A line from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air that has always stuck with me;
Uncle Phil: “A young woman who can play the violin is an accomplished young lady.”
Will Smith: “Yo, a girly that can play the drums can write her own ticket.”
Our neighbors were watching Teyla at their place on Sunday. Their kid got drums for Christmas and Teyla was drawn to them. They quickly pulled out their smartphone and took this video. Unfortunately, the quality is terrible, but you’ll get the gist of it.
One of the first things that came to mind when I learned we were having a girl was, “Sweet! I can get her drums.” A weird first thought I know, but that’s the way my brain works.
With all my worries, at least I know Teyla will be set for life.
…hell, I don’t know what to call this post. I could call it New Year’s Eve, because it is. That isn’t any more relevant to this post than “shoes”, and look, there she is over there wearing my shoes…so, let’s just stick with that.
Let’s see…what to write about…what to write about…
um…well….
Seems that I don’t have much to say. Okay…pictures? They are around here somewhere. One moment… (Imagining the sound of mouse clicks and furious typing in the background might help set the mood here.)…I think this is it. (Click)… Wait, a caterpillar humping a french fry? Where the hell did that picture come from? Ah…here we are.
Thanks go out to my sister’s husband Jodie for taking these pictures. With courage and skill he was able to make us look better than we do in real life. He really knows his stuff. You’d never know we were holding in farts the whole time. *giggle*
These were shot at the Capitol in Little Rock to get that holiday vibe. It was rainy, I had just eaten about a pound of roast beef and Jodie was talking my effing ear off *giggle, again* (only about two people are gonna understand why that’s funny) It was all worth it.
Next we have pictures of Teyla eating french fries. Six pictures…of Teyla eating a french fry…*moan*. Yeah, I know. It’s just that I couldn’t keep both Teyla and the french fry in focus at the same time. It’s only because she’s tied down that I got her in the frame at all. So you get six pictures and when you’re finished I guarantee you’ll know what both Teyla and a french fry look like.
Now that you know what Teyla looks like, try finding her in these pictures taken at the park.
Please note this quote from Billy Madison, as it certainly applies here:
“Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
You have been warned.
This post is loosely inspired by a video of Teyla I recently discovered that I shot back in April. Also by a song. Not by the song suggested by the title of this post. It’s “Daughters” by John Mayer. Actually, it’s just one line in the song.
“But she’s just like a maze
Where all of the walls all continually change.”
She changes a little everyday. As far as taking care of her goes, yesterday’s solution may not work today. She is very spirited. Add that wide open, full throttle attitude she has to her ever changing maze, and you have your hands full. It often becomes a blur. Sometimes it’s hard to see change when life is blurry. It takes a poorly framed video shot at 10 frames per second to remind you that progress is being made.
Everyday I wake up and wonder what she has in store for me today. I don’t always face each day with a ton of optimism, and more often than not my pessimism proves to be unfounded. It doesn’t take very long either. Of course, there are the days that I’m overflowing with optimism when things go horribly wrong. Just yesterday I was think about all the things we were going to do that day when out of nowhere I was Fisher-Priced in the groin. My optimism disappeared along with my sperm count. Anyway, it’s nice to rediscover little things like this to turn the day around.
This is before she could walk on her own. She always wanted you hold her hand and help her walk around the room. My back couldn’t wait for her to walk on her own. Well, she skipped learning to walk and began with running instead…downhill, all the time. Now it’s hard to keep out of things.
Let me just say that this chick is crazy. Not “hospital gown and butterfly net” crazy, just full throttle “I’m gonna do this… I’m gonna do it my way…and you can try to stop me, but seriously Dad, I’m probably gonna be doing this all day, so it’s in your best interest to just let me get it out of my system” kinda crazy. Have I mentioned she’s full throttle?
…and I wouldn’t change a thing.
Okay, that’s a lie. I have often wished for certain outcomes. The whole walking thing is a good example. But with change comes variables that I never accounted for…so I stopped doing that. It’s “the devil you know” kind of thinking, I suppose.
But when I go to bed at night to find that not only is she in our bed, but she’s on my side side, sleeping perpendicular to the grain with her butt on my pillow, I think,”God, I love this crazy chick.” Then I kiss her butt, cause…you know…it’s right there, and go to sleep.
This site is all about Teyla….and a little about me. Okay, my wife will appear here and there, but that’s it. Under no circumstances will I be writing about the dogs or cat…well, perhaps just a little.
Please note this quote from Billy Madison, as it certainly applies here:
“Mr. Madison, what you’ve just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”
You have been warned.
So, I’m gonna try something new. This website was to be about more than just posting pictures of my kid. It’s was to be about experiences, about adoption, about being a multiracial family, and about being a dad as well as the primary caregiver. It has been deficient in this regard. So let’s get to it again…um, for the first time.
Speaking of time, there doesn’t seem to be much of it for endevors such as this. At the moment, I am typing this into Evernote on my phone after just completing my workout at the Y. Teyla is in the Y’s child watch and I feel like I’m skirting my responsibility by leaving her in there and taking a moment to do this.
No one told me being a parent was going to be this hard. I think people tried, but I misinterpreted what they were trying to tell me. A word like “rewarding” for instance. I heard it a lot. I didn’t know it means your kid is going to drive you bat-shit crazy from time to time, but if you survive it, you’ll feel pretty good that you did.
Jokingly, I used to say to my wife, “One day your are going to come home from work to find Teyla crying naked in the middle of the room while I’m curled up in the fetal position under the stairs sucking my thumb.” I never expected there to be a grain of truth in that statement, but we’ve come closer to it than I’d ever care to admit.
Anyway, after seeing those Google commercials where the dad starts sending his child email on the day of her birth, I realized that I really needed to find the time to do this.
Some of the better, but not necessarily the best, pictures from July. Denise has a bunch of pics from Denver on her phone that have not been uploaded yet. It’s something I’d have to take care of, and well…you know.
I tied a balloon to Teyla’s wrist and pointed the camera at her. That’s pretty much it. I found this video by accident. I had forgotten about it. I guess this is a long lost video…about a month, or so.
So…we started out with a gate at the bottom of the stairs. Then she started crawling through the rails on the side of the stairs. So…we put the couch up against the railing. It totally screwed up the look of the room, but it solved the problem…for a while, at least. Now she climbs over the furniture, through the rails and onto the fourth step. I swear she has a future in rock climbing.
Here is what I was working on when I shot this. I put a gate at the top of the stairs, so she couldn’t reach the top and take a dive from the loft area. I hoped that she would just climb up, and then back down ass first. As you can see, she would rather walk down the stairs. I did not catch it in the video, but I have had to catch her as she started to tumble down head first.
I know that at no point did I address the possibility of her going through the railing at the 12th step or so. At this point it doesn’t really matter.
The pic below the video is the temporary “solution of the day”. Um…the table, not the dog. She’ll crawl right over the dog.
Maybe I should go take a pic of the outside of the condo to should how it now looks like a trailer. Single, not double…lol.
Here are a few cute photos from the visit with Teyla’s birth mother. The last one is from the ride home. I guess she was hungry and decided to cut out the middle man.
