Forgot to post about it

First off:
School shopping - don't like.
My niece, Dea - do like.

Moving on.

The Search for Tank

The best story of the Mammoth Cave trip happened at the campsite.  It was morning, and our tour didn't start until 10:45 (which felt like 11:45 because of the time change), so we were being good, relaxed parents and were allowing the kids to wander around the whole of the camping area.  It's not very big, and I figure, in reality, most people don't really want to steal my children, especially not 4 of them.

They were sticking together and making walking trips around the camping loop and through the wooded area in-between.  No problem.  Then they called me over a few camp sites to see a deer.  I saw the deer and pretended to be enthusiastic about the obviously-fed-by-people animal (cause pretend enthusiasm is what all the cool moms are doing these days).  On my way back to the campsite I started counting kids.  Miciah, Dea, and Elijah.  No Teancom.  I asked them where he was.  They didn't know.  "He's at the bathroom."  "No, Elijah was just in there, and Tank wasn't with him."  "He's at the campsite."  "No, I was just there."  That's a problem.

We tried to stay calm.  Chances were that he was fine.  Chances were that he wasn't too far away.  ...  But, you know, he's only 5.

We sent all the kids different ways around the loop and Rob split through the wooded area in the middle.  One of the other campers said, "Are you looking for a little boy?"  Rob replied that he was.  "He went that way."  Good start on our search.  The best part of the whole thing was what they said next.

"He looked really young to be walking by himself, but he was walking with a purpose.  He was banging his stick on the ground and when he walked by he looked at us and said, 'I made this trail!'"

Sure enough, he was just a little further down the line, banging his stick as he walked, so no big deal.  And our whole family has since been saying, "I made this trail!"

Elijah

For the first time in his short life, Elijah bore his testimony at church.  I loved it.  It wasn't the semi-memorized normal spiel about how he knew the church was true and that he knew President Hinckley was a prophet or whatever.  (Not to knock that sort of little kid testimony-bearing.)  He brought up his set of scriptures and, from what I could understand between the mumbles, said that he'd been reading Joseph Smith History and that he liked it.  Then he said that his dad had given his uncle Rick a blessing and that Rick had lived and he liked that, too.  And he closed the testimony and sat down.

It was so simple, and yet somehow so powerful.  Here's a 7-year-old little boy, bringing up his scriptures, talking about how he was reading Joseph Smith History?  That's good stuff.  On top of that, I'm his mother, and I see what he does at home.  We have a Must Read for Half an Hour to Play the Wii rule, and almost always Elijah brings out his Book of Mormon to read.  I don't ask him what he's reading most of the time, and I don't know what he's getting out of it, but holy cow!  I often can't find the time to read the Book of Mormon, but my 7-year-old, who is just starting to understand the complexities of the book, he's reading it everyday?  Wow, I'm a slacker.

But to me the point isn't really that I'm a slacker.  It's that Elijah is amazing.  He wants to be good.  He wants the Priesthood.  He wants to serve in the Church just like his daddy.  He wants to pray and receive answers.

It's humbling.

Uncle Rick

You'll remember that I posted about Rick when things were looking pretty grim.  Well, he's turned it around and is now recovering nicely.  He'll hopefully be home by the end of the week, though he'll still need full-time at-home care for a while yet.  His accident was on June 10th and he's been in the hospital for all but 4 days since.  That's a long time!  He's working on things that we take for granted, like walking further than down the hallway and sitting up without passing out.  We're happy he'll come home soon.  The kids are SO excited to see him.

Strep?

2 weeks ago I was disastrously sick.  Fever for 3 days, my throat killing me.  I stayed in bed for what felt like (and almost was) 72 hours straight.  I finally went to the doctor and he told me that he thought I had strep even though the Rapid Test was negative.  Prescribed an antibiotic and told me to go home and get back in bed.  I said, "I've BEEN in bed.  I want to get OUT of bed!"  The next morning I felt amazingly better, and I've continued to improve from there.  I finished up the obnoxious 10-day, 3-a-day antibiotic even though the culture revealed that I did not actually have strep.  Interesting. 

ASL

Tomorrow is my Beginning ASL 2 final.  Hurray!  I've got a greater than 100% in the class, which I'm proud of but still, it makes it awkward to do things like, "Hey, I know that the class requirement of extra sign hours outside of class is now only extra credit, and I know that I have a better than perfect score in the class, but I did all the work for that requirement, so I'm turning in my 8 hours."  I feel like it makes me a jerk, but heck, I'm working hard.  The teacher is probably looking for places to dock me points, but for the life of me I can't show up for things under-prepared.

Aw, maybe I won't turn in those 8 hours.

I keep receiving compliments on my sign.  I took Rob to a deaf event (even though he barely knows how to say his name - he's a good sport), and was flattered when other people complimented me to him.  Someday this will cease to thrill me, but it just feels like confirmation all over again that I'm in the right place at the right time.  I love sign and I'm good at it.  It's a good feeling.

And last but not least, this song has been in my head:



The End

An Update at 6 in the Morning

Like I've said before, there isn't really much to report.  A lot of sickness around here, plus our lives are pretty typically boring anyway.  But I'm going to pretend that I have something important to say because it's 6 in the morning and I'm awake with nothing better to do.

Rob
Rob skipped out on the flu.  Probably because he had the flu shot this year (he gets the flu shot because he works at Children's and if you don't get the shot you get fired.  They give it to you for free, though).  He was coming down with a cold one day, and then over it the next.  Lucky him.

Next week he starts Jury Duty.  He's so excited about it!!!  (Not really.  I keep telling him he's excited, just for fun.)  Shortly after that he starts teaching his class at UC.  Right now his teaching load is light, he's only gone one night a week, and it's been great!  It's so fantastic to have the weekends and most week nights as a family, with a Rob who is fully there with us. 

Tamra
My waiting is finally over:  I have the full-on flu.  It hasn't been awful, really.  A low-grade fever.  I'm really tired.  A headache.  The headache got so bad that I finally took drugs for it, which is why I'm awake now:  the drug has caffeine in it and so it wakes me up (I have to feel pretty miserable to take it at night).  But it also broke my fever, so I'm feeling good right now.  That's likely to change when the drug wears off in a few hours.

