Fun Update

Things are still the same here since I wrote last. But I have some fun stories to share.

Miciah

Last week we went to eat at McDonald's. Miciah always wants a milkshake with her meal. So we got her a milkshake and she was downing that instead of eating her other food. Finally I took the milkshake from her and said, "You have to eat something else before you can have more. You haven't even TOUCHED your hamburger." She looked at me, reached over, and put her hand on top of her hamburger. I turned to Rob and said, "I'm going to pretend I don't see that." She then said, "Did you mean touch it with my MOUTH?" :)

Miciah has been very into asking what things mean, especially phrases that don't really mean what they say. For instance, the above story--I didn't really want her to touch her hamburger. I wanted her to eat it. The other day Uncle B said, "Twist my arm" when I offered him a cookie. Miciah looked at him really strangely and wanted to know why I would want to hurt him. So he explained what the phrase meant and why he used it at that time. ... What a fun stage.

The other story about Miciah involves our cat and our neighbor, C. Ceasar has decided that their yard is his property. Well, their granddaughter, E, who is 7 (I think) is afraid of the cat, apparently. Ceasar was following her (she thought chasing her), so E ran screaming behind the screen door. Ceasar then plopped down on the porch waiting for her to come out (or just claiming the space as his, whichever). So C opened the door and tried to shoo him away. It wasn't working, so she got some water and sprinkled some on him to get him to move. ... Well, apparently E told this to Miciah because a few days later, Miciah went up to C and said, very seriously and slowly, "I don't like water on my cat." :) C told this to me and I just laughed. Oh, my Miciah.

Miciah did have an ear infection a while ago. We took her in to the doctor after being up half the night with a hurting Miciah. They put her on amoxicillan. Well, about a week later she woke up saying her pajamas were itchy. I ignored the comment cause "itchy" is code-word around here for "I don't want to wear it." She was having trouble with the zipper, so I undid it for her and was shocked at what I saw. Her entire torso was red with hives! But then I thought for a moment and remembered Elijah's amoxicillan reaction. And the next few days went exactly how Elijah's experience had. All over her torso, changing places, on her head, especially behind her ears. She was pretty miserable for a while, but Benadryl helped, thankfully. And it was nice to have had one kid already go through it, cause I knew what it was and what to expect. So no more amoxicillan for Miciah or Elijah. ... Makes me wonder what Teancom's experience will be.

(I wrote some of this e-mail about a week ago, and now I'm finishing it.) Miciah's ear infection was back full force on Sunday. She was miserable. We couldn't do anything about it cause we were up north visiting family. So we got a pillow out of our car and she slept on the floor of the church for a few hours. We came back home and had JR (our medical student/will-be-official-doctor-in-2-weeks friend) look in her ears. Definitely an ear infection. We thought we'd try to wait out the infection, since we'd already been through the hard day, right? Well, Monday wasn't any better. Rob was trying to reason with her, which she does quite well usually, and I looked at him and said, "She's not a 5-year-old today. She's a 3-year-old. Remember that." But we got tired of toughing it out and went to the doctor today. Of course the infection was still there. They prescribed her something else and within 4 hours we had Miciah back. And that was nice. Hurray for medicine!

Elijah

And then there's Elijah. Elijah is so full of energy and fun! He's jumping and dancing and running around crazy! It's fun to watch (makes me tired just watching him, but I love it). He jumps down out of the van now, and then he'll hop halfway across the parking lot (which makes things a little difficult when I'm trying to go fast), just loving it. It's fun to watch him learn to master his body and learn what it can do. So this morning he was getting himself dressed, which he does all the time now. He was very insistent that he wanted to wear swim trunks with a collared shirt. The kid's already got style! :) Anyways, he came to me so I could help him put on his underwear, but then he wouldn't stand still. He was hopping around everywhere. I finally was getting his underwear on and he said, "Mom, let go. Gotta dance!" It made me smile.

We did have Elijah's 3-year check-up, and the doc told us Elijah is healthy and right on track with everything. We already knew that, but it's always nice to hear it validated.

Elijah's new phrase is now, "I don't WANT TO!" He's wanting to be more and more independent, which is great. He's picking out all his clothes (which I mentioned above), changing them about 3 times a day, insisting on what to eat or watch on TV or what to play with. It's great to see him become a person instead of just my baby boy. And he's still cuddly and sweet, so I don't lose that part.

