Update-ish

I feel like I haven't written a normal update for a while. Probably because I've posted a lot about Miciah's broken arm, and that's overshadowed everything else. Well, here's a normal update.

Teancom

Teancom has cut out nap times a lot of days, but it makes him intolerably grumpy and spastic for a few hours midday. It's, umm, fun. ... It's the first time in his short life that he's caused us any trouble at all. Still, he's his normal cute, squishy, addicting self except for those 2 hours of whininess and attitude.

Elijah

Elijah is addicted to video games. I let him play for a few days, as long as I can stand it, and then I take away privileges for a week or so, because he doesn't do the transition from video games to normal life very well. ... And I'm not sure it's an accomplishment, but Elijah's getting pretty good. He mostly plays on our old school Nintendo system. So he's playing the classic Legend of Zelda and Mega Man III and Mario 3.

Elijah has decided that he's a big boy and can do things like crossing the street by himself. Of course this isn't okay with us. He'll also run off when we're in public. Not that he's running off, he'll just run ahead and then I can't see him any more and he doesn't understand why that's not okay. He'll say, "I know where the car is," and stuff like that. Same with crossing the street: "I looked both ways." Ugh.

He's starting to write things on his own, which is fantastic. It'll look like gibberish until you look close and see that he's written his name or copied "Cheez It" from the box.

Which reminds me about a fun story from a few months ago. We were in the library parking lot, getting ready to leave. I was organizing the books and movies on the passenger seat when I heard Elijah say, "Mom, what does a-d-n-o-h spell?" I thought about it for a second. It doesn't spell anything, of course. But I started looking around, wondering where he saw that. Then I looked over and saw it on the tire cover of the car beside us. It's honda backwards! I don't know why, but Elijah will read and write many things backwards. It's not that he doesn't know which way to read it. He knows. He'll also write some of his letters upside down. And write from the bottom of the page up. ... It all seems very backwards to me, but I'm assuming that it's normal. Or at least normal enough.

Life

The Weekend

Rob's little brother got sealed to his beautiful wife in the Columbus, OH temple this weekend. It was low key and wonderful. I'm all about low key. The kids stayed with the W's, our good friends and the kids' surrogate grandparents.

Rob and I drove straight from Columbus to M's place in Middle of Nowhere, OH. Stayed overnight. Were there Sunday morning to participate in our nephew, P's teacher ordination. It was neat, cause all the siblings were there. It was also nice to see Rob during church hours.

We drove home right after the ordination because my Dad flew into Cincinnati at 1:30. We beat him home by an hour or so, which just gave us time to clean up our travelling stuff.

We chilled with Dad for the evening and part of the next day, and he left in the afternoon for the next leg of his business trip. While he was here we ran the HS track, looked through a spectacular "picture book" of Yellowstone and talked about our trip, had a lovely dinner with R&C. And also, he bought us:

A New Lawn mower

Our old lawn mower died. I wrote about that a while back. We've been using it, half-dead, resistent to spending the money on a new one. We debated what to buy and where and for what price. We finally had decided on buying a refurbished lawnmower for about $100 at a local lawn mower fix it place. We were going to go buy it on Monday. The day before my father took me to Home Depot and helped me pick out a much nicer mower that what we would have purchased.
It's a Honda. I didn't even know Honda MADE lawn mowers.

And on Monday I mowed the grass with our new mower. My favorite parts:
- I can start it myself, which means I can mow the grass during the day and Rob doesn't have to do it all the time. Rob has so little time anyways.
- It's a power mower. Our old one was a manual. I like a lot of the aspects of a manual mower, but it's nice to not have to push with everything I have to get up our steep short hills.
-It's a bagger/mulcher. Our old one was a side shoot. So no more raking for us!! That'll save us a good hour.

Thank you, Dad.

Rob's Big News

Rob has been praying and hoping for someone to give him a teaching opportunity. Well, it's happened! Rob was contacted by NKU (Northern Kentucky University) about teaching a 5-week summer class. Of course Rob said yes. The time is kinda crummy (12 - 2pm, 3 days a week), which means his schedule will be horrible for the month of June. And they don't pay him much, but Rob would have done it for free. He just needs the teaching experience.

He went down to NKU yesterday and got an official badge. I'll have to scan it in, cause he looks just like a middle-aged professor. Balding. A little extra weight. Cute glasses. Aw, the adorable Dr. Thacker.

So, hurray for Rob! And pray for us to survive June!

Bad Balance

This has nothing to do with anything, but I thought I'd report on it. I have experienced vertigo off and on for years now. The worst of it was right after Teancom was born, so 2 years ago. Anyways, we finally have good insurance, so I asked my doctor about it. He sent me to an ENT to check it out, cause it sounded like it could be Meniere's Disease. I don't know much about Meniere's, but I dislike the idea of having something with Disease in the title.

