As the title suggests, we’ve made a huge breakthrough this week. After several weeks of trial and error, my daughter has finally figured out how to crawl! Learning wasn’t always easy with her; she tried the butt wiggle, the caterpillar, and the frog launch even though none of them worked. But no sooner have we learned to crawl then we’ve moved onto running. Yes, the little one who never sits still is now trying to pull herself up into the standing position and my house has never looked more dangerous. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome back to the Plus One Blog, a random collection of thoughts, jokes and snippets from my life. This week I’m inviting Diane back to give you an update on what’s going on with us right now. Things have been crazy to say the least, but it’s always good to take a moment to reflect on the little things. As usual, feel free to check out Diane’s blog anytime at Tocket.info. Enjoy!

As I look around my toy infested living room, I realize that I’ve neglected to post any baby stuff recently. So let’s dive right in to the amazing and awesome developments.

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Before my daughter was born we held several baby showers and received lots of great gifts. Of all the gifts, we received a large amount ”cute” baby clothes. I put “cute” in quotes because we did not ask for any clothes as we were already stocked from head to toe but that didn’t stop the onslaught of socks, onesies, and dresses. We got so much clothing that anything that didn’t resemble clothes became the most amazing gift ever. Other great gifts we got were stuffed animals, toys, books, diaper bins and strollers. So why the trip down memory lane? I was recently going through our stock pile of baby stuff and found something that was particularly interesting. My mother, as reluctant as she was towards becoming a grand mother, had gotten us something a bit different to celebrate the occasion; she got us a baby ring. Confused by the tiny object we’d received, she explained that it was more of a decorative piece, not actually meant to be warn around the finger but maybe from a chain around her neck.

Now that Munchkin is crawling on her own it’s only a matter of time before she’s all grown up and that has me thinking. When would be a good time to give this baby ring to her? And for that matter, when is a good time to introduce jewelry to her? Diane has a nice stone on her finger as well as some other pieces that she wears a lot and it’s only a matter of time before she wants to imitate mommy and have her own items. Granted, we can get her some fake ones but I’m a bit worried that they’ll break, fall apart or generally be a hazard to my daughters health so I set about looking for something that wasn’t too expensive but also consisted of quality. What I found was Molly Brown. Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago, my daughter got what most parents dread: her first cold. While I was at work, I got a few messages from Diane telling me of the heart break that was at home. Our happy go lucky baby kept sniffling, having trouble breathing, but was smiling through the whole experience. I guess we got lucky because she could have been cranky but I argue that it was just as bad. Our baby was so happy yet was sick, it was so sad to watch! But we made it through and everyone is healthy again but I wanted to share with you our experience and what we did to survive baby’s first sniffles. Read the rest of this entry »

This year for Christmas, my brother was a little short on cash and decided to get everyone in the family a Snuggie. Having never wanted one, Diane and I came into possession of 2. I have to admit that my brother did take the extra time and energy to somewhat personalize our Snuggies. I received one patterned with my universities logo and Diane got a lovely zebra print. Fancy, I know. When we got them we were happy because it was a thoughtful gift from my brother and that in itself was enough for us.

After my brother had left I opened mine up and ran around showing it off to family, friends and neighbors. “You look like a wizard” was the most common comment I got and in all honesty, it was true! Needless to say, Diane and I were stumped as to when we’d actually use the darn things as we had perfectly good blankets at home, waiting for us on the couch. Well my friends, I figured out what we use them for and it’s a lot more then I originally thought. Also, did I mention that I figured out why they invented the Snuggie™? Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to my mini-series entitled Dustin Vs. which follows the adventures of me, Dustin, as I go out to the cold city of Milwaukee to meet Diane’s parents, but I like to think of them as the in laws. Today I will be covering Diane’s mothers name and our wonderfully boring events around the house.

