How to get your own way before breakfast

Who: Maggie
Goal: To get someone to put her shirt on for her
The Scene: Last night, bedtime
Script: Sam: Maggie put your shirt on
Maggie: I want you to do it
Sam: No, you can do it yourself....
Much crying and melodrama ensues, but Maggie gets her shirt on
The Scene: This morning. Maggie comes downstairs shirtless
Script: Me: Maggie, go and put your shirt on
Maggie: I want you to do it
Me: OK, just go and get it and I'll put it on, anything to keep you warm.....

Who: Ben
Goal: To watch Tarzan II
History: Has been trying to suggest it as the movie of the night for quite a while & has been voted down several times
Scene: First thing this morning
Script: Ben: I'm going to get a morning movie to watch
Me: (distracted by the shirt episode) OK

Later, Ben & Maggie are sitting watching Tarzan II on the TV upstairs.....
At least Maggie has her shirt on.
Score: Children-2, Parents-0

Another room with a view?

The building across the road from the SLU research building burned down on Sunday. I think we are lucky that it was a Sunday or we would have had to evacuate our whole building and all the streets were closed off. Luckily, no-one was injured. I was completely clueless about it on Monday when I walked into work and never even noticed that it wasn't there any more. My only defense is that it is still dark when I get to work & I don't walk right by it!!!! However, it was still smoking and they were still pouring water on it on Monday, so I must be completely oblivious at that time of day.....I can see the building from my office window & we have all been watching it be demolished this week. At least one lane of Grand has been closed all week and the traffic is backed up constantly. They are not wasting any time in getting it removed. They started pulling it down and taking everything away on Tuesday. There was another small fire on Wednesday and they had to bring the fire trucks out again. By Friday, almost all of the building was gone. The building is quite a landmark & probably has historic status, luckily the anchor building on the corner of Chouteau and Grand is still standing and unaffected.

Well, thank goodness that didn't last long.

Ben has changed his goal in life after only 3 days. The theme at the YMCA camp today was clowning around. When I picked Ben up, they had all been face painting each other. They had hidden 100 balls and Ben found the most, so he was so excited. He said "This was the best day ever. This is all I have ever wanted in life". I realized that there are worse things in life than aspiring to be a clown!!!!

Where do these things come from?

Ben & I met my friend Arline at Time for Dinner on Tuesday night. Ben was a great help as always and was a big hit there. He actually does move things along if you can get him to fetch & carry things and head him off from the actual food preparation!!!! It was a great night as it was fairly quiet there and so it was easy to get around. At the end of the night, we were drinking coffee and chatting when Ben announces that his goal in life is to start smoking when he's 11. That's all he wants to do and he can't wait. Then he proceeds to use one of the coffee stirrers as a cigarette.
What? Where on earth did that come from? Didn't he learn anything from his Science Fair poster? I'm going to have to start plastering posters on smoker's lungs all over his bedroom after I have painted the walls red (another one of his lofty life goals.....)

Sad news

Our friend Julie's mother passed away on Tuesday morning. She had been fighting lymphoma for approximately 18 months and finally lost the battle after a long time enduring chemotherapy, radiation and a bone marrow transplant. She was a wonderful lady and we will miss her. Jan & Julie are Ben & Maggie's Godparents and looked after Ben when we went to Ukraine in 2005 & 2006. They took Ben with them to visit Julie's family at Christmas and Julie's parents made him very welcome and kept him entertained for several days. They had a special place in their hearts for Ben & Ben was very fond of them too. Both of Julie's parents have been ill in the past couple of years and this has been very hard for her. Her mother will be sorely missed, but is now no longer suffering.

City Museum in March

In order to redeem myself in my children's eyes after a day of cleaning house and grocery shopping, I took them to the City Museum on Sunday. We broke our 5 hour record easily-we got there at 11.02 (they open at 11) and we left at 4.45 (they close at 5). It was absolutely packed. When we got there, the parking lot was half full and there was no street parking anywhere close. We got the pole position parking spot right by the door. The line to get tickets was out the door, luckily we don't have to get in it because we are members. It still took us about 10 minutes to get our wrist bands because someone in front of us was getting a membership. It was a beautiful day and the kids spent the vast majority of it playing outside. They ran themselves ragged and both were complaining that their backs were hurting them last night as they went down the slides so often. Maggie is exactly where Ben was at 4, she has no fear and she follows Ben everywhere, even going over those horrendous places where there is nothing between you and the ground but wire...... Maggie is getting more independent and adventurous and so she'll go off on her own and explore. I did run around with them for a short while, but I was not prepared to go to some of the heights that Ben wanted me to.

