The small, new things

It's just the small things in life, you know? You hear that all too much. But when you are a parent, it really becomes more and more truthful. And I always have "favorites" that EJ does. This is my latest favorite, but probably the one I love the most.
So, EJ is a talker. She has been since around 8 or 9 months old and knew well over 20 words by her first bday. But she is just starting to really put words together, and that has really take off the past 3 weeks or so. But this past weekend I was working on a leaking faucet. My bride and EJ come walking in the house and EJ walks straight to the kitchen where I was working. Just like she knew what she was doing, she walked up behind me where I was working, tapped me on the shoulder, waited until I turned around, and said "Hey daddy." Simple, but I loved it. I mean, she has called me daddy forever, but it was the first time she was like "hey daddy, what's up? Whatcha doing?" Hands down, one of the moments I will always remember.

So, the past several months, several different people and couples have come up to either myself, Robyn, or both of us together telling us that we look like we have a great marriage and that we make a great couple. Well, we do. So there. But it's not a secret why. For some reason, this past weekend seemed to be about what it takes to have a strong marriage, I will see if I can explain ours below.
So before I start, are we perfect? By no means. Do we have our moments? Of course we do. What couple doesn't? Even the best ones do. But the difference is that we hate those moments and try to resolve them as soon and as best we can. What a waste of time to drag those moments out. People sleeping on couches, not spending time together, purposely coming home late from work when you can get home sooner. That just sucks for them and I almost laugh at people like that. What a way to live. Some people love drama and misery. You can have it. And if there are kids involved and that's the house they live in, way to think about the kids first. We won't live like that. Life's too short and we want to have a strong marriage. Did you get that? It's what we BOTH want. If both don't want that, one or the other, whew, that's a problem, a huge problem.
So what's our secret? You know why we are as happy as we are? It's really not a secret. It's because we want to be as happy as we are. Make sense? It's that easy. Robyn and I invest in our marriage. There's a thought. We make emotional deposits in our marriage constantly. We do bible studies together (the 5 love languages is a great one), we go to church together, we make time for each other, pretty much make Saturday evening family date night, talk real conversation to each other every single night once EJ is down. But that's just it, right? We study, read, learn, watch, pay attention, talk, communicate, whatever it takes for us to have an awesome marriage. We make an effort. We just don't get in ruts and routines, or at least try not to. We strive for, and both want an awesome marriage.
Investments. Emotional deposits. Just a drive to have a successful marriage and family. What's the return? Just look at us. A marriage and love we can't get enough of and a little girl that loves spending time with both of us.
Sound corny? Maybe it is. But the funny thing about it is, as corny as it sounds, I know several couples that do the same. I won't say names, but I know one couple that actually went to marriage counseling BEFORE they were even engaged. 17 sessions. Wow. That's awesome. That's what it's all about. They are an awesome couple that has a crazy strong marriage. They invested early and they just know now how to get it right. I just look up and admire people like that. I want us to have that same drive. Our couples in our small group are all doing a marriage bible study. We all have great marriages and we all want to take time to keep it that way. We all want to know what it takes, what do we do wrong, what can we do better, etc.
So if you want to know what we do to make it work, we want to make it work. We both make an effort. We respect each other, love each other, and just spend time and do everything together. Make sense? It's easy, if you want it. If not, it's obvious. We got a chance to spend time with some couples all weekend who have strong marriages. It's pretty amazing when I can look at all us to see that we all just have that in common, just the will to make it work and enjoy every second of the effort.