So yesterday I promised to explain how I don’t know Diane’s mothers name and I’ll start there before I go into the boredom. As it currently stands, Diane’s mother has 2 names: one for formal/distant relationships and one for those who know her. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve never met these people so I was unsure which name to use. I mean, I did father her grand child after all. Anyway, so which one am I? According to Diane, her mother would introduce herself and that would settle the whole situation. Well, I’ve been here for a few days and no one has yet to say her name! Her husband refers to her as “wife” and her daughter affectionately calls her “mommy”. Diane goes with “mom” most of the time. Read the rest of this entry »

This holiday season is almost over but I have yet to tackle the biggest hurdle. No, I’m not talking about Christmas shopping or carving some dinner ham. What I’m talking about scares most men senseless and prevents many of them from ever having a happy life. The subject of my holiday dread is, yes, visiting Diane’s parents for the first time. While previous “meet the parents” type situations have gone over smoothly, I have a feeling this one is going to be a bit differently. “Hello sir, nice to meet you. I knocked up your daughter” Yes, I can see nothing going wrong with this plan…

What follows will be a daily mini-blog experience as I travel from my cosy North-West life towards the snow covered fields of Milwaukee to Meet the Parents.

So far the trip hasn’t been that bad. It’s now the evening of the second night here and we managed to make it through the day in one boring piece. My initial experience with Diane’s mother, father and sister has been limited at best. It’s not like we don’t get along, it’s just that everyone is doing their own thing. To say that this family is a bit recluse would be an understatement. They have a particular way of doing things and they will be damned if that balance is thrown off.

For example, Diane’s mother (who’s name I don’t know, but I’ll get to that later) was nice enough to make us dinner tonight. I was playing with my daughter on the couch and thinking of the wonderful meal she was making for us when I heard her announce rather casually that it was ready. By the time I got up and over to the table, Diane was the only person there. It was then that I noticed behind us that her mother and sister were escaping up the stairs to do their own thing.

“No one wants to eat with us,” Diane said. Well damn.

In their defense, her family doesn’t have company over to much so I’m sure our presence is just as awkward for them as it is for us. I can only hope that they warm up to us before we leave it could be a fun couple of days here.

Check back tomorrow for more updates.

The other day I was having one of my regular play sessions with my daughter. During this session we were playing with some stacking stars when she started to get fussy. Noticing that we were approaching nap time I reach for her pacifier and said “Dustin has your pacifier.” Shocked at hearing me say my own name to our daughter, Diane turned to me with a puzzled look on her face. For me, it was simply a slip of the tongue, referring to myself by my name and not the tradition “Dad”. So this got the gears turning and I started thinking about names. In all reality, names our just labels we give things so we can easily organize people, places and things in our brains. But does it go deeper then that? So join me on a journey as I explore the the word Dad and labels in general as I ask the question: what’s in a name daddio?

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2009 will be a year that will forever stick out in my mind. It was the year that my daughter was born. It was the year that I didn’t loose my job in our crazy economy. It was the last year I had to think about how to say the year (Twenty-Ten? ‘10? 2010? O-10? 10?). And it was the year where I celebrated my first family Thanksgiving. For all the ups and down of 2009, my life has truly been amazing lately and it’s all about the little things. That is why this Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for my new family.

But there is one part of Thanksgiving that I’m truly petrified of and that’s cutting the turkey. When I was little, my father used to cut the turkey that my mom has spent all day making. He’d whip out his knifes, power dicers and cut that bird like it was nothing. I’d sit there and watch as he’d cut it into perfect slices: man sized pieces for himself, petite slices for my mother and plenty of random lengths for the 3 kids. To put it frankly, my Dad was a superhero of turkey proportions. He was the Gobblenator.

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This week I’m going to let Diane take the center stage and share her wonderful pregnancy horror stories. This originally appear on her blog Tocket.info last week but it was good enough to post here. As for me, I was recently hired to do some blog post for a new site about dads called Daddy Outpost. Feel free to check them out and enjoy the awesome world of being a father!

Let’s face it. We’ve all heard the crazy horror stories that practically every mother goes through while being pregnant. I’ve heard tales of 3 month early babies, excruciating back pain, inappropriately timed morning sickness, 30 + hours in labor, and just about everything in between. So I just want to say that I’m thankful that I turned out to have one of those rare normal pregnancies.

To all those women who told me their crazy stories I appreciate it, but you guys suck! This was my first pregnancy and while I know you were trying to help, scaring the crap out of an impending mother pumped full of hormones is not cool. After every story I’d look down at my round belly and whimper. Silently sending thoughts to my little one with pleas of “Please don’t hurt me!” I’d cringe at every sordid detail until I realized that I wasn’t going through any of that.

I’m going to go through a list of Scare Tactics vs DieDie Facts for my pregnancy. Read the rest of this entry »