The Drive to Dayton - Rob's Career Path Explored

In my last update I promised to talk about our somewhat monumental drive up to Dayton and back ( *giggle* "somewhat monumental"). So here goes:

The set-up: Rob has been struggling with his work. A combination of work and church stresses have helped Rob start re-thinking what his priorities are and if he's "cut out" to be a scientist. If you know Rob, right now you're thinking, "What are you TALKING ABOUT, he's not CUT OUT to be a scientist? The man got his PhD!" I thought the same thing. His lack in self confidence was strange to me, especially since I think the world of him. But I couldn't just hand him my view of him to make it all better.

The drive: The drive forced us to have several daylight hours of uninterupted talk time, something of a luxury when you have 3 kids. I turned to Rob and said, "Tell me something that's NOT WORK." (An aside: "Tell me something" is my oft-asked phrase throughout our marriage. It means much more than it appears to. I also wanted to explain because "Tell me something that's not work" isn't a very well-structured sentence. Okay, moving on.)

And Rob went into how he was feeling inadequate (I knew that) and was thinking of changing career paths from the one he'd been envisioning for a while (I didn't know that). Since he'd started his PhD, he'd imagined himself doing a post doc and then working in industry. I'd asked him repeatedly if he wanted to do academics and he never has wanted the stress and lifestyle of having his own lab, so it was industry or nothing, it seemed. These have always been the only 2 options people have really talked about.

So Rob started talking about how he's now realizing how lazy he really is ("RIIIIGHT" is the correct response to that, of course) and how he's just not the type to succeed in blah blah blah. I told him that it is not a failure to say that you don't want the stress that a certain career brings; it's just knowing yourself (again, this seems obvious to me, but when you're in self-esteem-drain-land, aparently you can't see obvious things). He started coming back around to academics, but not the academics that everyone has presented him with. What about being a professor with an emphasis in teaching (instead of emphasis on lab with teaching on the side), perhaps with a lab on the side?

Well, I thought that sounded FANTASIC. For years I've been trying to convince Rob that he wants to go into academics because he wants to teach. He wasn't listening to me, though, so I stopped saying it eventually, especially since he appeared pretty settled on industry. So him coming back to teaching seemed (and seems) a very natural thing, and as a wife I felt like saying, "I told you so. You KNOW I'm always right about these things." Of course, I didn't say it (too many times) and let him instead think the whole teaching thing was completely (not) his idea. Because I'm convinced that's what good wives do.

The aftermath: Rob and I both felt really good about this new direction and I told him it will probably help him feel a lot better about his post doc. Stressful environment or not, you can survive almost anything for a year and a half if you feel there's an end (instead of feeling like the post doc was the start of the rest of his stressful career).

True to form, Rob came home a few days later saying, "Everyone that I've told about wanting to be a professor has tried to talk me out of it." I asked him who he'd talked to. A co-worker. Who else? No one. "Everyone" = 1 Co-Worker. And she didn't even try to "talk him out of it", she recognized he was thinking of other options and gave him a few more options to consider. ... I was less than nice when Rob and I sat down for our next discussion about his career path. I told him that he was NOT to come home and tell me that there are people who disagree with his choice. He should already be well-aware that people will disagree. I'd already TOLD him that there is a huge group of people who will try to spit on his future, and he should generally ignore them. At any rate, if he wasn't going to ignore them, I was not going to be sympathetic. Because I'm convinced this type of behavior is also what good wives do.

Rob shaped up and stopped coming home telling me about nay-sayers. (If you'd like to nay-say, too, you're welcome to. We welcome feedback. Really, we do. Just be ready for us (meaning me) to tell you where to stick it.)

Rob also worries a little about making less money as a professor focused on teaching. This is not my concern, but it is valid. We do have a family to take care of. And the money we're making now, while livable, kinda stinks. So he looked up a site that gives what professors at different levels average at different universities. Very useful.

Here's my input on making less money. The perks we'll get from him having a more flexible schedule and not being so stressed out (and will our kids get free/reduced tuition when they want to go to college?! That's a HUGE perk) WAY make up for the lower income. For instance, let's make-believe a future time: our kids are in school all day and Rob doesn't have to go into school until Thursdays at 2:30 p.m. I dub Thursdays "Run Around the House Naked Day." What's Run Around the House Naked Day worth? I say $10,000 a year. Add to that all the other perks I can think of, and I'm thinking it all evens out one way or another.

And that's how our Drive to Dayton went.

This is our Christmas letter for 2008. I was going to send it out to more people, but then didn't. Tis the season for slackerness. Enjoy!

Rob and Tamra

Thacker Family

In the Year 2008

I’ve never done a Christmas letter before, thinking that my blog and updates are plenty of information. It struck me this year, however, that some people probably don’t read my updates, or just don’t care to get THAT MUCH information. So here’s a snapshot of the Rob and Tamra Thacker Family in the year 2008. It’ll be an exercise on brevity for me.

Miciah (7) is in First Grade this year and thinks she pretty much knows everything, though I’m still skeptical. First Grade is fantastic for all because it means she’s at school all day and that allows me some sanity while I just take care of my two mellow boys (when Miciah comes home Elijah morphs into Spastic Kid) and we have quiet adventures and pleasant outings. It’s a little weird, and I’m still not used to it.

Elijah (4 ½) is a sensitive, sweet, overly-emotional boy with a temper. His accomplishments include trashing any room in the house in 5 seconds or less, and then turning around and making you smile because he wants to make you happy. He is also very gullible and believes there really is a Lie Bug growing in his body (he seems to think that’s cool, though, so I guess that backfired).

Teancom (2 ½) is a doll. This year he’s mastered walking, running, speaking clearly, and being amazingly and addictingly cute. I no longer shy away from the F word: Favorite.














Rob (30, turning 29 in Jan.) earned his PhD from the University of Cincinnati this year and then promptly turned around and decided he’d rather be a janitor. With the economy what it is, though, no janitorial spots were open, so he took a post doc at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and that’s job security for 2 years. Hopefully people will need janitors in 2010.

Tamra (27 ½): I have been catching up on my reading lately since Miciah is in school all day. I have learned through this that the word ‘omnibus’ means a collection of several books, that Heinlein is a sci-fi genius and Herriot is an amazing storyteller, that it’s plausible that the boy DOES die at the end of The Giver, and that Wodehouse’s Jeeves series may be the most hilarious stuff ever written.

Merry Christmas!

Short Randomness

Today I went outside and got the van ready to go. Took me half an hour to scrape an 1/8 of an inch of ice off the windows. An 1/8 of an inch of ice doesn't seem like much until you think about how it gives you zero visibility, and it's wicked hard to scrape off that much ice (unless you have muscles like Rob, which I don't). It appears, therefore, to officially be winter.

This got me to thinking. Last year it didn't get that cold until January. It was a mild winter anyways. Our worst snow storm was a freak one in March. The year before that it was really warm through most of December, too. I remembered writing an e-mail update about how strangely warm it was, and a picture of Miciah wearing a skirt and flying a kite outside. So I'd like to re-post that e-mail along with a picture of today.

From the e-mail, dated Dec. 18, 2006:

Another one is of Miciah "flying a kite." She decided to make, completely unprompted, a kite. So she taped together a piece of paper and made a kite. She then asked for string. At this point I was still unaware of why she wanted the string, so I gave her the string that had fallen out of my sweatshirt (the one that you tighten to make the hood tight). So she tapes it to the kite and goes outside to fly it. It was so cute. I tried to take some good pictures, but she was moving too much, so this is the best one I have. Though I do have a little video of her running through the front yard trying to fly the kite. She then turns to me, on video, and says, "See, I TOLD you I needed a longer string." It was too cute.

Notice that she's outside flying a kite without a coat on on December 13th. The weather here has been incredible. 60 degrees and warmer. Which by now is getting annoying cause it's supposed to feel like winter so it can feel like Christmas. But it doesn't. It's like the first year we moved to California and couldn't quite get into Christmas the same way. Oh well. I suppose there's a week left.

And from today, Dec. 17, 2008:

I'm not complaining about the weather, though. At least not yet. That'll be February or March, when I'm so sick of it being cold. For now it's hot chocolate and warm soup comforting. With Christmas barely over a week away, this is how it's supposed to be.

And Now it's December (an update)

Well, Mom and Grandpa O. left yesterday to continue their journey. The house feels very empty without them. Not quieter, though, since the noisy ones were left behind with me.

Fun Things We Did

Thanksgiving Day was spent at R&C's house. Mom and I baked all day Wednesday and most of the day Thursday (which I've never really done before--it was an interesting experience and one I don't intend to repeat for a long time to come). We had SO MUCH FOOD it was almost ridiculous, but that's what Thanksgiving's all about I suppose.

