learning experience, but something I will look forward to every summer from here on out. There may not have been over 35 bands playing at Liapalooza, but that doesn’t mean the decibel level didn’t reach that of a concert during one of her tantrums.
Although her fascination for taking care of her vast collection of babies is still active, she has now found a new interest in tutu’s, princess shoes and looking pretty. Now, I know she’s only 3.5 but it’s only natural for a father to be guarded in the fact that in the future with looking pretty garners attention and with attention come the boys. Deep breath, and exhale… I still have hopefully 10 or so years before I have to flex my daddy muscles to let these “so-called” boys know that she is my little girl and always will be. But I digress as we have a while before those days begin.
Much is how many of any one thing Lia wants plenty of regarding food, snacks and even toys. For example, if I am about to give her Cheeto’s, she reminds me that she wants “much of them”. Even though I have corrected her on many occasions and she has picked up on it, I still like to use it when she is not around when I want many of something…as it brings a huge smile to my face. So, if that’s me in the car next to you talking to himself and laughing or smiling, know that I am perfectly sane and happy as I reflect on how precious my daughter is.
So in closing the chapter on Liapalooza 2010, we leaned “much” things about each other and as our time together increases and we grow stronger together, I look forward to all of life’s obstacles, moments, and experiences we will share together.
Love,
Daddy
This is my first solid summertime month with Lia and has been dubbed Liapalooza 2010. This is the first time since she was 4 months old that I have had for for more than one week straight and I couldn’t be happier. Although we are midway through our 2nd full week together, so many things have transpired, said and witnessed that I actually had to start making a mental note of things I wanted to talk about so bare with me as I try and flush out these wonderful moments of bonding, laughing and parenting.
Sine we live in a 2 story house, a baby gate is a given and necessity. Over the course of having the gate, she pretty much has ignored it’s existence and just realized it was an immovable obstacle and it did it’s job. This past weekend, she was ready to head to the donut shop as we promised donuts bright and early the next morning. Between climbing in and out of our bed, side stepping Dylan, and reminding us that the word donut does start to sound funny after 300 times of hearing it that we decided to finally start to get ready. While we were putting our clothes, she was still in her nightgown, but in her mind she had one foot already in Shipley’s. Standing firm by the baby gate and losing patience, she said that we needed to hurry as she hit the baby gate softly with her hands and said because she can’t escape “this”. It was an obvious statement, but the fact that she used the word escape let me in the fact that maybe there have been futile efforts to “escape” the gate before. Either way the wording was classic Lia and not soon forgotten.
Lia also has made it clear that diapers are for babies and that she wears “pooh-lups”. She only wears them at night but make no mistake about it, they are not diapers. The dialect on the word “pull-ups” is hysterical and cracks me up every time and I find myself asking her if she wears diapers just so I can hear her correct me and say it for me. I even wanted it recorded so I can hear it over and over, and of course so others can hear it because it’s just too precious. Listen for yourself as I have it available for your listening pleasure below.
Stay tuned for the rest of Liapalooza 2010 as there is more to come.
This question can be heard as a “stay longer” tactic deployed by my very genius daughter as I tuck her in bed for the night. It is usually followed by, I need to got potty (for the 3rd time), I’m hungry, and the ever loving “I need to go take my medicine”. What child on Earth WANTS to take medicine, much less remind their parent that it is fact time for that. What used to be a 10 minute ritual has now turned into a 30 minute bed time ordeal. Now, I’m not saying that I’m letting her railroad over me, but it’s hard sometimes to leave because she is sooo cute when trying to apply these sly tactics. It’s even harder to keep a straight face while she scrambles to keep the last person in her audience of one captivated before Act II Scene 1 begins.
She is witty, crafty, and manipulative…all which are traits I have bestowed upon her, but now I must teach her to use these powers for good as I have these 36 years. Although I have shed my cape and efforts against the evil doers of the world, I have put on a new cape and taken on the role of Captain Fatherhood. This role involves supervision, authority, delegation and compromise. The ability to take time out of the day to enjoy something that otherwise would have gone unnoticed if Lia wouldn’t have pointed it out. For instance the plane passing overhead, the bug in the flower garden, or quite simply how beautiful the world is when you have time to slow down and look through her eyes as she sees it. As a matter of fact, where was I when the world switched to the complicated, busy and sometimes ugly world my daughter has yet to see? I guess it doesn’t matter, because I traded my childhood badge for a shiny fatherhood badge to not only serve and protect my daughter at all costs, but to bring a smile to her face when she looks back over her childhood. Unfortunately, the pictures of us together loving, laughing and enjoying each other will only capture a microsecond of the special bond we shared, but the memories will last forever; and that is good enough for me.
Lasterday [Las-tur-day] n. 1. A date in time that my daughter Lia uses to describe something that happened a short while ago.
ex. These photos of Lia were taken lasterday.