I went in the castle turret with them and rediscovered the wall art that I hadn't seen for a while. The amazing thing about the City Museum is that you always find something cool that you haven't seen before, no matter how many times you go there.....I was even able to sit and read my book for a while as they were quite happy on their own, they just run off to play and then come & find me every now and again.
The only time we were inside was when we went to eat & of course we watched the circus performers. The juggling was way off form yesterday and it gave Ben plenty to laugh about

Is this what they call a growth spurt?

Growth seems to be constantly on my mind these days. We got a huge box of clothes from Sam's mother on Friday. I wasn't at home for the big unpacking, but apparently, they were a hit. I am so ready for Summer and wearing Summer clothing!!!! I measured Maggie on the door frame yesterday and she's grown 2 inches since we started measuring last June when Ben started GH. Ben was in the room, so I thought I might as well do him, but wasn't expecting him to have grown appreciably. Amazingly, he grew almost 3/4 inch in 18 days!!!! He has now grown at least 3 1/2 inches since last June. I was so convinced that Maggie was keeping up with him, but obviously she was closer to his height than we had thought. I have listened to other mothers complaining about their kids outgrowing their clothes & just thought "blah, blah, blah". Now I know exactly what they are talking about. We are now faced with buying new clothes every year, but that's a good thing in our house.....

Maggs

Maggie is doing very well on the whole. She is so ready for kindergarten, or at least to be out of the daycare class she is in right now. Because of where her birthday falls, she will be young for the school year, but will miss a whole class year at her day care. Consequently, she is now in a classroom with some 3 1/2 year olds and that is proving to be a challenge for the older kids in there. This always seems to happen when the older ones are getting ready to move on. Her lead teacher just had a baby yesterday and so there is going to be a little bit of a change in the room for a while, hopefully not too disruptive for the kids, but we'll see what develops. I am looking forward to Maggie being at school too. It will be great to drop off & pick up at the same place for a few years. There's also the added benefit of me being abole to spend more time with Ben & Maggie in the afternoons after I pick them up from school.
She is going through a very clingy and insecure phase at the moment and we really have no idea if anything triggered it or not. She is constantly saying "I love you" and asking if she can give you a hug or a kiss, particularly to me. We have asked her if she is worried about anything or if she thinks I am going away or that I don't love her, but she says no. The other night she was not eating her dinner at all. After a while, I just said "you're just not going to eat that, are you" and so I told her I'd just put her in the bath for a while. As we were walking upstairs she asked me "Do you still love me". It really makes me think there is something that is making her feel insecure at the moment.
She is growing like crazy. Even though Ben is growing a lot, Maggie seems to be keeping up with him and has really had a lot of growth, particularly in her legs. Luckily, Milly called the other night and said she'd sent us a large box of clothes, we are going to need them!!!!
Maggie still thinks Ben hung the moon, she follows him everywhere and is constantly beside him. She takes all her cues from him and we're trying very hard to get her to stick to her own quirks and bad habits rather than add Ben's to her repertoire!!!! She is absolutely dependent on Ben for things to do in the house and if he isn't around she is completely at a loss for anything to do. However, she's certainly not alone in that as most of the kids around us rely on Ben to organize them!!!!

