Rocker Baby

This is what you get when my brother Bradley buys a gift for my baby. That's right, Mary Selwyn is wearing a black Led Zeppelin t-shirt onesie with her jean skirt and white bow. Brad was really proud of this gift. I can't even tell you a song Led Zeppelin sings, I know who they are and might would know a song if I heard it but let's just say they are not my first choice of bands. It is funny and she looks pretty cute in it. I think she definitely "rocked it out," ha ha. Just thought I would share the tough, rocker side of Mary Selwyn. Don't tell Uncle B but I only let her wear it to swing in the back yard.

Couple Time

Shay and I had a baby free weekend last weekend. We let Mary Selwyn go to Prattville to stay with Goon and Grampaka for several different reasons. One, I was hosting my new bunco group and Shay wasn't going to be home in time to keep her and they were going to stay later than MSN's bed time and to avoid the disaster of trying to keep her locked up for hours I thought it would be best to allow her to visit grandparents......which by the way she adores, and I mean adores, all four of her grandparents and generally wants nothing to do with Shay or me when any of them are around so I can promise you it was just torture for her to be away from us (yeah right.)

Shay and I also thought this weekend would be a good opportunity for us to get some things around the house in order in preparation for munchkin #2's arrival. I will say we were extremely productive. We were able to get our closet and our guest bed room, or the nursery, completely cleaned out. I was proud of how much we got done.

Last but not least this weekend allowed Shay and I to enjoy some much needed "couple time." A few years ago I did a bible study called Apples of Gold. It is a wonderful bible study that I would recommend to anyone. The one thing that I really took away from this study was from the "Loving Your Husband," week. One of the general ideas from that week was that your marriage should be your first priority. Your husband should be number one, not your children (Obviously the list went God, husband, children). At first I think everyone, including myself, was blown away by this idea but it truly makes sense. In so many households the children are the number one priority and the relationship between the husband and wife is completely neglected. This is one reason so many marriages fall apart when the children leave the house. I remember someone specifically saying that your job is to raise children to leave. As heartbreaking as that is to me, it is true. in the end all that is left is two, you and your husband, and if you have failed to stay connected all those years I can't imagine you will find yourself happy.

The study also said that children crave loving and affectionate parents, another reason why it is so important to nurture your marriage. It is good for them to see you love each other and I'm sure it teaches them how to love too. This is an atmosphere I definitely want to create for my children. Plus I just want to stay connected to Shay because he is my partner and best friend and I only want to build that up not backtrack. That was just a generalization, I'm sure the lesson was much better than that but it really stuck with me and I try to keep my priorities in that order, but it is hard! I want so bad to be a great wife and a great mother and I strive to be both daily, however I'm pretty sure I'm a complete failure 90% of the time.

Back to the weekend, as much as we enjoy spending time just the three of us it was nice to have time when it was just the two of us. I know you are thinking, "cleaning out closets, some couple time," but we had the best time. We got to go through all of my scrapbooks and pictures and all the other junk that meant something to us at one time or another. It was like we were reliving our lives together so far going through every step of the last 10 years. We found cards and "love" notes from high school. We had a good time laughing at ourselves and how cheesy we were. I really enjoyed looking through all of my stuff from college and the wedding. Some even made me a little sad seeing old friends that aren't really a part of our lives anymore or just remembering certain times, I'm such a sap. We spent the whole day sifting through all our old stuff and reminiscing. I think it was the best day we have spent together in a long time and it reminded us why we "picked" each other to begin with. I couldn't think of a better activity. To me you don't get any more "couple time" than that. And don't worry we did manage to squeeze in two dinner dates, which was a real treat.

We did miss Mary Selwyn a ton and of course talked about her a ton and we were super excited to get her back, but we did take the time to enjoy each other's company, uninterrupted......oh and the nights of sleep weren't bad either. It was such a fun time and really refreshing for our marriage I think. I'm thankful we had the time to focus on us. We are planning on taking one more weekend to ourselves before our new addition, I'm really looking forward to it. We took that picture right before we went out to dinner. I can't tell you the last time we took a picture of just us.

Last week at the Nichols House

Well, unfortunately, it was an busy week at the Nichols house. It all really started with the Monday after Christmas when Mary Selwyn woke up with a cold. Then Mommy woke up with the same cold on New Years Eve. It didn't happen to hit Daddy until Saturday afternoon and it seemed he started feeling bad just when MSN and I were starting to feel better.

On Monday Shay felt a little achy but Tuesday he said he was feeling much better. I thought we were all on the up and up.....worng. About 8 p.m. Tuesday we were sitting on the couch and Shay said, "My ear hurts a little bit." My reaction was "Uh oh, you better go to the doctor in the morning because I bet that cold is settling in your ear. No fun." So he went ahead and let work know he would be in late because he was going to the doctor first thing the next day. Shay does not play around when it comes to his ears because he had so much trouble with them as a kid. Well at 10:30 he came in the room (he hadn't been able to sleep because it hurt so bad) and asked me if there was anything he could take or do to make it better. I got up with him gave him some Tylenol knowing that it really wouldn't help and we sat on the couch. I thought Shay was going to come out of his skin. He was in so much pain and there was so much pressure. Then about 10 minutes later his ear popped and it was bleeding. His ear drum had ruptured just that fast.