Then the day after Thanksgiving we went to Maysville, KY where B&R live. A lot of the family was there and it was a fun time. Lots more good food (R always makes good food). We also checked out the miniatures at their local museum. B&R live in downtown Maysville, in the historic part, right by the river. It's a beautiful place, and the history on display is pretty neat. They are mighty proud of their heritage, and I think that's great. Anyways, the museum was a block away, so we walked down. B has been trying to get us to go see this miniature collection for some time. Described it as elaborate doll houses. Let me tell you how interested I am in doll houses. ... Yep. About that interested.

But it's one of those things that just doesn't translate well. About halfway through our visit, I turned to B and said, "You said doll houses. These are NOT doll houses." Wow. Amazing. A 1/12 scale of the Spencer House (Princess Di is a Spencer). Incredible. If you're ever in Maysville (and why not go?), check out the miniature collection at the museum. You will say as my aunt, C did, "I know I'm getting repetitive, but wow," or as I did, "Insane." (Really it is insane when you think about the amount of money that went into purchasing minatures. The entire collection (worth millions of dollars) is ONE WOMAN'S efforts. And that is crazy. Neat. But crazy.)
The model of the Spencer House, from the front. This does not even begin to show you how cool this is.

http://www.kygmc.org/miniatureExhibits/

On Saturday my Dad was still in town, so we went to the Newport Aquarium with his sister, S. We'd never been (except Rob) till October of this year, and then we visited it twice in 2 months. Which made it really fun, because the second time we could focus on specific things we knew we wanted to see instead of feeling like this was our one and only time to take everything in. After the kids whined and complained (and this cracked me up. They kept saying, "We're going AGAIN?" like they'd been there SO MANY times.), they LOVED it again.

After the Aquarium we met up with S's daughter and family, C&B and their daughter, A, for lunch. A is about Miciah's age, and they had fun together. And lunch was lovely, too. Some fish place on the Levee. Michelle's? Something like that. Fantastic. They had tilapia, which is the only fish I've found yet that I really love (because it tastes the least like fish).

Sunday was insignificant other than the fact that Rob gave a talk at church. I love when Rob gives talks, cause I love to listen to him. Though I wasn't terribly fond of this talk (he already knows this. After I gave him my feedback he said, "Glad you enjoyed my talk" and when I tried to hug him he pulled away in mock-hurt), he did end it on a fantastic note: he sang a song a capella. I love when he sings even more than I love when he speaks. He sang The Olive Tree, which is a great song. Great song. Great singer.

Then the week after Thanksgiving when we all got to relax a little and my mom and C went into uber-project mode, as they always do when my mom is in town. Even when my mom comes intentionally without projects, they come up with about 20 after the second day of her arrival. This time we all helped (well, I didn't really help; I just watched them do their stuff and provided "technical support" as C said) C finish up her alphabet letters, a project she's been working on for years, off and on. Turned out really cute. Then Mom made all the children elves. I'll take a picture of all the kids with their elves so you can see how dang cute the elves are. ... My mom made me 2 Christmas elves and the kids liked them so much (particularly Teancom who wouldn't part with them) that she decided all the kids needed one. Miciah and Teancom are most fond of them. Miciah named hers Lilac and Teancom has no name for his, but it's HIS. He claims Lilac, too, and Elijah's (unnamed) elf.

Funny with Teancom and the elves. He calls his elf his "elb," which is a cute way to pronounce it. I worried that even though Mom made him an elf (she made his first so there would be no revolt) he would still want to play with mine. He had one he liked more than the other, and I let him hold it for a few minutes right before Mom finished Teancom's elf. Mom handed Teancom his finished elf and Teancom walked over to me, handed me my elf and said, "This is yours. Put it up," and pointed to the spot where I'd been keeping my elves.

He plays Jingle Bells with his elf, which is adorable. I got it on video and one of these days I'll get around to posting it. He says jingle bells like "JeanMon Bells." And he wouldn't let my mom sing with him. She would start singing and he would scowl, point at her and say, "Not you!"

Funny, he liked my mom less and less the longer she was here. I thought for sure he'd like her more over time. What's not to like? She's awesome! But I think he didn't like her because he thought I was going to hand off mothering responsibilities to her. And I did from time to time while she was here. He deeply objected to that.

To add to the Project Fever, Grandpa O. decided to re-do the kids' table in the basement. I asked my mom to simply make a tablecloth cover for it--one with elastic on the edge, so it would stay on the table. She looked at the wood (this is a table that is at LEAST 10 years old and you can tell) and said, "You should replace the wood, too." We thought about options and then Grandpa got wind that there was a possible project for him and he went to town. Now we have a beautiful almost completely new table for the kids. ... I won't let them use it for a while, to make sure the finish is SET. ... Thank you, Grandpa O.!

This last Friday Rob and I went on an all-day date. (My mom was in town, so I told Rob I wanted to go on a date that lasted longer than 2 hours!) We started the day at Miciah's school making a gingerbread house with her. It was so much fun! Then we went out to eat at Panera Bread (my favorite place, if I haven't said that before). On to pick up something from K, who works just south of Dayton. It cut into our day somewhat, but it ended up being really really good because Rob and I got to talk uninterupted for a couple hours. Actually, when Rob initially objected to making the drive part of our day I said, "I get to be with you. I don't really care what we do." I'll mention the drive and our talk later.

Then we went to the Museum Center. We walked around the Natural History Museum and actually READ stuff. Weird. Then we spent some time playing at the Children's Museum (Rob's idea, and a good one). We played horse (the basketball one) in the ball area (I won, of course), and then constructed a "building" in the large blocks area. The building was probably about 4 feet tall and it was fun to build. The BEST part of building it, though, was that when we were done a kid, maybe 4 or 5 years old, walked up and said, "I'm going to knock down your building!" His father started objecting when I said, "Okay. Go ahead." You have to knock down anything tall that you build when you're done anyways, so I figured he would have fun smashing it. The kid looked at me, trying to see if I was serious. I told him again that it was fine and the kid ran FULL SPEED into the building. It came down so fast and so loudly that I gasped. I thought the kid was going to get hurt. It was COOL to see it come down like that. ... And then the kid ran away saying, "Ha ha! I knocked down your building and you can never build it again!" What a snotty kid, but it was fun anyways. ... And then we did something a kid would probably never do: we picked up all the blocks and put them away.

From there we went upstairs to watch the Omnimax movie called "Grand Canyon Adventure" or something like that. I was expecting it to be more centered on the Grand Canyon, but it was really an environmental piece on the Colorado River. Should have figured that out, I guess from the subtitle of the film: River at Risk. Learned something I didn't know before: the Colorado no longer flows to the sea. Dries up well before then. The movie was pretty overtly anti-Lake Powell, which is fine with me because I am, too (just not very overtly--it's one of my opinionated opinions that I don't talk about much). Wasn't anti-Lake Mead, which surprised me (I am not personally anti-Lake Mead either), but it WAS anti-Las Vegas's "indulgent" use of water. It was an alright film. Not sure it was worth our $11, but that's okay. Again, time with Rob.

Then we ended the night with dinner at Outback. We go to Outback and order the Melbourne, which is possibly the best stake in the world. At least it's the best stake I've ever had. It melts in your mouth and is SO yummy. Get it medium rare (I dislike stakes medium rare as a general rule). Anyways, the excitement of the night about Outback is that the stake they brought us was awful! So bad, in fact, that the waitress sent out the manager to talk to us. This was our first experience sending a stake back, but it was seriously gross (I actually spit out a bite I'd taken. Like a little kid would do). The manager brought us the new stake himself (and was very nice about the whole thing: Can I get you something else while you wait?) and waited while we took the first bites. MUCH better, thank you. ... Rob said he felt like he'd grown up a little, sending his first stake back. Like a rite of passage into adulthood. So now it's official: at (almost) 30 and 27 1/2 we are Adults.

On Saturday we were going to all go to the Krohn's Conservatory to see the Christmas display. But Grandpa got sick on Friday with what seems to be the same cold we all got. NOT GOOD! Plus, Miciah woke up Saturday morning at 4:30 complaining of her ear hurting. She had just complained about her other ear a few days before--ear wax build-up. We took care of that and when she started whining about her other ear on Friday night we were less than sympathetic. But waking up at 4:30 a.m. is a different story. Rob took her into Urgent Care on Saturday morning, first thing, and she has a "raging" ear infection. We decided to not go to the Conservatory and sent my mom on with C and Mary, Mom's friend from HS that she still gets together with when she comes in town.

Miciah had a birthday party and a soccer game on Saturday night, and she ended up skipping them both, sadly, since she was sick. She had a low-grade fever (like really low grade) and she threw up once. No fun for her. So our Saturday transformed from a busy day into a lazy day. Fine with me.

