Our Bear

Since I am no good at calling people (sorry) I am attempting to keep you all informed. Most of the time parents are quite sure that their children having hearing problems. It is the most logical explanation for not obeying the first time, and our kids have not been any different. Maren, however has been different. With her it wasn't just an exacerbation but a consistent need to repeat instruction, even when it wasn't related to less than desirable activities. She has had more than a few ear infections in her life, and due to the cattle call clinics that we were using during the time we were on medicaid, we weren't always super excited to take her to get looked at. So, now that we have actual insurance and she seemed to be having some issues, we finally decided to take her in. The pediatrician said that there was an infection and she was on some antibiotics for a while. He also put her on a antihistamine to help with the allergies worsening the symptoms. Once her ear cleared up he asked to see her back and consequently, he recommended we head take her to see and ear nose and throat specialist. The ENT said she had mild to moderate hearing loss in one ear (the left), and her ear drum doesn't vibrate. Further hear ear drum is completely retracted. After 2 cat scans, he is pretty sure she has something called a cholesteatoma (spelling?). So for everybody besides Abe, that means there is supposed to be an area just below the inner ear that has just air in it. In Maren's case that space that is supposed to be empty is filling up with skin. That skin is causing the retraction and starting to erode some of the bone tissue in the inner ear. So we have Maren scheduled for a surgery on the 4th to remove the extra skin. They will make a small incision behind the ear, pull the skin back, remove a section of her bone and remove the skin and rebuild her ear drum. They will also put a tube in her other ear. If we don't do the surgery then hearing loss is certainly going to happen since the bone that is eroding is necessary for hearing. There are a few possible complications. The biggest worry is a result of nerves in the area associated with facial movements. But, we have a good doctor and we are confident everything will go well. That being said we would definitely appreciate your prayers in her behalf since it is still a little scary to have our baby girl going in for surgery. I think I have covered everything. I hope you are all doing well.

~Josh

Quick update

Just a quick update. I proposed my dissertation on the 14th and passed. I am super ready to be done with school and this means I only have a few hurdles left (gather data, analyze, write up, and defend). I still have a few side projects that need to be addressed as well, but I can finish those once I am no longer teaching. Just thought some of you might want to know. And since most of you would rather see pictures than hear about my interminable scholastic endeavors, here are some pictures.

A visit from the Floridians

A couple weeks ago my sister Annette and her family came to visit us.......and Rollie happened to have a business meeting. How convenient. Anyway, I didn't take as many pics as I wish I had. But nonetheless, this is what I have and I hope you enjoy it.

Uncle Rollie and Jess
Emmett "walking" the merry-go-round
Alaina and a lady bug.

Annette and Emmett
I love the look on both Emmett and Ammon's face. Emmett was sneezing but I don't know what Ammon was doing.
The Cousins.......some of them at least
Poor Uncle Rollie. He was a trooper doing push-up with 6 kids
Sorry for the short post. I have very little time. Emmett has become fascinated with scissors, tape, matches and all things inherently dangerous which doesn't allow time for me to do any extras.

-Carol

the problem with food

I am sure that every parent wishes at one time or another that their child(ren) would just eat what is made. I can remember as a child being the only one still sitting at the table long after everyone was done, because I had not eaten my canned beets. (I hated those things) The dinner rule in my house growing up was this: You could not get down from the table until you have eaten everything on your plate. Yes, it was in my childhood that I became a lifetime member of the Clean Plate Club. I also remember thinking up ways that I could dispose of my food without having to actually eat what I didn't want. I am sure you all have done something similar to what I did. Getting a mouth full of food and then saying that you need to use the restroom only to spit out the food in the toilet and of course flush to dispose of any evidence. Or I would "use" paper napkins to hold my chewed food in.

Now that I am a parent I can watch for these and other tactics.( I have seen Jessica spread out the content on her plate to make it look like she has eaten most of what she originally had. I laugh inside at the attempt and then think "c'mon Jess, you can come up with something better than that. Try again")

But more often than not, mealtime can be quite demanding on my patience. I feel like a broken record repeating the same phrases over and over. This redundancy makes me want to run full speed at a brick wall.... (did you get the visual?)

So after struggling with the meal/kid scenario for several years, I think that I have come up with a couple of solutions that I thought I would share with ya'll.

#1: If they don't eat what I have made for dinner, that is fine, they don't have to eat it......they just get to go to bed hungry.......oh and they get to eat their dinner for breakfast!!! After Cora went without dinner, breakfast, and lunch, she got hungry enough to eat the night before's dinner for a snack. I know it sounds cruel and pretty extreme but it works. All I have to do is mention having their dinner for breakfast and they comply.

#2This approach I thought of recently and it works well too. We have a 3-4 "corse" meal.

