Active Attack

What do you do when Mommy and baby are away?

Daddy and daughter get to play!

Rough house and run

Soccer and giggles

Scream a bit louder, the glasses do clatter

Short …

Pause…

Hide and seek

Couchy trampoline,

Piano duets

And tickle attacks

To bed a bit late

A futile attempt

To tucker her out

It wasn’t enough,

Still quite alert

She’s in this space

Between needing that nap

And too much daytime snooze,

Will dad ever get his evenings back?

Dunk!

Have you wondered what Stella’s “helmet” that she’s had on her head the last few photos is?
For those of you who were wondering, now you get to see the practical application.

It’s a mini bathtub bucket thingy which baby’s love.
After some problems with the belly button healing, we got clearance from the Doctor that Emmett can take the big dunk.
And boy did he enjoy it.

With this bucket all we have to do is support his head (making sure he doesn’t go under). And through the buoyancy he has all the freedom he wants.
Next step: installing a lazy Suzan.
He (and Maja) spun in circles.
As well as thoroughly soaking the bathroom floor.
Good that I suggested we remove the carpet for this ordeal.

Do Witches Make Fishes

HI all,
I wanted to take a moment to plug a new book that is out but you may not have heard of.

"Do Witches make Fishes"

This book was written by Jason Mayo, another daddy blogger. In fact after searching many blogs on my limited time, his is the only other daddy blog that I have found entertaining, insightful, funny and worth reading on a regular basis... and much more entertaining than my blog.

You can check out his blog here.

Any way, he has written a cute book that has great illustrations and the proceeds all go to charity.
You can get the book at:

amazon.com

amazon.de

amazon.co.uk

Enjoy.

I hope things will calm down soon that I can start blogging on a regular basis again. Right now, we’ve been extremely happy if we get five minutes of sleep.

jeremy

On Call

Mondays are my night for sport.

My repose

My one chance to get out

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Routine

Do remember the routine?

I’m trying to. I think we had one once upon a time. But it seems like eons ago, something way beyond sleep depraved memory.

I think it went like this: read a book with mommy, cuddle with daddy, snuggles in with her blanket and baby doll, daddy exits room, mommy and daddy have some quiet time before bed.

I think that’s what it was like

Once upon a time

Before…

Before we had a baby

A baby with no biological clock

A baby whose digestive system is realigning itself.

I can’t fault the kid, he’s in pain.

You see the strain

Cramp, cramp

Face pulled tight

Beat red

Moan, moan, whine and

BLAST out the back end.

Quiet…for a few minutes

Repeat, this time with uncontrollable screams.

He’s tired,

He wants to sleep too

Before a two and a half year old

A two and a half year old who needs extra attention.

Before two kids who suck up every single breathing moment

Leaving you panting for just five minutes

Sport

The act of physical movement, increasing metabolism, building muscle, breaking down fat.

This is a foreign concept.

The spare tire is growing.

One notch further on the belt

10 hour work days

2 hours in a car

Once home, dinner, bed time routine, crash

I don’t move

It’s dark out when I leave work

No more garden work

Oh yeah I got little kids,

Scratch that, don’t think about garden work or working on the house.

No physical work, at a desk all day, in a car

I feel like a fat flabby slob

The love handles have extra large grips

For what? There’s no time for love

Monday Night

Monday is my night

My reprose

My one chance for some kind of movement.

Two hours of running and jumping.

It gets my blood pumping.

At least I get a night. The kid is attached to Mommy’s breast. She doesn’t get a break. The only sport type movement she gets is pushing the stroller and doing curls with both kids in her arms.

The evening starts with a wound up older sister. Turns out she had an extra long nap.

She doesn’t want to go to bed. She’s not tired. She’s bouncing off the walls. Lights on, lights off, cuddle with daddy, back in bed, cuddle with daddy, back in bed, lights on, lights off.

Doesn’t she realize I need to go to volleyball? Patience, she needs you to be there.

She’s playing with her damn hippo night light, totally ignoring me. But I gotta be there. I twitch a muscle, she asks where I’m going.

Finally she’s quiet, I’m allowed to leave the room.

All’s quiet down below. I ask mom if she thinks its okay for me to go to volleyball. Crazed deer in headlights look returns my gaze.

“You’ll come back if I call?”

