Category Archives: Adventures of Ben & Teyanna

Nora Evelyn Munyan

Nora Evelyn Munyan was born March 1 at 1:33 am, 7 pounds 8 oz, 19.5 inches long, and beautiful & perfect as can be!

For those who don’t mind gory/medical details, her birth story is here.

We liked the name Nora which means “sun ray or shining light.” Evelyn is after Teyanna’s Grandmom Schollian and Aunt Donna’s middle names – Ervina & Lynn (Dorothy Ervina Schollian is Teyanna’s dad’s mom and Donna Lynn is Teyanna’s dad’s sister). Evelyn means “desired, wished for” or “water, island”, Ervina means “sea friend or green water” and Lynn means “lake or waterfall”. Grandmom Schollian and Aunt Donna are both strong women who love to serve and help others. They love their people (and really love their animals). Nora Evelyn you are a wished for child and already a ray of sunshine in our family. We hope that you can grow to be strong yet flowing and flexible like water and loving, serving, and strong like my Grandmom Schollian and Aunt Donna… okay enough cheese 😉 and now for some pictures:

Hospital pics (3/1-3/2):

Meeting big brother (3/2-4):

Photo shoot 3/10:

Nora’s Birth Story

She felt late since big brother was 11 days early but was right on time – water broke about 6am on her due date 2/28/2021! No contractions but we asked our nanny to come at 4pm & got ready. At 12:30 went on a walk and got a couple contractions but nothing really consistent. Then during Davin’s nap, about 2pm we tried acupressure and it immediately worked and contractions started being more intense and started being pretty regular every 5 minutes! I hurried up and showered, finished packing, asked sitter to come at 3:30, and headed out to Vandy! I was 6cm dilated when I got there and contractions were feeling pretty intense; luckily I got laughing gas pretty quick since I already had a negative covid test from 2 days before (otherwise I would have to do a test there and wait for the result to come back). About 90 minutes later at 6pm was I was 9 cm dilated! Exciting, since with Davin I never made it past 8 cm (was stuck there for 12 hours and then ended up with a C-section). But I was having lots of back pain and contractions were super intense (much more so than with Davin, probably because things I dilated so quickly) and even w great support from Ben & Heidi, I decided I wanted an epidural. The epidural was great and even tho I was limited to being on the bed, I was moving positions more than before since contractions had been so intense I hadn’t wanted to change positions at all. By 9pm I was 10cm and got to start pushing… By 1am baby girl’s heart was going down too much with every other contraction, and the OBGYN that oversees my midwives said I got the choice of forceps or C-section. I chose the first and after upping my epidural Nora was born just a couple minutes later! She had a good set of lungs and a trembling lip cry (cute & sad that makes you want to do whatever she wants lol).

So glad she was healthy and perfect and that the epidural worked so well! …especially since I ended with 3 tears – a minor/1st degree tear in the normal perineal area and also tears on both sides from the forceps :-/… It was great to get to hold her right away (vs with Davin I got to see him but then he and Ben left while they finished stitching me up from the C-section). I was still pretty cold & shaky after the birth but not as bad as with Davin’s. They say it is probably from IV fluids and the epidural. I had a little scare several hours later when I tried peeing for the first time post catheter and instead of pee I got tons of blood… so more IV fluids and I got the catheter back in (no laughing gas or epidural this time, so not very pleasant). But it was out and everything was good by Tuesday morning. And Tuesday evening we got to go home!

So glad I had such awesome support from Ben, and our doula Heidi, and a great team at Vandy! And so glad for awesome people watching Davin at home – our nanny of 2 yrs, Sam, came over to stay the 1st night and my cousin Juleen, who lives 30 minutes away, came over with her 4 month old the 2nd night. Thank you thank you!

January & February 2021

January:

Davin turned 3!!! In the morning he had lots of fun playing with presents – he of course loved all the new trucks – big ones for outside from Nana & Papa and lots of lego ones from us and Grandpa Schollian & Mimi! And I think he likes the sit & spin and “wobble board” but I’m not sure they are worth the space they take up lol. The week before, we combined my office and the guest room, to empty out a room for the nursery; and we stole the dresser/changing table for the nursery room that Ben made for Davin 3 yrs ago. As a birthday present to Davin (and so he wouldn’t miss the dresser) Ben made him a chest and some awesome book shelves! It turned out beautifully! Davin was having too much fun with toys and so we didn’t have time that morning to do bumper cars, but tried it the next week – and of course Davin was super excited until it was time to get on and he decided it was too scary lol.

