Bah! I'm a over a year behind again. But I'm feeling like I might start catching up soon!! Flynn is starting to sleep really well around 9ish in the evenings and work is FINALLY starting to slow down and become much more manageable. Anyway! My first note to myself for this Spring post was "I can't believe Spring is already here!" So apparently time was feeling like it was flying by. This season always "springs" up on me... did you catch it. Haha! We have a late Christmas on New Years Day then our anniversary isn't too far behind and then Sam and Atlas's birthdays come right after and before I know it, it's March and Spring has arrived!
We started out our spring 2019 with sickness unfortunately. Atlas came down with the chicken pox the day after his birthday party. I couldn't believe it!! I had to call everyone who had attended the party and warn them that we had unintentionally exposed them to chicken pox. I'm so grateful no one from the party was infected other than Jane and Xan. As for where Atlas got it, I really don't know. The one place I think it could have happened is from Gymnastics. It's also a preschool and Atlas likes to play with cars on the ground while Jane is in class sometimes. But really there's no way to know for sure. Symptoms of chicken pox appear 10-21 days after exposure. We went a lot of places in those previous 10-21 days. The other weird thing is Jane had stomach issues one night a couple of days after Atlas came down with Chicken Pox. When she threw up, I thought to myself, "NO! I can't do stomach viruses and chicken pox at the same time! Please NO!" Thank goodness it was just a one time weird episode for Jane that was not contagious. Still it was a rough night being anxious about it! Thankfully Atlas's Chicken pox were fairly mild. Just a fever for a few days and about 50-100 spots. A couple of spots on his forehead did end up scaring. I kept him in footie pajamas so he wouldn't scratch but I couldn't cover his face too. So those two spots got worse than the others. The worst part of it was having to quarantine ourselves for 2 weeks! Otherwise it was no big deal.
Right before Atlas came down with the chicken pox, Jane had a dentist appointment for a cleaning. They found a small cavity on the surface and said she needed a filling. We scheduled the appointment for the filling pretty quick so we could get it done before it got any worse. I felt like a bad parent for Jane to already have a cavity when she wasn't even 5 yet. It's not too surprising though. My baby teeth were not strong and I had many cavities and a couple of baby teeth pulled. So it's probably genetic. Fortunately I've had relatively strong adult teeth! Enough about me. When Jane was called back to get the work done, the dental assistant asked me if I could wait in the waiting room since most kids find a little more courage when mom isn't right there. Jane wasn't scared in the least. She loves going to the dentist. But I remember fillings being traumatic so of course, I said, sure! Whatever they thought was best I would do. Well they were done super fast!! Like 20 minutes or less. They brought her back to me and said she did amazing! The filling was so close to the surface that they didn't have to use numbing medicine which made it a breeze. They said she was so calm and responsive to instruction they wished they would have videoed her to have as an example to others! If only we all loved the dentist like Jane.
I feel like this was my first trip on my own in any way air travel or not! The only other place I've driven by myself to stay overnight is Camp Tejas. It felt like a big deal. Lots of firsts going on! I was definitely not going to try making a connecting flight on my first time especially with an 11 month old. So I paid the extra cash to get a non-stop flight. Totally worth it. Obviously it was Xan's first flight too. I was very curious to see how she would do. How could I expect anything less than stellar from my super easy going, content 3rd born? She did brilliantly. It was only 2 1/2ish hours, but it could not have gone better. I nursed her on take off and she had no problems. She fussed for a moment or two, but barely at all for the rest of the flight and took a nice nap as well. I had a wonderful seatmate, she asked if she could hold Xan and since we were stuck in an airplane and I knew she couldn't run off with her or something I was happy to let her. Xan loved her!! It was so sweet. Because I sat on the back row, I sat next to the most amazing flight attendant. I wish I would have gotten her name or a picture with her. She was the sweetest lady. She kept telling me how cute Alexandria was and how she doesn't say that about all babies, truly. She says she just stays quiet if they're less than cute. Hahaha! She said, "Are you going to have more?? You have to have another one. I mean just look at her!" I told her we were thinking we would have one more. She said, "Oh Good! You have to! And you need to get this little girl her own instagram so I can follow her!" It was such a great flight! I remember thinking I didn't think a flight could ever live up to that one. Honestly it probably never will.
