hopefully the last meta post for a while
Despite my long-held reluctance to shut down or screen the comments section--what is hell do you think this is, Au, Nazi Germany?--I realized I should have shut the thing down a while ago when, the day after I finally pulled the plug, I just felt like this huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. It wasn't so much that I couldn't take the comments myself (though of course I didn't love reading the more crack-potty of them, they did on occasion have a certain amusement value) but I did cringe at the prospect of other people, like Joe or his family reading comments critical of them, and thinking that I instigated or goaded the more extremist faction in some way. As it is, Joe has asked me more than once in the past year to not write about Cal anymore, or to change Cal's name on my blog (a subterfuge that I don't think would work at this point, after three and a half years to call him "Stan" or something), because, in his words, "there are too many fucking psychos out there." I know that taking down comments doesn't change the fact that unpleasant people exist, but it certainly projects a little distance so that it doesn't feel like I have people screaming in my front yard. I mean, if I had a yard to scream in. So anyway, for now, let's just carry on as we have, only now minus all the distracting background noise.
Oh wait, one more thing: I woke up this morning to a filled e-mail inbox, and after the initial residual oh shit, what now dread of opening up those first few messages, I found myself speechless and overwhelmed by all your kindness. I'm always afraid of seeming like I'm fishing for the nice e-mails, because that's lame and I'm sure you have better things to do than cushion my delicate flower of an ego, but man, after that last post, they really helped me feel better. So thank you all so much for taking the time to write. I'm humbled and re-energized to keep up my end of the deal.
So.
I believe now that I have fully done everything that pregnant women are supposed to do to spur on premature labor (or at least labor at term), but so far, no dice. This is truly one tenacious kid I have up in there. Working a twelve-hour day, on my feet and racewalking nearly the whole time I thought would surely get things moving. Not drinking enough water because water is only for people with time to stop by the cooler, and who has time for such frivolity? Running up to that stat intubation in the ICU earlier this week, with all those stairs and the beeping and the big fat patient not interested in the fact that oxygen is necessary for, you know, living. Nothing. Everyone at work has been so nice about this pregnancy--not letting me push the heavy stretchers or lift my patients, but honestly, at this point, I'm like, "300 pound lady needing to be positioned in lateral decub? Let me help! And then jump up and down while eating pineapple dipped in castor oil!" Anything to get this show on the road, for god's sake.
Due to the specificities of fitting in appointments that match up with my work schedule and the winter holiday season, I don't think I've seen the doctor who's supposed to be "my" OB since...oh, probably 32 weeks? Which is fine. I liked my OB in New York quite a bit, but I really haven't gotten a chance to get too close to this OB that I've been following here and I don't feel married to her by any means. Anyway, while it would be nice to feel all BFF 4-evah! with my practitioner, I largely view my OB as my facilitator to move baby from point A (inside) to point B (outside), so barring any glaring evidence of poor training or judgement, I am pretty much happy with whoever the practice throws me.
This past Monday, for instance, was my first time being examined by a male OB, and despite some initial knee-jerk qualms (not so much over the fact of the male gender itself so much as the size of his hands, if you know what I mean) I have decided that he is my favorite one of all the members of the six-person practice, and wish that, if I had known more before we moved, that I had just gotten in with him on the ground floor. He just seemed very nice and efficient and receptive, and was of the age that I could easily imagine that I would have gone to med school with him or something like that. Which, I guess would have been kind of weird, almost as weird as when I had Cal and the OB intern who did my intake exam had been one of my medical students just a few months prior. Awkward!
Anyway, we are now at 3cm, 50% effaced, and I had my membranes stripped, for what it's worth. So we'll wait and see. Ling Ling still has nine hours to make it for a 2008 tax break, which would mark the very first and probably last chance he could have to actually save his parents some money.
boundaries
I think something is wrong when you start to dread updating your own blog.
It could just be me, but over the past year or so, I feel like the culture of the commenting readership on this blog has changed. This is a personal blog, not a craft blog or a political blog or a cooking blog or a celebrity gossip blog, so the things I write about here are selected personal details of my life--my kid, my family, my job. In opening up one's personal life to a public readership, it is (I think) only fair to be prepared half-informed analysis or attacks or judgement from people who read about that life, and over the past eight years I think I've come to expect and accept that. I don't think that the things I write about are so revealing or inappropriate or beyond the pale compared to most personal blog out there, and I can't explain why I've detected such a spike in the hostility or knee-jerk reactivism in the comments section of this blog, only to say that in that strange Venn diagram overlap between mommy-blogging and medical-blogging and working-parent blogging lies a readership with very strong opinions that they have no trouble expressing, occasionally and unfortunately in full-throated vitriolic attack-mode.
