Happy Birthday, Ruby Blythe Marie (part 1)!

The "pulgita" princess of earth and sky

After twenty-two hours of labor, three hours of pushing, a transfer from the Women's Birth and Wellness Center to the UNC Hospital, and one tiger-strong but exhausted mother, Ruby Blythe Marie Taylor entered our world at 10:46 pm on Sunday, September 11, 2011, weighing 7 lbs 11 oz, measuring 22 and 3/4 inches. Simply put, it was a terrifying and mesmerizing experience watching Phaedra bear this child into the world.

Thank God for the prayers of family and friends. Thank God for midwifes--midwives for president, I say.

Today (writing this on the actual day of her birthday, September 11) we have arrived at the beginning of many truisms: How did a year go by so fast? How did Blythe go from a wrinkled prune to our favorite "pulgita" of one year?

How did we make it through those first three months and how do we begin forestalling boyfriends, driver's licenses, awkward pre-teen spells, departures to college and the loss of her baby years? We don't, of course, but we do everything in our power to savor each moment from here on.

It's safe to say, though, that we're madly in love with Blythe. As we look back on a year of life with her, here are some of the images that we will be sure to treasure. This first batch of images will evoke the village that has been required to rear her, while the next batch (in part two of this blog) will involve the wild and wooly.