ok, which cliché do you want? how about time flies when you’re having fun? or maybe it seems just like yesterday that she born? of course, there’s she’ll be all grown up before we know it. there’s plenty others i could throw at you and quite frankly, many are true. the fact is, our little lucy lu turns 3 years old today and many of the age-old sayings that seem a little worn out ring true for me today.

on may 18, 2007 at 6:06 p.m., a 6 lb 10 oz little girl was born at western baptist hospital in paducah, kentucky. without going into all the gory details…let’s just say that it was an incredible experience to first witness and participate in the labor process and finally lay eyes on our first-born child.

again, the reality is that time has, indeed, flown by. it’s hard to believe she’s been a part of our lives for 3 years. avoiding all cliché, i can say that each and every day, she makes my life better. trust me, there are days when i consider pinching her head off…but those are merely blips on the radar in relation to the fact that life without lucy would be significantly less worth it.

she makes me laugh, she makes me cry, she makes me love christen more and she makes me a better human being. in her, i see god. she deepens my faith and allows me to see everything’s that good in the world.

so, happy birthday, lucy lu. i love you and i look forward to the next 3 years and the 3 after that and so on.

part of the celebration of lucy’s birthday is the increasing anticipation of the birth of baby byrd #3, max ryan byrd.

indeed, max is due to make his appearance literally any day or any week now. officially, the due date is still june 8, but over the last couple weeks, we’re more and more certain that the due date might be off by as much as several weeks. so, we’re on baby watch. if i just had to lay down cash, my money is on this kid popping out in the next week.

as we await his arrival, parents naturally begin to think about what he’ll be like and what he’ll look like and how we’ll relate to him. for those who read my blog regularly, you don’t have to search much to figure out that music is one of the most significant aspects of my life. naturally, i would love to experience music alongside my children. one of the realities of that is that i can’t expose them to nothing but terrible, monotone, children’s music. no doubt, lucy and olive can do some serious rocking out to songs from barney (god bless us…) or anything involving jumping monster blobby things, but i feel like, slowly but surely, i’m leading them toward the musical light.

i thought i’d get a jump on exposing max (and all the soon-to-be-babies of the world) to some good baby music. i made a little mix that does baby in a new way.

so, download the mix, oh! baby!: songs from the stork’s nest. there’s some good stuff. from david bazan to the squirrel nut zippers to camera obscura to garbage, there’s a little something for every little musical baby in the world.

// download the .zip //