Daddy Tree: Tiny Footsteps

Compared to her sister, Willow hasn't been much of a smiling baby.  She laughs and giggles and smiles genuinely when she's happy, and she seems like a happy little girl, but when you ask her to smile, she puts on much fakery. Up to this weekend, whenever you asked her to smile, she stuck her forefingers in the corners of her mouth and pushed up, or she looked high to the sky and opened up that grin. SMILE!  Things have changed. She unveiled her new smile at the Dixie Stampede pre-show photo session in Pigeon Forge. It's piracy! As in, she looks as if she's saying AAARGH, and the smile leaves you wondering where her parrot is. Here's a pick of her new AAARGH smile.

Willow and I ventured down the driveway to get the mail on Wednesday. The usual stuff came in, junk mail, bills and inefficiencies (when you have a baby, you get bombarded by bills and threats from the hospital, the health insurance company and the employer, the latest being a letter from the employer demanding proof we used the money in our health savings account to pay the birth of an actual baby ... I'd like to invite them to spend a night at our house for proof of said, yawn, baby). Where was I? Oh, yeah. Please forgive me while I shake the tangent fog from my head. After Willow and I returned to the house with the mail, I filtered out the important stuff and gave Willow the unimportant stuff, the credit card offers. Willow spent the next 30 minutes opening the letters, organizing then reading them. Getting letters, no matter from whom, is great fun for her. One particular letter was from Bank of America, hawking a rewards credit card (3 PERCENT CASH BACK ON GAS!!!). I aske...

Newly born Lily cuddles up with Mommy. Whew! Things got crazy there for a while, during the Summer of George (AKA the Summer of Lily). Cherish returned to work today after a lengthy maternity leave (but not nearly long enough), and with that, I returned to my job as stay-at-home dad. We did tons this summer -- Cherish declared it the best summer ever. We trekked to places unknown, ate at places well known, and we uncovered places in ourselves we hope will be better known. We had good times and bad, but almost all of the times were good, and that was a great achievement during this, the Summer of George. I won't recall it all here, but here's a taste of what we experienced: Foremost, Lily came into this world, all 8 pounds, 5 ounces of her. She rang in smaller than her sister, who topped 10 pounds, but she was no less a bundle of happiness. Lily has a touch of red hair like her sister, and she has bright blue eyes (they are smiling Irish eyes, believe me). The sisters...

Whew! What a whirlwind. Lily will be 3 weeks old on Thursday, and any fears we had about Willow adjusting to the little one have been unfounded so far. She loves that little sister! But as some of the more experienced parents in our lives have pointed out, Willow sometimes loves Lily a little too much. What I mean by that, and as most of you know, is Willow tends to crowd the baby and be too rough with the baby. Willow likes to hold the bottle during Lily's meals, but Willow, being a toddler and all, also likes to move the bottle around and tug it from Lily's mouth then plop it back in. Lily tolerates her big sister well, but when that nipple pops in and out of her mouth like that, her sleepy eyes flash open in terror (or pure annoyance). Willow also is a tad, um, forceful with the pacifier (an object to this point Lily doesn't much like in her mouth). Willow doesn't understand why Lily won't take the pacifier, so she uses her long fingers to pry open the baby...

Willow, and a bruised Daddy, climbed to the top of Nashville. On Wednesday, Willow got Daddy all to herself for a few hours, and the time included her first trip to the Adventure Science Center in Nashville. Even though the place was a bit "big kid" for Willow, she loved it. Willow loved three attractions above all others: the tower, the ambulance and the giant water table. She also liked watching other kids, big and small, zipping around the exhibits. The tower. Willow discovered the tower early on, much to Daddy's chagrin. I liked the tower, but if you've been to it, you might know why it was hard for me to keep up with a 2-year-old climbing to the top; tight crawls abound. But I tolerated those tight spots and kept up with Willow the best I could, and we made it to the top (and I didn't suffer too many bruises). Willow didn't want to leave that tower, but I practiced patience and persistence and eventually got her to go exploring elsewhere. The amb...

