Christmas recap

Well, bloggers, I hope that you and yours had as wonderful a Christmas holiday as the Famous Amys crew. Chris and I enjoyed every second of our first Christmas as parents, especially those many seconds spent putting together Santa’s gift to Taylor.

And now I understand why my father always had lots of batteries and a pocket knife on hand while we opened presents. And, yes, Santa was good to our little girl. Even after the unfortunate meltdown on his lap at the Mall. Must have been the cookies we left out for him.

And while Taylor is no where near understanding what Christmas is, she still had a pretty good time. Let’s be honest here, being the only child/grandchild/niece on both the Amys and Young sides, everyday is Christmas for Taylor. In fact, it’s pretty uncommon for a week to go by and Taylor NOT get a present. But the gifts she opened on Christmas were all shiny and had bows on them, and she loved them.

The Saturday after Christmas we loaded up the car and trekked down to Birmingham to spend the weekend with my family and meet my sister and Dirk’s newest addition, Piper, the cutest puppy in the whole world. Taylor was pretty jazzed to be around something smaller than her. Nothing’s more contagious than a puppy. You see one, you want one. Just like an Iphone. And then you get bit by the razor sharp puppy teeth and remember all the shoes that you loose during puppy-chewing phase. Good luck, Libba.

It was wonderful to spend time with my family that close to Christmas. It had been five years since we’d been able to open presents together - I just wish Will could have been there to join us. The weather on Saturday was gorgeous, so we all went to the park and soaked up the sunshine and the gobs of Taylor cuteness. My sister, as usual, did a fantastic job of capturing the moment.

Saturday night was spent at Granddaddy’s, catching up with the cousins, eating take-out food, drinking a sizeable amount of wine and diverting Taylor away from valuables.

And now we’re back in Asheville, regrouping and putting away our Christmas decorations. We don’t have anything wild and crazy planned for tonight, marking the first New Year’s Eve Chris and I aren’t weaving through crowds and throwing confetti. But we’ll still celebrate, smooch and pop open a bottle of champagne to toast the best year of our lives.

Happy Holidays

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.

You better not pout, I’m telling you why

So today was Chris’s first day off in a week, so what do I make him do? Go to the dreaded mall so we can get a picture of Taylor sitting on Santa’s lap, of course. And while my husband would normally break out in hives just driving next to the mall on a Tuesday afternoon in July, I was fully expecting his head to pop off from going inside the shopping vortex three days before Christmas. But he survived. And not only did he survive, he did it without the least bit of attitude. To which he’ll be rewarded by getting a hall pass to get as stupid and obnoxious as he wants for tonight’s Packers/Bears showdown.

Taylor-tot, on the other hand, didn’t do so well. In fact, she pretty much started having a come-apart the minute she saw Santa.

Ah, Christmas memories.

Hey everyone, come see how good I look

Brusha brusha brusha

Other than the hugs, kisses, toys and new wardrobe that came with Grandma’s visit, Taylor also got a new toothbrush. So I guess that means we're ready for candy, right?

Honest to blog

Wow. Sorry for the delinquent blogging, but this past week has been a whirlwind of celebrating, shopping, drinking and dancing. And how does a mother of a rambunctious eight month old accomplish so much fun, you ask. Well, one word. Grandma. Chris’s mom and brother trekked down from Wisconsin last week for a visit, with Grandma providing nonstop babysitting and Ryan providing nonstop laughs for the past six days. We were also happy to have Diane and Ashley McGaw drive down from Virginia Beach to party for the weekend. And because Chris, Taylor and I are about a million miles away from everyone, it was wonderful to be able to have a house full of family and friends for the holidays.

And other than making holiday cookies and generating Christmas cards, my baby-free time was spent having lots of fun. On Thursday night we went out to celebrate my special person, Chele’s, graduation from WCU, where we toasted her big brain and our ability to party past midnight. Which was cruelly followed by the next morning’s headache and reminder of what fun really does feel like.

Friday was spent touring the Biltmore Estate, which is an Asheville landmark. We strolled Taylor through the enormous mansion until she wasn’t having it anymore. And then I carried her until I couldn’t lift her anymore. Sorry, Vanderbilt family. We’ll get to the basement next year. But, as Ashley pointed out, you’ve seen one ancient indoor swimming pool, you’ve seen them all.