This week I will have the opportunity to testify in court, assuming the case gets on the docket this week.  I hope you all get to skip out on this opportunity, as, in my experience, it's already been pretty painful.  I'd rather the case not exist, let alone have to talk about it under oath.  I'm hoping I'm over the flu by the time I have to go in, cause that's a combo I don't want to do.  ...  No, I'm not telling you details about the case.  And no, it's not about anyone you know.  Promise.

Miciah
Miciah has written some pretty good stories lately, so I'll be posting those as I get to it.  I love her stories, her creativity.  I also love how funny she is, and how funny she thinks she is.  She will say something clever and then repeat the entire conversation for us about 10 times.  I don't know anyone else who does that (expect myself). 

Sign that Miciah is growing up:  She asked if she could start taking a shower every day.  Weird.

She was Star of the Week in her class 2 weeks ago.  I love how much the kids love being Star of the Week.  I mean, they just rotate through the class.  It's not like it's an honor.  But they do get to share special things about themselves, so I can see how it'd be cool.  A few months back she got to be Star of the Week for her grade, which is a little more on the "honor" side.  There's only 1 kid per grade level per week.  She got to be on morning announcements (where the principal got her name wrong.  Again), and got all these prizes and stuff.  It was pretty cool for her.

Elijah
Elijah is back to his normal energy levels, which is good and bad.  We can barely keep up with him!  He's kinda crazy.  But he's so happy.  I'm working on constructive ways to work with his energy, instead of feeling like we're always fighting it.  Any suggestions on that front?  I could use them.

Our wii is back up and running, which makes Elijah especially happy.  We've put in new rules.  They now have to read for half an hour every day to get their half an hour wii time (or computer time.  Now they'll have to choose).  That's all the time they get in a day.  On Saturday they get a half hour for free, and then a second half hour if they read.  This last Saturday was our trial run, and it was great.  The kids read and read, even Teancom.  Well, Miciah read to him.  And then, when it was time to turn the wii off, they did it without complaining.  Excellent!

Teancom
Tank is adorable, as always.  Not sure there's much on the announcement side for him.  Let's see.  We bought him some new pants, cause his old ones were falling apart (Elijah destroys his clothes, so when they get to Tank they're nearly rags).  He was upset at the store when I told him the size we needed was 3T.  "That's for 3-year-olds!" he told me.  Tank is a small kid.  I'm sure he'll grow eventually.  We had a kid with us for a day who is not yet 3, and they were the same height.  This is why Tank can still wear that Frankenstein outfit that he loves and has been wearing for 2 years.

A fun Tank story.  As I've been signing more, the kids have become more interested in it.  Elijah, like his father, has a hard time seeing the signs and then copying them right.  Miciah almost always gets it the first time, Tank right behind, but Elijah just ... struggles.  We were trying to get him to do the sign for "no" correctly, and Rob was holding his hands and trying to adjust his fingers how they needed to be.  It's a simple sign, and probably most of you know it.  What cracked me up was Tank's explanation of the sign to Elijah.  "No!  2 on top, 1 on bottom.  Chomp, chomp."  If you know the sign, you know that that's a perfect description.  Never would have thought of it, but it's beautiful.

Kids
Daniel, a boy in our ward, asked if he could come read stories to our kids for a merit badge he's working on.  Umm, YES!  Our kids were really excited about it.  When he arrived yesterday, Tank ran into the living room and shouted, "It's story time!"  He read to them for 2 hours.  Miciah lost interest before the end, because they were mostly picture books, but she sat on the other couch and read different books.

Daniel's coming back next week to do another 2 hours and finish his time.  ...  It struck me, when the kids were so excited about it all, that we should read to them more.  We read to them on a near daily basis, particularly at bed time, but we often have other things we "need" to do with our time.  Maybe Sunday afternoon reading time would be a good tradition to start.


And that's the end of my "updates."  Love to you all!

Hurray!

3 healthy-ish children!  Miciah went back to school today!  I don't feel trapped at my house!  Elijah FINALLY looks 100% better (though he's still coughing some), and it only took him a week and a half!

Now it appears that Rob's coming down with it.  And I can't help but think that I'm not far behind. 

Thank you everyone else for posting interesting things on your blog so I have things to read, since I don't have interesting things to write.

AND ...

Miciah will be home again tomorrow.  Her school has a 24-hour fever-free policy.

Dragging out the sickness. 

I'm glad we'll have yet another day to sit on the couch.  I mean, what else is there to do?

If all goes as planned, in about 2 weeks I'll have some real news.  No, I'm not pregnant.  No, we're not moving.  ("What else IS there?" you're thinking to yourself.)  But the news will have to wait until then.

Turns Out...

that a week of sickness makes for not a lot to report, or even comment on.  We've been spending a lot of time sitting on the couch watching TV.

Elijah was horribly ill Monday - Wednesday.  Better on Thursday.  Sick again on Friday - Saturday.  I think he averaged 14 hours of sleep a night.  Most days he went to sleep at 4:30 or 5 p.m. and slept until 8 in the morning.  It was fascinating to see our crazy active boy being so still.  He couldn't even sit up for dinner.  He just laid his head down on the table and ate a few saltines.  Poor kid.

Teancom was sick Friday - Saturday, just as Elijah was mostly better.  He's alright now, even though, just like Elijah, he has a horrible cough and wakes up several times in the middle of the night.  Rob goes in with his Vick's VapoRub to give them some chance of sleeping.

Miciah held off until today, and I would like to say that I'm a little tired of all the TV watching.  I like cuddling with my kids and all that, so I guess there's a positive to it all.  She won't be going to school tomorrow, so I guess it'll be one more day of sitting around.

I'm sure that I'm next, and I don't like waiting for it.  I feel like I'm wearing a big target on my chest.  I kinda wish that I was already sick, just so I'd know.  And I REALLY wish that all my kids had been sick at the same time.  Dragging it out isn't my favorite.

A happy report:  My brother braved our sick lair and came down for the weekend!  Thanks, Keith, for coming down.  We like having you around.

Hope you've all been staying healthy!

Randomness Smashed Together

Best $5 Christmas purchase for 2010:

Seriously.  SO cheerful.  Not sure I'll survive another winter without one.  (And did you know there's no 't' in the middle of the word?  It's poinsettia.)

