My little bookworm

When I was pregnant with Taylor I was unable to make it back up north for any family baby showers. And instead of trying to put something together after she was born, I decided that rather than a traditional off-the-registry shower with the Amys family, we opted for a book shower, wherein all of Chris’s extended family chose their favorite children’s book, attached a picture and a personalized message in the front cover and mailed it to us. And what a good idea! Of course we got a few duplicates of some of the classics, but the number of books we were gifted was just amazing. And looking back, I am so happy I have all of these tailored, literary treasures instead of some cute outfit she would have outgrown in two months. And with the large number of our generous Amys relatives, our little princess was the proud owner of a virtual library before she was even born.

And even from an early age, Taylor has always been super-excited about her books. As a newborn, she would paw at the colorful illustrations and drool on the pages. Getting a bit more mature, she would let me read them to her while she batted at the pictures and squealed at the characters she recognized. And after we ditched the bottle at the end of last year, we replaced her nighttime feeding with before-bed books and snuggles. And recently she has become so enthusiastic about her books, helping me turn the pages and literally soaking up every bit of what I read to her. It’s amazing. If you hand her a book that she’s familiar with, she’ll sit down and read it out loud, purring little bits of the story that she’s memorized from when we’ve read it together. Like this morning when I spied on her in her room, sitting in her teeny-tiny armchair with Green Eggs and Ham open on her lap, waving her hands in the air saying, No, Sam, No! No eggs and ham! I mean, How precious is that?

And while I’m totally proud of my little reader, I’m not at all surprised by her love of books considering, as my sister puts it, “Bookwormishness runs in the family.” Not with ME so much, in that unless it’s between the covers of a People magazine or is written by David Sedaris, I’m less likely to break my neck to read it. But my Mom and my sister, however, are obsessive readers, with each one of them owning book collections that rival some local libraries. If you ever need a suggestion about what to read, ask either of them. If you ever need to know any recent celebrity gossip, however, I’m your gal.

So we’ve got ourselves a bookworm on our hands, and because we’ve come close to exhausting our own children’s book collection, I decided to take my little girl to the library a few days ago to check-out and bring home with us some new adventures. And after the Clifford-debacle last week, I made extra sure that this time we wouldn’t be interrupted by any giant red monsters, and that we would also be there at time that the facility would be fairly empty. And, seriously y’all, if you could have seen Taylor’s face when she realized that there were actual books on the shelves and that, Get this!, you can take them down and READ THEM. It was like letting Ruby loose in a bacon store, she didn’t know where to go first. And after pulling a few, glossy hardbacks down from their resting places, she made herself comfortable and started flipping through her new treasures.

Ah, my little peanut. Every day she makes my heart smile. Call me Obsessed, if you want. I just call myself proud.

Run Momma Run

Yesterday morning I competed in my first ever 10k, and as I sit down now to reflect on the race, I can just finally feel my legs getting stiff and lower back twinge with exhaustion. Because up until the moment I just sat down, I have been riding such a wicked high from starting and finishing a challenging 6.2-mile course that I watched even the most experienced runners stop and walk on. The Shamrock 10k started and ended at Asheville Catholic School, which is the school affiliated with our church, and winded you through the Grove Park neighborhood, up a mountain that overlooks the Inn and then back down through the Rose Garden on your way back. And if you’re not from this area, let me just simplify that for you: I ran up a MOUNTAIN.

And even though I had already practiced running the course, that steep incline up Cherokee kept me up the night before the race. And I also started to get nervous when I read the quote from Father Sheridan of St Eugene’s regarding the race in the paper the day before – “I rode up the 10k course in the car, and the car had trouble. The 5k has some hills, but it’s not as bad as the 10k. I told the parish, anyone doing the 10k, I’ll be there to give them their last rites.” Thanks for the pep-talk, Father.

Oh. And I was also a bit anxious about the race because all the pre-registered competitors’ tags were numbered alphabetically, making yours truly numeral uno. No pressure.

And because it was a SHAMROCK 10k, St Patrick’s Day is just around the corner and green is just a good-looking color, my friends Paige, Kelley and Lessye decided festive attire was a must.