Ben

Ben is doing pretty well these days. We had his parent-teacher conference on Wednesday. His reading recovery lessons are finally starting to help him. Although his reading level has not improved much since last year, I can tell that he is starting to do a little better and he has moved up a level. I try to get him to read to me every night at bedtime, although he bought some new books recently and now wants me to read to him. His interests are at a higher level than his reading ability and so its hard to find a happy medium in books he is able to read himself and ones that will hold his interest enough for him to enjoy it. His reading took off after Spring Break last year and I am hoping that it will do the same this year. Our challenge will be to try to keep him at the same level over the long Summer break. His class teacher is concerned about his lack of progress, he is so behind in math & reading and so he finds it hard to do independent work and not get distracted. There is an aide in his classroom now that can help him a little and he isn't the only one that is struggling in his classroom, but our concerns are for next year when he goes into 3rd grade and things get even more difficult. He will qualify for Summer school and so we are planning to send him there again, at least it will keep some of his skills current.
He is doing very well with Cub Scouts and has the most achievements and electives completed compared to the rest of his den. I'm not sure if that's a reflection on Ben or just the fact that I keep on top of everything and do a lot with him!!!! He really enjoys scouts though and it's the first thing he has stuck at for any length of time. He did say that he wanted to play baseball this season and practice starts next week, so we will see how long he wants to do that for.
He continues to grow, every time I measure him he seems to have added another little bit of height. He is doing better with the new formulation of growth hormone, but I can tell that it is still liable to sting more than the old one. We still do the ice for about 30 minutes every night before I do the injection, but some nights it's just not enough. At least it is working though & so he can see the results.
We are really trying to work on his attitude and behaviour. He still acts very inappropriately with his friends at times, not all of it his fault. He can hang all over them and get in their faces and he doesn't listen when they say they don't like it-he just says "oh, they like it" or "they don't mean it". They are all into spanking each other's behinds when they run by and that can get carried away at times. I am beginning to figure out which kids he does better with and which ones it is better to minimize his time with, based on his personality and theirs. I think they are all getting a little tired with each other at school and Spring Break next week can't come too soon.

What's been going on lately......

Once again, I have been really busy at work this week. I am in the middle of my heaviest teaching load of the year and having to review grant applications for the American Heart Association. I am just thankful that I am having a brief respite from writing any grants of my own. This is always my busiest time at work, but after April 2nd, it should be a little easier for a while. These days, I am just thankful that I have a job and that things are going fairly well in the lab. We have had much warmer weather recently and the garden is slowly coming back. I love to do a tour every day and see what has survived the Winter. I am already planning what annuals I will plant this year, but resisting getting anything for now. This weekend, Sam cleaned up the yard and got all the leaves out of the flower bed. We dug a trench behind the bed and laid some stones behind it to try to divert some of the water that washes out the soil and mulch when it rains heavily-one of the drawbacks of a garden that slopes alarmingly. The test of our success has not happened yet. Ben and Maggie have both bought bug cages and so they were outside this weekend desperately looking for bugs to add to their collection. They turned over all my garden decorations and found a few slugs, but nothing too interesting yet. We met Prerna at Monkey Joes' on Sunday. We should have really been outside, but the overwhelming vote was for Monkey Joe's and it's a good place to keep the kids occupied and corralled. All the kids had a great time, they get along very well together. Ben has a huger fascination and appreciation of babies and was very excited to spend time with Praneel. Isn't he cute?

Ben got some colour-changing frozen ice cream and it turned his whole mouth green. Maggie won't miss an opportunity to show off her tongue, whether it's changed colour or not!!!!!

Another great idea.....

Here is the link to another great idea from the teachers at Ben's school. I know I am always saying what a great school it is, but I am constantly amazed at how the teachers go the extra mile to make school fun for everyone. The school does not have as good a rating as other elementary schools in the district, but it works really well for us. Unfortunately, the Principal is leaving at the end of the school year to be the assistant superintendent in the district, so we are in the process of looking for his replacement. Hopefully the new Principal will be just as involved and supportive as Mr Simpson has been.

St. Louis weather

The weather in St Louis is always crazy, but I am still amazed by it every time we have huge changes on a day-to-day basis. Of course, in the Spring, I am checking the garden every day to see what has made it through the Winter and how quickly things are growing. When I left work on Friday, everything looked very bleak. We had a warm weekend and on Monday, the grounds around our building were full of tulips and hyacinths peeking through the ground. By Tuesday, the hyacinths had decent sized flower buds visible. It was 80 degrees yesterday, we had a storm come through, now it's 30. Yesterday I came to work without a coat, today I have my coat and scarf. I know I have said it before, but it's no wonder we get sick. Ben's class had 4 kids out sick yesterday, I think whatever Ben had last week is going around.

Be careful what you wish for....