And since we're on the subject of winter plants, you should avoid paper white narcissus at all costs.  They stink.  Leave them as spring bulbs in your garden.  Trust me.

Star Wars

One of the best Christmas gifts for the kids was a box full of Star Wars toys from Uncle Garrett.  Inspired by Toy Story 3, he passed on a treasure trove of action figures for my kids to enjoy.  The boys especially love them, even though they aren't super familiar with the characters.  Tank picked up Admiral Ackbar and said, "And here's this weird looking guy."

Then Tank suggested that we watch all 6 movies.  We've watched movies 1 and 2, and it's interesting how different the experience is for our kids.  They don't know the storyline through and through.  So when we were finished with movie 1, Elijah was going on about how cool Anakin is.  Miciah looked at him and said, "He's not a good guy, Elijah.  He turns into Darth Vader."  A look of profound shock came over his face.  He turned to Rob as if to say, "Tell me it isn't true."  We both wanted to die laughing.  Elijah went on and on about how it can't be true that Anakin turns into Vader because Anakin is a jedi who was taught by jedis and jedis are good guys, so it can't be true, right?  ...  You'll have to wait and see.  Dun dun dun!

T-shirts

I've never liked the tight-fitting layered shirt look.  When it started coming in style I was baffled.  How it's STAYED in style is even more baffling still!  ...  Fashion doesn't make sense to me anyway, so I guess that it's not too surprising.  Anyways, I was thinking about how I just wanted to wear a normal t-shirt.  Options on t-shirts that are wearable without being see-through have gone down in recent years.  So, much to my delight, my younger brother Chad bought me this great t-shirt for Christmas:

Can you see what that says?  (These are mirror shots, remember.)

I grew up in St. Louis.  Love it.

(And, as a side note, I have no objection to layering a short-sleeve shirt on top of a long-shirt sleeve.  It's a look I've never objected to.  Plus, it makes sense:  I'm cold, so I need to wear a long-sleeve shirt, but I love to wear t-shirts.  Solution?  Combine them!)

And now, to prove I've never had a sense of fashion, here's a picture of me doing the short-sleeve on short-sleeve shirt look in High School.  I was 15 years old:

Not sure why I was wearing it like that, with a baggy shirt underneath.  Not sure there has to be a reason for what people wear when they're 15 years old.  (Normally I wore that yellow shirt with a patterned long-sleeve black and red Mickey Mouse shirt underneath.  Cause those matched SO well.)

Sickness

Last week Rob and I were talking about how our family hadn't yet been hit by the Annual Winter Stomach Bug.  Shouldn't have said it out loud.

Bed time, a few nights back.  Tank came out of his room and said that his belly hurt.  I told him to get a bowl and get back in bed.  So he did.  About half an hour later Elijah came out of the room and said, "Tank is asleep, so I brought out his bowl."  I thought about telling Elijah to put it back, but then I thought, "What are the odds that Tank will need it in the middle of the night?"  Well, I don't know what the odds are, but he needed it that night.  He yelled for us to come help him, and then he said, "I couldn't find the bowl."  Gratefully, Rob sees it as the father's job to help out kids in the middle of the night ("You get the day shift and I get the night shift."), so he took care of it.

Tank's stomach bug lasted all of 5 minutes, and he was fine by morning.  Miciah is sick today.  Same thing:  she's been running around totally happy.  Stomach Bug says, "2 down, 3 to go!"  If we have to be sick, though, this bug isn't so bad.

Last night Tank said his stomach hurt again.  I don't think it really did, but I told him to go get a bowl anyway.  He said, "Should I put it under my pillow?"  "The bowl?  No, just put it beside you."  I heard him going through the bowl stack, picking one out, and then he came out with this one:

"I got the big one."  Seriously, that bowl is huge!  It's so big that we rarely use it.  There just isn't much need for a monster bowl like that.

I'm trying to figure out how he thought he could sleep with that bowl under his pillow.

Night Time Reading

Last night, just before 11:00, Miciah came walking upstairs, half-asleep, hair in her face.  She walked to the bathroom and Rob said, "I hope you've already been asleep."  In a groggy voice, she responded that she hadn't, but that her light had been off since 9:30, her official Stop Reading and Turn Off The Light time.  Without missing a beat, Rob said, "But you've been reading by the light of your night light."  Miciah's face broke into a wide smile.

Rob said, "She thinks we don't know."  We can't really be mad at her, though, cause we did it as kids, too, and we still do it now when we have an especially good book.  We told her so, and then we told her that we love that she loves reading, but also that sleep is a good thing.  Miciah told us, in a perfectly awake voice, that to get enough reading light, she takes the night light (which is also her alarm clock) and puts it right next to her head.  I suggested that she should just leave her light on if she's going to continue reading.  That way she won't hurt her eyes by reading in low light.

After she went downstairs, Rob and I were giggling about her act.  It dawned on me that she turns off her light dutifully at 9:30 every night so that she can tell us the truth about it.  "I turned off my light when you told me to!"  Then, for last night, she put her hair in her face, and made her voice sound all tired.  We were impressed with the amount of effort she put into the performance.

How Much Fun are We Having Now?!

Miciah has Strep Throat.  And an ear infection on top of that, just for fun.

She's been out of school since Tuesday, and we were going to delay one more day before taking her into the doctor, cause we try to be non-alarmists.  But, after hearing that Strep is going around, we decided to have her checked out yesterday.  (Glad we did.  This makes us good parents.)  Sure enough, she's got Strep.  The ear infection is just icing after that.

Oh, she's doing MUCH better today.  She doesn't look like death warmed over any more, and that's hopeful.  Still tired, obviously, but able to read and stuff. 

Yesterday she asked me, "Why do diseases even EXIST?!"  I had a tough time answering that one.  The age old "why does evil/pain/sickness exist?" question.  I said something non-original but non-complicated, about there needing to be opposites so we can appreciate the good.  Then I noted that, opposites or not, being sick sucks.  :)  Cause I'm that kind of philosopher.

Let's Talk about January

Now that it's February, I'd like to talk about January and what a lousy month it was. 