Well. I was a ball of nerves before the race. A even with Chris and T coming with to cheer me on, I was almost too anxious to eat breakfast that morning. I stretched and was ready to go by the time they pulled the trigger, and after fighting through the initial mass of runners and finding a good pace, I settled into my run and jammed out to my iPod. My playlist was timed to the course, with First Tube pumping through my ears and propelling my legs up the side of the mountain. And I started to pass people. I even passed some obvious hardcore runners, complete with their skeletal frames and bionic gear. And I didn’t let the incline get into my head. And then I finished. And other than labor, it was the most physically challenging thing I have ever done. But, I finished. I crossed the finish line in 1:02, scoring me as the 12th fastest female in my age group. Which, out of 350-plus runners, makes me say, Yea, me!

And all of Team Momma kicked some serious tail at the race, with Lessye finishing in less than an hour, and Paige and Kelley right behind me.

And I’m so proud of all of my friends, especially Paige for deciding to run it at the last minute as a birthday present to herself. Happy Birthday, Friend – I am so proud of us!

Clifford the big red fearmonger

The other morning I decided to shake up our normal, weekday routine and took Taylor to her first-ever story time at our neighborhood library. She has been so good at letting me read her books lately – meaning I can actually READ them to her now, and not just watch as she violently flips through the pages as fast as she can – so I decided to test our public literary skills in front of other judging, Asheville mothers. And when I parked the car in front of the building, I was 94-percent super-excited for T to go to her first public book reading, and 6-percent nervous that we’d be the mother-daughter duo that is stuck in the back corner, me feeding her an ungodly amount of gummie snacks to keep her from shouting out random words, like Dora, Elmo and Ruby.

The library was pretty packed, with tons of moms and kids crowding the tables and pulling books off the shelves. Apparently the big attraction of story time that day was an appearance by Clifford the Big Red Dog, and most of the kids were all jazzed to meet one of their favorite book-series characters. Well, except Taylor. We only have one Clifford book, and while she loves it, she never cares much about the big red dog once we've finished the story. But it didn’t seem to be a big deal, as the first thing everyone did was sing and dance to Bingo. And T LOVES to sing and dance.

And after we got done boogying, we all sat down and an extremely pleasant and tolerant woman read us a book about a naughty puppy. And while Taylor could have cared less about that puppy, she sat super quietly and just watched all the other kids, not disturbing anyone and not forcing me to dig into my pockets for sugar. And just when I was feeling good about the whole situation, the star of the show arrived:

Here she is being all, Um, is that THING gone YET?

So. We didn’t stay much longer after the big red dog showed up, but as we were leaving a random, naughty little kid all-but tackled Clifford to the ground. So we definitely weren’t the most disruptive team there. And barring anymore random appearances of other gigantic cartoon mascots, we just might start making it a regular gig. At least we’ll have scheduled singing and clapping time.

23 months old

Today my little girl turns 23 months old, meaning we only have one more month before she officially turns into a two year old.

And not only will that make her age match with her current clothing-size, but starting next month we are going to have to start aggressively getting rid of all the baby-things we’ve let her hold onto. And by all things, I mean her binky. Yep, Miss T STILL sucks on a pacifier. And while we’ve weaned her binky-time down to just naps and through the night, I am scared to death of how she’s gonna handle having her binky yanked. Scared. To. Death. It’s not gonne be pretty. And we have one more month before we have to deal with it – Start the countdown to a hysterical, non-sleeping Taylor... right... NOW.

And since we only have one month left of binky-full sanity, let’s just hope it will be half as fun as last month. I mean, this is kid is fun. And I am having the time of my life just hanging out with her all day. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are definitely some tantrum-filled moments where I want to throw myself out the window, but for the most part we just giggle, play, dance and sing all day. And now that she’s talking so well, we can actually have CONVERSATIONS. Meaning she’ll understand me when I say something like, Taylor, would you rather go to the park or color on the driveway this afternoon? And she’ll stop and think, and then chirp back, Color? Outside? Ruby come? And that’s it, we’ll spend the next few hours playing outside in the yard and turning our driveway into a toddler masterpiece.