There's nothing wrong with my hearing or function, that the ENT could tell (though I found out that my left ear has slightly better hearing than my right). So he sent me for a balance test (turned out to be a $1,000 balance test--don't worry, I didn't pay a penny for it). It was a random test involving following lights with your eyes and strange goggles and blowing warm and cold air into your ear and making you count backwards by 2's from 100.

At one point in the test the test giver (a nurse? doctor?) seemed like the results I reported were slightly abnormal. They blew the warm air into my right ear for a minute and then I felt a little dizzy. Not bad, but a little. Then they did the same thing with my left ear and I wanted to puke or pass out or just go to sleep. It was really bad. They did the same minute-long exposure, one ear at a time, with the cold air, and I hardly reacted to that at all. The test giver made it seem like I should have roughly the same reaction for each ear.

So the ENT called me back a little over a week later and said that my test results were not normal. He didn't say they were horrible, though. He said that they'll see "these kinds of results" from a viral ear infection and those effects can last from 6 months to a year. I think this is unlikely, since the vertigo was the worst over 2 years ago, it started being noticably bad 3 years ago, and I still experience it every few months. He said, alternately, I could just have bad balance. "Some people are born with bad vision, some bad hearing. You could just have bad balance." I think that's the more likely explanation. He didn't diagnose me with Miniere's or anything, and he said he'd like me to repeat the balance test next year.

But, bad balance? I have GREAT balance! I play sports. I rarely get off balance. I can trip but not fall (and that's pretty impressive, I think). ... So I think there must be some other aspect to balance that he's talking about. ... Anyways, that's my balance assessment. Because you obviously cared.

Other than that, we're getting excited for summer. I wish it was already here (Miciah's in school until June 12th). I'm ready for some lazy long days. Not that we'll get many before we head out to Yellowstone, Utah, California, and then all the way back. But we'll take as many lazy summer days as come our way. I'm excited to spend at least one lazy summer day on the beach, and another in a Yellowstone meadow!!

It's About Time

I kept stalling on this update because we were waiting to know what our next step in life was. Our next step is so subtlely different, though, that it hardly felt update worthy once we got there. But I'll explain...

The Story of Dr. Colbert, Michael Jordan, and the NIH

So, in the Fall Rob decided to go with Dr. Colbert at Cincinnati Children's. No problems with that. A few months ago Dr. Colbert brought Rob in to talk to him. We assumed it was because Colbert just wanted an update on where Rob was with his dissertation, etc. Nope. Dr. Colbert had been offered a position at the NIH and was pretty sure he would take it. He went through a process of offers and counteroffers (strong incentives, he called them--it'd be nice to be Dr. Colbert), and during this whole process he told us we couldn't tell anyone else. He wanted to announce things himself. We respected that.

So he was going to the NIH, that was his final decision. This left us with a decision. Dr. Colbert had offered for us to go with him. Aah! The NIH is a great place to be and we knew this was a perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It's not every day opportunities like this just fall in your lap. So we thought and thought and thought about it. We went back and forth. It felt equally good to stay or go. There were hic-ups with both. If we went, how in the WORLD would we sell our house, and live in the DC area on $40,000 a year? If we stayed who would Rob do his post-doc with, and would he regret passing up the NIH? Colbert suggested a few people at Children's. It felt like we were doing this all over again, like we had in the fall. Rob re-contacted people, just to see what options were. There was no one that was jumping out at him.

Then he went to his Immunology Conference in San Diego. He said he got just about nothing out of the conference, and that was disappointing. Plus he re-injured his knee (that's another story). But the one thing he DID get out of it was he saw a booth there for Cincinnati Children's, and there was a Dr. Michael Jordan advertising for a post-doc. He hadn't been looking in the fall, but he was looking now. So it took Rob going all the way to San Diego to find out about this guy. Funny how that works. And then on the flight home he met a woman who works in Jordan's lab. Interesting, eh?

Anyways, Rob talked to Dr. Jordan and that's how things ended up working out. About 3 weeks ago Dr. Colbert FINALLY announced that he was going to the NIH (it felt like we'd been keeping it mum for ages), and we quietly transitioned over to going to Dr. Jordan's lab.

I fell in love with Dr. Colbert during this whole process. He looked out for us and gave us some valuable advice. Rob approached him at one point and said we'd decided to go to the NIH after 6 months to a year (Rob would stay here and work in someone's lab while we got our house ready to sell, etc.). He also discussed with Colbert how Dr. Jordan's research is more along the lines of what Rob wants to do, but Rob didn't want to pass up the NIH OR working with Dr. Colbert (he's a great guy). Dr. Colbert looked at him and said, in essence, "Rob, don't settle for me. If Dr. Jordan's research is what you want to do, then don't go with me." What fabulous advice.

