Family Update

I don't get on the computer very much any more. I should, but I don't.

Rob's Done with Classes

Today has been much anticipated. Because Rob is done with school today! Well, he's still in school, but the chaos stops today. Rob had a final on Friday, a final yesterday, and his oral qualifying exam today (one of the worst 2 1/2 periods of his life, he said). I am sure he did superbly well in all his classes and he passed his qualifying exam, so life is good. He will now be spending all his time in the lab and won't have classes to attend, so he's pretty happy about that. And I'm happy about that. Rob has been very unavailable for about a month, and it'll be really nice to have him back.

Medication for Post-Partum Depression

Fortunately, about the whole time he's been "unavailable", I've been feeling pretty dang good. I finally decided I was tired of feeling crummy and talked to my doctor about getting some help for postpartum depression. And after 3 weeks of medication, I advise everyone I know to get some medication, wether they need it or not. :) Okay, not quite, but it's really really really nice to feel normal. I can see beyond myself and I can treat Miciah and Elijah how they deserve to be treated. I don't feel like snapping at any moment and all the rage and anger have disappeared. I have no complaints about life. I told Rob, after being on my medication for a while, "This must be how women feel who have 8 kids." Cause other than being pregnant tired and stuff like that, I feel just how I did when I wasn't pregnant. And I am happy.

The Rounds of Pink Eye and Other Adventures

We have been out of commission with our kids for a while. Three weeks ago, on a Saturday, they came down with pink eye. Miciah also had an ear infection and so she got antibiotics for that. Miciah's pink eye seemed to come on gradually, but Elijah just woke up one morning with horrible horrible looking eyes. Like vampire red. I should have taken a picture. I'm sad I didn't. So we stayed home from church for week 1. We treated them with eye drops and that helped a lot. Treating a 4 year old and a 2 year old with eye drops is NO FUN. Elijah has to be pinned down, even his arms, then you hold his head still and attempt to pry open his eyes so you can put two drops in each eye. He was cooperative for round 1. Then we hit round 2 the next week. Elijah, by then, had an ear infection so he started antibiotics and we got another round of pink eye. We stayed home from church for week 2. Again they seemed to be alright for the week (though obviously not 100%) and then Saturday hit again. Round 3 of pink eye. Great. So we stayed home from church for week 3. This time I made Rob stay home cause I was beginning to go crazy. :)

Elijah also woke up Sunday with a really really bad rash. He had the starts of it Saturday, but Sunday it was horrible. They told us it was an Amoxicillan reaction. But his symptoms didn't all fit that. His rash was raised and moved all over on his body. Anyways, yesterday the rash was all gone, other than his stomach looking a little splotchy from where the rash was. We took a picture of the rash, not quite when it was at its worst, but close. At its worse the rash covered almost his entire belly. There was one spot from about an inch to one side of his belly button to his back, and probably 3 inches from top to bottom. When you're only as tall as he is, that's almost your entire stomach. He looked diseased.

Our AC

Our AC has been retarded. We've had repair guys here for 3 days now. They tell us it's fixed now (they told us the same thing yesterday), but Rob isn't convinced. We'll see. It's all been covered under the Home Warranty, so the whole thing only cost us $50. So that's nice.

Kindergarten Will Wait

Miciah is done with preschool for the year. We decided not to test her for early entrance into kindergarten. We were having some concerns about her readiness. It changes the game when you're not sure it's the right thing. So she'll be returning to Arlitt, her preschool, next year. They're going to try to keep her with the same teachers, and they said they'll be trying to have some more challenging things for her next year. We're happy about how it all turned out. ... We got all the way to Monday (the first week day after preschool was out) when Miciah pulls out the book they gave her from her preschool (it's really cute. It's like a scrapbook of her year at Arlitt), opens to a recipe, and says, "I want to make these." Pumpkin chocolatechip muffins. So she made them and they were delicious. I have a feeling Miciah will need more attention now than she did before. But this is okay with me. She's a lot of fun.

Miciah's Hearing Test

We were and have been concerned about Miciah's hearing, so we took her in to the doctor for a hearing test. This last round of ear infection reminded us about a problem that has been off and on for the past almost year. They found that one ear in particular has slight hearing loss, in the lower ranges (like men's voices). But when they tested straight to the nerve, her hearing was even above normal a little. So they told us it's just fluid build-up. They said worst-case scenario, Miciah would have to have tubes put in. So we'll see if there are on-going problems or not.

Max the Cat

And today we found out that Max, our cat, is probably dying. So this is sad news. They took his blood to do some blood work and they'll call us tomorrow to tell us for sure one way or the other. The doctor did not sound hopeful at all about Max's chances. It's a little sad to think that very shortly we could be having a talk about whether we should put Max down or not. Bummer.

But life is good. Starting tomorrow we will have a busy June. Well, we've already had a busy June. But tomorrow we go up to Toledo to see Rob's mom and dad. Then next Thursday Mom comes in town, Rob's cousin, M, comes in for 3 days starting that Saturday. Then it's the family reunion at the end of June and then July comes and by then I'll have even less energy than I do now (which is almost impossible to imagine). The upside is that during our busy June and July, our callings are very relaxed. The youth have so many stake things lined up for June and July that we only have 1 activity even scheduled for July. So that'll be nice to have things in that arena a little calmer.

Hope all is good with all of you. We love you!

Tamra and family