Our sweet baby slept through the night at like, 3 weeks old.  No seriously.  She took to breastfeeding right away and had no nipple confusion between breast and bottle.  Her teeth came in with minimal disruption.  Through most of her first year of life she has been an absolute delight, a very good baby.

I feel guilty writing all that.  I promise I’m not bragging (much).

Wait!  Don’t hate me yet.  We’ve seen some changes in her lately.

This weekend she refused to put on her coat.  When we tried to bundle her up, she thrashed around and threw herself down in a demonstration that would’ve stopped the NYPD cold if she were an Occupy Wall Street protester.

When we got to the park she took a ball from another kid and acted like we cut off her finger when we took it away from her.

I worked to “clean” her room and organize all her clothes.  I let her “play”.  This is what happened in 15 minutes…

She was hungry so we fed her.  We placed the food on the tray in front of her and she knocked it all on the ground before screaming and glaring at us like we had poisoned it.

WHO IS THIS PERSON WHO HAS KIDNAPPED OUR BABY?!

Oh…a toddler.

I have to say though, she seems to be getting funnier all the time.  We laugh every time she says, “Uh oh!” when dropping something.  We scoop her up and smother her with kisses when she paddy-cakes or points to the dog and says “woof woof”.

Her hair is getting longer and we can do things like this in the bathtub….

Maybe the cuteness and hilarity of toddlerhood will help me get over the loss of my kidnapped baby.

There are nations in this world where mothers can’t fire up their laptops after tucking their babes into bed.  They don’t feel the soft glow of the screen and the keys beneath their fingers as they tap out the day’s troubles.  They won’t get immediate feedback from other mothers all over the world who had the same hassles and heartaches.  They don’t get to say what they want, any time they want.  However, that’s a freedom we *do* have here in the United States.

American mamas!  We have a right to write about labor pains, spit-up, our kid’s poop, or any other ridiculous crap on the Internet!

I’m all for preventing piracy, but there has to be better legislation than SOPA and PIPA.  Don’t let anyone take that away.  Sign the petition against SOPA and PIPA.

This is my blackout.

You may have noticed my altered look around here.  Yes, indeed I have made the switch.  I pulled the trigger and moved from Blogger to WordPress.  I figured it was time to start blogging with the big girls.

However, there are a million things I’m trying to figure out.  The blog looks great on my end.  From my laptop, this little corner of the Internet looks fantastic.  Apparently to everyone else it looks like Tom Cruise got his hands on it and scrambled it up a la Minority Report.

::SIGH::  Let me get my technology together and I’ll be back with ya’ll soon.  Sorry.  I’ll take any and all WordPress wisdom.

My husband is a winner.  In every since of the word he’s star.  Greyson is the guy everyone gravitates to.  He’s hilarious, charming, cute, and fun.  He grew up the only boy between two sisters.  He was an athlete, popular and fun.

Don’t be fooled.  He’s so much more than that.  His sensitivity and kindness are known to all who call him “friend.”  He sacrificed and fought hard to carve out a great career in TV news as a sportscaster.  I proudly watched his late nights of studying to get his MBA at The University of North Carolina, a top program in the US.

Look at this couple.  So young.  So ridiculously and overwhelmingly in love with each other. This was 2004, just after we had gotten engaged.  Honestly, I don’t feel like we’re all that different than we were when we took this picture at my sister-in-law’s wedding.  We were 22 and 29.  Now we’re 30 and 37.  Our love has done nothing but grow.  

And so have we.

My happily married man has let his waistline expand with the passing years.  I’d like to say it’s my cooking, but I don’t cook that much.  I think the culmination of beer, getting older, a taste for trying great restaurants, and beer have resulted in a chubby hubby.

Greyson has said, “You know Amy, I don’t feel as big as I am.  The weight is the one thing about myself I would change.”  (I would change his incessant need to double check that the door is locked after we leave the house.  But, that’s just between you and me.)  It’s true though.  The physique doesn’t match the man.

So he’s on a mission to lose weight.  As a Mike and Mike disciple, he’s going with P90X.  As an Auburn University alumnus he’s following Charles Barkley’s lead with Weight Watchers.  I keep turning on my best Barkley impression and reciting the commercial, “If the ‘Round Mound’ can slim down, so can you!”

I’m really proud of him, and really confident he can do it.  I love him no matter what size he is, I just want him to be healthy more than anything.  It will probably inspire me to tone up too.  He’s brave enough to let me keep track of all this on the blog.  Internet accountability.  Gotta love it.  Gotta love him.

We kept Charlotte at home today as she fights a nasty cold and fever.  After an epic battle between pediatrician and baby this morning, the doc came out on top and was actually able to look in her ears and determine she had an ear infection.   This will be her first-ever round of antibiotics.  I’m not looking forward to the legendary “Amoxicillin diapers” I’ve heard foretold from other mothers.

I opened the bottle to begin an inevitable mama/baby battle of wills.  I eventually waved the white flag by preparing my newest culinary delight, Applesauce a’ la Amoxicillin.

I would know that cherry/bubblegum smell anywhere.  A flood of memories came back as I flashed back to standing in the kitchen as my mom measured out the pink suspension with an old kitchen teaspoon.  Amoxicillin has been a staple of First World childhoods for decades, mine was no exception.  However, I had forgotten all about the stuff.

That got me thinking of all the other childhood things I had forgotten about until I had a child.  I mean, apart from the occasional babysitting job in college, I had little to no daily interaction with children until I had a baby.  My adult life caused me to forget so many things about childhood.

Here’s a list of stuff I forgot about, or hadn’t thought about in many years…

• 3 Blind Mice– You know, the song?  I miraculously knew all the words when Charlotte’s little toy started playing it.
• Rectal thermometers
• Cups with lids
• Mr. Snuffleupagus–  All of the sudden everyone on Sesame Street can see him.  What’s up with that?  I thought only Big Bird could see him?

muppet.wikia.com

• Crayons that come with kids’ menus
• Doll babies with blinking eyes and thumbs that stick in their mouths
• Receiving blankets
• Board books– Now I realize why little ones can’t have books with regular pages
• Johnson’s Baby Shampoo– Ah!  That smell!  Good thing they’re gonna make it cancer-free now.  I guess we adults can expect our shampoo cancer diagnosis anytime now.
• Stride Rite–  I will NEVER go in on a weekend again.  (That shopping trip deserves it’s own post.)