Today at dinner I was talking to Miciah about school. She said she'd go to Kindergarten, then 1st grade, then 2nd, etc., etc., all the way up to 12th grade. Then she said, "What will I do after that?" I told her then she could go to college if she wanted. At the sound of that, Elijah started nodding vigorously. I turned to him and said, "Do you want to go to college?" He said, "No, not yet." Okay, good answer, I thought. Then he finished, "I eat first." I laughed.

With summer almost upon us, the kids are playing hard during the day. Elijah is needing naps during the day, which is weird to be back to nap time, but it's better than dealing with monster Elijah when he's too tired. ... But because of all the extra sleep, I think, he was up today at 4 a.m. thinking it was morning. Ick. We set him on the couch with a movie and went back to bed. I don't know if he slept more or not. But I did! :)

Teancom

Teancom is trying hard to crawl. He does this get on his tip toes thing and try to scoot/crawl/army crawl. It's cute. Not quite crawling, but he'll make it there soon, I think. He's still just as cute and charming as ever. A healthy, happy kid with 2 fingers in his mouth.

Rob and Tamra

Rob went on a campout this past weekend with P, our nephew, and the scout troop Rob is over. They went caving in Carter Caves, if anyone knows where that is--somewhere in KY. He said it was fun. The best part of the trip is that it took them 2 1/2 hours to get there and the way home took them almost 4 hours because they took a "shortcut" home. ... I think I'm going to buy the scoutmaster a map and lecture him about being prepared. :)

We also entertained B, Rob's little brother, who is out here in Ohio for a little while. He was supposed to already be home, but he had knee surgery on Monday (yesterday) instead. So last week we brought him down to our house where we played Nintendo a lot and kept him from being too bored out of his mind. Then we sent him home with the Nintendo so he could play that while recovering.

We went up Friday to M's house and hung out there for 2 days. We went to a little lake by their house for the kids to play. That was fun. We had half a scary moment when Elijah tripped in the water and kersplatted into it. The water was only maybe a foot and a half deep. It was comical to watch him face plant in the water, but then he wasn't getting up, and suddenly it wasn't comical. It hadn't occured to me that it would be hard to get up out of the water like that. Luckily B was standing right there and pulled Elijah up. Elijah was scared and the second day he wouldn't get any further in than getting his toes wet. :) At this point of his life, being a little afraid of the water is just not a bad thing.

... And it's been really hard to focus this week for many reasons, not the least of which is our trip on Thursday. We have babysitters lined up and Rob and I are going to hang out at Miami Beach for a few days. Rob has a scientific convention there, and I'm tagging along. So it's not all pleasure, but there will be time to play. ... I'm excited, more than anything, to be on the plane and be able to read a book! :)

Then we'll come back next week, and the kids and I will turn around on June 1st and fly out to California. We'll come back July 4th. Somewhere in that time I'll be driving out to Utah with my Mom and the kids and we'll get to see lots of people, I'm sure. That will be fun.

Okay, that's the update. Hope all is going well for you all!

Tamra and family

Who Needs Long Hair? (an update)

I was growing my hair out, honest. I went in to get it trimmed cause it was scraggly. I told them I was growing it out and to not take off much length. Well, 2 inches or more later, ... I like the haircut, it's almost the same one I normally get, but it wasn't what I was going for. So we'll have to see if I want to go through all the growing-out stuff still. ...

Not a whole lot going on here still. The weather is trying to warm up one day, then the next it's under 20 degrees again. I don't mind one way or the other, I just wish it wouldn't do it on back-to-back days.

Miciah

I went on a field trip with Miciah today, which is a story by itself. But we went to the Post Office. It's amazing how excited the kids get to do simple things like buy a stamp by themselves. It's wonderful to see Miciah growing up and becoming so capable. She loved me being there with her. I haven't been able to get in to the pre-school this year because of Teancom being so little. So this was the first time. Last year I made sure I went in every other week. ... Miciah has finally been interested in reading and is making some progress there. She can read simple words and sentences. The other day I wrote her a letter that she read all by herself. It said "Dear Miciah, I love you so much. I am so proud of you. You are such a big girl. Love, Mommy" I was impressed that she read it all. I guess it's not much, but she wouldn't even try before, so we're excited about that.

Kindergarten Registration

I also just went in to do all her paperwork for Kindergarten registration. It's so WEIRD to be registering my child for kindergarten. It makes me feel like I should be slightly more mature to have a child in kindergarten. ... Oh well. ... I filled out the paperwork just how they said and brought all the right documents, only for them to tell me I brought in too much of this and too little of that. I showed them in the paperwork how I had brought exactly the right things, but to no avail. I suppose this is where the red tape and stupidity starts. I should get used to it. However, they DID let me leave off her social security number, which I thought was nice of them to not fight me on that one.

