OBX

The very funny comedian Jim Gaffigan says that if you want to know what it is like to have a fourth child, imagine you are drowning…and then someone hands you a baby. Since there are currently only three children here in this house, that means that we are in the drowning stage. Sounds about right. Having this third kid has been an incredible challenge. And not because any of the three of them have been particularly troublesome. Taken individually, Jenna, Bo, and Emily are all really good kids. Sure they have their challenging quirks, whether it is Emmy’s refusal to take a nap, Bo’s schizophrenia, or Jenna’s inability to eat even the smallest of snacks in less than 90 minutes. But by themselves none of those things are such a big deal. However, putting them together is like assembling some sort of Voltronic superchallenge that can’t be defeated. Alixa is a trooper and seems to be handling the challenge much better than Jarom, to the point that she is still convinced that she would like to have someone hand her that baby while she is drowning. Jarom feels irritable and exhausted and at his wits end 24 hours a day now and can’t imagine a scenario where he would willingly add one more kiddo to the mix. In fact he has such a short fuse these days that he nearly killed his little sister in front of the rest of his family (more on that later.)

So when things are crazy and hectic at home with 3 kids under 5, what should you do? If you said put everybody into a car and drive for 26 hours to stay a week in a house that contains 2 dozen other small children, you are insane. That is what the Winns did, and they are insane. So on the afternoon of August 9^th Jarom and Alixa packed up the minivan, which had been purchased at least partly in preparation for this very trip, and headed east. The trip was split into three legs. Jarom and Alixa alternated driving. Jarom went first. The kids were pretty good and the van was a great set up. It had plenty of space and allowed Lix to sit in one of the captain’s chairs in the back with the little ones. They watched movies and played games on the iPad and took naps and asked if we were there yet. Jarom’s shift didn’t end until about 7:30 am on Saturday morning when they had just passed Knoxville. It was a long, lonely night trying not to fall asleep, and he did have to make a couple of pit stops just to get out and do a few wind sprints, but he stayed on the road and nobody died. They grabbed a quick breakfast at Cracker Barrel and then Lix took her turn while Jarom tended the kids, but mostly took a nap. At about 10 am Alixa informed Jarom that she was getting a little bit sleepy and asked if he could take over the driver seat once again. So the third leg began and went for another 9 hours or so, finally ending up in a torrential downpour while sitting on the highway 12 parking lot that led to their beach house.

The week was spent doing things that you might imagine: swimming in the pool, swimming in the ocean, building sand castles, burying people in the sand, playing football in the sand, chasing crabs in the sand, taking pictures in the sand, trying to stand up paddleboard on the stormiest day when the ocean was particularly choppy, playing a round of golf, chasing sand pipers into the surf, getting knocked over by the surf, crying because you got sand in your mouth, flying kites on the windy days, watching movies with cousins, trying to do a live draft with a dozen people for our fantasy football league, sitting in more traffic on highway 12, and trying to get all that sand out of everyone’s clothes. It was good fun. Arguably the best fun happened one evening as the family was preparing to play a board game. Depending on whom you ask you will get different versions of this story. You may check this version for accuracy with pretty much any Winn family member, as they were basically all there. It began with Nate throwing a wet paper towel at Alixa’s face (Nate usually omits that part when he tells this). A few minutes later Jarom tossed that same wet paper towel at Jamie to indicate to her that she can be done playing the cups now. From there it escalated rapidly. First Jamie retaliated with plastic cups that she had been using as musical instruments, but that wasn’t enough so she then threw a plastic water bottle that still had most of the water in it. Upon hitting Jarom’s face the top came off, soaking Alixa and Loni, who were sitting next to him. This upset Jarom and he got up and went around to the other side of the table to pour water on Jamie. I’ve heard this story a few times and while the adjectives change, most of them focus on Jarom’s “crazy eyes”, which must have scared Jamie because she tried to scamper away over the top of the table and ended up getting stuck in the chandelier. Jarom poured some water on Jamie, Nancy screamed at Jarom to stop it, Jamie commented that Jarom was going to end her life, and a general awkward silence ensued. The water was cleaned up, apologies were made, and at least as far as I am aware, everyone is okay now. It was the kind of incident that should probably have been saved for Thanksgiving, but the Winns aren’t usually together for that holiday.

At the end of the week the crew reluctantly crammed back into the van and took off for Richmond. They spent a day there visiting old friends and enjoying a leisurely drive down John Rolfe Parkway and by their old house, where they could still see the trash can that they left behind. It was at this point that Emmy started to really get sick and have great trouble breathing, which led to great trouble sleeping, which meant no sleep for Alixa and bad sleep for Jarom. Not ideal when you’ve got two long days on the road ahead of you. The one positive about the sleepless nights was that Emily did a great job of sleeping in the car while driving. They stopped for the night in Memphis on the way back and could not have been happier to pull into the driveway late Sunday afternoon. Jarom took the kids on a long walk to stretch their legs and tire them out a little bit and everyone was excited to be sleeping in their own beds again. Sadly, the illnesses that Emmy and then Alixa caught on the trip didn’t end when we got back to Texas. Lix has been a wandering zombie all week long as she tries to deal with the three kids while Jarom goes to work and even had a few days watching Kenna and Cali. She still isn’t over it.

And now everyone is getting ready to go back to school. We still have a year before Jenna leaves for official school, but Lix is already turning into a hot mess anytime she thinks about it. She’ll be doing a co-op preschool again this year which should be fun. Emily is rolling over every time you leave her alone, and is starting to look like she has interest in crawling, which doesn’t thrill Jarom. Bo is hilarious all the time, even when he is driving you crazy. Jarom finished up playing summer league lacrosse and had a great time. He and Alixa also finished up their rec league softball season, which was fun even though the team wasn’t a rousing success. Lix continues to drop pounds at an astounding rate, while Jarom holds steady at about 207. The real amazing story in the weight department goes to Emmy, who has moved from the 4^th percentile at birth up to the 90^th at 4 months. Take that, growth chart! Hopefully she’ll start to level off soon, although she is pretty cute for a fat kid.