An Ear Infection

Remember how I said that I was probably going to post more Christmas stuff in mid-January?  Yeah.  Well, on Jan. 13th I came down with a little cold.  I felt generally crummy, but no big deal; I can handle a little sneezing and watery eyes.  Then it started getting better and I thought I was through it when my ears started being bugged.  I spent Tuesday night awake.  I cried for a long time.  Eventually, after realizing sleep was futile, I sat on the couch and read.  I fell asleep out of complete exhaustion (while sitting up, mind you) at 5:30 a.m.

That day I went to the doctor.  I know I'm sick when I pay $20 to see the doctor and then another $35 on meds.  I don't spend $55 on ANYTHING.  But it was well worth it to be able to sleep Wed. night (and every night thereafter). 

Even though I could sleep again, Thursday and Friday were awful.  Usually Rob has some flexibility in his schedule, and he can be home when I'm feeling lousy.  It wasn't the case on those days.  So I made sure my kids didn't die and threw them crackers for lunch and made frozen pizzas for dinner.  They were glorious days.

Anyways, I was getting better steadily after that, and I'm nearly 100% now.  I would say 100% without the qualification, but I still can't fully hear out of that ear.  It's still popping and obviously has liquid in it.  But whatever.  I'll take it.

What I've Learned from this Ear Infection:
1 - I can semi-take care of my kids with an ear infection.  When I have a fever, usually I faint and therefore can't get out of bed at all.  I was thankful that didn't have a fever and therefore could get out of bed, even if I did spend all day on the couch.
2 - Ears are wonderful things, when they work right.  When they don't, they're horrible things.
3 - After not hearing nuances in sound for over a week, it's fun when the hearing starts coming back.  Noticing what 2 ears really do for you:  most importantly, I've found, 2 ears adds depth to sound, and a sort of sharpness or clarity to it.
4 - If everyone heard their own voice echoing inside their head, no one would talk loudly.  Yelling at my kids was impossible for about a week, simply because it was physically painful to me to raise my voice at all.  (Really, I shouldn't yell at them anyways, but it is at times useful to be able to raise your voice.)
5 - "Accomplishing" things is a matter of perspective.  On Friday my accomplishment was not sending Teancom away in the morning because I was too tired (this was about my ONLY accomplishment all day).  On Monday my accomplishment was doing some laundry.  On Tuesday my accomplishment was finishing the laundry and the dishes that had piled up for over a week. 
6 - I ought to be a little more patient and understanding when my kids complain about ear pain.

What I'll Miss and Not Miss, All at the Same Time:
I'll miss the metallic version of everyone's voice.  When it was really bad, everyone's voice sounded like Mystique's.  You know, in X-Men.  And I've figured out what that effect is:  It's a two-tone effect.  For 2 days I heard every single tone as 2 slightly-dissonant tones.  It's really, really cool for voices.  If you can imagine, though, it's TERRIBLE for music.  If music always sounded to me like I did during those 2 days, I'd never listen to music again.

 A Stomach Issue

On Sunday the 24th, I stayed home from church.  I was feeling better, but even simple things were still exhausting.  It was good, then, that it was already the plan to stay home, since Tank woke up puking.  He threw up every 5 minutes for about an hour and a half. 

So Rob took Miciah and Elijah to church.  ...  They all walked back in the door about an hour and a half later.  I just looked at them, wondering what was going on, and Miciah said, "I threw up."  She didn't just throw up, though.  She ran out of sacrament meeting, then threw up in the hallway and tried so hard to not make a mess everywhere, to no avail.  Rob and a few other people took about half an hour to clean it up.  I was grateful to the others who helped, especially since I wasn't there to clean or comfort.

What's funny about this story is that it was so high profile.  Rob was conducting the meeting, so they had to excuse him.  No sneaking out the back door for the Thacker family!  ...  With everyone sick, Rob just came home and stayed home.  It was an admission of defeat.  We let the kids watch PBS kids all day, which was a real treat for them, since normally TV isn't allowed on Sundays.  It was a great day! 

Oh.  Poor Tank who had it so bad.  He had to wear pull-ups all day.  This was somewhat humiliating for him, since he hasn't needed a pull-up for day or night for months.  It was also upsetting to him to not be able to fully control his bowels.  After about the 10th messy pull-up, he came up to me.  He was looking so sad.  I said, "What's wrong?"  While looking at the ground he said, "I pooped AGAIN."  It was so sad and so funny all at the same time.  I gave him big hugs, and then put him in a clean pull-up.

But by the evening, both kids were fine and no one else got the bug, so it wasn't so horrible.  I mean, if you're going to have a stomach bug, a 12-hour stomach bug is the way to go!

February
...

By the time I was feeling better, and I mean like REALLY better, it was Thursday, Jan. 28th.  At that point I just wrote off the rest of January and declared it February.  I'm glad that it's now officially a new month.

Q & A

Question (as posed in a previous post):  Is this the first of our annual Winter Stomach Bugs?

Answer:  Yes.

Case Files

Victim 1:  Elijah

Date:  Morning of December 7, 2009.

Throw-up Count:  3

Complaints:  His stomach was "hard" and "moving."

Other Symptoms:  None

Time Span:  About 6 hours.

Victim 2:  Rob

Date:  Morning of December 10, 2009.

Throw-up Count:  1

Complaints:  Rob was able to verify that his stomach indeed felt "hard" and like it was "moving."

Other Symptoms:  Generally feeling lousy, and another "session" out the other end.

Time Span:  About 8 hours.

Will update files as necessary.

Question:  Who will it strike next?

Answer:  I believe that sicknesses generally follow The Least Convenient Principle.  So it will strike next whomever it is least convenient for, at the time it's least convenient.  That would be me (since I take care of 5 people, including myself, 3 of whom are dependent on me for meals, etc.), tomorrow.

The First Unofficial Snow Day

We got a call at 7:30 this morning saying that there was a 2 hour delay for all elementary schools (why elementary schools only?  I don't know).  Rob looked outside to see how many inches of snow had caused this delay, and rolled his eyes at the snow dust on the roads.  I said, "Well, how much is out there?"  He didn't even have a real response.  He said, "What do you mean?"  Umm, was my question unclear?  I gathered that there wasn't much snow on the ground, but still.  "How many inches are there?"  "Half an inch.  Maybe."