Miciah stayed home from church on Sunday, and so did Mom and Grandpa and Teancom (if everyone else is home, why not keep the baby home?). So I got to go through Sacrament Meeting without losing my mind! Hurray! ... Only one kid at church. ...

On Monday my mom and I went to a bookstore. Elijah didn't want to go; he wanted to watch a movie. So he stayed with Grandpa (who played with Elijah a ton, and Elijah loved it!) and we took Teancom. And why does Teancom have me wrapped around his finger? Cause he's the best behaved baby in the world. He doesn't run away at the store. If I offer him my hand, he holds it. If I tell him to put something back, he does. If I walk to the next aisle, he follows me. If I tell him not to touch, he doesn't. ... It's unreal.

... We had his 2 year check-up last week (a little late, I know). The doctor asked if we had any concerns about his behavior. I said, "No. He's the easiest baby in the world." And the doctor said, "I'll write that down: Easiest Baby in the World." And I think he actually DID write it down. But it's true. And it's why Rob and I are addicted to the cuteness. (Do I write about this every time I write an update? I do, don't I. Shameful.)

Another fun thing I got to do with my parents when they were here: they came to see my soccer games. This doesn't sound like a big deal, probably, but it is. My dad was my soccer coach for years. My mom and dad spent every Saturday, all day, at the soccer fields when we were kids. It's a part of our make-up, it seems. So it was just like being a little kid again, having my parents drive me to a soccer game, me in the back seat. Quite pleasant. And though my teams lost both games, it was just fun to play and fun to have my parents there. Besides, I never mind losing (I'm 27, I have 3 kids, and I'm playing soccer at 9:30 on a Friday night. I am blessed).

And that's what we did when my mom and dad and Grandpa O. were in town. It was great to have them, they were gracious guests, and they are welcome back any time. ... After my dad left, he called and told me thank you for taking care of Mom. I said, "Right. She takes care of us while she's here and we all know it. Let's be clear about that." What can I say, she's still my Mommy.

Thanksgiving Week (an update)

The kids made this Happy Thanksgiving sign. It didn't come out very well on here, I guess. If you click on the picture, you can see it bigger, though.

My mother and grandfather fly into town today, so I thought I'd sit down and write my update, since it won't happen after they get here.

Things to report.

Miciah's Tooth Trauma

Round 2 of Miciah's tooth trauma. Last year right about this time, if you remember, she had to have a tooth pulled after an ER visit where we found out that her tooth was just gone. Rotted out without us being able to tell. They put a spacer in to allow the adult tooth to come in correctly.

Well, a few weeks ago she came to us in the middle of the night (4:30 a.m.) saying that another tooth hurt--this time the same tooth, just on the other side of her mouth. Rob took a look at it briefly, gave her some Tylenol and sent her back to bed. I asked him what he thought and he gave me that look that says nothing good is coming her way. So depressing for her.

We took her in to the dentist and sure enough, tooth number 2 rotted away without us knowing. They showed Rob the x-ray of the tooth from last year. The tooth was totally fine. The dentist said it was pretty incredible that that amount of damage happened in a year's time. They gave her an ultra-powerful flouride tooth treatment (FINALLY people are believing me that she just has crummy teeth!) and scheduled a tooth-pulling session for December 17th.

Dec. 17th was 4 weeks after they brought her in. I wondered if she would last that long. What if it started hurting? It took her another week or so to start complaining about it again. Some nights before bedtime of her complaining. But the last straw, really, was when she came home from school and said that she'd had to go to the school nurse because her tooth hurt. Clearly, we wouldn't be making it all the way to Dec. 17th. We called Children's Dental (the ONLY place I will be taking my kids from here on out, by the way. They're that good) on this last Friday morning and told them she was in pain and we needed to set up a time before Dec. 17th. I was ready for them to put up a fight, tell us how busy they were. But the lady just said, "If she's in pain, bring her in right now. We'll put her in the emergency chair." Oh. That was easy. WHY DIDN'T THEY TELL US THAT BEFORE?!

So we took her out of school Friday morning and Rob took her to get her tooth pulled. They said the tooth was massively infected, and it was good we didn't wait until Dec. 17th to bring her in. She got home by about noon and was pretty mopey. I remember tooth trauma from my childhood, so I'm very sympathetic about stuff like this. But by about 2 pm she was running around being crazy and she said, "I got a day off school!" I looked at her sideways, wondering if it was worth it to get a tooth pulled for a day off school! I wouldn't think so.

Snaggletooth was very nice to her and gave her a full dollar for the tooth trauma. This is the note she wrote to him:

Working the system. That's our Miciah. And she got a piece of candy.

Soccer

Miciah is now playing on an indoor soccer team, and loves it. She is the shortest, slowest, and probably youngest on the team (they didn't have a slot for her in her age group, so they put her one age group up). At her first practice one of the girls put her arm around Miciah and paired up with her for a drill. I was glad that she was able to find a friend so fast. Miciah later told me that the girl had said, "You're so cute!" and "You're so little for your age." ... I suggested to her that she could run a little faster when she was on the field and she said, "You don't run as fast as you can when you play, either." I think that's a tally mark for Miciah.

She has now played 2 games and her team has won them both. She has claimed, after both games, that she scored a goal. In fact, she was so desperate to say she scored, apparently, that she claimed that she scored a goal for the OTHER team. I think she might be wanting to be like me (and that wasn't meant to be cocky). The day before her first game I had a game and I scored 2 goals. It's interesting how compelling it is for kids to want to be just like their parents.

I think it's fun to note my own soccer playing. Mainly because soccer is (and probably forever will be) a love of mine. It's nice to be in touch with that part of me, even though it feels like I pay a small fortune to play, especially when our budget is so tight. In my last game, Friday night, I accidentally did the full splits. By the way I can't DO the full splits. On my way down I heard a sound that I knew was my muscle. Not good. And Saturday morning I woke up knowing EXACTLY where that muscle runs and where it connects in the body. It hurt the entire length. But it's fun to play. Hopefully bruises and over-stretched muscles will be the extent of my soccer injuries.

Stress

Rob's job continues to be stressful, though we seem to finally be figuring it out (slowly). Really, it's the job and calling combo that gets us. This month has felt like a culminating event in terms of stress. It was a crucial time for us to say, "Enough!" and put our lives back together the way they should have been to start with.

For instance, as related to Rob's calling: Is there another meeting that Rob could attend, please? Because I think he needs a few more. ... Ugh! NO! I finally got to a point where I said, "If I hear the word 'need' in the same sentence as 'meeting' I will scream." Because I can think of a lot of things I need and NONE OF THOSE THINGS are a meeting. But we're figuring out how to meet halfway. Rob has figured out that he can say no to some meetings, and I've become willing to let him go to all the meetings he says he needs to go to. And he's learned that if he wants to attend a meeting at all, he leaves the word 'need' out of the sentence. Instead he'll say, "Tamra, there's a meeting that I'd really like to go to..." I know he's saying roughly the same thing as before, but it's a change in attitude for both of us, and it really helps me.

Calendar

I finally have my 2009 calendar. It's amazing how much you need one for the new year come October or so. The kind I buy happen to cost only like $2.50. It was fantastic how excited I was when Rob came home with my calendar. Not quite update worthy, I'll admit, but I'm excited, so I'm including this pointless piece of information.

Sickness

This whole month feels like it's been filled with sicknesses going around our family. It took a full 3 weeks for Rob and I both to feel like we were feeling much much better again. Still, we have a cough that's just hanging around. Not bad any more, but still just hanging there until we've almost forgotten about it, and then it shows up again. Still, last Sunday I declared us all healthy. Hopefully we all stay that way.

While I was sick I lost a little weight. Not because I wasn't hungry (it was a strange sickness, really. No huge symptoms other than a cough and feeling crummy, but still apetite in tact), but because I felt too crummy to get off the couch to get something to eat. My stomach did feel a little not right a few days, because my main caloric intake was mucus drainage and cough drops.

Needless to say, the Health and Fitness Challenge Rob and I were doing was completely thrown off track by this sickness parade. There were several days where exercise was impossible, and many other days where we just didn't want to, even though we could. And after we were finally feeling better, the challenge only had a week and a half left! So the challenge is now over and we completely bombed out of it. But that's alright. We still got some good benefits from it, and Rob still lost some weight, even though it wasn't the amount he wanted to lose.

Reading

A good thing about being sick is that I read the rest of a fantastic book: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. It's really long, but it's SO good. I feel like I learned a lot and it was fun to read, too. Highly recommend it.

