And then there were 4

Most of you have heard the big news by now and are surely interested to hear about the new tenant in my room, but chronologically speaking, there are some things to cover first. Since the last post Jarom has been spending a lot of time around the house thanks to some fortunate scheduling at work. Things went pretty smoothly at the most recent facility installation that Jarom was working on, so his boss decided that they didn’t need to provide 24-hour on site help any more. But they still needed to be available to help whenever needed, so Jarom was assigned to be on call every night for a little while. This was good because it meant that he was able to spend the days with Jenna and Lix and help chase the little one around while Lix finished cooking the baby. He had a great time hanging out with Jenna, especially in the mornings. Jenna has recently kicked her reading habit up a notch, so the first thing that she says to you when you go into her room in the morning is “Book!” She will then sit in a bed, either hers or yours, and read book after book after book, even forgoing breakfast until she has read them. Then it was breakfast and bath time, and then off to visit a store or the children’s museum or the petting zoo that had been set up at the mall. Naptimes were accompanied with more book reading and some of Jenna’s other favorite pastime, jumping on the bed. Every day she got to watch an episode of Dinosaur train, a newfound love that she got from her cousin Luke on her last trip up to Delaware. The weather has been pretty nice so they could usually play outside, smashing dandelions or going on a bike ride. All in all, Jarom had a great week hanging out with her, and was very sad when there was no kid and he had to go back to work on Monday.

A small collection of Jenna's books, and reading them in bed

But his return to work wasn’t long lived. After several contractional false starts over the weekend, Alixa decided to take matters into her own hands and schedule a sewing date with one of her buddies for Wednesday evening, thus assuring her that she would go into labor and be unable to make it. Unfortunately, Wednesday was April 20th, or 4/20, which as we all know is the international reference to cannabis consumption. Alixa’s fear was that should the child be born on that day, he would be predestined to waste his life in the manner of Harold and Kumar on their search for the nearest White Castle. This trepidation was so significant that as they headed to the hospital and sat in the delivery room between nurse visits there were real discussions regarding whether or not to lie about the child’s birthday if he should arrive before midnight. Fortunately, they didn’t have to face that hopeless reality. The contractions didn’t get too intense until around 2 on Thursday morning. About that time Lix once again came to the conclusion that if there is a drug that can make all this pain go away, she should take it. So the anesthesiologist was brought in and an epidural was given. At 3:47, Blake Owen was born. He weighed in at 8 lbs, 2 oz, and was 22 inches long with a lot of very dark hair. He is a very calm and quiet baby, aced his apgars and barely peeped throughout the initial examinations. The only real complaint that the happy parents have about the entire process is that he came in the middle of the night instead of in the afternoon like his big sister. But St. Mary’s has a nursery and a lot of wonderful nurses who are happy to take your baby off your hands for a few hours while you sleep. Sadly, baby or no baby, there is no sleeping in a hospital because every 15 minutes someone is coming in to pick up the trash or drop off a tray of food or ask to take your baby’s picture or check your vitals or whatever else. And thus went Alixa’s 60-hour stay in the hospital. By the time it was over on Saturday morning, she was quite ready to leave. And of course there were lots of delays in the discharge process, as the doctor was busy and then the nurse was busy and then they couldn’t find someone to take her to the door in a wheelchair, and so on.













Once they were home they called the Bleyls, who had been kind enough to take care of Jenna for a few days. I’m pretty sure she missed her mom and dad, but she had a great time being away. Jenna got to hang out with Courtney, who is one of her favorite people, and also got to adopt three older brothers who were equally excited to have a new little sister around. She took a trip down to the James River, got to eat French fries while sitting on the floor in Courtney’s room, and got some sweet new pins that let everybody know that she is now a big sister. Now that everyone is back in the house, Jenna is slowly getting used to having a new baby. At their first meeting she was a little confused and mostly indifferent. Baby brother had always been an abstract idea that lived in mommy’s tummy, and now it was a real live person. She would look at him a little, but refused to give him a kiss. She has since grown to like him. Today when Lix went in to her room to wake her from her nap, she was excited to see mom carrying baby Bo. She has also started referring to the house as “Bo’s house” and will give him kisses. It looks like she is going to be a great big sister. All in all it was a pretty wonderful Easter weekend and we are all excited about the expanding family and very grateful that everybody is healthy and recovering well, and a special thanks to all the people who have graciously helped us out during the past week in so many different ways.