Willow turned 2 on Monday, and she'll proudly let you know how old she is by chiming, "Two!, then throwing up four fingers (and sometimes her thumb too). Our little tot is getting to be a big girl now. She can use the potty, and she can sleep (rarely still) in the big girl bed. She can push herself around on a tricycle, and she can climb the ladder up to the slide in the backyard. Of course as a toddler, she's Miss Independent and Miss Frustration, but she really does pretty well at tackling those "No, I do it" tasks and in communicating with us (though we had a tough time understanding each other today when she asked for "Nemo shoes," and all I heard was "No more shoes!" She toddled around frustratingly in bare feet for a while). I took her to the zoo for her birthday, and she showed sure signs she was growing up. She preferred walking over rolling around in the stroller (this made it tough for me to keep up with her little butt when she s...

I'm a bit sad. I'm happy Cherish and I have a new tot coming to the world in the next few weeks. I'm elated, actually. But I'm a bit sad my time all alone with Willow is coming to an end. This party during most of the day has just been the two of us. Now a third party is coming. This is the twilight of Daddy-stay-home-with-Willow. Soon it will be Daddy-stay-home-with-Willow-and-Baby-Code-Name-Olive. But time marches on. And Willow and I will adjust to life with a new little one. We will love Little Sister. With all our hearts. We will welcome her to the party. I will make time for both of them. And soon Willow will forget her time alone with this Old Dad. But I won't.

Willow's second birthday is on Monday, a day that has been approaching quickly, both on the calendar and in the tot's development. Willow is the size of an average 3-year-old girl. She wears 3T clothing and size 8 shoes. As for other developments, Willow seems to be bright (she can say her ABCs through "Q"; now I have no idea if this means anything to her or if it's simply rote memory, but I'm impressed). She's also climbing all over the place, up the ladder to the slide and up to the changing table top (gasp!). And that brings me to two big milestones we've been working on intermittently: potty training and big-girl bed training. Cherish and I have tried to not be too pushy on this stuff; we want Willow to learn at her own pace. This week, though, Willow has really taken off. She has been taking off her pants and diaper and climbing the footstool to get to the toilet. A few times, she has even tinkled! The bed has been a bit tougher because Willo...

Baby No. 2, code name "Olive," will be here in less than a month, so we've been bringing down boxes and boxes of baby stuff from the attic. This has had two effects on Willow, aka "Baby No. 1." She has reverted, somewhat, to being a baby, and she has started using the baby stuff to baby her babies. To be fair to Miss Willow, she has spent more time babying than being a baby. She's given her babies baths in the infant bathtub. She's put her babies down for tummy time on the, um, tummy time mat. And she has given her babies bottles, real bottles (empty, of course). She also likes putting one of her babies in the bassinet we've set up by the master bed. That baby sleeps a ton. As for being a baby, she has climbed into the baby swing, turned on the back-and-forth mechanism and switched on the lullaby music. Not many babies can do that. She's a pound or two over the maximum weight for the baby swing, so it groans under her 31 pounds (and there isn...

We continue to have early summer in this fine, fine April, and Willow and I continue to take full advantage of the warmth, playing outside every chance we get. This week saw highs in the 80s, and with them, the year's debut of the water table. Willow loves this thing, with its little slides for its little people, and its scoops and tiny boats. She mostly likes to scoop out water and do any of a number of things with it: Pour it back into the table, take it to water plants around the yard or, gasp, just turn it up and drink it! The other day, Willow played at the water table for nearly two hours straight, without any other care in the world. She's playing at it now, which gives me this rare opportunity to jot down something, quickly, in this blog. (This little girl keeps me busy, and off the computer; she HATES it when I get on the computer ... H-A-T-E-S I-T! Thankfully, she hasn't notice me typing away yet.) Today is another day in the 80s, and even though Willow is dre...