Ben: I didn't get to play with Julie
Me: No, you played with your friends on the playground for an hour and a half
Ben: But I didn't play with Julie
Me: Well, you have to choose whether to come home and play with her or to run with the boys. Maybe you could be a girl with her and Maggie can be a boy and you two can swap over
Ben: No, I want to be a boy
Maggie: I want to be a boy with one wiener. I can stand up to pee......
Moments like this make a parent sooooo proud!!!!!

Growing pains

Yesterday, I did something that I never thought I would do-I told Milly that she could buy whatever clothes she wanted to for Ben & Maggie. Since we have had warmer weather this week, I was looking for something suitable for Maggie to wear and figured out that all the leggings she has are far too small. Neither of the kids have any/many T shirts that they are going to be able to wear in the Spring or Summer as they have both grown so much. Luckily, I think Ben has some shorts that he can still fit in, but I am not even sure about that. We have a clothing charity coming next week and so I have put out 4 trash bags full of clothes for them to take. We now have loads of room in the closets and drawers for new stuff!!!! This is a completely alien concept in our house. Ben was stuck at virtually the same height and weight for about 2 years and could wear his clothes from one year to another, that is obviously not going to happen again. Of course, we are measuring his growth carefully now he's on the GH. Every time he asks me to measure him on the door frame, he's grown another little bit. Sam & I were looking at him lined up with the other boys yesterday and even though he's still shorter than all of them, he's not that far behind many of them that have pretty tall parents. It's probably a relative thing, but I don't think he's noticeably smaller than the rest any more, that extra couple of inches has definitely helped.

On the other hand, Maggie is growing like crazy. I can remember when she was wearing clothes that were a year or two behind her age, now she's definitely a 5T & I keep forgetting she will be 5 in June. Her body is getting so long and she's so skinny that I have to cinch in all her pants so they don't fall off. She still has perfect legs, a great shape & very muscular. She will still not wear girlie clothes if she can get away with it. Every time Dad dresses her, she's in a baseball shirt and jeans because he lets her choose what she wants. After I'd tried all her leggings in vain yesterday, I said "OK, what about jeans?" She was visibly relieved!!! MIL sent her a bathing suit the other week & I took it out of the package and held it up. She just looked at it and said (extremely vehemently and with hand gestures) "I'm NOT wearing that. No way"

Pinewood Derby

The boys scouts had their first ever Pinewood Derby event yesterday. For those of us that did not grow up as a boy scout or in this Country, information on this event can be found here. Apparently, this is a huge deal in the boy scout year and was taken extremely seriously by many of those affiliated with the pack (ages not specified here!!) Ben did very well making his car. He made a police car. One of the den leaders cut it out for him and then he sanded and painted it himself.

The day of the derby dawned with dry, warm weather. Everyone was very excited, including the siblings. Maggie so wants to be a boy scout, she keeps asking me if she can be one. The weigh in was from noon to 1 pm and the race was due to start at 2 pm. Yes, that is Sam at the back wearing a scout leader's uniform!!!!It is clear that some time is needed between the two, in case any last minute alterations are needed. I think only one of the cars was too heavy, but a few were too light. Rob had to drill out a lot of the back of the car because the wood is not very heavy and the car was 0.2 ounces too heavy!!! There was quite a bit of tape used to anchor extra weight to some of the cars. By 2 pm, the cars and the track were ready to go. We have 17 boys in the pack, 11 in den 2 (2nd grade) and 6 in den 1 (1st grade). We had 100% participation this year.The boy scouts all walked in and sat on the front row to watch the races. Den 1 boys raced their cars first and then it was den 2's turn. We had 3 lanes on the track, so the heats were between 3 boys and each boy raced his car once on each track. Sam was the race starter. Ben's car came in second in the first 2 races. He was too excited to watch the 3rd race. He should have done, because his car won!!!! Still, he did not make it through to the finals. The car that won was one of the cars that was too light at the weigh in. It was a police car that had the windows drilled out. They added the extra weight by stuffing quarters into the windows and taping them in there. Obviously, last minute adjustments count!!!! Most importantly, all the boys did very well. They sat still, listened to all the instructions and cheered each other on (OK, I'm stretching things here, but only a little). There was no crying or ill will if they did not win. At the end, the boys all received a badge for participation and the winners go on to the district races in March.

