Doorman in the making

Now that Taylor is totally mobile and into EVERYTHING, and not to mention last month’s spill down the stairs, we decided to install a baby-gate to block her from both the kitchen and the staircase. Which, of course, resulted in an earthshaking baby tantrum that was so severe that I wouldn’t have been shocked if DSS showed up to catch the tail-end of it. And after about 15 minutes of listening to her screaming while hysterically throwing her toys and herself against the gate in fury, I decided to keep it unlocked. At least until it gets hot enough to shut the windows and turn on the air conditioning. Because we don’t need anymore excuses for our neighbors to give us the stink-eye.

And here’s the big kicker, the unlocked gate is her favorite toy in the house right now. She spends forever next to it, opening it, walking past it and closing it. She’ll swing it open when we’re walking towards it and shut it behind us. And because Ruby can’t figure the gate out, Taylor is also able to regulate her four legged sister’s time next to her toys. Kinda like a teeny-tiny bouncer.

Our first quiet dinner in six months

Apparently we need to spice up our dinner conversation. Tomorrow’s topics will include trampolines and kickball.

Spike

Introducing the newest member of Taylor’s mouth: Mr Top Right.

Hopefully to be joined by Miss Top Left soon.

I’ll tumble for you

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but my town if fun. F-U-N. When Chris and I moved to Asheville six years ago, we soaked up the mountain sunshine and immersed ourselves in the local culture. Lots of good music and even better craft brews, street festivals, outdoor sporting events and, of course, the Blue Ridge Parkway is located about ten minutes from our front door.

And then we had Taylor. And the opportunities for us to take day hikes to waterfalls and drink beer into the wee hours became few and far between. But after joining the parent-club, we are discovering more and more fun things to do with babies in Asheville. And one of those things is taking her to baby gymnastics on Saturday mornings. Paige and Elliot have been attending for a few months, and now that Taylor-tot is moving and grooving we joined them for a tumbling good time this morning.

And after about ten minutes of baby watching, Taylor cut loose and ran around after Elliot and the other kiddos. It always takes her a minute to get acclimated and size everything up. She especially liked the foam pit and the trampoline.

So, what do you think? Would it be foolish to preorder my 2024 USA Olympic Gymnastics Team T-shirts?

Ninety five

Miss Taylor had her 12 month check-up yesterday, and because we had just been to the pediatrician’s two week earlier for the nasty, needle-poking, blood-drawing, shot-giving visit, she was not too happy to see Dr Childers again so soon. And other than three vaccinations, it was a pretty uneventful visit. Except this was the first check-up where she was strong enough that I had to hold her down so he could check her ears and mouth. She’s a strong girl. We might have to invest in some restraints for her 18 month appointment.

So, yes, she’s totally healthy. And totally huge for her age. Her new stats are 24 pounds, 4 ½ ounces, and she’s 30 ½ inches long – Which holds her steady in the 95% percentile of babies her age. And I’m not freaking out because A) Other than her birthday cake, I only feed her healthy, natural foods, and B) When she’s not sleeping, she is in a constant flurry of motion, and C) I have been in the 99% percentile of those charts my entire life. And I still find a way to function living as a moderate giant in society, and haven’t, as of yet, been kicked-out of restaurants or have to shop at Big-N-Tall stores. So Taylor-tot’s not THAT big. Just big enough to only have to worry about being smarter than four kids. Those other 95 are toast.

Fierce

So having Libba here for Taylor’s birthday was super wonderful because I got to spend time with my sister, AND because she took another round of amazing pictures of my Taylor-tot. Seriously, ya’ll. You’ve seen her pictures. She’s incredible. I have more breathtaking photos of my daughter in her first year of life than most people have in their lifetime. For example:

And while she was here I bombarded her with camera questions, and she adjusted the P-function on my Nikon D40 so it encourages me to shoot without my flash. Hey, she’s the expert. So for the past few days I’ve been trying to hone in on my new setting, and here are the results:

Chris update

I’m happy and relieved to report that Chris’s knee surgery was a total success. All said and done, we were at the hospital this morning from 6.30 to 11.30, with the procedure itself lasting two hours. Dr Burkhart said the surgery went as well as it could, and that he was able to both bend and straighten Chris’s leg without any interference in his knee.