Still, Miciah enjoyed sleeping in.  The boys got up at the normal time, of course, just to ensure that we got no extra sleep.  Teancom came and cuddled with me, like usual, and Elijah came plodding into our bedroom in his pajamas.  That is not like usual.  Normally Elijah gets dressed before exiting his room so that he's ready to go for the day.  So even before he said anything, and he was just standing beside our bed, I knew something wasn't right. 

"My tummy is hard." 
Umm, okay.  What does THAT mean?
Rob suggested that he go potty and maybe he'd feel better.

Elijah obediently went potty and didn't feel any better.  He came back and said, "My tummy is moving."
Rob suggested that he just needed to go poop.  I looked at Rob as if to say, "Really?  THAT's your response?"  I mean, the kid is pretty serious about his bowel movements.  I think he'd know if he just had to go poop. 

Plus, how can you describe an upset, about to puke tummy better than saying it's in motion?

Within minutes he'd done the deed.  Rob went in to help him (though the great thing about having slightly older than itty-bitty kids is that they need little help.  Just comfort) and Elijah looked at Rob and said, "I TOLD you!"  That made me laugh.

So right now, at 10:45 a.m., Miciah just left for school, and Elijah gets his first "Snow Day."  Fortunately he's feeling fine other than the upset tummy, so he's happily watching a movie.

And the real question about the whole situation remains: 
Is this the first of our annual Winter Stomach Bugs?

Only time will tell.  duhn duhn duhn...

It's Fall! (an update)

Fall Musings

It is officially Fall, though some days it feels like Winter. It was 80 degrees and then, overnight, it was 50 and the temperatures have pretty well stayed there since. And it's raining. A lot. And I'm still mowing my lawn! Two years ago the summer was so dry that the last time we mowed the lawn was in August. It's now October and I'm still mowing my lawn once a week! I'm sure this is a blessing of some kind.

It is also officially Fall because I get lost in the shower. One of my favorite things to do is take a just-a-little-too-hot shower for way too long. I will tell Rob, "I'm just going to take a short shower," and he'll say, "okay," in a way that says he knows I'm lying, and he knows I know I'm lying. It's not like I don't intend to take a short shower, it's just that once I'm in there, it's heaven, and I close my eyes and drift away. Ah, Fall.

It's also Fall because soccer practice last night was unbearably cold! For me, anyways. I'm a wuss. I couldn't feel my toes by the end. I vowed to bring my winter coat to next week's practice.

Rob and the Swine Flu

Yes, we're pretty sure that Rob had the Swine Flu this last weekend. On Wednesday night he came down with a fever of 103 and kept that fever for just over 24 hours. It was very strange to watch, because he was fine when he came home from work, and then, within an hour, his temperature went from normal to 103. That's crazy.

He was shivering violently, even though he was wearing many layers of clothes and had several blankets on top of him. When we went to bed and I prayed with him, our fingers interlaced, I had just opened the prayer when I said, "Ouch!" and quickly pulled my hand away. He was so hot!

On Thursday I watched helplessly as he slept for hours in some kind of distant stupor. He was breathing very shallowly and seemed restless. He woke up and said, "How long has it been?" "Since what?" I asked. "Since you came in last?" "About an hour," I told him. He said, "Oh," and quickly was back asleep. Suddenly he jerked awake and said, "How long has it been?" I laughed. "Since you last asked? Oh, about 2 minutes." He was that out of it all day.

His co-workers and boss were VERY understanding, plus they didn't want to get sick themselves, so they ran an 8-hour experiment for him on Thursday. It was a time-sensitive one, so if it wasn't performed on Thursday, it would have ruined the experiment. Before we knew if they could run it, I told him that he couldn't go in anyways. He was just so sick he would have messed it up anyways, and exposed everyone else to his sickness for nothing.

At the end of the day on Thursday his co-worker called back, and between everyone in the lab, they had things covered for him until Monday. I told her we were very appreciative, and I said it in a tone that said I knew she was the best person in the world. She didn't even say "You're welcome." She said, instead, in a firm tone, "What I'm telling you is that we don't want him to come in until Monday."

Rob returned to work on Monday, but came home early because just walking up the stairs wiped him out. He then took most of Tuesday off, but taught his class Tuesday night. Wednesday was a normal day, and he seems good now.

Tamra and Miciah and the Swine Flu?

Pretty sure Miciah also had the Swine Flu (sorry, H1N1--who cares). She came down with the same symptoms within hours of Rob. She came home from school Wednesday evening and I looked at her, right as she walked in the door, and said, "What's WRONG, Miciah? Are you okay?" She looked like death warmed over. I took her temperature, which was 102, and sent her to bed. She said she was freezing, her neck hurt, and she was really tired. ... She also said that she was in the nurse's office for about half an hour, icing her neck, and that her teacher told her to "take a nap" when she got home. I was a little annoyed that she was obviously so sick and yet I didn't get a phone call. Though if it came on as suddenly as Rob's, maybe earlier she didn't have a fever.

Miciah had a low-grade fever on Thursday, but otherwise felt fine. We kept her home from school on Friday, but she was feeling fine and was spastic by the end of the day. We let her do things on Saturday again.

On Saturday I started coming down with the same symptoms. My neck hurt horribly and I didn't even what to hold my head up. I was achy everywhere, my lymph nodes in my neck were swollen and painful. Not good, not good. I took a nap and 2 hours later felt fine. ... In fact, it was all so short-lived that I wondered momentarily if I had made it up, but you can't "make up" swollen and painful lymph nodes.

So, if that's the Swine Flu, why again are we so freaked out? I've talked to several other people who had the Swine Flu (verified by a doctor, which ours wasn't, because if you think you have the Swine Flu you're NOT SUPPOSED TO GO TO THE DOCTOR unless you're horribly sick and dying), and a lot of theirs were very short-lived, too. Especially with the kids. A fever and cough for 6 hours. Feeling awful for a day. Things like that. ... Who's afraid of the Swine Flu? Not us!

Soccer vs. Piano

Soccer continues to go well enough. Miciah's team had 3 games last week, which just figures that Miciah would pick that week to get sick. She missed 2 of those games (Wed. and Fri. night). Rob took pictures of Miciah during her game 2 Saturdays ago. I'll post those soon.

I'm a little sad that soccer is ending, because I feel like the girls are now starting to learn something! We're finally getting somewhere! Oh well. I suppose that's how it goes.