Landing went smoothly. I was able to figure my way around the airport pretty easily. Esther and Timothy arrived shortly and picked us up! <3 It was snowing when we walked out of the airport! I was all excited and Esther being a seasoned Ohio resident now was tickled at my response. I just think it's so fun that Xan's first snow experience was on our trip. I picked the destination airport that gave me the best ticket prices. It was about an hour drive from Esther's house. I had no idea that the Cincinnati airport is actually located in Kentucky. We decided to have lunch close to the airport. So I can now add Kentucky as a state I've been too! Esther picked a great pizza place and Xan and Timothy had fun looking at each other and holding hands next to each other in their highchairs. They are such cuties!! We didn't mind the drive back to her house since the babies slept and we got to catch up on each other's lives. :)
After stopping to show Xan the snow on the ground, Esther gave me a tour of her beautiful 1920s house that they were still in the middle of renovating. I loved the high ceilings, the original woodwork and wood floors and the grand entryway door. Honestly, writing this more than a year after this trip happened, Friday and Saturday have completely blended together. Haha. Oh well, anyway at some point we ran some errands together, having lovely chats on subjects ranging from marriage and children to Bible studies and theology throughout our running about. Otherwise we spent the majority of the two days just loving being together and watching the two almost one year olds crawl around together! Timothy and Xan were buddies! It was adorable watching them enjoy each other. A few other special moments stick out to me. One was our lunch at Olive Garden where Esther let her then unborn daughter's name slip! They were keeping it a secret from everyone and she accidentally said it while we were chatting. I caught it, but vowed to keep it a secret. It felt kinda special to be one of the only people who knew before she was born. :) Another was a conversation about Sam and I deciding to have our 4th child. Esther was one of the few people we told before Flynn was on his way that we intended to have another baby. My mom had no idea even! I remember braving the yucky cold rainy weather with Esther and Andrew to go to a specialty Hot Dog shop called Zombie Dogz and getting a mac and cheese dog. Delicious and totally worth it. Lastly I remember staying up talking, eating dessert, and playing Rummikub and winning much to my surprise and apparently much to the chagrin of Andrew, whom I discovered is very competitive.
Sunday Morning I went to their church with them. It was an interesting experience for me. Honestly, I hadn't been to a church service in years. Basically I just walked around the lobby with Xan the whole time. I could hear the worship and sermon through the speakers. I just don't know how to do regular church with babies. I don't want to leave them in the nursery and babies seem too distracting for a traditional church service to bring in with me. It is my belief that we are all the church and it is not a building. So I can worship any time I want and my living my life in a way that it honoring to God is worship in itself. Also, I "do not forsake the assembling of ourselves together", I am in contact with other believers almost daily and we build each other up in Christ even though it's not in a building specified for that reason and not at the same day and time every week. I know I would like to try to do a home church, but I don't know how to find one or get one started at his point. I am trusting God will lead me when the time is right. I do know my experience going to church that day just reinforced that the way modern church is set up is not right for me. It feels legalistic, stiff and I don't feel myself connected with God there. This has nothing to do with their church specifically and everything to do with my personal feelings about the modern american church. Just to be clear I have nothing against people going to church and experiencing God there! Do what's right for you and your family, I do know that it's not for us. It's ok to be different! We can still love each other!
Guess what happened the day after I got back from Ohio?? Jane woke up with spots all over her! Yep, she came down with Chicken Pox like 17 days after Atlas. So other than my brief weekend trip to Ohio in between Atlas and Jane's chicken pox cases we were quarantined for all of March basically. (little did I know it was just practice for the 2020 quarantine) We had fun at home though with lots of pretending to go on airplane trips, picnics in the backyard, oatmeal baths and of course we still went to Marmee and Pappaw's house since they are immune from Chicken Pox. We also took advantage of free breakfast from the Chick-fil-A drive thru. We ended up right next to our friends the Combs in the drive thru line!! We had no idea they were going too. We couldn't have planned it if we tried. It was fun to let the kids talk through the car windows for a moment and say hi. We definitely missed our friends and park day the most through our quarantine. Jane's chicken pox were almost perfectly timed with Gymnastics spring break! So I'm pretty sure she only had to miss one class, because they had just started the two week break they always take in March.
About 3 days after Jane came down with Chicken Pox Xan got it. Alexandria only got a total of 25-50 spots. It was super mild for her thankfully! Jane had the most spots for sure with 100-200 spots, I stopped counting. But all of her spots stayed really mild and healed the fastest. Atlas had more spots than Xan but less than Jane but his spots looked the worst and took the longest to heal and he even has a couple of scars from it where the girls ended up with no scars at all. I'm glad they all got it and they all had mild cases. So grateful! We got to break out the kiddie pool on one warm March day to help with the quarantine cabin fever. I'm so glad we had it through the spring so we could enjoy our front and backyard pretty much every day through our quarantine.
Another blog note that I can't remember exactly what I meant. It says "working out work". I think I was a little overwhelmed with the amount of work I had to do and how to do with a 1 year old that only took 30-45 minute naps. Apparently I found a way to make it work because I know I didn't drop any clients at that time. What I do remember about this time is that Xan was exploding with development. She figured out how to stand up on her own and she was learning a bunch of words. One of which was "Uh Oh!" She loved to play the game where she dropped her teddy bear, said "Uh Oh!" and picked it back up and did it all over again. She's definitely more attached to stuffed animals earlier than my other two kiddos. I love her affectionate nature. <3
We had our first family movie theater date this Spring! We had taken Jane on her own before but this was Atlas's first time with all of us. Marmee and Pappaw watched Xan for us. We went to see How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. Jane is the perfect movie goer and loved it so much! Atlas was mostly there for the candy. ;) I think he needs to get a little older because he was getting distracted and talking a little too loudly and kept asking me if it was over yet. But for his age I think he did pretty good! He said he liked it! We need to take him back for a movie he's super interested in. This movie was more up Jane's alley. He'll get there I know!
