From one Commonwealth to another

The past few weeks have been highlighted by several wonderful trips to Ashland, Kentucky, where Bon Secours has a hospital. Whatever it is that Jarom does at work needs to be done at that hospital, so he had to travel out there for a week to do some stuff. He doesn’t mind the 6 hour drive, the staying in a hotel and the eating out all the time, but he definitely hates leaving Lix and the kids. While he was there Jenna learned that daddy was in Kentucky, and decided that she does not like Kentucky because it takes her daddy away. But it was only for a few days, and then he was back and performing his favorite parenting task, putting Jenna to bed.

If it is humanly possible, Jenna has increased the amount of time she spends talking. She pretty much doesn’t ever stop, and her vocabulary is growing every day. Recently they have started to work on her Spanish, and Jenna has grown quite fond of it. She enjoys learning new words and practicing the ones that she already knows, and will often ask how to say new things in Spanish. Most of what she knows comes from a book that she reads. It consists mainly of animals, colors, numbers, and a few household items. She also knows please and thank you. Her bilingualism has proven to be quite a crowd pleaser at parties and other adult gatherings. The other thing that she started to do the past few weeks is sing the hymns in church. She has always enjoyed the music, and has been helping to conduct for many months, but singing along is new. She does pretty well, and it’s pretty cute.

Bo has been doing stuff too. His personality is starting to show more and more, and his parents are very pleased to say that it is delightful. If you had asked either Lix or Jarom two years ago who the best baby ever was, they would have told you Jenna. And she was pretty good. She slept pretty well, didn’t cry a whole lot, and was pretty smiley. But compared to Bo, she was a menace. We can probably count on two hands the number of times that Bo has actually cried. He grunts sometimes, and will sort of yell at you if you take his bottle away to burp him, but as far as real crying goes, nothing. And he is as smiley as any kid I’ve ever seen. When you go to get him out of his crib after a nap or in the morning, he just smiles and giggles at you. Half the time you can’t get him to put a binky back in his mouth because he won’t stop smiling at you. And he loves to talk to you. He will sit and mimic the sounds you make for as long as you want. It is one of his favorite games. He is also figuring out how to play with toys, and enjoys swatting and grabbing at things, especially if those things make noise when he touches them. And the young men at church can’t get enough of him. Part of that is because he is a pleasant baby, but most of that is due to the fact that the Gayton ward has the most maternal, loving, baby-hungry group of 14-18 year olds in the world. It is quite strange and very amusing.

This past week Lix crossed off another thing from her home improvement list when she stained the deck. Her original plan called for one can of Thompson’s Water Seal (Honey Gold tinted) and 1-2 hours in the early morning before it got too hot. At about 10 Jarom was sent back to Home Depot for another can, with a third can being purchased a few hours after that. So the budget and the time frame both tripled. But she finished it, and now the deck looks like it has been rain-xed. And anyone within a 50 yard radius of the house got to listen to her singing along with her music at 100 decibels. She sings beautifully.

And now Jarom is back in Kentucky, where he will be for the next 3 weeks. Nobody in the family is overly thrilled about that, but I guess these are the sorts of things you have to do if you want to keep the really nice job that you have.