And he shall be called.....

Rohan Alexander Syring

This will be the name of Mike and Mara's baby boy!! They told me the name while I was visiting them last month. Man that was a hard secret to keep but they helped me out by spilling their name during the baby shower. That's what we did the first part of the weekend, went to Iowa to give Mike and Mara their Syring-side baby shower. We left Friday and were back home Saturday at 9:30 pm. It was worth every mile, despite Jackson enduring the 5 1/2 hr trip with the worst diaper rash he has ever had (horrid)!

The shower was awesome. They received wonderful gifts and had a nice turn out but I have to elaborate why the shower will always be extra special to me. First, Mike made Jackson a snack cake-themed onesie. See the slide show. It's the outfit with Little Debbie Snack Cakes (Twinkies, ding-dongs, ho-hos, etc) strategically placed all over it. Yes, my brother spent hours, according to Mara, printing these images from the internet and ironing them onto the onesie. Of course, he did iron the onesie onto the kitchen table once (I wish I could have been there to see that). Anyways, he presents us with this onesie Friday night and I almost choke I'm laughing so hard. This joke goes way back (not getting into it here) and has recently reached new heights. Now, the onesie by itself is hilarious, but what happened next is extra special. I put Jackson in his snack cake onesie at the shower and decided that due to his horrible diaper rash I would let him model the onesie sans pants or diaper for a minute to dry things out. You know what's coming....he pooped what can only be classified as toxic waste all down the flap of the onesie onto the carpeted floor. Unbelievable. All we could do was laugh, hysterically. Eventually we cleaned him, the carpet and even the onesie up. Mike dried it, after my Mom thoroughly scrubbed it, determined that Jackson would proudly wear the snack cake onesie at the shower. He did and I will never forget that moment or the shower for two reasons. First, I can't believe the snack cake onesie and accident actually happened and two, because it gave me great joy to help give my brother a baby shower for his first born (who would have thought Mike would procreate?).

Quick note - the red barn set in the slideshow is from the late 70's. Mike and I had one like this when we were kids and have mimicked the noise of the barn opening ("mah") for many years but couldn't find the barn. I found it in our church nursery (go figure), they go for $65 on e-bay. The church allowed me to replace the barn and silo with a new set and the vintage barn was mine and now Rohan's. Mike and Mara are letting Jackson enjoy it for now and I'll ship it to them when Rohan is old enough to play with it. Mah...

Sunday was spent at the Y swimming, running, lifting and playing. In the afternoon we got some Christmas "stuff" done...still no tree. We had to get the house in order before we bring more chaos in.