On Saturday night Chris, Ryan, Ashley and I went to the Warren Haynes Christmas Jam downtown, where we boogied to an assortment of jam band’s finest for eight hours straight. And I survived. Barely.

The rest of the visit was spent shopping and watching Taylor crawl at lightening-fast speeds towards the Christmas tree. If we still have a standing tree in eight days, it’ll be a holiday miracle. All-in-all, we had a wonderful time with everyone here. Especially Taylor-tot, who is now going through withdrawal of not having her Grandma and Uncle’s constant and undivided attention.

Eight months old

Taylor is eight months old today, and even though I see my baby girl all day every day, I can clearly recognize how much bigger she got during her seventh month. And because we don’t have another check-up until January, I can’t give actual stats. Just HUGE. I packed away the Bjorn and am loaning out the sling, because carrying her in any sort of baby-carrier will cause my shoulders and back to ache for days. I don’t know what prompted this month’s growth spurt. Maybe the new, exciting foods we introduced, such as peas, carrots and peaches. What happens this month when we begin broccoli and apples? Will she start borrowing my clothes?

She now has two teeth. Or more like a spike and a half. Taylor’s bottom middle teeth are in and now she gnaws on whatever she can get a hold of. Which, now that she’s crawling, is pretty much EVERTHING. For someone who’s only been crawling for two weeks, she’s got wheels. She sees something she wants and - Poof! - she’s trucking across the room to get it.

She is also pulling herself up to standing every chance she gets. She loves it. She’ll pull herself up on the coffee table and just stand there and cheese. Slapping the table and showboating - Look, one hand! Look, one hand, one foot! And then, of course, she’ll wipe out. And after a few nasty spills, complete with bumps, bruises and shiners, we are working diligently to get her accustomed to falling on her bottom. Because Momma can’t handle many more of these painful head-first wipeouts - The ones the cause her to cry so hard she doesn’t breath between howls. Heartbreaking.

And because Taylor’s playing so hard now, she’s just exhausted at the end of the day. I mean, WE’RE exhausted. Completely bushed. And after Chris gives her her bedtime bottle, she’s made the habit of falling asleep in his arms and snuggling. And he doesn’t seem to mind one bit.

So, yes, lots of changes and growing this past month. Almost too many to keep up with, and I’ve had to dust off the baby book to record some of these milestones. And as attentive as I am with this blog, I’m a total slacker with her baby book. So I’m hoping that in the years to come, when she wants to take a stroll down memory lane, instead of grabbing for her baby book she’ll just log on. And then probably holler at me for putting this picture of her in the tub on the Internet. But it’s just too cute not to.

Bouncing around the room

Here’s a quick video clip of Taylor in motion.

She must have known her Grandmas were going to be watching this, because she crawled right for something that she CAN have. The majority of my days are now spent prying remotes, books and plastic sock wrappers out of her hands.

The baby

A short note about last week’s blogger party. While it made my heart smile to see my hometown comrades, it made it giggle to meet their kiddos. Lilly was super sweet and very willing to share her toys with everyone, Quinn loved showing off his teeth and crawling all over the place, and cutie-pie Addison just wanted to hold the baby. The baby being my Taylor-tot. And even though there is a two year age difference, my baby and Juli’s sweet girl are in the same weight class. And as Addison tried to put her arms around the baby, Taylor just poked her in the eye and pulled her hair.

Sorry, Addison. I promise my bruiser daughter will be more gentle next time, and I hope this doesn’t scare off any future babysitting offers.

Thankful

Well, bloggers, the Famous Amys traveling band pulled into Asheville at 5.30 this morning, and the rest of the day was spent attempting to regain normalcy in our house. Because, as some of you may remember, my OCD usually kicks into hyper-drive after vacations. And now that the fridge is stocked, clothes are clean and bags are empty, I’m able to reflect on what a wonderful trip we had up to the farm.

