Author: Jenny

“It’s like I’m walking on snowshoes,” I said groggily to my husband one night. Joshua was six weeks old, and we’d just moved him out of the bassinet in our bedroom and into his crib in the nursery. When I’d walk down the short hallway in the middle of the night to nurse him, I felt I could only shuffle. My feet felt weird. “It’s like I’m walking on snowshoes,” was the only way I could think to describe it, even though I’d never actually walked on snowshoes before. In addition to the “weird” feeling in my feet, the pain and tingling in my knees and on the tops of my feet that I’d had during pregnancy (and attributed to weight gain) hadn’t gone away yet.

Exhausted and exasperated, I went to my family doctor. She had me stand up and take my shoes and socks off.

“Have your feet always been flat?” She asked.

“Uh, I don’t think so.” I replied.

“Well, they are really flat. Looks like your arches probably fell while you were pregnant. That’s what’s been causing all your pain and tingling.”

Oh, flat. Flat like snowshoes, would you say?

It was then and there in that doctor’s office that I came to the realization that after having a child, I would never be the same. It would not just be the long scar at the bottom of my abdomen that would mark me as having given birth. There were many things about me that would be irreversibly altered.

My first baby melted my heart and flattened my feet. My second melted my heart and curled my hair.

They have both made me so much better than I was.

How have your children changed you?

Last week Bobby, the kids and I spent a week with my parents at their house in Virginia. During the school year, my folks live here in Ohio, but my dad is a teacher, and since they are cute old people, they have built themselves a love nest atop a mountain in Virginia near where my dad grew up. We love visiting them there because it is beautiful, quiet, free, and my parents cook us three meals and day and help us care for and entertain our children. This year as always we had an awesome time. I took over 400 pictures so I thought I’d share a few of my favorites with you! There are really too many to share in one post. So maybe I’ll include a few more later in the week.

Here are a couple pictures from a creek off the Blue Ridge Parkway that we go to every year, Otter Creek.

Sophie in the creek (looking cute in her Lands’ End swim suit, might I add! And rockin’ the swim diaper of course.)

Joshua caught many little fish at the creek! He had a blast. (I caught a craw-dad myself. But Joshua was unimpressed!)

We had a picnic lunch there and a lizard REALLY wanted to sit with us. He would NOT get off the table!

Another one of our favorite places that we hadn’t been in a couple of years is Sherandoh Lake. It is a gorgeous lake with a beach surrounded by mountains. We had a fun day there swimming and had a picnic lunch. It is just a gorgeous, fun place!

Joshua had a blast on playing on this innertube. (Boy that is a skinny kid! Somebody give him a sandwich!)

Sophie enjoyed running down the beach (she DOES love a good chase!)

We played a lot at my parent’s house. I love this picture of my Sophie blowing bubbles:

Here’s my dad with Joshua, after climbing the steep hill behind the house with their walking sticks!

There is of course, a lot of wildlife up on the mountain! My folks have a hummingbird feeder and there were 5 or 6 of them battling for this feeder. But I could only manage to get a picture of one of them at a time:

Apparently we were also visited by a *gulp* BEAR one night but all he did was leave some tracks, and none of us even woke up. I am sure am glad because I would have fah-reaked out if I’d seen him!

That’s all I’ll bore you with share right now. More to come later this week, including some gorgeous pics of our visit to a wildflower farm. Get excited!!