Yo Gabba Gabba, thank you for providing my daughter with countless hours of education, and entertainment. You have all the ingredients for a highly successful children’s show. Colorful, energetic and lovable characters, fantasy based sets, and theme based episodes. You also provide a key ingredient to any successful show, and that is a hypnotic tune by the name of “hide and seek” that crawls inside your ear, burrows deep inside your short term memory and sets up shop. Of course this has happened before with a few other of Lia’s music, but none have been so penetrating as this song. I have found myself singing it in traffic, in the shower and of course before I go to bed. It takes a full 3 days before it slowly dissipates completely from the cranium.
On the subject of music, Lia has also been listening to one of my favorites “15 Bible songs for kids” which she thoroughly enjoys. She has enjoyed it so much that one particular time in the car when the cd ended and the next cd was loaded automatically via cd changer (which wasn’t Lia’s music) she cried “what happened to my Baby Jesus music”. It’s times like those that truly unforgettable and make being a father more enjoyable that it already is.
So Lia, thank you for bringing countless smiles to my face and hypnotic techno ear worms to my world. I love you.
You will not see Lia within 30 feet of a Santa, and you can now add a person dressed up in a Bunny outfit to that list. She has had over 3 chances to see the Easter Bunny this year and all of them were unsuccessful missions. Of course if you ask her if she wants to see Santa and the Easter Bunny, she is all over it. But come showtime, you will have a better chance of seeing Oprah in the Victoria’s Secret Fall catalog. Easter was a total success this year with Lia as it was filled with egg dying, candy, egg hunts and of course photo shoots in her pretty dress.
One thing about Lia is that she loves pretty dresses. I would say almost as much as flip flops and stepping on frogs (not literally, but figuratively) She did quite well this year with her loot of toys, books, videos and of course candy. Although her requests for candy at breakfast go ignored, she has been pretty good about not asking too much. After explanations of why, she is generally ok as long as she knows that the day will bring a candy or two her way.
The other day while tracing each others hands with crayons, she decided that she wanted to trace my foot. Well I obliged her by taking off my socks so she could do so, but when she started she requested that I spread my toes. I tried to explain to her that I couldn’t and that we do not have the same muscles in our toes that we do our hands to spread them out. She said ok, but can you spread your toes so she can finish drawing my feet? I’m glad she understands that not all excuses are excusable… of course I knew this about her because she surely knows how to challenge authority at times.
That is the question Lia has been asking me as of late. She asks at random times and about 2 times a day which makes me think she is generally interested in my response. Of course I could be reading to much into it, but I really don’t think so because she literally stops what she is doing and looks into my eyes awaiting my response. “Yes” I responded each time telling her why she makes me so happy to be around her. I then ask if she is happy and she gleefully responds that she is and then continues on her way. Now, since I am on the topic of questions I have to share this cute story from a few weekends ago. I was on the way to the grocery store with her and we were having fun singing along to her music and then I turned around to ask her “Do you know how much Daddy loves you?”. Her response was “2 Minutes”. Or at least that’s what I thought I heard, or it could have simply been just “too many” as in her way of saying “too much”. I prefer to think it was two minutes, well because I love a good laugh and even when I ask her to this day it still sounds like “2 minutes”. I gave a good laugh then, and it still garners a good laugh now.
Being a single noncustodial parent can be difficult at times knowing that you are not able to see your daughter everyday and see her grow up and learn new things daily. When asked by someone, it occurred to me that during the explanation it was a lot like getting a new software update each time I saw her. Sort of like this week I am getting Lia version 3.3 with new features like “Are you happy Daddy” questions, better potty control and best of all “I want that Daddy”. The “I want that daddy” is a new feature that has truly taken me by storm in the sense that all toy commercial marketing is REALLY working on kids. Lia wants one of everything she sees, which I’m sure as every kid her age, but man it’s like watching a hypnotized person and as soon as the advertisement ends, it’s like the hypnotist snaps his or her fingers, and she is back to Lia again.
To make it fair, I think it would be funny have her sitting with me on a couch and watching a commercial that shows a little girl eating when her daddy tells her to and then I can say to her ” I want that Lia.”
Empty play is left around, silence fills the air abound.
Weekends gone but full of joy, what’s left are quiet lonely toys.
Sometimes sit where you played away, wondering the thoughts that came your way.
Here today but gone tomorrow, time with you is never borrowed.
Growing up fast untimely pace, slow down sweetie no need to race.
Can’t accept one day you will grow, can’t shift gears from fast to slow.
Pick you up from your bed, deep asleep rest your head.
Gently bounce and whisper soft, recap the day and my love aloft.
Descend to bed my arms extend, sweet dreams to you from my heart I send.
A new day awaits begin anew, toys where you left them and ready for you.
“No!, I feed Dylan.” These are the 4 words Lia yells with authority as I make mention that I am about to feed our behemoth of a dog. For whatever reason, Lia has taken feeding Dylan time as her new responsibility and lets you know that is her job when she is available. I even joked that I could get into the car, drive to the corner store, get inside a phone booth (if they were still around) and whisper “I am going to feed Dylan” and before I even finished the sentence, Lia would already be knocking on the outside glass yelling that SHE will be doing the honors tonight, thank you very much.
