Going to bed has been difficult for Teddy the last week or so. He tries to stall and throws fits when he knows story-time is over and he needs to lay down. Last night he started crying when I told him to lay down and covered him up. I decided to try to cheer him up by tickling him.
He started laughing because he couldn't help it, but was able to say as I was tickling him, "Weave me wone mommy! I crying!"
(Obviously the "L" sound is not his strong point right now).
I thought this was too adorable. It worked, though. He wasn't crying anymore when I left.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Ballet Lessons
Ellie and Eva started ballet lessons last week. They have been asking for years (yes, years!) and finally Santa decided to give them leotards, tights, and ballet shoes for Christmas. The girls of course knew this meant they would finally get to take ballet!
Since they are less than two years apart, both girls are able to be in the same class. This is wonderful right now, as I'm sure anyone with kids older than preschool age realizes sometimes the hardest part of these activities is just finding time to get them there. Heck, Ellie and Eva take piano lessons (granted it is in our house and from their dad) and 75% of the time I forget they have them!
The girls are having a blast with ballet. They jumped right in that first class and did everything the teacher showed them. Eva is working on doing the splits, though she's not quite there yet (or even close really but she sure is trying!). Teddy watched their first lesson last week. Poor guy was very jealous and kept saying the whole lesson, "I want to do ball-way!!"
Since they are less than two years apart, both girls are able to be in the same class. This is wonderful right now, as I'm sure anyone with kids older than preschool age realizes sometimes the hardest part of these activities is just finding time to get them there. Heck, Ellie and Eva take piano lessons (granted it is in our house and from their dad) and 75% of the time I forget they have them!
The girls are having a blast with ballet. They jumped right in that first class and did everything the teacher showed them. Eva is working on doing the splits, though she's not quite there yet (or even close really but she sure is trying!). Teddy watched their first lesson last week. Poor guy was very jealous and kept saying the whole lesson, "I want to do ball-way!!"
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Done with interviews!
I got home from my last interview trip for residency today! I've been to 12 programs since October in 7 different states. I'm not even going to calculate how much it cost because I think I'm better off just not knowing.
It felt wonderful to get home today and know that I don't have to pack a suitcase again for at least a couple months! The next time I travel I imagine it will be to wherever we will be living next year to find a new place to live. The best part of this? No more interview suit!
Of course, now is the hard part. I need to figure out how to order my programs from favorite to least favorite for the match process. I am very sure about the programs in the top 50% vs. bottom 50% but I have a lot of thinking to do about the actual order beyond that. I haven't decided yet how to prioritize location vs. quality of the program vs. quality of life. Unfortunately, there weren't any programs that were the best for me in all of these respects so I have some tough decisions to make.
It felt wonderful to get home today and know that I don't have to pack a suitcase again for at least a couple months! The next time I travel I imagine it will be to wherever we will be living next year to find a new place to live. The best part of this? No more interview suit!
Of course, now is the hard part. I need to figure out how to order my programs from favorite to least favorite for the match process. I am very sure about the programs in the top 50% vs. bottom 50% but I have a lot of thinking to do about the actual order beyond that. I haven't decided yet how to prioritize location vs. quality of the program vs. quality of life. Unfortunately, there weren't any programs that were the best for me in all of these respects so I have some tough decisions to make.
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Museum
We took the kids to the children's museum for the first time a few days ago. To say they had a blast was an understatement. I have been to other children's museums in big cities and this one was at least as good if not better. Not bad for our small little town!
The biggest hit with the girls was something called the "cloud climber" - A three-story tall climbing structure. Ellie, the super cautious child, was a little nervous her first time through and at one point I thought I was going to have to climb in after her. I think having her fearless younger sister Eva with her gave her just enough courage to get through. After that first time, the girls went six more times!
At not quite three-years-old, Theodore was definitely too little to go up in this thing, so I took him to the special "under 5" play area. This seemed harmless enough and he had a blast mainly just going down a slide. As an excitable preschooler, Teddy would let out occasional happy squeals. An older kid nearby apparently didn't like this and I watched as he angrily pushed Teddy down and then covered up his ears. This kid was easily 8 inches taller than Teddy so I think it was safe to assume that he was at least 4-years-old.
Now, this place was swarming with kids and there was no way to immediately tie this kid to a parent. Theodore was laying on the ground crying so I scooped him up and told the bully kid in a stern voice "You don't push other kids! That is not nice." At this point his mother surfaced and asked me if her son had pushed Theodore and I told her yes. She made him get off the play structure and took him out of the area as she was reprimanding him. I'm very non-confrontational so to be honest I was just happy she didn't get upset with me for talking to her kid. I didn't really have time to think - I just reacted. It's amazing how that mama bear instinct kicks in when someone hurts your kid - even if the perpetrator is a 4-year-old boy. If I had time to think I would have told the kid to show me who who he was with and then gone and talked to them. Ah well, live and learn.
Teddy was fine after a few minutes and went back to playing. When it was time to leave he threw a massive tantrum with Daddy carrying him out to the parking lot. He had tears streaming down his face and kept repeating, "I was busy!"
The tantrum: A sign that your child was definitely having a good time and didn't want it to end. Apparently that bully upset me more than him.
And pictures from the museum for good measure:
The biggest hit with the girls was something called the "cloud climber" - A three-story tall climbing structure. Ellie, the super cautious child, was a little nervous her first time through and at one point I thought I was going to have to climb in after her. I think having her fearless younger sister Eva with her gave her just enough courage to get through. After that first time, the girls went six more times!