With such beautiful weather, Willow and I have been outside A LOT these past several days (and I've got the A-plus farmer's tan to prove it). We've spent most our time in the backyard, playing on the swing set or in Willow's brand-new "Country Cottage" playhouse (she loves the wall-mounted wireless phone the best; I tell you, though, she has the shortest conversations on that thing, usually spanning, "Hey ... *nod* ... bye!"). We also went to the park one day (Willow saw bunches of turtles, some fish, some ducks and even a heron). This morning (primarily because I forgot my wallet in the other car and couldn't drive to the Y for my workout), Willow hopped in the jogging stroller, and I pushed her MIGHTILY for a three-mile jaunt. Willow loves the jogging stroller, and I forget she does (some days, on my shorter runs, I need to remember this and save us both from the tribulations of packing gym and diaper bags and loading up the car). During our...

One of the wooden blocks was missing, so Willow created a search party made up of Willow, CPK Baby Kayleigh, Baby Monkey and Daddy and started on a journey to FIND THE MISSING BLOCK!!! The search party looked high and low, as high as the ever-high balloon and as low as, er, under the couch. But Block O' Letter Q was nowhere to be found. The search continued, with Daddy bellowing, "Oh, Blo-ock!" And Willow skipping alongside, squealing, "Oh, Bro-ock!" The block did not answer. Finally, after much searching, and after Willow gave Daddy a scolding or two for breaking off from the search to make the bed and clean off the breakfast table, the search party found the block! The block was hiding away behind the Disney Little People Princess Palace (Willow thinks Block O' Letter Q was just trying to find a good and quiet place to poop, but Daddy suspects the block was peeping on Cinderella). Willow triumphantly return Block to his spot in the wooden block string-pull...

Willow hasn't seen much snow in her short lifetime. Actually, I don't recall any snowfall of any fun depth during the past two winters (I do recall taking Willow to the park nearly every day last winter). That's OK to me because I'd prefer it stay warm all the time, and I like taking Willow to the park and the zoo. So Monday morning's snowfall, even though it wasn't much more than a dusting, came as a surprise to us. The snow wasn't much to play in, but Willow never has played in the snow, so we made the most of it that we could. I put Willow in her snowsuit, which she's never donned, and we headed to the back porch, where the snow measured probably a good inch. And Willow didn't care. Nope. Not one iota. She liked putting on the snow boots and the snow suit. She liked the mittens and the knit cap. But, really, all she wanted to do was ... SWING!!! Swing. Swing. Swing. Swing. Swing. She insisted, so I buckled her in, covered her face the best ...

In January Cherish and I got off to a grand start potty-training Willow and beginning her transition from the crib to the toddler bed. We have to make way for our second daughter, you know, in the crib AND in the monthly diaper budget. Then we got sick. All three of us. Then we got sick again. All three of us. Then we got sick again. All three of us. These sorts of things are well documented on Facebook by families all across the world, so I won't bore you with any details, but we were sick pretty much all of February and half of March (and March is only just half over!!!). Anyway because we all three were sick, it was much easier to put Willow in the crib for bed instead of chasing her all over the house and, um, reapplying her to the toddler bed. And, of course, it was much easier to let her do her thing in the diaper than giving her on-the-potty pep talks. But we're all three healthy now (I'm knocking VERY LOUDLY on you, wood), so Cherish and I have gathered up the...

Toddlerhood is in full swing. And I'm tired. But enough about me! We have few problems with Willow, but one big one we've had to face recently (and one in which Willow is thoroughly kicking our butts) is the matter of her throwing food during lunch and supper to the floor. This happens nearly every day and usually goes down like this: She eats a little of her food, then -- WHOOSH -- she flips the plate to the floor, and, most of the time, the food flies in all sorts of directions. This sort of behavior is why we have little pinto-bean spatter spots all over one of our walls in the dining room (it looks like we tried to cover up a murder in there ... badly). We read in one of our parenting magazines that toddlers do this sort of thing because they're learning about physics. "They're little scientists!" I recall the magazine chirping. The tots throw food because they're experimenting on what kind of "plops" they can make, or they're gaugin...

