Off to Houston

Sorry I haven't been updating very much. Maybe a relief to some of you. It's been a busy week. I was scheduled to go to Seattle yesterday for my screening, but found out last Friday that Baylor is now recruiting patients, so I'm going to Houston in the morning instead. I'll be the first patient going through the screening process there so I'm hoping for the best. My appointment is at 9:30 CST, so any prayers that can be spared would be appreciated.
My legs have been giving me some more trouble. I think I'm still ok and that I'll slip in under the 5.5 disability score, but I wish I was a little more confident going in there. I think when I get up in the morning I'm at a 5.5, but by the end of the day I'm more like 6.5. A couple weeks ago I was at a 4.5 so I'm definitely seeing some deterioration, as I expected to as the steroids leave my system. But it is in the Lord's hands, and whatever will be, will be. But I certainly wouldn't mind prayers.

Things have otherwise been going fine. The boys are good. Mosey is enjoying being four. Last weekend we went to the San Antonio zoo for his birthday celebration. It is a very nice zoo, although it is a little hilly, making it a bit of a workout for Ben pushing me in the wheelchair. Still, the Miami Metro Zoo has my heart as being the best zoo. With the Denver Zoo being a close second. We did see some interesting things, including a baby wallaby climing into its mother's pouch! And the lions were having something of a roaring fest as we were going by, so that was pretty cool to see also. They have a nice little children's area with these tunnels that actually go out into the prairie dog exhibit so the kids can stick their heads up in this plastic dome thing and see the world from a Prairie dog's point of view. There is also a little aquatic area with a place for the kids to "fish" for plastic fish using magnetic fishing poles. This and the bat cave (probably the best bat exhibit I've seen) were the hits for the kids.

We ate dinner at Carino's and *almost* finished listening to HP 7 on the way home. We finally finished on Sunday afternon. Now what?! I really liked the last book, although J.K. sure is brutal about who she kills off, isn't she? I want to find another series for the kids to listen to that will be a good follow-up to Harry Potter. Any suggestions? I loved "The Dark is Rising" series, and I think the boys would like it, too, but maybe it's too advanced for them? Probably not, since they enjoyed Harry Potter so much, but part of me doesn't want to feed them all the "good stuff" too soon, know what I mean? Anyway, I'm open to suggestions. I love series, but stand alone books are good too. I started reading "Where the Red Fern Grows" to them, but I'm a little ambivalent about that, too. That was the first book I ever read that made me cry, and was certainly one of the very most memorable books to me as an elementary school student. I want them to be able to have those personal experiences with books, and that is why I'm a little hesitant to introduce some books to them too early, even though I know their comprehension is certainly at a high enough level to understand what is going on. I would just love to find books, real novels, with interesting characters and story lines, that are a little more appropriate to 6 year olds. Where the Red Fern Grows is about a 13-14 year old boy, and I think my boys are still too young to really identify with a character that much older. Same is true for the Harry Potter books, honestly. But there aren't any novels with 6 year olds as characters, are there? At least, not really geared toward boys. There's always the Ramona books and I think there are a bunch of "Junie Bee" type books (not sure if that's the name), but those are definitely geared towards little girls. Plus, they're so short. They're good for me to read to them, but not what I'm looking for in an audio book which I want to last a good long time. I just downloaded Diana Wynne Jones "A charmed life: the worlds of Crestamanci" (or something like that), and we started it today. We'll see how they like it.

Brigham and Joseph got sparring gear for TKD (helmets, gloves, feet protector thingies, etc.) and today they got to use them for the first time. I was pretty impressed with them! There are some kids that "spar" mostly by trying to keep away from their partner, but Brigham and Joseph were both right there in it, not afraid to give or receive punches and kicks. I guess that's one of the benefits of growing up wrestling and fighting with someone exactly your same size. Brigham especially was doing very well, using his kicks and blocks and stuff really well.

Mosey has developed an attitude. He has started just saying "no." Or flat out refusing to stop what I tell him to stop, or do what I tell him to do. What is going on?? He has been my easiest child by far, and now he's giving me attitude? The problem (and it's a tough one) is that I cannot back any of my threats or promises of consequences with physical dominance. Not that I need physical dominance to discipline him, but a child is far more likely to go into time out when they know full well that if they don't, mom will just pick them up and take them there, like it or not. Unfortunately, Mosey knows I can't pick him up and take him to time out. So I can't really tell him he's getting a time out, because I have no way of enforcing it. I've been using the star system to try to encourage him to help out (cleaning up after himself, doing simple chores), and that has helped a lot. But today we were at "Extreme Fun" (one of those inflatable toy places), and he dropped some crackers on the floor and refused to clean them up. I tried reason (it's your mess, you are responsible for cleaning it up. If everyone just left there messes around, think how filthy our world would be?). I tried enticement (remember, you get stars for cleaning up your messes). Finally I tried threats (Ok, I'm going to count to ten. If you don't pick up your crackers by the time I get to ten, you will not get your star for cleaning up today). Nothing worked, I got to ten, and that was that. The problem is, I don't feel good about taking away his star when he already did a bunch of other cleaning up stuff. If I start taking away his hard-earned stars, he'll start thinking there's no point in trying to earn them, and the stars will lose their motivating power. Any suggestions? I would have told him he had to go back to the car and sit there for five minutes thinking about how sad it is that he doesn't clean up his messes, and that he isn't obeying his mom. But I couldn't drag him unwilling out to the car, either. I need to be more creative, but it's pretty hard. He's not quite old enough to really understand long-term consequences. So me telling him that if he doesn't clean up his crackers then he won't get to play with X when he gets home, doesn't mean that much to him at this point (like the threat of losing a star). I need something immediate, but which doesn't require any physical ability on my part to enforce. Suggestions are well-appreciated.

Ok, that's it for tonight. I need to get to bed early because we're leaving the house at 5:00 AM for the 3 hour drive to Houston.

Yep, he's definitely getting an attitude.