Then I started on The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein, which I'm not quite done with yet. My brother, C, recommended it to me and then bought a copy and shipped it to me. I was 70 pages into it before I'd realized I'd spent any time on it at all. It's sci-fi, and it's fantastic! If you like sci-fi at all, I highly recommend this book. (I did read ahead to find out what happens at the end. I needed to know what happened to Mike, my computer friend.) Really. I can't emphasize enough how good this book is. I almost decided, before I started reading this book, to let almost all fiction reading cease in my life and move on to non-fiction near-exclusively. Robert Heinlein single-handedly changed my mind.

Thanksgiving Plans

My mom flys in today with my Grandpa O. (her dad). They will stay for 2 weeks. Tomorrow my dad will be here, too, and he won't stay for 2 weeks, but he'll be here for Thanksgiving. It's fun that we'll get to have them here for the holiday!

While they're here, my computer usage will probably be limited. When there's family in town, why would I spend my time on the computer? Just so you know, when you're wondering where my Thanksgiving pictures are.

Miciah's Parent-Teacher Conference

We had a parent teacher conference with Miciah's teacher, Ms. L. Miciah does great in school academically, and we knew that before we walked in there. Instead, we wanted to know if she was ever over-emotional or bossy in class. She said she's not over-emotional at all. She isn't bossy: in fact she helps other kids with their work in a way where she doesn't tell them the answers, but leads them gently to it on their own. I thought that was an excellent compliment for a 1st grader. But Ms. L did say that she occasionally has to ask Miciah, "Miciah, who's the teacher?" Miciah will quickly correct her behavior and point to Ms. L, the real teacher. When Ms. L said that I laughed and said, "We have that conversation about 8 times a day! "Miciah, who's the mom, me or you?""

She also said some very good things about Miciah and her abilities, especially her reading. Miciah is very confident about her reading. Miciah says she struggles with her math, but really she just makes silly mistakes. Ms. L said Miciah makes most of her mistakes because she's trying to get done really fast so that she can be the first one done. That competitive drive. We wanted to half-apologize for that, but Rob and I just looked at each other and said, "Yeah. That was us." Capable and competitive. Not a bad combo, so long as she's not cocky.

Pictures to Share

My boys especially love markers and crayons. Teancom likes to color the floor with crayons (I made him cry (which is not hard to do) by telling him it was NOT appropriate to color on the floor). And Elijah likes to color himself and furniture with markers. (Miciah likes to color, too, but she colors on paper--novel idea). This is one of my favorite recent colorings:

I like to tell people that I love that kids color themselves with markers and they give me this look like, "Whatever." Seriously! I think it's awesome. I would color myself with markers on a near-daily basis if I felt I could get away with it in public. In fact, maybe I should try it.

The other day the kids came upstairs talking about "snow" they were making downstairs. Uh oh, that's never good. I think they were using packing peanuts and shredding them up real small. I sent them downstairs with an order to not do that any more, but I didn't really care, cause it was my night off (soccer night, and Rob let me go early so I could buy myself some boots (I ended up buying retro little boys boots on clearance (the womens' boots were awful, I thought). I found out that I wear boys size 4) because I needed boots, and I also needed a break from the kids). Right before I left Rob walked downstairs and saw the huge mess and was about to yell at them when Miciah crawled out from under a table with her hair looking like this:

And instead of getting mad, he said (in true Tamra fashion), "I'm going to go get the camera and take a picture." And THEN he cleaned up the mess. Kids are awesome.

A fun Playing with Daddy session from a Saturday morning:

Rob attacks!

Rob wards off a Spider-Man attack from Teancom while pinning Elijah with his leg.

Elijah, still pinned, attacks Rob by pricking his ankle with something. Rob is mid-manhandling Teancom when Miciah runs up with Spider-Man for the attack!

Miciah climbs on Rob's back while Rob has Elijah pinned, and Teancom needs to take a break for a phone call.

What good memories!

My Fascination with the Wiggles

The Wiggles. l to r: Greg, Jeff, Murray, Anthony

My fascination with the Wiggles continues. Every now and then their songs are actually good, but mostly my fascination (obsession, perhaps? That's scary) revolves around the fact that it's amazing to me that they exist as a band! So here's a post dedicated to my (okay, fine) obsession with the Wiggles.

My introduction to the Wiggles happened when Miciah was still too young to care about them--she was perhaps 1 year old. I was on my way to work and these 3 radio DJs, one woman and two men, came on the radio station I was listening to. The woman started talking about how she'd hung out with the Wiggles the night before, after their show in Salt Lake City. She explained a little about them, and I thought, "Who would take their kid to one of these shows?" I couldn't imagine what that person would be like, but I was SURE he/she wouldn't be anything like me. The two male radio DJs started making fun of the Wiggles and the woman kept insisting that they were very nice. She shared a drink with them and she was pretty adament that they were like the nicest people ever. I think by the end of the discussion she was annoyed with the other DJs for making fun of them. But come on! The Wiggles? They sing songs for 4-year-olds. They deserve to be made fun of.

The first time I saw one of their videos (I didn't buy it, trust me. It was at someone else's house) I was interested to see what these men looked like and what made their music so great anyways (what's worth a concert ticket for your kid? In my opinion, not much). I was a little shocked at their appearances, actually. I thought, "What kind of 40-something-year-old men dream of singing subpar songs to kids?" I was still decidedly unconvinced, even though my daugther (at the time, the only one of my children old enough to care) seemed to like them well enough.

Then my mother did something I never would have done: She bought my kids (by now I had two children old enough to care) a Wiggles movie: Whoo Hoo! Wiggly Gremlins. Seriously. (As a side note, what bothers me most about this entire movie isn't the lame plot or repetitive songs, but that the title isn't written the way they pronounce it in the movie. Spelled how they have it, I expect Whoo Hoo to make the Choo Choo sound. But no. It's the Santa Claus Ho Ho Ho sound. Shouldn't they spell it something more like "Woah Ho!" if they're going to pronounce it that way? This actually really bothers me for some strange reason.) And my kids loved it. 2-year-old Elijah and 4-year-old Miciah were in heaven.

This started my search for information on the Wiggles. How does a band like this start? (College project that took off like crazy.) WHO starts a band like this? (2 Child Development (or something like that) majors--Greg and Murray; 1 drummer from a previously failed band--Anthony, from Australian band the Cockroaches; and 1 friend of a friend, band connection through Anthony--Jeff.) How much money do they make? (A LOT. More than any other Australian entertainer, which at the time included (and I assume it still does) Nicole Kidman.) Why the colors red, yellow, blue, and PURPLE? (I still don't know that one. But Anthony used to wear green until they decided that blue would be better, since Dorothy the Dinosaur is green.) Where can I get cool pants like that?!! (I'll skip the belt buckle, though.)

Each of my kids went through a fairly lengthy period of time when they were addicted to the Wiggles. We moved from the Baby Einstein addiction (roughly 6-months-old until around 2 1/2-years-old) to the Wiggles addiction (about 2 1/2-years-old until around 4). We started Miciah late on both, so her periods of fascination are a little skewed (and hence should not be presented here as valid data, other then to note that she was addicted to them, too).

And then something happened in the Wiggles world that a lot of people didn't hear about: Greg, the lead singer, has a disease that impairs his wiggling ability, and he stepped down as lead singer. He handed his yellow jersey to Sam (I'd call it a shirt, not a jersey, but an article I read called it a jersey). Anthony (the best Wiggle, in my opinion) was on morning shows in the US following up this announcement, to promote their group, to state they were still in business, and defend their selection of Sam as the new yellow (I don't know why, really, I just made that up). It is strange that I found it a source of some pride that at a play group with other young mothers, I was able to be the one with exclusive up-to-date knowledge on the Wiggles.
Other Mother: "What? Greg was my favorite!"
Me: "I'm partial to Anthony myself."
Second Other Mother: "Anthony is my favorite, too. It's the hair."
Me: "Totally the hair! ... I'm anxious to hear what the new Wiggle sounds like, though. I've only heard reviews. Hopefully new videos will come out soon."
The other mothers nodded and thought about how sad it was that Greg had left his post as Wiggles lead singer.

Since then Anthony has changed his hair and now cuts it really short, so you can't tell it's this curly amazingness (to hide the grey, I think). But they have come out with new videos and I've been able to hear Sam's voice and style. The review I read said that he doesn't have Greg's "soulful (something) voice." I remember the word soulful because I never thought Greg's voice was soulful to begin with. Sam's isn't soulful, either. THEY SING FOR 4-YEAR-OLDS, PEOPLE! THEY'RE NOT GOING FOR SOULFUL!

The Wiggles with new yellow Sam, and including regular characters

Wags the Dog, Henry the Octopus, and Captain Feathersword.

