Latest Update

If it would be closer to Thanksgiving, I would appreciate that. I have not been able to think about anything except the season's great food for almost a week! It's tantalizing. I might just make pumpkin pie early, but would that spoil the greatness of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving? One never knows.

I sent you all Halloween pictures. Halloween was good. We had our traditional Dinner-in-a-Pumpkin meal (which the kids actually don't eat--we feed them hotdogs), and it's always fun to cook a meal in a pumpkin. It makes me want to cook ALL my meals inside a cleaned out pumpkin. Cause it's cool.

Cutting Back on Stress

The last few weeks have been good. Around last month I was about done with all the activities our family was doing. We were busy with so many good things that I didn't ever feel like Rob and I got to spend time together or even have a normal conversation. It felt a little out of control. So we slowed WAY down and it's been nice to breathe a little bit. We took out anything that wasn't absolutely necessary and spent a lot of evenings at home together instead of out and about doing stuff or having people over. The break has made us better able to do the things we need to do, and the things we want to do. We have just started to add a few more things back in: having a few people over for dinner, stuff like that. So now I'm not bitter at Rob being so involved in his church calling. :) I was bitter for a minute until we took this break and I realized that a lot of what I was upset about was the fact that our family was too busy doing other things. Though, I have asked Rob to cut out some of the things for his calling, too. Balance. This is a hard word for me. A work in progress.

Miciah

Miciah is getting better and better at reading. We have a parent-teacher conference at the end of next week. The teacher said she would have a reading assessment for us when we went in to meet with her. The teacher said Miciah is "just cool", but she could have just said that to make all those parental pride emotions inside of me feel good. :) She's a great teacher and we feel lucky for Miciah to be in her class.

A few days ago Miciah came to me with 28 cents. She asked if I could put it in her piggy bank. We created piggy banks for Miciah and Elijah for when they earn money. I told her she had to earn the money and where did she get it from (because she only earns money by doing chores and stuff like that--they play the penny game: a penny for every item they clean up). She said she got it on the bus. I asked her to elaborate and she told me a friend on the bus saw a "jewel" that one of her classmates had given her for her birthday. The kid on the bus wanted it and "traded" her the 28 cents for the jewel. ... I wasn't sure what to say about that. Miciah sold something to another student. In the end I decided that counted as earning money and put the coins in her piggy bank.

Elijah

Elijah is still a rambunctious 3-year-old. He's so sweet sometimes and then just all energy and boy at other times. But it's really cute when we see how sweet he is. He's more considerate than I am BY FAR, and that's refreshing. Sure, you can teach consideration, but we didn't teach him--he came with it.

At Halloween, there was a guy sitting on his porch smoking. He didn't have any candy. Now WHY would you sit on your front porch smoking on Halloween night without candy? Who knows. Elijah started walking up the steps and the guy said he didn't have any candy. We started calling Elijah back, but he wasn't really getting it. We said he could just tell him Happy Halloween, which Elijah apparently took as a go ahead and walk up to get candy. So he finished walking up the steps. We hastily explained to him that the guy didn't have any candy and went to get him down (cause he wasn't coming down). He turns to the guy in the middle of all this fun chaos-like atmosphere, smiles, and gives him a thumbs up. :)

Night Terrors

For a few weeks Elijah's night terrors spiked in frequency. He really hadn't had many until we took his binky away. We took his binky away 2 months ago now, and at first he just didn't go to sleep very well. Then he got used to that and the night terrors started coming back instead. There weren't that many at first, so I wasn't sure it was connected to taking away the binky. Then there was 2 or 3 weeks where they were 3 times a week or more. They'd changed in nature a little, but they obviously were night terrors. We were about to the point where we were ready to ask the doctor about them--if there was anything we could do--when they quit. I just realized the other day that he hadn't had one in like 2 weeks. He will now wake up occasionally in the middle of the night, around midnight (he's ALWAYS done this, even since he was a baby sleeping, otherwise, through the night), be a little sad but able to be comforted, and then go back to sleep. ... We just had Teancom's check-up on Friday, which you'll hear about in a minute, and we asked the doctor about the night terrors. I told him a little of the history and described a little bit about his behavior during them. The doctor said 1- we had it pretty easy compared to some kids' night terrors, and 2- it made a lot of sense to him. The binky was his comfort item which helped curb the night terrors. Then we took that away and he had to adjust again. Having a comfort item helps curb night terrors. So I was glad at least that what we were observing made sense.

But an after affect of taking the binky away is that Elijah now does not take a nap at all. He occasionally will fall asleep watching a movie, or he'll fall asleep in the car (even more rare, since I'm not out and about much in the afternoon now). But no naps on any kind of regular basis. In fact, I'm having a hard time recalling when his last nap was.

