Ms. Tay

3 years ago today, I was in a hospital bed at Kaiser Panorama City. At about 5 am I woke up to find a sweet little baby beside me in one of those hospital baby beds, crying softly, with a bruised and bloody ear from being pushed half way out and then shoved back in, only to be cut out of my belly shortly after that. Now we were both tired and recovering, and I paged a nurse to pick her up for me since it felt like my insides had been pulled out and carelessly thrown back in.(Which is pretty much what happened.) Taylor looked at me in that newborn baby way that makes you realize how recently they've left the presence of Heaven. She fell asleep and I fell in love. But I knew that she wasn't just mine. She was sort of there for everyone at that time. We all needed a little hope. She was probably the most anticipated baby in that maternity ward. I remember my sister holding her and saying, "Hello, Ms. Tay." It fit her. Ms. Tay is how we referred to her for a long time, since she always seemed to be a bit older than she was. And today Ms. Tay's 3. She changed our life in so many ways and we love her so much. I want to remember that at age 3, Taylor loves dressing up like a princess. She will sit and "read" books for an hour. She can navigate the computer like a pro. She always says, "I love you dairy, dairy much mommy." She is always waiting for Daddy to come home. She lives to spend play time with family. She wants to put on makeup with me every morning. She loves to reenact "The Lizard of Oz" (not a typo) with me as every character, except Dorothy of course. She reminds me to stop thinking so much and just play. She's helped me clean up my language by reminding me that, "We don't say 'crap' or 'shut up'." And most of all she just makes us happy. Even on the days when she is a stinker and challenges my patience, she always finds a way to make me laugh. I love her more than she will probably ever know. But that just comes with the territory of parenthood, right? I don't think we knew how much love we could have in our hearts until she came to us.

I read an article in TIME about how much kids cost these days. The author summed it up by saying, "Kids give you an excuse to work on your fastball. They're excellent bed warmers, and small fingers can untie hopeless knots. They remind you to be brave and trusting, and that few things worth accomplishing are ever achieved without making a mess first. They often say better prayers than you could ever think to. They smell really good when they're clean. And yes, they are reminders of our mortality-in fact, I know I'm going gray a lot faster than I would have had I been childless, especially now that I have a teenager. But it's a cosmic gift that, in letting us grow up with them,they keep us young, so that sometime maybe we pass each other, the student becoming the teacher, the parent the child, and we will sit back and marvel at who they've become, knowing they are now smarter and stronger than we are. We'll savor their company and feel safe in their hands. Care to put a price on that?"

Questions and Quotes from Taylor This Week:

"Alynna's here! She's ganna snuggle me."

"Mommy, where does Jesus live?"

Tay:"What does it mean?"

Nikki: "What does what mean?"

Tay: "Bide my time. The Wicked Witch says 'I'm ganna bide my time'."

Nikki:.......It means she'll wait.

Tay: Oh.

Nikki:.......stunned silence

She's on a "Snow White" kick this week.

Joseph (our celebrity neighbor) and Taylor, who's so sick of pictures that I promised her tonight I wouldn't take so many.
Corinne, happy as ever.

The police line-up picture.

Sorry, Mickey.

Love this picture of Wes. He likes to play around with beards and mustaches while shaving. This is his Ron Burgundy look.

There are some great things about My Baby Daddy, as the kids say these days. Wes is a go getter. One of the hardest working men I've ever met, and 100% a family man. One thing you may not know about Wes though, is that he can kill small mice with his bare hands. That's right. Even though I'm a clean freak, we've been sharing our house with a family of mice since we moved in. The geniuses at KB built our neighborhood before they built the houses up on the hill. So once construction started on the hill, every furry little critter that lived up there scurried down to our neck of the woods. We started off by taking into consideration that they too are God's creatures. They must also serve a purpose on this Earth and therefore should only be captured and returned to the outdoors, and not harmed in any way. But after 2 years in this house, our philosophy has changed...dramatically. It's us or them and we've declared war on the little buggers. Instead of using sticky pads to capture them and treat them humanely, we've switched over to traps. Nothing brings me more joy than laying in bed at night and hearing the SNAP! of a trap. I've got a baby crawling all over the ground, for goodness sake, so don't judge me. I can't have her picking up mouse poop and mistaking it for a puffy. Last weekend I was feeding Corinne on the couch at 6 a.m., minding my own business, when all of a sudden 2 mice crawled across the living room floor. I screamed like the total wuss that I am and Wes flew down the stairs. One mouse got away, but Wes cornered the other one in the bathroom and killed it with his shoe! A few days later, Wes saw another one strutting across the kitchen and he murdered it with his water bottle. We're hoping that word will get out to all the other mice in the neighborhood. Stay away from the Pollard house. We take no prisoners!!



Totally unrelated pics of the kids

Not a mouse.


Quite possibly the happiest baby ever. She's SO fun, and loves to laugh & snuggle.


Sponge Bob at Universal Studios





Too tired after the water park to be excited about Diego and...that bird whose name I can't remember.







Their future's so bright....

Corinne, waiting for Tay. She worships that kid and is treated like...a younger sibling. Poor thing.

She's Crafty!

(Tay's first picture that actually resembled something a couple of months ago. =) )

Now that Taylor is into doing crafts and drawing, I'm finding that I'm running out of room on the refrigerator for all of her artistic masterpieces. I've even been giving them away as "thank you notes" every once in a while, and have even used them as wrapping paper for birthday presents. But I decided I'm not going to be the mom who saves every macaroni necklace and every scribble that Taylor makes. I'll definitely treasure some special ones but for the others, I've decided to scan them and toss them. They make lovely screen savers and I've even printed some out as 4x6 photos and stuck them in a photo album. I figure they'll last longer that way and it's quicker than scrapbooking. Take a look at some of Taylor's work.

Tay loves these! It's a picture of a haunted house and you put all the stickers on it any way you like.
I was impressed by this caterpillar.



Another cool sticker page

I wrote numbers on the back of the ice cream scoops and she glued them down in order. makingfriends.com has some cool and free printable crafts.

3 Headed Caterpillar