There were lots of other pieces in this complicated puzzle of a process. Two of the most interesting things:
1 - We had a hard time with this decision just because both options were good. It wasn't easy to see which one was the better choice. Finally, after flip-flopping for weeks and getting super-annoyed with that (I have little patience for the decision-making process. I'd rather make the WRONG decision than have to think about it for longer than a few weeks), I had a moment of supreme clarity. I saw the decision for what it really was. It was about Rob's career and nothing else. Would Rob regret going to the NIH with Dr. Colbert if it meant that years down the road Rob wouldn't be able to get back to doing the research he really wanted to do? The answer to that was Yes. And that's the decision right there.

2 - Rob kept talking to Retzinger, his advisor, about staying or going. Retzinger kept saying, "I think you want to stay just because it's convenient to stay. You don't have to sell your house and move." Retzinger was pretty strongly of the opinion that we should go to the NIH. Rob finally told Retzinger that had he known of Dr. Jordan's lab in the fall when he was originally looking, he wouldn't have gone with Dr. Colbert at all. That helped change Retzinger's opinion on it.

End of that Story.

The (Short) Story of Rob's Knee

Upon looking at my last update, I already told you part of the story of Rob's knee. How he re-injured it at the San Diego Conference. How he went into the doctor for it, and the doctor sent him to physical therapy. Rob spent a good month going to Physical Therapy twice a week. After that month, he went back into the doctor who said something like, "Good. Keep doing the right stretches to strengthen it." Rob went back to Physical Therapy one last time to get a list of stretches and exercises he can now do at home. And that's good because I'm not sure how many more PT sessions our checkbook could have handled. But it's worth it for Rob to be able to walk/run/exist without pain. Now Rob can actually flex his left quad. I didn't realize he hadn't been able to flex his upper leg for years.

The Story of Ocean City, New Jersey

I went to Ocean City, New Jersey for about a week. We got to see LB on QVC. We toured the studio, which was pretty dang cool. The live show was an interesting experience, as far as just getting the live QVC show experience. It's fun to watch what's going on behind the scenes. And L is always a doll and fun to watch. We were pleasantly surprised that L's family showed up to be there for her 10th anniversary show on QVC. It was fun to see them.

It was also nice to relax for a week without the kids. I read 2 books, wrote a lengthy letter to my brother, sat down and did nothing, walked along the beach. Fun. It was not warm in Ocean City, but that's okay, cause I think it was the perfect weather: 50 degrees F. Perfect sweatshirt weather. I bought a grubby sweatshirt there that says OC on it. I was sad to not have been in Ocean City, Delaware (which doesn't exist), cause then maybe my sweatshirt would have said OCD and that would have made me very happy.

Elijah was cute while I was gone. Right before I left he said, "Can I go, Mom?" I told him no. "But I'm a big boy!" :) He'd talk to me on the phone while I was gone and say, "Mom? Can you come home now?" I told him I couldn't. Then a few minutes later he'd say, "Can you come home NOW?" :) On Saturday Rob and the kids went to a church activity. As they were driving back down our street Elijah said, "Maybe her is there now!" Rob said, "Who, mommy?" "Yeah!" Oh, cute. Elijah also asked Rob if he was "small enough to go with him to California." Rob figured out that Elijah was asking if he was small enough to fit inside Rob's suitcase, like Rob had joked before leaving for CA. :) It broke my heart to talk to him and hear his sad little voice that I wasn't coming home right away.

So I was interested to see what would happen when I actually arrived at home. I got back into Cincinnati late Sunday night, like at 11:15 pm. So the kids were already asleep. The next morning Miciah and Teancom got up first and Teancom came and cuddled with me immediately. Miciah was happy to see me and gave me hugs. And then Elijah got up. I expected him to run to me or something. Instead he opened his bedroom door and peeked out. His door is directly across from our door, which was open. I tried to play coy for a minute to see what he'd do. But he didn't do anything. So I opened my eyes and said, "Hi, Elijah." He just stared at me, a blank look on his face. Finally one corner of his mouth turned up just barely for a split second. Then he walked off. It cracked me up.

It took me almost a whole week to get used to being around my kids again (they're so LOUD compared to adults). And a whole week to make dinner for the first time since I got back. We ate out the whole time I was gone, so when I got home and Rob asked what I wanted for dinner the first night I said Ramen. :) ... Rob is a great guy. I told him I was most concerned about that Monday I got home. He offered to stay home so I wouldn't go crazy that first day back with my kids. I was so tired that I took a good 4 hours or more worth of naps that day. And I was STILL exausted and snappy at my kids by the end of the day. Good thing Rob was there to keep me sane.

