I AM RUINED!!!

IT'S A GIRL!!! Bayli Kate
Bayliss Katherine White actually, but we feel most will call her Bayli Kate, or Bayli. If she is anything like me when I was a kid, she probably will not care what you call her as long as you don't call her late for dinner!!!

WOW what a day it was to see Bayli for the first time. She spent most of the ultrasound laying with her arms behind her head just like her mom does. I will say it did "own me" when Bayli yawned really big and then rubbed her eyes... so funny!



At the risk of sounding cheesy, I already love her soooo much.





Jeeez I can't wait until she is here. It was such an interesting perspective Meredith and I shared in the car the other day after the ultrasound. Meredith asked me what I was thinking, I paused and tried to collect, gather and regurgitate exactly WHAT I WAS thinking because I had never felt it before. I said I was just perplexed at #1 (as I previously wrote) how much I already love Bayli, and then #2 it was blowing my mind to think of how much we think of her, how much our family thinks of her, our friends, all the thoughts and prayers for her, the preparation, we even call her by name already. Then I pointed to Meredith's "baby bump" and said... "and she is RIGHT THERE"..., but we cant have her yet! That is so amazing.
So all that to say, it's official we are having a little girl!!! Another thing that is official... I am ruined, completely ruined. Bayli already has me, I'm toast.

I feel that my ability to say "no" is slowly seeping from me, along with any money I currently have or ever hope to.

ATTENTION! ATTENTION!! CALLING ALL DADS!
If any one reading this has raised a little girl please feel free to email me your advice on best practices, what to do what not to do, ect.
I have received some pretty good advice from my father who has raised two girls. His advice is as follows:

1. Try not to get to close to them

2. Don't look them in the EYE, if you do make eye contact turn away as soon as possible!!!

3. Most importantly, it might take them a while to learn certain things, but rest assured they learn VERY early how to get what they want... and they are VERY VERY good at it!!

That's it, that's all I've got so far. Though my fathers advice for raising a girl is summed up in three small points I feel that he is probably right, and I also feel that the advice is "uber" efficient, and makes really good sense!
However, like I said earlier email me your advice if any. Although I do already love Bayli Kate very much, I am equally scared of her... because I have seen pictures of Meredith as a child and if Bayli looks like that (which I pray she does not look like me) I don't know how I could say "no".
MAN!... ... ... I am ruined!

Amazing Sounds and Hard to Keep Secrets

So somewhere in the early to mid 50’s physicist wanted to determine what living absolute matter contained the most absolute/solid mass. In finding this physicist also wanted to determine if in fact these forms of absolute/solid mass would carry any sounds as a result of their “living” mechanics. Physicist found the atom, and in defining this as the densest absolute form of solid mass inside of a living organism it did in fact give off vibrations of sound due to its living mechanics... AMAZING!



To make a long story short, years later the study continued and grew into deeper realms of realizations. Physicist found that inside atoms were protons, neutrons, electrons, and even further they found that inside these “trons” was in fact a nucleus in which they would orbit. Even more amazing, to me, is that THEY STILL FOUND SOUNDS.



So, fast forward a few more years and WOW physicist dug deeper to find that inside the atom were the “trons” (pro, neu, elec) inside those the nucleus and now their newest discovery "Quarks" and “Leptons” which are inside the nucleus.


How amazing is that? I tell you how amazing it is, the leptons and quarks still made sounds stemming from their vibrations

WOW!

So why am I regurgitating the past 50 years of these physicist explorations? Well, its certainly not to give a lesson on our molecular structure there are folks that will read this that are far, far, far smarter than I. I’m simply explaining what, up until this point in my life, has been the most amazing sound that I have, or have never, heard. I wonder what it sounds like?... I wanted everyone to know what I thought that sound would be because yesterday my answer to the question “what is the most amazing sound?” completely changed.


I’m here to tell you when our doctor walked into the room and said,” ok lets see if we can hear this baby’s heart beat..”, placed the mic on Meredith’s stomach, and I heard our soon to be first borns’ little heartbeat… …. … I was frozen. Wow, without words I did truly feel weightless. Now friends, that sound without a doubt was THE MOST AMAZING SOUND I have ever heard. That’s right I can’t believe it, I’m gonna be a Poppa!

(not our Baby, just a google image)


A lot of you are reading this and saying, “Oh Lord, Taylor White a daddy? What’s the world come to?...” I know I feel the same. Very undeserving I am to first of all be married to someone like Meredith, and now to be given the favor of having a child… what a miracle! Many of you reading this are mentors of mine and many of you are going through similarities like this of your own, and I congratulate you.
To the mentors, and you know who you are, I covet your guidance and influence. There are some wonderful parents reading this and I strive to do the same. I’ve got a lot to learn so any nuggets of truth you feel like sharing with me to “nibble on” I fully embrace. If you are a prayer, I do also covet your prayers as you have mine for you and yours as well.

I apologize for the longevity of this message, but what a big deal this is for us!! I just don’t know how to put it into words. Meredith and I have been looking forward to being parents so badly and I just can’t believe we have been given the opportunity.

(not really us incase the animation fooled you,... google image again.)

Meredith is 12 weeks, and this has definitely been
the hardest secret I think I have ever had to hold on to.





(whoa! not Meredith just another google image, who's mother is this anyway...
Andre the Giants'?)

I never really had an appreciation for the true miracle of conception until the last year or so of my life and I guess this, seemingly endless message, is #1 a small way to go on record admitting my perplexity, confusion… “rattled” state of mind as to how we have been given this opportunity and #2 making this celebrative occasion public. WE”RE HAVING A BABY,

(again, just another google image, not the real test. How gross would that be?...)