Anyway, you can make your own decisions about the Wiggles. But here's my last point. I think it's okay to be a Wiggle. I mean, laugh's on us, right? Make fun of the Wiggles and they can just wave their buckets of $100 bills in our faces. But how would you tell people that you're a back-up dancer for the Wiggles? Or that you're an understudy for the Wiggles (that's what Sam was for years)? Can you imagine that conversation?
Girl: "So. What do YOU do for a living?"
Wiggles Understudy: "I'm, uh, an understudy to Anthony the Wiggle."
Girl: Oh.
I imagine the girl would walk away at this point.

And what about Captain Feathersword? The man is an "actor". If you look him up (which of course I've done), just about the only thing he's done is be Captain Feathersword. Again, WHO WANTS TO BE CAPTAIN FEATHERSWORD?
Actor A: I want to be a Shakespearean actor.
Actor B: I'd really like to be an action movie star.
Actor C: I find fulfillment in Broadway.
Actor D: I want to wear an eye patch and use a lame piratey-sounding-voice while dancing around like an idiot and singing songs. Every few minutes I'd like to say the word, "Arrgh," right after the phrase, "This is the best/worst (insert words here) I've ever had."
Whose life dream is THAT? No one's.

However, if you can move up the ranks in the Wiggles organization, I'm pushing for the blonde dancer to take Anthony's place when he retires. I don't know if he's currently Anthony's understudy or not, but Sam originally was a back-up dancer, too (he's featured nicely as a pirate dancer in Here Comes the Big Red Car (which is in fact a remake (a REMAKE!) of an earlier movie they put out when they were just starting. The new one is the version they would have done originally had they possessed any money to do it with). And the blonde dancer is my favorite. I think he'd make a nice Anthony--kinda zany and cute.

...

If you're going for their videos, I suggest the Magic one (can't think of the full title right now, haven't seen it in a year or two). I really like Wally (he's not a Wiggle, just a goofy actor they use in the video to play some wannabe magician). Other than that, stay away from their newer ones (you can tell because it's Sam instead of Greg, and Murray looks a little psychotic on the covers), they're more annoying (though Pop Go the Wiggles was alright).

Teancom's Evolutionary Advantage

First off, a cute picture of my dad and the kids (see how enthused everyone is?). My dad had a business trip out East and decided to swing by for a minute. Truly, not much more than a minute. I was impressed that he thought it important to come and give us all hugs, even though he didn't have much time to spend. He arrived around 1 am and left in the morning around 8:20. But the kids loved seeing him. So thanks, Pop!

That night for dinner Teancom decided that he just HAD to wear a hat. We tried to make him take it off and he put up such a squak about it that we just let it be. Once I was at the dinner table taking pictures, though, all the kids had to get in on the action. Pictures over dinner, what a treat! So I thought I'd post these 3 pictures of our kids, because I think it really catches in a moment how different the 3 of them really are.

First, Miciah. Given the opportunity to have her picture taken. How does she choose to pose?

Of course.

Then Elijah.

Hammin' in up.

And then Teancom. Background to this picture. He was looking pretty cute with the hat on and I took a bunch of pictures, but every time I put the camera down, he asked Rob for more food and I realized that he doubled in cuteness when he asked for food! I quickly formed my theory about the evolutionary advantage of looking extra cute when asking for food.

I don't know how many times Rob and I say to each other, "Aw. How can you resist that face?" You can't, really. It's just that cute. Tilted head. Slightly higher-pitched voice. Bambi eyes. Works every time.

Tamra

Pictures to Post

I've got a bunch of pictures I want to post and not much to say about them. So here goes:

This is Teancom hanging on our entertainment center.


Elijah the other day came up to me and said I needed to help him rescue his CareBear. The CareBear was stuck in a "cage" that ended up being his blanket endlessly coiled around the chairs. Later the blanket turned into this, which Elijah says is a bed for his CareBears.

And once Miciah and Elijah had set up another bed kind of like this one. The chairs were facing each other, though, so the blanket bed had a solid bottom. Then they put pillows inside it. I was surprised, then, when I heard Teancom squaking and came in the room to find him laying down as a baby inside this "bed." I tried to make him lie back down so I could take a picture of it, but no go. He was done being a baby. And where were the lovely "parents" who'd put their baby down for a nap? Playing outside.

Elijah insisted I take some pictures of him. I particularly liked this one, especially because it highlights this lovely blanket of his. His blanket really is his bestest friend. It's really a multi-purpose tool. It's at differing times a blanket, a rope, a web, a bed, and a cuddle object. ... I showed Rob this picture because I think it's a lovely shot. He said, "But his face is dirty." Yep! Real life there. It's cute, I think.


Teancom, half-out of the shot. For some reason I can't quite explain I LOVE half-out of the shot photos!

A series of 3 from the aquarium:



After a while Teancom didn't want his picture taken and we got these 3 photos. B said he thought it was because of the flash. ... Subsequently, Teancom has been a little camera shy. Mostly it's been when I've been trying to take some videos of him saying the cute things he's been saying. Clearly a video of the floor while he says, "That's not good" isn't very engaging.

Elijah was asking us to play with him today. Really, asking Daddy to play with him. Rob was home today because I'm still not feeling quite well. I'm feeling better right this minute, but that apparently is no indicator of how I'll feel in a few hours. Anyways, it's cold outside, but Elijah seems not to have noticed. He's still up for playing outside all the time. He's invited friends over to play with him outside, and the minute they arrive and Elijah tries to go outside, they look at him like he's crazy! Likewise, this is the look I give him when he asks me to play outside with him.

Today he asked Daddy to play. Daddy was busy working from home but said he would play in a little while. Almost at the same time Teancom went inside probably because it's cold! A little later I looked outside to see Elijah like this:

What describes loneliness better than this following picture?:

And then Elijah and Teancom got to play with Daddy:


Teancom roars at Daddy:

Teancom looking on as Daddy and Elijah have at it!

And thus ends my pictures to post.

Tamra

The Kind of Randomness You Don't See on TV

This is going to be a disjointed entry full of the kind of randomness you don't see on TV. Don't expect paragraphs to follow what came before, though there could be some that are loosely related. ...

Today I am home from church for the second week in a row. I had been feeling decent all week until Friday came and my cough moved into my chest. I now can get winded from climbing the stairs. I thought about going to my soccer game Friday night and then tried to lightly jog to the mailbox, just so see. And I was so tired just from doing that! Yikes! So no soccer game.

I slept decent last night, for the first time in a few days. It had been taking me an hour or so to calm my cough enough to just GO to sleep. And I've been coughing so hard with this dry cough that I've pulled or strained muscles in my sides. My body is exhausted and I've been pretty out of it. But today I feel significantly better so far. This is good. And even though I feel a little better and I'm sleeping better, Teancom seems to be at the peak of his not-feeling-well situation. His cough sounds as nasty as mine does, and he's been spending significant time sleeping in my arms at night. Which means I'm sleeping spectacularly! It's so tragic when such little people get sick. ... So far all of us have been hit fairly hard with this cold. Everyone, that is, except Miciah, who hasn't skipped a beat. Sometimes I wish I had her immune system.

My cough is becoming my best friend. It has taken over my social life and demands a lot of attention. True, it just takes, takes, takes--hence I don't see a long-lasting relationship for us. Eventually the emotional wear and tear will break us apart.

Teancom loves the Wiggles. And while Anthony is hot, there really isn't much in their shows for adults. Having said that, I know about the Wiggles history and their new lead singer and all that. How do I know this? I look it up. It is FASCINATING to me that a group dedicated to singing subpar songs directed at children has taken over the world and makes more money than most other entertainers dream of making. ... To add to my Wiggles knowledge, the kids got an older Wiggles video from the library. Back when Anthony wore green instead of blue, and Anthony did Captain Feathersword. I'd only read about this phenomenon and felt priviledged to observe it for myself.

Teancom came to wake me up from a nap the other day and instead of saying, "Wake up, Mommy," like he often does, he said, "Wake up, Jeff!" Yea for Wiggles infiltration!

I asked Teancom if he was tired. He said, "I not tiger! I a wion!"

Elijah has been Captian Destructo. It's amazing the messes he's been making. The kind that you admire because they're THAT impressive. And he's been uber hyper, too. Fun times over here. When Elijah gets hyper and destructive, he needs a nap. The boy only takes a nap once every 2 or 3 weeks or so. He won't take them unless he's exhausted, and then he stays up late on the day he takes naps. So it's a trade-off, really.

A few weeks ago I convinced him to take a nap on my bed by telling him that he only had to lay quietly with his eyes closed for 20 minutes and after that if he was still awake--which he probably would be, I told him--then he could get up. I set the timer and went back to get him when 20 minutes was over. Of course he was asleep because he falls asleep faster than any other human I know. I knew he would be asleep, so it was rather devious of me, really. But I forgot to put him in a pull-up, so he wet the bed. And he was sleeping on my bed. And so we spent that night on an air mattress in the living room. ... When he woke up from that nap, though, and cutely enough he didn't move from the bed but said, "Mom, can I get up now?" That made me happy. He is a rather obedient kid.

