a snapshot of Taylor on her last day of swimming lessons last week:
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Category: taylorshe made it to 3…
that is what I keep reminding myself this morning…
doesn't seem like that long ago that my firstborn daughter was wrapped snuggly in her nice blanket cocoon her mother would wrap her in, laying in her bed w/out a muscle moving or an eyelash fluttering…
today, just like yesterday and the last 365+ days, my firstborn is ANYTHING but that non-moving, every muscle relaxed, not a peep coming from her mouth, nor an eyelash fluttering baby of a couple years ago….
she made it to 3…
can she really already be 3?
if you ask her, she is probably actually more like 10 or even 11…
when God gave Lisa and I this unbelievable bundle of joy 3 years ago today, I am sure he had a nice little chuckle when I was holding her beaming with pride and joy…
i still beam today, just sometimes it isn't with pride and joy (and it always should be, so I am working on it)…
she made it to 3…
there are times when I just look at her and stare…
wondering, how could I have been allowed by God to create something so perfect and beautiful?
how and why would God give me the blessing of having the opportunity to raise her?
then she looks at me and with those big blue eyes beaming smiles and says, "I love you daddy."…
and I melt…
like butter left in a microwave just two seconds too long…
she made it to 3…
then I also have the other questions that I ask God….daily almost..
are you sure we didn't get her switched at the hospital with some other couple's child?
are you serious?
what kind of cruel joke is this?
honestly, if this is payback for that time back in junior high, I am SORRY…VERY SORRY…
she made it to 3…
there is nothing I would ever change about her though…
she is mine…she always will be and nothing can take her away from me…
I guess in some ways I am beginning to understand why my dad could never tell my sister "no" (or at least is seemed he couldn't)…
dad, I am getting it a little more each day…
it is tough…
she made it to 3….
Taylor, some day in the future you may read this and wonder why your dad is so crazy…
but honestly, I hope that some do you truly understand that everything I do today is for you, your sister and your mother…
I would do anything to protect you from all this world will bring your way…I won't always be able to, but I will try…
just always remember, you can talk to me…you can tell me anything…and I will always listen…
she made it to 3 and I love her more every day…
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taylor is almost two…
i still have a couple of years before I have to start wading into this debate, but why wait?
as some of you may know, fayetteville was placed on the map last year for the questionable books that were available to elementary aged children in the school library….
an article today Poison In Our Libraries brings the issue back to light and shows that it isn't just in Arkansas anymore…
another very good friend of mine has set up a website to show you what the school library has available to elementary aged children…. teachclean.com
please be advised that the material you will see on that site is very disturbing and explicit….even for adults!!!
what I don't understand is how, I as a taxpayer can have a child in America, pay for the school that he/she attends, and then be told that I can't have any say in what he/she reads/hears/learns because it is a violation of that child's first amendment rights…
what happened to my rights as the parents of that child?
does the local government want me to home school my child?
if that is the case, then we should petition that all families who home school their children are exempt from local millage rates and don't have to support the local trash that is being delivered by the schools to our children…
if we can't have a say in what they learn in a school funded by my tax dollars, then I as a parent should have the right and opportunity to remove my child from that school and not have to support the distorted and idealogical liberal views that are espoused by that school…
isn't that my constitutional right as well??
just amazing really
~d
she is rapidly approaching her second birthday (t-minus 20 days and counting)..
if you haven't seen or for that matter "heard" her lately, you are missing a treat to behold…
obviously this is our first child…
i haven't ever been around developing children before…
she may be "slow" or "behind" most children her age….
but I will give you some examples of her conversations and you decide where she might be developmentally…
taylor: "what doin daddy?"
daddy: "typing on the computer"
taylor: "daddy working"
(I haven't seen the damage yet, but from rumors I have heard, on her visit to Grammy and Pop's this weekend, Pop's latest Saint Bernard — weighs in at a paltry 185 pounds — apparently got close to taylor's leg and gave her a "kiss")
mommy: "taylor, what happened to your leg?"
taylor: "bernard is sorry mommy"
(exchange with taylor the other morning when getting her out of bed)
daddy: "hey baby girl. do you want a banana for breakfast?"
taylor: "no daddy. i would like some waffles please"
(any time a Sonic comes into view)
taylor: "fries! fries please!"
i will try to do a better job of keeping track of these exchanges and I am sure they will get even more detailed as the time passes…
i can probably also thank mommy's most inquisitive gene for all the wonderful questions that await us in the future…
one would have thought that daddy's always-have-an-answer gene would have canceled that one out…
such is life I guess..
~d
ms taylor is ready and waiting to go to church this morning….
~d
she pretty much has fully recovered from her sickness over the weekend….
she also went back to mother's day out yesterday for the first time in a while…
check out the outfit she was wearing (compliments of her auntie m in little rock)..
~d
well, ms taylor had broken her fever, but she still had a lot of congestion the last couple of days…
she didn't have a rash or any problems with her throat…
therefore we were pretty much in the clear of the hand, foot, and mouth scare from over the weekend…
however, she didn't sleep well last night (thus leading to mom not sleeping well) and therefore, something had to be done…
so, mom took her to see dr payton this morning just to make sure there wasn't anything…
come to find out, as is typical with ms taylor this time of year, she has bronchitis…..
she can thank her mother for that one 
but at least we know what it is now and can work on remedying the problem….
they gave her some zithromax as well as the most wonderful thing that ms taylor loves to have to take….albeuterol….
so this will be a fun couple of days, but then all will be well and ms taylor will be back to her normal bossy self….
oh the joys of parenting 
gotta love it…..