I feel she is at the age of wanting to prove to me that she is capable of a lot of things and I couldn’t be happier. Of course it doesn’t work when I say “I’m going to bed”, because she is much to smart for that. We are however in the middle of the potty training sessions which she has reverted back to bad habits, but still has a few good days when she wants to. Her latest fascination with getting to flush it seems to be the highlight of going to the bathroom, and seems to play that wild card of needing to go right before I am about to walk out of her bedroom of putting her to sleep. She is a sneaky one and is like a football coach of working the clock to the last possible second of last minute things she needs to do before she goes to bed.
Today while fixing Lia’s hair she was so involved with watching Sponge Bob Square Pants I decided to try and distract her a little. She completely understands the concept of taking pictures with a phone and seeing immediate results. When I finished her hair I said “ok, there you go, now you look like Sponge Bob” She immediately turned around with a puzzled look on her face as I searched Google Images for a picture of Sponge Bob. when I found one I told her I was going to take her picture and when I made the “click” noise she immediately wanted to see the picture of herself. Of course the image on my phone displayed Sponge Bob in some crazy pose as she exclaimed “I don’t wanna look like Sponge Bob!” Which of course my father and I exploded into laughter. I said “ok, let me fix it” and then took another picture and showed her a different picture of Sponge Bob as she started to look at her hands as if to try and piece it together on how fixing her hair could turn her into one of her favorite cartoons.. I had to then let her off the hook and fix her hair and assure her that she was back to normal mainly because I didn’t want Lia in therapy anytime soon, or never for that matter. Oh Lia, so much fun planned…so little time.
I couldn’t have planned a better way to ring in the new year than spending a solid week with you. It was a week of learning, laughter and fun. Since this was officially your Christmas time with me. With a tree full of presents underneath patiently awaiting your arrival, you wasted no time in fulfilling their desire to be ripped open. We would ask you which one you wanted to open and you would tip toe around the tree as if you were on safari hunting down a lion and point to the largest package and say “that one daddy!” When I would pull each present out as you carefully picked I would ask you to shake it and try and guess what was in each. Of course each response was “Baby”.
Papa was their to enjoy the moment as well and you didn’t disappoint. On one particular present you must have flipped it over 4-5 times looking for the seam to get your little hands into. It was highly entertaining and cute as we asked you random questions pertaining to Christmas to see how you would process the question while your attention was squarely focused on finding the seem. While opening each present you would see what was pictured on the outside of the box and still guess a Baby was in each one. I thought to myself, what exactly would you have done with 9 babies if I had actually gotten them for you. As it stands you have 4 scattered throughout the house either sleeping, sitting in a stroller or outside in one of your toy cars waiting for you. I did however get you a small princess bed for one of your babies, but you immediately turned it into a sleep over party stacking baby upon baby and covering them up. At times you would tell me to “ssssssshhhhhh, Baby is sleeping or crying” which of course was adorable.
One of your 2 biggest presents was an inflatable giant jumpy, complete with exhausting 20 minute pumping up action. Once aired-up, you ran over to it and jumped for a total of 45 seconds and wanted to get out. Over the course of the week you made sure to get full use out of it, and each time made me smile because you would build up so much static electricity your hair was standing on end but you had no idea.
This week also brought a few first times for you including ice skating and the bungee trampoline. The ice skating was a painful experience for me because I realized it’s hard to skate around the rink bent over and supporting your weight as my calf’s scorched during each stride. It was worth every second though as your little fingers held my hands for support as you gazed and glided on the cold wet ice. It’s times like these when everything slows down for a few seconds and you are truly able to take in a moment that you will never forget. With 2 full laps around the ice and even sometime spent in the middle, I could tell you were ready to get off what you had called the “slippery” stuff.
Just across from the ice skating rink, 2 full size trampolines with attached poles for bungee space jumps. Of course I was a little hesitant because I didn;t know if it would be too scary for you, but you could hardly wait in line as you watched each kid before you shoot up a good 2o feet into the air. When it was finally your turn and you were getting strapped in I could see your legs start to bounce like you were saying “alright, turn this thing on!” Of course your legs were not long enough to bounce you as high as you wanted to go, but with a little assistance from the bungee operator you were overlooking the skating rink and half of the mall. Each trip up you would focus on something else you hadn’t seen. So I think I understand it now, sitting on chubby bearded guys in red suits bad, launching 20 feet into the air good. It makes perfect sense considering my logic is astray at times, good to see I passed that on as well as your good looks.
Two things really stood out to me during this Christmas/new Years break together. The first of which was I into the kitchen and noticed your plush Mickey was sitting up against the wall near the refrigerator like you had accidentally left him there. When I asked you why Mickey was there you had told me that he was in Timeout. Of course my immediate response was to laugh, but I held it in just long enough to find out why, which was of course he according to you, woke up the babies that were sleeping. It made perfect sense to me because when you would sleep, I would have gladly put anyone and anything in timeout for waking you up.
The second was a New Years photo shoot outside in one the large yards near the house. It wasn’t planned by any means, but the pictures, your outfit and the turnout ranks up there with my most favorite pictures of you to date.
Here’s to many more New Years between us and thank you Lia, for making my life complete. I love you more than you will ever know.