6 Months

THE ARTICLE BELOW WAS NEVER FINISHED, BUT I PUBLISHED IT ANYWAY. MORE BLOGGING TO COME...
We just finished Easter with EJ. It is hard to believe it spring, Easter has come and gone, and now EJ is over 6 months old. Wow. There is one thing true about children...they speed up time. This has been the fastest 6 months of my entire life. But I have loved every single second of it. I just wished I knew how to slow it down.
EJ did something awesome this past Easter Sunday. She waved for the first time. Gramma was talking and waving to her, and EJ just waved back like she knew what she was doing. It was quite a scene. We were all together as a family at my sister's house and we all just stopped and watched. Tears were flowing.
So, what has 6 months taught us so far? Well, about the only way to sum it all up for us, at least for me, is that if I knew that having a little one would be like this, I would have done this years ago. EJ is just so awesome. I mean, she eats, she sleeps (sleeps late when we let her), she plays, we take her absolutely everywhere. On weekends, we keep her out as late as 11 at night sometimes. She just goes with the flow. She is an absolute trooper. She hangs right with her parents. I think she likes to be on the go as much as we do. Looking back, we just absorbed her into our lives and just kept going, like she did not have a choice and she adapted very well from day one.
As far as Robyn goes, these past 6 months have taught me a lot about her as well. Man, I really did not think she would be a laid back with EJ as she is. But, she is the exact opposite that I thought she would be. I mean, I thought that Robyn would be running and grabbing at EJ everytime that baby made a sound. But Robyn is so easy going, soft, caring to EJ, no matter what EJ throws at us. It is almost as if Robyn speaks her language and knows exactly what EJ is feeling all the time. It is fun to watch. I know it is the fact that Robyn is the way that she is is why EJ is as easy going as she is. And, I see now that Robyn was absolutely born to be a mother. I have never seen a love like Robyn has for Ella Jane. I mean, it is an emotion from her that you can really almost physically see. Just her desire to see her, hold her, talk to her, play with her. And, you can see the uneasiness that comes over her when she is away from her. It really shows that it is just gift that Robyn has, to be a loving mom to EJ, more love for a daughter that I have ever seen in my life.
As for me, I can not get enough of EJ. I have days that I get her all to myself. I can not wait for those days.

Fun weekend, good dads

This was actually written 1/20 - What an awesome weekend we had. Hanging out with Ella Jane just gets better and better. The more she grows, the more she responds, the more stupid I act, the more she laughs and smiles....get the picture? Every day I want her to stop growing. Just stop. I love her the way she is. But then the next day, it is more fun than the day before. It is certainly a catch 22. But I will say I experienced something this past weekend that hit me right in the gut. When Ella Jane was born, when she was lifted up from a seat or the bed, she would stretch. But it was not just any stretch. She would reach behind her head and stick her rear out. It was the cutest thing to watch. She does not do that any more. And it was then I realized that yes, she is indeed getting bigger. I mean, she is always growing, but there is just something about that first time you see her not do something she used to do. It really puts things in perspective about how fast your children grow. I will never see her stretch like that again. Sure, for everything that she does not do now, she does 2 new things. But, I will say, I already miss the days when she was smaller.

Ella Jane is here...

Wow. After reading this blog, I can see it was September when we last updated this. Well, I will say, we certainly will start doing better, in case anyone wants to keep track of Ella Jane and her parents.

Now, off to the good stuff. Most everyone knows about the birth, but I will provide a quick recap. Total labor time was 12 hours. Not to bad if you ask me. At least EJ let me get home from the Clemson football game before the labor started. She was already thinking about her daddy before she was born. It was a long night. It started at 4 that afternoon and lasted until 4 that morning. EJ was born at 4 a.m. on the dot 9/28. She never cried. She really did not do much of anything, but she did not cry. She just was hanging out (more on that later). 2 hours later she was knocking out 2 ounces of formula, and decided to sleep for 4 hours. We actually had to wake her to feed her again (much to the direction of the nurse). She was such a good baby from day one. We had visitors off and on all day and that night. It did not phase her a bit. She just slept and ate as she wanted to. It was almost like she was made to just hang out.

As far as Robyn goes, I have never been so proud of my wife in my life. She is something else. Now, she is the most scared of pain person I have ever met. And, she was so scared of, not motherhood, not being up all night....she was scared of the birth itself. That was the one and only fear she talked about the whole time she was pregnant. She handled the birth like a pro. Drugs help a lot also. But, overall, the went through the birth with few issues that night, and looked and acted like a million bucks as soon as Ella Jane was born. And yes, that instant love and connection with the child does exist. As soon as she was born, I was beside myself just looking at her. I was able to hold her about 10 minutes after she was born. They had to take her to the warming table as soon as she was born due to issues since she was as late as she was. About five minutes after that, Robyn was able to see and hold her. I know that before we had her that people talked about not having that instant connection and it took some time to get that feeling. Forget that. Get off of what you are on. Are you kidding me? How do you not get that feeling? That does not make any sense to me.

