blaby

Jeeze

2010-01-26T19:23:00.001-08:00

My mother in law takes great pictures -she snapped this shot of Thomas
last weekend. Looking at it just melts my heart. I can feel his little
head asleep on my chest, hear the funny way he says 'hello' and holds
his hand to his ear like he's talking on the phone, see the way he
toddles around the room with his hands out in front of him like a drunk.
He's unlike t2 in that he's not ok with just anyone - and more often
than not he only wants me. Oddly it's never occured to me to mind.

Happy days

2010-01-24T19:26:00.001-08:00

Tayloe made it home safe from Africa last weekend. It takes us a few
days to readjust to life all together again, but when we do it seems
like we're always better than before. It's hard to be without an
essential member of our team for any length of time (2 weeks this
time) but in the end I always feel a little stronger and a little more
confident. Sorta like running a marathon I'd guess, although I
certainly can't speak from experience there.
In the time that he was gone Thomas started taking his first real
steps alone and in the last week seems to be deciding that maybe
motoring on feet rather than knees is the way to go.

Go to sleep baby

2010-01-16T10:16:00.001-08:00

Tayloe pretending to put Thomas down for a nap

Chubby yummy goodness

2009-12-29T15:39:00.000-08:00

As far as kids go, this is my favorite age. Communicating but not too
much, sleeps through the night, eats, plays and gives lots of
unconditional love. Of course ours isn't walking yet ... Surely by
Christmas, I said. I'd say it's just a matter of weeks because he
really is so close, but I've said that before. It doesn't matter that
my back is breaking in a million places from carrying him around.
Let it be known that Thomas isn't going to do a single thing until he
decides he's ready to do it. And if that's the way he lives his life,
good for him.

It'd help if I added the picture

2009-12-10T17:35:00.001-08:00

Dih. See previous post

Christmas wishes

2009-12-10T17:30:00.000-08:00

I remember getting Christmas wish books in the mail when I was a kid
and pouring through them for weeks. I'd circle things I knew there was
no way on gods green earth I'd get, like a trampoline or a battery
powered Barbie car or later in the delicious neiman and Marcus
catalogue, makeup. I'd read the descriptions over and over again,
imagining all the fun I could have if the Barbie car really could run
for up to four hours without a charge. It was good to dream and to
this day I still prefer them to the Internet.
So here's Tayloe, starting young with the dollar general wish book.
It's taken it's place among his favorite bedtime reads. The other day
he tried to comfort Thomas with it. 'Read this Thomas,' he said
through his brothers wails. There's nothing so wrong that a picture of
a $3 remote control tractor can't fix.

My family

2009-12-07T12:44:00.001-08:00

Tayloe came home from school last week with this picture in his
backpack.
He was so excited to show it to me and quickly told me that the person
in blue is daddy, the person in pink is mommy, the big kid is Tayloe
and the baby is Thomas.
"Looks like you had a good time coloring Thomas," I said.
"Yeah," he said. "He was cold so I covered him up."
(or decided to suffocate him, either way).

asleep at the wheel

2009-12-03T11:44:00.000-08:00

that's kinda how i've been feeling. does my lack of posts make it obvious? the busyness of this time of year always my head swim anyway, but lately i've just felt like i can only get the basic stuff done. i tried to take a photo of the boys yesterday for a christmas card. i should know better by now, but sometimes i just can't help myself.
instead of the happy, gleaming image i imagined i got two screaming kids, one with juice spilled all over his head. i took a picture of that, thinking maybe reality would be better, but even it didn't come out. one's crawling away so fast he's a blur and the other ducked out of the frame just as i pushed the button. so it's basically a picture of a chair.
i can't even seem to get the advent calendar stuffed. three days in a row i've had to distract tayloe so that i could get the treats in before he saw. no way i can keep that up.
i gotta wake up and get with it or we're going find the family truckster cruising east bound at 80 in the west bound lane. hhhhhhhhhhhooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnk.

brothers

2009-11-03T18:06:00.000-08:00

twinsies, both at 14 months, give or take. if thomas keeps eating the way he does (he weighs 25 1/2 lbs) it won't be long before people really think they are.

lightning mcqueen it was

2009-11-02T11:20:00.001-08:00

there are other, better photos but they're stuck on my camera and will remain there until i can find the silly rip cord thingamabob that i ALWAYS lose. belch.
we had a great halloween - a party at tayloe's school and then trick or treating on the lawn at UVa. the dazed look on little tayloe's face kinda says it all - he's always been overwhelmed in crowds. so many people, so much to do, never really sure where to start. we guided him along and he had fun. after about 45 minutes he took off his costume and told us he was ready to go home.
thomas, on the other hand, could have sat in his stroller batting his balloon and drooling on his lollipop all day. i thought he was going to buck at being in his zebra costume, but he didn't mind it at all. as long as he has a snack and someone else is doing the work he's perfectly content.
saturday night we'd planned on trick or treating in our little town of scottsville, but rainy weather and the bucket of halloween candy we already had helped us change our minds. instead, we watched charlie brown and got tayloe really excited for trick or treaters - all 2 of them - to come to our house. he kept calling them 'tricker trickers' and that combined with the way he sat peering out the front window waiting for them kinda melted my heart.

trick's on me

2009-10-29T16:17:00.000-07:00

the lightning mcqueen halloween costume that's sitting on the counter staring at me just told me what i already know.
i am a big, fat sucker. and that i'm a lunatic because i'm talking to a foam car. and because i'm telling you that i'm talking to a foam car.
i paid $40 and an additional $15 in shipping- $55 total, more than i paid for my last pair of shoes - for this thing. $15 to ship foam people. think about that for a minute.
it came today and was waiting for tayloe when he woke up from his nap - the finest synthetics $55 can buy, bright cherry red, the stupid lightning mcqueen expression smeared on its front just like in the movie. the kid's been pretending he's a race car - this race car - for the last 5 weeks so i didn't really think it was unreasonable to assume he'd be excited to see it.
oh but wait. 3 year olds are complete psychopaths.
he came into the kitchen. stared at it for a few minutes. sucked down a cup of milk. stared at it some more. finally, after some prompting, he put it on, ran around the house once making loud engine noises and then quietly took it off in his brother's room and left it on the floor. i'm sure i don't have to tell you that boys aren't quiet when they're excited about something.
he didn't say he didn't like it, but i'm gonna guess that's because he didn't want to hurt my feelings. it was that obvious i was more excited than he was.
of course, i know this game. your choices as a mother are to either learn to handle psychosis or put your head in a 500 degree oven. i wiped the disappointment off my face, didn't say 'DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH THIS THING COST?' even though it was on the tippy tip tip of my tongue and moved on.
will he wear it to his school's halloween party tomorrow? to halloween festivities tomorrow evening? trick or treating saturday? who knows. tonight as i tucked him in he told me he wanted to be a ghost so he could say boo. (do. not. strangle. do. not. strangle. do. not. strangle.)
later i picked lightning mcqueen up and put him on the counter. where he sits now. still staring.

fall

2009-10-28T07:33:00.000-07:00

a third

2009-10-21T10:48:00.000-07:00

aw, your boys are so pretty. you should have a girl!
people say that to us a lot. like it's something we can just order up. sometimes i say 'i know' because of course i think my kids are beautiful and mostly perfect and who doesn't want more of that.
sometimes i balk because let's be honest - the thought of another child, girl or boy (but mostly boy), makes me shake uncontrollably. if i did have a direct line to God, i don't think the very first thing i'd ask for would be another baby. peace, health, happiness, a nice pair of winter boots and then maybe ...
see i can't say no definitively (though tayloe seems to be able to just fine, which poses another kind of problem. but forget that for now & play along). it's something about the 13/14/15 month age. a baby quickly, almost too quickly, stops being a baby and starts being a toddler (mines not actually toddling but again, play along). pretty soon the crib will be down and the baby clothes packed up and it'll all be behind us. totally done. i know what it feels like to be OK with something - ready to leave one thing behind and leap eagerly toward the next. i don't feel it.
here's the part where you start to think i'm certifiable. even at the end of the worst days - when everything is a complete mess i'm still not able to say no. there's barf on my favorite shirt. no more kids. i haven't slept a full night in 3 years. no more kids. someone's always whining in my ear. no, no, no, no.
well, maybe ....
the other day at starbucks a woman asked me how many children i had. know what i said? 3. i know! i've lost my mind.
the cherry on top of the crazy lady sundae is that i'd be perfectly fine with another boy. sometimes i even think i'd prefer it. somebody stop me.
i can barely make sense of this myself, so don't you go trying. maybe it'll pass and i'll suddenly have that OK feeling. i don't know.
here's what i do know. i know myself better and love myself more today than i did yesterday, three days ago, three years ago. i had no idea what i was capable of, good and bad, and i'm not sure i ever would have discovered it if i hadn't chosen this path. i'm grateful for every moment of this life and if one day there's more, well that'd just make it all the better.