I will serve only the vegetables(their least favorite for the menu) as the "1st corse" and they have to eat a reasonable amount before they get the "2nd corse" which is their next least favorite. I do this until they obtain the coveted roll or meat or whatever it is as the last corse. The theory behind this one is that they will get the most nutritious food first and therefor by the time they get to the least nutritious they are full or nearly there. I am sure that there are many flaws and long term effects that my children will one day blame all their problems on, but for now this is what works for me and thats what I am going to do for as long as I need to.

If you have any input or constructive criticism, please feel free to share them with me.

Happy eating!!

-Carol

Christmas (almost caught up)

PJs from Granny and Papa

Emmett opening up "his" new nerf pistol

Pillow Pet Hippo's

Matching PJ's with their dollies

Another Pillow Pet, this one I think is a gorilla.

Can't believe how excited she was about this, she's going to be just as nerdy as her Dad.

Carol and I had a little fun too.

The girls reaction to the tramp was priceless!

Cora's Baptism

Here are some pics of Lizzie's baptism. Enjoy

Trying to get up to date

We just downloaded about 150 pics off of the camera so over the next days or possibly weeks we will be uploading the latest and not so latest happenings. These are from Cora and Emmett's birthdays. Emmett's was celebrated a day late due to the aforementioned journey into the land of the drunks.

Adventures in a Filthy City

I have taken today and yesterday off from work. I have an ear infection or rather a head cold that has moved from my sinus into my ear canals, and since I am home and it is finals week and for once I don't have any exams to take I am not overly swamped with other tasks, I thought I would give a little update of the goings on in the household and tell an "interesting" story.

First the story. Carol and I took a little overnight trip to New Orleans last month. I had done some research that was accepted into APA and GSA for paper/poster presentations. I didn't go to APA (San Francisco) because I couldn't afford it, but I was first author in GSA so I decided I had better go. It was in New Orleans, so Carol and I dropped the kids off at Zeb and Leah's and headed out. It is only 8 hours away in good traffic. We did not have good traffic. I was scheduled to present my paper at 4:30 on Saturday the 20th of Nov. We left that morning at 6. So you would think we would get there with plenty of time. Unfortunately we hit traffic in Baton Rouge, Lafayette, and New Orleans. So I got to the conference center at 4:00 on the dot. I had just enough time to register, go into the conference room, set up, and sit down for 2 minutes before I had to present. The presentation went fairly well, other than some random guy being all up in arms about my measure not measuring spirituality and measuring neo american calvinism, to which I say, that may be the case but that was not what are study was examining. Jerk, pay attention. Anyway, while that was going on, Carol checked us into the Hotel. After the presentation, I went and got Carol and we walked around with a few of my colleagues from school and my advisor trying to find a place for dinner. Carol and I were set on getting some good seafood seeing as we were on the gulf coast. They ended up going to some weird bar that only had catfish. Not exactly what we wanted to so we walked back towards the conference center and had some cajun food. I liked it, Carol wasn't hugely impressed. (I will say I thought it would be much spicier.) After that we went back to the hotel. We were sleeping soundly until about 1:40 a.m. when some drunkard mistaking our room for his, tried to come into our room. I hadn't thought much of it, but Carol woke up and so I got out of bed to see what was going on. I had initially thought he was just sticking his card key in the door and trying to turn the handle, oh no, he had opened the door and the only thing keeping him out was the internal latch that allows the door to open 2 inches. When I came close to the door I saw his chubby nasty fingers trying to unlatch the door.

I said "excuse me" and

he responded "OPEN UP! OPEN UP!"

"UMMM NO"

"Your killing me" he mumbled

I took a peak through the door at this point to see a man in his late 40's to 50's, white hair and goatee, skin of someone who smokes a pack a day, nasty gray sweatshirt on, and jeans that he had clearly pissed in not more than 5 minutes ago. That's great. After that interaction he left, and I closed the door. Needless to say Carol and I had a bit of a time getting to sleep after that. So, 30 minutes later when we heard his voice again, we both popped out of bed. He was apparently in the room across the hall and he had a companion who was demanding he open up the safe.

So in the morning we loaded our things had some heated words with the manager who promised to call after "investigating" and still hasn't and left that hole on the face of the earth behind us. I had brought my pistol with me and the guy was clearly drunk and overweight so I figured there weren't very many ways it could have gone well for him, never the less, I have no intention of returning.

As for the rest of what has been happening, nothing super exciting. Life has moved on, the kids have been sick, and better and sick again, and now better. Thanksgiving was at our house and was delicious and amazing. Other than that everything is moving forward. Hope you all enjoy your holiday season and merry christmas.

as promised......

More pics!!!