Again, I realize that in having a personal blog, I have opened myself up to this. I have said time and time again that in putting something out in public, it is only fair to allow people to respond to it. You have opinions about what I talk about, and that is OK. My life is not perfect, as I expect that yours isn't either, and I suspect that the blog of someone with absolutely no conflict in their life would not only be cloying, but boring and probably extremely unfunny. This blog started when I was a second-year medical student as a way for my friends and family to keep up with my life, but as readership grew to include people not related to me, evolved to something a little bit more. I wanted to show people honestly what it was really like. This is what it's really like to be a med student. This is what it's really like to be a resident. This is what it's really like to be a resident married to another resident while trying to raise a young child. This is what it's really like to be a working mom starting out in a new career. This is what it's really like. The problems are real problems. The people are real people.
Again, I don't know why there's been a change in the culture of the readership here over the past year or so--maybe it's my fault, that what I'm writing about that invites it, or what I write about, or maybe the internet has changed, anonimity as always granting bravery and a form of bluntness that people might not normally employ face-to-face, in person. But I think something is wrong when I feel like with the exception of the utterly superficial or banal (I LIKE TAB SODA!), that there's nothing I can write about that people don't jump all over, or when I dread checking the comments section for fear of what I'm going to find.
Despite the fracas from the last post, this isn't necessarily in response to any one thing, rather the culmination of a long line of things that I've been thinking about for a while. I'm honestly not sure what I'm going to do about this website in the long run, honestly. When a hobby stops becoming fun, is there any point in continuing to do it? When you realize that the seemingly innocuous can so viciously become hurtful to the people you love, is it right to continue to leave that door open? Sharing my life is nothing new--I've been doing it since October 2000, when I started writing online. But there are a lot of people in my life, not just me. I'm just honestly not sure that continuing to share that life in the way that I've have so is what I want to continue to do. Some of you (many anonymously) will say that what I reap in terms of public critique is my own fault, and you know, you are probably right. But it doesn't mean that there's nothing I can do about it.
The comments section is down. If you want to tell me something, e-mail me directly. I am accountable for what I write, I respect your right to dissent, you can e-mail me tirades all day if you want. But you have to be accountable too. True, commenting as "Anonymous" is at the core no different than commenting as "Dan," because really, who the hell is "Dan" or "SuperMedStudent" or "mominmichigan" but some pseudonym that reveals nothing about you except that you have access to a computer and can type (questionably) in a text box? But having a handle, or an e-mail address, at least makes you somewhat (if only very loosely) accountable for what you say. No one needs to be hassled for my blog but me. No one needs to have their feelings hurt because of a response to my blog but me. If I have misjudged the forum for talking about my life or issues that concern me, as it seems that I have, then I am surely sorry for that.
So the public comments are down. As for what comes next for the site in general, I'm still deciding that. I don't mean this as some huge dramatic gesture or as a punative measure--I'm not much for those, as I hope those of you who have stuck around for the majority of this eight-year blog run will know--I just have quite a lot of other things to keep me busy in my life these days. And stressing about a blog--a blog for chrissake--doesn't need to be one of them.
I think something is wrong when you start to dread updating your own blog.
It could just be me, but over the past year or so, I feel like the culture of the commenting readership on this blog has changed. This is a personal blog, not a craft blog or a political blog or a cooking blog or a celebrity gossip blog, so the things I write about here are selected personal details of my life--my kid, my family, my job. In opening up one's personal life to a public readership, it is (I think) only fair to be prepared half-informed analysis or attacks or judgement from people who read about that life, and over the past eight years I think I've come to expect and accept that. I don't think that the things I write about are so revealing or inappropriate or beyond the pale compared to most personal blog out there, and I can't explain why I've detected such a spike in the hostility or knee-jerk reactivism in the comments section of this blog, only to say that in that strange Venn diagram overlap between mommy-blogging and medical-blogging and working-parent blogging lies a readership with very strong opinions that they have no trouble expressing, occasionally and unfortunately in full-throated vitriolic attack-mode.
Again, I realize that in having a personal blog, I have opened myself up to this. I have said time and time again that in putting something out in public, it is only fair to allow people to respond to it. You have opinions about what I talk about, and that is OK. My life is not perfect, as I expect that yours isn't either, and I suspect that the blog of someone with absolutely no conflict in their life would not only be cloying, but boring and probably extremely unfunny. This blog started when I was a second-year medical student as a way for my friends and family to keep up with my life, but as readership grew to include people not related to me, evolved to something a little bit more. I wanted to show people honestly what it was really like. This is what it's really like to be a med student. This is what it's really like to be a resident. This is what it's really like to be a resident married to another resident while trying to raise a young child. This is what it's really like to be a working mom starting out in a new career. This is what it's really like. The problems are real problems. The people are real people.
Again, I don't know why there's been a change in the culture of the readership here over the past year or so--maybe it's my fault, that what I'm writing about that invites it, or what I write about, or maybe the internet has changed, anonimity as always granting bravery and a form of bluntness that people might not normally employ face-to-face, in person. But I think something is wrong when I feel like with the exception of the utterly superficial or banal (I LIKE TAB SODA!), that there's nothing I can write about that people don't jump all over, or when I dread checking the comments section for fear of what I'm going to find.
