Rob's Post-Doc
First, as some of you know, Rob has secured his post-doc! Rob met with Dr. Bob Colbert at Cincinnati Children's Hospital yesterday. Dr. Colbert has the space and money for Rob to come into his lab if Rob wants, and Rob told him he wanted to. Apparently there isn't too much formality for a post-doc, so this is about as formal as it's going to get. Rob will be funded by a training grant that requires us to stay for at least 2 years and not longer than 3 (that's when the training grant runs out). We are excited to be staying in Cincinnati and all the good things that means. Rob really likes Dr. Colbert's lab and the people in it, and he has heard nothing but good things about Dr. Colbert. Dr. Colbert seems like he will be another good mentor for Rob. He promised to expect a lot from Rob and help him stretch and grow (including helping Rob write his first grant and get his own funding), which is perfect. He said he understands about family obligations and is willing to be flexible with Rob's time, so long as Rob has a good balance. All in all, this is a great opportunity and we're looking forward to the next stage.
Someone in Dr. Colbert's lab said that to do a competitive post-doc with the intention of going into academics (something Rob may or may not do), you have to work 70 - 80 hours a week. That's double the time Rob's putting in now, and that's insane to expect of anyone, I think. When Rob met with Dr. Colbert, he said that he of course DIDN'T expect Rob to be working 80 hours a week, since Rob has a family. That was a relief to me. I don't mind Rob putting in more hours than he is now, but 80 hours a week is more than I want him to work. I would like to see Rob every now and then.
Teancom is Walking
The other exciting news is that Teancom is now walking!!! This is fabulous news as he is approaching 17 months and we were starting to get a little worried. Walking is still not his primary mode of transportation, but he can walk about as far as he wants to. He's a little wobbly still, but he can manoveur around objects and turn around and stuff like that. Awesome! So we're excited about that. A woman at church looked at me and said, "Is he walking?" I told her that he was but that he's just walking. She said, "oh." Like, oh, okay, good to know. Then I said, "Yeah, at 17 months." She then said, "OH!" :) It cracked me up how different the response was when I said his age. Another friend of mine said, "Though I don't know why we're encouraging you to walk, since you'll be a terror soon when you're walking." I said, "Yeah, but if he doesn't walk soon, we have to worry about if he might be retarded. So walking at this point is good."
He has also started talking a lot more. He will repeat lots of things you say, though I don't think his vocabulary has increased. He can repeat, "Oh, yeah" (which is DANG cute), "please", "thank you", and "you're welcome". He does more readily say ma ma and da da and bye bye, and they're becoming more understandable. He definitely says juice, which sounds something like "gunk gunk".
Teancom just isn't a very active child compared to most kids his age. He's getting more curious about things and more determined to do what he wants to do, but he's still really mellow. It is a wonderful baby characteristic to have. ... We went over to a friend's house so she could teach me how to make gingerbread (more on this story later), and she said, "Teancom's pulling on his ear. Does that mean he's got an ear infection or that he's tired?" I told her that it just means he exists. To which, in the retelling, my uncle quipped, "I have an ear, therefore I am." :) Teancom is ALWAYS sucking on two fingers and holding his ear with his other hand. This is part of the reason he's so calm. If he's bored, he'll suck on his fingers and hold his ear. If he's getting tired, he'll suck on his fingers and hold his ear. If he's hurt, ... you get the point. So he rarely cries and if he does, it doesn't last long. I think that while this is nice now, it will be hard to break him of the habit later. I'm not looking forward to that.
Elijah's Binky
Speaking of habits to break, how long has Elijah not had his binky? A few months now? Well, while playing in the basement two weeks ago, he found a straggler. He brought it upstairs and said, "Mommy, look! My binky!" He hadn't put it in his mouth, but he was intent on holding it and claiming it as his. Rob was wanting to take it away. He asked Elijah to throw it away. Elijah refused. I told Elijah to just go downstairs with it, which he did. To my amazement, he never did put it in his mouth, but for the next several days he was asking for his binky again. We'd say, "Elijah, you don't have a binky any more." He'd say, "Yes, I do! It's downstairs!" Funny. (Yes, it has been thrown away by now.)
Miciah
Miciah is still Miciah. She is loving to do her hair now (she did it the other day for like half an hour) and she gets pretty creative with it. This is good for me, cause I have no idea how to do hair and I don't care much about it. Miciah LOVES it, and I would also love for her to learn how to do it herself. It is odd to me that she is so into it. This is a foreign thing to me. She's much more girly than I ever have been (not hard to pass that mark). But it's also fun for me to be forced to like those things a little. If it were up to Miciah, though, we'd paint our fingernails every night and do our hair all fancy every morning. Since it's up to me, those things hardly ever happen, so I'm glad she's taking her own initiative.
She is also very creative with paper. She spends probably an hour or more every day doing a "project". She colors a ton and makes cards. And these aren't just normal cards. She makes cards with hidden pull-outs and cards with 4 pieces of paper and cards with an envelope on the inside. I'm continually amazed with what she comes up with on her own. Some of the things she makes I know she's seen before, but most of those things she hasn't. I scrapbook, but I prefer to do it alone (Miciah tries to take over projects, which I can't stand: is it my time/project or isn't it?), so she has seen me do very little scrapbooking or card-making. We have a collection of cards that I can't bring myself to throw away. They're so cute, and she takes a lot of effort to try to make us feel special with them. She'll also make cards for us from Elijah: she'll ask Elijah what he wants on the card, write his name on it, and then let him color some of it. She's even made us a card from Teancom! Her thoughtfulness blows me away. Almost every day I have a "surprise" waiting for me, usually a beautiful card. It's a fun thing and it certainly adds love and light to our home.