Finally everyone was over the chicken pox at the end of March, Xan being the last one to recover. I'm pretty sure went somewhere every day the last week of March! We were so done with being quarantined! Really that was the worst part of the chicken pox. The sickness itself was no big deal, but the boredom and seclusion were tough. Our first place to go was our park! We missed it so much. We took Cambria with us too, which I never do, because she just gets too excited and is hard to handle. There was no one there with us so I let her roam just a little. She got curious and explored the playground and ended up going down the twisty slide by accident! It was hilarious. Silly puppy!
Spring is our favorite time of the year for Park Days!! The weather is usually gorgeous and everything is turning green and blooming. It's so nice to enjoy those Spring park days after the cold, wet Winter months. We were so sad that we had to miss most of our pretty March park days because of Chicken Pox. A few of my mom friends wish I had told them so we could have shared germs with them to gain immunity. Haha! (I might be doing that with Flynn one day since he was late to the chicken pox party!) April park days were extra fun because Xan was just starting to explore the park on her own. She could climb up the steps to the little playground and stand up on her own at that point. She loves the park just like the rest of my crew. I can barely imagine when one day I'll ask if they want to go to the park and they'll say, "Nah." Thankfully that shouldn't be for a while!
Jane had her 4th and final meet of the season at the end of March. Jane moved up to the Bronze skill level and this was her first meet doing her new routines. We were both so proud of her performance! She can definitely polish up her skills but she did great considering it was all new for her. I was worried she might be upset since she didn't get as many rainbows since the routines were harder, but I think she understood that somehow, she was very happy with the ribbons she received! I mean, look at that smile! I only got a few pictures from that meet since it was my first meet to take Alexandria along with us on my own and she wanted to crawl everywhere. My mom was unavailable that weekend. Thankfully Atlas was able to stay home with Sam. The whole meet season was better than I even expected! It was so well done and easy going. Perfect for her age and most important of all Jane loved it and had fun. We're looking forward to the next meet season already!
At the very end of March we went to the Montgomery County Fair to ride the carnival rides!! Jane had been asking to ride a roller coaster ride for a long time and I knew the MOCO Fair had a great kiddie sized one. I asked the Combs and McNairs if they'd like to join us and they were both up for it!! It ended up being the last super cold day of the spring. We had to be bundled up in coats, gloves, and hats and it was still cold! We didn't let it bother us too much though. We rode as many rides as we could and the kids were in love!!! Jane wanted to ride everything! I wasn't sure what Atlas would do. He is usually scared by big rides. I think it helped that our friend Paige is perfectly in the middle of Jane and Atlas as far as age goes, It motivated Atlas to be brave seeing someone closer to his age do it too. Also the first couple of rides we went on were vehicle related that stayed on the ground. Atlas was barely tall enough for all of the rides. They required riders be 36" tall and he was exactly that height. He was constantly measured for every ride. I had to convince a couple of people that he had just been to the doctor on his birthday last month and measured 3 feet tall.
The McNairs met up with us after we'd been riding rides for a little while. They caught up to us right as the kids were piling on to a car ride. Jane didn't see Nathan get in the car next to her and she must have thought he was a stranger because Nathan kept trying to talk to her and she wouldn't look at him. Finally when he got her attention she said, "NATHAN???? What are you doing here?" Then they both had the biggest smiles on their faces. It was so cute. I was super surprised that when we got up to the roller coaster ride Atlas said he wanted to ride it! He was too short to ride without an adult though and I didn't have enough credits to go too. So we let the big kids ride and came back to it together after I had reloaded the ride cards. He loved it!! I couldn't believe it! He's growing up on me. I didn't get a picture of it though because I was on the ride with him of course. ;)
I was a little intimidated of the fair with 3 small children and my mom was out of town so she wasn't able to come with me to keep up with everyone. But it really worked out going with our friends. Carson and Jordan helped me so much keeping up with everyone! There was one ride we went on that once we got started I regretted.... It was the big Ferris Wheel ride. I took Jane, Atlas and Paige on my own and it made me soooo nervous. I had a 4 year old and two 3 year olds on a very high ride with no restraints. They were very good but oh man, I wouldn't do it again. Otherwise the day went pretty perfectly! Xan was pretty content to watch everyone from the carrier or stroller and she really enjoyed the petting zoo. We all can't wait to go back!!
This post is getting pretty long, so I'll stop here and continue in Spring Adventures 2019 part 2 soon!
Micah 6:8
He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?
