A Few of My Favorite Things!

I thought I would tell you about some of Taylor's favorite toys. 

First up, we have Sophie the Giraffe:

Sophie is great because she has legs and a nose that can fit easily into Taylor's mouth.  You will notice a recurring theme in Taylor's toys: easily chewable, or easy to jump in.  Sophie sometimes provides such a great teeth workout that Taylor falls asleep with her:

Next up, is a little critter we partially see in the above picture, puppy.  When you pull on Puppy's legs, they rattle.  Her feet also make good chew toys.  One time, Taylor fell asleep in her car seat while holding Puppy's foot.  It was pretty adorable.

Mr. Crab is the final hand toy to make the favorites list.  Once again, he has provided hours of chewing enjoyment. 

Mr. Crab is also used as bait in crawling exercises which to date have failed every time.  You can check out one such example in the video below:



Now, on to jumpy toys.  She has a farm themed jumpy device that Rebecca and I can recite the words to.  Don't believe me?  "Lots of friends live on the farm, come along with me!  There's so much for us to do and animals to see!  Ducks and lambs and horses too!  Roosters crow and cows say moo.  We all love to play with you ON THE FARM!". 

Thank you, thank you!  I'm here all week.  Here is a video of Taylor in the aforementioned farm themed jumpy device checking to see if we are watching her jump.



We also have a jungle themed exersaucer donated by our buddy, Mr. Steve Washington! 

We took a picture of Taylor on the front porch in this exersaucer.  It looks like she is thinking, "Who, me?"

I hope you have enjoyed the tour of Taylor's toys.  I'm guessing it won't be much longer before the tour includes barbie dolls and tea sets!

Warrrrr Eagle, Hey!

Copied for Rebecca's blog (from a few weeks ago):

I LOVE Auburn football! So many of my childhood memories were made in the stadium watching Auburn play! An Auburn football game is the only place where it's acceptable to drink your coke even if it's got a fly in it :) It's either steaming hot or freezing cold, nowhere in between, but no matter what the temperature, there's no other place I'd rather be. Now that Taylor is here it will be so much fun making memories with her in Auburn! Listening to her yell War Eagle, hey! And hold those arms high screaming TOUCHDOWN AUBURN!! I can't wait. Since Gene Chizik was coming to Cullman for the Auburn banquet we knew we had to go. Start em early, right?!? There were a lot of people there and to put it nicely IT WAS HOT! However, Taylor got her first taste of what it's like to be a part of the Auburn family.

Don't Cry Over Spilt Milk

Do you know that expression?  The one in the title?  Well, we didn't follow that this week.  We had an accident at the Laney household.  Before I dive into this story, let me say up front that we are not mad, whatsoever.  It's not the end of the world and it was obviously unintentional.  Here we go:

Wednesday night, July 7, 2010, Josh (Rebecca's brother), Nicole (our amazing sister-in-law), and Rylee (the smartest little kid in the world) came over for dinner.  BBQ Chicken, baked beans, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and rolls were served.  It was amazing.  On top of that, Josh and Nicole brought over a dessert I have been craving ever since I laid eyes on it (Reesie's Peanut Butter Ice Cream Cake from Dairy Queen).  We ate some, but it was so huge, we had to re-freeze the rest of it.  Rebecca cut half of it for Josh and Nicole to take home and put it in our freezer.  We put the box with the rest in the "breastmilk freezer".  When they left, Nicole remembered that they had forgotten their piece of the cake.  She checked the breastmilk freezer, but their part was in the kitchen freezer.  Rebecca got their piece and they left.

The next morning, I leave for work at normal time (6:15 AM) and as I am walking to my car, I notice a trail of milk leading from the freezer.  Before I touched the door handle, I knew that the door had not been sealed.  You always have to push extra hard against it to get it to close properly.  I opened it up to survey the damage, and it is bad.  Real bad!  Thankfully, heat rises.  The milk on the top shelf is room temperature.  The milk on the second shelf is slightly chilled, but the rest of it is almost fully frozen. 

I thought about going back in and telling Rebecca, but I knew there was nothing she could do and I wanted to let her sleep.  I drove to work, and texted Rebecca to call me as soon as she woke up.  When she called, I said "I have some very bad news".  As I explained my findings from earlier that morning, she broke down crying. 

You see, it wasn't the milk Rebecca was crying for; it was the struggle to get that supply built up.  Taylor was born so premature (10 weeks), Rebecca's body just wasn't ready to produce milk.  Every couple of hours, we would be overjoyed if she could produce 3 cc's.  We didn't want Taylor to go on formula if she didn't have to and for a while, production just barely kept up with Taylor's feeds in the hospital.  Since Taylor had to stay at UAB for 5 weeks, Rebecca wasn't able to nurse her directly for a while.  She was forced to pump.  She even put a picture of Taylor up and looked at it while pumping to increase production.  Every time she would get just a little more than Taylor needed at each feed, the doctors would increase the feed amounts.  It was a never ending battle.  When the milk came in full swing, we started storing it as we had always done with any excess milk.  Theoretically we would use it to fill up her bottles, but she doesn't take one.  We do use it to mix with oatmeal and cereal each day and night.  The supply had dwindled very slowly.  Until the accident that is. . .

We went from this:

To this:

I know, it is still a lot of milk.  It's not like we are going to run out anytime soon. . .

It's not the end of the world.  It just symbolized the struggle of Taylor's early days at UAB.  Maybe it was good for us to let go of that attachment since Taylor is 8.5 months old now!

Taylor Laughing

A couple of months ago, I posted a video of Taylor laughing at Reesie, but in this post, I thought I would share some more things that make Taylor laugh.  For example, she will laugh virtually every time you "fake sneeze" as evidenced by this video clip from a few months back:



Here's another clip taken just last week.  She loves that blanket:



Even sudden movement will bring on fits of laughter:



How awesome is that childlike sense of humor?  In this age where we strive for new cars, bigger houses, and more elaborate vacations to bring us happiness, a child is able to be satisfied by the smallest things.  What a blessing!


 "And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, and said, "Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. "Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." -- Matthew 18:2-4