And now we start the recovery process. It’s going to be long and tedious recuperation – Six months until he can pick up a golf club. Yep, it is going to be a long, long summer at the Amys house. But, if I know my man, he’s going to tackle this head on. He’s already got his first therapy session scheduled for this Monday, and hopefully he’ll be chasing after Taylor in no time.

Welcome Ryan Amys

The Famous Amys traveling band recruited a new Amys to join us in Asheville for an extended visit. Chris’s brother, Ryan, is taking some time between projects to stay with us, explore the mountains and spend some quality time with his niece.

And the stopover couldn’t have come at a better time, as Chris is having knee surgery tomorrow morning and we are going to need all the help we can get. My man blew his right knee out, tearing both his ACL and meniscus and causing a microfracture in his leg, while playing city-league basketball this winter. It’s an outpatient procedure, but it will leave him in pretty bad shape for a few weeks and slightly disabled for a few months. When Chris and I started dating nearly ten years ago, he had his left ACL operated on, so, including Ruby, this will be my third time nursing someone through a major knee surgery. Let’s hope Taylor gets Momma’s strong knees.

So, Welcome Ryan! As long as you keep exercising Ruby and grilling dinner, we promise we won’t lock you in the basement.

Taylor’s baptism

In addition to having Chris's parents here, we were lucky to have both Libba and Ryan make the trip to Asheville for Taylor’s first birthday last weekend. And since it was the first time we had both of baby-T’s godparents in town together, and because Chris and I just recently joined the parish at St Eugene’s, our little girl was finally baptized on Easter morning.

When we went to meet with Father John about the event last month, he relayed that he believed very heavily in the signs of water and oil during a baptism. And that, traditionally, the child is stripped to nothing and submerged three times. And the thought of our Taylor-tot being dunked made us laugh out loud. Because it would be like dipping a greased watermelon in a tub. A hysterical greased watermelon.

But after Father sized her up on Sunday before the service, it was concluded that she would just have her head splashed. And because Taylor’s godmother doubles as a wicked good photographer, I’m able to share the meaningful, yet slightly less entertaining, event.

Birthday girl

The birthday weekend was a total success. Taylor pretty much loved everything about both her actual birthday on Friday and her party the next day. Lots of smiles. And a wicked good sugar buzz. Yes, our little girl got TWO birthday cakes. And I think she kinda liked them.

So the back-to-back frosting explosions were also accompanied by two days of presents. We definitely have one loved little girl, as the amount of gifts she received from our family and friends was staggering. And while all of the adorable outfits and shiny toys were wonderful, her most favorite presents were the curly bows and gleaming paper. We could have wrapped-up a box of broccoli and she would have loved it.

One year old

Today Taylor is one year old. That’s right – 365 days ago, right now, I was in the middle of my 21 hour labor. And after a very long, very painful day, our daughter was born. And it was love at first sight. And at that moment, we didn’t think we could love someone so much, but now, after 12 months, our adoration has multiplied by about a billion. She is the most precious thing in the entire world, and we can’t imagine life without our daughter.

So, yes, Chris and I have officially been parents for one year. And we survived! We took the classes, we chatted up our friends and family who had kids – We thought we were prepared. And then, in the first few days we had her home, she was so severely jaundice that she had to live in a mini-tanning bed. And we realized, Hey, this is tough. Because the thought of anything or anyone hurting her turns us both into stark-raving lunatics. Seriously. You hurt my girl, I’ll cut you.

We survived her first major tumble down the stairs. It’s almost liked we progressed an echelon of parenthood after her nasty spill, as every other parent we told the story too pretty much one-upped us with a much worse baby-head wound tale. And now that she’s cruising at a good speed, not to mention her serious lack of depth perception, I’m guessing we might be able to surpass some of those stories in a few years.