After nap we did a little get together with some of his friends. We couldn’t do an indoor jungle gym like last year, due to covid, but a couple of Davin’s neighborhood playgroup friends braved a cold day (well 45 is cold for my AZ blood lol) and met us at the field at the park – we shot off some rockets, the kids had a couple snacks, kicked balls around, and he loved the 3 balloon a friend brought! Then my cousin, her husband, & baby joined us for dinner and Davin was very excited about the truck cake!

We can’t believe Davin is 3 already! He is usually super sweet (with a decent dose of stubborn-ness and sass lol), wants to help and asks all the questions (but why?!?), and is a daddy’s boy (tho a little less extreme than the year he was one – he does want mommy to sing a bajillion bedtime songs & stories … trying to shorten that but Davin is winning still lol). Purple and sometimes pink are his favorite colors. He loves all things trucks & cars & vehicles, likes nanny share and home preschool and recognizes a few letters, potty trained back in April but still is in a crib and wears pullups for sleep. We ended pacis in September, and he still takes a 2 hr nap about 5 out of 7 days. My favorite Davinism he came up with is “I love you all the time!” <3 Also, “Don’t do that ever again!”… referring to us washing his hair lol.

February:

We got all ready and tried to quarantine more than normal. Even tho her due date is 2/28 we thought baby girl would be here around Feb 17 (Davin was 11 days early)… But luckily for us she didn’t come that week as we had a huge snow storm. We didn’t get mail or really leave our street for the week of 2/14-2/20, but we did have some fun in the snow. It was the first real snow Davin has played in as we usually only get snow dustings that melt by noon. After Davin saw Dad try a sled (thanks to some awesome neighbors for letting us borrow and join in the fun!) he got brave enough to try it too! The first few days the snow was too icy, but we finally got some softer snow and made a snowman. Then by February 24th is was back in the 70s and so I took Davin to the zoo since I figured it might be a last chance for a Davin & Mom adventure before baby. Davin really wanted to ride the train so after a long 30-45 minute wait we did that for the 1st time and he was very excited to ride the caboose.

December 2020

We debated weather or not we should travel in December given Covid, but since we figured we weren’t going to do any travel with a newborn for a good while, we booked an AZ trip for Davin & I to AZ Dec 9-14 (to see my sister, mom&stepdad, and extended family on my mom’s side), then we were going to quarantine at home for 10 days and then do DC trip for Christmas. My sister and BIL were also planning on coming from AZ, we hadn’t been to DC to see Munyans or Schollians (my dad and his family) in 1.5 yrs and my sister hadn’t seen my dad et al for 3.5 yrs. Since Ben & I were working from home, we figured it would be easy to quarantine before DC but my sister is a dental hygienist and we ended up deciding to cancel the trip since we didn’t want to risk her bringing any germs to my 90 yr old grandparents. Hopefully we can make it out there at the end of summer!

Davin and I did have a fun trip to AZ! We stayed with my mom & stepdad and got to see my sister, BIL, and my Memmott family on my mom’s side. It was perfect weather and we had lots of fun at the park, petting zoo, and doing a little train ride with his 2nd cousin, Thea. He loved all the different toys at my mom’s and sat on her bed for hours playing with little cars/trucks/helicopters. Even tho it was only 1 hour difference in time zone, he got up every day 2.5 hrs earlier than normal :-/ and sometimes had a hard time taking a nap. I think it was probably the last trip we will try to squish him in a pack n play. When we got home, I had a hard time waking him up the next morning even after letting him sleep 13.5 hours that night lol! I guess there is nothing quite the same as your own bed!

Then we had a nice quiet Christmas here in Nashville. We did have Christmas Eve dinner with Davin’s friend Juni’s family and we had lots of outside fun – saw the Christmas lights at Cheekwood, went to the zoo some more with Hank and DadMan, Warner with Hank, had a New Years party at the park with Davin’s neighborhood playgroup, and a few firepits. New Years weekend, Davin’s bestie, Hank, moved to Chicago. Hank was Davin’s first friend – Teyanna & Hank’s mom, Beth, met up with the babies at the park when Davin was just about 4 months old. There was lots of tears shed on the mom’s parts; hopefully, we can find somewhere to meet up or visit between here & Nashville in 2021!

Fall 2020

In September & October, we had lots of fun times at our neighborhood pumpkin patch, did a 3 mile hike at Warner, Car Museum (cars were cool but hard not to touch and Davin just wanted to sit on Ben’s shoulders forever staring at the kid play area that was closed for Covid … someday kiddo), made homemade chocolate bars (thanks for sending it Vandy!), zoo with Davin’s friend Ollie and zoo with Daddy (someone loves the carousel!), and neighborhood pumpkin carving (where Davin discovered cookies lol).