Let’s just start with the drive. The 1080 mile drive. Of the 36 total hours we spent in the car, Taylor slept at least 32 of them. That’s right, she was AMAZING. A+. And for those of you who know Chris’s unreasonable grading scale, that is about as good as striking gold. And, seeing that I only drove about six hours of the trip, I must give major props to Chris for being an absolute rock star behind the wheel. A++ with three gold stars. I also must give a shout-out to Starbucks Espresso Double Shots for fueling us. Or, as we called it, the crack. A caffeine drink so potent it allowed us to drive through the night Tuesday and wake up my parents Wednesday at dawn.

And because we got there so early, we were able to sleep off our driving hangovers and be fully rested for the Thanksgiving feast. Nothing beats my Mom’s turkey dinner, and it was wonderful to have my entire family around one table. My parents, of course, devoured Taylor the entire trip, and my little girl was pretty smitten with her Uncle Will. And between the three of them and my sister and Dirk constantly prodding her for smiles and giggles, today has been a total let down for the Taylor-tot. Hey, where are all those people that do nothing else but play with me?

Not only did Taylor cut her second tooth at the farm, but she also became a speed crawler. Up until we got to Iowa she had only creeped and crawled a few times, but by the time we left the farm she was practically doing hot laps on my parents’ carpet. We were constantly focused on her whizzing from table to chair to couch back to table, pulling herself up on everything and then having the occasional crash-and-burn. And now I understand why some people put their kids on leashes.

The weather for the first few days was fantastic, and because I had plenty of help with my babe, I was able to take long walks around the farm with Chris and Ruby. Ruby’s knee held up great, and she was in heaven running through the fields and pastures. It was like a kid being grounded for three months and having their first time out be at Disney World. She, Chris and Will even went hunting and killed a rooster, which made Chris a little less sad to miss deer season up in Wisconsin. The Fat Tire helped too.

Friday night was the infamous blogger party at the Whitmer mansion. It was great to catch up with long-standing friends and meet their lovely children, most of which I felt like I already knew from their blogs. My parents snatched up Taylor and I proceeded to gossip, drink too much wine with my sister and then meet up with my old friend Gina at the bar. And, Gina, if you’re reading this: Start blogging. I need to keep tabs on you, my dear, and this isn’t that hard to maintain. No excuses.

And, as if my hometown friend-tank couldn’t get any fuller, Saturday night my nearest and dearest MacKinzie stopped by to meet Taylor and remind me why we’re soul sisters.

And because we had a heck of a drive anyway, we decided to stop in Iowa City for lunch on our way back south. We made a nostalgic loop through the downtown, ate at the Hamburg Inn and then showed Taylor the porch swing that her parents fell in love on.

It was a wonderful trip on every level, reminding me of everything I have to be thankful for.

Over the river and through the woods

Well, this afternoon the Famous Amys traveling band is packing itself in the Envoy and making the 18 hour road trip to Iowa. Straight though. No stopping. Because the more time spent with Taylor and Ruby sleeping during this massive drive, the better. I’ve tried explaining this trip to Taylor, dadadada-18 hours in the car, dadadada-PLEASE DON’T CRY THE WHOLE TIME. Because Mama and Daddy can’t handle another gruesome journey like the flight from hell this summer. Fingers crossed.

And I’m not at all worried about Chris and I fading during the drive because we are so excited to get to the farm. Night-before-Christmas excited. I can’t wait for my parent’s to see Taylor. The last time they saw her was over the Fourth of July and she rolled over for the first time, and now she is crawling and pulling herself up on everything. Let’s hope Grandma’s is baby-proofed.

Hopefully I will be seeing some of you bloggers on this trip, and for all other, Happy Thanksgiving.

Because she was running out of things to put in her mouth

This is how I found Taylor-tot after her nap a few days ago.

Yep, my little girl put those popeye arms to use and pulled herself up to standing in her crib. And she was very proud of herself. And very eager to see what her bed tasted like.

Emotional roller coaster in a box

Note -- No babies were harmed during the filming of this clip. Only egos.

Our princess and her peas

So tonight we made the switch from Bumbo to highchair for Taylor-tot's dinner and, for the first time ever, we all sat around our table and ate a meal together. And I think the new throne made Taylor's peas and carrots taste extra good, because this is what happened when she finished.

