I guess it had to happen eventually - NFP week burnout. It was real this year.

I saw more than a few comments and posts along the lines of “Enough already! I’m already aware of NFP!”
And....that’s nice.
But we still need NFP week. Even thee who believes it to no longer be relevant. Here’s why.

Even Catholics are severely lacking in NFP Awareness

There are probably more old wives tales and myths about fertility than any other aspect of medicine (though perhaps diet woo gives it a run). I have heard terribly misinformed things from very smart people in this regard.
“Irregular cycles are incompatible with NFP.”
“You can’t use x method postpartum.”
“Breastfeed and you’re fine!”

Until we can get this whole how-biology-works thing down, we still need NFP awareness week.

You probably don't know as much as you think

Even those confident in NFP have a story that goes something like this, “We were doing great, but then x happened, and EVERYTHING CHANGED!”

Maybe it was postpartum, maybe it was pre-menopause, maybe it was thyroid issues - whatever it was, you need at some point to find someone who knows what you’re talking about. Someone who has navigated these waters before. You still NFP awareness week.

Your experience might need broadening

When we don’t foster awareness of other’s experience, people...tend to be jerks.
Well meaning jerks, but still jerks.

You see this in the insistence that “everyone should use Creighton, then no one should have unclear charts!”
Or that Marquette is THE WAY postpartum.
Or that breastfeeding LAM will work for sure if you just follow each and every criteria for doing it RIGHT.

Don’t be a jerk, listen during NFP awareness week.

Don't underestimate the importance of hearing each other out

To get better NFP options we need better data. Listening to the experiences of real people is a fundamental first step.
This is not an exercise in navel-gazing. This is about hearing the stories that we don’t want to talk about.
Of people having the “I’m not the only one!” realization.
Of being not so isolated in a sea of sunshine and roses.

We need NFP awareness week.

There's more work to be done

Guess what? We don’t know everything there is to know about how fertility works. Our tools still have vast room for improvement.

When we started learning NFP 8ish years ago, there was no way to indicate progesterone outside of basal body temperature or expensive blood draws. Now there are progesterone dip strips.

Now there are wearable devices for measuring basal body temp without having to set an alarm.

But we still have so much work to do. The best way to get that done well is for real couples to ask for what they need. A major venue for that is NFP awareness week.

We can do better

The discussions of NFP, marketing, education, and assumptions all need a serious re-consideration.

When I ran the week of single women who chart, I heard stories that made me so angry. Stories of NFP teachers refusing to teach a single woman to chart because “you might misuse that information.”

Running this week of postpartum NFP I heard a lot of “abstinence isn’t THAT bad.” (Haha, yes I have something to say about that!)

We need NFP awareness week.

If those who practice NFP don't talk about NFP, and improve it, then who will?

In trying to address the reality of NFP, and the hardships involved, I got a lot of push back. It mostly boiled down to “don’t be so negative or people won’t even try to live out the teachings!”

(Though I have to point out the irony that I said this exact same thing, verbatim, in a pre-NFP week post and people STILL said it. Critical reading skills people, they’re not optional.)

But who else is supposed to bring these issues to light?
Those who don’t even know the difference between NFP and rhythm?
Those who have never experienced struggles in their NFP practice?

It HAS to be real. It HAS to be told. Because who else can speak to the negative but those living it?

We STILL need NFP awareness week.

Linking up with This Ain't the Lyceum for 7 Quick Takes.

Did you feel the NFP week burn out this year? Did you read any articles that made an impact on you or changed your thinking? (If so put the link below because I want to read them!)

Postpartum is Unpredictable - Even for NFP Teachers

We've made it to the middle of NFP week y'all! 

Have you been reading these stories thinking "they just needed to work more closely with an instructor" or "if your charts are confusing, you just need to get you some NaPro!" 

NFP postpartum is difficult - even for the NFP trained.

