Separate, But Equal

My wonderful summer in Delaware is beginning to come to a close. It has already ended for Alixa and Jenna, who left town earlier this week. They are currently (at least as of this writing) west of Omaha, somewhere in middle America. They are in a green Ford Excursion that is stuffed to the gills with people and luggage. The travel party consists of Alixa, Jenna (1 month), Loni, Alli (5), Madison (4), Taya (9 months), and Nancy (62). It isn’t exactly an ideal road trip crew. They are covering about 400 miles a day and have already had stops in Cleveland to see Omi, Champaign-Urbana to see Uncle Bill and Aunt Jene, and Omaha to see the College World Series. Tonight they get to sleep in Cheyenne (I’m not sure what there is to see there) and then it is on to Shelly Idaho, home of the Fightin’ Russets! For the most part the kids have been good, although there are frequent bathroom stops and eating stops and driver changing stops and any other kind of stop you can think of. They drove through Kickapoo, Illinois and decided that no place was a more appropriate stopping point for diaper changing. There have been a few blowouts and spit-ups, but the women seem to be having a good time.

Taya and Jenna, cousins and travelmates

Jenna is (reportedly) getting cuter by the day, and now smiles more than ever. Unfortunately, she continues to lose her hair, augmenting her “old man” look. Jarom will be flying out to Idaho tomorrow with Annie and her three little rats (an adventure all it’s own), so he will get to spend a week with more family members than you can shake a stick at. In the meantime, he has spent his newfound bachelor time golfing with his dad, eating out, not waking up in the middle of the night, and bleaching the trashcans to get rid of the rotten food/messy diaper odor that had become attached to them. I would be lying if I told you that he didn’t enjoy it, but at the same time he is very excited to see his wife and daughter this weekend.

This poor girl's mother thinks that monstrous bows on her head are cute

Last week Jenna had her first professional photography session, to mixed reviews. Nate and Kenz brought baby K up with them for the weekend, so Grandma wanted to get some shots with the three newborns. You can imagine how cooperative three newborns would be with a photographer, so there are no pictures with three happy children. It was good to see Nate and family, and it was almost pleasant to hear a baby crying at night that wasn’t Jenna. Nate also had a birthday yesterday, reaching the big 2-6. That means that he has entered the one month each year where Jarom is only one year older. The fact that they are so close in age only makes Nate’s crippling case of Younger Brother Syndrome all the more puzzling, an issue that was discussed by Jarom, Jesse, and Bruce as they celebrated the absence of their wives. No matter how many degrees he has, how much money he makes, or how successful he is in all aspects of life, Nate inevitably reverts to his 9-year old form if Jason or Jarom are present, deferring to them in all things and generally acting like a little brother. It is quite the sight. At any rate, Happy Birthday to Nate, and my apologies for not sending a present. Jarom won’t take me to the store, and I have no money anyway.

A couple of old pics that I think are sort of cute

Ektorp, Aspvik, and Heimdal

It’s a pretty big week for the Winns. On Friday Jarom and Alixa will have been married for five long, painful, torturous years. Jarom still doesn’t have a career, but the family now has another mouth to feed. Awesome. He wanted to get something nice for Lixi that fit with the theme for 5th anniversaries, so first he had to find out what that theme was. It turns out the traditional gift is wood, which represents strength and a solidified relationship, while the modern gift is silverware. I’m not sure how it jumped from wood to silverware, or what people have been eating off of for the last 5 years, but I highly doubt that Jarom will be buying a new set of silverware this week. Maybe he will get her a stick.






Lix is getting pretty good at dealing with Jenna, and seems to have a good time with her all day while Jarom is at work. They go on walks around the neighborhood every day so that Jenna can enjoy the weather and Lix can work of the baby weight. Lix’s dad told her that if she lost 40 pounds by Christmas he would sponsor a $200 shopping spree at the stores of her choosing. You might as well dangle a t-bone steak in front of a hungry lion. She is already doing great and will probably reach that goal by October. Jenna also spent her first full day out on a visit up to Jason and Annie’s place in Frazer. They got to see the puppy store, where you can play with the world’s cutest puppies, and took a trip to IKEA, something that Lix has wanted to do for years. It was a pretty neat experience, and a very interesting store. She had hoped for slightly lower prices, and perhaps one or two product names that she could actually pronounce, but did get to try an amazing $1 cinnamon bun. Her biggest complaint was actually the shopping carts, which have for fully rotating wheels instead of the standard American fixed-rear-wheel design. She just couldn’t get the hang of it.






Jenna also experienced her first days without at least one grandma around. It was a good chance to let mom and dad figure things out on their own, but she was plenty thrilled when grandma got back from her week-long sojourn to Africa. I think that grandma was equally excited to get back to her, so Jarom and Lix left them alone and took grandpa out to play nine holes of golf. Alixa is getting ready to play with her dad and brothers in August, and performed admirably, especially when considering her long layoff and recent traumatic hospitalization. The Winns got matched up with a single golfer, who fit the mold of ageless black people. Lix thought he was about 25 until he started talking about his 18 year old child. Grandpa would have had the lowest score, but he had a Van de Veldean breakdown on the second tee and hit 4 consecutive balls into the lake on the left side of the fairway.

These two pics are from last weeks trip to Longwood Gardens with Amanda,

Jenna's first real trip outside!

This is the best picture (out of 1000) taken by grandma while in Africa. Poor Giraffe.

The next big thing for the Winns is a trip out west to Idaho and Utah to visit family and friends August 1-18. If you live in that area and would like to see them, you should let them know. I can’t make any promises for them, but I’m sure they will do their best to squeeze you into their schedule.