So, up to now, what has Ella Jane taught us? Yes, there is something about new borns that makes them great teachers. You can think you know everything and can be as confident as anyone (like I am), but there is something about coming home with a new born that has such as humbling spin on situations. I mean, we came home, put her down while she was sleeping, and looked at each other and said "now what?" Where were the instructions? What did we need to do next? Is there anything we could get done ahead of time? I often say that the first 2 weeks were the easiest physically and the hardest mentally. Every day was wake up, wash bottles, feed her, watch her sleep, watch TV, feed her some more, let her sleep, watch more TV, cook dinner, feer her, watch TV, go upstairs, feed to her, read to her, put her down to sleep for the night. I mean, physically, I really does not get much easier than that. But mentally, it was draining for me. There were no steps. There were no tasks to do when things went wrong. Just the mental drain of constantly watching her and thinking about her each and every second of every day was the toughest thing I have ever done. Every night she slept good was another day that I would worry that the next night was when it would all go wrong. I would get nervous when I was alone with her. Was I going to do the right thing?

Where was I going with this? Oh yea, the teaching. I started to learn to listen to the baby. Humans are creatures of habit and it starts from the very begining. Once I started to relax and tell myself to listen, watch, and pay attention to little EJ, you start to learn what she wants, what she does not want, like, dislikes. She can not tell me explicity what she wants, but it is awesome how she can tell me implicitly. And, now more than ever, she tells us everyday what she wants and how she feels. We now know, or think we know, her cries. She has a hungry cry, a my tummy hurts cry, and I am tired cry, a I need a change or scenery cry, you name. It seems to get just a little easier as the days click by.

As far as us a a family, I can not explain how much I love my wife and my child. That is the God's honest truth. My wife is an awesome mom and wife. I have never, yes, never heard her complain one time about Ella. She has never had any regret or never looked back one time. It is amazing how much she loves her little one. No matter how bad the day goes, she absolutely loves being a mom and you can tell she was born to be a mother. Ella Jane picked a good one.

As far as myself, nothing else matters in this world more than my wife and daughter. In fact, we are not a husband, wife, and daughter. I told Robyn this before EJ and as soon as she was born: We are one. We move and act as one. We are not a house of three people. We are a body of one and we are and stay as close to each other as we can. We do not make any decisions without thinking about and consulting the others. And, in every decision and action we make, our number one thought is Ella Jane. We constantly ask ourselves how is what we do during the day, week, year, and anything financially, impact Ella Jane. Have we rearranged our lives around Ella Jane? No. Is she our number one priority in our lives? Absolutely. Big difference.

As far as our lives, Robyn and I said that we would not change our lives once Ella Jane was born. In other words, we would simply absorb EJ into our lives, and pretty much just throw her in the deep end: either sink or swim. Either way Ella Jane, mommy and daddy are going to go to basketball games, football games, dinner on weekends, you name it, and you are going with us, whether you like it or not. We started that the first week home and have not looked back. That little Ella just tags along. She has already turned into a hang out baby. We do as we promised we would do, and that little Ella just loves to hang out with her mom and dad, whether we are at home, or we are running errands, or in Clemson all day, or staying . We don't miss a beat and Ella Jane doesn't either.

So, what does the future hold? Of course, who knows. But I will say this. We are raising her with this main principle in mind: Time. Time with her is the most important thing in our lives. I think of time like this. Robyn and I can work as much as we want and have the nicest cars, house, toys, vacations, you name it. But, the one thing about material things is that you can always get them if you want them bad enough or if you lose them. You can NEVER get time back. Every second of every minute of every day that goes by is gone forever. So, Robyn and I both understand the enormous value of time. Knowing that, we spend as much time as we can as a family and around her, even individually. And, it is not like we have to try to do so. We love her so much, we just don't want to be away from her. But also, we really don't drop her off to people while we go out. Again, we move as one and it is not a forced habit. It is just something we want to do. Robyn and I are so much on the same page that it is almost never a question of where we go or what we do together. Ella Jane just goes and plays with us. She certainy is a hang out baby

Ok, that's plenty for one post. Enough talking about this and that. We will certainly start posting more and more with updates on what she is up to and what we are up to. I am sure I will have random thoughts along the way as well. Picture will be coming soon as well.