Meet Sara and Chad! Certified NFP teaching couple through the Couple to Couple League. Married 8 years and have a 6 year old son, 5 year old daughter, 3 year old daughter, and 4 month old son.

1. Tell us a little bit about each of you.

Chad: I’m Chad and I like to party.

Sara: Oh my goodness, I’ll introduce him. Chad’s a Catholic convert and I totally love him for it. He just got his PhD in math because he’s a hardcore nerd. But it’s okay because I’m a nerd, too. We met in college studying math together. Now I’m living my dream of being a SAHM while Chad is living his dream of teaching college math. On the side, I have my blog: ToJesusSincerely.com and I’m the Tech Assistant for CatholicsOnline.net. I’m a cradle Catholic, but I have so much to learn from converts (some of my favorite peeps).

2. How did you learn about NFP?

Chad: My wife and I learned NFP together when we were engaged.

Sara: Being a cradle Catholic with faithful parents, NFP was introduced to me as the way of life for Catholic married couples. Chad and I learned NFP together when we were engaged. I do wish I had known more about fertility awareness as a teen, but I’m working on changing that for today’s girls. Chad and I are certified NFP teachers through Couple to Couple League, so we have the opportunity to help others learn about NFP.

3. How did you pick your NFP method?

Chad: I was just coming into the Church before we got married. So I didn’t know much about NFP at the time. But my wife knew what she wanted us to do, and I trusted and supported her decision.

Sara: My mom used the Sympto-Thermal Method, so that’s what I went with. My cycles, though not completely regular and predictable, are fairly straightforward to navigate with STM. I love the clarity of postpartum charting with this method. I feel confident in our ability to space our children and know for sure when my fertility has made a comeback.

4. What has been the greatest struggle of NFP in the postpartum period?

Chad: It’s hard being unsure of what’s going on. That makes it difficult to plan when to have sex. It can be pretty confusing.

Sara: Like Chad said, the uncertainty can be difficult. I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily confusing, myself, but definitely unpredictable. Until that first ovulation postpartum, there is no way to know what’s coming next. So we have to go day-by-day… and hope the baby cooperates with our charts. Right now, our baby seems to love to stay up late on nights when we finally would have been able to have sex. In the postpartum transition, there can be extended periods of abstinence that can get frustrating.

5. What has been the greatest benefit?

Chad: We don’t want to have babies back-to-back. Knowing NFP allows us to have sex confidently, knowing we can still postpone pregnancy. Otherwise we would have to abstain the entire postpartum time until we got back to normal cycles. It’s great that NFP allows for us to navigate the transition time.

Sara: I agree that it’s good to be confident in spacing our children. As long as we’re diligent, we know exactly when we should or shouldn’t have sex in order to avoid “preparing for Irish twins” – (insert eye roll at rude doctors). The postpartum period always forces us to revamp our communication, which is a great thing for our marriage. And, if I’m being entirely honest, I’m thankful for the intermittent stretches of abstinence required in the postpartum time. My libido tanks hard after having a baby, so those stretches give me the break I need to foster and rejuvenate that desire. I’m not sure Chad would consider that a benefit lol.

But it turns out to be a good reminder to show our love for each other in different (non-physical) ways. After our second baby, while juggling discrepancy in our desires, different needs that I was experiencing, and unpredictable stretches of abstinence, we were able to open up communication in a way that led us to praying together before sex.

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Check out the other posts this week.

HYPER-FERTILITY AND NFP

HOW DO I SPEAK TO POSTPARTUM NFP WHEN... I GOT PREGNANT?

MISADVENTURES OF A POSTPARTUM NFP WEEK

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How has this NFP week challenged you? 
Has this changed the way you think about postpartum NFP?

Hyper-fertility and NFP

1. Tell us a little about each of you

Michael is a PhD chemist and is from a small town in Michigan. Sterling has a degree in finance and is from southern Washington. We have been married for eight years. We have four children and we are expecting our fifth in September! We have experienced three miscarriages.