On Thursday Willow and I lay in her big-girl bed, reading a book and listening to her glow worm chyme its lullaby music. Willow was sleepy, I could tell, and she was ready to drift off to sleep. I could have left her in the bed, and I think she would have fallen asleep by herself, but I was enjoying myself and decided to lie there with her. Willow was lying parallel to me, her head in the nook where my left arm met my chest, turning page by page or her book. She rubbed her right eye then looked up at me. She reached out her right hand and patted me on the cheek. "I happy, Daddy," she smiled. "I happy." "Me too, Willow." Seconds later, she fell into her slumber, and I slipped from the bed. My heart beat calmly in the rhythm of "I hap-py I hap-py I hap-py ..."

Big news, people! Willow slept the entire night by herself in her toddler bed. We didn't plan it, but I guess Cherish decided to give it a go last night. She cuddled up with Willow in the toddler bed, and both of them fell asleep. When I was ready to go to bed, I slipped into the room and shook Che. "Is she asleep?" Cherish said. "Yeah." Now, I'm venturing into some dangerous territory here, I realize, but Cherish didn't exactly sneak out of the toddler bed. Cherish is, what, six months pregnant now, and pregnancy has its own, um, gracefulness. Che was graceful enough because Willow did not wake up. And Willow didn't wake up until after sunrise, which is her typical time. This morning, however, was much different than usual, though. I lay slumbering in bed, and Che was drying off after her shower in the master bathroom. Che opened the bathroom door, and ... "Eeek!" Che squeaked. "Oh, you scared me!" Willow was standing...

Willow and I attended our first Zoo Tots class at the Nashville Zoo on Wednesday, and Willow had a slithering good time. Zoo Tots is a six-week, hour-long class for kids (18 months-5 years old) to spend time with their caregiver learning about the animal world. The class includes visits from zoo critters, crafts, stories, songs and a walk to an animal enclosure each week. This week's theme was "Reptiles Rock!" I'm guesssssing you can gather from the theme that snakes and lizards played a big role in this week's class. (For ever-fearless Willow and me, it wasn't a big deal, but I noticed some of the moms and grannies in the room squirming throughout the class). Willow and I started off the class coloring on the paper-covered tables, then we gathered with the rest of the group in a semi-circle to see the class visitors. This week the skink Victor and the sand boa Bonnie made the rounds. Both reptiles were calm around the children, and each kid got to pet the ...

Willow isn't a lovey-dovey, cuddly girl. I'm not saying she isn't an angel. She is. But she doesn't like to snuggle up with you, and she doesn't share many kisses or hugs with you (that makes the hugs and kisses you can steal that much more valuable). Note: None of this applies to Pop (Cherish's father); Willow will cuddle up and smooch and hug on this guy all the live-long day! I don't want you to get the wrong idea, though. Even though Willow doesn't want to snuggle much, that does not mean she doesn't want to be around Cherish or me. Quite the contrary, Willow wants to be with us, to shadow us, nearly every minute of the day. She wants to be with us. To play with us. To watch us. To eat what we eat. To do what we do. To help us. TO SUPERVISE US. But Willow, generally, does not want to hold us (or vice versa). All of this sets up a surprising moment I had with her on Monday. I was picking up Willow at the YMCA's babysitting service after m...

I awoke when the winds howled outside our bedroom window. The winds had been whipping since our going to bed, and that was unsettling, but this wind, the howling wind, had much more malevolence. I was not unsettled. I was scared. I hopped from the bed and started off to do something, I don't know what, maybe save the world. I didn't have my senses with me yet. I stumbled to the front of the house and looked out the window. The only way I can think to describe what I saw was it looked like a hurricane had settled over us. White sheets of rain blasted sideways across our yard, and the trees gripped the earth in terror. I heard broken limbs bouncing off the roof. "There's a tornado warning," my wife snapped into my trance. And the city's sirens started to blare. We sprang to action. I grabbed the emergency radio and flashlights, and Cherish grabbed Willow. We huddled in our safe spot, the garage stairwell that drops alongside the base of the house. But by th...

