Best. Mother's Day. Present. Ever.

Alixa Eve Hegewald-Winn has been on this planet for nearly 1,312 weeks, but the one that just past was one of her hardest. Wow, you might wonder, what could be so bad as to rank a week in the bottom .076 percentile? The answer lies in genetic defects. Everyone has certain genetic problems that manifest themselves in various ways and at various times during one’s life. Jarom has a number of genetic defects, from kidneys that are destined to fail to an abnormally low hairline to an inability to be wrong. These are challenges that he has either learned to deal with, or in the case of the kidneys, is counting on the medical community to overcome for him. Alixa’s genetic defects are no better or worse, simply different. She has red hair, is physically unable to use an “inside voice”, and would be unable to select her husband out of a lineup without some sort of optical aid. It is this last double-helixical flaw that is the cause of her recent consternation. For as long as he has known her, Jarom has been trying to convince Alixa to get Lasik surgery. You see, Jarom is blessed with good vision, and can’t fathom why anyone would want to deal with the constant annoyance of wearing glasses and putting on contact lenses and running out of the stupid saline solution and WHERE DID I PUT MY *%$#!&@ING GLASSES!?! He assumed that Lix would be excited to have lasers shot into her eye to fix her vision, but she seemed entirely uninterested. Every year when it came time to get her eyes checked and her contact prescription renewed he would practically beg her to go get a free consultation and see how much the surgery would cost, but she never would. Until last week. I guess she had finally had enough. So she went to her free consult and scheduled the laser. The catch was that she couldn’t wear her contacts during the 7 days before the procedure, so she had to wear her glasses all day, every day, all week long. By Thursday it had gotten so bad that she threatened Jarom’s life if he were to change his mind and tell her they could no longer afford it, because then all of her trials and tribulations would have been in vain.

Kenna sometimes likes to bug Jenna the same way Nate bugs Jarom

She is not a fan of grass and will go to great lengths to avoid stepping on it

In an effort to raise her spirits Jarom’s parents came down for the weekend to celebrate mother’s day. They arrived Friday around noon, just in time to grab a bite to eat and head out to play a round of golf on one of the most beautiful spring days you could dream up. Jarom and Nate teamed up to narrowly defeat Lix and Bruce by a single hole. Based on the hostility and trash talking, there will likely be a rematch, though I can’t imagine a different result. On Saturday morning Jarom drove Jenna over to Nate and Kenz’s house where Gramma had agreed to watch her, and then they headed to the surgery center. The whole process took about two hours from start to finish, and the actual lasering only lasted 15 or 20 minutes. Jarom had been hoping for something like the last starfighter, but it was rather boring to watch. Afterwards Lix got to wear these really dark sunglasses and walk around like a blind person. For about six hours her eyes burned and were very tired, but then it all kind of just goes away. And now she has 20/20 vision in one eye and 20/15 in the other, and can even see what time it is in the middle of the night without putting on her glasses. She is thrilled with the results, with a few minor exceptions. She isn’t allowed to wear makeup for a week, and she isn’t supposed to do much swimming, which is unfortunate because we will soon be in the Hawaiian Islands.

Mother’s day was great, and Alixa enjoyed all of her presents. She got some cards, some JellyBellys, several thousand dollars worth of eye surgery, some brand new fancy-pants sunglasses to protect the several thousand dollars worth of eye surgery, and a super cute frame with a picture of her daughter and a little foam handprint. It is only her first mother’s day of many, but she sure loves being a mom and taking care of Jenna and watching her grow and learn and figure stuff out. Speaking of that, we got some pictures from Kenz that span the past few months, and it is pretty weird to look at photos of Jenna from a few months ago. It is hard to believe how different she can look in just a month or two.

Jenna and Kenna, from February to May