We are both adult converts who are children of divorced parents. As such, we don't have any good examples of how marriage looks in a healthy setting. We have read a lot of books about Catholicism, marriage, and natural family planning to try and live out our vocation of marriage the best we can.

2. How did you learn about NFP?

Michael learned about NFP on a hike in the northern Michigan woods when I was in High School. He asked his friend Paul (who was my Catholic Conversion Sponsor 9 years later) what the Catholic alternative to contraception was, he explained NFP. Since then we have learned much more obviously. :)

Sterling learned about NFP when a priest tossed her an NFP book in the one marriage prep session that we had. It wasn’t a great introduction but we knew this was going to be a big part of our life so we did a lot of our own research.

Shortly after diving into the world of NFP, we realized that we would be fertile on our honeymoon. We had wanted at least six months of being married before getting pregnant so we actually chose to abstain from sex for the first three days after we got married! Whew, that was a sacrifice. Then we consummated our marriage on the fourth day knowing there was still a small chance we could get pregnant. That’s when we learned the reality of NFP because we have since discovered, if there is any small chance of getting pregnant… we do!

Of course, being open to God’s plan sometimes means getting pregnant on your honeymoon but abandoning yourself to that trust has greatly deepened our faith.

3. How did you pick your NFP method?

Trial and Pregnancy. We started out using symptothermal but because Sterling has struggled with insomnia for most of her life, we quickly realized that it was difficult to catch her basal temperature. After our honeymoon pregnancy, which really wasn’t a surprise because we knew that there was a small chance we could get pregnant, we did have two surprise pregnancies due to bad temperature data. Unfortunately, those two pregnancies ended in miscarriage. That’s when we looked into Creighton.

Creighton quickly showed us that Sterling had low progesterone levels. We ended up getting pregnant again (on purpose) and working with the Pope John Paul VI institute using progesterone shots to help us carry the baby to term.

We felt really confident in Creighton and we liked that we were both involved in charting and making decisions. We got pregnant two more times, not necessarily planned but definitely not surprises either. We knew there was a small chance of getting pregnant both times!

The last time we got pregnant was definitely more of a surprise. Sterling had radically changed her diet for six weeks and it shifted her cycle. We definitely should have abstained since our chart definitely looked unusual so I would say this “surprise” baby was really just user-error but it was definitely hard for us since we got pregnant four months after having our last baby.

4. What has been the greatest struggle of NFP in the postpartum period?

There are two great struggles we’ve encountered with NFP. We struggle with hyperfertility, and have become pregnant on average more than once a year. The first has definitely been becoming pregnant despite our best efforts to use NFP.

The second biggest struggle has been the lack of support/communication in the Catholic community about NFP, especially about prolonged periods of abstinence. It seems to be a “suffer in silence” type of problem and it has really been hard on our marriage not knowing what our normal reactions should be to prolonged abstinence.

5. What has been the greatest benefit?

The greatest benefit has been significantly reduced mortal sin and urgent need for confession. We also value having NFP options so Sterling doesn’t have to put a bunch of chemicals or foreign objects in her body. And obviously, we are extremely blessed and grateful for all our children. Despite the challenges, we cannot imagine life without them!

It’s difficult because NFP is often touted as this beautiful way to bring couples together, but we have not found that to be true. Due to our many struggles, we would not say that NFP has produced a greater feeling of unity within our marriage.

You can hear more from Sterling on her podcast, Coffee and Pearls - Wisdom for Catholic Moms, and on her website sterlingjaquith.com. She is the author of four books, including Not of This World: A Catholic Guide to Minimalism and Smitten: A Collection of Catholic Love Stories.

You can read more of her take on NFP in her post Why I Despise NFP But Do It Anyway.

We're having a Postpartum NFP week around her on Under Thy Roof!

Check out the other posts this week.

HOW DO I SPEAK TO POSTPARTUM NFP WHEN... I GOT PREGNANT?