But earlier this week, on our first sick-visit to the pediatrician since the jaundice, she had to get so many samples and swabs that she was starting to resemble a pin cushion. And then she had to get a blood sample from her arm. Not just a finger-prick. Which required myself, a nurse AND a lab tech to hold her down so they could try to find a vein. And after the tech stabbed her THREE times unsuccessfully, another nurse came into the room and started rubbing MY back. Because I was just about as hysterical as Taylor was. Maybe more. So while her popeye-arms don’t just possess super-baby strength, they also hold small veins. And it took going to an outpatient lab clinic, her getting stuck four more times and then two days of antibiotics for her fever to subside and for her to return to her normal, happy self. And for Chris and I to start breathing again.

So, Taylor’s 100-percent healthy and hilarious. She had a major personality-spurt this past month, and not just with her raspy belly-laugh and major prune-face. Our little girl has also started having mini-tantrums when we scold her. We’re not talking full-on, body throwing hysterics, but she’ll fling her head back and cry the cry where she stops breathing between sobs. And it’s all we can do not to laugh at her. Because it’s not like this scene is caused by her dropping a barbell on her foot. It happens because I tell her, NO, when she tries to suck on her diaper ointment.

Something that absolutely does not make her mad are all of her toys. And while she still adores her baby doll, she was obsessed with her books this past month. Chris and I can now recite Barnyard Dance in our sleep, Ten Little Ladybugs is held together by about two strands and we had a tragic The Very Hungry Caterpillar fatality a few weeks ago. She loves her books to death.

We could also dub month 11 as the month of teething. Or so we thought. Her top teeth are cutting through at a snail’s pace, but she did manage to pop her third tooth, bottom-left, last week. 31 days of buckets of drool and letting her chew on everything, and all we got was one, tiny spike. At this rate she’ll be able to pay for her own braces.

But I shouldn’t complain. With the past year literally flying by, I am not going to whine about anything going slow. It’s like the first three months took forever and then everything kicked into hyperdrive. Rolling over, sitting up, crawling, standing up, walking, running. Smiling, cooing, laughing, dancing. Am I feeling like this just because it’s my first year of motherhood, or will everything go this fast? I guess I will just have to shave some more time off my chores in order to sop-up as much Taylor-time as possible. So if you see us out, lay off the wrinkles. I’m too busy laughing and dancing with my one year old.

Let’s get this party started

Most people have a birth-DAY, my daughter has a birth-WEEK. And even though the big day isn’t until tomorrow, the birthday celebration began yesterday with the arrival of Chris’s parents and brother. And today my sister is making the trek up from Birmingham to join the festivities. So tomorrow my precious baby turns one, Saturday we’re having a monster birthday bash and on Easter Sunday Taylor’s getting baptized. In other words, we’re cramming about a month’s worth of partying into a long weekend. Not to mention a month’s worth of sugar.

Because Taylor touched all of her tennis balls

Rawhides? Ha! Rawhides are for little sissy dogs that wear sweaters and have bows in their hair. Real dogs eat trees.

Eggstravaganza

Yesterday was an absolutely perfect spring day in the mountains. 70 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. Which meant Chris was super busy working at the course. So Taylor and I decided to head over to Carrier Park and check-out Asheville’s Easter Eggstravaganza, where we soaked up the sun and people watched. Free candy and fried chicken, not to mention balloon animals and bouncy castles, always seems to bring out the finer of our mountain neighbors. Lots of Confederate flags, mullets, toothless smiles and tattooed, smoking grandmas. Thank goodness for Taylor’s gummy smile, otherwise I’m sure we would have been outed as Midwesterners and likely deep-fried and served on a stick.

And after we got done watching kids fight over plastic eggs, I forced Taylor to get a picture with the Easter Bunny. And I would say she liked him slightly more than Santa Claus, in that it took her about whopping five seconds to start screaming. Look at the horror on her face in the first picture because her lunatic mother actually handed her over to one of these people.

Classic.

Slow news week

We’re having a pretty humdrum week at the Famous Amys house. No major spills or other catastrophes to report. I can inform you all that Taylor finally cut a new tooth on Wednesday night, but it was on the bottom and not either of those pesky top front’s we’ve been waiting on. Which brings the tooth tally to zero on top, three on the bottom. Yep, my daughter’s a hillbilly. But at least the nasty nose-scab is gone, so at least she’s a cute hillbilly.