~d
she is doing much better….
the fever she ran for most of Sunday and yesterday has now subsided…
she is still very congested though…
we are still monitoring her though due to some more developments from the weekend that we were informed of yesterday…
campbell taylor is a little boy that lives two houses down from us..
he is about 1 month older than taylor I believe, but lisa can correct me on that….
well, he and taylor and some of the other numerous kids from our neighborhood have a play day every friday at the local mall…
well, campbell's mother called us last night to let us know that she had to take campbell to the doctor yesterday because he wouldn't sleep, was running a high fever, and wouldn't eat…
after taking him to the doctor he was diagnosed with having hand, foot, and mouth disease…
poor guy has sores all in his throat and is just not having a good week…
well, we are monitoring taylor in the off chance that she may have contracted the disease from campbell as it is highly contagious….
as of now we don't believe she has the disease…
however, we are almost 100% certain that she has inherited her mother's and her Pop's wonderful allergies….
the season changes hit her real hard most of the time…..
the rain definitely helped yesterday though….
so keep both taylor and campbell in your prayers and hopefully both will be back running around the cul-de-sac in no time soon…
~d
now granted, most weekends, you will find us at one of the many sporting venues around the university of arkansas campus…
in the spring, we would be at Beautiful Baum stadium enjoying the great american pastime…
in the late summer through early fall, the confines of Reynolds Razorback Stadium would be our haunt catching some pigskin….
and in the late fall through early spring, you could find us at "The Bud" watching some round ball on the hardwood…
however, this was one of those enjoyable spring weekends when the baseball team was out of town and no visitors were scheduled for the weekend….
ahh, a weekend of just the Hill's….
it started off great…
lisa and I had a "date night" on Friday night that saw us venture out to the opening of the sentinel…..
good flick…give it a rating of 7 out of 10 on the hill-meter….however, wouldn't call it an "owner" or one that I would buy…
saturday dawned beautiful and we had a list of honey-dos a MILE long…
lisa and I started by mowing, weedeating, and edging the yard for the first time this year (it is always a late start in the Ozarks)..
we then loaded up Taylor and headed out to shop for some more vegetables for our vegetable garden…
we already have 8 tomato plants in the tomato garden…then we have 2 yellow squash (straight-neck) and 2 zucchini plants, as well as a couple of jalapeno and a hot banana pepper plant (i HAVE to have my hot stuff )…
we were in search of some okra….fried okra in the summer as a side item is a staple in the hill home…
we found some and purchased six plants…..
next we decided to take a journey around the quickly growing nw arkansas area to see what was new and what might be the future site of the hill farm…
things were going smashingly…and as we decided to head towards home (we were on the ne side of Springdale, approx 20 miles from home) and then things took a turn south….
ms taylor, who had up until this time been sitting and enjoying the journey decided that the popcorn and sprite she had enjoyed at the vegetable place about 45 minutes earlier was no longer a good thing…
thus projectile vomiting took place in the back seat of the tahoe….
mom freaked out….dad stopped in the middle of the road (yeah, there was a car behind us)…however, no accident…
mom jumped back into the tahoe and we pulled into a subdivision and cleaned up ms taylor…
what a smell 
we made it back home (after a stop off to get some bananas for ms taylor's upset stomach and some Hunan's chinese for mom & dad)..
no more worries the rest of the evening…
sunday morning appeared beautiful and full of promise…
i went about my typical sunday morning routine, shower, coffee, read paper, get dressed, wake up mom, get breakfast ready, then get up ms taylor…
all was going smashingly…mom had put rollers in ms taylor's hair for her to look pretty for church…
ms taylor was enjoying her grapes, cereal and milk (key item for later in story) in her high chair (not strapped in) …..
all of a sudden one of the rollers comes out of her hair and she decides (from her height of 4 feet to go after the fallen roller) onto the solid tile floor in the kitchen….
needless to say, it was interesting….
have you ever seen things in slow motion, knowing they were about to happen and you just can't do anything to stop them….
your mind is saying…move idiot…but you are just stuck there….
well for what seemed like at the time to be 10 minutes….i just couldn't get there in time as she left the top of the high chair…
needless to say, she is a Hill after all and was able to turn herself and to brace herself with her arms and hands….
she had a very small bruise above her right temple….but besides the scare from the fall seemed to be none the worse for wear…
therefore, we got everyone calmed down and ms taylor dressed for church and we all headed out…
we had barely made it out of the subdivision on our way to church when the milk that dad had given taylor to drink for breakfast finally made its way to her upset stomach and immediately came back up….
more vomiting….back to house to clean up and no church for today….
while rocking ms taylor to sleep after back at the house, we had another episode of vomiting, though not as bad as before…
ms taylor finally got everything out of her stomach and fell asleep….and slept for 4 hours…
after waking up we played outside and planted our vegetables from the saturday trip….
then after a couple of hours, went back inside to play….
after sitting in front of the tv for a couple of hours, decided it was time to get rid of the apple juice and bananas we had been eating….
thus more vomiting in the living room and off we go for another bath….and this time. to the clinic to see the doctor….
needless to say, no ear problems, no problems with the bump on the head, no problems with the back of the throat and no issues in the lungs….just some virus that obviously is going around…
we did get a prescription of phenergan for ms taylor and she ate well at dinner and off to bed…
mom has reported that she has a slight fever this morning, but no more vomiting….
all in all, quite and eventful weekend for the hill's….
now do you see why we enjoy sporting event weekends?????
~d