The (Very Short) Story of G and M

G, Rob's little brother, married ML on May 16th. We got to go up for a few days and be with family. It was absolute CHAOS (family is chaos) with everyone there, but it was wonderful. And the wedding was beautiful. Rob and M sang some lovely songs and I got some of them on video. I also got a lot of great pictures of Rob dancing at the reception. Rob's an animal on the dance floor. The saddest part of taking the pictures and videos was that I had taken a stinkin' cute video of Miciah and Rob dancing all snazzed up (Miciah was a flower girl and looked like a princess, and Rob was wearing a tux), and then the next day I accidentally deleted it. That is absolute sadness.

We did get G & M two of the world's best wedding gifts EVER. I am exceptionally proud of them both.

The (Exceedingly Short) Story of My Camera

My brother bought me a new camera cause he's crazy. It's just like my old one that I loved, but it's updated. So it takes really really good pictures. Love, love, love it.

The Story of Our Digital Upgrades

Because of the camera, we needed a new SD card. A 256MB SD card isn't super useful for a camera that takes 8.2 Megapixel pictures (about 3.5 MBs each shot). So we got a new one of those (plus a friend gave us a coupon for another free one, so we now have a 1G and 2G SD card). Plus we got an external harddrive to hold all the glorious pictures. Then we had to get a USB port hub. We used to have 4 USB ports, but Elijah broke the 2 in front, so that left us with 2. And EVERYTHING goes off USB ports these days. So we got a 7-port USB hub, and it's almost all the way filled already. We were telling a friend that we opted for an external harddrive instead of a DVD burner, but we wished we had one of those still and they said they had an extra one laying around. Did we want it? Of course! It's nice that now you can upgrade your computer dramatically without replacing it.

Plus, we got digital TV finally. Sent away for the coupons for a converter box. Spent $10 on a converter box and now we can watch non-staticy TV. And we get like 10 new channels. It feels like we have cable, without the pricetag. Nice!

So, add that together with our hi-speed internet that we turned into wireless with a wireless router (free from the company--didn't know that when we first signed up), and we feel firmly in (but well behind) the digital age. Let's make a list, shall we:
-hi-speed internet
-wireless
-500G external harddrive
-1G and 2G SD cards
-8.2 Megapixel camera
-DVD burner
-digital TV

It's nice to finally invest in the digital age when the price is affordable. Those SD cards, I got the 2G, top of the line, Panasonic SD card for $15. Last year when I looked at them they were $60 - $80 (you can now spend about $60 on a 32G SD card). And most everything else we purchased was the same way. Yea for affordable technology!

The Story of N64

We stole the Thacker Family Nintendo 64 (G claims it's his, but we know it's not ). Our kids are enjoying playing Zelda and stuff. Elijah runs around saying, "I'm going to kill your guy, Mom." And then he lets people kill little Link. I actually play the guy and the kids watch. It works for us. ... When I get bored with it, I'll send it out to Bryant or whoever else.

Elijah Stories

Elijah is always doing funny stuff. Some of my favorite Elijah Stories:

While I was in OC, NJ, Rob bought the kids doughnuts (now every time we pass Dunkin' Donuts Elijah asks if we can get doughnuts--thanks, Rob!). Elijah was eating a jelly-filled one and said, "Dad! This one tastes like peanut butter and jelly sandwich!"

We were at the Nursery choosing the bushes for the side of our house (we can't keep grass there, so we thought we'd try bushes instead). The guy who worked there was helping us decide (we decided on lilac bushes--5 of them), and while that was happening, our kids were bored out of their minds. Elijah was throwing gravel into this little hole. The hole was maybe a foot and a half deep or so. While he was messing with it, he fell in. He wasn't hurt, just scared, and we were standing a ways off from him. A stranger came up, trying to be helpful, and asked if he was alright. Elijah scowled at her and shouted angrily at the top of his lungs, "YOU ARE NOT MY MOM!" ... We were pretty embarressed.

At the Memorial Day picnic yesterday Elijah and Miciah were going over to the playground. Elijah started running and Miciah told him to slow down and grabbed his hand. Elijah pulled his hand away, scowled at her, and said, "I'm not crossing the street, stupid!" ...

