my first-born turns three....

on january 27th, my sweet first-born, Finley David d'Argy turned three years old. (also on the same day, Clive Thomas turned three months old). i am so proud of how grown up finley is now, how smart he is, how funny and kind. he is such a doting brother and a loving son. as his mommy though, i shed a few tears that day as i grieved his babyhood coming to an end. there will be no baby like my "baby finley", and our time together these last three years will be deeply treasured in my heart forever. i look forward to sharing the riches of clive's first three years in the same way, but precious and unique little "fin-fin" will never be replicated. (check out my shout out to him on one of my favorite blogs).

we celebrated his birthday with just a few of his little friends, since i didn't want to throw a "party" - i didn't have time to do invitations, or plan activities, etc. so literally, the last minute, we had the west family, the landreth family and the liden family over for some cake and ice cream and some playtime.


finley had a great time, especially when everyone sang him the birthday song. he told me he was "so 'cited" to blow out his candles on his cake. his only request was that there were cars on the cake. i had already decided to make a number three cake with tie dyed batter, so the cars on the tray were an afterthought. he did have trouble getting his candles blown out, because like most three year olds, he blows (while spitting) through his front teeth like a gopher. he nearly burned off his eyelashes trying to lean in for a better angle. he managed to get one out and daddy helped with the other two.

today, he had his three-year well child doctor's appointment. he was so cooperative that it made me very proud. he was so cute as he followed all the instructions in his thomas the train undies and his little patient's gown. he was even brave and didn't cry when the nurse pricked his finger to draw blood. he watched nonchalantly as she squeezed and squeezed the "red paint" out of his finger for about five minutes (she could barely get enough out!). (but oh did he cry when he caught sight of the band aid she was going to put on it. guess his band aid phobia is still alive).


he weighed 35 pounds and measured 38 inches. this puts him in the 75th percentile on both his weight and height. (this is a big deal for those of you who know that his entire life he has been in only the 10 to 20th percentile range for his height. so, for those of you who have noticed and have asked lately, yes he has gotten much taller all of a sudden! yeah!) he also had his first vision test. instead of reading a chart with letters on it, the chart has three little pictures - a house, an apple and an umbrella for the kids to identify from a distance. he stood behind the line and the nurse pointed at the pictures. he got them all right, except he called the umbrella a balloon, and the apple a heart. but what was funny was, when she pointed at the apple on the teeniest row, he identified it as "a pair of underpants." he made the nurse laugh out loud...but, he was dead serious of course.

i am so thankful to have such healthy and happy children, even though they are a major handful right now. i especially love that finley is now at the age where we can sit and talk to each other, he can tell me stories, and i can watch the wheels of his little mind spin. he's such a little miracle. such a little man.



to see a full album of finley's third birthday, click here.

funny conversation with finley....

This afternoon while changing Finley's diaper, I joked with him affectionately:

ME: Ooh, this is stinky, you stinky little scumbag*!

(*scumbag is an odd term of endearment matt uses for us, using a strong new york accent for humor)

FIN: I'm not a scumbaaaaaaaag!

ME: Well then who is? Is daddy?

FIN: Naaaah!

ME: Is Clivey?

FIN: Naaaah! Just Julie is!!

ME: Whaaaaaat?!?!

FIN: (while laughing) Just joking! 'Hers' is not.
None of us is scumbags....we're just the Nehers.

christmas is in the air...

wow, i haven't posted since the day clivey (as finley calls him) was born. life has changed so much for us since then! fall came and went in the blink of an eye. now it is suddenly winter, and it is almost christmas! although matt is once again in the midst of law school finals and i have my hands full with two very lively neher boys, we managed to get our house all decorated for christmas. and it is looking lovely if i do say so myself.


christmas is my favorite time of the year. i start listening to christmas tunes the day after halloween. and each thanksgiving, my husband traditionally gives me a new christmas cd to help our family bring on the christmas spirit. something i need no help with, but he sure does. this year he finally got me sufjan steven's 5-disc christmas box set. and i love it, of course. i have wanted it since it was released a few years ago.

every year matt asks me, "is this the earliest we've ever decorated for christmas?" - as if he can't believe it is that time of year again. and no, it wasn't this year. we didn't decorate until after thanksgiving this year, and usually i do it around the first of november! this is our first year to have lights up on the outside of our house. before now, we always lived in apartments or duplexes, so it was nice that my dad, papa glenn, was kind enough to put them up for us when he was here for thanksgiving. we were the first on our block to light up our house, but now our neighbors have followed suit. :)

this is the sixth or seventh year that little george has topped our tree as the most curious angel. the robe and wings i made him our first year of marriage are holding up quite nicely! finley thinks that is one of his georgies but it is mommy's - something he doesn't seem to understand.