Yesterday he desperately needed a nap again. I laid down with him this time. I learned from last time and put him in a pull-up, which made him angry. He was crying and yelling at me and was very upset. I left him alone for a few seconds and then came back and laid down with him, giving him the same deal: We lay down together for 20 minutes and then he could get back up. I fell alseep for a little while because I'm sick and pretty dang tired myself. Before that, though, when we were just laying down, I would open my eyes every so often and if Elijah's eyes were open, I'd say, "Close your eyes, Elijah," and he would. I knew we had him, though, when I opened my eyes to see his open, too, and said, "Close your eyes," to which he responded, "Good night, Mom."

The boys are delightful to parent. I will someday write whole essays about the differences between parenting Miciah plus the boys all day and just the boys. Because it's amazing how different it is. Just thinking about it makes me want to cry and giggle at the same time.

Teancom is sitting next to me wearing his footie pajamas and eating cereal while watching Wiggles. His hair is spiked because he wanted to spike it just like Elijah. Course I sent Elijah to church and Teancom is home with me. So it's cute to see this sick little boy with snot dribbling from his nose, with spiked hair. It helps with the whole picture that his diaper is still nasty and unchanged, cause he doesn't want me to change it. Somehow that makes it extra cute.

Elijah makes lots of webs still. One of his best was at a friend's house. Him and his BFF found my friend's yarn and made a gigantic, spectacular web. Really, it was the best one he's ever made. They stretched it around, and then wrapped it around about 10 different objects spanning 2 rooms. It was cool. He will make webs and knots from anything that's remotely rope-ish. Including appliances with plugs--the cord is the rope. I am continually impressed with what he comes up with.

Yesterday he actually got his hands on real rope. Teancom pulled it out and Elijah started planning out his fantastic web. It was fun to hear him in the planning stages: "We'll wrap it around the lamp and then tape it to the wall and then over to the chair..." Pretty cute.

The tooth fairy forgot to bring Miciah her money the day she lost her tooth. The tooth fairy helper assigned to Miciah is named Snaggletooth (Rob thought that was very clever) and there is some debate in the house if Snaggletooth is a boy or girl. And of course we don't know for sure, since Snaggletooth hasn't said one way or the other. Anyways, I suggested she write Snaggletooth a note telling him/her how disappointed she was in his/her performance and that she now should get double what Snaggletooth was going to bring before. Miciah thought that was a good idea, and after she walked out of the room Rob turned to me and said, "Oops." Yeah.

She wrote Snaggletooth a note that said something about how he/she had forgotten to bring her money and that she thought he/she should now bring her double. She ended the note with "Ok or Not Ok?" Snaggletooth brought her a 50-cent piece (which doesn't fit in her piggy bank, but Snaggletooth has no way of knowing that, of course) and apologized for being late and then told her she should try to be a little braver next time she loses a tooth.

We sometimes promise Elijah a treat under his pillow if he goes to bed good. Elijah falls asleep really fast, but he sometimes needs some motivation to be still, and the treat works well as that motivation. The other day, though, it cracked me up to watch him as he first got up in the morning. It had been weeks, probably, since we'd promised him a treat, but he got up and the first thing he did was check under his pillow for a treat. It made me smile. Here's this cute little boy who hasn't complained at all about not getting a treat for weeks, but who still looks for that treat, just in case it's there. This would explain why his pillow is always on the floor when I go in the room--he's always checking for that treat! In fact, I thought that was so cute and so innocent and sweet, that we've started giving him treats a little more often.

My kids sit near the W's at church. They keep me sane and Elijah in particular really really likes them. JW will sit and draw with him and Elijah can't wait until I tell him that he can go sit with her. Sometimes what they draw or write cracks me up and I keep it. The kids draw on scrap paper and one of those scraps has been a form that asks for your name and address, stuff like that. This has been a fun form over time, because the kids love "filling it out" in entertaining ways. One of my favorite was Miciah filling out the form correctly and then the last line read like this:
Parent or Guardian: Robert Print name: Rob

One of the times JW filled it out for Elijah in the way Elijah dictated and it included the names of everyone in their family, everyone in our family, and then "Blanket". And that made me smile.

Miciah is writing and writing and writing these days. Her spelling isn't always on, but she's doing it all herself and that's awesome. One of my favorite spellings of hers is "wut" for what. She wrote me this note at church: "Im so glad wene mommy cums home! glad as I can be. clap my hans and clim up on her kney." This is a Primary song at church that is about being glad when Daddy gets home.

She was trying to write the word Autumn and came up with these alternate spellings: audum. odum. outumn. and odume.

Octopus came out octupus.
Elephant was elufint.
And Rebecca came out Rubbecku.
(and if you sound that out in sections, it's rub-beck-uh (the u sound). Pretty dead-on, phonetically.)

Teancom was walking around the other day saying, "I a robot" in a pretty good robot-voice, and walking stiffly. That cracked me up.

And that's the kind of randomness you don't see on TV. (Much of this was stuff I'd been meaning to write about earlier, and in a more coherent manner. Instead it came out like this.)

Tamra

A great love story

This is a GREAT love story. I read it in a Guideposts a couple years back and I've kept the article ever since.

Caution: Don't read unless you're ready to cry. And you will cry. This story is INCREDIBLE! And true!

The Girl with the Apple
by Herman Rosenblat
Miami Beach, Florida
published in August 2006 Guideposts

August 1942. Piotrkow, Poland. The sky was gloomy that morning as we waited anxiously. All the men, women and children of Piotrkow's Jewish ghetto had been herded into a square. Word had gotten around that we were being moved. My father had only recently died from typhus, which had run rampant through the crowded ghetto. My greatest fear was that our family would be separated.

"Whatever you do," Isidore, my eldest brother, whispered to me, "don't tell them your age. Say you're sixteen". I was tall for a boy of 11, so I could pull it off. That way I might be deemed valuable as a worker. An SS man approached me, boots clicking against the cobblestones. He looked me up and down, then asked my age. "Sixteen," I said. He directed me to the left, where my three brothers and other healthy young men already stood. My mother was motioned to the right with the other women, children, sick and elderly people. I whispered to Isidore, "Why?" He didn't answer. I ran to Mama's side and said I wanted to stay with her.

"No," she said sternly. "Get away. Don't be a nuisance. Go with your brothers." She had never spoken so harshly before. But I understood: She was protecting me. She loved me so much that, just this once, she pretended not to. It was the last I ever saw of her.

My brothers and I were transported in a cattle car to Germany. We arrived at the Buchenwald concentration camp one night weeks later and were led into a crowded barrack. The next day, we were issued uniforms and identification numbers. "Don't call me Herman anymore." I said to my brothers. "Call me 94983." I was put to work in the camp's crematorium, loading the dead into a hand-cranked elevator. I, too, felt dead.

Hardened, I had become a number. Soon, my brothers and I were sent to Schlieben, one of Buchenwald's sub-camps near Berlin. One morning I thought I heard my mother's voice. Son, she said softly but clearly, I am sending you an angel. Then I woke up: Just a dream-a beautiful dream. But in this place there could be no angels. There was only work. And hunger. And fear.

A couple of days later, I was walking around the camp, behind the barracks, near the barbed-wire fence where the guards could not easily see. I was alone. On the other side of the fence, I spotted someone, a young girl with light, almost luminous curls. She was half-hidden behind a birch tree. I glanced around to make sure no one saw me. I called to her softly in German. "Do you have something eat?" She didn't understand. I inched closer to the fence and repeated the question in Polish. She stepped forward. I was thin and gaunt, with rags wrapped around my feet, but the girl looked unafraid. In her eyes, I saw life. She pulled an apple from her woolen jacket and threw it over the fence. I grabbed the fruit and, as I started to run away, I heard her say faintly, "I'll see you tomorrow."

I returned to the same spot by the fence at the same time every day. She was always there with something for me to eat, a hunk of bread or, better yet, an apple. We didn't dare speak or linger. To be caught would mean death for us both. I didn't know anything about her, just a kind farm girl, except that she understood Polish. What was her name? Why was she risking her life for me? Hope was in such short supply, and this girl on the other side of the fence gave me some, as nourishing in its way as the bread and apples.

Nearly seven months later, my brothers and I were crammed into a coal car and shipped to Theresienstadt camp in Czechoslovakia. "Don't return," I told the girl that day. "We're leaving." I turned toward the barracks and didn't look back, didn't even say good-bye to the girl whose name I'd never learned, the girl with the apples.

We were in Theresienstadt for three months. The war was winding down and Allied forces were closing in, yet my fate seemed sealed. On May 10, 1945, I was scheduled to die in the gas chamber at 10:00 A.M. In the quiet of dawn, I tried to prepare myself. So many times death seemed ready to claim me, but somehow I'd survived. Now, it was over. I thought of my parents. At least, I thought, we would be reunited.