While that is pretty funny, his use of the word "stupid" got him in trouble later that day. Not with me, with a group of boys. He came and reported that a boy was hitting him. I told him to ask him not to hit. It was some boys that I wasn't familiar with, and they're apparently rougher than the boys I'm used to. ... Elijah walked off and I didn't think much of it until another mom came and reported that a group of boys were having issues. She said, "The boy in the blue was saying, 'My mom said not to hit, stupid. So don't hit me.' " Guess who the boy in blue was. Yep, Elijah. Then, as I walked toward the group, a 7-year-old boy was pushing Elijah and the 4-year-old looked like he was about to hit him with a stick. Seriously. As I got to Elijah, the 7-year-old had pushed him to the ground. I pulled out a little Mother Bear on him. Looked him right in the eyes and said in that don't mess voice, "Do NOT push or hit my son again."

I was glad I was there, in a way, to help Elijah out. I think he would have been pounded a little more had I not been there. However, I won't always be there for him. ... We had a long talk about how if you're trying to get someone to not hit you, you probably shouldn't call them stupid. A little counterproductive.

We took Elijah to the doctor for a well check last week. He got a shot. I was SUPER impressed with him. He said he was going to be brave. He asked if he could have 2 stickers, and the nurse said if he was really good. She gave him the shot and he got this look on his face like, "That HURT." He said, "Ow," and looked at his arm, and that was it. No crying, no nothing. The nurse told him he could DEFINITELY have 2 stickers. It's nice to know that kids overreacting to shots isn't my fault. :) After Miciah, Elijah's reaction was comforting to me.

Teancom Stories

Teancom is just dang cute.

He's finally decided to claim a blanket as his "blankie". We tried to make it the crocheted blanket that my Mom made for him, since that's the one my other 2 have chosen for their blankies. But he wasn't having it. I can't tell which of a certain 2 is the chosen blankie, though. For a while he said it was a duckie one with tied ends. I was happy with that, since it's the one I made for him (I didn't make one for my other 2 kids). And the second one he's been claiming lately is the quilt that Grandma D made for Elijah. Both good choices.

Teancom is talking a lot and it's fun to listen to him. He is deciding to walk lots of places instead of me holding him, and since he's almost 2, that's fine with me. He's very obedient and will stay close and not run off. And people love to see a cute little 2-year-old toddling around. I must admit, it's pretty cute to watch this little person walking around.

Teancom still loves it outside. He will literally spend all day outside if I let him, and hence he's pretty darn tan already.

The other day Teancom fell off the couch onto his head and said, "Woah," then went and did it again. So, as good parents, we didn't ask him to stop for fear of hurting himself, we encouraged him to do it again so we could get it on video. :) So we have this super-cute clip of a video of him hanging off the edge of the couch going, "Aaahhh! Help me!" in this high-pitched voice, then falling on his head, saying, "Woah," and then getting up to do it again. ... Rob and I have been walking around giggling to ourselves, going, "Aaahh! Help me!" Too cute.

Here's the link to the youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEfVHReXAi8

Teancom is almost constantly singing "Twinkle, Twinkkle, Little Star." He's also started singing when I carry him. He'll sing in beat with the gait of my walk, and that cracks me up.

He is also now saying, "Where's Teancom? There he is!" He'll cover his eyes and do peek-a-boo. Super cute. It's fun to hear him say his name, "Tay-tome". That's "tome" like "come", not tome the long book.

Miciah Stories

Miciah doesn't usually do cute stuff like that any more. But she's always making cute things for people. Cards and stuff. She is spelling creatively and making up jokes and stuff. The jokes are never funny, but she thinks they're hysterical. I've been creating a pile of things she's made to send out to you guys.

She made this one at church for Elijah:
"Wus the bilding toll yes.
I thek it wus smolle
but it wus big
i wunt it"
She translated it as:
"Was the building tall? Yes.
I think it was small.
But it was big.
I want it to be the way it is."
Then she said, "I didn't write some of the words down."

Another church creation:
"From Ceryoes
To Ceryoes"
That's:
"From Cheerios
To Cheerios"

A cute letter she wrote me the day before I got back from my trip:
"To Mommy
I love you. I
mist you a lot
Mom. Sume times
i Tenk tat you
r her wen you r
not.
love
Miciah
From Miciah"

That's: "To Mommy. I love you. I missed you a lot, Mom. Some times I think that you are here when you are not."

A joke she wrote out for me:
"To Mom
I mad up
a jok and
this is
how it go's
wut did
the hen
biy
[a box for me to fill out:]
a__________"

I said, "An egg."
Then she wrote again:
"no he bot
a egg sandwich.
Git it?"

That's:
"I made up a joke and this is how it goes: What did the hen buy?"
"No, he bought an egg sandwich. Get it?"

We told her we didn't get it. But she thought it was dang funny.

:) She makes us happy and makes our house a sunshine-y place.