surprisingly, finley doesn't try to touch the tree, the ornaments or even the gifts underneath! he likes to admire the ornaments as much as i do... we have collected them in our international travels and throughout our 7 years of marriage.

finley is being so cute about christmas. i think he may love christmas as much as his mommy does! he has been wrapping up some of his favorite toys (cars mostly) and putting them under the tree. each day he picks them up and reminds me that these presents are for his baby brother. and today i caught finley "taking pictures" of the christms tree with his toy camera. he even climbed up on the chair for a better angle. precious!



i love putting out my willow tree nativity scene. each year my beloved mother-in-law gives me another part to add to it. this year i got the stable animals and the copper stars. thanks, mimi!
finley has his own little nativity scene too. he refers to it as his "baby jesus and the kings" who live in the soft barn. he arranges it daily. sometimes they all commune on the roof of the stable. most of the time they are in some sort of single file line. and they get many dinosaur visitors. hey, it could be possible that a tricerotops visited jesus in his manger. and, there may not have been any room at the inn, but there is always free parking at the stable.

we are planning on taking finley and c.t. to sit on santa's lap for a photo. a fun and terrifying family tradition. finley's pictures with santa his first two christmases are priceless and we are hoping to continue to add to the collection. i mentioned to finley that we were going to go see santa this weekend for a picture and he said politely, "no thank you, mommy. i don't yike santa." then when i was out of the room, he pleaded his case with matt. "daddy, i don't want to go see santa. tell mommy, okay?" then last night after playing at a friend's house he said to me very seriously, "mommy, we watched a movie with santa claus in it and i did not yike it."

he tells me that santa is "rude" (a word he adorably misuses) and that "it isn't funny to be rude at christmastime." how can i not agree? however, i will still drag my son into the scene of his very own nightmare and make him sit with santa anyway (i will be sure to post the results). and one day, he'll probably figure out that it was mommy that was rude, not santa.

(click here to see photos of my christmassy house)

introducing baby......

clive thomas neher

born monday october 27th
1:13 p.m. via emergency c-section

9 lbs 15.4 oz. (yes 0.6 oz short of 10 lbs)
21.5 inches long (2.5 inches longer than Fin was)



written monday night by groggy mommy: labor began at home just after 1:00 am - i woke matt at 3:35 when they became regular and less than 5 minutes apart. i hated waking him as he has spent weeks preparing with a partner for his Moot Court competition at law school which was today at 4:30. oops. baby had other plans. thankfully his partner is a good friend and the Moot Court board was sympathetic and allowed their team to reschedule for 7:30 a.m. on tuesday. kinda stressful but we're thankful for their understanding.

we got to the hospital around 4:30 a.m. leaving finley snoozing in bed with his Mimi Neher (who is the Godsend grandma visiting from NC). they monitored me for about 2 hours before officially admitting me. because i was five days overdue and a previous c-section case, they knew they had to keep me around and that this baby would come today, one way or the other. my plan was to labor through and work towards a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section). but my progress was slow although my contractions were strong and steady.

after about 11 hours of laboring, i finally reached a meager 3 cm dilation and the contractions got more intense. i then asked for my epidural which they delivered. just after it took effect my doc came in and checked me and i had moved up to 5 cm. so she burst my water to get things moving. she had told me all along that i had a massive amount of fluid surrounding my large beach ball belly (as my friend corissa detected this summer). so when she burst my water, a tidal wave ensued. the doctor and nurses present were in shock and awe at the continual flood and said that is was the most they've ever seen. i believe the words were "that is a COPIOUS amount of fluid!" they even called other docs and nurses into to witness the event, laughing in amusement.

then in a matter of seconds the amusement turned to panic. as the water flooded out, the baby's head pinned the cord to the cervix causing a umbilical cord prolapse. basically the force of the flow really pinned it down, and like a kink in a garden hose, the baby was suddenly without flow of oxygen and umbilical fluids. all the nurses and doctors started talking in panicked code (though trying to smile and not make us nervous). "O.R. - STAT!" (they really do say that!) was what we heard next.

i was whisked into surgery fast and matt was left in a panic on the other side of the swinging doors. i was lifted onto the operating table under the big round light, an oxygen mask covered my face and then my lights went out. picture the "woman's work" scene from the movie "she's having a baby" - exactly like that, no joke. apparently they cut him out of me in two minutes. two minutes!

i woke up about an hour after he was born and had it all relayed to me. when my eyes opened, my weeping husband was standing over me letting me know our son was perfectly healthy. it was so scary and traumatizing, and it was crazy how quickly the events turned. but i felt safe in the hands of the professionals and am very thankful for their quick action and work.