MISADVENTURES OF A POSTPARTUM NFP WEEK

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Do you have experience with "hyper-fertility"? 

Sterling points out that the prolonged abstinence has not been marriage building for them, and I believe that to be true of many solid marriages as well. How can we more accurately and reasonably prepare couples for periods of prolonged abstinence that my very well occur in transition times?

How Do I Speak to Postpartum NFP When... I Got Pregnant?

I'm going to break my own rules with this story, because I think it's a story that needs telling.

This one is going to be anonymous and it's only going to be the wife's side of the story. Her reasons for requesting this are solid, and just...read her story. She is absolutely not the first person to tell me something like this in hush-hush tones with furtive glaces. This is a more common reality than many of us want to admit.

Tell us a little about each of you

We meet in college, he a well-formed Catholic from a big family, me a fallen-away nothing who didn't ever tire of debating this wickedly smart, handsome, crazy person. Joke's on me! Because lo and behold, those three years of debating accidentally converted me. We ended up getting married after college -- something he'd always pictured doing and something I never imagined. The babies came quickly; I'm a stay-at-home mom of four while he works in government contracting.

 How did you learn about NFP? / How did you pick your NFP method?

Hah.

So, I know a lot of people in my various NFP Facebook groups want to shout from the rooftops that "NFP IS NOT THE RHYTHM METHOD." Well, we all need to be shouting that a little louder, because even the people trying to listen can't hear you.

I was not aware that NFP was not the rhythm method until after my THIRD CHILD. My parochial Catholic schools didn't teach it. My Catholic college spoke of it only theoretically. Our marriage prep class mentioned that temping and mucus were something you could look into, and left it to you to do that looking. But if Catholic schooling gave me little else in terms of faith formation, I at least had a moralistic fear of ever touching myself "down there," so the idea of checking mucus felt like a giant "No way, Jose." Good thing that sounded optional, right? And finally, while I do have a well-educated cradle-Catholic awesome-devout husband, there was a big all-boys-school gap in his knowledge on this particular subject. He assumed NFP was basically the rhythm method too. (This is why my sons will be taught some things...)

After I had my third son, I learned more specifically via my own Googling what was involved in STM. So I breastfed my son and waited patiently for my period to come back so I could start doing this charting thing.

More hah.

Because that didn't happen.

I got pregnant before having a cycle. But yay! Because my fourth son is the best thing ever, and there would be a hole in our family without his big sunshiny smile.

But anyway, back to the drawing board with NFP. It was when my youngest was 5 months old that I made a self-deprecating joke at my Catholic book club. "Yeah, all our kids are 19 months apart... I guess that's just how we date our calendars." People laughed. I wanted them to. That joke always gets a good reaction. But it was certainly thin cover for the fact that I did not have a handle on this NFP thing.

That's when a friend from the book club whom I've known a while now pulled me aside and started telling me about Marquette's postpartum breastfeeding protocol. I was floored. I was struck dumb by my total ignorance. You mean... there's something you can do to chart before your first cycle? You do what? And I can do mucus too? What is LH? I'm not doing any of this!

I came home that night and asked my husband for a ClearBlue Fertility Monitor for Christmas.

What has been the greatest struggle of NFP in the postpartum period?

Well, the first great struggle is certainly that, six months into Marquette... I got pregnant! Without a cycle. Again. While perfectly conforming to the protocols of the breastfeeding TTA protocol. And yes, these two will also be 19 (and a half) months apart. I thought we were really going to get a foothold this time; I was so confident. I was so trusting. I was so diligent. And... yeah, that was hard.

That's the reason that, at first, I backed out of speaking to Kirby for this series. How do I speak to postpartum NFP when... I got pregnant? (Again. I can't stress the "again" part enough.)

But I can say that now we're all settled into the reality of five children. I'm at peace again.

What is becoming a second struggle is telling other people -- family and friends who DON'T practice NFP, but know that we do -- that we're expecting again. I feel like Negative Evangelization. I feel like a stereotype. And it's hard to explain to people who don't already get it that, yeah, we were TTA, but we're also open to life. That's the point. This baby is NOT the worst news ever.

