It's hard to believe 6 months ago today, Laura and I became parents!!! It's weird to think back and wonder what life was like before Erica. In one word, "simpler"...but not nearly as fulfilling! At this time on April 1st, we were just settling in as a family for the first time after our families met Erica. We were full of fear, uncertainty, exhaustion and happiness. It was a calm and peaceful end to an otherwise emotional and physical roller coast ride that started March 31st when Laura slipped and fell going into church Easter Morning.
My sincere apologies for this being the first entry/update in over a month. Since school started, days seem to have far less time in them than they used to. Our new schedules, adjusting to life with a nanny during the week and Erica's routine have shortened our time together significantly than what we've been used to the first few months together. I'm usually at school before 7am, and Laura starts work at 7am. Until my after school activities started this week, I usually made it home a little after 3 and Laura finished working around 3:30 and we had the evening together until Erica goes down around 7ish. Well...add a major cold/sickness to the mix over the past few weeks and you get a little girl that wakes up a few times a night, a sleepy mom and dad and you get thrown off more than usual. Regardless, I'll do my best to highlight Erica's latest adventures and developments since my last update before the school year started...
Tonight, we tucked in our little girl who is growing by the day and beginning to show her fun personality in the cutest ways and discovers something new each week! It's so awesome to see how much something can change in a week, but Erica keeps blowing our minds with her development. The latest thing she is doing this week is keeping her tongue out constantly, all day long. Surprisingly, she's not drooling like you might think...granted, she still drools like crazy.
Over the past few weeks, she's been grabbing everything within reach and putting it directly into her mouth. It's crazy how fast she is at this new activity!!! She is rolling over both ways constantly, and she never sits still...though she is almost able to sit up on her own. She needs a little support now, but I'm guessing she'll be on her own in a couple weeks. She has all of the motions down for crawling, but hasn't combined them in order to start crawling yet. She has been eating food much more than ever before. She currently eats 2 meals a day and has usually 4 bottles throughout the day. We started her on rice cereal and began adding some pureed food. She hated the peas we tried first...but then enjoyed the apricots. Since then, she's had bananas, avocados, baby apple sauce and some mixed fruit baby food. She's loved it all except for the avocados!!! She's getting much better with eating off of the spoon, though we still have to force her tongue out of the way, and occasionally grab her hands away from her mouth and try to prevent as much spitting out of her food as much as possible...all things considered, of course!!! Over the past week she has been laughing much more frequently. She doesn't just giggle at anything when left alone, so it's fun to play with her to see what makes her giggle...and I must say, she has the most adorable laugh I've ever heard. The thing that cracks her up the most is when we try to sit her on Lexi's back if she's standing nearby. For some reason, it spooks Lexi (yes, a 75lb dog is spooked by a little infant!) and she runs away from us, and Erica laughs pretty hard every time...it's awesome!!! We're starting to find ticklish spots on her...her feet are very sensitive, though she doesn't laugh when they are tickled. But she does laugh a little bit when tickling the sides of her tummy or up high on her chest near her arm pits! Regardless if she laughs or not, she always smiles when we ask her if she'll smile for us!!! The coolest "trick" she does, is if you put your hand in front of her and ask her to give you a high 5, she'll reach out for your hand with an open hand...she usually has a pretty big smile on her face when we make a big deal out of it!!!
She is loving her toys. Her favorites are plastic rings that make a chain when snapped together. She tries to eat them and swings them around in the air and is always entertained by them. She still enjoys her little stuffed giraffe that we've named "Twinkle" because of the music it plays when squeezed. She has a toy remote control (the type for a TV) that has buttons that make all sorts of noises and enjoys that...though she seems to enjoy trying to eat it rather than push the buttons. And she loves her toy phone. It's shaped like an iPhone and even has the single button on the bottom with a clear screen. The button plays a few sounds a phone might make. This toy scares me the most because it rings and she just loves playing with it. Each time it rings, I remind her not to answer it if it's a boy that's calling her! Besides her toy phone, she loves looking at the screens of our cell phones and she tries reaching for them whenever they're in reach. She's gotten so used to smiling for pictures on our phone that she almost smiles instantly when we hold it up now...it's great!!! My phone is becoming so clogged with Erica pictures, we could almost retire our nice, regular camera!
