At the end of February, Jacob had a conference to attend in Austin. The kids and I tagged along with him! It was great to join Jacob on an out of town adventure. We all had a great time!
Thursday, while Jacob was in his conference, our plan had been to go to the outlets and look for some short sleeve shirts for Faith. Then head over to a park friends told us about - Zilker Park. But our plans were derailed (no pun intended) when Faith cried and screamed for seemingly no reason in the truck. It wasn't just any old cry - I knew something was seriously wrong with her. I stopped once, to check for poo, for blood, for something that would warrant those screams. Nothing. She appeared fine.
Once she was out of the truck, in my arms, she was fine. But we were not in a place where I could keep holding her. I had to put her back in her seat, and I gave her some infant Ibuprofen. Then we continued on our way to the outlets. And the screams started again. So we stopped at a grocery store to get her some tylenol - and a thermometer to see if she had a fever. She was sweating and hot - but I was assuming it was do to all the screaming she'd been doing. I was worried about her. She screamed her way through the grocery store.
I gave her some tylenol and took her temperature. 98.4... I took it again. Still, 98.4.
I still don't know what was wrong with her. But I cancelled plans to go to the outlets. Instead, we headed straight for the park. I figured at least there I could hold Faith while Nathan played.
We got to the park - Faith still screaming as though her limbs were all being cut off... it was bad!! And we immediately went over to buy tickets for the Zilker Zephyr - a miniature train ride.
As soon as I was seated on the train with Faith in my lap, she was finally at peace. Happy. Smiling. Laughing. No more tears. It was like magic. And Nathan was pretty darn excited himself!
The train ride was pretty cool. It was about a 20 minute ride, down along the Barton Creek. Over some bridges. Past the playgrounds. Even through a tunnel.
Both kids adored the train ride. And afterwards, Faith was back to her normal, content and hapy self. So we headed over the the playscapes - it was a pretty big playset! Nathan took off without us. He didn't hesistate to go up some ladder-like steps and down a big slide. Wow! He usually waits for me to show him what to do. Finally he's getting more courageous and independent. I know, one day I'll be asking for him to be less independent... lol But it was good to see him less fearful of new things, and willing to try it all on his own.
When Faith and I caught up, Faith wanted to go down the kiddie slide. And Nathan wanted to go with her. They went down that slide a dozen times. Nathan could have easily gone down himself, run back up the ramp and go down with his sister, then go down the slide once more before Faith got back to the slide herself. But, instead, he'd sit and wait at the top of the slide for his sister, so they could go together. Aww!
Both kids loved the tunnel slide, too!
But Nathan didn't always wait for the person in front of him to get up before he dove down - he literally dove through that thing! I told ya - he's getting fearless! He ran into his sister a few times, and once even another little boy. You can call Nathan a bulldozer.
There was a big old fire truck on the plaground, altered so kids could play on it safely. The kids enjoyed driving the truck.
And there were lots of other things to play on, too.
There was even a big deck full of musical instruments - different kinds of drums and xylophones (metal and wodden) that you could play with sticks. They were pretty cool.
We'd been at the park for an hour when it started to rain. So we headed back to the hotel. The 12 minute drive that the GPS in Jacob's phone claimed we had, took 2 hours and 2 minutes. Really. Between traffic and the GPS sending us in circles... it was quite frustrating to say the least. The GPS would tell me to get on a highway - only for me to seconds later realize it was confused and I needed to stay on the frontage road. But the time the GPS recalculated, I was passing the exit it wanted me to take. So it'd recalculate. And it went on like that for over an hour. I was getting close to just pulling over in a parking lot to take naps... lol But we eventually found some lunch and our hotel. And took naps. And I learned a little bit of Austin's highways... enough to know that Jacob can do all the driving from here on out! :)
After we picked Jacob up from his conference we had some family fun at the pool and then a pizza picnic. I'll post those pics tomorrow.
Oh, and how'd Faith feel the rest of the day?? FINE! She napped well. She slept well. She never cried again. Until Friday morning in the truck... I think she just REALLY was hating that car seat.
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