Despite the fracas from the last post, this isn't necessarily in response to any one thing, rather the culmination of a long line of things that I've been thinking about for a while. I'm honestly not sure what I'm going to do about this website in the long run, honestly. When a hobby stops becoming fun, is there any point in continuing to do it? When you realize that the seemingly innocuous can so viciously become hurtful to the people you love, is it right to continue to leave that door open? Sharing my life is nothing new--I've been doing it since October 2000, when I started writing online. But there are a lot of people in my life, not just me. I'm just honestly not sure that continuing to share that life in the way that I've have so is what I want to continue to do. Some of you (many anonymously) will say that what I reap in terms of public critique is my own fault, and you know, you are probably right. But it doesn't mean that there's nothing I can do about it.
The comments section is down. If you want to tell me something, e-mail me directly. I am accountable for what I write, I respect your right to dissent, you can e-mail me tirades all day if you want. But you have to be accountable too. True, commenting as "Anonymous" is at the core no different than commenting as "Dan," because really, who the hell is "Dan" or "SuperMedStudent" or "mominmichigan" but some pseudonym that reveals nothing about you except that you have access to a computer and can type (questionably) in a text box? But having a handle, or an e-mail address, at least makes you somewhat (if only very loosely) accountable for what you say. No one needs to be hassled for my blog but me. No one needs to have their feelings hurt because of a response to my blog but me. If I have misjudged the forum for talking about my life or issues that concern me, as it seems that I have, then I am surely sorry for that.
So the public comments are down. As for what comes next for the site in general, I'm still deciding that. I don't mean this as some huge dramatic gesture or as a punative measure--I'm not much for those, as I hope those of you who have stuck around for the majority of this eight-year blog run will know--I just have quite a lot of other things to keep me busy in my life these days. And stressing about a blog--a blog for chrissake--doesn't need to be one of them.
turd-fest, 2008 edition
Last night Joe and I were discussing the contingency plans in the event (wishful thinking on my part, perhaps, though I think with a second child not entirely fanciful) that Cal 2.0 decides to make his debut before his due date--let's say sometime this week. We have our respective leaves from work planned out already (six weeks for me, one week for Joe), though at the time we requested them, we thought the most prudent course of action would be to request leave starting exactly on the day that we were "supposed" to deliver (in this case January 9th, which we were told could be our planned induction date--ENDGAME, if you will), and that in the event that I delivered earlier than that, I would just return to work early at the end of my six-week leave. My question (which I have to admit was sort of posted in a rhetorical spirit), was whether or not Joe could swing it with his schedule if we delivered this week--let's say on Wednesday. Not that the prospect of a tax break for 2008 has anything to do with ANYTHING.
JOE
Well, I still have clinic on Friday afternoon, so I'd still need to go in and see patients.
MICHELLE
But if I delivered on Wednesday, we'd probably be leaving the hospital on Friday morning.
JOE
Yeah. I mean, if they baby's already out by then, I think I should go to work that day.
MICHELLE
But we would just be getting home then. You know how hospital discharges work, we'd be lucky to get out the door by 10:00am. So you're saying you'd drop us off at home, turn around, and drive to work?
JOE
Just for, like, five hours.
MICHELLE
On our first day home. Just Cal, the new baby, Cooper, and anemic, exhausted, torn-up-down-below me.
JOE
I have patients to see.
MICHELLE
I am familiar with the concept. Well, what if we were delivering on Friday? Then what?
JOE
I mean, if you were actually in labor on Friday when I was supposed to be in clinic, I probably would have to work out something. Like I would have to reschedule them for the following week.
MICHELLE
"Probably."
JOE
But I just think if nothing is going on, like the baby is already out, I have to go in to my afternoon clinic. Who else is going to see my patients?
MICHELLE
I can't imagine. Hopefully if we deliver on Friday, he'll have crowned by 11:30am so you have enough time to take a peek before hopping into the car and driving in to work.
JOE
You just don't understand.
MICHELLE
No, as a physician who is nine months pregnant and working straight up until her due date, I simply can't conceptualize the idea of feeling obligated to my job. But there are limits, after all.
JOE
That's anesthesia, it's different for you. Clinic-based medicine isn't the same.
MICHELLE
Yes, I suppose it is.(Finding this conversation eerily familiar, and realizing after nine years
that there is no utility in arguing this point, resumes reading book.) You do what you think you need to do. I will deal with things. As usual.
JOE
Don't be a turd.
MICHELLE
Try as I might, I don't see how I'm the one that comes off as a turd in this situation.
JOE
You're being a turd.
MICHELLE
I just feel sorry for you for the reactions you're going to get when you show up at the office that day and tell them that your kid was just born twenty-five minutes ago.
Now, while I am not disputing that his commitment to his patients is commendable, COME ON NOW. However, this is less of a call of arms to all pile on Joe (though part of me last night would have really relished this) than wonderment that, three and a half years later, we are still having THE SAME DISCUSSION. Of course, things worked out fine the last time, as I'm sure they will this time around too, but it's just more a sense of incredulity that Joe sees this as a case in which I once again am trying to prove that I'm always right (mostly, though not invariably true), so much as a situation where I can't believe I have to explain why I'm a little surprised that we're having this conversation at all.