Miciah is done with school at the end of this week and then it's summer! We have no big plans of travel. The only big summer thing is Rob switching jobs.

The Story of Rob's Life

Rob is stressed out of his eyeballs right now. He wasn't really stressed and then the Monday after we got home from G's wedding, BAM! he was stressed. He has to have his dissertation turned in at the end of next week (but he's hopeful to get it done by Friday of this week), and he has his defense on June 16th.

Then Rob goes to Scout Camp for a week, the week of June 23rd. Super excited about that. :)

He officially starts at Children's on July 7th. I'm half-hoping that we'll get to see him some of that time after his defense and before starting at Children's, but he really doesn't sound like that's going to happen. He'll be revising and finishing his dissertation after those last-minute changes they suggest. I think a break with his family might be in order (hint, hint), but what do I know? I'm just the subserviant wife and mother.

The Story of Tamra Playing Soccer

I haven't played soccer for years. When I had stopped playing, in HS, I had a distaste for it. Too many power-hungry coaches and ultra-competitiveness. Lost my love for it. And now that I'm playing again, it's GREAT. Everyone I'm playing with is well past their prime, and so we can't be too competitive. Everyone on the field is there because they love the game. And it's a perfect fit for me.

Plus, it's a nice ego boost every week. People think I'm a superstar and I like to play that up. I played yesterday at the Memorial Day picnic and wowed everyone. (I like to be just a little cocky, just for fun.) It's nice to be in-shape enough to do what I want to with the ball. I still have my shot and my precision on passes, pretty much. It's nice to play and it's also nice to be admired. Makes me feel like I'm at least good at SOMEthing (since I'm clearly not a good mother/wife/housekeeper by today's standards and that's all I do all day). :)

The Story of Life

Life is good. Life will be nicer when Rob starts at Children's and we're paid a little more. He'll be getting paid about $3,000 more a year than they originally told him, and that's nice. The HR guy said it's because Jordan thought Rob was worth the extra money. That's gratifying for Rob, I'm sure. It's nice to be recognized as being worth something. Even if it's only pennies. We'll take pennies.

Hope you're all doing well! I'll attach some pictures and hopefully get some more out tonight or tomorrow. I have a bunch of pictures to send out from the wedding and other times.

We love you all!

Tamra

Attached pictures:

My wicked-cool bruise. Sweetness! It's been 4 1/2 weeks since I got that bruise, and it's still there as a hard knot under my skin. I'm hopeful it'll be gone in another 2 weeks. ... Got another one on Friday. You could see the lines of the soccer ball on my skin. I LOVE bruises. My skin just gets a whole bunch of awesome colors. :)

The kids. Miciah's holding a vase of lily-of-the-valleys. It's the picture I sent my mom for Mother's Day. Oh, that reminds me! I'll tell that story in the next e-mail.


A close-up of Teancom. It was a good picture of him from the shoot, but not of the other two. So I cropped them out.

Miciah's Birthday!

Miciah is now a very adult 6 years old. Awesome.

Birthday at Parkey's Farm

We spread out her celebrations. Not on purpose, really, but that's how it ended up happening. The Saturday before Rob took Miciah up to C's house to practice some songs they're singing for a fireside, and while the cousins were all together, they did a little birthday celebration. Then on Monday we did a celebration with another family at a local farm that does Halloween Nights. It's a non-scary family-oriented night. They have a hay maze and a hay ride and there was a magic show and other stuff. They loved it. Well, everyone but Elijah loved it. Elijah had been cranky earlier in the day, but during the magic show he started complaining about his head and throat and I noticed his forehead was hot. I took him out, got him a drink of water, carried him around, and by the time the others were out of the magic show, he was asleep. I made Rob carry him, and for the next hour he just slept in Rob's arms. Poor kid. But it was still a good time.

At one point, during the hay maze, which the kids loved, I thought I had lost A, Elijah's friend that we brought with us. I was standing by one of the maze exits, as a sentinel, but the other exit wasn't being watched too closely. So suddenly I was seeing Elijah running around crazy and no A! I asked Rob if he saw him. Nope. No one else did, either. I'm looking around the maze, he's not there. I'm looking nearby at places he could be just running around. No A. Then a lady standing at another side of the maze goes, "Are you looking for a little boy?" Yes, in fact I was. "He's sitting in this corner hiding." Breathe again. He wouldn't get up for anyone, so I walked back through the maze with Elijah and convinced him to get up so we could move to something else. It ended up being funny, but for a minute there I was wondering how I would tell one of my best friends that I had lost her son. :)

October 16th

The next morning Elijah was fine, but Miciah had the fever. (Teancom had a fever Sunday night.) I called and talked to her teacher about something else and mentioned to her that Miciah had a fever and I was ordered (sort of) to not send her to school. Bummer for Miciah, since it was her birthday. So she stayed home, but was fine by mid-afternoon. She kept asking what her friends at school would be doing now. Told me about the fun things they'd be doing in class that she was missing. :) So I told her that she was lucky because she got THREE birthday celebrations. One on Monday, one on Tuesday (with the family), and then one on Wednesday when she got back to school! She thought for a minute and then said, "Then I should be 9!" ...