At not quite three-years-old, Theodore was definitely too little to go up in this thing, so I took him to the special "under 5" play area. This seemed harmless enough and he had a blast mainly just going down a slide. As an excitable preschooler, Teddy would let out occasional happy squeals. An older kid nearby apparently didn't like this and I watched as he angrily pushed Teddy down and then covered up his ears. This kid was easily 8 inches taller than Teddy so I think it was safe to assume that he was at least 4-years-old.
Now, this place was swarming with kids and there was no way to immediately tie this kid to a parent. Theodore was laying on the ground crying so I scooped him up and told the bully kid in a stern voice "You don't push other kids! That is not nice." At this point his mother surfaced and asked me if her son had pushed Theodore and I told her yes. She made him get off the play structure and took him out of the area as she was reprimanding him. I'm very non-confrontational so to be honest I was just happy she didn't get upset with me for talking to her kid. I didn't really have time to think - I just reacted. It's amazing how that mama bear instinct kicks in when someone hurts your kid - even if the perpetrator is a 4-year-old boy. If I had time to think I would have told the kid to show me who who he was with and then gone and talked to them. Ah well, live and learn.
Teddy was fine after a few minutes and went back to playing. When it was time to leave he threw a massive tantrum with Daddy carrying him out to the parking lot. He had tears streaming down his face and kept repeating, "I was busy!"
The tantrum: A sign that your child was definitely having a good time and didn't want it to end. Apparently that bully upset me more than him.
And pictures from the museum for good measure:
Monday, January 2, 2012
Back to Work
Tomorrow is my first day back to "work" in four weeks. Yes, "work" in quotes because it's hard to call it school when I'm not sitting in a classroom but it's not real work because I don't get paid anything. I make negative money right now.
Of course, what I am doing right now isn't exactly difficult either. 4th year of medical school is very different than the first three years. In year 1 and 2 you spend a lot of time sitting in the classroom, doing stuff in labs, and studying. Lots and lots of studying. Then 3rd year comes. You aren't in the classroom anymore and it's quite an adjustment because your time is no longer your own. I regularly woke up at 4 am and got home after 5pm. Plus there are the days and weekends on call, which was fun (sometimes) on OB/Gyn and Surgery because night is when you see the emergent stuff - emergency surgeries, trauma cases, and that sort of thing. I was pretty much in a constant state of tiredness during third year with the exception of my psych rotation. I almost considered becoming a psychiatrist for that very reason!
4th year is very different - we like to call it "vacation year". It's the little eye of the hurricane that lets us remember what it feels like to be a normal person after 3 years of studying and working long hours (my record in one week was 110 hours during my trauma surgery rotation) but before starting residency. In the last few months I have not woken up before 6am, attendings expect that I will be gone a lot to travel for interviews, and I get to choose which electives I take. My last two week rotation consisted of showing up to watch a 1 hour powerpoint presentation. Yeah, that was it. This year is heaven. Honestly, I'm not sure if it is a blessing or a curse. I'm enjoying it for sure but it might make it that much harder to go back to working my butt off come July.
So tomorrow is back to work. I made the best of today by getting a lot of errands done. A friend of mine is having a baby next month and I spent part of today gathering supplies and making this for her:
Adorable right? This is exactly the kind of thing I didn't have time for the first three years of medical school.
Of course, what I am doing right now isn't exactly difficult either. 4th year of medical school is very different than the first three years. In year 1 and 2 you spend a lot of time sitting in the classroom, doing stuff in labs, and studying. Lots and lots of studying. Then 3rd year comes. You aren't in the classroom anymore and it's quite an adjustment because your time is no longer your own. I regularly woke up at 4 am and got home after 5pm. Plus there are the days and weekends on call, which was fun (sometimes) on OB/Gyn and Surgery because night is when you see the emergent stuff - emergency surgeries, trauma cases, and that sort of thing. I was pretty much in a constant state of tiredness during third year with the exception of my psych rotation. I almost considered becoming a psychiatrist for that very reason!
4th year is very different - we like to call it "vacation year". It's the little eye of the hurricane that lets us remember what it feels like to be a normal person after 3 years of studying and working long hours (my record in one week was 110 hours during my trauma surgery rotation) but before starting residency. In the last few months I have not woken up before 6am, attendings expect that I will be gone a lot to travel for interviews, and I get to choose which electives I take. My last two week rotation consisted of showing up to watch a 1 hour powerpoint presentation. Yeah, that was it. This year is heaven. Honestly, I'm not sure if it is a blessing or a curse. I'm enjoying it for sure but it might make it that much harder to go back to working my butt off come July.
So tomorrow is back to work. I made the best of today by getting a lot of errands done. A friend of mine is having a baby next month and I spent part of today gathering supplies and making this for her:
Adorable right? This is exactly the kind of thing I didn't have time for the first three years of medical school.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Working it out
When you have three little kids in the house there is almost always arguing. Now, I will be the first to admit that most of the time I don't even know what they are fighting about. As long as no one is hurting anyone else and they aren't too obnoxiously loud or whiny, I let them work it out on their own. I'd like to say that I'm doing this because I think it will help with their conflict resolution as adults but I'd never claim to be thinking that far ahead. I do this because if I got involved in every single fight, that's literally I would do when I am home with them. So they get to try to work it out themselves.
I went upstairs earlier today to put some things away in the kids' rooms and found this sign on the girls' bedroom door:
I have no idea what my 6-year-old had done that made her 8-year-old sister mad and my 6-year-old so sad. I do think it's awfully cute how they were trying to work it out, though.
And for the record, a couple hours later they are playing perfectly well together - no hurt feelings or anything. If only I could let go of grudges so easily!
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