But if the unstable southern weather prevents us from being outside, then nine-times-out-of-ten we’re probably coloring, playing with play-doh or watching cartoons, with Dora the Explorer still being her all-time fave. I can honestly say that she’s OBSESSED with Dora, Boots and the whole group of regular characters, and any time we see something with their likeness on it, it’s a giant ordeal. Oh, and THANKS, Nickelodeon! for being such giant sellouts. I can’t walk down a single aisle in the grocery store without Dora’s face being plastered on something – Soup, cereal, band-aides, gummie snacks, balloons.

I am also amazed at how little-T's memory has been soaking things up like a sponge lately. Certain things that trigger familiarity with places, toys and random objects. If we drive down Tunnel Road during the daylight, she knows that both our favorite Mexican restaurant and Cracker Barrel are on that street, and she’ll squeal out in excitement at the thought of devouring either bean dip or pancakes. And if we go play at a park that we have been to with Paige and Elliot, she’ll look around and throw her arms up in the air and say, Elly? Paige? She also fished out a small hair-clip from her purse the other day that my Mom gave her last month, showed it to me and said, Ya-Ya clippy. Yep, she’s a genius.

And Taylor has also turned a corner with playing with other kids her age at play dates and at the YMCA's Child Watch. And I must say that, from what I’ve witnessed, my little girl is getting pretty good at sharing with others. Whether it be her toy or someone elses, if she senses that she needs to hand it over to someone else, she does so without incident and moves onto whatever next treasure is close. Except if that toy is a baby doll. Then she kung-fu grips it and screams, NO! MINE! if someone tries to take it from her. Or if it’s any sort of food with sugar in it, she most definitely will NOT share any of her treats. So she’s a GOOD sharer, not GREAT. And as long as you don’t try to touch her baby doll or house her snacks, she’ll be your best friend.

We also had our first bully-incident at Child Watch this past month, as T was chowing down on some graham crackers and another little girl tried to snag one. And when Taylor said, NO!, the other little girl tried to take a bite out of my baby girl’s arm. And while the bite didn’t break the skin, Taylor pretty much lost her marbles and the girls that were on duty rushed into the work-out room to get me. And I don’t know if I have ever ran so fast as I did to get to my precious girl to hold her and kiss her boo-boo. And after about five minutes, and two servings of Dora gummie snacks, she had totally forgotten about it. And other than the bite-mark bruise that graced her pudgy forearm for two weeks, we haven’t noticed any aftereffects from the incident. Except we are now snack-free at Child Watch now. I’m not giving any more kids excuses to bite into those meaty limbs of hers.

And while that was an appalling episode this past month, even more horrifying were the numbers of Taylor-tantrums. Yep, we may be one month away from the big birthday, but she’s already got the temperament of a two year old. And while the frequency, duration or decibel-level haven’t gotten any better, I must say that I have been handling the outbursts with more ease. Meaning I am learning how to keep my cool during her come-aparts, and not allow both of us to turn into screaming lunatics. Because at first, it was really hard to just let this little person scream madly at me without having a natural reaction of screaming back. Try it. It’s hard. Chris would come home and try to calm me down, and I’d look at him with crazy-eyes and say, Me calm down! ME! Tell HER to calm down first. And then my rage would feed her rage and, a few times, I’m pretty sure the earth almost opened up and swallowed our house whole. It was that bad.

But now, NOW, I am learning to take deep breaths and walk away from her screaming and flailing her body on the floor. If I say the word NO to her in the kitchen and she starts having a melt down, I’ll stop whatever I’m doing and walk into the living room, taking deep yoga-like breaths the whole time. And I’ll let her cry. Or if I’m feeling really ambitious, I’ll announce to her that, Mom’s in the living room coloring. You should join me. It’s FUN. And then after a few final snorts and wails, I’ll hear her scamper into the living room with her red, tear-stained face, then she’ll smile at me and go, Color? And I’ll smile back, because I’ll feel like I just won that battle all while keeping my cool. Because no one wants to be The Screaming Mom. We all knew one growing up or know one now – And I most definitely do not want to be THAT mom. Until she throws her next tantrum. And then a new moral teeter-totter begins.