Early October, the “Paci Fairy” traded Davin’s pacifiers out for a toy garbage truck. Sleep was a bit of a challenge for few days but he was very excited about the truck and didn’t really cry for the pacis at least. And October-November, Ben got to go back to campus (first time since early March) and teach his 3 classes live on Monday/Wednesdays. Half the class would come on Mondays and half on Wednesdays so that they weren’t too crowded, which meant Ben had to make sure they were streaming online for the other half the class watching at home. I guess we should all be zoom experts after this.

For Halloween, no one knew who we were but we had fun dressing up as Davin’s TV show, Tumble Leaf – Ben as Fig the Fox, Tey as Maple, Davin as Stick the Caterpillar, and Lena as Hedge. We had fun doing a Halloween hunt at the park with some neighborhood playgroup friends, Cheekwood, and then Davin’s first time trick or treating! We hope this one good thing from Covid continues – instead of awkwardly having to open the door all night, our neighborhood set up cute tables by our mailboxes w candy the kids could get and we sat back around our fire pit in the driveway watching the costumes and got to talk more w neighbors who joined us at our fire!

In November we went back to Montgomery Bell State Park (where we camped in September) but got a cabin this time! We had a fun & chill 2 nights – and got lots more sleep than the tent!
We had to do Wednesday-Friday since every weekend was booked up this year, probably because everyone wants to get outside due to Covid! Unfortunately, on Tuesday Ben cut his finger bad on a new ax and had to get a couple of stitches – which kept him up til midnight so I convinced him to teach his last scheduled live classes (Wednesday) online so he could get a bit more sleep & recover before we had to head out Wednesday evening. The glamping trip was fun and fairly relaxing even if a bit of a stressful start there. Davin loved playing in the sand and making s’mores!

End November/early December we had more zoo, Cheekwood, & park fun with Davin’s friends Hank & Juni! And we had a nice small Thanksgiving (Nashville started recommending limiting indoor gatherings to 8 due to Covid) with Juni’s family – her mom & I are both doing gluten free so it was nice to split the cooking and not have to worry about that! Davin was all about the pumpkin pie!

And Lena may drive us a bit crazy sometimes with her barking & neediness lol but we never get tired of how sweet she is with Davin. #ADog&HerBoy #ABoy&HisDog

Summer End Adventures_2020

August we had a fun visit from 3 of Ben’s younger siblings, Sarah(26), John(17), & Jennifer(15),
who live in DC! We had fun canoeing/kayaking, going to the Grand Ole Opry indoor gardens, eating at an aquarium restaurant (1st indoor restaurant since covid!), walking around Shy’s Hill (Civil war cite by our house) and Centennial Park, and did 2 Escape Games (Davin loved it lol)!

Then for Labor Day weekend, Davin & I finally took our trip to AZ (originally booked for February but I kept rebooking for various reasons). It was Davin’s 15th & 16th flights and he did really well! We hadn’t flown since Christmas but he remembered we get pretzels on the plane lol. He doesn’t love using bathrooms outside our house but didn’t have any accidents the whole trip!… altho one day we drove 2 hrs to Payson AZ and held it for 9 hrs to avoid using public restrooms lol :-/. It was still surprisingly hot (110!) but we had fun swimming in my parents’ & cousin’s pool, playing in the stream in Payson, and playing on the playground before 8am … Which was actually doable because Davin didn’t adjust to the time change and woke up every day at 5:30/6am instead of 7:30/8 :-/… he was a bit grumpy some days cause I didn’t get him to bed by 6pm and he missed his nap 3 of 6 days (we survived with with Daniel TIger on the iPad those 3 days lol!) but we had lots of fun and he keeps asking to go back to Nana & Papa’s!

Later in September Davin saw some pics of us camping before he was born and got very excited about that, so we did a one night camping trip. He loved the fire and all the fire food – tin foil dinners (mostly just the hot dog in his lol), lots of marshmallows, and breakfast muffins & sausage! Unfortunately, it was a bit colder than we expected – he slept 3-4 hrs in his pack n play, then got cold (wouldn’t really keep covers on) and so we brought him to our air mattress to warm up w us… he was mostly awake from 1-4am … then finally slept 4-7am… while we were terrified to move and wake him lol… Not surprising he thought it was play time since we have never slept in the same room (much less same bed) since he was like 1 month old … but we might do a cabin instead of a tent next time lol.

And here are some pictures from August/September: Davin & Teddy (nanny share friend) dressing fancy, Canoeing with Teddy’s family, and Cheekwood with Hank!