Last night Joe and I were discussing the contingency plans in the event (wishful thinking on my part, perhaps, though I think with a second child not entirely fanciful) that Cal 2.0 decides to make his debut before his due date--let's say sometime this week. We have our respective leaves from work planned out already (six weeks for me, one week for Joe), though at the time we requested them, we thought the most prudent course of action would be to request leave starting exactly on the day that we were "supposed" to deliver (in this case January 9th, which we were told could be our planned induction date--ENDGAME, if you will), and that in the event that I delivered earlier than that, I would just return to work early at the end of my six-week leave. My question (which I have to admit was sort of posted in a rhetorical spirit), was whether or not Joe could swing it with his schedule if we delivered this week--let's say on Wednesday. Not that the prospect of a tax break for 2008 has anything to do with ANYTHING.
JOE
Well, I still have clinic on Friday afternoon, so I'd still need to go in and see patients.
MICHELLE
But if I delivered on Wednesday, we'd probably be leaving the hospital on Friday morning.
JOE
Yeah. I mean, if they baby's already out by then, I think I should go to work that day.
MICHELLE
But we would just be getting home then. You know how hospital discharges work, we'd be lucky to get out the door by 10:00am. So you're saying you'd drop us off at home, turn around, and drive to work?
JOE
Just for, like, five hours.
MICHELLE
On our first day home. Just Cal, the new baby, Cooper, and anemic, exhausted, torn-up-down-below me.
JOE
I have patients to see.
MICHELLE
I am familiar with the concept. Well, what if we were delivering on Friday? Then what?
JOE
I mean, if you were actually in labor on Friday when I was supposed to be in clinic, I probably would have to work out something. Like I would have to reschedule them for the following week.
MICHELLE
"Probably."
JOE
But I just think if nothing is going on, like the baby is already out, I have to go in to my afternoon clinic. Who else is going to see my patients?
MICHELLE
I can't imagine. Hopefully if we deliver on Friday, he'll have crowned by 11:30am so you have enough time to take a peek before hopping into the car and driving in to work.
JOE
You just don't understand.
MICHELLE
No, as a physician who is nine months pregnant and working straight up until her due date, I simply can't conceptualize the idea of feeling obligated to my job. But there are limits, after all.
JOE
That's anesthesia, it's different for you. Clinic-based medicine isn't the same.
MICHELLE
Yes, I suppose it is.
that there is no utility in arguing this point, resumes reading book.)
JOE
Don't be a turd.
MICHELLE
Try as I might, I don't see how I'm the one that comes off as a turd in this situation.
JOE
You're being a turd.
MICHELLE
I just feel sorry for you for the reactions you're going to get when you show up at the office that day and tell them that your kid was just born twenty-five minutes ago.
Now, while I am not disputing that his commitment to his patients is commendable, COME ON NOW. However, this is less of a call of arms to all pile on Joe (though part of me last night would have really relished this) than wonderment that, three and a half years later, we are still having THE SAME DISCUSSION. Of course, things worked out fine the last time, as I'm sure they will this time around too, but it's just more a sense of incredulity that Joe sees this as a case in which I once again am trying to prove that I'm always right (mostly, though not invariably true), so much as a situation where I can't believe I have to explain why I'm a little surprised that we're having this conversation at all.
holly jolly
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Like Thanksgiving, I think this is the first Christmas that we haven't spent with family--most of our family, I think, is saving the plane fare for after Cal 2.0 emerges (and this may be wishful thinking, but it could be ANY DAY NOW, right?)--but I think we made an admirable go of it with just the three of us.
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(That is to say: the four of us.)
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I don't know who "MOW" is, but I hope he doesn't mind that I opened his present.
In a moment of weakness, and perhaps against my better judgement, I got Cal these "Yo Gabba Gabba" figurines. So now he will grow up to do drugs and join a violence gang.
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The obligatory cookies, milk, and letter for Santa. Cal wants Santa to know: "DLDHDILLDLLHL."
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Which apparently means, "I took the liberty of pre-sampling the Nilla for you, and don't worry, they're NOT POISONED. So enjoy!"
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We had nothing else to do today (see above: no family in town) so we ended up going to the Georgia Aquarium, which was actually open early on Christmas Day. Those godless fish have no respect for the baby Jesus. We all had a good time, and Cal managed to hold out for almost two hours, which is pretty much the longest we've managed to stay at the aquarium before starting to get bored and cranky--probably due in no small part to his NEW CHRISTMAS CAMERA, which we got him (under advisement from another classmate's parents, who also recently had a new baby) as abribe "gift" from his little brother. They have online shopping in the womb now, apparently. Also, maybe it will encourage him to keep his mitts off my camera, which is evidently not made of indestructible rubberized parts.
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Hoping you had a happy holiday with people you love too. And also hoping that my next update will herald some sort of news of imminent new-baby-ness, at least, because I am getting pretty sick of this pregnancy thing. Come on out, Biggie Smalls, and join us out here, where things are merry and bright.