But obviously it’s not all come-aparts and yoga breathing. Like I said, most of the time it’s absolutely wonderful. Overly wonderful. Like the fact that everyday after she gets up from her nap, I go into her room, snatch her out of her crib and bring her into my room and we cuddle on the bed while watching cartoons. And she just snuggles into my body so perfectly, with my right arm curled around her warm body, her head nuzzled close to my chest and right underneath my neck and her arms wrapped around me. And we just snuggle, and she watches cartoons and I just kiss the top of her head and smell her hair. And it’s the best fifteen minutes of my day. Universe, if you could just let that still happen when she’s two, I’ll totally forgive you for letting it snow last week.

A family that runs together

So I mentioned last month that Chris and I are planning on running in the Asheville Half-Marathon this upcoming September, and what better way to prep for the 13.1 mile race than to run in a 5k this morning. Being the planner I am, I have set various benchmark races throughout the next few months to track my progress as a runner. This week a 5k, next weekend is a 10k and, though I have yet to register for it, there is a 15k in May that I’m planning on running.

And because Chris is training for the half too, we took advantage of today’s race because it allowed us to push T in her jogging stroller. And by US I mean Chris. Because he’s a boy, and if given the opportunity I would rather NOT propel an extra 40-pounds around the course. Thanks, Babe.

And while it was an actual planned event and we all had numbers, even Taylor, it was a free race, and therefore not timed or placed. BUT, of all the runners competing, yours truly finished third of all the female racers. THIRD. Which means I am fast. Yes, I have been labeled Fast for various things in my life – driving, talking, channel surfing – but never, NEVER, have I ever been labeled a Fast Runner. Until today. And, even better, my friend and training partner, Kelley, finished fourth for the girls. How awesome is that?

So even though I’m gloating about my AWESOME finish, I must also brag on Chris for finishing closely after me, pushing an extremely peeved Taylor in the jogger. Apparently our princess forced him to stop at each water stop, WAH-TUR!, so she could douse herself each loop. Which not only added time to Chris’s run, but also resulted in a cold, wet little girl at the end of the race. So this was the best attempt at a Famous Amys post-race picture I could get:

Yep. NOT a happy camper.

Oh well. Not even a Taylor-tantrum could squash this fast-runner’s excitement.

In like a lion

Dear Universe,

Would it be alright if we just skipped to Spring already? As beautiful as everything is covered in a fresh blanket of powder, I miss my flip-flops.

Truly yours – Brooke

And, YES, Northern family and friends. My daughter is wearing SOCKS on her hands. Insert gasps and eyerolls here:

And even though we were hit with a few inches of fat, wet snow today, at least it wasn’t accompanied by subfreezing temperatures. So we were actually able to get out and play.

Alright. So it was FUN. But hurry up and melt, already.

One spoiled grandbaby

We were so excited to have Chris’s parents visit us in Asheville this past weekend, bringing with them a coach packed-full of toys, clothes and sweet treats for our Miss T. It was like Christmas in February, and Taylor was more than happy to be the center of attention for her grandparents.

Now the last time Greg and Sue visited this past December, they went from being Grandpa and Grandma to being Grampy and Grammy. Well, this trip Taylor had a hard time with her Grammy’s nametag, and started calling them both Grampy. But that didn’t deter Sue one bit, as she spent about the entire trip sitting inside Taylor’s Dora the Explorer tent serving tea to the princess.

And Grandma also shared her famous Special K bar recipe with her one and only grandchild as well. Some things need to be passed down through the generations, and those wonderful morsels of goodness are definitely one of those things.

And after the weekend of utter and extreme spoilage, Greg and Sue left for Texas yesterday, leaving me one extremely rotten little toddler to start a hectic week. If only you could have seen the expression on her face when I denied her her third round of Dora gummies today. She was all, Um. I thought we stopped saying that NO word in our house now. Where are Grampy and Grampy?