“Of course” I say “I’ll take my phone with me. Don’t give me that look, all is quiet here. Be a little more positive”

To which she retorts, “I’ve stopped being positive. There are no quiet nights”

45 minutes later as I get the ball to serve, my phone rings. A faint voice on the other end asks if I can come home.

5 minutes later I enter a quiet house. This doesn’t seem right. I make my way upstairs to see a bright and bushy 2.5 year old, a zombie mommy and comatose baby sitting in the bean bag chair.

“He’s been screaming at the top of is lungs for 30 minutes. He disturbed Stella. He only quieted down 2 minutes ago.”

Daddy takes Emmett to give mommy a break but to no avail, he’s gotta eat. I take my turn upstairs in sister’s room. I have to stay!

I stink

I try to ignore it

She buries her head in my arm

The stench will most surely make her pass out.

It seams to enliven her.

Daddy drifts in an out. Some time later daddy wakes up, he desperately needs a shower.

As soon as he moves a head pops up. “where’ you going?”

“Daddy has to shower, you can hear me shower through the wall. When I am done, I’ll get my blanket and come back. I promise” “you need to lay down I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

Daddy exits a dark and quiet room to de-stink. Upon returning he finds his daughter with all the lights on, bouncing (or should I say taking flying leaps) in her bean bag chair looking at her books. She turns in great surprise and greets me with a big smile.

It’s flippin 11pm. My alarm goes of in 6 hours. “child, you gotta be tired!”

“Neeeeiiiiinnn!”is her reply.

“We’ll it’s lights out, we’re going to bed.” Through sniffles and bouncing from bed to bed, we drift off to sleep until the beep beep beep of my alarm at 5am.

Wordless Wednesday

What's in a name

Many have asked how we came up with the name Emmett.

Quite simply we had a rotating list of names. If we heard something cool, we’d tell the other about it If we both liked it, we threw it on the hit list.

Many fell off, few stuck.

We did not want a common name.

It had to be easily spoken in both languages.

We wanted it to be unique and classy.

It had to fit and feel right.

We liked it, it fit.
We of course researched the names on our list and for the fun of it, here is a little background on the name.

Emmett is considered an English name however with German roots. A male version of the name Emma which stems from a short form of any name starting with “Em” or “Erm”.

The Irish tend to give this name in honor of Roger Emmet, the Irish patriot who tried to overthrow the English government with French help.

Meaning of the name: All containing, Universal, Strength, diligent

Also old English for “an ant”

Old German for energetic & powerful

The name has never been highly popular. Its highest rank between 1890 and 1900 was 139 and was used 0.095% of the time.

The name also does not pop up often in popular culture however some characters that may be known are:







“Doc” Emmett brown - Back to the Future

Emmett Otter’s Jugband Christamas – Title Character in the 1970’s Christmas film.

Emmett Cullen – twighlight saga

And a few Famous Emmett’s:

Emmett Smith – NFL player Dallas Cowboys

Emmett Till – African American youth whose death lead to key events in the civil rights movement.

M. Emmett Walsh – actor

Emmett Kelly: A native of Sedan, Kansas and American circus performer, who created the memorable clown figure "Weary Willie, " based on the hobos of the Depression era.

There is even an Emmett county in Michigan and an Emmett, Idaho.

How will our Emmett turn out?

Only time will tell :-)

Wonder

Oh the excitement

I get it now.

It’s the moment parents live for.

I’ve never seen a kid more excited.
Friday, Stella unpacked her new bean bag chair. (A replacement for the rocking chair migrating to the Baby’s room.)

We opened the box.

The light bulb clicked into the on position

Double click, it was hers

Her face brightened

Smile from ear to ear

And then she went bizerk.

Jumping

Spinning

Laying

Crawling

All sorts of acrobatics

Just plain hamming it up.

Without a fuss the rocking chair could be removed.

Wish I had that much luck with the tooth brush that daddy already threw away ;-(

She’s proud

It hers

She shows it to everyone

If there is no visitor, then “common daddy I want to show you my new chair” for the tenth time in an hour.

“Watch this”

Starting from mommy & daddy’s room

Going as fast as those little legs will take her

Launching herself into the chair.

I mean wouldn’t you be excited too if you had an enormous bean bag bigger than you to crawl around on?