At 8 A. M. there was a commotion. I heard shouts, and saw people running every which way through camp. I caught up with my brothers. Russian troops had liberated the camp! The gates swung open. Everyone was running, so I did too. Amazingly, all of my brothers had survived; I'm not sure how. But I knew that the girl with the apples had been the key to my survival. In a place where evil seemed triumphant, one person's goodness had saved my life, had given me hope in a place where there was none. My mother had promised to send me an angel, and the angel had come.

Eventually I made my way to England where I was sponsored by a Jewish charity, put up in a hotel with other boys who had survived the Holocaust and trained in electronics. Then I came to America, where my brother Sam had already moved. I served in the U. S. Army during the Korean War, and returned to New York City after two years. By August 1957 I'd opened my own electronics repair shop. I was starting to settle in.

One day, my friend Sid, whom I knew from England, called me. "I've got a date. She's got a Polish friend. Let's double date."

A blind date? Nah, that wasn't for me. But Sid kept pestering me, and a few days later we headed up to the Bronx to pick up his date and her friend Roma. I had to admit, for a blind date this wasn't so bad. Roma was a nurse at a Bronx hospital. She was kind and smart. Beautiful, too, with swirling brown curls and green, almond-shaped eyes that sparkled with life.

The four of us drove out to Coney Island. Roma was easy to talk to, easy to be with. Turned out she was wary of blind dates too! We were both just doing our friends a favor. We took a stroll on the boardwalk, enjoying the salty Atlantic breeze, and then had dinner by the shore. I couldn't remember having a better time.

We piled back into Sid's car, Roma and I sharing the backseat. As European Jews who had survived the war, we were aware that much had been left unsaid between us. She broached the subject, "Where were you," she asked softly, "during the war?"

"The camps," I said, the terrible memories still vivid, the irreparable loss. I had tried to forget. But you can never forget.

She nodded. "My family was hiding on a farm in Germany, not far from Berlin," she told me. "My father knew a priest, and he got us Aryan papers." I imagined how she must have suffered too, fear, a constant companion. And yet here we were, both survivors, in a new world. "There was a camp next to the farm." Roma continued. "I saw a boy there and I would throw him apples every day."

What an amazing coincidence that she had helped some other boy. "What did he look like?" I asked. "He was tall. Skinny. Hungry. I must have seen him every day for six months."

My heart was racing. I couldn't believe it, this couldn't be. "Did he tell you one day not to come back because he was leaving Schlieben?" Roma looked at me in amazement.

"Yes, that was I! " I was ready to burst with joy and awe, flooded with emotions. I couldn't believe -My angel. "I'm not letting you go." I said to Roma. And in the back of the car on that blind date, I proposed to her. I didn't want to wait.

"You're crazy!" she said. But she invited me to meet her parents for Shabbat dinner the following week. There was so much I looked forward to learning about Roma, but the most important things I always knew: her steadfastness, her goodness. For many months, in the worst of circumstances, she had come to the fence and given me hope. Now that I'd found her again, I could never let her go. That day, she said yes.

And I kept my word. After nearly 50 years of marriage, two children and three grandchildren, I have never let her go.

Ab Workout

I am getting a fantastic ab workout this week. Apparently all you have to do is cough so hard you feel like you're going to pass out. Do this once every 15 minutes or so and you'll have rock-solid abs in no time!

I see a fitness video fortune in my future.

Tamra

It's November? When did THAT happen? (an update)

My new favorite photo of Teancom. Taken at Miciah's birthday party.

Well, the last of October was eventful in all the right ways.

Miciah Turns 7!

Miciah's birthday was on the 16th, but we didn't do much for it that day. It was a Thursday night, and Thursday night is our Dave Ramsey class, so we didn't do any cake or party or anything. Miciah knew that would happen, so she wasn't upset by the lack of activity. We did let her have her birthday gift: Barbie and the Diamond Castle. That's a movie for those of you who aren't on the Barbie scene. She loves the movie and sings the songs all the time. I have to admit that some of the songs are kinda catchy.

The next week we had a birthday party for her. We let her invite a friend, but through some half fluke, half crafty design on Miciah's part, that turned into 2 friends. We wrote on their cards, "There's no need to bring a gift" and Miciah said, "Mom, add that they CAN bring a gift if they want." I thought that was cute. The party was just the 3 girls having a good time playing together, and then the 3 of them, plus 2 little boys, decorating a cake with WAY too many sprinkles. Really, with that many sprinkles and stuff on the top, it's almost gross to eat. But they had a good time. Miciah is the one that wrote "happy birthday" with the blue frosting. I was actually quite impressed that it turned out so well.

Newport Aquarium

The next day, Saturday the 25th, B&R took us on a family outing. We were supposed to go to an orchard-type place, but it was cold! so we opted for something indoors. B suggested the aquarium because we'd never been there and it would be a special treat for the kids. And it certianly was. The kids all loved it! and so did we.

Rob with the kids. We've been to the Monterey Aquarium in California many times, since my parents live close to it and have passes. It's a world class aquarium and the kids love it. So if we can do that for free, why pay for Newport? Plus, I'd been told that the Newport one is smaller and if you've been to the Monterey one, it's not that impressive. But the Newport Aquarium gives you a unique look at the fish. You get to "walk through" the tanks by a series of tunnels, and it's like the fish are swimming all around you. It was really cool.

I was holding Teancom in one of the coolest tunnel sections. He would say, "Here it comes!" as each big fish came our way, and then watch it intently as it passed over us. Very cute.

Teancom checking out a tank of fish.

Miciah and Elijah comparing notes.

Miciah found her sunglasses in the van (she loses them every other month--she "lost" them for about a year once, and they were in the van the whole time) and put them on her head. We tried to convince her to leave them in the van for fear she would lose them, but she said she would keep them on her head all day. And true to her word, that's exactly what she did. I thought it was adorable to see her with those glasses on her head.

Miciah intently looking in the tank for different kinds of fish. She would see each label and then look in the tank for each kind of fish. Very rarely did we find them all, and we were lucky to even find 1 from the label! But she had everyone looking for them with her. ... In the picture you can see B's hand in the photo. He's poking her and telling her that if we wanted to go to the live show, we had to go RIGHT THEN. He'd already told her a few times, but she hadn't found all the fish in the tank! :)

The live show was kinda cute. We were in small movie theatre type of room, and then they pulled up the screen and we were looking straight into the large tank. They had all the divers in pirate costumes for Halloween. And while that's kinda cute, I couldn't help but thinking, "Oh, poor divers. Where's the dignity?" I was humiliated for them. But perhaps they have a better sense of humor than I do. If I were one of them, I can only imagine thinking every morning, as I put on the diving suit and then costume, "Only 6 more days till Halloween. Only 6 more days till Halloween." :)

One of the coolest parts in the whole place (second only to the tunnels) was something they called the Shark Cage. You walked into a small room designed to look like an underwarter shark cage. You know, the kind that divers go into when they want to dive close to the sharks. The kind that the sharks attack and you think as you're watching the TV show, "What are you divers doing down there? Are you idiots?! Get out of the water!" So you walked in and one whole wall was a large movie screen showing sharks swimming around. And then the sharks would bump the cage! The neatest part (and a little creepy) was that every time the sharks would bump the cage, the floor would vibrate like you'd really been hit. Woah! The kids liked it, but thought it was a little scary (they post that it might not be appropriate for small children).

Rob had Teancom in with him and had Teancom stand on the floor next to him. Teancom got a little scared and Rob told him that the sharks weren't real. This calmed him down. After Teancom came out, I held him as we rested for a minute and I asked him if he liked the sharks. He said, "Yeah." I asked him if the sharks were scary, expecting him to say they were. He looked at me and said, "They're not real." :)

Elijah relaxing in the stroller. Teancom and Elijah would fight over who got to sit in it.

Teancom shaking his hands dry after petting the sharks.

This is Elijah walking over the part of the bridge that has a glass bottom. Underneath him, if you can tell (and you can, just barely), is an alligator. They weren't very big, and the glass, I'm sure, is very stable. But I wouldn't walk over it! :) I walked around.

After the aquarium we stayed at Newport on the Levee and went to a fun pizza place. Dewey's Pizza, I think it was. It's not your normal pizza place. Think ultra-gourmet pizza and fabulous salads. Plus, you could watch them make the pizzas, and the kids thought that was fantastic!