i am still a little drugged and numb from the waist down. this afternoon and evening with our new son has been euphoric and joyful, a time of thankfulness, awe and adoration. i know tomorrow though that my pain will set in and my long road to recovery and healing will set in. but he is so worth it!

it took us nine hours to decide on a name, but after spending quality time with him, we decided he was a clive. clive thomas. C.T. he is a healthy nurser, a peaceful sleeper and is absolutely adorable. he looks JUST like my baby pictures.... we'll see if he stays looking like me or if he'll morph into another mini-matt like big brother finley. speaking of, finley will come to meet his brother tomorrow. that will be so fun to witness!

so thanks for your prayers! thanks mimi for being here and being so helpful and loving your grandsons so much. thanks matt for your loving support and sacrifice. thanks to friends who have already poured so much love and excitement on us - keep it coming. and please keep praying for us as we transition and i heal.

click here for album of clive's first day!

sing loud!

in august, while visiting his mimi and papa in north carolina, finley starting singing. we had always sung to him and then with him...but last month he starting just singing on his own. and he sings all the time!

he sings what he calls his "baby songs", which would include the abc's, twinkle twinkle, etc. and he sings songs he learned on TV, like some of the theme songs to his PBS shows and he even sings along to commercials! oops! he even hums tunes, including the tunes to my very favorite game shows (yeah!). the cutest is when he sings the song his daddy has always sung to him at bedtime... "L is for the way you look at me, O is for the only one I see...." he knows the whole song! the best part of that song is when he sings the word, "ex-tra-ordinary" with gumption!

his favorite tune is the alphabet song though. he sings it many times a day. sometimes he makes up new words just to sing along to that tune. for example, he might sing about all the things he is eating for "bress-us" (breakfast) to the tune of the alphabet song. i have tried to film it, but he says, "mom, don't take my picture!" and clams up. today he was sitting in his round chair, reading his children's bible and singing away. i snuck in and he sang the whole song for me, though he acted very silly. he says "sing loud!" a few times at the beginning, and he even broke briefly into his "dinosaur voice" which you'll hear for "T-U-V". after i took this video he said, "that's enough mommy. no more pictures."

i should be embarrassed....

there are so many reasons why i should be embarrassed to share this story, but i will anyway because it is such a classic finley situation. and i know he was embarrassed, not to mention, posting this on my blog will just give him another reason to hate me one day! ;)

it was a typical morning, we had just gotten up (hence his huge pillow hair - he went to bed with wet locks). he was feeling really independent and did not want me to help him with the potty. so i let him remove his own diaper and take a seat. because he was urging me to leave him alone with his business, i went around the corner to put some stuff away in his room. after he was all done, i tried to help him get a new diaper on, which he also wanted to do himself. knowing he'd never figure it out by himself, i left the room again for a second to let him give it a try. next thing i know he is crying in pain.

"mommy, help i used mommy's diaper and it hurts me!" (no further explanation needed). but you can guarantee he won't get into my cabinet again!

bossy little finley......

here are some funny/sassy quotes from finley in the last 48 hours:

after asking finley to help me pick up his flashcards which are all over the floor, he said, "do it yourself, mommy, i am busy reading my book."

when i was getting some fabric out of my craft closet, which is in his playroom, he whipped around and said, "mom! i am tryyyyy-ing to watch calliou, so SHHHHH!" with his teeny finger across his lips and his uni-brow furrowed.

he came running mischieveously out of the bathroom with a huge proud smile on his face...he said, "i ate it and i'm going to be sooo sick!" (still smiling). "come here i'll show you.....see, i ate mommy's soap.!" he had pulled his potty chair up to the sink and pumped my hand soap into his mouth.

we are working on potty training and he opted to go in his pants instead of the potty. i told him he shouldn't poop in his pants anymore and he should use the potty like a big boy. he said, "no mommy, just change my bopper (diaper), okay?"

i walked upstairs with a coke and he said, with finger pointed at me, "you drink upstairs, you better not spill! no spill!"

i guess i'm getting my mothering words spat back at me. especially when he says, "obey me, mommy!" (don't worry, i tell him not to talk to me like that).



he says some sweet things too:

matt and i were sitting together on the couch and finley came over, climbed up and hugged our necks and said, "aw, look, we're all together!"

he woke me up saying, "good morning, mommy, have sweet dreams?" i said yes and then asked him what he dreamed about. he said with a smile and sigh, "oh, i dreamed of daddy." i asked what he and daddy did in his dream and he said, "we hugged."