{"id":76,"date":"2011-10-10T22:04:20","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T22:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/10.131.168.108\/wordpress\/?p=76"},"modified":"2011-10-10T22:04:20","modified_gmt":"2011-10-10T22:04:20","slug":"survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/2011\/10\/10\/survival\/","title":{"rendered":"Survival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We survived our major birthday weekend. &nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The twins got to go to the farm on Friday morning to spend the day and the night with their Grandma and Grandpa. &nbsp;It was their first night away from home by themselves&#8230;ever. &nbsp;And they LOVED it. &nbsp;LOVED IT. &nbsp;Seriously, my MIL apologized that she really couldn&#8217;t say they missed us because they just seemed to be having too much fun to worry about our absence. &nbsp;And I say&#8230;Perfect! &nbsp;No need to apologize on that account&#8230;when did you say you wanted to keep them again? <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.xanga.com\/Images\/smiley3.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"15\" height=\"15\" \/><\/p>\n<p>So they had a great time. And honestly, Friday went pretty well at our house, too. &nbsp;Eric took a half-day off work and manned Megan while I did cakes. &nbsp;I&#8217;m pretty sure Megan never once was concerned that the twins weren&#8217;t around. &nbsp;She ate up all the two-on-one attention like she&#8217;d just been waiting for the last year for us to get our priorities straight and focus entirely on her. &nbsp;Nice, right?<\/p>\n<p>Saturday, we were up and to the farm by 10:30 or so. &nbsp;The family came for a party around noon. Really, we had a great time just chatting and hanging out and laughing together. &nbsp;And Alex really loved all of Megan&#8217;s presents. &nbsp;I&#8217;m not sure Megan yet knows they are actually for her to play with. &nbsp;Again&#8230;nice.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, we came home just in time for bedtime on Saturday night (having done baths and dinner before we left). &nbsp;Then up for church on Sunday morning. &nbsp;Then home so Megan could get down for a nap before my family arrived for her second party (thus, the second elephant cake if you missed my pic on FB).<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/xed.xanga.com\/a31e336441c34279176656\/z222390785.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Eric and I started working on cleaning up, getting the food ready, and finishing other random party prep. &nbsp;And somewhere in there, it hit me. &nbsp;I realized I was getting sick. &nbsp;My head got a bit fuzzy, and my throat got a bit sore. &nbsp;So that&#8217;s when I sort of down-shifted into survival mode. &nbsp;But even still, we had a good time. &nbsp;The cousins played and played. &nbsp;Football was watched. &nbsp;More cake and presents were had. &nbsp;And my parents hung out to chat for a while after everyone else left, which was also really nice. &nbsp;I miss time to just talk like that with them.<\/p>\n<p>By the time they left, though, I was definitely feeling pretty crummy, so we didn&#8217;t make it to small group at church. We just did a family night and got to bed semi-close to bedtime. &nbsp;And just like that, the birthday weekend was over.<\/p>\n<p>And we had survived. &nbsp;But really, we did more than that. &nbsp;On Friday, I decided that I wanted to avoid auto-mode, that person I become when it&#8217;s about getting something done and not about the people I bowl over to get there. &nbsp;And for once, it actually worked. &nbsp;Okay, there was about a half-hour on Sunday afternoon when auto-mode kicked in. &nbsp;But I really wanted to actually BE there for Megan&#8217;s parties and not just get through them. &nbsp;I prayed to that end. &nbsp;I really tried to keep my OCD in check and let things roll as they went. &nbsp;I just knew that I didn&#8217;t want to look back on Monday evening, wishing I had done more than survive.<\/p>\n<p>And now that it&#8217;s Monday night, I think I accomplished that goal. &nbsp;The weekend was good. &nbsp;Tiring, but good. &nbsp;Yes, we survived it. &nbsp;But we also lived it. &nbsp;And that is good, too.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>So, one final time, happy birthday to my Megan! Can&#8217;t wait for next year!&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We survived our major birthday weekend. &nbsp; The twins got to go to the farm on Friday morning to spend the day and the night with their Grandma and Grandpa. &nbsp;It was their first night away from home by themselves&#8230;ever. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/2011\/10\/10\/survival\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}