The 4 Musketeers!!!!!
Thanks to everyone for being a part of this! God Bless!!

3 Musketeers

This is us, well with the exception of a few private nicknames that will for this blog stay deliberately hidden, we like to think of ourselves as the 3 Musketeers! Meredith, Baxter, and I reside in the cozy community of Edgewood, Alabama. Just to go ahead and answer any thoughts the reader might develop through this blog, yes we are "those pet owners" that treat our dog as if he were human. We cant help it, I mean look at him! Not to mention the fact that we saved his life from the humane society should be enough, but also, and most relative to others HE IS EXPENSIVE, also refered to as "high maintenance". By the way, let me go ahead and get this out of the way before I go any further: I am aweful at typing and far to lazy to check this blog for typos, so... officially I yam sorie 4 allll th e type o's you mite find n dis blogg.

So here is the history just to bring everyone up to speed. I met Meredith through some close friends, it was a blind date (well I did see a picture first... I'm not that crazy), there was a date the day after the blind date, and then another a few days later and the rest is... "When in Rome" just kidding the rest is history. I proposed to Meredith at the site of our second date Centiniel Park in Atlanta Georgia. O.K. here is the history on that: so after our first date I was trying to get some ideas for the second date. I, in a very unconcerned manner, asked Meredith a few things she would like to do someday that she had not ever done, but then for the sake of my pocket book I revamped the question positioning it to orbit around "things she has been wanting to do again that are realistic to obtain". Ice skating was one of the first things she suggested. So for the second date where do you think we went... of course, Ice skating!!! The funny part of this is that once we got to Centiniel Park... there was no ice skating rink. Becuase I am an idiot I did not call before we left Birmingham and sure enough they only do ice skating from Thanksgiving to New Years Day, and this day was Jan. 16th... I know.. stupid right! However I did write Meredith a song about it which I will humbly proclaim was a monumental part of me "sweeping her off her feet", or atleast I would like to think so.

Fast forward about a year I took her back to Centiniel Park where it all began and together we confessed that we both wanted to embark on a new journey together in which we would commit ourselves into the holy bond of matromony and live happly ever after.

Fast forward another 6 months or so and there we are at our wedding day. WOW! What an experience! Never again will all of those people that we love so much be in the same place again. It really was like seeing worlds collide. Unforgetable, we spoke our vowes, laughed, cried, had some cake and it was off to the honeymoon, well not quite yet. We stayed our wedding at the Embassy Suites where I convienced Meredith that I wanted us to leave the wedding in our wedding clothes and arrive at the Suite in our wedding clothes just so we could fully embrace the "walk of shame" to our room enjoying all the onlookers gasping and ponting with thier hands over thier mouths at "the cute couple that just got married". Just kidding that's not why I requested the wedding clothes deal. I am just really big on symbolism and I wanted us to arrive in our room, her in her wedding dress and me in my tux, sit down, have a glass of wine and recap the entire day play by play. So that is what we did.. all night... we laughed and shared everyhting that happened throughout the day to one another. We enjoyed our entire wedding night, in our wedding attire, listening to one anothers perspective on the day... ok so thats not all we did, we also played Yahtzee... .... .... OK - Moving on!

Honeymoon was in St. Thomas, we called it St. Thomaroo, but that's just cause we are dorks and were experiencing a euphoric high from being away from all responsibility for an entire week. We occasionally look back at these honeymoon photos and ironically find ourselves in the gym for the next couple of days.

Taxi ride


"What a view!"

"THIRSTY! Cokes were$5!"

Herve' is a must to eat at if you ever go to St. Thomarooo!

the hotel lobby

so who is this sexy beast?!! JK

Fast forward again another eight months or so and we got doggy fever! We kind of looked around a while and finally decided if we were going to get a dog we were going to get one somebody else did not want. Let me just make this pitch really quick: Over 30,000 dogs were euthinised in Alabama last year. We highly recomend saving one if you can! OK, Off the soap box I go and back to the blog story. So we looked around for some pups and ended up seeing a picture of Baxter, well "Scooter" they called him on the internet, and immediately we said "that's him"! When we arrived at the humane society believe it or not we actually walked past him three or four times. We could believe it was really the dog we saw on the website. He was so dirty, I mean really he was absolutely filthy. I in no way thought that it was really him. When I finally convinced myself to take a closer look I slowly walked up to his kennel and he perked up, put his paws on the door of the kennel and eye contact was made. Bending over and looking him up and down the sound of all the other dogs grew very faint and I whispered, "Meredith... it's Baxter".. then we kissed. Just kididng we didnt kiss don't you remember how distgusting I said he was, and besides it's a dog, I just said we kissed because I thought my typing sounded like two humans meeting instead of a human meeting a dog. I told you we are "those people who think thier dogs are human", but even us "crazies" have to draw the line somewhere. Anyway, Baxter had intestinal worms and would have surely been a goner if someone did not rescue him. For us he continually pays for himself with his hilarious demeanor and "always fun" attitude. We really lucked out with Baxter, I mean no kidding, he has probably barked less than a dozen times in over a year. I love this guy! (This was our first Christmas as a family)

One year anniversary was the hot Air balloon and I "highly" recommend












I Love this little lady! She is my best friend and by far my favorite person. Fast forward again into 2008 Feb. 14th Valentines day. That is the day you (Meredith) saw this blog for the first time, though I have been adding to it for weeks. As a part of a series of Valentines gift/ Labor of love, Meredith I give this to you. Kind of like a scrap book..you know? My best memories have been with you. My biggest laughs have been with you. The happiest times of my life have all been times that I have spent with you. You are my friend, my support, biggest fan, strongest critic,... You are my wife and I love you and every part of you. Thanks for putting up with me! Happy Valentines Day!!





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