Miciah has said she doesn't want to play soccer next year. We'll see what she thinks when next year comes. But we'll be happy when soccer ends at the end of October. We'll be starting up Piano Lessons for her come November, since Rob teaching her never really worked out. She's excited.

The Family Schedule

Rob is away from home a lot, but for some reason that isn't bothering me like it used to. I have re-defined what my roles/chores are, what time means, what commitment means, what sacrifice means, what love and happiness means. The tinge of bitterness that was present in my life before is just gone now. This is happiness. This is love. This is commitment. And what more could I ask for?

November is our month for breathing. The soccer schedule is taking its toll. For instance, we haven't yet been on our annual Fall Walk. Why? Because we can't find an open Saturday.

Cincinnati

Rob is now starting to "work" his Cincinnati connections in an effort to stay here in Cincinnati next year. Not just because we don't want to leave (though we truly don't want to leave), but because it seems wise to see what the options are here. So right now we're staying open to a lot of options, and I believe we will still be in Cincinnati this time next year, which is also happiness. We love it here.


And now I am going to go to the Library with the boys. I have a few more funny stories and pictures to post, later.

Susan, Where is Your Black Eye? (an update)

Home Project

For those of you wondering how the home project is coming along, you can refer yourself back to the picture I took last week. Cause it still looks exactly the same. We were hopeful to get more done on it this last week, and Saturday in particular, but life happened. As follows:

Strep Throat

I am Better! Starting Wednesday I was feeling quite a bit better, and by Thursday I was as much better as I could be without being 100% (so, if you're a math person, that would be like 99%. ). I debated soccer on Friday night, but I can't stay away from soccer unless I've got a really good reason, so I went and played well, which surpised me. I scored once, with a few assists. Played good defense and we won 6-5 after being down 5-2 at half! It was an exciting game. But it did wipe me out pretty good. Halfway through the game I was sitting on the bench (I never sit when I come out. Ever.) feeling my heart beat out of my chest, and thinking I might pass out at any time. And then I got subbed in and played another 12 minutes of soccer. Without falling over. :) Some people have an alcohol or drug addiction. I have a soccer addiction.

Rob stayed home from work on Thursday, feeling pretty crummy. Had pieces of the symptoms I had. Went to work on Friday since he was feeling better, and his co-worker sent him home at 2:00 because Rob was staring blankly at walls. On Saturday he was feeling much better, though, and by Sunday I could tell he was feeling a LOT better. Back to telling jokes and laughing. So whoever prayed that Rob wouldn't get deathly ill like I was, THANK YOU. Apparently it paid off.

Today the house will be all the way put back together. It's amazing that even though Rob was doing such a good job keeping the house running, there is still so much that doesn't get done when someone is sick. For us, it's been the dishes and laundry. Both have been a little out of control for about a week, and we take stabs at it, but it's like swimming upstream. Today, though, it should be possible to get it all done and have the house back to normal.

The First Pre-Spring Day

Rob said he could do stuff on the home project on Saturday, but we weren't altogether sure how he was REALLY feeling, so we held off. Plus, it was almost 75 degrees outside!! You can't do an indoor home project on the First Pre-Spring Day! We took the kids to the park and read books while we sat next to each other. Hurray for having kids old enough to play by themselves! We all went to Miciah's soccer game (she's in an indoor league). She's doing better every game, by the way. Figuring out that she can be aggressive. Though I still get frustrated when she's too wimpy for my tastes. I wanna say something like, "Be a man!" and then I remember, "Oh yeah. You're a 7-year-old girl." Anyways, we've been impressed with her progress.

Then, Rob did do a little with the home project. I should have taken pictures of the piles of trash bags and tile that were sitting on our back deck. I told Rob I'd help him move it all to the garage, but I didn't realize that each of those bags was easily 50 lbs. or more. So I went and borrowed R&C's wheelbarrow, and that was the most help I was. It took Rob probably almost an hour to move it all. So now I don't have to worry about the kids when they play outside. They've been really good so far, not touching all the nasty nails sticking out of beams, and such, but still, it's a hazard to have stuff like that out there. So now it's at least in the garage and we'll work slowly on getting it thrown away.

And I did something genius months ago, at the start of winter: I left my garden alone. I deliberately did nothing about the dying leaves, because I knew that on the First Pre-Spring Day I would be itching to play in my garden, but that I'd have nothing to do. So on Saturday I had a great time pulling off all the dead Lily of the Valley and Black-eyed Susan leaves. Enjoying the spring weather and applauding myself for being so genius.

We also walked around surveying the garden. The rose bushes with new growth just barely showing. The lilac bushes budding. The lamb's ear coming back. The spring bulbs we planted coming up. This is our first year having spring bulbs, and we're excited. Outside we have 2 itty bitty yellow flowers poking out of the ground. I don't even know what they are, but it's exciting! ... If you don't have a garden, or if you're not a garden person, then you'll just have to trust me that this is very cool.

We also listened to music all day, and in honor of the First Pre-Spring Day, I downloaded Garden Party by Ricky Nelson, that great oldies song, off iTunes.

Miciah

Yesterday Miciah was vacuuming the floor, and I had a moment where I thought, "She is so beautiful." I do this from time to time, and I'm not sure why it strikes me, but when it does, I'm floored by my gorgeous, capable, amazing daughter.

She did her hair herself, before church. It looked better AT church, of course, but this was hours later. She just looked so adult to me. So grown up. And I fell in love with my daughter again.

Elijah

Elijah is getting interested in learning, especially in learning church stuff. This is exciting for us because for so long we thought, "Hello, are you listening? Do you care?" and the answers to both of those, for him, was No and No. But now he's wanting to read scriptures and talk about church stories. He talks about the temple all the time, and says he wants to go there. It's a little far of a drive just so he can see the outside of the temple, but it's a good desire, so we'll arrange it soon.

The other night he wanted a temple bedtime story. So I told him a very very brief account of the early Saints building the temple in Nauvoo and then they had to leave it behind and move to Utah, but that they soon starting building another temple. I told him the temple was so special because Heavenly Father blesses us there with power and gifts. He said, "Mom, I want to go to the temple soon, cause I want that power." His simple faith floors me. He is a good boy.