We let her pick her birthday dinner. She chose beef Ramen and Ritz crackers. Joy! Rob actually loves Ramen (why, again, do I try to make good meals when he's just as happy with Ramen?) so he was in heaven. Then we had her cake. She's always wanted an Ariel cake (just like last year. She's obsessed with Ariel and mermaids), but last minute she decides it should be a castle, too. So I cut notches off the top layer so it would look remotely castle-ish. I thought for a last-minute solution it wasn't half bad. She was happy with it anyway, and that's what matters.

The gift we got her was a $20 gift card to ToysRus. She was thrilled to pick out her own gift. She chose an Ariel building block set and a mermaid pool toy thing. :) It's funny to me how much a gift card can be exciting. Easier for us, fun for her. If she doesn't like her gifts, it's her fault because she chose them. How can you go wrong?

While I took her to ToysRus Rob was busy building her a bed tent. Elijah's been asking us to put blankets up so that his bottom bunk is a "tent". Miciah's been trying to get us to build her a tent, too, but she's on the top bunk. So we'd been thinking of a plan and Rob finally came up with lashings. Yea for Boy Scout training. So he lashed up some thick cardboard rolls and secured bed sheets to them and when we came home I told her to go look in her room for the surprise. She was so excited. Man, sometimes it's the easy things in life, eh? Didn't cost us anything--the supplies we already had. Just a little bit of time and effort and she's happy. Life is good.

Back to School

And Wednesday she was able to go back to school and share treats with the class, so she was happy. I was scheduled to be in helping the teacher as a Parent Helper, so I was able to share the moment with her, which was fun. She loved having me in helping, though I didn't help her specificially. I think she just liked being able to share with me what her day is like and what her class is like.

So that was Miciah's 6th birthday. Yea for kids getting older and yea for simple birthdays and family time!

Other family stuff.

Miciah is Reading

Miciah is now reading. It hadn't occured to me that there was never a day when your kid would just BAM! be reading. When people say that kids read, they say, "You were reading at 5" or "She was reading at 3 1/2", like it was a single event. Miciah has been in some stage of being able to read for over a year. Now she is reading almost any word she wants and needs minimal help, so I think that constitutes Reading. When she can sit in the back of the car and drive you crazy reading and asking questions about signs she's reading, that's official. :)

Elijah

Elijah is not driving us crazy as badly as he used to be. We re-evaluated how we were parenting him and realized we needed to just chill out a little. We've never been hyper parents, but in his transition from quiet, happy, sweet, cuddly toddler to FULL ENERGY IN-YOUR-FACE little boy, we'd been knocked off-balance. So we took some deep breaths, put some calm back in our voices and souls, and he's been reacting MUCH better to that. Elijah feeds off any anger or loudness sent his way, so really, the problem was in large part us. But we're OK with this full energy kid, we just needed to realize this is who he is now and he's not "broken" in the sense of "what's wrong with you? You weren't like this before!". So life is MUCH better.

Teancom

Teancom is still the quiet, happy, sweet, cuddly one, so he has now eclipsed my other kids as the current favorite. Mothers should not have favorites. But at times when everything is chaotic, including my older 2 kids, I can sit on the couch and gush my sweet baby and that's awesome. Soon he too will be the full energy in-your-face little boy, so he can keep favorite status for a while. :)

No real news with Rob or me, as usual. If there is, I'll make some bold headline like "ROB PUBLISHED HIS FIRST PAPER". You will know when there is real news here, not just non-news.

Nintendo Wii

Rob and I did play the Nintendo Wii for the first time last night. We made our little miis. I told Rob, "Your mii looks a lot like you, spelled u-i-i." It was fun to play. I thought my mii looked quite like me while Rob's (with the beard) looked like Kenny Loggins. But I have now been a Simpsons avatar and a little mii. My life feels complete.

We love you all!

Rob, Tamra, Miciah, Elijah, and Teancom

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

Update

It's been a little while, but not a lot has been going on.