She is so interactive now! For a few weeks now, I've held her over my head and then bring her down towards my face with a gentle jostling of her body and she smiles and loves it. Over the weekend, I held her a little above my head and drop her a couple inches while making weird noises and she laughs a lot. I also began grabbing her by her hips and rotating her upside down while we sit on the couch so she looks at us upside down and she smiles and giggles...and drools down her forehead...yuck!!! She occasionally gets into these fun moods where she just burrows in while you hold her and it's like she is giving you a hug as she reach around your neck. I've been working with her on "giving kisses" by moving her towards our cheeks with her mouth...of course these are often quite slimy and always opened-mouth...they are cute, nonetheless and she smiles in approval afterwards as if she's saying "you're welcome!"
Needless to say, I'm loving this whole "daddy thing" more and more every day!!! Like I said at the start of this entry, the words fulfilling, satisfying and rewarding are the only things that come close to describing what it's like to be a dad. Of course words like, love, amazing, awesome and such help describe it as well...I've never had such a more rewarding and fulfilling feeling in my life than from being a dad. There's no way I'd go back to living life without having Erica around...though our lives were much simpler back then, I couldn't go a day without my "little nugget" in my life and my wonderful wife to enjoy and share these moments with!
Before I let you look at some pictures from the past month, I must end this update on a serious note. In my classroom, part of what I do with my students are activities I call "self discovery" things where I help my kids figure out more about themselves and what makes them unique and special. I've always found these experiences to be rewarding as a student, and I've grown since my school days, so I put myself "in the trenches" with my kids and do the activities with them, both so they can learn about me, but so I can learn about myself as well. This week, my kids and I have been writing "Bio Poems" about ourselves. It's a 17 line poem, structured from the curriculum I use in the sense that each line is started for you and my kids fill in the rest about themselves. I've included mine below:
Dan
Integrity, Only
Child, Outgoing, Caring
Son of Tim and Barb
Lover of hunting,
Teaching,
Family
Who feels successful
when students learn something new,
Sad when others are
unwilling to try new things,
Nervous when faced
with new challenges
Who fears not being around
to watch my little baby grow into an amazing woman,
A world where
people are hated because of their beliefs,
Some of my students
are not nurtured, loved and supported at home
Resident of
Minnesota!!!
The serious note I wanted to share with you was the realization I had a few weeks ago, that Laura calmly reassured me was probably the worst fear of all parents; not being around to watch my little girl grow up. It took me a few days to work up the guts to share this fear with my wife, but her words comforted me, though only to a certain extent. I am terrified of missing out on the opportunity to be a part of her life and to watch her continue to develop, discover new things, giggle and laugh, smile at us and do so many more things we have yet to see her do!!! So, I have a request for any of you still reading this...if I'm unable to watch my little girl grow into the amazing woman that I know she'll be, please remind her often about how much her daddy loves her and of all things I described above that she loves doing with me!!! I appreciate it!!!
My final thoughts for you tonight, as I climb into bed on a school night...I can't promise as frequent of updates as I used to do, but I will do an update at least monthly from here on out. Of course, I'll always include pictures at the end...my cheesy way of making you read (or at least scroll through) my Daddy Diary! In 2 days, I'll take Erica in for her 6 month check up at the doctor's office to see how much she's grown and to see how she's doing. I know she's grown a lot, even in just the past month. We noticed tonight that she will need a new sleep sack (I call it her "fart sack" because it's like a mini sleeping bag!) and when we got it for her, her feet were so far from reaching the bottom, and now she's too tall...and, last weekend we had to go out and buy a bigger car seat for her! This one is mounted in the car and cannot be carried out as conveniently as the one we've used the past 6 months...so much for ease and convenience!!! Thanks so much for reading my Daddy Diary. I appreciate you checking in on my little nugget and reading about how much she's changed and how much joy she's brought to the people in her life!!! We appreciate your kind thoughts/words/prayers/wishes you send our way! Take care!!!
A typical meal time sight...before the food is added!!!
A party in the jungle...she loves bouncy in her favorite toy every day!!!
Erica on the left with her best buddy, Lyla, sitting with our nanny, Asah.
She still loves bath time!!!