Until next time...

Getting close..

Well, speaking as a future dad again, it is starting to get interesting around here. There are a lot of signs that tell us it is getting close. I mean, it really could be anytime. Now, there are signs that say that it could very well be a few days or even a week or so. The baby has not really dropped and Robyn still is not feeling any major contractions. So, overall, that works out well for 2 reasons...I am going out of town today, but will be home this evening, and the fact that the car seat is not in yet (that is going to happen on Sunday).
So, all of this brings up an interesting point. We have done so much. It has been an awesome, busy, fun summer. We have spent all this time buying this and buying that. People give us opinions (Robyn listen to them more than I do) and we read, study, ask question, you name it. I guess us a "smart" people try to do the best we can to prepare for that is about to happen. Ask Robyn, I try to plan and think ahead. Now, I don't write lists everywhere like Joe Moon, but I do try and have somewhat of a plan together. Ask Robyn, I do not like to deviate from a plan. It just causes a disturbance in my force.
But, I am here to say, and I am not too proud to admit, we got a little taste of "oh my gosh, what is about to happen and what now." Not to be all that graffic, but Robyn lost her mucous plug yesterday. First of all, everyone seemed to skip over that step of telling me what that was about. I was a bit taken off guard yesterday. But the big thing is that it really set reality back in of what was about to happen. I mean, we think we are ready, but at the same time, what happened yesterday really set us in motion. Next thing I know, I come home and Robyn is washing more stuff, rearranging my entire kitchen, packing the baby's bag, doing some real nesting. It was actually quite interesting to watch. Fun times.
Just goes to show that thinking about a big, exciting event and actually being a part of it are 2 different things. When reality sits in, it really hits home. I must say that it did touch me a little also. I was thinking, this is it. It is really about to happen soon. You just have simple thoughts like "I am about to have a living, breathing baby." Talk about still feeling unprepared, even though we still think we have done the best we can so far. It is almost a feeling of helplessness. But, at the end of the day, I know we are not the only ones to go through this. And, what keeps me from stressing out too much, I know I have a wife that is as excited as me, and the fact that we have never been on the same page as much as we are now. That's how I know that we will do great and there is nothing that we can not figure out together. And, that's how I know that Ella Jane will just bring us closer and love each other as a family that much more.
Until next time....

Wow. Ella Jane is almost here and it took this long for her dad to post on this blog. Man, I hope this not a sign of things to come. I still have no idea what to expect. Luckily we have several friends going through the same thing and I try and talk to the fathers as much as I can. They are wonderful people who love every second of it and do an awesome job of keeping me excited about the whole experience.
Now, off to the reason I wanted to post on this blog. I guess I just wanted to get down in words what I have experienced so far the past 9 months. It has amazed me how much a focus can change once you find out you are pregnant. I mean, I look back to all the things I used to worry about, like getting frustrated with Robyn, getting caught up in drama, just letting other distractions get into my life. You name it.
But, I will never forget the night that we found out we were pregnant. And just like that, all of that was lifted away. That world stopped right then and there an another one began. I became so numb to everything else. There were only 2 priorities in my life after that night: my wife and my unborn child. Everything else came in second place. I feel like I reached a totally different level in life. I mean, not to sound snobbish, but it was almost, and still is, tough to relate to anyone who had not experienced this in their life. My best friend, Michael Britt, told me that once you are pregnant and you have the child, every other problem and issue not related to your family just seem so trivial and non important. I really did not understand what he was talking about until we got pregnant, but I totally understand it now.
My daughter is not here yet, but she has already taught me that life is wonderful and that life is really a miracle. You will never ask me how I am doing without me giving a positive response, no matter how bad my day may be. I realize how lucky and blessed I am and that people would kill, steal, murder, you name it, to have my life. It is amazing how someone who is not here yet has already taught me so much. That makes her special already.
And my wife, what a trooper. What a wonderful pregnancy she has had so far. She feels great and looks great. I could not have had anything better. We have traveled this summer and there was not a weekend that we were not at the pool. We spent so much time together this summer and I have loved every bit of it. I told her that the day after we got married, I looked at her that next morning and fell in love with her all over again. I thought that could not happen again. I was wrong. Ella Jane made sure that happened again.
Fun times ahead of us. Until next time...