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(Full Christmas photo set here.)
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Like Thanksgiving, I think this is the first Christmas that we haven't spent with family--most of our family, I think, is saving the plane fare for after Cal 2.0 emerges (and this may be wishful thinking, but it could be ANY DAY NOW, right?)--but I think we made an admirable go of it with just the three of us.
.jpg)
(That is to say: the four of us.)
.jpg)
I don't know who "MOW" is, but I hope he doesn't mind that I opened his present.
In a moment of weakness, and perhaps against my better judgement, I got Cal these "Yo Gabba Gabba" figurines. So now he will grow up to do drugs and join a violence gang.
.jpg)
The obligatory cookies, milk, and letter for Santa. Cal wants Santa to know: "DLDHDILLDLLHL."
.jpg)
Which apparently means, "I took the liberty of pre-sampling the Nilla for you, and don't worry, they're NOT POISONED. So enjoy!"
.jpg)
We had nothing else to do today (see above: no family in town) so we ended up going to the Georgia Aquarium, which was actually open early on Christmas Day. Those godless fish have no respect for the baby Jesus. We all had a good time, and Cal managed to hold out for almost two hours, which is pretty much the longest we've managed to stay at the aquarium before starting to get bored and cranky--probably due in no small part to his NEW CHRISTMAS CAMERA, which we got him (under advisement from another classmate's parents, who also recently had a new baby) as a
.jpg)
Hoping you had a happy holiday with people you love too. And also hoping that my next update will herald some sort of news of imminent new-baby-ness, at least, because I am getting pretty sick of this pregnancy thing. Come on out, Biggie Smalls, and join us out here, where things are merry and bright.
.jpg)
(Full Christmas photo set here.)
37 weeks
I know this is a bad time to be too busy for frequent updates, but believe me, if I'd had the baby already, YOU'D KNOW. I'm looking forward to my maternity leave like a kid looks forward to summer vacation, not just because of, you know, the baby and everything, but because dude, I'M GOING TO HAVE SO MUCH FREE TIME. So until then, you can interpret no news as a sign that Ling Ling is still percolating, though, having reached 37 weeks this weekend, I am at kind of the ticking time bomb stage of things. I should have also explained to those childless/non-medical among us that being dilated to 2cm and 50% effaced (as I was at my last OB exam) doesn't actually give any temporal indication of the immediacy of labor, but it certainly is not a bad sign that if, at worst, I need to be induced, we will not be starting from scratch.
Earlier this weekend, I saw a frontal view of myself in the bathroom mirror, and thought, despite my ungainly waddle and the (new! fun!) shooting lumbar plexus pain originating, I assume, from the HUMAN BEING inside me who insists on rolling around luxuriously on my bed of nerve fibers, I didn't look that huge, really. And then I turned to the side...
...and realized that I looked like the world's most un-subtle thief trying to casually shoplift a volleyball from Modell's. Here is another view:
Biology in action! Though the real question I have is: where did all those veins on my stomach come from, and could I start an IV in one of them if I needed to?
Things around here are going well. Cal is now officially on The World's Longest Christmas Break, the length of which was only compounded by the fact that he was out sick from school for two days the week beforehand with some mysterious though apparently completely asymptomatic fever. How dare he get sick? Doesn't he know he's using up all our child-entertainment strategies? HOW MANY GINGERBREAD HOUSE-MAKING KITS DOES HE THINK WE HAVE?
Anyhoo, not much new to report here, as you can clearly tell from the utter lack of content, but rest assured that when there is, you will definitely, definitely know. And look forward (or dread, whichever) an increase in frequency and substance of updates once I am actually on maternity leave, and have a chance to, you know, breathe.
I know this is a bad time to be too busy for frequent updates, but believe me, if I'd had the baby already, YOU'D KNOW. I'm looking forward to my maternity leave like a kid looks forward to summer vacation, not just because of, you know, the baby and everything, but because dude, I'M GOING TO HAVE SO MUCH FREE TIME. So until then, you can interpret no news as a sign that Ling Ling is still percolating, though, having reached 37 weeks this weekend, I am at kind of the ticking time bomb stage of things. I should have also explained to those childless/non-medical among us that being dilated to 2cm and 50% effaced (as I was at my last OB exam) doesn't actually give any temporal indication of the immediacy of labor, but it certainly is not a bad sign that if, at worst, I need to be induced, we will not be starting from scratch.
Earlier this weekend, I saw a frontal view of myself in the bathroom mirror, and thought, despite my ungainly waddle and the (new! fun!) shooting lumbar plexus pain originating, I assume, from the HUMAN BEING inside me who insists on rolling around luxuriously on my bed of nerve fibers, I didn't look that huge, really. And then I turned to the side...
...and realized that I looked like the world's most un-subtle thief trying to casually shoplift a volleyball from Modell's. Here is another view:
Biology in action! Though the real question I have is: where did all those veins on my stomach come from, and could I start an IV in one of them if I needed to?