9 lives

2009-10-12T12:23:00.001-07:00

it's almost halloween, so allow me to scare you. god knows the incident i'm about to recap was so crap-in-the-pants frightening there's enough yikes to go around.
a few weeks ago tayloe, thomas, below mentioned johnny and i went for a walk along the river. beautiful day, happy boys, wet dog - life was fine. and then everything wasn't.
thomas was in the stroller and johnny was off his leash retrieving tennis balls. tayloe was tagging along behind collecting sticks and walnuts. with an arm full, he asked me to stop and help him. i took my hand off the stroller to turn around and see what exactly he needed and in that moment, johnny's wet seeming 1,000 lb tail whopped the stroller and sent it rolling down the riverbank and plunging into the cool early october waters. i hadn't put the foot break on.
t2 screamed, i screamed, thomas screamed and as i ran down the bank after it i watched as the stroller, with our 13 month old baby strapped into it, sunk into chilly early october river water. i dove in but struggled to pull the stroller up and flip it over. maybe it was tayloe's shrieks from the side. maybe it was just pure adrenaline. the only thing i could think to do was dive under and shove it up from underneath. so i did. it bobbed (no pun intended. at all. although that is kinda funny) to the surface and there was my baby boy, drenched and shivering and shrieking, but very much alive. little tayloe was very much alive too, sobbing from the shore and yelling 'my baby brother, my baby brother!' i'd say, 'it's OK, he's OK,' & he'd sob back , 'mama he's NOT OK. he's SOAKING WET.' well yes, there's that.
what happened after that is kind of a blur of panic. i ran everyone back to the truck, cranked the heat and had them both in a hot bath in what seemed like minutes. as quickly as it had happened it was over and everything was back to normal.
except for me. tayloe came in from his office and said i looked like i'd seen a ghost. a ghost that tried to drown me. and maybe rip my heart out.
even after thomas was warmed up, in pjs and tucked into bed, i couldn't stop imagining what he would have looked like if he'd stopped breathing. i imagined what i'd of done, how absolutely positively dreadful it all could have gone. sometime around 1 a.m. i snuck into thomas' room, snuggled him in my arms and sat with him in the dark for nearly an hour.
because everything is ok and i eventually was able to get the shocking images out of my mind, i can look back on it with a little humor. no one else was around, but had they been the scene surely would have looked like a total cluster *&uck. a baptism gone terribly, terribly wrong. for days after t2 told everyone he saw that his baby brother rolled down the hill in his stroller and landed in the river. nice.
my iphone, which was in the strollers' cup holder, went dead for 2 days and then slowly came back to life. still, it shows signs of trauma. when i try to open certain applications it tries, blinks a few times and then goes black. i can almost hear it saying, 'hey lady, i've got your facebook status update: 'put the f'ing foot break on!'
and i rue the day when thomas tells me he's been having water submersion nightmares. and then rolling down a hill uncontrollably nightmares. and then soaking wet & freezing nightmares. and when all of this comes after we've just gotten over the you hate me and are trying to kill me nightmares.
when i look at this pic, taken by my mother in law this weekend, i see sweet smiling alive thomas and i feel overwhelmed with relief and joy and love.
that's my thomas. toughest kid on the block.

Here's johnny

2009-10-09T07:08:00.000-07:00

Life is incomplete without a dog, I just didn't expect to get so much
dog when we got johnny. He's not quite 7 months, weighs about 85 lbs
and has at least a mile of skin to grow into.
Now I think every dog is the best dog I've ever had, but johnny
seriously is a fantastic dog. Sure he busted through the bathroom
window for no good and he can destroy a sippy cup in 2 seconds flat.
But he's all love. Thomas can put his whole head in johnnys mouth (not
that he has, er hum..) and his only reaction is a tail wag. His goofy
laid back personality so compliments our family it seems like he's
been with us forever.
Of course there will always be wolly, who was unique in a completely
different way. But I think if wolly could have hand picked a dog for
us, even he couldn't have denied the complete awesomeness of johnny
cash.

Balloon chasing

2009-09-25T13:01:00.000-07:00

Not sure this is how our little town intended for the new farmers
market pavillion to be used, but it's good fun on a rainy day.

Aw

2009-09-23T18:32:00.000-07:00

No, we aren't getting one, but what's cuter than a lab puppy? A yellow
haired kid with a lab puppy maybe.
This was a big event for little Tayloe - he got to skip his bath and
go out after dark with his uncle geoff and me to visit these one week
old pups. I'm always a little fearful in situations like these that
the bad side of crazy is going to turn loose, but this time it didn't.
He was just as kind and calm as he could be.
Sweetness brings out sweetness I guess. Note to self ....

Apple picking

2009-09-16T17:10:00.000-07:00

We went apple picking this afternoon. Any idea the kind of disrespect
a baby has for his diaper after 2 green apples?

You come too, mom

2009-09-14T20:03:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I'm so caught up in the day to day that I forget our kids
will have a life together that is beyond their father and me. Not long
from now their paths and personalities will be shaped more by each
other than by us. Maybe I'll think differently later, but mostly I'm
really happy they are so close in age.
Is it true for you - that the best parenting experiences are when
you're just tagging along on their adventure?
It seems so obvious.

A photos worth a zillion words

2009-09-11T20:08:00.000-07:00

Take a look. I'm giving you a visual of what our week has looked like.
Nnnooo mommy. I don't want to mommy. Let me do it! You're in my space,
mommy.
That last one is my favorite. Precious right?
Oh three. You ugly beast.
But let's give a kid a break. He started preschool. No drama on the
surface, but he's bright enough to know it marked the end if one thing
and the beginning of another.
He's realized the pool, his favorite place in the whole world, is
closed.
He has the sniffles.
His dad was away for a few days and then had a busy week.
So ok. I'm willing to just write this week's bad behavior and constant
demands and inane negotiating off. God knows I've been no saint.
Cocktail hour came early more than once.
All I'm asking - and I'm asking it because I don't want to end up in
jail - is for my sense of humor to stay intact. Help me bury it deep
inside, safe from all the hen pecking.
Peck. Peck. Peck peck peck peck peck peck

Bedtime at the rock house

2009-09-10T16:06:00.000-07:00

The boys and I are at Mt. Airy for the weekend. When we told Tayloe
where we were going he said, "ooohhh, the rock house!"
Stone, son. Stone

Welcome to the new blaby

2009-09-09T12:00:00.001-07:00

Look!
After months of blogger laziness, i used my newfound freetime this
morning (t2 in school, thomas napping) to snitzy up this here blog.
Now I can update my blog quickly from my iPhone, which I bet I'll do
all the time. Expect to see a lot more of us on the fly and in almost
real time!I hope I can better capture some of the moments that happen
everyday because it seems that lately good bloggish stuff happens and
by the end of the day I have no head space for downloading photos and
composing sentences.
Should also be fun for you to laugh at my typos - the iPhone keyboard
has a mind of it's own. You understand.

2009-09-09T08:05:00.000-07:00

Testing to see if I can post from my phone. Did it work?

milestones

2009-09-09T06:55:00.000-07:00

thomas turned one last tuesday. i'm still not sure how that's possible, but ok. we had a small celebration for him at home - presents and cupcakes. no hesitation on the cupcake - food doesn't last very long in front of him. he's growing so fast - and he's so smart. he knows exactly how to get his brother's attention (pick up his favorite toys, of course). he watches people so intently i can't help but think i'm really in for it when he's really up and moving and can download all that information. and yet, i'm really excited about his next year. as challenging as it will be, i can't wait to see him come into his own. before long he'll be running right next to his brother, standing up for himself and doing things 'all by myself.' sniff.
meanwhile, we've been gearing tayloe up for preschool. it's at the episcopal church in scottsville only 1/2 a mile from our house. it wasn't my first choice, but i think it'll be just fine. he's thrilled about the toys there and seems genuinely excited to make friends. so off he trucked with his beloved baby tucked in his backpack, new shoes and all the confidence in the world.
break. my. heart.

some video

2009-08-19T11:14:00.000-07:00

sometimes it's just good.

almost 1

2009-08-17T19:08:00.000-07:00

w

hi from thomas. mr. serious. mr. i'm going to check you out for 20 minutes and make sure you aren't a serial killer. mr. you have to work to make me smile. unless i know you and i'm 100 percent sure you aren't a serial killer. then i'll smile for you. maybe.
i have no idea where this year went. woosh. poof. gone. thomas will be 1 on the Sept. 1. i'm a little ashamed to admit this, but in my mind he's still only about 4 months old so, you know, i'm pretty shocked by this whole approaching birthday thing. somebody has their dates mixed up. and it's not me.
today little tayloe and i were outside cutting the grass while thomas was napping. we finished up and got off the tractor and he went his way and i went mine. after a few minutes he came over and said he heard thomas crying and that we should go inside and 'ask him if he had a good nap.' charmed i said OK, knowing there was no way he heard him crying because the AC was on and all the windows were shut. plus i have super sonic mom ears making it impossible for him to hear something i didn't.
but sure enough we went inside and thomas was in fact awake & crying. kind of amazed, i asked tayloe how he'd heard thomas.
he said, 'i dunno. i just heard him.' well then. i guess that pretty much explains it.

quick catch up

2009-08-05T11:38:00.001-07:00

thomas started crawling (finally)
tayloe turned 3. he got a new swingset and wants to have a birthday party just about every week. last friday he said, 'mom, i have a birthday coming up, right?'
thomas is 11 months and uses words on a regular basis. uh-oh, pee-boo, nigh-nigh, broda (brother) and bye-bye among them. this totally amazes me.
tayloe hasn't had an accident during the day or at night in i don't know how long.
thomas has 4 upper teeth coming in and hasn't slept through the night in at least two weeks, maybe longer. it's really very unfun.
tayloe is still on the waiting list for the preschool we prefer and although they keep telling me to have faith, it's making me very nervous. crazy nervous.
my camera just became unbroke so maybe someday soon i'll post some pictures again. and video.
tayloe asks 4 million questions a day and his most favorite thing to do is to tell me when there's a red light, when there's a green light and when a big hill is coming up.
our puppy june was lost all last week after a fence door was left open. turns out she was right down the street making friends with a new family.
johnny, our male puppy, probably weighs close to 60 lbs. he's 5 months old.
tayloe calls his umbrella his 'rainbrella.'
thomas eats more food than seems humanly possible.
big tayloe turned 40 caught a ginormous 6.5 pound bass in the mill pond the day after his birthday. it was so exciting i cried.
we have more tomatoes than we could ever possibly eat. ever.

oldie but goodie

2009-06-15T19:33:00.000-07:00

i meant to post this months ago. cracks me up.

merry christmas from the tayloe emerys!