Walking with Wallace

The Principal at Ben's school had a great idea this year. Every Friday, one child from each class gets to Walk with Wallace. The "child of the week" is chosen by the teacher based on how well they have done in the past week. At the end of the day on Thursday, Mr Simpson reads the names of the kids that are picked for that week. Ben's teacher had told him a few weeks ago that he was going to be picked, but that he'd blown his chance by being giggly in his reading lesson. Ever since then, he has been trying really hard and never quite made it. Yesterday, his teacher sent us an email to say "I can't believe that Ben is sick today, I hope he'll be here tomorrow because he is walking with Wallace". Can you believe it? The week he gets picked, he's not even in class to hear his name announced!!!! It didn't seem to bother him at all & he's extremely excited that he gets to do it today. I guess it worked out for the best as the past few weeks the weather has been terrible. The forecast for this afternoon is 72 degrees. Ben is on a roll at the moment-he got first place at the Science Fair, he won the 2 raffle prizes that he really wanted and now he's walking with Wallace!!!

However, as a last note, I will mention that a "friend" of mine commented that it took a week of Ben feeling under the weather to be nominated. I said "hey, only I can say that, you're supposed to think he's wonderful". Hhmmmm....the exact same thought had crossed my mind!!!!

Science Fair Project

Ben has been sick all day today, so I got the opportunity to work on his Science Fair project with him. The judges at Hudson had some suggestions for improvement & I got some inspiration from the other posters. I tarted it up a bit so it was more "arty" than pure science. I must remind myself that this is Elementary School and not the Experimental Biology meeting. I found some pictures of normal and smoker's lungs and put them either side of the title, Ben thought they were great. Then, I added some other smoking-related pictures and some photos of the equipment that we used. It definitely looks much better now. The next round (school district) is next Tuesday.

Little Shop of Horrors

Even though I have been at SLU for 12 years, I have never been to see any of the plays that the theater group puts on. However, I saw that they were doing Little Shop of Horrors and thought that it would be right up Ben's alley. I asked him if he wanted to go and see a play about a man eating plant and he was all over it. We went to the matinee performance on Sunday. One of Ben's friends and his mother went with us and I took Maggie with me because Sam went bike riding. When we walked in, the place was full of older people dressed to the nines and there were no other children around. My immediate response was that the outing would be a disaster as the kids would be laughing and we'd upset everyone around us and we'd have to leave. I could not have been more wrong. Even though Maggie said it was boring, wriggled the whole way through and asked after every song if it was done, she did very well and I managed to keep her quiet. The boys sat enthralled through the whole thing and didn't make a sound. One of the ladies in front of us complimented them twice on how well behaved they were. The show was brilliant. The set was very professional and the actors all did an excellent job. They were easily as good as some professional shows I have seen. I am usually very selective about picking events for the kids to go to. This was definitely one of my better decisions. I will keep my eye out for other shows that the kids might be interested in.

And then there's scouts

In the spirit of catching up on everything that has happened since my active blogging dried up, I have now turned to the report on scouts. I am still not sure which has taken over our lives more-scouts or school. I'd say on the whole that scouts is the front runner. Every week, Sam & I get more & more involved. A while ago, I volunteered us to organize the Blue & Gold banquet. Initially, that meant that we were involved in organizing the competition for the placemat drawing that was used for the invitations. It also meant that Sam was involved on the pack committee and the monthly meetings have been moved to our house. Sam has now been voted in as the pack secretary and I have somehow become the activities coordinator. Sam has now been to the scouts official training day & has a uniform.

Sam and I have both been going to the den meetings recently because there is so much to do. I have been organizing the parents in making centerpieces for the tables. We decided that we should recycle as much as possible, so we made flowers out of old fabric and stuck them on stems made from magazine pages. We are going to cover old soda bottles and put sand in the bottom for containers and we are going to get the boys to make bugs on Monday. Then, we'll arrange the flowers inside the containers with a bug or too & it should look pretty good.

It is the Pinewood Derby on Saturday. It will probably take up most of the day by the time it's all done. Ben has made his car, it's not the most aerodynamic shape but it's pretty good and he did a great job of painting it. Hopefully the boys will have a good time & not be disappointed if their car doesn't win.

