Just a little while ago my 19 month old daughter ran up to me and shouted excitedly, “hide!” At the time I was sitting at my desk as I am working from home again. I knew immediately what she meant. Thankfully I was not on a conference call at the moment, I wasn’t chatting with anyone via IM and I wasn’t deep in the middle of some process. So I scooped her up in my arms and we ran off to my bedroom. We leaped with cat-like precision onto the bed as I grabbed the comforter that is usually folded up at the end of the bed and pulled it up over our heads. Avery giggles and holds her finger up to her nose in a gesture that says, “shhhh.” We pull the covers down and shout, “boo!” at nobody. She talks excitedly as if Mommy or Bubba might run into the room at any moment.
After a few minutes of this I pry her from the bed and we make our way back to the front of the house where she goes to Mommy and I go back to work. This is an almost daily ritual… and I absolutely love it! This is one of the very reasons that I thank God I work from home. How lucky and blessed am I.
My wife and kids are extremely disgruntled and saddened today. Our next door neighbor has contacted the owner of our house (yes, we rent… I know it’s evil) to arrange for it’s removal. Once a year in the spring the tree sheds an enormous amount of tree pollen that covers both ours and our neighbors front yards. My wallet will be saddened as well when the power bill goes up; the tree is the only thing shading the front side of our house. Farewell, mighty oak… farewell.
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I got home from my first day away at work a little after 7 PM. I was greeted by the three most beautiful children in the world all screaming, “Daddy’s home!” That’s a very nice way to walk into your home. They had waited for me to get home before eating so we got to business of dinner pretty quickly after that. Aubrey had prepared a delicious meal and got the table set and kids in place while I changed into some more comfortable clothes.
Of course my youngest daughter, Avery the 14 month old, did not last through the entire dinner. She kept holding her hands up to me and saying, “Da-da!” Then she points her finger down on her highchair tray. So I ask her, “Do you want to get down?” She responds by grabbing both sides of the tray and lifting with all her might accompanies by a little grunting sound. I hadn’t seen her all day so I got her down and… yeah, you guessed it… she lead me right down the hallway and to her bedroom. We did blocks first this time, skipping the book reading. She then got one of her many musical toys and proceeded to perform a little spinning dance for me. When the music stopped she pushed the button to start it up again and went back to dancing. All the while she is watching me to make sure I’m paying close attention.
Yesterday’s tale in the continuing saga of Mr. Mom was a new one. I’ve experienced this before, but never on the scale of all day long. What am I talking about? Being a slave to my one-year-old beautiful little girl. How is this possible? Read on.
I sit down in front of my computer to just check my email. It’s about the sixth unsuccessful attempt at doing so. Avery, my daughter, toddles up to me and babbles off some cute gibberish. She then grunts at me and turns as if walking away, but pauses and stares back at me. Her bright twinkling little brown eyes flash at me and her pudgy little grin just beckons to be smooched. I’m determined to at least weed through the spam in my Inbox, however and so turn back to the screen. She comes back to my side and grunts louder this time. I persist in my task convinced that if I just ignore the cutey-pie, she’ll just go to playing with something on the floor nearby. Wishful thinking. Her grunts and ramblings become increasingly loud and she even feigns a cry (no tears included). She reaches up and pulls on my shirt and shorts. Next she grabs the finger on my hand that is closest to her and leans almost at a 45 degree angle to pull me from my task.
I’ve been the good ole Mr. Mom quite a bit lately as Aubrey is working many hours trying to make some income. It’d help if I would get off my rump and find a job, right? Just kidding… hopefully I’ll be hearing back from a company in Fort Walton this week with good news (keep praying).
Anyway, my baby girl, Avery and I have somewhat of a routine now. We get the older two kids in bed and then I walk her until she falls to sleep. Spoiled? Yeah, maybe just a wee bit. That’s ok… it’s my last little girl. We were keeping her in her room to go to sleep and sometimes just laying her in the crib, but now that she is sharing the room with Ragan it is a bit more challenging. So I’m walking her around in my bedroom the other night with the lights off and the ceiling fan going. Avery was snuggled into my neck and her body was limp. For all I knew she was fast asleep and I was about to take her to her crib. Then to my surprise I hear a little farting sound and a tickle on my neck. Avery has just blown on my neck. She sits up in my arms and giggles at me. She then goes back to my neck and does it again. 
How can you be mad at that? How cute?
Gavin, my five-year-old son and I were driving home from eating dinner out with the family tonight. He looked up at the sky and said, “Daddy, look at all of those birds.” I looked up and there were dozens of black birds perched up high on the power lines above the highway we were on. I am always interested in what my children find fascinating about the world around them and so I tried to engage him in some conversation about the matter.
“That’s neat.” I replied, “but I wonder how they can sit up there and not get electrocuted.”
He pondered this for a minute and then said, “Yeah, if they did then they’d all burn up and then they would be chicken.”
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Our one-year-old Avery has about eight little razor sharp teeth now and guess what she has learned to do with them? Oh yes! She can bite things… yay! Isn’t that fun? Not for daddy, it’s not. Avery likes to bang her on my shoulder and nuzzle into my neck to put herself to sleep. We’re working away from that now, but that’s a whole different story. Well, recently I’ve noticed a sharp searing sensation in my shoulder as she’s been doing this. Then she lifts up her head with my shirt clenched in between her little teeth and a wry little smile crossing her face, “Look what I can do, Daddy.” Oh yes, that’s cute baby. Just let Daddy get some gauze to stop the bleeding from my carotid artery.
That’s all well and good and I actually think it is a bit cute. Painful… but cute. The bad part is, I think now she has started to do it out of frustration as well which is not so good. The other day I was playing the keyboard and she wanted me to pay attention to her. I was really into what I was playing, so to get my attention she bit me right on the thigh. Ouch! She’s also started scratching out of anger.
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