What has been the greatest benefit?

The greatest benefit of our particular journey has been to my own heart and mind. Only one of our five children was "planned," so to speak. But it's gotten easier and easier to sincerely accept new life with love and enthusiasm the longer this 19-month routine repeats. I'm not perfect. If there's one thing I've learned by saying over and over that I'm "open to life," it's how to actually be open to life when "life" calls my bluff <3

How can we do a better job of authentic NFP instruction? What should we be doing so that engagement is not the first time the phrase Natural Family Planning brings any meaning?

What struck you about this story?

Misadventures of a Postpartum NFP Week

If you've hung around this blog for a while, you know what I do for NFP Awareness Week - share stories! I believe the best way to talk about a way of life is to show that life via storytelling (and that Anthropology degree might only have influenced that a lot).
There's been small years, busy years, and themed years.

This year is a theme year.

Supposed to be a theme year.

This has been a hard year.

This year is all about NFP in the postpartum time - but it's both on the blog and my real life. I've never had more "skin in the game" than I do this year. Merely trying to put together postpartum NFP stories has been an eye opening experience.

Most don't want to talk about postpartum

When I wanted to do a themed week on single women and NFP last year, I did not have high expectations. I was going to be excited if I got one story, over the moon for three, but we got FIVE!

When I was going through my third postpartum, and wanted to do a postpartum themed week, I thought this wouldn't be difficult in the slightest. If I could find five single women willing to share the story of their reproductive health, publicly on the internet, surely I could find couples willing to share their postpartum NFP story! There are lots of people having babies!

Nope. Nope. Nope.

Postpartum NFP is incredibly touchy - as I now know. No one feels comfortable. Or confident.
Many told me they did not have much of a story to tell.

The vast majority are winging it

It was the sheepish confession of the vast majority: "....we're not really doing NFP..."
Sometimes it meant abstaining entirely until cycles returned. Sometimes it meant not following method rules. Sometimes it was more of a "what happens, happens" decision.

No one has it easy, but everyone believes they are the only ones struggling

Over and over I heard women tell me that postpartum was unexpectedly hard. Many learned or changed methods during postpartum. Many faced long stretches of abstinence. Many could not figure out what their bodies were doing.

But everyone believes that they are alone in their struggle. That there must be someone out there with the perfect words of encouragement. That the right method must exist somewhere.

If anything, the difficulty in getting people to share their story is precisely why we need to share more stories! Because you're not alone, and your struggles are, more than likely, not as unique as you believe.

We have an abstinence problem

Cycle zero is awful. Waiting for cycles to start back up after baby is probably the most touch and go couples will experience in NFP. But no one tells you that it can take months and months after that for the abstinence not to stretch out into weeks (and months) due to wonky charts.

Abstinence can be/is a real strain on many good marriages. Fact. But in general we are terrible at talking about it.

But there are some brave souls! 

I found two couples willing to share their story!

Aka. I asked my blog groups and my friends had my back. (Thanks y'all!)

Meet the brave few of this year's NFP Awareness Week postpartum edition!

Sara and Chad

Chad: I’m Chad and I like to party.

Sara: Oh my goodness, I’ll introduce him. Chad’s a Catholic convert and I totally love him for it. He just got his PhD in math because he’s a hardcore nerd. But it’s okay because I’m a nerd, too. We met in college studying math together. Now I’m living my dream of being a SAHM while Chad is living his dream of teaching college math. On the side, I have my blog: ToJesusSincerely.com and I’m the Tech Assistant for CatholicsOnline.net. I’m a cradle Catholic, but I have so much to learn from converts (some of my favorite peeps).

Sterling and Michael

Michael is a PhD chemist and is from a small town in Michigan. Sterling has a degree in finance and is from southern Washington. We have been married for eight years. We have four children and we are expecting our fifth in September! We have experienced three miscarriages.