The past week at school

This past week has been a big one at school. We got school reports home on Wednesday and Ben's was about what we'd expected. He is still not progressing at all and his reading is only now back to where it was at the end of first grade. I asked his teacher if we should be concerned and his reply was that he had been concerned since the beginning of the year. I asked him if he had any suggestions for what we could do and he wasn't very enlightening about that either. I guess all I can do is try to do some extra things with Ben at home & hope that he starts to improve. The overall impression is that Ben does OK in class but he cannot apply anything when he's working independently. I don't know if it's a lack of focus or a lack of ability.

Saturday night was the big fundraiser of the year, Pizza Bingo night. Somehow I managed to be in charge of the pizza orders. Yes, I appear to be getting sucked into school activities more and more-first scouts and now the PTO. I only messed up one order out of 75, which was not too bad seeing as I didn't get 30 of the orders until the day before the event. I was stuck in the cafeteria for the whole event, so I didn't get a chance to participate at all, but I did buy raffle tickets for Ben and he won pizza at CiCi's with his favourite teacher and he won birthday treats from her also. He was very happy.

The Science Fair was on Thursday. We were rushing at the last minute (of course) to get the posted finished, so we could have made it a little better, but it was sufficient to win 1st place. Now, you may think that's a major achievement, but there were only 8 posters, 2 were disqualified and there were 4 first place awards, so Ben had a 50:50 chance going into it!!! We now have to revamp his poster and incorporate the changes that were suggested and the next round (school district) is next week.

Our baby girl is now registered for kindergarten. Sam took in her paperwork today. She is so ready to go to school.

Has it really been that long?

As I have been gently reminded by some of my regular readers, it is been a week since I posted on here. That is almost unheard of, since I have a blogging addiction that rivals my coffee addiction. My only excuse is that I have been so busy at work that I haven't had time to do anything relaxing in the past week. I have been completely distracted because I have been working on my latest grant submission. By the time it is submitted on March 5, it will be the 6th one I have written and submitted since December 18th. Now, this may seem like a lot, but the current funding rate at NIH is in the single digits. This means that on average, you'd have to submit close to 20-25 grant applications to be able to get one funded. What does this mean for research? Well, almost everyone I know is spending the vast majority of their time writing grants to the exclusion of everything else. This is bound to negatively affect research programs in the long run and doesn't look like it will improve significantly any time soon.

Well, we have the economic stimulus package which has allocated billions to NIH. This has to be good, right? Well maybe not. First of all, this huge amount of money has to be spent in the next 2 years. Since it takes almost a year between grant submissions and getting the money, half the allocated time would be gone by the time any new submissions would be funded under the program. That means that NIH will reevaluate some of the grant applications that were scored but not funded previously. Could be good, but most of these are 3 to 5 year grants, so will NIH just award for 2 years and then you're back to square one again? The stimulus package is also supposed to create new jobs. This means that new investigators stand a better-than-average chance of getting funded, this should be good for them, but we're back to the 2 year consideration again.... Finally, if the NIH throws a bunch of money at creating new jobs by awarding large amounts of money for 2 years, what happens to all of these people in 2012?

One of my collaborators who is old enough to remember when something similar happened at NIH previously said to me "I hope they don't do what they did before and throw a bunch of money out there for a short time. People recruited a lot of folks, primarily from overseas, that then stayed here and had nowhere to go when the money ran out". My initial thought on all of this is that I am hoping the stimulus package is being handled better elsewhere than in research. What we really need is a long term answer rather than a short term fix.

Still, most of this is rumour and the NIH has not released any official word yet on how the funds will be allocated. I can only hope that this will be good for us in the long run & I will just keep writing grant applications until someone throws a bunch of money at ME!!!!

OK, back to the original consideration and the absence of my blog writing. I have had a lot of meetings during this past week which have stopped me getting a significant amount of my grant done. Luckily, I had no meetings on Thursday, so I stayed at home and had the whole day to devote to my grant. Unfortunately, that means that most of Wednesday and Friday I was doing everything else that I needed to do & lost those 2 days entirely.

Apart from work, there have been many other things going on that will be commented on at a later date. The scout meeting was last Monday night & the boys cut out their Pinewood Derby cars. Ben got his school report on Wednesday and his Science Fair project was due on Thursday. I gave up lattes for Lent on Wednesday, broken on Friday because Alice brought one to our meeting for me, but apart from that, I'm doing well.