A Man Apart

This week’s post comes from a lonely house with no Alixa and no Jenna. They packed up their bags and left town after a particularly hurtful argument on Wednesday night. Fortunately, plane tickets had already been purchased and plans made to visit both sets of grandparents in the great states of Utah and Idaho for a period of 14 days, during which time Alixa will hopefully think about the things that she said and return to Richmond ready to apologize and repair what is left of her relationship with Jarom.



Word on the street is that the girls are having a wonderful time, enjoying the lack of humidity and the abundance of Café Rio. There are old friends to visit, grandparents to take advantage of, and plenty of other stuff to keep them busy.

Jenna was lucky and got her own seat on one leg of the flight

Last week Jenna got some shots, and perhaps they made her a little bit sick, or perhaps she just got a little bit sick and it is unrelated to the shots she got. But one way or another, she was not feeling well and simply refused to go to bed. Lix and Jarom had both taken a shot at rocking her to sleep, and she would get quiet and rest until they left the room, at which point she would start crying again. It was Jarom’s turn to go console her, only this time she wouldn’t settle down even when he was holding her. After a few minutes Lix came up to see why Jarom couldn’t fix her. It was about this time that Jenna began coughing pretty hard, and it became clear that something bad was about to go down. Or come up. After a few coughs Jenna puked rancid, chunky, vomit all over her dad. And while that is certainly gross, it wasn’t the vomit on his shirt and shorts that hit him the hardest. It was the pungent, nose-burning odor that accompanied it. Fortunately it was Jarom who was holding her at the time and not Alixa. His response to vomit is to contain it in as small an area as possible, while hers is to spread it around everywhere. As soon as Jenna was finished they moved to the bathroom where they climbed into the tub and took a shower while Lix removed the offending articles of clothing and washed them or burned them or something. As a side note, at what point does father-daughter nudity become inappropriate? Anyway, they got cleaned up and Jenna seemed to feel better, because she went right to sleep and didn’t wake up for about 12 hours.

At Build-A-Bear with Mom and Grandma

And that isn’t the only trouble she’s been causing lately. It seems that Jenna is as smart as she is portly, and she has figured out how to use temper tantrums to express her displeasure. While sometimes cute, they can also be a little embarrassing. One of Jenna’s favorite things to do while shopping with Mom is to push the carts around the stores. It is pretty funny to watch, because she works very hard and refuses to stop pushing, even when she has hit an obstacle or you are holding onto the cart. So when the shopping trip is over and Lix is in the checkout line, she has to make Jenna stop pushing, which triggers ear-piercing shrieks from Jenna and prompts all kinds of disapproving, judgmental stares from nearby shoppers who seem to be wondering why this lady can’t control her little rat.

But for now the little rat and her mom are enjoying the West and Jarom is seeing what his life would be like if her were still single. He keeps trying to pick up women, but has yet to have any success. Maybe he should start wearing his wedding ring, I hear that sometimes helps. Enjoy the amusing series of video clips of Jenna trying to ride her car.