Matt Dad Stuff, The Domestic Specialist

SPEAK AND S-P-E-L-L

Ellie can talk! What!? It’s crazy! She’s learning words and phrases at an exponential rate which is absolutely amazing to watch. But now that she can speak more, she also understands more. Which sometimes isn’t always the best thing. A quiet mutter of the word “ice cream” can turn into a disaster.

“Ice cream!? Someone say ice cream!? I want ice cream! Ice cream! ICE CREAM! I SCREAM!!!” She’s worse than I am.

So to avoid these situations, Aya has started spelling things out so Ellie doesn’t know what’s going on. But unfortunately it also means I have no clue what’s going on half the time either. Continue reading “SPEAK AND S-P-E-L-L” →

Matt Dad Stuff, Pregnancy, Sleep

PREGNANCY DREAMS: THE ABDUCTION

Sometimes the anxiety of expecting a baby can play out in weird ways in your dreams, like when Steve Winwood battled the Devil for me. But sometimes those anxieties don’t come out in your dreams. They come out in real life.

It was about 6am on a Monday morning. I was in the shower when I felt something strange on my leg. A little puzzled, I looked down and saw a small circle Band-Aid and thought, “Huh, that’s weird, I didn’t cut myself or anything.”

Continue reading “PREGNANCY DREAMS: THE ABDUCTION” →

Matt Dad Stuff, Pregnancy, Sleep

PREGNANCY DREAMS: THE GUARDIAN ANGEL

I’ve read that women have crazy dreams during pregnancy. They are experiencing so many hormonal changes, mixed emotions, fear, all kinds of things, so it makes sense that women would dream crazy things. This didn’t really happen to Aya when she was pregnant with Ellie. Me on the other hand, I had all kinds of weird things in my dreams. I read that it’s normal for expecting fathers to have dreams too. But I also read that they usually tend to be more intense sexual dreams (I guess that really is all guys think about). However, this was not the case for me. My dreams were anything but.

Continue reading “PREGNANCY DREAMS: THE GUARDIAN ANGEL” →

Matt Dad Stuff, The Domestic Specialist

THE ANNOUNCEMENT

Aya and I recently went public about us expecting our second child. And by public, of course I mean, Facebook public. The Facebook announcement always makes everything really “official,” right? We did announce the good news to some of our friends and family before that though. And let me tell you, when it comes to hearing pregnancy announcements, men and women react totally different.

Continue reading “THE ANNOUNCEMENT” →

Matt Dad Stuff, Inner Monologue, Pregnancy

DISCONNECTED

With Aya now in her second trimester, the tone of her pregnancy has started to change. She’s no longer nauseous anymore, and the intense cravings have subsided making cooking and meal planning easier. It’s also nice our pregnancy isn’t a secret anymore and I can openly and freely talk (vent) about things. But I’m finding that the pregnancy this time around has been very different than with Ellie and it’s been difficult to connect with it.

Continue reading “DISCONNECTED” →