floor laid down. But I don’t recommend it for the faint of heart. Even the best of teams have faltered under the pressure of so many large and so many petty decisions. And the way money seems to hemorrhage, even the most careful accounting can make your head spin.
I had, of course, learned with our first home renovation how important sticking to a budget was for Mark. I also learned how much I disliked having his fingers in every little decision I made. Unless we divided our areas of decision making, I knew we’d end up arguing about the cost of doorknobs, and I didn’t want him micromanaging the nonfinancial decisions such as paint color either. We avoided conflict in our second home the same way we had over our checkbook. We came up with an overall budget and design for the house and then split responsibilities, with each of us having complete control of specific areas with attached budgets.
Mark dealt with the outside of the house and the garage, yard, roof, and deck, while I dealt with all details of the interior. If I wanted expensive curtains, then I would need to skimp on cabinets or vice versa. I trusted him with the choice of brick or with shutters and he trusted my choice of paint colors and fabrics, all within the original boundaries we had agreed to. This turned out to be an incredibly effective way to survive the project, and I’m not a little proud to be able to look back at that time and see that two controlling personalities (one who was also a penny-pincher, and the other who realized she was pregnant) worked as a real team through it all.
Yes, too true. Shortly after settling into the rental home I discovered I was pregnant. This was a real surprise to both of us; starting a family was a few years off on both of our lists of goals. I was immediately excited nonetheless. Mark, however, was quite anxious at first. He thought he would be better suited to be a father if he was a bit older (his father was 45 when Mark was born) and he worried too what he would do, how he would react, the way he would play and interact, if this baby was a girl. At first his mumblings seemed funny. I couldn’t quite believe that the idea of a baby girl would cause him so much fear. But I soon realized that his anxiety was real. Even as he started to get excited about the idea of a baby—and he did; we both embraced it pretty quickly—he imagined boys, sons. His sister was always “one of the boys” in his childhood household. I often think that a girl would have been great for Mark. She might have softened him up a bit, and I know he would have been a wonderful father to her. But somehow God gives you only what you can handle. Maybe sons are what Mark could handle. Little did either of us know there would be four!
Mark and I worked together on plans for the new house and then watched it being built as my belly grew. Friends held a baby shower for me, and I prepared a small nursery in the house while Mark continued to keep his fingers crossed for a boy. I was able to continue playing golf and tennis and even worked planting fields at Coosaw while pregnant, though I did tire more easily as I grew quite large. Mark joined me at one Lamaze class before deeming it a waste of his time since, as he explained, “I’ve spent many long nights helping cows give birth and I know what to do when the baby gets stuck.” Of course, many fathers still didn’t attend births in those days, so Mark didn’t really feel he needed to know too much about the human birthing process. Instead, my sister Kathy came to be with me for the birth. We spent lots of time taking bike rides on the cobblestone streets in Charleston hoping to help nudge delivery along, to no avail.
When I was almost two weeks overdue, my labor was induced. Delivered at 10 pounds, 5 ounces, on June 23, our first son, Marshall, was a healthy, very content baby whom Mark delightfully began to refer to as the “little man.” Mark was instantly a very proud and very
I had, of course, learned with our first home renovation how important sticking to a budget was for Mark. I also learned how much I disliked having his fingers in every little decision I made. Unless we divided our areas of decision making, I knew we’d end up arguing about the cost of doorknobs, and I didn’t want him micromanaging the nonfinancial decisions such as paint color either. We avoided conflict in our second home the same way we had over our checkbook. We came up with an overall budget and design for the house and then split responsibilities, with each of us having complete control of specific areas with attached budgets.
Mark dealt with the outside of the house and the garage, yard, roof, and deck, while I dealt with all details of the interior. If I wanted expensive curtains, then I would need to skimp on cabinets or vice versa. I trusted him with the choice of brick or with shutters and he trusted my choice of paint colors and fabrics, all within the original boundaries we had agreed to. This turned out to be an incredibly effective way to survive the project, and I’m not a little proud to be able to look back at that time and see that two controlling personalities (one who was also a penny-pincher, and the other who realized she was pregnant) worked as a real team through it all.
Yes, too true. Shortly after settling into the rental home I discovered I was pregnant. This was a real surprise to both of us; starting a family was a few years off on both of our lists of goals. I was immediately excited nonetheless. Mark, however, was quite anxious at first. He thought he would be better suited to be a father if he was a bit older (his father was 45 when Mark was born) and he worried too what he would do, how he would react, the way he would play and interact, if this baby was a girl. At first his mumblings seemed funny. I couldn’t quite believe that the idea of a baby girl would cause him so much fear. But I soon realized that his anxiety was real. Even as he started to get excited about the idea of a baby—and he did; we both embraced it pretty quickly—he imagined boys, sons. His sister was always “one of the boys” in his childhood household. I often think that a girl would have been great for Mark. She might have softened him up a bit, and I know he would have been a wonderful father to her. But somehow God gives you only what you can handle. Maybe sons are what Mark could handle. Little did either of us know there would be four!
Mark and I worked together on plans for the new house and then watched it being built as my belly grew. Friends held a baby shower for me, and I prepared a small nursery in the house while Mark continued to keep his fingers crossed for a boy. I was able to continue playing golf and tennis and even worked planting fields at Coosaw while pregnant, though I did tire more easily as I grew quite large. Mark joined me at one Lamaze class before deeming it a waste of his time since, as he explained, “I’ve spent many long nights helping cows give birth and I know what to do when the baby gets stuck.” Of course, many fathers still didn’t attend births in those days, so Mark didn’t really feel he needed to know too much about the human birthing process. Instead, my sister Kathy came to be with me for the birth. We spent lots of time taking bike rides on the cobblestone streets in Charleston hoping to help nudge delivery along, to no avail.
When I was almost two weeks overdue, my labor was induced. Delivered at 10 pounds, 5 ounces, on June 23, our first son, Marshall, was a healthy, very content baby whom Mark delightfully began to refer to as the “little man.” Mark was instantly a very proud and very
Similar Books
