Taylor's favorite aunt

We were very blessed to have Libba make an impromptu trip up to the mountains for a few days this week. It’s always nice to spend time with my sister. Of all the people in the world, only my sister, brother and I know what it is like to have been raised the way we were. And there’s nothing like rehashing old stories of family vacations, high school parties and long lost hometown friends and boyfriends to put a smile on my face. Needless to say there was lots of wine, lots of laughing and lots of Chris shaking his head and trying to understand exactly what is was like to be raised on the Young farm.

And other than telling remember-the-time and guess-who’s-my-friend-on-Facebook stories, we managed to spend many hours relaxing. Something my world-traveling, over-achieving sister rarely does. And because Libba’s unaccustomed to middle of the week naps, I let her borrow my favorite napping accessory. My daughter.

Unfortunately, Taylor was a bit unstable during the visit. Something I blame entirely on teething and not genetics. She is still constantly feasting on her hands. And our hands, and arms and noses. Anything that gets close to my child is seconds away from being covered in her spit. Including her Aunt.

Libba was even kind enough to watch her goddaughter for a few hours while Chris and I went out to dinner. Marking the second meal in over five months that we have eaten away from Taylor. It was quite the change of pace to actually savor a meal as opposed to inhaling it as fast as humanly possible before the baby wakes up or starts crying. We even ordered an appetizer. And not only was the food fabulous, it was even more heavenly to spend some uninterrupted time with my man. So we could talk about our daughter.

And, as always, Libba took some fantastic pictures while she was here. My sister is seriously gifted. Pair that with my daughter’s ability to cheese and I think we could start making some money off this gig. Famous Amys Baby Modeling.

Say my name, say my name

Check this out:

That’s right, bloggers. My daughter said Momma. Kind of. I know it was a total fluke, and by no means does she recognize that I'm her Momma. But she said it. And she said it more than once.

And not only does this video show her amazing vocabulary, but it also demonstrates a bit of Taylor's typical hot-cold personality. We’re having so much fun with Tummy Time and then - BAM! - life is horrible. And then there I am, ignoring her tears in hopes that she says my name again. And such begins my life as a Stage Mom. Make that a Stage Momma.

Five months old

Taylor is five months old today. Five. Months. Old. Almost a half year. She’s practically an adult. Last month we passed the year-mark of discovering we were pregnant, so our lives have been officially wrapped around Taylor for over a year. It’s hard to remember what life was like before her. And while sometimes it’s still hard to grasp that we’ve lost certain freedoms, we wouldn’t trade this in for ANYTHING. Because as much fun as it was to go to happy hour with friends and be able to carry small purses, it’s even more fun to stay at home and try to fit my daughter’s chubby cheeks inside my mouth.

Her fourth month held many milestones, one of which was the addition of rice cereal to her diet. She’s now been on the mush for over a week and still seems to like it. And if she’s excited about this blandness, then we can’t wait to see her eat something with flavor. I’m pretty sure her head will explode with happiness. Which won’t really require any extra post-meal cleanup. Is any of the cereal actually getting into her belly? Who knows. But at least I now understand why people bathe their kids at night.

And while I’ve had a feeling that Taylor has been teething for the past two months, I’m officially saying that she’s teething now. She HAS to be. Otherwise why is she chewing on EVERYTHING? And the amount of drool that comes out of her mouth? We could end this drought for good. This HAS to be teething.

She’s definitely become more vocal. At first it was just bird-like shrieks, now the sounds that come out of her mouth are much more pleasant. I’m dying for her to say her first recognizable word. Whenever she starts to babble, we’ll start talking back to her and go, DaDaDaDaDaDa and MaMaMaMaMaMa. And then she’ll laugh at us. And then we’ll laugh at her. And then we’ll hear Ruby groan from the futon and be all, Um, hello. Remember me? I was your most favoritest thing until five months ago. I’m the one who doesn’t require a cleaning crew after I eat.

It’s always entertaining

Taylor and I have a pretty good routine in the mornings. It includes waking up around 6.30 to her shrieking at her mobile in her crib, giving Chris kisses as he leaves for work, eating breakfast, loving on Ruby, watching campy morning news shows, drinking a cup of coffee the size of my head and playing with Taylor. She usually goes down for her morning nap around 9.30 and then I’m able to blog. I LOVE blogging. I do. Before blogging, my internet time was spent checking my email, shopping and browsing a few celebrity gossip sites. But now it’s straight to the blog. Whether it be moderating my own or catching up with other blogs, I very much enjoy it. It has allowed me to share pictures and stories of my life with family and friends, and I have also reconnected with so many people. It’s wonderful.

So a few days ago Taylor decided to throw our heavenly routine out the window and refused to take her morning nap. Alright, I can handle this. So I bring her into the office, give her a few toys and try to blog. And, of course, she wasn’t having it. Because I wasn’t looking at her. And because I stopped reinserting her pacifier after she threw in on the floor for the tenth time. So after about 15 minutes of her bird-like shrieking, I picked up the camera. And this is what I got.