Things around here are going well. Cal is now officially on The World's Longest Christmas Break, the length of which was only compounded by the fact that he was out sick from school for two days the week beforehand with some mysterious though apparently completely asymptomatic fever. How dare he get sick? Doesn't he know he's using up all our child-entertainment strategies? HOW MANY GINGERBREAD HOUSE-MAKING KITS DOES HE THINK WE HAVE?
Anyhoo, not much new to report here, as you can clearly tell from the utter lack of content, but rest assured that when there is, you will definitely, definitely know. And look forward (or dread, whichever) an increase in frequency and substance of updates once I am actually on maternity leave, and have a chance to, you know, breathe.
why i can now never leave this job
Before I started working at [Private Hospital], my only knowledge of Tab soda was from that scene in "Back to the Future" where Marty, newly transplanted to the year 1955, orders a Tab at the diner and the wise-cracking diner owner tells him that he can't give him the tab, he hasn't ordered anything yet. I figured that Tab, much like Max Headroom and Ms. Pac Man (Pac Woman?), was an artifact of the '80s that no longer existed outside of the vaults of collectors and connoisseurs of rare discontinued sodas.
Not until I started work at [Private Hospital] and opened the fridge in the physician's dining room for the first time did I ever see a real can of Tab. It was there, amidst the Cokes and Sprites and little cartons of milk. The Tab cans were packaged in a long box of a dozen. The box was open. And it was half empty. People were drinking Tab. In the year 2008.
I figured that the hospital must just have a monstrous stash of Tab, stacked in some basement vault, amassed sometime in the mid-80s and which they were bringing up box by box until all the Tab was gone and they could buy some more normal soda, like, I don't know, ginger ale or something. But the Tab kept coming up. Every time the box would near empty, another would appear, sometimes even two boxes at a time. And people kept drinking it. I saw it with my own eyes. They would bypass the Diet Coke and go for the Tab. What the hell? I THOUGHT DOCTORS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SMART.
The first time I tried Tab--purely out of curiosity, mind you--I hated it. It had a cloying, strangely chemical taste. I know that all diet sodas are chemical-y and it's not like I think Diet Coke is some kind of ambrosial brew, it's just that I am used to the chemicals in Diet Coke, and to me, Tab tasted, well, weird. But then, a few weeks later, I had another one, because that day at lunch, all the other sodas were either not restocked, or warm. And then another one a week after that, because there was a line in front of the fridge and it was the only can I could easily reach. And another a few days after that--I hardly even know the reason.
And now I like Tab.
So this is why I can now never stop working at this hospital. Because so far as I know, it is the only place on Earth where Tab still exists.
(And yes, I know that Tab contains caffeine, but despite the fact that I am pregnant, I have not totally cut out caffeine, even though yes, I read that article in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology too. One, because I believe that caffeine, especially in the latter half of one's pregnancy, and in moderation, is not going to kill anyone. Also, the fact that when I was a Peds resident, the fact that we actually used to directly administer caffeine IV to our preemies as a treatment for apnea and bradys has probably removed some of the stigma of deadly baby-killing caffeine for me. This is all very logical and sounds like the reasoning of a rational mind, but the real reason is--I already had to cut out a shitload of things from my diet in the interest of a healthy pregnancy. If I cut out all caffeine too, I WOULD HAVE NOTHING. So let me drink my weirdly retro Tab.)
Before I started working at [Private Hospital], my only knowledge of Tab soda was from that scene in "Back to the Future" where Marty, newly transplanted to the year 1955, orders a Tab at the diner and the wise-cracking diner owner tells him that he can't give him the tab, he hasn't ordered anything yet. I figured that Tab, much like Max Headroom and Ms. Pac Man (Pac Woman?), was an artifact of the '80s that no longer existed outside of the vaults of collectors and connoisseurs of rare discontinued sodas.
Not until I started work at [Private Hospital] and opened the fridge in the physician's dining room for the first time did I ever see a real can of Tab. It was there, amidst the Cokes and Sprites and little cartons of milk. The Tab cans were packaged in a long box of a dozen. The box was open. And it was half empty. People were drinking Tab. In the year 2008.
I figured that the hospital must just have a monstrous stash of Tab, stacked in some basement vault, amassed sometime in the mid-80s and which they were bringing up box by box until all the Tab was gone and they could buy some more normal soda, like, I don't know, ginger ale or something. But the Tab kept coming up. Every time the box would near empty, another would appear, sometimes even two boxes at a time. And people kept drinking it. I saw it with my own eyes. They would bypass the Diet Coke and go for the Tab. What the hell? I THOUGHT DOCTORS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SMART.
The first time I tried Tab--purely out of curiosity, mind you--I hated it. It had a cloying, strangely chemical taste. I know that all diet sodas are chemical-y and it's not like I think Diet Coke is some kind of ambrosial brew, it's just that I am used to the chemicals in Diet Coke, and to me, Tab tasted, well, weird. But then, a few weeks later, I had another one, because that day at lunch, all the other sodas were either not restocked, or warm. And then another one a week after that, because there was a line in front of the fridge and it was the only can I could easily reach. And another a few days after that--I hardly even know the reason.