Teancom

Not much to say about Teancom. He's still addicting and I still shamelessly rave about him. We recently introduced him to the idea that his name is Robert Teancom, not just Teancom. He opposed it. So I've been torturing him by saying, "Can I call you Robbie?" to which he'll respond, "NO! I TANK!" It's not Teancom. It's not Tank-um. It's Tank. Cracks me up.

The other day I was teasing him about his name and I said, "I'll call you Robbie," and he said, "NO! I Tank-um. Say it: Tank," and then he paused very deliberately, so I could get it right, "Um!" I giggled and said, "Tank-um." And he said, "Thank you."

This got a laugh out of the family. Teancom is always picking his nose (like most 2-year-olds I know). The other night he was sitting on my lap, all chill like normal, when he reached up his finger and casually put a dried-up booger in my mouth!! As I was gagging and spitting and grossing out, Rob and the kids were laughing their heads off. At my expense. But, it was funny, and worth the laugh. Ick.

Rob

Things still go well with Rob and his career. He's met with several local colleges now, and he has a feel for what they would expect. They all told him that he needs to get teaching experience, and he's putting his resume out there.

It's been nice for him to meet with people, one cause it's given him direction and hope for an end in sight. But also, it's given him a realistic timeline for his post-doc. I think he's been thinking that he'd do a year and out (a year is over in August this year), but in terms of hiring and things like that, he isn't hire-able for another year or so. So he's back to looking at the original timeline of 2 - 3 years at his post-doc. And that's the way of things, I guess.

Rob is back to his old self: laughing and joking easily and teasing me all he can. It's Heaven.

Tamra

Over my brother's objections (I hardly EVER do things over his objections, so I must be getting braver), I have started another blog. The idea is to make this one the family blog, posting my updates and pictures and things related to family stuff. And the other blog is for all my other random comments and writings. It's an attempt to make this blog seem coherent, and to spare everyone my randomness, if you want to be spared. The other blog is: http://www.randomtamra.blogspot.com/

So far there's not much posted. And I won't be sending out e-mails for that blog like I do for this one. If you want to check it out, you can. If not, I won't be offended. It really is going to be the most random blog ever, but I'm looking forward to having fun with it.

And that's life. Life for us is so good right now. If I could make life stand still, I would. My boys wouldn't get any older. They'd always be running around the house killing bad guys. Things would be calm and everything would be handle-able. If only, eh?

Randomness

All I have is randomness in my head right now, so that's all this blog post is going to be. I hope it will be entertaining enough, though, to justify the randomness. Here goes.

The Watchtower

I think I already said that I'm sick. Got sick early Friday morning and I still feel like a truck ran over me. I'm just SO TIRED still. Yesterday I went to the doctor and found out I officially have Strep Throat. ... Strep sucks.

But today I found a good side-effect of having strep! My kids are with a friend so that Rob could go to work and I could sleep. I was in bed, half-awake half-asleep, when there was a rather insistent knock at the door. I opened it to find two very nice people standing there. Jehovah's Witnesses. Truth be told, I've never had a JW at my door before. Heard lots of stories, but never personally had the experience. They looked at me in my PJ's and bedhead, pale face (Rob says I've been pale for days. That's paler than normal, so it must be pretty pasty white) and sort of paused. I told them I was sick, and they believed me (hard not to tell that I'm sick, since I'm so out of it). So they just handed me a copy of The Watchtower and went on their way. Fine by me. It's titled "Why God Saved Noah. Why We Should Care." I'm debating if I'll read it or not. I mean, I already KNOW why God saved Noah, and I already DO care.

Parley Parker Pratt

Another good side-effect: I've been able to read a lot. I'm so tired, and I don't move much, so I'm in bed for a good part of the day, or sitting on the couch. But it's maddening to just do NOTHING. So I've been making good progress on Parley P. Pratt's Autobiography. He's my great-great-whatever-grandfather, and I love the man. Bold and brave. Probably was something of a prick at times, but he was so motivated to do right! Gotta love it.

Of course he's fond of making grand statements about how everything that he's gone through is harder than anything anyone else has gone through. How the sufferings that the State of Missouri put the Mormons through marked Missouri as a tyrannical state for all of eternity. A little harsh, I think. Or how the joy of the Saints was greater than any joy anyone else could ever have experienced. But I think this kind of talk may have been an 1800's thing to do: over-the-top emotional and romantic. Very interesting to try to interpret it back into modern-day thinking terms.

Lilburn Boggs

Anyways, I've just read the part about the sufferings in Missouri. Even without the flowery romanticism, the stuff that the Mormons went through in the 1830's in Missouri, ... wow. Tough stuff. Painful, painful stuff. And Parley isn't nice to the State of Missouri or the Governor of the state at the time: Lilburn W. Boggs (and several other men. Truly, some of them were more mobsters than law-keepers. Some of them were relatively good guys, though. Gotta keep it fair).

Parley has this to say about Governor Boggs, calling him "the modern Herod":
"Lilburn W. Boggs is dragging out a remnant of existence in California, with the mark of Cain upon his brow, and the fear of Cain within his heart, lest he that findeth him shall slay him. He is a living stink, and will go down to posterity with the credit of a wholesale murderer."

So, I was thinking about this man, and why he was such a rotten apple, cause I really think he wasn't a nice man or a good man. And I think I've come up with a reason that no one has really looked into before: his name. His first name was Lilburn. What kind of name is that? And you can very quickly come up with a great nickname for that: Lily. Poor little Lily: made fun of his whole life for his rotten name. Not that this gives him an excuse for being so terrible, of course, but I do think we should all be a little more sympathetic to poor little Lily next time we think of him (assuming, of course, that we ever DO think of him).

Uberty

The other day I was getting into the shower when Miciah walked in to use the bathroom. She looked at my body and said, "Mom, why are yours longer than mine?" My what, sweetie? "Your these," she said and she pointed to her own chest. Ah, yes. I said, "Because I'm a woman. Someday you'll hit puberty and get them." "What's uberty?" It's not 'uberty', Miciah. It's P-Puberty. "What's puberty?" I told her it's when you start changing into a woman. Much to my surprise she said, "Oh. So like, when I'm in high school I'll get those?" Yeah. High school or Junior High. And that answer seemed to satisfy her alright.

"You're so pretty all the time."