2009-06-09T11:23:00.000-07:00

if i were the kind of person who wrote those my family is better than your family christmas letters, this would be my section on little tayloe for 2009:
not only is he very handsome and charming, a gifted singer and athlete, he's also the most independent child in charlottesville! he barely needed any toilet training at all - just one day of soggy pants and that was it, he was ready to be a big kid!!! and big kid he is - each day at summer camp he said goodbye to us with a huge smile and greeted us when we picked him up with an inventive craft worthy of art gallery walls (image left). we're so proud of our 'little man' and tell everyone we know how outstanding and remarkable he is. we've already alerted Harvard to make room in the class of 2025 because the next Emery is on his way!!! kidding, of course! (not really)
barf. hiccup.
the truth of course is that t's eaten enough gummy life savers to send rocket fueled only by sugar into space, had one memorable (embarrassing) accident on the preschool director's office floor and i'm about to have to make good on purchasing a garage for his thomas trains. and he is independent and doesn't have trouble being left places or with other people, but he doesn't really have a choice. preschool also has about a zillion toys he's never seen before, so there's that.
of course i'm proud. there have been plenty of times in his young life when i most certainly haven't been. a recent meltdown in the 20 people deep Bodo's line where he yanked and pulled on me so much my skirt came down comes to mind.
so i'll spare you the christmas letter and just take this moment to gloat. my kid has been easy to toilet train and is happy to go by himself to preschool camp alone for 3 hours. no poop issues, no tears, no long goodbyes. just a happy confident kid who can pee in a pot.

growing up boys

2009-05-28T18:22:00.001-07:00

tayloe took little t on his first ever fishing trip today. i thought the child was going to jump out of his skin he was so excited. he couldn't even sleep during his nap time. he helped his dad pack up the cooler with snacks and get his rod ready. he went and got his shoes, his hat and put on sunscreen so quickly and with so much joy i almost wondered if he was my child. off they went. tayloe didn't even take his rod so intent he was on showing little tayloe the ropes. it made me so happy and proud. even more so when he came home and told me he'd caught 2 bluegill. i asked t2 how big his was and he held his arms out as wide as he could. 'THIS BIG, MAMA!' for a kid that's been imaginary fishing for the last 8 months with anything that could remotely pass for a fishing pole, it was a total triumph.
thomas and i stayed home and had a rare afternoon just the two of us. we hung some things up in his room (9 months old and the only thing i ever got around to hanging was his mobile) then we read and sang and took pictures. since thomas didn't make regular practice of rolling over and hasn't even begun to show interest in crawling, there hasn't been much documentation of his major milestones. he's been sitting up now for about 2 months and while forward movement still seems a ways off, the kid can reach and stretch with the best of them. if he wants something beyond his grasp, he hurls himself toward it. if he misses, he takes a breath and bends, bends, bends as far as he can on the exhale. he gets lots of A+'s for effort.
looking at these pictures of tayloe makes me realize it's time to kiss the diapers goodbye. potty training hasn't really been on my radar since i bought one of those kiddie toilets last summer. it's probably because my pediatrician put it this way : you can potty train a boy at 2 1/2 and he'll be potty trained by 3. or you can just wait until he's 3. so i just put it out of my mind, knowing it'd get around to it eventually.
eventually starts on monday. everyone's home. we don't have any major plans to go anywhere.it gives me enough time to get to the bookstore and get some instructions on this type of thing. it's warm outside so a few pantsless days in the yard won't do any harm. plus he starts summer camp at his preschool in two weeks and they said they'd be more than happy to help.
perked ears. help did you say? was there ever a better motivational word?

for comparison sake

2009-05-22T20:00:00.000-07:00

i just realized every picture i have to tayloe at this age (around 9 months) he's smiling huge. and every picture i've taken of thomas lately he has this 'whatchoo lookin at lady' look on his face. i'm wondering if that's because i took no less than 2 million pictures of tayloe a month and just saved all the smiley ones. my photos of thomas are mostly on my iphone.
the thing about telling the older brother that his job is to protect the younger brother is that the older brother takes the task pretty seriously. today thomas was on the floor and the puppies came tromping inside. before i could even think about it, tayloe ran screaming past me yelling 'NO NO NO PUPPIES' arms straight out in front of him, heading straight for thomas. 'I SAVE YOU' he yells as he plows into thomas, - lays him out flat. he's full-on smothering his brother yelling 'I SAVE YOU THOMAS. I SAVE YOU! SHOO PUPPIES, SHOO'
of course how could he have known he was hurting him? thomas's screams were so muffled he didn't even hear him. when i scolded him for being too rough he looked at me like i had 1,000 heads.
i know, kiddo. it's confusing.

kids and dogs

2009-05-22T09:08:00.001-07:00

there isn't much difference really. both cute. both curious. both poop a lot.
so far so good with the puppies. they sleep outside, play outside, nap outside and mostly entertain each other. i'm a little afraid of how big johnny, the male, is going to be. he's such a lug right now he's nearly double the size of june. let's just hope he stays gentle and dumb.

tayloe cal ripkin emery

2009-05-14T17:59:00.000-07:00

mad skills. this is the same kid who was blocking soccer balls at 5 months. at the time that didn't seem weird, but now that i have thomas - our child who never rolled over and is perfectly content to sit and watch the world go by without moving a single limb (thus his nickname, 'love lump') - it seems prodigal.

why

2009-04-25T17:33:00.001-07:00

it's so weird how one day your kid is the way he has been for the last 6 months and the next day it's like your child was abducted and whoever did it left this complete stranger with a whole new rule book. the last 4 days or so, tayloe's had a burst of new words and along with it the inclination to ask why. at everything.
why do you put the milk in the fridge?
why do pretzels go here? why is the oven hot? why are you brushing my hair? why do you do this? why do you do that? what you doing now? why are you doing that?
i enjoy the curiosity, sure. and i'm happy to explain a thing or two when i know the answer. but ya gotta know i'm not a particularly chatty person. quiet doesn't make me uncomfortable. so this afternoon when i realized i'd been talking nonstop to a two year old for what felt like 100 years i felt an enormous amount of anxiety about how long this is going to last. especially because he's relentless. thomas is screaming and the phone is ringing and i'm clearly about to lose my #$it, but there he is - right at my heels looking for answers to life's larger questions. and not quietly or patiently, i might add.
i'll say that this new found chatter and the discovered ability to communicate beats the tantrums of the preverbal early twos, but only by a little bit.
thomas, meanwhile, is going through some kind of 8 month attachment thing. i can hardly put him down without him dissolving into a puddle of tears. it's the saddest thing you've ever seen.
so if you need me i'll be here. under a huge pile of laundry and dust with dishes piled up in the sink braving the t2 inquisition and with a little cherub clung to me like a staticky dark sock.

easter

2009-04-13T17:13:00.001-07:00

we went to greensboro last weekend for easter and had a spectacular time. it's so much fun to get kids really really excited about holidays.
we went to an egg hunt on saturday morning, dyed eggs saturday afternoon and tayloe, mom, dad and i spent most of saturday night pretending to call the easter bunny to tell him various things - like where to find the eggs and what to leave for us (jack daniels!). little tayloe would stand there watching us with huge eyes, nearly wiggling out of his skin with excitement. he'd grab the phone, kiss it and say, 'i wub ewe feaster bunny' and we'd all fall apart with laughter.
the hide and seek game of sunday morning was right up t2s alley and we spent most of the day hiding then looking for eggs.
on the way home today, i decided it was time to start the search for a new puppy. maybe it seems a little hasty, but thomas will be crawling soon (that's ambitious since he doesn't really even roll over ... let's just say eventually) and i'd really love to house train a puppy before that happens. i don't need a baby sloshing through pee puddles and well, other stuff.
plus i can't stand not having a dog around and it breaks my heart to see t2 outside throwing tennis balls to himself (and fetching them. i wish i was kidding.)
a quick scan of the classifieds and i found an ad for chocolate lab puppies, what we've been talking about getting, ready on mother's day. i called and the family that has them lives 3 minutes from our house. 11 chocolates! 3 minutes away! how's that for serendipity?
so we went by - you know, just to look. 10 minutes later we had picked the one we wanted - the biggest male in the lot (just what a i need, right? another dude) - and were handing over the duckets.
and that was that.

wolly by golly

2009-04-02T18:31:00.000-07:00

wolly died on sunday and i haven't been able to put it out of my mind. i feel really weird about seeing him dead, stroking his velvet soft ears, which were still warm, and then curling him up, putting him in the ground and shoveling dirt on him.
we put him behind our vegetable garden so when i'm out there he'll always be near. only every time i've gone out there this week i've had that image in my head - him curled up under all that red dirt clay. it isn't nightmarish. it's just weird.
i found this picture on my camera today. it was just a month ago, the beginning of march. that's w - staring at a tennis ball, so intense, waiting, waiting, waiting ...
wolls was my dog first - a hopelessly devoted nut job who could out fetch and outlast any other breathing being on the planet. if there wasn't a ball, he'd find a stick. if there wasn't a stick he'd find a twig. if there wasn't a twig, he'd find a piece of bark. if there wasn't bark he'd damn near try to get you to throw dirt for him. in a crowd of people he'd sniff out the biggest sucker, corner them with a ball and never ever leave them alone. he made sure that everyone noticed him and that no one ever forgot him.
then he was our dog - tayloe's and mine. we carted him all over the damn place - gave him a river to live by, tortured him with two more puppies, then kept him with us in our 500 sq foot apt in dc and then hauled him out to california and back again. he was never a 'go with the flow' kind of guy - in fact i always sensed that he hated change and in that way he was a kind of ying to our yang. but he was a gentleman, so he did the best he could.
our family grew and wolly - well, he adjusted.
most recently, he'd become little tayloe's dog. tayloe fed him. tayloe gave him a gazillion dog bones at my parents house. tayloe threw the ball for him. in return, wolly tolerated being locked in the bathroom, being drug around the yard by his collar, getting crashed with dump trucks or having buckets of stuff dumped on his head. most times when we went somewhere tayloe would ask if wolly could come too and he always included him in his prayers and list of people in our family (mommy, daddy, tayloe, thomas, wawe).
i'll tell you the truth. i was looking forward to wolly getting older. i knew that was when i'd get him back, when he'd either be too stubborn or too deaf to comply with tayloe's demands and instead be content to lay by my feet.
i always said in his previous life wolly was an accountant - some dude with a desk job whose zest for living had been zapped by florescent lights and microwave lunches.
in his dog life, he made up for all he'd missed. he had space and air, lakes and oceans and rivers. he had grass to roll in, dirt to dig in and tons and tons of balls to fetch. he had four strong, beautiful legs so he could run.
he had a family.
more than anything, he had love.

thomas

2009-03-20T17:25:00.001-07:00

oh thomas. i could gush on you all day. my new favorite name for you is rosy cheek apple face. you're just luscious. if naming kids after fruit wasn't so queer i'd of done it.
so it's spring here and that makes me happy. we all love being outside. in fact, i'm starting to think little tayloe might be happier if we just put his bed in the chicken coop. i've never known a child to love dirt and mud so much. every single pair of pants he owns have mud stains on the knees. it's awesome.
tomorrow we're building raised beds for our vegetable garden, so today i ordered a load of dirt and compost. tayloe was so excited when he saw the truck pull up, he couldn't sleep for his nap.
that excited.
over. a. pile. of. dirt.
happy days.

worst mom ever

2009-03-04T18:02:00.001-08:00

and the mother most unprepared for snow but takes her kid out in it anyway award goes to ... me.
little tayloe has on one mitten that's a sock, rain boots and his coat is held together with paper clips because the zipper broke at least a month ago. even he knows it looks dorky because when i come at him with the clips i get a big 'AW MAMA, No please!' nice.
obviously i didn't really think it was going to snow or i would have gotten the kid some snow pants, snow boots and mittens. and certainly i would have fixed his coat.
i thought we were in the clear - it was 68 degrees last friday for god's sake.
we do have a really fantastic sled, however, thanks to his grandpop and miss jackie.
hey ... he wanted to go outside and play and i wasn't going to let a little thing like lack of clothing get in the way. and despite our makeshift snow outfit and it's obvious, um, shortcomings, it wasn't being cold that caused the meltdown. it was having to walk back up the hill and my refusal to pull him on the sled.
t, next year i'll do better. you and i and thomas and daddy will be sleigh riding, snowman building fools. and i'll take lots of pictures to redeem myself.
i promise.