They gave me more paperwork for her. To make sure she's ready for her screening she should be able to recognize basic shapes like a circle. I think she's got that one covered. :) I don't regret not putting her in Kindergarten last year, though. She's grown a LOT since then and I know that she's ready for kindergarten this year in all the ways we weren't totally sure about last year. She's a stronger person this year. She's ready to tackle the world. Or disarm it with her smile.

Field Trip to the Post Office, The Story

The story about me getting to go on Miciah's field trip today starts last night. I was on the phone and Elijah walks up to me, stands 2 feet from me and proceeds to throw up everywhere! Yuck! I promptly got off the phone and Rob and I both stayed up late helping tired/throwing up Elijah. He was up every 2 hours or so through the night, throwing up almost every time (or dry heaving, poor kid). So my plan for having people watch Elijah so I could go wasn't going to work. But it wasn't just that I was having someone watch Elijah, I was picking up 2 kids from 2 different houses so I could drop off my 2 kids and go on the fieldtrip. Then I was going to drop off 1 kid, get my own 2 kids, and take the last kid home with me for the afternoon. During which time I was going to watch another 2 kids. ... Yikes. ... Rob offered to work from home today so I could still do all I was going to do. Except I didn't bring any kids home with me to watch here, cause I didn't want to get them sick. So a stressful day turned into a stress-free day cause my husband is awesome. He got to take a nap, too, which he needed cause he was up with Elijah most of the times. Rob is amazing.

Elijah

Elijah's cognitive development has skyrocketed in the last few weeks! He's talking up a storm, and in sentences. "eat" for "let's eat dinner now" has turned into "Mommy, I want eat dinner." Or, "trains" for "let's play trains" has become "Mommy, you play trains a me" as he points to himself. ... He also has picked up considerably on following directions and can and wants to do lots more things by himself. Wonderful. We're also trying over on potty-training. He laid down the other day to change his own diaper and we knew it was time. :) The first day was awful, but for the most part it's going pretty well (except for today which doesn't count cause he's sick). He's obviously ready to make the change, so we're trying to help that along.

He's still the sweetest little boy and very considerate. He says sorry the second he thinks he's done something wrong or that he's hurt you. He always wants to know what happened when it seems like something's wrong or someone's upset. His latest "rebellion", though, is sticking his tongue out. We're trying to curb that, but it's still funny that that's how he's so mean. It's almost comical. I was at my friend's house the other day and her son, A, pulled out his "lazer" (think Buzz Lightyear lazer) when he was upset. It made me smile that other kids do funny little things that are funny but that you still have to discipline.

... I wrote the above portion on March 6th and it is now March 7th. Elijah is doing much better today, so it looks like the sickness passed quickly.

Teancom

We found out last Friday that Teancom is anemic. So we are taking him to the doctor in 2 days to have them re-test and then give him an iron pill to take. Or whatever it is they give babies. We aren't sure why he's low on iron, cause he's eating solids and is drinking iron-fortified formula, but whatever. He still is not real active. He still doesn't move much. I've been keeping track. In the last month he has not rolled over once, even though I know he can. He is getting much better at grabbing things and he seems to be figuring out that those are his hands that he can move how he wants to. :) And he sucks on/chews on everything, including my face/shoulder/hands. ... He's such a well-behaved baby that I have a hard time seeing that there's anything "wrong" with him. He sleeps 12 hours through the night and coos and is happy and smiley and content and eats like a pig.

He did get an ear infection a little over a week ago. He's almost done with the antibiotics. It was funny. It was a Friday and Teancom cried/screamed all day. I called Rob at like 10 in the morning and asked if he thought we should take him in. He said to give it some time. Teancom is NEVER fussy. And even if he is "fussy," he doesn't cry. It's actually pretty hard to make him cry. Even if you startle him he has to think about it, and usually you can talk him out of it. Anyways, he cried and cried and cried. It unnerved me a little, cause I didn't know what to do with a fussy baby! You mean, I can't put him on the floor and he'll be happy? What do I do, then? Hold him? How do I get anything done? Kind of like that. ... Anyways, after a full day of crying, we took him in to an urgent care place. He got the drugs and was almost instantly feeling better. Yea for drugs!

And that's our update. A lot of nothings strung together to be our life. :) We love it!

Tamra and family