We are both adult converts who are children of divorced parents. As such, we don't have any good examples of how marriage looks in a healthy setting. We have read a lot of books about Catholicism, marriage, and natural family planning to try and live out our vocation of marriage the best we can.

Come back next week to read their full stories!

Linking up with This Ain't the Lyceum for 7 Quick Takes.

What's your experience with postpartum NFP? What should we include in the discussion?

Sex Matters and Other NFP Thoughts

Next week is NFP Awareness Week. Yes, again. But before we do that, I want to talk about sex and marriage, and why abstinence is a struggle for many (if not most) NFP practicing couples.

The most consistent critique that comes up whenever this topic is discussed is: "Shhhhh, if you're too negative no one will even try to live out the teachings!" Or it's, "There's nothing we can do about it, so why talk about it?"

Well I believe you are smarter than that, dear readers!

I believe you can handle hard topics, and nuance, and uncertainty.

Sex matters for marriages

There's a reason sex is "renewing your marriage vows" and date night isn't. Sex is so fundamental to a marriage, that a marriage is not valid until it is consummated (CCC 1640). Then why is it that we try to excuse away the importance of sex when it comes to selling NFP? If sex matters to begin a marriage, it must continue to matter within a marriage.

Sex is Emotional

We have this idea that there is sex on hand and emotional closeness on the other. I think this is a false separation. Sex is inherently emotional. Physical connection and emotional connection are joined, just as sex and marriage are joined. I will even go so far as to argue that sex is the ultimate emotional connection.


So now we get that sex matters in a marriage, and that there is not exact substitute. How do we go about discussing the frustrations of abstinence without just wanting to throw in the towel for NFP as a whole?

Let's not invalidate each other or ourselves

"It's not that bad."

"Other people have it so much worse."

"It's just for a while."

These are all statements meant to comfort but function to invalidate the person who has just confided their pain. Often, they are what we tell ourselves in order to get through a tough place - even when there is no end in sight to the tough place. Let's stop trying to tell ourselves that pain doesn't hurt and that struggles are negligible!
If we cannot accurately talk about the problem, how are we ever going to deal with it?

There are some serious holes in NFP methods and in medical knowledge

Let's just get it out there - women's reproductive medicine is woefully behind when it comes to the deeper biological understanding needed to have NFP methods that can work for everyone with minimal abstinence. I personally experienced many months where no NFP method could describe what I was seeing, and none of the multiple doctors (both GP and specialists) could work with me in understanding why my body wasn't functioning properly.

The more I've talked to other women using NFP, the more I hear about these situations where methods did not describe a woman's fertility accurately enough.
Where doctors labeled a woman requesting not to have to discuss birth control again as "non-compliant."
Where couples spend months on end unable to find available days when they have discerned a need to avoid pregnancy.

None of this means NFP is completely impossible or a bad idea, but it does mean that couples are experiencing some legitimate struggles and that struggling with NFP is not a rare experience.

It's not just you

You are not the only person frustrated with NFP!
You are not the only couple to feel the ache of having to hold back from the ultimate sign of the sacrament of marriage.
You are not a masochist for still adhering to the teachings of the Church, even when you feel the weight of the teaching.

We need to include the peripheries

If you are someone who has never struggled with abstinence, always had textbook cycles, conceived right away, breastfed and had 6 months of LAM infertility with no problem - congratulations you won the biological lottery.

The rest of us will have some struggles with this part of our lives at some point. We need to include everyone in the further development of NFP, including the afore mentioned lottery winners.
But also the subfertile, infertile, hyperfertile.
The women having to take birth control for legitimate medical reasons.
The women who can't/don't breastfeed.
The women who have mental or physical reproductive trauma.
The couples dealing with long term abstinence.
The couples struggling to discern what God is asking of their family.
The couples who have large families and the faithful parents of small families.


Struggles with NFP are not rare, unique, or even unusual.