6 months

2009-03-02T12:47:00.000-08:00

there's just nothing better than a 6 mo old baby. i'm curious you all think he looks like. when little tayloe, thomas and i are out together, people often say they both favor me. i think thomas looks a lot like both tayloe and me. others think he looks way more like big tayloe. waddya think?

i stink

2009-02-25T12:21:00.001-08:00

well, time flies when you're havin fun doesn't it?
it kinda does.
thomas will be six months on sunday and he's already eating us out of house and home. i've never seen a child down so much food. i keep shoving it in and he keeps gulping it down. he's just about the happiest baby i've ever known.
today was one of the first times i really felt outnumbered. tayloe (2), thomas and i were sitting on the sofa reading before naptime. i'm reading 'cordoury' but tayloe isn't listening and is instead getting great amusement out of making his brother laugh. i ask him to stop and listen, but he doesn't so the two of them are giggling at each other and i'm sitting there reading a stupid book to the dog, who i doubt is listening either.
i gave up and just put them both to bed. as i tucked tayloe in he asked if baby thomas could sleep with him. a rare, tender act of brotherly love.
i'm so screwed.

oh my

2009-01-22T17:10:00.000-08:00

tayloe was midway through singing his abcs to thomas for the 10th time when i realized i should video tape it. he doesn't actually finish, but you get the point. (l m n & o are actually one letter, did you know that?).
you should see him do it all the way through . it's quite a performance.

today

2009-01-20T18:12:00.000-08:00

dear boys,
there's a chance you'll someday ask me what we did the day barack obama was inaugurated. there's a greater chance i'll tell you so many times over your lifetime without you asking you'll know so well what we did that you'll think you actually remember it.
just in case, though, i thought i'd write it down.
we skipped pbs for a day and went straight to cnn. we watched the crowds and excitement in dc for a while. you guys played and dad and i talked about how thankful we were that we got to spend saturday night in dc and share in the parties and excitement and stay at the amazing mayflower hotel.
daddy had to leave to catch a plane for LA so we kissed him goodbye and decided we should stay in our pjs and keep watching until the president spoke.
tayloe, you loved the band music and you instantly recognized 'rock bama' when you saw him. when george bush was leaving the white house, i said, 'there goes george bush' and you said 'mama, what's george bush doing?' i told you he was going home to texas and you said, 'ooohhh, bye bye george bush' which made me laugh a lot so you kept doing it over and over. i took a few pictures of you and thomas on the couch watching it all on tv.
when president obama took his oath, i cried. tayloe, you asked me what was wrong and i told you sometimes when people are very happy, they cry.
thomas you napped, drank milk, sat in my lap and chewed your fingers. i think you had a very nice time.
we all liked watching the helicopter take george bush away, though admittedly for different reasons.
after obama's inauguration speech, we turned off the tv, got dressed and went to the childrens museum. tayloe you had a great time playing with the trains and the ball machine. thomas you sat in the sling and took a little nap. afterwards we went to mcdonalds for cheeseburgers (i had a salad) and then because it was a special day and we wanted to end it on a sweet note we split a milkshake.
a chocolate one of course.

a boy in a dress

2009-01-16T11:39:00.001-08:00

i'm too lazy to download my own photos, so i stole these from my sister in law mary's facebook page. thomas's christening last sunday was just beautiful. true to form, little tayloe stole the show. midway through, he decided that he did in fact want to join us at the baptismal font so he got up, walked up the aisle & up the steps dragging his blanket behind him. crowd slayer.
thomas found it all so riveting and great he fell asleep and stayed that way until tim patterson dabbled cold water on his forehead. then he cried.
thomas is 4 1/2 months old today. he's getting stronger and stronger. he drools a lot and loves his right index finger - he chews on it all the time. so i guess he's teething. he had his first rice cereal this week and i couldn't believe - COULDN'T BELIEVE - how he gobbled it up. he loves the stuff - opens his mouth as wide as he can when he sees the spoon coming. he's incredibly sweet and laid back. he sleeps from 7 until 530 or so in the morning and did it on his own - no sleep training, no cry it out, no nothing.
absolutely nothing bothers him and he's still so soft and downy and sweet. in the last month, he's started kreening to see t2 and responds with lots of smiles and coos to the sight of him or the sound of his voice.
i can't wait to watch him grow up, but i'm also a little sad that every day he leaves a little bit of infanthood behind him. i always thought it was a little cuckoo that mothers called their youngest children their babies well into adulthood, but now i get it. i sometimes wonder how on his wedding day i'm going to be able to just sit there and watch him pledge his love to some other woman without standing up and shouting, 'BUT THAT'S MY BABY!'
no. i won't be that mom. i just make a scene with all my weeping. and then i'll steal their first born.

january

2009-01-07T18:00:00.000-08:00

this is thomas' best, 'i don't know mom, am i cute? face.' sweet marshmallow, you're precious. and so's your bro.
oh january. the never-ending month of dreary cold gray blah. mucky murky dark dank january. luckily february is right around the corner. so we got that goin for us.
i guess it's fitting that we're knee-deep in control crazy twoness. to save ourselves, tayloe and i decided to step off most of the time because nothing will make you lulu like arguing with a two year old over who's going to let the dog out. there are maybe a handful of things we stand ground on and most of those relate to safety, personal space and sleeping and eating.
that's why when t2 started refusing to eat at the dinner table and telling us where he wanted his plate (oh no he didn't) and everything we said or did to change his attitude failed, we pulled out the big guns.
bribery. the cold, sweet ben & jerrys kind. oh the power i feel knowing there's a pint of willie nelson's peach cobbler in the freezer.
i'm not even sure tayloe got the concept of sweets and desserts until last month when i started running out of creative things to do on rainy days and resorted to baking. turns out, december had a lot of rainy days. we made a lot of cookies.
with the promise of dessert, he's peacefully eaten most of the food on his plate at the counter for four nights straight. to sweeten the deal, i got him a new truck placemat. tonight he was so full he didn't even finish his dessert.
i know it's not about winning and losing, it's about compromise and teaching and taking it all in stride and BLAH BLAH BLAH.
I WON. i love it when i win. i'm going to gloat. nah na nah na na nah. I WON I WON I WON I WON.
for now, at least.

it was great

2009-01-04T17:48:00.001-08:00

the holidays were awesome. the best two weeks ever. we ate great food, opened lots of presents, saw everyone we loved, spent tons of time together and laughed a lot. best of all we were in our very own home (with beautiful new windows).
and now, i'm ready for spring.

things unseen

2008-12-16T16:12:00.001-08:00

as if real life wasn't enough to keep up with, lately tayloe's been creating entire scenarios in his head and then trying to explain them in 2 year old twoglish. the combination is mind blowing. most of the time i have no idea what he's talking about even when i can clearly understand him.
yesterday we rescued a frog from under the sink (with a hammer no less) and chased him around the house. we also caught about 100 very large fish in wolly's dog bowl using cookies for bait. his baby (a doll i gave him when thomas was born) has had a tummy ache (mama, baby's dummy hwurts) all day and has been changed, burped, tucked and untucked into bed about 1,000 times. right now he's doing weekly maintenance on his fleet of trucks and farm animals.
he spends a lot of time with his gang of people, moving them around in trucks, putting them in the laundry basket, hiding them under things and talking to them.
i was going to get him this cool marble maze thing for christmas, but i think instead i'm going to get him a doll house because he loves to move things around and create situations (look, mommy, people watch george. look mommy, people to pete's house. look mommy make tookies.)
seen any good ones?

post script: before tayloe went to bed, i showed him a few doll houses i found online and asked if he liked them. he went bananas, chattering on and on about having a home for his people. he got so wound up it took close to an hour to get him in bed. he showed me the one he liked the most but of course it was out of stock so i just spent 2 hours scanning the web like a crazy person to find it somewhere else. i never did find the exact one, but i ordered one very very similar. i won't link to it because ... well, what if he checks my blog? you'll have to wait for christmas morning photos. and yes, i'll probably sit up all night christmas eve assembling the thing (while big tayloe snores on the couch) which will for sure have instructions only in korean and be missing 7 or 8 essential pieces and i'll have to call india to reorder and it'll take so long we'll be able to give it to him as a birthday present in july. but regardless of that i'm now very very excited for christmas because i know i've gotten at least one incredibly perfect gift.