The Big Sister pins were courtesy of Conner and Courtney

He may have avoided 4/20, but it looks like he is still going to be a troublemaker

Happy Resurrection!

We are now entering the final stages of baby prep, which means that the kid will probably hang on in there for another 2 weeks, making all of our lives as uncomfortable and difficult for as long as possible. Jarom and Lix have been busy getting his room ready, which means changing what used to be my room into a nursery. When you don’t have a person occupying one of the rooms in the house it tends to be a collection point for all manner of things that you don’t really need or use, but you maybe don’t want to get rid of either. So the past few weeks have been a giveaway spree as Jarom has cleaned out the attic and gone through all the stuff that we don’t need. He got rid of several lamps, a whole bunch of old wedding presents that still hadn’t been used, a bookshelf and its corresponding books, including an especially painful delivery of Alixa’s treasured “Twilight” collection to the local library. But there is a lot more space now, and I am pretty sure Lix wasn’t ever going to read those books again anyway. And after much prodding and correction, Jenna has stopped calling the new baby brother Horsey and has returned to Bo. So that’s a plus.

Playing with Kenna's new AWESOME kitchen set

Jarom’s nesting phase hasn’t just been limited to the indoors. He also noticed, by himself and without any prompting from his wife, that the Crape Myrtle and Dogwood trees in the front yard needed to be pruned. So he swung by the Home Depot, got some pruning shears, watched a Youtube video and got to clipping. I don’t think they look any better right now, but much like every lesson you learned from your parents, apparently it’ll be good for them later.

Hanging out at the Children's Museum

While he was out in the yard working, he happened to catch a glimpse of the state inspection sticker on his car and remembered that they are good for one year, followed by the memory of moving to Richmond exactly one year and 2 months ago. So it was off to Midas to get that little oversight corrected. But as often happens at the auto repair shop, things are never as simple as you might hope. I guess after 120,000 miles sometimes the muffler needs to be replaced because it has rusted a hole in itself. No big deal, throw down a hundred bucks or so and get it taken care of. Well, not exactly. You see, Jarom’s parents lovingly bestowed upon him a luxury car, the likes of which he could never afford on his own, and for which he and his family are forever thankful. But this type of snootymobile can not be bothered with your standard, run-of-the-mill muffler. No, no, it needs the special $550 muffler that also cures cancer and has to be specially ordered from the manufacturer, and we all know how renowned manufacturers are for their discount pricing. But in a few days the part will arrive and Jarom will once again be driving a legally certified vehicle around the state of Virginia.

In their Easter dresses, pre-hunt

This past weekend the Winns of Richmond celebrated Easter. What’s that you say, Easter isn’t for another two weeks? Are you sure? Well, what’s done is done. Due to upcoming travel plans for the Nate Winn family and upcoming family expansion plans for the Jarom Winn family, they decided to hold their easter egg hunt a little early. They figured the kids don’t know what day Jesus came back to life anyway, so no big deal. Alixa and Kenz “hid” some eggs and assorted other dollar store treats out in the yard while Jarom and Nate played on Kenna’s new kitchen set, and then it was off to the races to see who could collect more loot. Much to Alixa’s surprise, Jenna seemed to be the more aggressive gatherer. But both girls had a lovely time and the adults sat around in the nice weather and chatted for a while afterwards. It is a nice time of year here in Richmond.