My stay-at-home daddy adventure feels like it has reached a feverish pace. Willow is in her toddler prime, which means she has become a world-class mess-maker. I haven't spent much time around other toddlers, so I don't know if they're all world-class mess-makers, but I'm guessing they are. I'm guessing it's a requirement for being a toddler. On any typical day, I feel like I'm that short cleaning robot in "Wall-E," the one who uses its scrubber attachment to chase down and clean up "foreign substances." Throughout the movie, that guy is rolling around cleaning mess after mess after mess. I spring into action much the same way. I roll over to the mess and start scrubbing it up. Meanwhile, our toddler angel is off making other messes. A whole bunch more goes into my job, but, really, I can say with all honesty that being a scrubber robot chasing around mess-making Willow dominates my days. I am not complaining. I have the best job in t...

Willow, Mommy and I went to the Y's pool on Sunday to take advantage of our membership and to do something summery in this dreary and cold weather. We had so much fun swimming and splashing, Willow and I went back on Tuesday. On Sunday, surprisingly, nobody else was at the pool, and the lifeguard seemed resigned to having to sit boringly in her stand. I have no problem with having an entire pool and a lifeguard all to myself, but, again, I was surprised nobody else was there, except for a few exercisers coming and going to use the steam room and the sauna (and a couple of guys hopped in the whirlpool for a few minutes). When Willow and I went on Tuesday, several people were in the pool, but they quickly scattered when the tot and I entered the pool. Maybe their time in the pool had come to a planned end. Maybe they didn't want to be in the water with someone who might pee or poop at any moment. After the initial scattering a couple of men came into the pool area and swam qui...

Jan. 13 was a banner day for Miss Willow Rose Dunn. That was the day she tinkled for the first time in her potty. And she didn't do it just once. She tinkled four times in that potty, all to the glee and adoration of Mommy and Daddy (she even inspired me to tinkle a time or two in my potty). Willow is growing so fast, becoming a big girl at an alarming rate. Not even two weeks ago, she gave up her pacifier for good, and she never looked back. She was so determined to move on from Paci that she doesn't even allow her baby dolls to have them. Also she's moved from her high chair to a booster at the dinner table (sometimes she just sits in one of the adult chairs at the dinner table). This hasn't been all hunky-dory, though; Willow likes to throw plates of food to the floor when she's finished. We're working on that. Willow also has improved vastly on her tooth-brushing. We brush our teeth as a family in the morning and at night. She's gotten much better ...

"You're going to be outnumbered!" my sister exclaimed after hearing Cherish and I were expecting another baby girl. "I'm already outnumbered!" I retorted. Of course I know what my sister means. In just a few months, I'm going to have two little girls, one in full toddlerhood and another an infant, to take care of (or as I sometimes see it, two human beings to keep alive). And of course I knew what I meant. Taking care of one tiny person sometimes feels like taking care of 20 (and besides I'm already outnumbered two girls to one, or two Cherishes to one, if you want to look at it that way). Ah, but you see ... I love my girls. And I will love my girls. So I'm willing to take any punishment they dish my way. And I'm about to heap on a whole bunch of punishment myself. I already write this blog, which I really try to see as a record of my and Willow's time. Sometimes it's easy to keep up with this blog. Sometimes the effort is enor...

We've been weaning Willow off the pacifier for months now. We first stopped giving her Paci during the day, allowing her the pacifier during only naps. A few days, according to plan, we took the pacifier away during the night. We thought we'd be in for at least a few long and crying nights, but no, our angel surprised us, as she routinely does. Now, don't get me wrong, not everything is perfect or dreamy; she doesn't go straight to sleep like she used to when she had Paci. No, she stays up at least a half-hour, sometimes longer, bouncing around in her crib, babbling and giggling and singing. But it ain't crying, so we'll take it. Soon, I'll wager, she'll fall asleep as quickly as she used to. She used to roll around before falling asleep for her nap; now she sinks into that slumber as quickly as Mommy does (which I'm sure challenges the laws of nature). NOTE: I tend to write about things on here that make me smile, so you might get the idea th...

The singing toothbrush worked for two days, then the novelty wore off. She loves the toothbrush, but she's figured out she doesn't actually have to stick it in her mouth to listen to the music. So we're back to holding her in a headlock and prying her mouth open. The alligator wrestling is back. Well, here's looking on the bright side ... I'm getting lots stronger!