3 months

2008-12-12T17:48:00.000-08:00

thomas and i went to his 2 month doctor's appointment yesterday (um, a month late. second child, waddya gonna do?). he weighs nearly 14 lbs and is 25 and a half inches long, which apparently is really long. i think he's starting to look more like his older brother, though he's not nearly as active as tayloe was. he's happy to just lie on his back on his mat and occasionally kick his legs. he'll stand up if we make him, but he'd just assume snuggle up to us under his blanket and smile and gurgle until he falls asleep. i can't help but wonder (hope) if he'll be a little less active than tayloe. our family could use a thinker.
i find myself longing for time with him - when i can just hold him and talk to him and rub his little downy head and even when we have time i want it to last just a little bit longer.
both of our guys are sweet. tayloe's like a sour patch kid. yummy with a punch and very addictive. thomas is sweet like a marshmallow. fluffy and soft. you can eat a million and never feel too full.

why 2 year olds should be reporters

2008-12-09T16:27:00.000-08:00

what if, 'what doin' mama? mama, what doin? dada, what doin? what doin dada? oh, why mama? why mama? mama, why? MAMA why? WHY? WHAT DOIN'? MAMA, MAMA WHAT DOIN? mama, dada, what doin?' was redirected to the president?
'mr. bush, was war wrong? mr. bush? huh mr. bush? was war wrong? mr. bush, was war wrong? why mr. bush? why? MR. BUSH? mr. bush? mr. bush what doin'? what doin' in iraq? MR. BUSH? c'mon mr. bush. c'mon. mr. bush, WWWWHHHHAAAATTT DOOOOOIIINN'?'
i'm pretty sure we'd have some answers.

owie rain

2008-12-01T18:01:00.000-08:00

i took the boys for a walk today in our new amazing, fantastic superdooper BOB double stroller. we had a fine time and stopped at the park to play. on the way home, i noticed an ominous cloud behind me and pretty soon the wind picked up and the temperature dropped about 15 degrees and before i knew it little pin pricks were poking me in the face. shit. it's freaking hailing.
i started running and realized i wouldn't make it home without freezing everyone to death, probably literally, so i made a mad dash for the service station nearby. i saw dusty, the hottest service station attendant ever, through a foggy window and started mouthing, 'shit, shit, shit' in hopes that he'd open the door, which he did, welcomingly. it was kinda like that scene in 'war of the roses' when kathleen turner and michael douglas meet on a rainy night at an estate auction, except it was broad daylight, i'm married (lovingly), have two young kids in tow and he's not a day over 17. anyway.
what was my point? oh, so we're sitting inside watching the hail and freezing rain and tayloe looks at me, holding his face, and says 'mama, OWIE RAIN!' (luckily not, 'oh shit, owie rain'). he talked about it all day, how we got caught in an owie rain storm.
i love it. owie rain.
ps - look at that dimple on thomas' cheek. slays me.
pps - dusty gave us a ride home in his truck. sigh.

tookies

2008-11-30T17:47:00.000-08:00

it rained today so for lack of anything else to do, little tayloe and i made cookies. the chocolate chip kind.
i gave t his own bowl (own bowl, mama) to mix stuff up in. 2 cups of flour for me, a sprinkle for him. 3/4 cups sugar for me, some for him. tablespoon vanilla for me, a splash for him. and so on.
i got so caught up playing rachel ray & explaining everything that i was doing with gusto that i didn't read the instructions and just dumped everything together. it wasn't until my batter was sandy rather than creamy that i realized i'd done something wrong.
so i dumped it all out and started over.
'what doin mama? what doin'? bye bye tookies?
mama messed up, baby. do over! (ooooowwwww mama! do over!)
when i finally got it right and was ready to give him his first taste of cookie dough (the only reason to make cookies in my opinion), he wouldn't eat it. he actually said yuck.
no, not yuck baby. yum! the yummiest yum ever. here, try.
no, mama, yuck. yuck!
if you insist. i'll lick the beaters myself.
he did, however, dig the chocolate chips. i gave him a handful to dump in, only he crammed them all in his mouth before i could even explain that they were supposed to be mixed in with the batter.
we plopped the mixture on cookie pans and sat in front of the oven and watched them bake while wolly licked spilled flour off the floor.
mmmm, tookies.

god bless texas

2008-11-22T15:09:00.001-08:00

hi from austin, where tayloe and i are having a deliciously relaxing time made even more so by the news that thomas slept all night last night at my parents house. horray!
i love austin, but i'm sure i feel that way because i'm getting spoiled rotten. tay surprised me with a hot stone massage at the four seasons this morning after the most delicious breakfast (brioche french toast and a bloody mary) and a stroll through the local farmers market. we walked the town all afternoon, stopping for the yummiest margarita you've ever had in your life at our new favorite place, texas chili parlor. tonight we're going to a honky tonk and to hear live music. tomorrow is the benefit.
our life with children is so full and wonderful and of course we miss them, but our life without them is pretty damn good too.
tater, there's no one else in the world i'd rather be with. austin, tx, scottsville, va, stranded on top of a mountain in -20 degree weather. i pick you. always.

the do nothing stage

2008-11-19T11:11:00.000-08:00

i'm not one of those parents who is anxious for her infant to do something. if you ask me, thomas is the perfect age right now. he's sweet and wonderful and i honestly don't ever want him to grow up - and by grow up i mean turn 2.
not that 2 isn't fun. it is. and it's fascinating. but imagine what a mess you'd be if you couldn't control anything you felt - not jealousy, joy, anger, fear - nothing. and then imagine thinking that was OK but all day people were telling you it wasn't. and then imagine you had a little brother WHO DOESN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING but everyone cooed over anyway, using up valuable time they could be spending with you digging huge holes in the yard and running around in circles until your head fell off. you'd be out-of-your-mind bananas.
cute probably, but bananas.
thank god for curious george. the only time tayloe will sit still during the day (aside from his nap) is to watch george. that little monkey might as well be our third child. i hear william h. macy's voice in my sleep and i've seen every single episode ever made at least 300 times, but it's ok because when it's on my child stays in one place for at least 15 minutes.
anyway all this wonderful madness has earned big t and i a break. we're heading to austin tx on friday for a benefit for one of tayloe's new clients, the african children's choir, and my parents are keeping the babies. until monday. WOW. until monday! WOW! then we're meeting them at nags head for t'giving.
i'm pretty sure i know what i'm thankful for ...

rock bomb, 2 months & a haircut

2008-11-05T18:18:00.000-08:00

our kids will never think it's weird or new or different or even historic that a black man can be president. to them it is and always will be the way things are. isn't that awesome?
yesterday i'd ask t2 who we voted for. 'rock bomb' he'd say.
in other news, our little baby ain't so little. i have no idea how much he weighs but i swear it's got to be close to 13 or 14 pounds. he's huge. he's a great night time sleeper but the days? not so much. at least once a day he takes a longish nap, but it's never at the same time. and some days he just cat naps and then konks out at 7:30 for his 7-8 hour stretch of sleep. i have no idea if he's getting close to rolling over because all i ever want to do is hold him and love on him. the sweet, warm, soft baby part goes by so fast, something i feel keenly aware of as i watch t2 run up to me and hurriedly say 'hi mom, bye mom' and then take off running as if there's pure sugar running through is veins.
there isn't, but at times tayloe's so filled with raw emotion and he's seems so confused about how to express himself that he does the only thing he really knows how to do - use his body. he hugs very tightly, he pushes when he means to just touch, he runs into other children instead of just saying hi, he tries to tickle but usually ends up scratching. he knows he can't hit or push when he's angry so he's taken to just walking by and shoulder swiping his victims. it's actually quite clever - neither a hit or a push, a shove or a kick. if she can't name it, she can't tell me not to do it.
none of this really surprises me. he's always been more active than verbal, more tactile than cerebral. to help him get over this aggressive spell (and end the 'pretty little girl' comments), we got his hair cut yesterday.
i kept telling him he was getting his hair trimmed like a grown up boy and grown up boys don't push or kick or spit (yes, spit) they use words and keep their hands to themselves. (play along).
maybe it'll work.
the haircut didn't go so well (notice the choppiness) and at one point i was acting like a human straight jacket and promising him just about everything under the sun. but it'll grow out and hopefully the joy of his mother's love will bury memories of her virtually strangling him in a barber chair.

2008-11-03T10:56:00.000-08:00

looking for eggs in the chicken coop.

happy 'ween, pt. 2

2008-11-01T18:58:00.000-07:00

this is just after leaving a very scary house (smoke machine, skeletons - the works) so tayloe looks a little freaked out, but i had to get the 'happy ween' on the record.

happy 'ween!

2008-11-01T18:07:00.001-07:00

tayloe ran around all day yesterday shouting 'HAPPY 'WEEN! HAPPY 'WEEN!'. his excitement was contagious - despite being pretty wiped from our respective trips, t and i carved pumpkins, trick or treated, ate way too much candy and toted our little pony rider all over scottsville in search of sweet treats. t even rocked it and made us all grilled cheeses for supper when we got home (dad is the best).
and no doubt, we had the cutest little pony rider this side of the james river.
the only thing missing was thomas' costume, which is somewhere downstairs in the dark abyss of our basement. there's no way i wouldn't have dressed tayloe up when he was 2 months old. but poor ol t3 got the shaft cause i just didn't have the energy to go digging for it. as we were trotting through neighborhoods, i imagined him asking me later to show him pics from his first halloween. i started feeling really guilty, so i snapped one of he and i walking.

2008-10-22T10:18:00.000-07:00

pics of the boys

2008-10-17T18:06:00.000-07:00

aren't they gorgeous?

hush, baby

2008-10-15T15:33:00.000-07:00

little thomas you're a trooper. already you've been on three overnight trips, braved several scrapes, been dumped on and been so overwhelmed by a weekend of wedding events that you just had to tucker out and sleep through the reception despite the loud music.
maybe it seems like we don't love you. afterall, your brother still only calls you 'baby,' generally refusing to say your name. and most of your face time with him consists of him whispering 'hush baby, hush baby, hush baby, hush baby' if you so much as make a peep.
but nothing could be further from the truth. i for one adore you. you sleep from 10 to 4 a.m. nearly every night (knock on wood), you're hardly ever upset and when you are, it's easy to soothe you. you're soft and cuddly and lately you've been showing us your tender, sweet little smile and the dimple on your left cheek that just about melts my heart.
i keep thinking, 'did i love tayloe this much at this age?' i know the answer is yes, though i don't know how because my love seems infinite and i don't know how a person can feel that way twice (three times counting your dad).
i'm filled with pride that you're mine and i adore every ounce of you, from the soft blonde swirl of hair on the top of your head to your teeny, tiny toenails. mmmmmwwwwaaaah.

such a perfect day

2008-10-14T11:46:00.001-07:00

minus the formula dumping incident, t2 was a gentleman this weekend. here he is in his finest wedding duds just after walking down the aisle like he'd done it 1,000,000 times before. and then, despite my presumptions and plans to have him whisked away out of site the moment he handed over the pillow, he stayed quietly with his father during the entire ceremony. seeing him toddle down the aisle, dump the pillow with tayloe and climb up into his arms was more than i could handle in my weak emotional state. i cried a river.
mary was a beautiful bride, the food was amazing, mt airy was magical and the fireworks show at the end rivaled many i've seen on the 4th of july. the whole scene brought back a lot of great memories.
but best of all - to me anyway - was our kid. with his little white suit and little shoes and socks, his hair combed, his pink cheeks and rosy lips - the way he'd say 'i'm the wing bearwer' like he had an entire loaf of bread in his mouth. for one moment (one short, fleeting moment) he was an angel.

is little tayloe jealous?