Teancom

Teancom is the cutest baby ever. He's dang happy and content with life. He still is not walking, though, and he's not really talking, either. At the check-up, our doctor asked if we were concerned about either of those things. We told him we weren't really, we just wanted to keep an eye on it. He described it much how we do, "It would be nice if he were doing those things, but I think he'll get there." He said he was encouraged by his interaction with us, and how active he was. He did tell us we could send him to Children's for developmental testing for his walking and his talking. He said mainly it would be for peace of mind--plus, we wouldn't have to keep addressing it at doc's visits in the future. We turned that down, just cause we're not really concerned. Teancom has done everything so far at his own pace, and just about the time where we're starting to be really concerned about it, he starts doing it. So, I fully expect that he'll start walking at 18 months, a week before the next doctor's appointment. :)

And then his language will take off, too, I'm sure. Right now the only word he says that is truly a word is "No." He's got that one down. Not that I'm sure he always knows what it means. There are just times I KNOW he knows what it means. He's developing his attitude. He's taken to throwing sprawling fits on the living room floor. Usually it's because he's hungry and I haven't fed him yet. He does know how to sign for food, but I've found that if he's REALLY hungry, he won't sign any more, he'll just throw a fit. Fun. :) But at least he has an opinion about it now, and that's nice. Before it was hard for me to tell when he was hungry at all, because he seemed not to care so much. Then we taught him the sign for food and he would wake up from naps signing for food. :) And now he's moved up a level from that--throwing fits when I don't feed him soon enough.

But, still, he's so dang happy and cute and cuddly! I don't know any other 15-month-old that still loves to be cuddled and squished and loved on like he does. He's very calm for a 15-month-old. And I love it. Miciah the other day said, "Mommy likes Teancom better than all of us, even Daddy." I smiled. I told her that I don't like him better, I just love that I can still gush him. I asked her if I could gush her and she said she wouldn't like it. I told her that Elijah didn't like it, either, and it would just be weird if I did it to Rob. So I have to get it while Teancom will still give it. I'll be a little sad when he's more active. It's nice to just carry him around during church and not have him going crazy because he's bored out of his mind. He's just content to be held while he sucks on his fingers and plays with his ear.

That's the kids.

Thacker Family Fireside

Family stuff. Something very cool happened last week for the family. Rob's parents and sisters and brother, G, came down to do a fireside for the ward. It was titled, "What Think Ye of Christ?" and was a wonderful evening of song and testimony. They each gave a personal story and then sang a song to go along with that testimony. The last song, entitled Tender Mercies, had C on the violin, the rest singing, and our friend in the ward, RH (who is a FABULOUS pianist), accompaning. It was AMAZING. As the presentation ended, I was almost in tears about the fact that it hadn't been recorded. It is my new goal in life to have them perform it (or something like it) again in C and M's branch, or V & C's ward, so we can work on getting a recording of it. (There are rules about what can be recorded where in the ward building. We didn't look very hard into getting it recorded, since they had told us no because that's the rule. I think had Rob or I made a personal plea about how this is a precious piece of family history, they would have let us record it. Because that was the right thing to do. But, alas, now we just have that regret.)

Anyways, it was amazing and a great family moment.

I am doing good. Working on this idea of Balance. That will be a life-long endeavor.

Rob is doing good, too. His paper (as always, it seems) is near completion and he's working on his second paper and his dissertation. We have a June 13th graduation in sight (it's a Friday, which I think is fun), and Rob has a committee meeting on Wednesday to try to convince them he'll be ready to graduate then.

Post-Doc Search

We're also still in the process of trying to find a post-doc. The woman he's been in contact with at the NIH is a flake and so we're looking into other options. This whole thing has been a process of better defining what exactly Rob wants to do for a post-doc. It is still possible that we will stay here in Cincinnati, but it's not Rob's first choice. There are lots of advantages for our family if we stay here, but it has to be right, whatever the choice is. I kicked the current "opportunity" out the door (the woman at the NIH he's been in contact with). Rob isn't as fed up as I am, but he's ready to start expanding his post-doc options now. Bottom line: There is no news to report. We're still in phase 1 (and in some cases, phase 0) of decisions about post-docs.

Cleo

Oh, and I should probably report about Cleo, our cat. We had given her to C, but she wasn't doing well there, so we took her back. There is someone here that is interested in her, possibly, but the day after she got back to our house, we found the elusive ringworm. You know, the ringworm that everyone in our family had, that C's family had, and that we were pretty sure the baby cat, Fumasa, had passed to us. We took Cleo in to get a treatment for it. We've been doing that for, what, almost 4 weeks. It's getting better, but slowly. A week or two after we took Cleo in, they found ringworm on Ceasar, too. The two different vets seperately concluded that Fumasa is a carrier for ringworm. Fun! So Cleo is with us until she is healthy, and then hopefully she'll go to another good home. ... So much for being cat free. :)

And that's our update.

Tamra and family