And now I like Tab.
So this is why I can now never stop working at this hospital. Because so far as I know, it is the only place on Earth where Tab still exists.
(And yes, I know that Tab contains caffeine, but despite the fact that I am pregnant, I have not totally cut out caffeine, even though yes, I read that article in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology too. One, because I believe that caffeine, especially in the latter half of one's pregnancy, and in moderation, is not going to kill anyone. Also, the fact that when I was a Peds resident, the fact that we actually used to directly administer caffeine IV to our preemies as a treatment for apnea and bradys has probably removed some of the stigma of deadly baby-killing caffeine for me. This is all very logical and sounds like the reasoning of a rational mind, but the real reason is--I already had to cut out a shitload of things from my diet in the interest of a healthy pregnancy. If I cut out all caffeine too, I WOULD HAVE NOTHING. So let me drink my weirdly retro Tab.)
benign neglect
Sometime last week our nanny asked me if it would be OK for her to keep an overnight bag at our house, in the event that the baby suddenly and precipitously decides to make an appearance and she needs to stay overnight with Cal while Joe and I were at the hospital. I told her that the overnight bag was a great idea, but it took me a full few days afterwards to realize that huh, with all this thinking ahead that other people are doing on my behalf, I should probably pack an overnight bag of my own at some point. Not really overly prepared for this baby, me.
I noticed while getting dressed for work this morning that Ling Ling's position seems to have dropped somewhat, which is good news for the old breathing (increasing FRC is one of my favorite things, how about you?) but which might explain why I had to go to the bathroom three times overnight. At 35 weeks, I'm sure (or at least I'm hoping) that this shift in position doesn't mean that anything is imminent, but certainly things are looking like they're moving in the right direction. That direction being down and out.
We did do some baby laundry this weekend (consisting mostly of Cal-era hand-me-downs--swaddling cloths and blankets and the like), unboxed some of the comically small newborn diapers that we finally got around to ordering, and setting up our upstairs-downstairs diaper changing stations. But we're probably still underprepared for the baby. This is largely my own fault. At this point, I'm just like, "What, the baby? What's the big deal? Babies are easy. I'll just stick him in a sling and carry on." Honestly, I'm more focused on how I'm going to juggle taking care of Cal with a baby strapped to my chest than I am about the baby himself. I may be practicing a little selective memory here, but compared to a three year-old (what with their talking and questions and desire to have you ooh and aah over the wonder of each bowel movement bearing a passing resemblance to some letter of the alphabet), aren't babies kind of...low maintenance? Portable? Essentially lumpish and inert? I'd better be right on this, or I'm screwed.
Sometime last week our nanny asked me if it would be OK for her to keep an overnight bag at our house, in the event that the baby suddenly and precipitously decides to make an appearance and she needs to stay overnight with Cal while Joe and I were at the hospital. I told her that the overnight bag was a great idea, but it took me a full few days afterwards to realize that huh, with all this thinking ahead that other people are doing on my behalf, I should probably pack an overnight bag of my own at some point. Not really overly prepared for this baby, me.
I noticed while getting dressed for work this morning that Ling Ling's position seems to have dropped somewhat, which is good news for the old breathing (increasing FRC is one of my favorite things, how about you?) but which might explain why I had to go to the bathroom three times overnight. At 35 weeks, I'm sure (or at least I'm hoping) that this shift in position doesn't mean that anything is imminent, but certainly things are looking like they're moving in the right direction. That direction being down and out.
We did do some baby laundry this weekend (consisting mostly of Cal-era hand-me-downs--swaddling cloths and blankets and the like), unboxed some of the comically small newborn diapers that we finally got around to ordering, and setting up our upstairs-downstairs diaper changing stations. But we're probably still underprepared for the baby. This is largely my own fault. At this point, I'm just like, "What, the baby? What's the big deal? Babies are easy. I'll just stick him in a sling and carry on." Honestly, I'm more focused on how I'm going to juggle taking care of Cal with a baby strapped to my chest than I am about the baby himself. I may be practicing a little selective memory here, but compared to a three year-old (what with their talking and questions and desire to have you ooh and aah over the wonder of each bowel movement bearing a passing resemblance to some letter of the alphabet), aren't babies kind of...low maintenance? Portable? Essentially lumpish and inert? I'd better be right on this, or I'm screwed.
thanks
So I was originally planning to detail the makings of our First Family Thanksgiving (not that we haven't celebrated Thanksgiving before, but usually we're with a bigger group of family, with little or no cooking involved)--in my frenzied over-ambition, I even had a notion of live-blogging our preparations--but then I noticed that the food wasn't looking very beautiful and that we had somehow forgotten to include in our preparation any green vegetables, giving our entire meal a sort of beige palette reminiscent of institutional cooking, minus the styrofoam partitioned serving trays. So that's why, with the exception of that one picture of Cal mixing the cornbread stuff, and some pictures of Joe basting the half-done turkey, there are no pictures of our meal. Pity. I took most of the leftovers (turkey, mashed potatoes) with some of the ingredients that we forgot to use on Thursday (leeks, mushrooms, some frozen corn) and ended up making a shepard's pie the day afterwards, which actually was a modest success, though it, like much else, looked not unlike a pile of slop with mashed potatoes on top. But I think that "pile of slop with mashed potatoes on top" pretty much sums up what people want to get out of their Thanksgiving leftovers anyway, so score one for the slop master.