2008-10-13T05:39:00.001-07:00

oh i don't know, sometimes. LIKE WHEN HE DUMPS AN ENTIRE CONTAINER OF FORMULA ON HIS BROTHER'S HEAD. he was so shocked by my shrieks, he pretty much put himself in timeout.
for the record - thomas slept through this entire incident, including the clean up.

snap

2008-10-07T17:04:00.000-07:00

my digital camera is so slow i am never really able to capture tayloe's expressions. but this once, it happened. this picture cracks me up.

7 years

2008-10-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

hey buddy. seven years today you and me. i still dig you like crazy. our life is really bananas right now and it wouldn't be fun with anyone but you.
you're my favorite and if you want to know my plan, well it's to just keep lovin' you of course cause it seems to be workin'.

dum dum dum dum

2008-09-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

my sister in law mary is getting married in 11 days. wow! 11 days! that's really soon!
anyway, we're all in the wedding (except thomas, he just gets to be cute). this is little tayloe's ring bearer suit (the shorts and peter pan blouse do da, not the bubble suit. that one is thomas'). i really want to try it on him, but i don't have the guts. i know we'll mess it up.
he also has little white saddle shoe type things. he's gonna slay 'em, even if he doesn't manage to get down the aisle, which is really a toss up at this point. i have a feeling he'll do it, but i don't want to get my hopes up.
so look people, i need you to pray with me that it doesn't rain AT ALL next week. there can't be a puddle anywhere within 10 miles of mt. airy on saturday the 11th. not a single one.
no puddles, no puddles, no puddles ....

t3

2008-09-29T08:23:00.000-07:00

ok i'm not sure how we got so lucky, but thomas is seriously the best baby on the planet. tayloe was a good baby. if it's possible, thomas is even better.
and big tayloe is such a sweet husband. all day i sit around and daydream about how my life sucked before tayloe came and rescued me from my evil and disreputable life and drove me away on a silver pumpkin carriage made of love and sacrifice. i've been in AA for 6 years now and sober as a polecat. god bless john mccain and sarah palin.
(obviously t1 hijacked my blogger mid-post while i was putting t2 down for a nap. however, he is a sweet husband and an amazing dad. and he can be rather funny).

but he looks so sweet

2008-09-26T11:53:00.000-07:00

doesn't he? he certainly has moments, but don't be fooled.
obviously having a little brother is confusing. he cries, he stinks sometimes, he doesn't do much and yet he takes up a remarkable amount of his parent's time. what's a 2 year old to do? why, act like a blazing, mad maniac of course.
some clips from the week's highlight reel:
* at the park, he shoved a friend into the soccer goal and ran away with his arms in the air yelling 'GOOOOAAAALLL'
* swat, spit or do both at any human who tries to say hello in public. scowl when someone says 'you're adorable' or 'what beautiful hair.'
* launch tv remotes and the phone off the couch onto wolly's peacefully sleeping head.
* dive bomb off a chair. when you're ignored, stand in the middle of the living room and drop suddenly from standing to lying down (the way someone would if they'd just dropped dead) over and over until someone notices and tells you to stop.
* take your diaper off when you're supposed to be napping and scream 'PEE PEE, PEE PEE, PEE PEE, PEE PEE' until someone comes in and takes you to the toilet
on the plus side, he didn't pee all over his bed. for this, i'm thankful and also slightly proud.
luckily, none of this awfully offensive and at times embarrassing behavior (because none of it limited to the confines of our home) has been directed at his little brother. to him, he's incredibly tender and sweet. to us, though - specifically to me - he's punishing.
so unfortunately, the honeymoon is over. do you have any idea how difficult it is to be compassionate but really firm with a wailing, flailing little rager? sometimes i seriously want to poke his eyes out.
on the plus side, this can't possibly last forever and it certainly can't get much worse (knock on wood).
and he is pretty cute.
it's a damn good thing.

naptime

2008-09-20T12:12:00.001-07:00

what a gorgeous saturday afternoon looks like at our house. i could nap too, but i can't resist the urge to just sit here and listen to the silence and enjoy no one needing anything. even wolly's asleep on his bed.
aaaaahhhh.

2 weeks

2008-09-18T10:19:00.001-07:00

some recent shots. thomas went for his 2 week appt on tuesday. he's gained 21 ounces since friday the 5th. so he's up to 8 lbs, 15 oz, only i'm sure he's at least 9 lbs by now because he's a piggy.
here's how our night went last night. bed at 10, up at 1:30 with thomas. asleep again at 2:15. 3:30, tayloe comes in our room - something he never does. we're both too sleepy to get up, so he stays in bed with us until i can't take it any more and return him to his bed at 4:15. 4:20 the baby starts crying. i leave tayloe and get up to feed thomas. thomas goes back to sleep at 4:35 and t2 starts crying. i get in bed with t2 and fall asleep (of course) until i hear the rooster crow at 6. i go get in our bed, taking thomas with me because i know he's bound to wake up the moment i fall back to sleep. we sleep until 8:30.
somehow, i feel rested. i'm not even sure how that's possible.
that was one of only two (maybe three, i can't remember) really unsettling nights we've had. thank god for the new coffee shop down the street that makes a killer double latte.

1 week

2008-09-09T11:21:00.000-07:00

one week down, 1,203,357 to go. or maybe more. but who's counting?
t2 managed to catch himself a cold, so he's been at his grandparents house since saturday. that's given t1 and i time with thomas and i gotta say, it's been awesome. so far he's an easy baby and is really predictable. i like that in a kid. he's also very sweet and warm and soft and i like that in a kid, too.
t2 is back tomorrow. today i called my parent's house and he answered the phone. hhhiii mama, he said. then he told me how he's been playing with pop and pop and grandjane's dog eddie and that at that very moment he was watching choo choo. he sounded so grown up. since when does he answer the phone and carry on a conversation?
i like this photo of thomas because of the furrowed brow. it's so hard to determine any features belonging to one parent or another at such a young age, but this brow is very very hard to mistake.
am i the only one who recognizes it?

happy birthday thomas bouldin

2008-09-02T13:22:00.001-07:00

well, wouldn't you know the weekend tayloe and little t go away for 48 hours is the weekend i go into labor.
thomas bouldin emery was born monday morning (labor day!) at 7:52 a.m. he weighed 8 lbs 2 oz and is 22 inches long. he's got a sweet head of blonde hair and eats and sleeps just the way a baby should. he's named after my dad. we can only hope he's as kind, good natured and loving.
as promised, here's the charity water link. (note that i had to put that his birthday is sept 1 2007 because choosing 2008 wasn't an option). more soon ...

guesses

2008-08-28T14:16:00.001-07:00

the tally so far ...
cat: sept 7
tayloe: sept 1, high noon
grandjane: aug. 31
cousin suzie: aug 31
kate: aug. 7
pierce posse: sept 7
ganny: sept 6
grandpolly: sept 4
aunt c: sept 9
276 main street: aug 31
linz: sept. 5

anyone else?

as a side note, if he is born in september and you're thinking of sending a little something, we'd much rather you watch this trailer (click on the blue link, silly) and consider making a donation to charity water. once he's here, we'll set up a birthday page for him and link to it from this site.

bwak bwak

2008-08-26T10:33:00.000-07:00

i can't believe i haven't blogged about our chickens. here they are in all their glory, making their once daily venture into our kitchen.
generally chickens are pretty stupid. i expected these guys to make it all of a week or two. but we've had them about two months and they don't show any signs of going anywhere anytime soon. in fact, they're kinda smart.
maybe it's because they're bantams. they roost up in trees at night so they don't get eaten by critters like fox. and they all stick together - two hens flecked by four roosters. poor gals.
the guys, though, are terrible at crowing. maybe it's because they're small or they're still kind of young. i'm not sure. the noise is this horrid pre-pubescent squawk that might not be so awful if it was just one. but all four typically carry on for 5 to 10 minutes at a time. in truth i've gotten used to it and usually just tune it out like a 2 year old tantrum. it's our visitors who suffer.

countdown

2008-08-25T10:39:00.000-07:00

people are having a lot of fun guessing baby no. 2's birthday, so let's make it public.
what's' your guess? the due date is sept. 5. i'll tell you my mother has already claimed the morning of aug. 31, partially because it's her birthday and partially because it's the day following a full moon in a blue moon month. but that doesn't mean you can't join her. (i'd say it's a pretty good guess as guesses go, except that'd put me a whole week early and i just can't imagine doing anything that ahead of time).
i'm guessing sept. 7 for no real reason except that's when i'd like it to happen. which means it won't. also, tayloe was due on a friday but was born 2 days late on a sunday, so it seems to me this birth should follow suit. it's funny how your brain falls back on what it knows when it doesn't have any other information to go on.
now that the house is finished (pictures soon) i really should get some things done this week, like get a bag packed and get some fall clothes & shoes for t2 and maybe buy a decent looking pair of pajamas since we'll have a few more visitors this time. maybe i should start a list.
we're pretty much ready though. his room is clean and his clothes are clean and i even have some diapers. tayloe and i have surrendered to being tired and exasperated and have promised to remind each other that it won't last forever.
it's anyone's guess whether little tayloe is ready for the storm that's about to rock his little world. he knows there's a baby in my belly, but when we tell him there'll be a baby in our house soon he says, 'no way.' and not like , 'NO WAY, GET OUT! HOW FUN' more like, 'no way am i going to tolerate that.' sometimes for kicks i ask him where the baby should sleep and he either says with wolly or outside with cheese, his fish.
anywho, waddya think. early, late or right on time? i'll keep a running tally and post it here. the winner gets to host t2 in his/her own home for an ENTIRE WEEK!!! NO WAY!!!! HOW FUN!!!!!!!