Rob is still is school. He has no classes to take for the moment and so he's still just in the lab taking care of things there. I don't ask much about what he's doing because I don't understand much, and it also changes from day to day how he's feeling about how the test results are going. One day the sky is falling and the next Rob is on top of the world. So it's just easier to tell people that I don't know what's going on, cause if I miss the timing, I can be telling someone what Rob told me last week and he'll jump in what a, "Well, actually, ..."

I got a calling change. It's been in the works for a while, but it just happened 2 weeks ago. I am now the Young Womens Secretary. This mostly just releives me of going to every Tuesday night activity. I am grateful to still be with the Young Women. They're a bunch of fun and they're my girls.

Miciah starts pre-school soon-ish. Her fist day of full classes is the 20th, but they start transition days which are shorter on the 13th. Most of her friends have been gone for the summer, but have returned in the last 2 weeks, so we've had quite a few play dates, which makes everyone happy. Miciah is writing up a storm and spelling things all by herself. So we get lots of letters to "DADE" (Daddy). And she insists on spelling her middle name, Lynn, "LLINN", even when I correct her. Spelled like C, she says.

Elijah is doing great. You can't tell now that he even had surgery, except for the two little scars. He has dropped 2 pounds in the last few weeks, and so he's thinned out in his torso a lot. Still his limbs are as chunky as ever. :) It's cute. I don't know if the weight-loss is related to the surgery or not, but he seems healthy and happy, so whatever the weight-loss is from, it seems not to be a problem. Oh, and we're trying to potty train Elijah. We started today and it went pretty well. Only 2 accidents. He has yet to poop in the potty (he went in his diaper when we put him down for a nap), so that will be a big deal when that happens. But he is awesome at going pee in the toilet and needs little to no reinforcements, negative or positive. What a kid! Hopefully we'll be successful and I think we will. I anticipate being mostly all done with potty training by the end of the 3-day weekend. But now that I just said that out loud, God is probably thinking, "I'll show her!" :) So we'll see.

Teancom is doing good. He's a good baby. As he's growing he's getting better at being out of our arms for longer and sleeping longer and stuff like that. So that's nice. He smiled for the first time a week ago, so it's been fun to try to get him to smile for those fleeting moments. And he had his first huge blow-out yesterday. I found out by walking to the kitchen while holding him. Not a good plan. I ended up with poop all down my shirt and pants and on the kitchen floor. At least it wasn't on the carpet. I suppose I should count my blessings. :)

Walk in a Straight Line, Please

This week has been an interesting one. Rob started getting a cold on Saturday night and is just now starting to feel quite a bit better. He felt pretty crummy for 2 days. When he was starting to come out of it, on Wednesday, I woke up really late--like at 11. That surprised me in and of itself for 2 reasons: 1- I never sleep in that late and 2- Miciah and Elijah had let me sleep in that long! But then I got up out of bed, walked to the couch and the world was not a stable place. I could not see straight and I could not walk in a straight line. It took me being awake for 15 minutes before I called C and asked her to come take Miciah and Elijah. I thought of taking them to someone else's, but I couldn't drive feeling like that! So she came to get the 2 older kids and then, after seeing me and how I was, took Teancom, too. :) I've never been drunk, but if I imagine that's a little bit of what it must be like to be tipsy. If I drove around, I would be arrested for a DUI cause I wouldn't be able to walk that white line. Or I'd crash well before the cop pulled me over. She took the kids and I slept for almost 3 more hours. After that I was better, but still not great. I was moving slow for the rest of the day.

It was a weird day. Compounding the problem of the cold from Rob, I believe I have an infection. Tuesday night I started noticing redness and swelling above my scar. The scar itself looked fine, but above it was really swollen and a little tender. This worried me, of course. So I called my doctor and he said it was unusual to see an infection almost 6 weeks after a C-section, but it could be one. He said if it got worse or didn't get better to go in. So I had Rob drive me Wednesday afternoon (cause I really wouldn't have been able to drive myself. I was SO out of it). He put me on antibiotics and I feel much better in that regard. The tenderness was getting pretty bad by the time I went in. It's almost all gone now and most of the redness is gone, too, with the swelling decreasing rapidly. So I'm pleased about that. The cold is still hanging on and kicking my trash, but oh well.

Nintendo Fun!

Rob and I have started playing our original Nintendo games that Collin gave us. We hadn't for a while cause of the new baby. We have been enjoying playing Zelda and Dr. Mario and all those cool games. Rob beat Zelda like 5 times when he was a kid, he said, but I never have. However, I spent a lot of time watching my brothers play, so I know quite a bit. It's nice to be able to hold my own even if I'm not very good. :) I'm getting better.

Okay, that's my lame update. Sorry nothing more exciting is going on. We love you guys.

Tamra, Rob, Miciah, Elijah, and Teancom