Elijah is a charmer and a sweet little boy. Today he wanted to lay down with me, which was fine, of course. All the kids are suffering somewhat from Mom Deprivation. Elijah wanted to know if, when I got better, I could play with him. Yes, of COURSE! I would LOVE TO when I'm better. They've all been pretty understanding. Anyways, he was laying next to me this morning and he said, "Mom? I love you." I love you, too, Elijah. "Mom? I like you." I like you, too, Elijah. "Mom, do you know why I like you?" No, why. "Because you're so pretty. All the time. You're so pretty all the time."

Awww.

Rob is a Gem

Rob has been great with me being sick. I think it helps that I actually LOOK sick. I hate when he's sick, but the only indication that he's sick is that he says so. When I can TELL he's sick, it's a little easier. And Rob says that I'm very pale. Plus, I just sit there half the time, staring into space. Luckily, this is abnormal behavior for me.

Anyways. He took off work on Friday (or rather worked from home), since I was completely incapacitated. I couldn't even get out of bed, or sit up. Literally. It was awful. He cut back his Sunday committments so he could take care of the kids. And yesterday he worked from home again, since I wasn't any better. He set up the doctor's appointment for me. And he's completely taken care of anything and everything that needs done. He's made dinners and lunches. Put Miciah on the bus in the morning. Grocery shopping. Changing diapers. Everything. I am so lucky that he is such a good guy.

Today he had to go into work for a while. I told him I wasn't capable of watching my kids today. I WANT to be, but I'm still pretty out of it. So we called up some friends and begged them to take the boys. We have good boys, and they were happy to help. They sent Rob home with dinner, which makes me want to cry. How nice is that? We'll totally have to do something nice for them when I'm better.

And that's all I've got. Rob is laying down, says he feels really tired. Uh-oh. That's DEFINITELY not good. Keep your fingers crossed for us, and a few prayers might not be a bad idea, either.

I Want My Mommy

I have the flu. I woke up at 3:30 in the morning with a raging fever. It's been years since I've had a fever (last time I had the flu like this, where I was so super sick, was in 2002), and I forgot what it was like. It's horrible! And my body feels like I've been punched repeatedly. All over. Ickiness.

Rob has been very good, taking care of me and the kids. He worked from home because I literally couldn't get out of bed. He helped me walk to the bathroom this morning and on the way back to bed I fainted and he had to carry me the rest of the way. I took some drugs a few hours ago and my fever has subsided for a minute (it's been 102 - 103 all day--and it must have been worse in the middle of the night), and my body aches are down. Hurray for drugs.

And even though I'm 27 years old, I want my mommy. Only seems right, when you get sick, to have your mommy by your side.

I love you, Mom!

Why We're Loser Friends

This week has been a good one, and I actually truly mean that (no sarcasm in my voice). But a few highlight events brought it home for me that we're horrible, loser friends. All events listed revolve around our really good friend, hereafter referred to as RB.

Highlight Event #1
Quoted RB in my church talk, though not by name, only to have her miss the quote all-together because she was dealing with her kids at that moment. Afterwards I had to say I really did use her line, and it made me feel like a liar trying to win over a friend. You know: "Really! I DID use that quote of yours! I'm serious. Do you want me to show you where it was written on the page?"

Highlight Event #2
Miciah and I went to RB's house during the freak wind storm on Wednesday. Winds gusting to 65 mph. While we were there the power went out, which is just an aside to this highlight event. Anyways, on the way out the door, Miciah was opening the storm door when it was ripped out of her hand by one of those gusts of wind. The part of the door that connects to the frame and makes sure that the door doesn't open too far and that it closes slowly, you know the part I'm talking about? Well, it ripped right off the door, screws and all.

I felt really bad about that, but I couldn't really blame Miciah. I mean, the same thing happened to me earlier in the day with my car door. I had to inspect the car next to me to make sure I did no lasting damage (I hadn't). Anyways, RB and her husband said it was okay, it could have happened to anyone, it could be easily repaired, but if it couldn't the door was cheap anyways. Still, I offered them money if they needed it for the door and went home feeling like a loser friend.

Highlight Event #3
This one has 2 different parts to it, and the first one is a half-cheat, since it started last week. Last week Wednesday RB's husband called and asked if we could watch their kids overnight for a surprise date. Sure! I was instructed to keep up the ruse of a date-swap on Saturday only (Valentine's Day), not an overnight date for them. No problem. I saw RB on Friday last week and she mentioned something about her husband hinting at a date possibility on Friday night (as in THIS Friday, Feb. 13th), but she was skeptical of it really happening because we all know how good husbands are at planning things like dates. I just nodded.

Felt like a liar when later she said her husband had let her in on the plan.

Which leads us to last night. Teancom threw up. Rob said, "That's random," but I told him it probably isn't, since my aunt watched the kids Wednesday and some stomach bug had ripped through their entire family starting Wednesday and continuing to Thursday (and even into today). So I geared up for a long, event-less weekend. Rob said, "Wait and see if anyone else gets sick first." This is our Rule of Two: One kid throwing up once could be a fluke. But 2 kids throwing up or 1 kid throwing up twice? Not a fluke.

Miciah came to our bedside at 1:30 am. Told us she felt like she was going to throw-up. Even half out of it, I nearly shouted, "Then go to the bathroom!" Of course she got the floor between our room and the bathroom, and Rob spent nearly 45 minutes cleaning it all up by himself (in our break-down of duties, cleaning up throw up is kind of "his job". Also middle of the night anything is his job, too. And when I woke up for the day today and said I was sorry for not helping him, he shrugged it off and said, "It wasn't really a 2-person job anyways." What a good daddy/hubby he is!).

This neatly met our Rule of 2 (which we of course have surpassed by now), so I called RB's husband and told him that they could still bring their kids over but that they'd probably all be throwing up 24 hours later; or, more realistically, we had to call the whole thing off.

There goes their overnight date.
There goes our Valentine's Day date.
There goes the entire weekend.

And what kind of loser friends have to cancel a good friend's overnight date plans after a week and a half of planning? How disappointing.

I know, we didn't plan for our kids to be sick. But this seems small consolation to me. Cause I know what it's like to have overnight date plans cancelled or near-cancelled. They could call someone else, I guess, but what kind of loser friends are we?!! Horrible, Loser Friends.

And that's the end of my story.

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!

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