what a mom is

2008-08-17T18:33:00.000-07:00

my mom and her best friend have been here the past two days cleaning and unpacking our house. i'd like to say helping me clean our house, but that would be a big fat lie because i haven't been doing anything. no one can tell you to sit down and shut up the way your mother can.
they've unpacked our kitchen, assembled cabinet doors, cleaned floors, dusted, washed windows, done laundry and moved and rearranged and moved again our furniture. my mom even talked the guy working on our bathroom into hauling away a bunch of trash that would have taken us years to get rid of.
our house looks absolutely amazing (i'm taking pictures soon, just gotta find that camera ...) and there is no way under heaven that i could have done it. i can barely bend over to look in the fridge.
throw away all the parenting books and take a lesson from my mother - the greatest gift you can give your child is love. and my mom gives it perfectly.
thanks, ma. a million times over, thanks. (you, too, brenda)

recap

2008-08-14T09:46:00.001-07:00

we went to hershey park and had a great time, but i didn't have my camera with me so i have no visual documentation whatsoever. i can, however, offer you this excerpt of the moment i knew it was time to go home:
little tayloe wants to ride the ladybug saucers. we say ok! tayloe sees a bench and leaves us in line to go sit on it. that's ok because he'd ridden pretty much everything else and won t2 a stuffed animal at one of the games and bought us all lemonade and cheeseburgers. it's our turn and the only saucer left already has two little girls and their mother in it. tayloe climbs in and says, 'mama, sit!' i'm not sure i can, i say. he looks at me funny.
see, the saucer has a wheel in the middle for kids to hold on to. and the space between the seat and the wheel may have fit nicole richie or angelina jolie at 8 1/2 months pregnant but i was pretty sure it wasn't going to fit catherine emery 8 1/2 months pregnant. besides that, the whole apparatus is really low to the ground.
then the mother of the girls says she thinks i can get in. i ask her if she has any vaseline. then the ride operator weighs in and before you know it we have something of a scene over WHETHER OR NOT I CAN FIT IN A SEAT. ON A KIDDIE RIDE. horrid.
tayloe's on a bench, watching, remember.
i decide to just get in for no other reason but to make it all stop. so i do. my ass is hanging off the seat and i'm sideways in the ride and my knees are pretty much in my mouth and the baby has decided to roll over entirely to my right side, but i'm in. 'yay mama!' tayloe says. yay mama i say back.
we start moving. round and round and round in circles. tayloe's holding on and giggling and yelling, 'WHEE' and i'm about to vomit. and just then, i look over at his father - my husband, the person i adore more than anyone in the world - and i can make out through the whirls and the blurry vision and the extreme discomfort that he's laughing. really hard, actually. and so i start laughing because really, it's pretty funny.

some recent pictures

2008-08-10T19:51:00.001-07:00

4 more weeks

2008-08-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

i'm thinking about it and you know, i've always kind of thrived on deadlines. i think it's the reason i became a journalist in the first place - i knew it was the only profession that would allow me to actually accomplish something.
i pretty much need someone breathing down my neck.
in this case, it's a small baby. only he's not exactly breathing down my neck as much as he is needling me from the inside. which sometimes is just as annoying.
i'm pretty sure just my 8 months pregnant presence scares every workman who steps into this house. especially the young ones. they look especially frightened.
on thursday, the tile guys took the toilet out of the bathroom. on friday the contractor told me the 'thought' the plumber was coming to reinstall it.
you think? i said. i have no idea how i looked at him but before i could say anything else he was dialing the plumber's number on his cell phone. an hour later, they were here.
honestly, i've never been so effective.
we're getting there, though. we have new cabinets and a great new island, a new bathroom and new appliances. of course nothing's hooked up yet, but we're close. really, really close. if the floors are sealed this week and the electrician actually shows up on wednesday and the painter comes on thursday and the plumber and contractor make it on friday and they all do most of what they say they're going to do (which they all pretty much have so far), we'll be really really close.
i'm optimistic. no one wants a lecture from a pregnant lady. and they sure as shit don't want a phone call from tayloe.
anyway, it's one of our last chances to go on an adventure just the three of us so we're leaving to go to hershey park in pennsylvania tomorrow. i can't even believe how willing i am to go to an amusement park while 8 months pregnant in august, but i am. i'm super excited even. that should give you a little insight to what a wreck our house is.

news from lake wollygone

2008-08-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

the day after little tayloe's birthday, we had to bail wolly out of the doggie clink which, it turns out, was a major pain in the ass.
the next night i let him outside before bed and though i was outside too he managed to sneak away only to return home at 2 in the morning. he stood at the front door and howled (not barked, not scratched, hhhoooowwwwllleed like we had done something to him) until we got up and let him in.
a few days later, he found his way out in the middle of the night and was gone when we woke up. he returned later in the day but had to be shut in our bedroom because the floor guys were here working. that afternoon, he decided our freshly painted walls were the perfect landing place the yellowish/greenish liquid that came rapid fire from his butt. i can only assume it was the bi-product of trash he'd been shifflett'ing around after the day before.
i feel like putting a sign around his neck that says 'if you feed or play with this dog, you keep him' because that's what he's going out looking for. and make no mistake, his first objective is to find a fetch sucker. if he gets a bologna sandwich too, well that's just makes the trip all the more worth the while.
he's managed to stay put the last few days, but that's not always good either. when he's here he either sticks to me like huge, panting, drooling magnet or he darts around the house trying to eat flies.
of course i love him. he's crazy, frantic, telephone book-eating, santa-loving wolly. but an 8 year old lab isn't supposed to act like a 2 year old lab. an 8 year old lab is supposed to lie around all day on the ac vent.
there's a nice one in the kitchen, by the way. give it a try?

flee the scene

2008-07-28T05:51:00.000-07:00

we're out of the house this week while they put our new kitchen and bathroom floors in, install our cabinets and make the shower and tub operational. pray that this all actually happens. if it takes much longer i'm going to just ask my doctors to go ahead and admit me to the hospital and give me the epideral. i'll just wait it out watching 'dirty dancing' and 'flashdance' sipping cranberry juice on crushy ice.
there's this opsprey near mt. airy that builds its nest on the same silo every year. and every year at least once, a huge storm comes along and knocks the thing over. nevertheless the parents pick up the pieces and hold their ground, even through hurricanes.
i'm starting to feel like those birds.

a great birthday, with a hitch

2008-07-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

big tayloe took a holiday yesterday and we all went on a mountain journey for t2's birthday. it was good fun, complete with blueberry picking in the mountains, gorgeous views and mud puddles.
the hitch was that wolly was missing for 24 hours, but now he's home. tayloe's my hero for finding him.

i two

2008-07-22T11:42:00.001-07:00

happy birthday little tayloe. tomorrow's the real day, but we celebrated on sunday with a little party that was a huge hit. you loved your cupcakes and had fun opening your presents with aunt mary. on sunday afternoon your dad and i set up your new train set and you sat for over a hour playing, giving us a running dialogue of all things choo choo. our favorite is when you say 'all aboard!' and chug the little engines down the track.
i gotta tell you kiddo, your tenderness, fearlessness and passion amaze us. you must fall down 15 times a day and a good number of those are kinda painful crashes. yet you rarely ever complain and when you do all you need to get back on your feet is a little kiss. you've been sleeping in a big twin bed for almost two months and rarely wake up in the night. in the morning you trot into our room, blanket in hand, and pull on my arm. 'hhhiii mama!' when you see me open my eyes.
sometimes the things you say break our hearts, like when you whisper 'wuv you' when we kiss you goodnight.
last friday you and dad and i went to the pool. we were walking through the parking lot, just the three of us, holding hands. i felt a twitch of pain because i know it won't be that way much longer.
without getting mushier, i'll just say you're a beautiful boy. your daddy and i love you so much and we love each other more every day for giving one another the gift of you.

sweet tayloe cuteness

2008-07-16T10:34:00.000-07:00

this is probably one of my favorite pictures because it's just oozing love. these two are so cute together.
at night after stories and before prayers, t2 and i wax poetic on the things we're thankful for. DADA! he always shouts first. i say im thankful for dada too and he follows with POOL! i say that's a good thing to be thankful for and he says CHOO CHOO! i nod.
what else i say?
WAWE! (wolly) i agree, although i usually add that wolly fits into the 'sometimes hard to love but we manage to anyway' category.
he nods in agreement.
anything else, i ask?
POP! (my dad, who seems to have permanently entered his memory log). and from here it's rapid fire - BOOKS! JUICE! POOP! (really) SHOES! an assortment of grandparents and aunts and uncles and then anything that he might of seen that day - cows, chickens, fire trucks.
wow, you're thankful for a lot! is that all, i ask?
he taps his little finger on his chin and looks up. hhhmmm, he says.
then, finally, MOMMIE! and then he wraps his arms around my neck.
dear god, thank you for little tayloe.

happy birthday to tayloe (the big one)

2008-07-10T10:42:00.001-07:00

You’re the lucky one always havin fun
A jack of all trades a master of none
You look at the world with a smiling eye
And laugh at the devil as his train rolls by
Just give you a song and a one-night stand
And you’ll be looking at a happy man
Cause you’re the lucky one

Were you blessed? I guess
By never knowin which road you’re choosing
To you the next best thing to playin and winning
Is playin and losin

you're the lucky one, i know that now
don't ask you why when where or how
You look at the world through your smilin eye
And laugh at the devil as his train rolls by
Just give you a song and a one-night stand
And you’ll be looking at a happy man
Cause you’re the lucky one

tater, today's your birthday and i've had that song in my head all morning. it always reminds me of you. i'm glad your luck and crazy spirit are part of us. we love you.

