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.

Do the Hokey Pokey

We are having a Hawkeye party at the Amys house tonight, celebrating Iowa knocking off No. 3-ranked Penn State at Kinnick this afternoon.

This photo was taken immediately after the winning field goal and our house calmed down - and I'm not going to tell you which one was crying and which one had their shirt off, doing the bull dance.

Go hard or go home

I was enjoying a few minutes of silence while making dinner last night, when I immediately snapped out of my mini-bliss moment to wonder, Why is it so quiet? And this is what I found.

Now that’s one tired Taylor-tot.

Just a swingin’

The weather in Asheville, and the rest of the country, has been bananas-good the past few days. And because Taylor-tot has a stuffy nose from teething, I thought yesterday afternoon would best be spent outside. So we met up with Chris at Jones Park after work. A park that consists of a swingset that puts all other swingsets to shame.

And while Taylor isn’t old enough to enjoy most that this park has to offer, it did have baby swings and slides. She was not at all impressed with the slide, pretty much yawned going down it. But she was LOVING the swing. Squealing, smiling and swinging - We had a great afternoon.

An Aha! moment

I have been practicing yoga for roughly six years. And while I’m not the most nimble, graceful person in the world, I am a HUGE yoga fan. Literally. At first I was completely intimidated by the classes, consisting of tiny, waif-like dancers and pretzel-like instructors, but after each stretch-fest my body and mind would feel tons better than it did walking in. I was hooked.

And because I live in hippy-dippy Asheville, I was able to extend my yoga-ness during the second and third trimester of my pregnancy with Prenatal Yoga and Water Yoga (Woga). Now THAT was a sight. An extremely bloated, eight-months pregnant me in a tankini, going to Woga every Saturday with the elderly women and men of Asheville, where I was constantly bombarded with intelligent, old-people comments such as, Haven’t you had that baby yet? And, You look like you’re about to pop! And, When I was pregnant I was running ten miles a day until I gave birth. And because I was raised with manners, I would just smile and take it in. And then make a bee-line for the closest McDonald’s after class for a giant chocolate shake and large fries.

Well, some of the pregnancy yoga must have passed through my belly, because Taylor’s new, favoritest sleeping position is Child’s pose. A pose that I never thought about the name, just the position. And now I get it. Child’s. Pose.

And let’s not forget Unhappy-Baby-Because-Momma-Woke-Me-Up pose.

Halloween recap

Last night we met up with the Scully family and headed to an annual Halloween celebration in their neighborhood. And by the time we got both the girls in their costumes and finished our beers, it was already dark and dangerously close to melt-down hour. But we felt like living life on the edge, and headed down to the block party anyway.

And when I say party, that’s what I mean. PARTY. I have never experienced anything like it in all of my 30 Halloweens. This neighborhood barricaded off about four blocks and hella-decorated each and every residence into haunted houses. There were tons of scary and silly costumes. And the pumpkins! There were so many detailed, how-did-they-do-that? pumpkin carvings that it made Chris’s and mine look like amateur hour.

The girls were so overwhelmed with everything and everyone that they forgot they were dressed as a ladybug and a duck and decided to just go with the flow. But by 8:30, just when things were starting to get going, we up and left to avoid a Halloween come-apart. Because we’re not that foolish. Nothing’s worse than a crying, exhausted ladybug. Scratch that. Nothing’s worse than a crying, exhausted, teething ladybug. Now THAT’S scary!