Savoring the fruits of their labor

The other cool thing that has been happening around here is Jarom’s long distance participation in an old friend’s conversion process. Carrie Fitzpatrick (now Fisher) was a friend of Jarom’s at good old AI dupOnt high and for about 8 years afterwards had been lost. But the miracle of facebook brought her back a few years ago, and they have emailed each other sporadically since then. Then a couple months ago he finds out that Carrie is getting divorced and has been hanging out with (and for a time, dating one) a bunch of mormon folks. Not long after, she started meeting the missionaries and wouldn’t you know it, she got baptized this past weekend. Now if you were to ask high school Jarom to provide the odds on each of his friends being baptized into the LDS church later in their lives, and you put $1 down on Carrie Fitzpatrick, you would now be very wealthy. And Carrie would tell you the exact same thing. But she did go with Jarom to seminary once, and I guess Sister Rice brought her A game that morning, because I doubt there has ever been a person more excited about joining the church than Carrie is. And it has been very cool for Jarom to be able to talk to her and listen to the changes that she is making and the excitement she has for her family’s future. It has also caused him to look back at some other people from his high school days and wonder what they may have become. I guess you never really know what sort of stuff is possible.

Hopefully, the next post will have a baby weight to go with it.

In case the first video wasn't enough for you. Notice that the documenters outnumber the documentees 1.5 to 1.

Nighttime...Daytime!...Nighttime...Daytime!

Jarom started his third Go-Live at work this past week, which means that they are installing the computer system that he works on at another hospital. It also means that he and his coworkers have to provide 24-hour support for a few weeks, and since he is a natural night owl Jarom is on the 11p-7a rotation. This is not a good situation for his marriage, because Alixa assumes that if you are home you should be hanging out with her and Jenna, and not sleeping. So to avert marital disaster, she packed up her bags and took Jenna up to Delaware to spend a week with cousins. Kristi was also having her bridal shower that weekend, so they were able to kill two birds with one painstakingly uncomfortable drive up the most congested interstate in the world.

Her week was spent hanging out with Jamie and Annie and their little ones, letting Jenna play in Grandma’s basement (which is the best place in the world for a one year old), trying to keep Jenna from contracting Luke’s illness, going to Carters to buy things that no child needs but every mother wants, and visiting with one of her best friends in the world, Amanda. Both girls had a great time, even though they missed Jarom a little. While there, Jenna discovered that she loves dinosaurs, and Luke has plenty of books and shows and toys to foster that new passion. This gave Alixa some much needed baby boy prep, as she will surely be able to tell the difference between a Pterosaur and an archaeopteryx, or a T-Rex and an Allosaurus in the not too distant future. The original plan was to return on Thursday, but there was quite a rainstorm that Lix had no desire to drive in. On Friday morning, she looked out the window and saw snow covering everything and wondered if perhaps the universe was telling her to get a divorce. But the snow melted and she was able to get back to Richmond safely, if not quickly.

Jenna still isn't sure how she feels about puppies

Jenna, Addison, and Hailey at the Children's Museum

Sometimes Brownie attacks Jenna in her sleep

Jarom wasn’t totally unproductive while they were away. He got the lawn mower out and cut the grass for the first time this season, which really should have happened a few weeks ago. He (along with his brother) also coached his young men’s basketball team to an undefeated season and the Stake tournament championship. The final was everything you might imagine, or see depicted in a bad Mormon comedy. There were technical fouls, ejections, obnoxious parents cheering on their obnoxious kids from the stage, and a couple of refs who could be heard muttering “why did I agree to do this” on several occasions. But in the end, the better team (Jarom’s) prevailed. And if the tournament gets canceled next year as a result of the stellar show of sportsmanship, as some are saying it will, that just means one more year as the reigning champs. He also managed to play some golf, watch some movies, and work a little bit. But he missed his family a lot, and could not have been happier to get them back after a week.

Everyone gathered around the computer enjoying the YouTube video below

Now that Lix is back the house is going all out to get ready for this new kid. There has been a whole lot of cleaning and organizing and getting rid of old stuff and putting junk up in the attic, and the result is a house that feels clean and tidy and a mom that feels like she is ready to add another rat to the mix. The due date is April 22, but I don’t think that Lix is going to make it that far. Bo will probably be here in a week or two. And speaking of Bo, Jenna has decided that she is not cool with that name. A few months ago when you asked her what baby brother’s name was, she told you Bo. Recently this changed, and neither Jarom nor Lix have any idea what prompted it. But now if you ask her, she says that the baby’s name is Horsey, and she will not be swayed, even if you try to correct her. We’ll see if she sticks with it. Maybe it’s a sign and we should actually use it.