By the end of the day we were all beat! All of us, that is, except Miciah. It was a good insight into her personality when we came home and Teancom and Elijah were asleep before we got to the house. Teancom slept from 5:00-ish until 8 the next morning. Elijah slept for all of that except for about an hour and a half. Rob and I laid down for a nap, too. He slept for about an hour, and I took about a 2 hour nap. What did Miciah do? Who knows, but she wasn't tired at all! She colored and watched movies and in general wondered why we were all tired, I'm sure. She suggested, on the way home, that we find another activity to do and go as a family to that! I thought, "Are you seriously not tired? Wow." That's our Miciah!

So a nice thank you goes out to B&R for the lovely family outing. And to E for going with us, too!

A few random highlights.

Date Night and Helping Friends Move

Rob and I got a fun opportunity to go on a date a few Fridays ago. This usually isn't news to report--usually we go on dates all the time. But for the last 13 weeks we've been calling the Dave Ramsey class our date night. Normally that works good enough, but we needed a REAL date. So we did a date swap with our friends, the S's. So the S's had our kids overnight on Friday. Friday is my soccer night, so we went out to eat, then to the soccer game (where I played really really well, actually, despite having a stomach ache beforehand--which always goes away the minute I start playing). Afterwards we headed home. Rob had told me we could do whatever I wanted and I wanted to make brownies! So lame, but we just got this recipe for the BYU mint brownies and they take like 2 hours to make. So we got home and I was sick! For the next hour and a half I was on and off the toilet (mostly on). What a way to spend our date night! :) But I was determined to make those brownies and they were SO WORTH IT. Yumm!

The next Monday we went to a friend's house to help them move some boxes and stuff into their new home. It was fun to see them again, but as we were leaving their house, T got really sick and vanished into the bathroom. He came back out like half an hour later whiter than a sheet! He looked like he was going to fall over. He told us he was sick (which we could already tell!) and had to go lay down. And he apologized for being sick! :) Clearly there was no need to apologize, but I told his wife that I had been sick the Friday before. Not that I passed it on to him, obviously, but obviously something was going around. But for me, it was Friday night, then my tummy didn't like me Saturday, and it was done. Not bad for a sickness like that.

Sickness

At the start of last week Rob came home early from work because he wasn't feeling well. It was obvious he wasn't feeling good, but he didn't have any harsh symptoms, so I wans't too sympathetic. He stayed home from work and church meetings on Tuesday, but was well enough to go to work on Wednesday. And then, mid-day on Halloween day, I started going, "Ugh." Obviously I was coming down with the same lame cold that Rob had all week. It hit me hardest on Saturday and Sunday. I felt just like he'd described: not horrid, just icky and tired.

I stayed home with the boys on Sunday morning, because although Elijah said he felt fine, he had the same cough I had. By Monday morning I was feeling much better, though. The cough is worse, but finally productive, and I could feel like this the rest of my life and not complain about it.

On Tuesday Teancom was fussy. Teancom is NEVER fussy. I spent all day wondering what was wrong with him and why was he acting so weird. And then bedtime came and that nasty cough surfaced. Ugh. Consequently we didn't sleep well. I spent part of the night holding him on the couch so he could be propped up. I have my cough too, still, so I was sucking a cough drop all night and trying to not hack up my lungs. The rest of the night I spent holding him in my bed. ... I slept in, off and on, Wednesday until around noon. Getting no sleep while sick = not so good. ... But at least there was a reason for Teancom's grumpiness. The next day he was fine, and you can't even tell (until bedtime) that he's sick at all.

The Dentist

Rob and I went to the dentist the other day for the first time in years upon years. I have many many issues with dentists, and I walked into this guy's office waiting to find a bunch of reasons to never go back to him again. But he was delightful. Definitely grooved with my style. He found one small cavity that I'll have to go back for. Ugh. But for me, only finding 1 cavity is good! :)

Mostly I mention this because it's lovely to have dental insurance!

The Kids

The weather has been lovely, so the kids have been playing outside a ton. Elijah was outside on Saturday riding the trike with his Superman cape on! Totally cute. I mean, check out this picture:

Classic, right?

We spent all that Saturday finishing up the winterizing of our garden. Planting spring bulbs (we've never had spring flowers, so it'll be fun!) and stuff like that. Then we got free mulch from a friend, and our garden looks great. We won't winterize the roses yet, since they're still blooming like crazy and looking fantastic! (Thank you, again, Pop!) I love my roses like they were my own children. So beautiful.

Anyways. Elijah would ride around on his trike and then invite Teancom to jump on the back of it. There's a slight incline to our driveway, though, so every time Elijah would get to a certain point, Teancom's weight would be too much for him. He would dig down deep and put his all into pedaling, but Teancom would have to get off for him to keep going. Then, after getting past that spot, Elijah would say, "Get back on, Teancom!" It was really cute.

Teancom riding on the back of the trike.

Elijah

Elijah has just started becoming very chatty. We went to an appointment and Elijah was gabbing to this nice lady. And he told her this story (which we've since captured in a video, cause it cracks me up): "Once I was a little baby and I said my first word." At this point he got this high-pitched baby voice with a lisp and he said, "Ice cream." She looked at me and said, "That's pretty advanced, to have 'ice cream' as your first word." I just chuckled and wondered where in the HECK Elijah got that story from. His first word was NOT ice cream, but it cracked me up, that little fake baby voice.

Today was a fun one with Elijah. Elijah is still into making tracks out of chairs and movies and books and all that, and I still have a good time watching him do it. But in the last few weeks he's also been upping his making of complete messes. He's trashed his room three times this week. I didn't take pictures, but you can imagine what it looks like when you take all the belongings in one room and shove it all into the closet (I've taken pictures of similar things before). Plus, he's been wetting his pants just a little, and that's annoying.

But he's still a fun kid, despite these latest few annoying things. Today he was making a recipe, which is something he's been wanting to do a lot lately. He informed me that I needed to buy bananas so we could make banana bread. I didn't buy bananas, but apparently I should have, because he was intent on making a recipe. He grabbed stuff from the kitchen: a bowl, some spoons, some hot pads "for when it gets hot", etc. None of that is unusual--he does this a bunch. Then I gave him some Halloween candy and I assumed he was walking off to eat it. Nope. It became part of the "recipe." Later I came into his bedroom to find the bowl full of slightly wet (and therefore ruined) cheese-its, animal crackers, and pieces of chocolate. I moved it into the kitchen so he wouldn't continue to make a mess and when he came back to the bedroom he was upset that I'd moved his recipe. It made me giggle.

Teancom

Teancom is 2 and doing all sorts of fun things that are fun to take pictures and videos of. It's just a fun stage! I'll post some of the videos and stuff. Teancom is still extremely cuddly and cute and addictive. My latest favorite thing that he says is, "That's not dood, Mommy. That's not dood." :) (dood = good) Oh, so cute when they're learning to talk.

Miciah

Miciah lost another tooth this morning. That makes 6 for her (not counting the one that was pulled). Losing teeth is apparently traumatic for her and I don't understand it at all! This last tooth was so loose that the night before she turned it around completely several times. Then in the morning when miraculously it was still in, you could see the entire tooth. It must have been just barely hanging on. So we tortured her and pulled it out. ... I thought of taking a video of it, but I thought, "This could be evidence against us later on," because she really did act like we were torturing her! I don't get it. ... I did get a video from the night before where I was just asking her about her tooth and should we pull it out and by the end she ran away screaming, "No! No!" Wow. The trauma.

A traumatized Miciah showing off her backwards tooth.

If anyone understands why losing a tooth would bring about this level of trauma, please feel free to share your insights with us. I always thought it was cool to lose teeth. I would twist my teeth around and around and gross out all the other girls in school. I remember being sad when that last strand finally broke and I couldn't twist it all around any more. :)

Otherwise Miciah is doing very well. Her behavior has improved dramatically since we've been charting her progress. It continues to be amazing to me how much a sticker on a chart can motivate.

Dave Ramsey

Tonight is our last night of Dave Ramsey! It's been fabulous. We've learned a lot. And we're glad it's finally over. 13 weeks is a LONG time. So worth it, but glad it's wrapping up.

Rob

A quick note on Rob. We are almost done with our second round of the Health and Fitness Challenge. It's 12 weeks of really focusing on trying to eat better and exercise more regularly. We haevn't done that well this time around--we've actually super slacked, especially compared to the intensity we pulled out last time. But the little we have done has really paid off. Rob has lost another 10 lbs. in the last 10 weeks, which puts him at 210 and only 5 lbs. off the "ideal" weight he's been shooting for since 2005 when he started seriously trying to lose weight. We have realized, as he approaches this weight, that he still has a ways to go, but man he looks FINE at 210! I'm really proud of him and thought his weight loss deserved a mention in this update.

Here's a current picture with an older comparison picture.

Picture from Wednesday night:

Picture from June 24, 2005:

That's a 65 lb. weight loss! Go, Rob!

Have a good one, everyone!