I take in numerous things when watching this clip. One of which is that we are not ready for nice toys, or anything hard or sharp. I believe we have a few more Christmases before Taylor’s unwrapping an American Girl doll. Also, my daughter is a total and complete ham for the camera. She LOVES to get her picture taken. And I think it has something to do with all of the America's Next Top Model marathons I watched when I was pregnant. Whatever. I'm not going to apologize for watching bad television. It makes me happy and, apparently, makes my daughter fierce.

A collection of firsts

With the hectic craziness of the Amys household, and the fact that I had to wait a few extra days to get mail, I am finally getting around to posting some of the pictures Sue took during our vacation. Yes, bloggers, I’m STILL talking about our fabulous vacation. I know by now you all must be jealous of all the hella-fun we had at the lake. But before you grow green with envy and start hating, remember the airplane flight of agony we had as our sendoff back to non-vacation. And while Taylor’s first time on an airplane left much to be desired, she also celebrated a few other firsts during our trip to Wisconsin that were much more enjoyable.

First time meeting her Uncle Ryan.

We were thrilled to introduce Taylor to her Godfather. Ryan is taking a break from the grind, or as we said - In between projects, and helping Greg and Sue with home improvements and generally just enjoying life. There are many words I can think of to describe my brother-in-law, with the main one being Entertaining. He’s bananas fun. And if you’re not laughing when he’s around, then I’m checking your pulse. Because the kid’s that hilarious. And it was clear that Taylor was absolutely in awe of him and his amazing dance moves the entire visit.

First boat ride.

We were lucky to borrow a newborn lifejacket so we could take Taylor for a ride on the boat. It was no surprise that she absolutely loved it. She LOVES being outside and LOVES moving. And even though she was completely swallowed-up in that jacket, I could tell she was having a blast. Her Grandpa even let her try driving the boat, which I thought was pretty unfair seeing that I’m 30 years older that her and he’s never offered me the wheel.

First swim in the lake.

I was very much looking forward to dipping Taylor in the water during this trip, and was overjoyed that the weather cooperated with us. The lake temperature was just right, so we squeezed her in her bathing suit and brought her in. She loved it and is now officially a water-baby. Look at that belly! She was practically buoyant.

So that’s it, folks. Back to our standard, non-vacation life. Complete with home improvements, a semi-teething baby and a shaven, surgically enhanced chocolate lab. And while a typical day doesn’t involve lake sunsets and nightly bonfires, we’re still having a pretty good time.

You got to have friends

I opened up the obstacle-course which is my house last night to have Chele, Paige and Elliot over for multiple glasses of wine and snacks. The Amys house is currently being refreshed and repaired, with Chris painting walls and making minor tweaks here and there. Nothing major, just enough to clutter spaces with brushes, tools and plastic. Add to that the quarantine-area we have made for Ruby to prevent her from jumping on the furniture and going up-and-down stairs. And now watch as I roam from room-to-room, trying not to have a heart attack because my house no longer resembles a Pottery Barn catalog. And when the yoga breathing didn’t work, I decided to have my friends over to soothe my OCD with alcohol and gossip.

We hadn’t seen each other since our spa day last month, and we were able to catch-up on all of our collective vacations, families and hectic lives. And now that Taylor is able to interact a bit more with Elliot, it was fun watching them check each other out. At first their three month age difference felt huge, but now they are starting to even-out. Soon they will be locking themselves in bedrooms to read Tiger Beat magazine and daring one another to prank-call cute boys, but for now we supervise as they grab at each other’s faces and toys. Elliot was particularly fascinated with Taylor‘s pacifier, and my daughter had no qualms with her taking it. And Paige and I were all, Look! They're already best friends. It's like Sisterhood of the Traveling Binky.

First solid food. Kind of.

We gave Taylor her first bites of rice cereal last night. We were going to hold off on the solid food for a few more weeks, but my normally sleeping-through-the-night baby had been interrupting my slumber the last few nights. At first I thought it was her teeth, but whenever I would get up with her she would latch on and feed as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks. Hard to believe my 95th-percentile newborn wasn’t getting enough chow, but Mommy needs her beauty rest so let’s try some rice cereal.

First of all, what kind of CEREAL is this? After mixing it all up, it was nothing more than thickened-up breast milk. I mean, I knew we weren’t going to be feeding her Lucky Charms or anything, but I don’t know if I would consider this a SOLID food. I probably could have just put it in a bottle and fed it to her that way, but what’s the fun in that? I had already bought the itty-bitty silverware.

As you can see, she liked it. What of it we actually got in her mouth. But I’m pretty sure she was more jazzed about the spoon than the cereal. Regardless, she ate most of it, sucked down her nightly bottle and then slept through the night. Success.