Having struggles doesn't mean there isn't a beauty to NFP. Hard things can still be beautiful things.

What matters to me is that beautiful things are not unnecessarily hard. That we communicate honestly our struggles, and our joys, so that as a whole the practice of NFP can be a more practical tool for everyone.

What have you wanted to see in discussions of NFP? How could it better include your experience? 

Lessons Learned on the Road

We have officially (mostly) survived a round-trip 28 hour road trip between Minnesota and Texas. We've done long road trips with kids before, but never with a baby and never quite this long. We learned some things...

I might not be alright, even while the kids are fine

Y'all, I hate to drive. I went almost a decade without driving while we lived in California, and that was good for me.  I don't mind different states having different rules, but I can't emotionally handle the collective refusal to follow those rules. I learned in Oklahoma that older men in giant white pickups will sit in the left hand lane, going below the speed limit, next to a big rig in the right hand lane for 80 MILES!

The driving was the worst bit. But the kids didn't mind the drive much. Even though Felicity did not sleep AT ALL the first 7.5 hour driving day. She was happy, but extremely sleep deprived.

Heat is terrible

This is one of the hottest Texas summers on record, and I forgot how miserable it can be to have a baby in extreme heat. Especially a winter baby.
One day it was 107 and the next it was 95. Matt described it as the difference between feeling like you're to die and feeling like you might make it after all.

There is a time and place for screens

We try not to do much screen time at home, but I really believe screens have a time and a place. One of them, for sure, is in the backseat of a car on a 14 hour road trip.
Moana, Frozen, and the Jungle Book were our soundtrack.

Truck stops and rest areas are treats!

Every 2-4 hours we would stop at a rest area or truck stop (depending on if we needed gas). I brought some soccer balls in the truck that would get thrown out and kicked around if there was space. I got the app USA Rest Stops before we left, and that was sooooo helpful for locating the nearest rest stops, and it has icons for what amenities are available, and reviews from other travelers.

At a truck stop in Oklahoma I had taken the kids in to use the rest room, and stopped to look at a taxidermy bison inside. When I came out again Matt asked if I saw the bison.
"Yeah of course. It's right next to the rest room."
"No, the real ones."

Apparently across the parking lot from the truck stop was a bison farm! With baby bison! The kids were thrilled.

My baby is full of surprises

First there was the formerly mentioned lack of sleep despite 7.5 hours of driving (yet she sleeps in the 15 minutes it takes to get to church?!) She got over it after the first day though. Slightly.
Then baby girl broke through two top teeth after working on those for months.
She seems to have an insatiable appetite in the heat. She could easily put away 2 eggs worth of scrambled eggs, a cup of Cherrios, plus whatever other random fruit we had to give her, and that was just breakfast!
Felicity also appears to be part mermaid. I think she would have just lived in the water if I could let her.

After all the pool and lake time, this is apparently the only picture I manage to get of the water baby.

I have the most steady-headed husband on the face of the Earth

Matt talked me down when the road was stressing me out.
Handled the lack of functioning AC at an Air BnB in Kansas City.
Managed to track down foodie, kid friendly, dinner locations even when everyone else was burnt out and done.
He's basically the best road trip companion ever. I married well.

Books are still the greatest brain break

After a full day of traveling, the most relaxing thing was to read my physical in-my-hands book! I cannot handle anymore stimulation after that much car time, and even scrolling Facebook would make me tired. 

I've written before about why I think it's so important that adults find time to read real books, but I find such comfort and relief in the act of reading from a physical book.

I did have an audio-book for the car from the library (Little Soldiers: An American Boy, a Chinese School, and the Global Race to Achieve) but I brought along my current history book (Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers Who Helped Win World War II) and I'm re-reading the last two Harry Potter books (re-reading Harry is a summer tradition for me.)

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Linking up with This Ain't the Lyceum for 7 Quick Takes.

How have your summer travels/adventures been going? Any other road-trippers? What are you reading?