The Adventures of Mary Laine (Part 3)

After her fun visit to Knoxville, the Focas loaded up the van with all of the girls and met up with Aunt Kelly, Jacob, and Payton in Asheville for the Mary Laine hand-off. Then she was off to Charlotte to stay with Gary's brother Andy's family. Because her cousins Jacob and Payton are older and in school all day, I'm sure it was much more quiet than her stay in Knoxville. She got in some great bonding time with her Aunt Kelly during the days. They did some baking, visited the Botanical Gardens (and enjoyed the beginning of "Butterfly Month", and went swimming. When her Daddy went to pick her up, he was able to go with Uncle Andy and some friends to the first Wake Forest football game of the season, so he was pretty happy about that too! Thank you so very much to the Charlotte Dyksterhouses for taking our baby in for the week. She was definitely sad to come home - things are much less exciting around here :-).

The Adventures of Mary Laine (Part 2)

Well, I don't have any pictures to post, but if I get some, I'll go back and add them later. We are so so thankful to family and friends who have been helping out with Mary Laine while I have been on bedrest. At the end of August, Gary took Mary Laine to Knoxville, TN to stay with his sister, Catherine, and family. I wasn't sure how Mary Laine would do away from us for so long, but quickly found out that we were "out of sight, out of mind"! She had a blast playing with her cousins Ainsley, Emma, and Gabby. In fact, Gabby is only four months older than Mary Laine, so it was a great chance for those two to bond with each other. And a huge, huge thanks to Catherine who took on another small child. I can't imagine how chaotic life must have been for the Focas that week!

The week consisted of a birthday party, playtime, dance time, Tatarus (a great gymnastics place that is open for children to come and play during the day), and lots and lots of sweet bonding time with her cousins and Aunt Catherine and Uncle Chris. Thanks again, Focas! We can't wait to get together again once baby boy is here!!

Weeks 33 and 34

33 Weeks

34 Weeks

I made it to 34 weeks today! We are so thankful to have made it this far. I had a good appointment last week. There had been no changes from the previous week. I go for my 34 week appointment tomorrow and will be anxious to see what they say. My contractions have been very high lately. We have narrowly escaped another trip to the hospital for the past several days.

If we are able to make it to a full-term pregnancy, then they will take me off of bedrest and all of my medications to stop contractions in only three weeks! We're in the final stretch now and looking forward to meeting our son.

She Did It!!

After months of talking about it, reading about it, singing about it, and unsuccessful attempts, Mary Laine finally went on the potty this morning!! Our baby is growing up! And yes, Deacon was cheering her on from the sidelines.

Mary Laine at 20 months old

The Handlebar Handler

Well, it's happened. The mid-life crisis has hit early. Or maybe it is just the thirties-slump. I don't know. All that I do know is that my husband walked out the room the other night looking like this:

Every girl who has a mama who raised her right knows good and well that, when you see this guy coming, you run! Well, my mama did raise me right, but when I saw this guy coming towards me, I couldn't run. For two reasons. First, I have now been on bedrest for two months and I know that I just wouldn't be able to get away and would run the risk of serious injury if I decided to suddenly break out in a mad dash. And second, the eyes and the voice behind this monstrosity belong to my husband. The love of my life. Yes, the father of my children. There was an internal struggle vying for my fight-or-flight instincts. Do I take all of those self-defense moves that my husband once taught me in case I was approached by an attacker and put them to good use, or do I embrace the man before me because I said "I do"? Oh, the dilemna!!

I immediately began formulating my arguments as to why this was one of the worst ideas that he had ever had. I thought of all of the support that I would get from the community at large. Of course everyone that we know would side with me! Who would support such an outrageous act? Only a great enemy or a blind man. I think that my initial response was "Okay, that's funny, now go and finish shaving!!" Surely this was just some practical joke. Surely he wouldn't leave the house like this. Well, anyone who knows Gary knows how delusional I must have been to think this for only a second. He wasn't going to have what he considered to be such a great masterpiece and not parade it around for the whole world to see. Within the hour, the Facebook profile had been changed and all close friends and family members had been informed. It was out there...

The response from all of our female friends was exactly as I expected. Most of them went by the rule of "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." A faithful few taunted, mocked, and berated. But then I was thrown a curve ball. All of the guys actually loved the thing. Whether they actually did like the 'stash, or this was just some survival-of-the-fittest mentality to which they were encouraging "the competition" to look as hideous as possible, I do not know. But they encouraged, lauded, emulated, and made promises to have one of their own in the near future. I'm sure that high fives and chest bumps were involved. One friend even begged him to keep it at least through Sunday so that he could bring "class and sophistication" to the tenor section of the church choir. What was happening? I was losing ground and Gary was becoming more and more determined to show off his manhood.

Yes, he went to work the next day looking like this. He met with friends and hugged his daughter (who, thankfully, is still a bit too young to have been taught to run from this kind of man, so she continued to love her daddy unconditionally). I was beginning to worry that this beast may be here to stay. So I pulled out the big guns. The only rebuttal that I had left. It was all or nothing. "Gary, what if my water breaks tonight and we have to rush to the hospital, and the first picture that you ever take with our son is of you looking like this?!?"

I don't know if it was anything that I said, but I do know that my wonderful husband who loves me so much walked from the shower yesterday morning clean-shaven. Ah, bliss!! I won't be taking those hairless dimples for granted anytime soon, that's for sure!

I forgot to mention in my original post that, when asked what she thought of Daddy's mustache, Mary Laine's response was "dirty!" Out of the mouths of babes!!

Weeks 31 and 32

Since I'll be 33 weeks tomorrow, I figured that I should hurry up and get my pictures up for weeks 31 and 32. Things have been going really well these past few weeks. We have gone over 3 weeks without a hospital admission. At this point with Mary Laine, we had already checked into the hospital 8 or 9 times, so this is a huge improvement!! And we got great news at our appointment last week. The baby weighed 4 lbs, 13 oz! He is a great size, and everything looked really good. I am continuing to have alot of contractions, but they don't seem to be changing things too much, so we are still just watching and waiting. I am definitely getting more and more uncomfortable every day and am ready to be back on my feet again, but am so thankful that there have been so few problems so far in this pregnancy. I am also so so grateful for all of the help that we're getting from family and friends. Gary's mom is in town helping out this week and Mary Laine adores her Grammy. She has become her little shadow, wanting to go wherever she goes and be her "helper". And my amazing friend Shannon is leaving her two young children next week to come and help out here. We are so blessed!! I will try to post soon about how our visit goes tomorrow.

31 Weeks

32 Weeks

The Adventures of Mary Laine (Part 1)

Well, contrary to what many would believe, Mary Laine has been far from bored or traumatized while her Mama's been on bedrest. In fact, it has been quite the opposite. Our great friends and family have taken Mary Laine under wing and have kept her very entertained. In fact, I think that she is going to be disappointed once her Mama is back on her feet and she's back to her boring old routine.

She has just returned from a few weeks visiting family across the southeast and has more friends and family on the way into town over the next few weeks. But, before her travels began, she was entertained by friends at home. Here are just a few pictures of her local adventures that were sent to me.

Swimming with Madeleine

Petting the horses with Mrs. Amy - not too sure about this...

Reading with Sadie

Snacking with Mary Dudley at Leah's birthday party

Reading with Annie

Snack time with Annie

Exhausted and napping at Annie's house - this pretty much sums it up!