Book 'em, Danno

Happy Fourth, thanks to Omi for the outfit

Some of my more astute readers (I’m looking at you Annie) may remember that several weeks ago I wrote about Jarom getting a warning for driving too fast through a 25 mph zone. The site of that near-ticket is a speed trap that often has a policeman and is on the way to Jarom’s job. In an effort to not get speeding tickets without having to actually obey ridiculous speed limits that are far lower than they should be, Jarom changed the route that he takes to work every day. It seems that the police have caught wind of this, because yesterday they changed the location of their speed trap to his new route. The speed trap is set in a small 25 mph zone of Valley Road, which is a 45 mph road everywhere else.

This event has prompted a few deep thoughts. I must first tell you that the ticket was avoided. As Jarom was about to enter the slow speed zone, an oncoming SUV began flashing its brights, a well understood signal for “annoying police speed trap ahead.” So he was careful to keep the needle below 30, saving himself a great deal of frustration and anger. Unfortunately, he could only watch in his rear view mirror as the next car to come through was stopped and (presumabry) cited. The lady in the SUV did not know Jarom. If she chose not to warn him, her day would have undoubtedly remained unchanged, but Jarom’s would have been much worse. And this got me thinking about the little things that anyone can do to be nice to other people. Often times they are small, easy things like flashing your lights, and most of the time there will be no thank you or reward at the end, other than feeling good because you did something nice. But those actions can have a profound effect on the people who receive them. So on behalf of Jarom, and speed-limit-ignorers everywhere, I thank you SUV-lady.

The next thought that came from this is how incredibly irritating police are. Which is a real shame, because police should be a positive image in people’s minds. Unless you are a drug dealer, a thief, or some other unscrupulous profession, your perception of cops should be a positive one. They should be there to make sure that your life goes smoother. They do a lot of good things for society, and fill a dangerous job that needs to be done. But they don’t do themselves any favors by setting up ridiculous speed traps. If you are a generally law-abiding citizen, your only interaction with the police is when you get pulled over for driving a few miles per hour too fast on the road or failing to come to a complete stop at an empty intersection, situations that are neither reckless nor dangerous. Cops could be/ should be/ maybe are really good people who deserve our thanks and respect, but nobody is going to like you if they only see you doling out hefty fines for harmless violations that shouldn’t even be illegal.

But you guys don’t really care about that junk. Mostly you want to hear about how Jenna is keeping Alixa and Jarom up at night, causing them to do roughly 5 loads of laundry per day as she spits up on all of her clothes, and how baffled Jarom is by the sheer volume of soiled diapers that such a small thing is able to produce. She is actually a pretty good baby, and most nights sleeps for 5-7 hours at a time. She hit her first growth spurt this week, which meant feedings nearly every hour for a few days. She is beginning to display a variety of facial expressions, including an assortment of smiles. Unfortunately, she is still figuring out how to work her muscles, so she usually looks semi-retarded. Lix has the unenviable task of trying to get a picture of her smiling cutely, but hasn’t really succeeded yet. Lix did take her on her first trip this week, an excursion to Longwood Gardens with our friend Amanda, and has begun to go on walks with her, which is a good step for both baby and mom. I’ll have some pictures of that up soon.

A good example of the retardation above, and then a little cuter below

Grandma likes to compare Jenna to a baby bald eagle. What do you think?

Sleeping comfortably?

Sometimes she likes to support the team while she sleeps. Yea!

Snarfles

Snarfles is a name that Jarom has taken to calling his daughter, the result of some strange snorting noises that she sometimes makes when she is crying or eating. Most of you won’t understand this, but the closest approximation I can give you is that she sounds like our friend Melissa Ross when she laughs. My poll of the week for you readers is this: Is snarfles a cute, endearing pet name or is it mean-spirited and the cause of far-off self esteem issues?

And now to catch you all up on the last week. Last Friday evening Alixa’s parents and younger sister arrived at the hospital to begin their 4-day visit. Jenna is grandchild number one for the Hegewalds, so they were especially excited to meet her. And to throw a little spice into the situation, they camped in the Winns home during their stay. That makes for a lot of grandparents in one house, and Jenna can only be held for twenty-four hours each day. But everyone behaved themselves and there were no territorial fights (that I saw) over the grandchild. It was nice to have lots of family here to play games with and golf with and chat with, and it is nice to have so many volunteers who are willing (read begging) to take a baby off your hands. The Hegewalds had to leave on Tuesday morning so that Mario could get back to work, but we were glad to have them for a few days.

Week 1

Click the picture to go to a photo album with more pictures of stuff

Slowly but surely Jarom and Lix are learning how to be parents, and Jenna is becoming more interesting every day. She moves around more and more, and has developed a decent array of facial expressions, including smiling. This will have to do until she can learn how to talk, which should be pretty soon. At her doctor’s appointment this week we found out that she got a 9 on her APGAR test, which tells us that she inherited her father’s test-taking ability and is pretty much a genius. And we’re pretty sure that a scoring error is what kept her from getting a 10.



While her brain is developed far beyond her age, her body is about 3 months behind. She was born a week overdue, but didn’t spend any of that time growing. The outfit that Lix packed in her hospital bag was designed for a newborn, but it might as well have been a sleeping bag for her. Most of the clothes that the Jenna has are in the 0-3 month size, which may not fit her until January. For right now, Jamie has graciously sent Jenna a box full of premie clothes that fit her pretty well. We are hoping that since she eats 28 times a day she will rapidly grow into the clothes that we have for her.

A few examples of what a runt Jenna is

As for me, I am suffering from “older child syndrome”, which just means that I no longer get any attention. To add insult to ignorance, Jarom went out and bought a lock for my cage because of continued concerns that I will eat Jenna. Just because I am a snake doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings, and they are a little hurt right now.