Miciah is an asset to our home.
Though she is getting much "better" at skillfully lying. She won't deny the truth, she'll just shade it differently. Like this story. It's a combination Miciah and Elijah story. Elijah is getting into EVERYTHING lately. He makes "mountains" out of couch cushions or out of the things that go on their beds (plus anything he can find on their floor). He takes everything out of the kitchen cabinets that he can reach. He pulls all the video games, videos and DVDs out of their spots and puts them all over the living room floor. And he does all these things on the same day. This is mildly amusing to me and I don't worry too much about it. Often it means Rob comes home to a house that is trashed, but it makes me think that someday I'll be wishing I had little ones trashing my house, so I can be amused about it while I can. (Though I must admit, it does not encourage me to clean my house. I find I clean my house less and less these days.)
The Wire Whisk Incident
So the other day Elijah was releiving the kitchen drawers of their utensils and spreading them throughout my house. Like normal. But this time he decided to throw the wire whisk at Miciah. I don't think it hit her, but it definitely came close. So she threw the egg beater whisk thing back at him. (Of course this happens while I'm on the phone, but if you're a mother, you KNOW that's when things like this happen. It's some sort of unwritten rule.) They both got time-outs in separate rooms. I went into Elijah first and talked to him about how it's not good to throw kitchen utensils, or anything else, at your sister, or anyone else. He was quick to say he was sorry (he usually is) and was out of his time-out. I went into Miciah next. She was by this time (maybe 5 minutes?) crying and fussing like a baby. This is her new tactic, though I have no idea why she thinks it should be effective. I asked her why she got a time-out. She said, "Because I dropped the thing and then slid it across the floor." Wow. That's a pretty skillful lie, I thought. She wasn't denying she did SOMEthing with the utensil, but she just gently slid it across the floor. Right. I said, "No you didn't, you threw it at Elijah." I had watched the whole thing happen, so I knew and she couldn't re-write that much. She said, "Well, I threw it, but I threw it at the ground, not at Elijah." :) Pretty clever, I thought. Don't deny the whole truth, just tweak it a little. I told her she could stay in her time-out until she was ready to admit she threw it at Elijah.
So round 2. I gave her another few minutes and went back into her room. We'll try the same question: "Miciah, why are you in a time-out?" She says, "Because I threw that thing at Elijah." "Yes. Yes, you did. Now why did you throw it at Elijah?" I realize the answer is obvious, so I quickly form it as a question, "Beause he threw something at you?" She says, "Yeah, and it hit me RIGHT HERE!" and points at her neck. "No he didn't, Miciah. He threw it near the ground." She says, "Well, he hit me right here!" and points to her knee. I start repressing a smile and I look at her with that "you better start telling the truth pretty quickly because I'm done with this crap" look that only moms can pull off. She then says, "Well, it hit me SOMEwhere!" And I lost it. I cracked up. Pretty soon we were both laughing. She still got the same lecture: be nice, don't throw things, even if he throws something at you. But we got a good story out of it!
I attached a few pictures. One is of our cool gingerbread house! There is a family in our ward that makes gingerbread houses every year (one year they made Hogworts castle. No joke) and they invited us over this year to make them for a fun family night. They had it down, but we have never made a real gingerbread house. They had the gingerbread all made and cut out, so we just had to assemble it. It turned out AWESOME! So we took pictures. I returned yesterday so she could teach me how to make the gingerbread. It's a tradition that we plan on incorporating into our family Christmas celebration from here on out. Rob really grooves on gingerbread houses, actually. I never thought I liked the taste of gingerbread, but apparently I'd just never had fresh gingerbread or something. Because it was good. So now I theoretically know how to make gingerbread and icing. I'm going to attempt a batch this week and see if I can make some gingerbread people.
The other is of Teancom "cooking." We had left some mugs and other things on the table, and Elijah had brought out a wooden spoon. Rob walked into the dining room to see Teancom stirring with the wooden spoon in the mug. Cute.
And the last picture is of Rob's creation. :) Last night Rob and I went to the annual Christmas party for his department. We didn't go last year for some reason now lost to me. Anyways, they have a contest for the best ornament made with all lab supplies. It's a fun contest and they give a little prize for it. Anyways, this is what Rob came up with. Pretty creative, I thought, and so did everyone else, because he won the prize. The girl who got second place (she made a really pretty snowflake made with slides and sucrose (sugar) glued to the slides with silicone stuff) was upset because hers was actually a hanging ornament and Rob's was a decoration, not an ornament. :) Last night Rob took pictures of it on our tree, and he says that, even though he has to return a lot of the supplies to the lab, we can keep it around this Christmas. It's actually pretty cool, though something about it makes me shake my head.
Hope you are all doing well! We love you all.
Tamra, Rob, Miciah, Elijah, Teancom, and Cleo
Oh, we think we're going to keep Cleo around. Her ringworm is gone and she's doing really really well in our home. She's happy here and everyone in our home is happy to have her back, even me. Turns out having only one cat isn't near as hard on the house and everyone else as two cats was. Cleo's also a slightly different (and better) cat by herself. Plus, Elijah the other day was petting her, looked at me and said, "Mommy, Cleo is my best friend." How do you argue with that?
No comments:
Post a Comment