Though She Be But Little…

Willa Hope. From the moment I woke up in the hospital, I was asked what her name was. I don’t know! I thought we had more time! When I heard the NICU Dr had started referring to her as “Princess” I knew we had to choose quickly.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow…

It’s getting hard to smile. Even when I want to, I find that just the corners of my lips turn up, like Jack Nicholson’s Joker. My face feels slack. I feel slack.

I promised myself I would be open about post-partum depression. Awareness is good, right? The more we talk about it, the less alone we’ll feel, the less stigmatizing it seems. This is all great in theory. Actually sharing how I’m feeling is more difficult. I’m not sure yet if I’ll publish or delete this.

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Patience

I was scrolling through Patrick’s phone a few nights ago, looking at photos of things I’ve missed in the last few weeks- the kids’ trip to a Space Museum and Finn’s Cub Scout hike. As I swiped past photos of my kids, one picture came up that made me pause. It was me but it took me a second to realize it.

Willa’s Birth Story

Our lives changed suddenly on April 8th when I went into premature labor and delivered our fourth child, Willa Hope, then started hemorrhaging uncontrollably and came very close to dying in an OR. It’s been three weeks since then and we find ourselves on a difficult and exhausting journey of recovery. As my body heals, my mind has started to process the trauma of everything that’s happened. It was suggested that journaling would be cathartic, so I’ve decided to revive this space for my thoughts as we try to get back to a semblance of normal.

I’ve decided to start with the story of that night.

Ole! My Trip to the Motherland. (Espana Part 1)

Y’all, Espana. Who knew? It’s my new favorite country. (Sorry, Turkey.)

I’ll come back to finishing our Tuscany trip soon. I want to get Spain down before I forget the details.

LeAnn had promised to come visit us while we were in Romania and was trying to book a ticket on her Delta miles but Delta doesn’t fly into Timisoara (shocker, I know). So Patrick, being amazing and also kind of a genius, said, “hey, what if she flew into somewhere that WizzAir, the Hungarian budget airline that flies into Timisoara, flies. And then, what if Melissa met her there for a few days so she could get a much needed break from kids, Romania, and homeschooling kids in Romania.” (Seriously, have I mentioned how much I love this man?)  So after much protest and hesitation on my part, I agreed. Hahahahahaha. Just kidding. I was booking tickets before he even finished his sentence.

Romanian Interlude- Gypsy Palaces, Moats and Bear Pits. Because of course.

I know, I know. I’ve been an absentee blogger. But really, is anyone surprised?

Okay Italy, I’mgonnaletyoufinish. But before I recap the rest of our trip there, I’m going to interrupt to write about Hunedoara Castle. Why? I don’t know, I just feel like it. After this, I’ll be posting the rest of Italy, a few more Timi things, some Madrid, and our Transylvanian road trip. I’m going to do all this in the next few days because on Wednesday I leave again, FOR ROME! WITH MOM! It’s going to be amazing.

After our Italy trip, we were feeling very travelly, so we decided to rent a car and go to a castle we’d heard about in a place called Hunedoara. It’s about a three hour drive, so an easy day trip. We picked up our rental at a hotel downtown, loaded up the kids and a bag of pastries from the neighborhood bakery stand and drove out of town.

You know those rare days when everything seems bizarre and strange and you feel like you might actually still be asleep and just dreaming everything?

The Barbarians Take Tuscany!

After a whirlwind two days in Venice, we were ready to relax and take things a little bit slower. We settled into our farmhouse, sent the kids outside to explore and made a plan for the day. I had A-Mason race events organized for the big cities- Venice and Florence. In between though, I had done little more than just read some background on the towns and area around where we were staying. We decided to make this day Fortified City on Hill day. Rick Steves, who as everyone knows is my spirit animal, recommends Volterra as his favorite hill town and blasts San Gimignano for being too touristy. (Although Rick, and you know I love you, whose fault is that? Europe has no more back doors!) We decided to try both out and see what we thought.

Under the Tuscan Sun (c’mon, this title was just begging to be used)

The farmhouse that we stayed it near Florence deserves it’s own blog post. It was that good.

Day Two in the Floating City, then Onwards to Tuscany!

Me: “Did you know that Venice is sinking?”

Patrick (in a German accent) “What is it sinking about?”

We woke up in our little Jolly Camping trailer somewhat refreshed. I say somewhat because sometime in the wee hours of the morning, Lucy woke me up with bloodcurdling screams followed by terrified sobbing. She ran into my room to tell me…that there were four ants in the bathroom. FOUR ants. Oh, the humanity.

Behold, our young Poet Laureates

In homeschool today, we learned about poetry. Have you ever tried to explain poetry to five-year olds? Anyways, it was mildly successful because afterwards I gave the kids the task of writing a poem together. They did a decent job and enjoyed it so much that they wrote two more. Here they are for your reading pleasure.