The Market

If Nolan had been born on his due date he would be one week old today. I thought about this today as I headed to the Market in downtown Charleston with my husband and friends Stacey and Susan. The last time I was at the Market I was pregnant with Nolan. Marshall and I had stopped to look at some wooden toys and found a cute little wooden dog that would open and close his mouth as if barking when you rolled him around. The man at the booth wouldn't take our money for the dog but said it was a gift for the baby and told us "God Bless." We had several such occurrences late in my pregnancy where people felt inclined to give us things - toys, their thoughts and advice, pick up our lunch tab. Several times Marshall mentioned how odd it was that when the two of us were together these occurrences happened. We often wondered if this happened to other pregnant couples. Surely it did, right? Just because none of our previously pregnant friends had not told us about this happening to them didn't mean it didn't happen. But to us it seemed as though when we were together we had some aura about us that drew people to us. We liked to think it was karma and because we tried to put good karma out there, it was coming back to us via all these kind people. I was sad today when I walked by the same table with the wooden toys and thought about what we would buy for Nolan from there today had he still been with us. Marshall relayed the story to Susan and Stacey as we passed by the table.












All and all we had a fun day in Charleston. It is a beautiful city and was fun to see Stacey and Susan explore it for the first time ever. Besides the market, we wandered around downtown looking at the beautiful alleyways and houses. We laughed a lot and saw a lot of beautiful things - artwork, houses, wildlife. It was good to be out of Wilmington again for a bit and of course it was great to be with my husband again. Unfortunately, it was Marshall's only day off this weekend as they are filming tomorrow. But we tried to make the most of it and the most of our time together.

In my in-law's neighborhood we finally saw an alligator! It was so exciting that we had to stop the car, get out and take pictures with it. Fortunately, it was on the other side of the pond so we weren't too tempting for it to come try to eat. It wasn't the big 8 ft one that's been spotting behind my in-law's house, but was a smaller 5 ft one.

To add to the excitement of the day, we also spotted some geese with their babies in my in-law's neighborhood. We also stopped to take pictures with them but when Marshall got out of the car, the Momma goose was not happy with him and started hissing and coming at him. Needless to say Marshall knew better than to mess with a Momma protecting her babies so he got back into the car and we left them alone. As we drove off they waddled away back towards the pond. Watching them go I thought how beautiful it was - these geese with their babies. So many animals in the wild simply have babies and walk away from them, but not these geese. They protect their babies and would take on an animal or human 5x their size just to protect their offspring. They are a lot like human mothers in that way. At least a lot like I would be and will be over any child I'm blessed to have. I'm pretty sure that saying "I would kill someone for my kid" is without a doubt true.

We attempted to go to dinner at Red's on Shem Creek but so did about half of Charleston, so we ended up opting for a nearby pizza joint. Since it was late and the pizza place was closing shortly, we sat outside on the picnic table under a huge canopy of tree. It was beautiful under there and the restaurant had hung pendant lights from the tree branches. It reminded me of something you would see in a movie, not outside a pizza place.

All in all it was a fun day with friends and my husband. Like all good times, it ended too quickly and Marshall has to go back to work tomorrow. On the up side, we are going to visit him on set so that should make work somewhat more enjoyable for him tomorrow.