dear little baby

2008-07-08T18:56:00.001-07:00

i realized today that in about 8 weeks you'll be here. when you're brother was 8 weeks away from his birthday i remember thinking it seemed like an awfully long time.
it doesn't seem so long with you. in fact, it seems rather short.
there's a bathtub in your room. your crib is in pieces (sans directions) in storage and so is your changing table. our kitchen is about to be destroyed and out of commission for a few weeks and it only recently dawned on me that soon i'll need to buy a few boxes of itsy bity newborn diapers.
on the plus side, your room is painted and i have washed some of your tiny clothes and even put them away for you. but basically if you were born tomorrow ... well, let's not think about it. especially since your dad is leaving for uganda and kenya tomorrow. it just wouldn't be terribly convenient.
that's not to say i don't think about your pending arrival everyday. i do. i imagine you different from your brother and also a little bit the same, too. i'm curious about every inch of you and i can't wait for you to be here. and that isn't just because it'll mean that most of the work on our house will be done.
so forgive that sometimes the details are just lost on me. that'll stop surprising you after a while. just ask your dad.
here's a picture of you and me kiddo. i'm glad you like watermelon.

where hgtv gets you

2008-07-08T11:02:00.000-07:00

light green walls.
pea green trim.
homemade chalkboard paint.
happy kid.

flew the coop

2008-07-02T06:36:00.000-07:00

this was the scene last week on our front porch. a week or so ago i went to throw out that dreadful looking plant and a female song bird just about pecked my eyes out. i didn't realize there was a family in there.
the other day i was walking by the door and noticed they were moving out.
meanwhile t2's been with my parents while tayloe and i get moved in. we've been up until midnight the last two nights finishing up projects that would otherwise take weeks with a toddler on our heels. who knew working so hard could be so much fun.
the only trouble is, it's getting harder and harder for me to do really simple stuff, like bend over to pick something up. when i drop something, i honestly stand there and look at it for a few minutes, like if i stare long enough it'll spring back into my hands.
getting on and off the floor with any grace is a challenge, too. last week i took little tayloe to a magic show at the library. it was crammed packed and the only place to sit was this tiny little space on the floor. i either stepped on or knocked over every kid in that place trying to sit down. it was like moses parting the waters. when we finally got to the spot, the only way i could figure to get on the floor was to just drop down. and so i did. and the earth shook.
40 minutes later when it was over, i had to wait for everyone else to leave the room before i could get up, partially because i didn't want anyone to watch what was sure to be an episode (nothing as attractive as a pregnant lady on all fours in public) and partially because it honestly took that long for me to regain feeling in my legs and feet.

we're in

2008-06-22T13:21:00.000-07:00

what's the word?
we finally signed our contract and we've been staying at our house for about a week now. we even have a local phone number, which to me makes it official.
we're not really moved in as we're waiting for the painter to finish and are hesitant to really get too settled since they'll be doing a lot of wrecking in the next few weeks. so we're kinda camping - clothes on the clothes line because we haven't gotten a new dryer yet, mattress and box springs on the floor, 3 plates, 3 bowls and a few cups. but it works. oddly, the only thing i've really been missing is my toaster.
today as t2 and i were coming home from the library, i met our mail lady, winkie. that's her name, winkie. like twinkie.
she pulled over her red chevy blazer/mail truck to introduce herself. she was sitting on the passenger side but her left hand was on the wheel and her left leg was stretched across the center so she could operate the brake and gas. she told me if i ever needed anything to just flag her down. she also told me she always carries stamps so should i need some, just leave some cash and a note in the box.
while i was out there, the only neighbor we haven't met came over to introduce herself. her name's doris gentry. she's 79, but you might not be able to guess that because her hair is dyed a sort of autumn sunrise color and i'm gonna guess she goes through a compact of foundation and rouge a week. we introduced ourselves and it didn't take long before she was telling me how many people she knows who've died in the last year. my favorite thing about her, aside from her obvious beauty sense, were the clear plastic goolashes she had on over her slippers.
if that wasn't enough to charm your pants off, just step inside our house. from the snow scene painted tin plate that covers the hole in the wall where the wood stove used to be to the special red, orange and white sponge paint in the dining room we're spilling over with character.
it's perfect even when it's not.

We interrupt your regular BLABY programming...

2008-06-22T06:02:00.001-07:00

big boy bed at the big house

2008-06-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

tayloe's sister and family are at the cottage this week so we're up at the big house on vacation. there isn't a crib up here so we plunked tayloe into a twin roll away in the spacious room across the hall from us and hoped for the best.
damned if he didn't sleep like a baby. all night long and not a peep every night since friday.
i know, i've just jinxed us.
on another note, there are four containers of ice cream in the freezer right now and each one has a serious dent in it made by your truly. i couldn't help it - they were on sale, 2 for $6. plus, it really helps the heart burn so it's kinda like medicine.

the sweetest sounds

2008-06-05T15:39:00.000-07:00

just when i'm ready to ring his little neck, t2 says something cute. it's a trait i'm sure he learned from his dad.
the things i love the most are when he says his name - 'taydough' as he points to himself - and 'i do' when i ask him something. as in, 'do you want some milk?' 'i do!' (god forbid he actually say yes)
'mommie CATCH' is another favorite, only he says it as he's hurling a ball at me, rather than just before like i've been trying to teach him. 'pwease' is awful cute too, especially now that he says it very often without being prompted. and somehow when he really wants my attention, he knows to quickly and loudly say 'MOM!'
right now we're watching curious george together and every once and a while looks up at me and says, 'mommie, turious torge' and points to the tv.
kiddo you are crazy and messy sometimes, have selective hearing and leave me very tired at the end of the day, but i love you to pieces.

back to blaby

2008-06-03T17:46:00.000-07:00

well, it's a good thing i have you people. there were so many good ideas for what blaby meant, i've forgotten all about it's LA roots and given it new meaning in my mind. so i changed it back. blaby it is.
if i'd of placed bets on which of our fish would die first, i would have bet on mac. he was swimming upside down a few weeks ago and i thought then he wasn't long for this world. he's also had a few 'out of bowl' experiences, including one that was very close to an open drain.
but i'd of been wrong. cheese got the flush last week while we were gone. it was death by shrimp flakes we think because tayloe said he gorged one night and then was belly up the next day. shrimp flakes will do that to ya.
i was moderately devastated because all week t2 had been talking about him. every fish is named cheese and i still get such a kick out of hearing him say it.
so i asked tayloe to try to replace him before we got home. not for the kid so much, you understand. for me.
and he did replace him. with three minnows. river minnows. only one died today so we're down to two river minnows. and mac. and to help improve their chances for survival, we added an air bubble maker (i'm brain dead -- what are those things called?)
little tayloe and i changed their water today. i put them in a tupperware bowl on the counter, which happened to be next to the dog's bowl.
i was washing rocks and tayloe was making a mess when we both heard a SPLUSH, PING, PING, PING. i looked over and minnow no. 2 had jumped from the tupperware bowl into the dog bowl. there he was, flipping around in some purina crumbs.
dumb fish.

new name

2008-05-30T05:20:00.000-07:00

we don't live in la so blaby doesn't really make sense. so i changed the name of this blog to bvaby. good thing we didn't move to to colorado. or kansas.
i also changed it to reflect our new address even though it won't be official until next week because our closing was pushed back again. and so we wait ...

very important call

2008-05-29T10:29:00.000-07:00

tayloe in the car on the way to greensboro monday.
hello, grace? yeah, clear my schedule this week and hold all my calls. i'll be busy going to the pool and picking strawberries.
no. yes. no. no. no. yes. for reals? yes. yes, i fed cheese. uh huh. yes, yes. ok. when i get back we'll go out for french fries at that place we like.
um hum. ok. i will. no, frog catching and worm gathering is next week.
alright then. thank you. please. ok.
oh and grace? no no monkies jumping on the bed.
bye bye.

walking pumpkin

2008-05-28T04:17:00.000-07:00

there's a good chance if you near me in the next three months you'll hear me lie about my due date. you might also hear me say i'm having siamese twins. just play along.
did you know that pregnant women get hot in the summer? or that august is a really miserable month to be pregnant? or that having a baby in early september means that you have to be pregnant in the summer? maybe you didn't know that june, july and august are really humid months in virginia.
tag along with me in public for a few minutes and you'll get a full-on weather report along with some kind, inspiring words like 'better you than me' and 'i don't envy you.'
isn't it weird that people respond first to misery and second, if at all, to joy?

back online

2008-05-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

we're back online! horray!
we close on our house next friday - originally we'd hoped it'd be the 15th, but it took a little longer than expected. then it's renovations and painting and a short vacation for us and we get to move in. i can't wait.
meanwhile back at the ranch, there's a baby boy coming our way in three short months. i can't help but be excited about it, especially because little tayloe is so much fun to be around. double the pleasure, double the fun.

chics dig me

2008-05-08T18:09:00.000-07:00

ouch my wrists

2008-05-05T17:54:00.001-07:00

big tayloe had carpal tunnel surgery today. poor fella. it wasn't supposed to be the kind of surgery where you get totally knocked out, but i think maybe he was a little too wordy with the nurses. the anesthesiologist came out after it was over and said in a really sympathetic voice (sympathetic like he was sorry that he was going to have to send him home with me), 'he seemed, um ... a little uncomfortable, so we went ahead and sedated him.'
good idea, i said. better for everyone.
it only takes him being down for a day for me to realize that our team isn't complete without him.
tater you're hell on a nurse, but you're my guy. love you, mean it.

mac & cheese

2008-05-02T18:24:00.000-07:00

sweet aunt mary talked me into getting a goldfish for t2 a few weeks ago. and as it goes with goldfish, one turned to two.
mary and i each picked one out (who are these fish for, anyway?). she picked the pretty calico one. i picked the orange one with part of its top fin missing.
i need two fish like i need a hole in the head. but my little boy? he loves them. 'ish' he says as he walks by them. he loves to stand up on the kitchen chairs and feed them. he kisses their bowl. he even helps me change their water. you should see his eyes when we net the little boogers out let them flop around in the air for a second. 'flip flop' he says.
a few days ago he started calling the orange one by his name - 'cccheeeese!!!' i must ask him 12 times a day what his fish's name is just to hear him say it. who knew $8 could buy us so much joy.

house photos

2008-04-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

see the blog below for more details!

almost happy homeowners

2008-04-29T09:44:00.000-07:00

if all goes well, we'll be homeowners in 15 days. there's a little cottage in scottsville, about 15 miles from charlottesville, under contract with our name on it. it's in need of some love - a little paint, a little shifting around and new kitchen counters - but after that it'll perfect and best of all - ours all ours.
so basically thinking about this new baby and new house and chasing t2 is taking up all of my brain space. what color should i paint the baby's room? it keeps me up at night.