Now if you know me at all you won't be surprised to know that in about 2.5 seconds I was dressed and ready to head to the emergency room, oh and totally freaking out. I had never dealt with ear stuff like this before like Shay had. Thankfully my mom was in town and after I busted through her door to announce that I was taking Shay to the emergency room she explained that we could wait until the morning. Of course not even Mom's word was good enough for me and I called Shay's cousin who is a doctor and he told me to let Shay take some pain pills my mom had and see the doctor in the morning. So we did and got everything taken care of. Shay is fine now and on the mend. Most of the pain is gone and we go back in two weeks to make sure it is healed or figure out what to do from there. However, he still cannot hear that well which is getting to be a little annoying for everyone. In the midst of all this chaos, Mary Selwyn and I both had doctors appointments scheduled. I had talked my mom into coming to help me because I was supposed to do my glucose/diabetes test early Wednesday morning and MSN was supposed to have her 18 month check up Wednesday afternoon. Needless to say after the ear bursting event I had to cancel my appointment to carry my poor hubby to the doctor.

We did manage to keep Mary Selwyn's appointment and she of course got a great report. The doctor said she is super healthy and super smart. Her height and weight were in the 95-98% again. He was very impressed with her large vocabulary and ability to follow directions. I'm very proud of her and 18 months is a fun age (aren't they all), although she is getting mighty good at pitching some fits when she is mad or frustrated. I can see that little terrible two phase coming on and I'm sure some days I will be stretched thin but I'm not that worried.

To conclude this story book, I will say that I passed my glucose test the next morning and got a good report from my doctor as well. This little baby that I wasn't able to feel for longer than expected is now bouncing all over the place. It is definitely making up for the time that the front placenta made us miss and I am loving every second of it. I feel like time is passing so quickly this pregnancy so I'm trying to take a lot of moments everyday to enjoy the wiggles. I'm so thankful for my mother and the huge help she was to us this week. I'm also thankful for the weekend we were able to spend with Shay's parents building Mary Selwyn's new swing set. Our backyard should be fully equipped for fun times now thanks to Meme and Papa. Let's hope this week is a lot calmer than last.

Here is a video of Mary Selwyn reading to herself. The inflection in her voice cracks me up....you can tell she has been read a story or two. Next time I will have to try and get a video of her using her real words. She is the most precious thing and I could just squeeze her all the time, which is what we spend most of the day doing anyway.

What Daddy is Good For

Yes, that thing you see flying in and out of the screen would be my child. She absolutely loves for Shay to throw her up in the air. She would do this from the time he got home to the time she went to bed if Daddy didn't get tired. Notice she can't hardly wait for 3 before she says "GO!" Let me say that Shay is good for many, many, many other things but if I had to guess I would say this ranks pretty high on Mary Selwyn's list. It is something this mommy just can't do, especially right now. It is so great to have a fun Daddy.....what could be better???

Our Christmas

Christmas Eve morning.....Santa came to our house a morning early this year because Mary Selwyn's kitchen was too big to be delivered in Prattville and then carried back to Dothan. Wearing her apron.....too bad she wouldn't be still long enough to get a good picture. You will notice that is a common theme in most of these pictures. This child is rarely still anyway but I don't know how we expected her to stop or smile with all the presents around her at every house.

Christmas Eve at my Grandmothers The Bohannan Children We took several family pictures this year.....almost all of which I'm not fond of. Gran better known as Goon and Grampaka, at least she smiled in this one. Great Grandmother and Great Granddaddy MSN modeling the slippers from Afghanistan that Grandmother gave her for Christmas.....Uncle Rick brought them back. Christmas day at Shay's Grandparents. This is what happens when you give a horse coffee! Mary Selwyn is obsessed with Papa's "neigh, neighs." That is all she talked about the whole time we were home and begged to go out and see them almost every minute. This trip to the pasture was early in the morning and Shay decided to share his cup of coffee with Eli. Turns out it made his lips curl. It was hilarious.

I'm disappointed I didn't get more opening presents and action shots from Christmas. We used our video camera for all of that stuff so we missed out on taking any on the camera. I'm also very disappointed I didn't get a picture with Mary Selwyn and Greatmama and Greatdaddy. They never seemed to be sitting next to each other to put MSN between them. We had a wonderful, busy, tiring and blessed Christmas. It was fun to spend time with almost all of our family.

Mary Selwyn loves her kitchen and plays with it non-stop. It makes a gigantic mess that I have to clean up several times a day but she enjoys it so much it is worth it. We took down our tree last night and I think MSN is missing it a little. Every night before bed or before a nap she says "bye tee" but now there is no tree to say bye to. When you ask her where the tree went she says "tee down." I'm sad all my Christmas stuff is gone too.....looks empty, like we are moving. Guess we will have to wait until next year, although Shay swears no more real trees for us because the clean up last night was such a nightmare. It was really a funny story but probably only if you were here so I'll spare you the details. Here is a video of Papa, Mary Selwyn and Kate riding the tractor. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!