My girl wants to party all the time

Today Taylor and I went over to the Dickelman house to celebrate Campbell’s fifth birthday. Unfortunately Chris couldn’t come because he had to work. But he wasn’t really invited as seeing the Bears-Packers showdown was on and Matt’s about as crazy a Chicago fan as Chris is Green Bay - ahem, Go PACK! In your face.

Kristyn put on a great party, complete with a heavenly Cars-theme cake that melted in my mouth. Campbell scored big with her first bike, sans training wheels, to which she to took outside and promptly showed off on in the driveway.

And while Taylor-tot was too small to eat pizza, break the pinata or pin the tail on the donkey, she did manage to get an itty-bit of ice cream. And she was a happy girl.

Peas and thank you

This week we introduced pureed peas into Taylor’s diet. She practically licked the bowl clean.

We also gave her a bit of diluted apple juice in her sippy cup. Chug-a-lug, baby.

And with all the new foods and drinks, we keep waiting for the puckered-up baby food face. We’re begging for the puckered-up baby food face. All we get is the open mouth yes-more-please face. After years of watching comedy clips and home videos on television, we never laugh harder that when we see a baby make sour faces at their food. But we also get great pleasure out of watching videos of people falling down, so you can judge for yourselves on the maturity level of the Amys household.

Seven months old

Taylor is seven months old today. She was born 214 days ago. Can you believe it? I look back at posts from when she was days old and it seems like yesterday. I can remember every detail of the labor, birth and all that jazz, but ask me what I ate for dinner last night and it’ll take me a few hours to remember. And a few days ago I had to look up my own zip code. Seriously. I guess this is what they mean when they say motherhood eats your brain. Luckily my job is looking after the cutest baby in the world and not performing open heart surgery. Or working at the post office.

Baby play-time has become a lot more fun and active this month. She’s all over the place, and her attention span on each toy lasts about two seconds. So by the end of each session, we have wall-to-wall toys and are both exhausted. And the other day she sat up all by herself. I was walking back and forth between the nursery and the bedroom, and when I left the nursery she was sitting, came back she was on her tummy, left again and came back she was sitting again. All within the span of a minute. And I when I saw that she had sat up all by herself I started dancing around her in celebration, and in return she started squawking and flapping her arms. So I’m thinking we might skip crawling and go right to flying.

Another big deal this month was that I’ve started working out at the gym three times a week, and during each sweat-fest I’ve been letting Taylor stay at the gym’s child-watch. I was pretty weary at first, all the snot-nosed kids kissing and touching on her, but she loves it. And I can’t even explain how much the half-hour cardio boosts are improving my life. But last week, when I went to pick her up, one of the girls said that Taylor was pushed down by a bigger kid and he made her cry. That she was bullied for the first time. And after the initial reaction of finding this kid, pushing him down and making him cry subsided, Taylor and I went home and started baby self defense lessons. In a tutu. And then we worked on flexing her muscles and her, You talkin’ to me? face. That bully is toast.

Yes, lots of firsts this past month. First Halloween, first sippy cup, first peas and mangos, first time at the park, so on and so on. And with all of these milestones coming so close together, I’m starting to research time machines on the internet so we can slow things down and savor each Taylor triumph. Thankfully, now that golf season is slowing, Chris is home more and more to witness her cuteness first hand. He was getting pretty sick of me calling him at work and starting each conversation with, Guess what Taylor just did. And while month seven will hopefully bring crawling and more teeth, today we’re just going to appreciate her rocking on all fours and drooling. And I'm sure this isn't going to be the last time I say this, but, Jeez, Taylor, Could ya slow down a bit?

Hair today, gone tomorrow

Well, after six years of the same hairstyle, I finally veered from the norm and cut my hair. And I LOVE it. It feels so healthy, plus there’s a lot less there for Taylor to tug on.

I know that the reality of my new do isn’t going to set in until next time I shower and squeeze out too much conditioner, or when I have an extra 20 minutes of my day that were previously spent blowing it out. And I already have a list of things to occupy that time slot, one being perfecting my vanilla latte.