Anyway, thanks for nothing, Thanksgiving. On to the next thing.
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I don't think I've ever put up our Christmas tree this early, and I don't think I necessarily would have this year except that Cal was SO EXCITED about it. He has been talking about putting up the Christmas tree ever since we moved, and he saw our (fake) tree amidst the boxes up in our closet. Also there is some weird three year-old thing going on in his mind about Christmas and The Baby, such that he equates the two (probably my fault for repeatedly telling him that the new baby would be coming after Christmas), such that the second after we had the tree up, Cal looked at me and asked hopefully, "So...is the baby coming now?" Yes son. And I will put him under the tree for you wrapped in a GIANT RED BOW.
(And yes, Cal is winking in that photo. No, I don't know why. Either he is imitating me looking through the viewfinder of the camera, or this is something he learned at school. I asked him why he was making that face, and he told me it was because, "I need to look with one eye." Ah so.)
Cal has been off of school since Tuesday afternoon, and it's been just enough days for me to realize that damn, those two and a half weeks he's going to be off for Christmas Break is going to be a long-ass time without any structured activities. I mean sure, there are playdates and the inflatable playground and the aquarium and all that stuff, but any way you spin it, sixteen days is sixteen days and I sure as hell hope he doesn't run out of things to do.
Anyway, partially to that end, and partially because we needed something to do now, today, we took our first trip to the Atlanta Zoo. (Actually, they call it "Zoo Atlanta" for some reason--perhaps Yoda was involved in the naming, but never mind about that.) I had toyed with the idea of going to the zoo earlier this year in the summer, when it was just me and Cal amusing ourselves before I started work, but it was just so hot and it seemed kind of far away, so I said screw it, let's just go to the pool again. We almost didn't go today because it was kind of raining on and off, but finally we just decided that since we weren't made of sugar, we could probably stand to get a little wet.
I am really glad we went. Not only is it an excellent zoo (for some reason, I didn't expect it to be that big, nor to have that many big-ticket animals so close up--I'm sure I don't need to tell you that not every zoo in the country has a pair of pandas, not to mention a BABY PANDA), but the fact that the weather was kind of crappy meant that hardly anyone else was there. We practically had the full run of the place ourselves. Minimal interaction with other humans! Woo!
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(Full Thanksgiving picture set here, zoo picture set here.)
So I was originally planning to detail the makings of our First Family Thanksgiving (not that we haven't celebrated Thanksgiving before, but usually we're with a bigger group of family, with little or no cooking involved)--in my frenzied over-ambition, I even had a notion of live-blogging our preparations--but then I noticed that the food wasn't looking very beautiful and that we had somehow forgotten to include in our preparation any green vegetables, giving our entire meal a sort of beige palette reminiscent of institutional cooking, minus the styrofoam partitioned serving trays. So that's why, with the exception of that one picture of Cal mixing the cornbread stuff, and some pictures of Joe basting the half-done turkey, there are no pictures of our meal. Pity. I took most of the leftovers (turkey, mashed potatoes) with some of the ingredients that we forgot to use on Thursday (leeks, mushrooms, some frozen corn) and ended up making a shepard's pie the day afterwards, which actually was a modest success, though it, like much else, looked not unlike a pile of slop with mashed potatoes on top. But I think that "pile of slop with mashed potatoes on top" pretty much sums up what people want to get out of their Thanksgiving leftovers anyway, so score one for the slop master.
Anyway, thanks for nothing, Thanksgiving. On to the next thing.
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I don't think I've ever put up our Christmas tree this early, and I don't think I necessarily would have this year except that Cal was SO EXCITED about it. He has been talking about putting up the Christmas tree ever since we moved, and he saw our (fake) tree amidst the boxes up in our closet. Also there is some weird three year-old thing going on in his mind about Christmas and The Baby, such that he equates the two (probably my fault for repeatedly telling him that the new baby would be coming after Christmas), such that the second after we had the tree up, Cal looked at me and asked hopefully, "So...is the baby coming now?" Yes son. And I will put him under the tree for you wrapped in a GIANT RED BOW.
(And yes, Cal is winking in that photo. No, I don't know why. Either he is imitating me looking through the viewfinder of the camera, or this is something he learned at school. I asked him why he was making that face, and he told me it was because, "I need to look with one eye." Ah so.)
Cal has been off of school since Tuesday afternoon, and it's been just enough days for me to realize that damn, those two and a half weeks he's going to be off for Christmas Break is going to be a long-ass time without any structured activities. I mean sure, there are playdates and the inflatable playground and the aquarium and all that stuff, but any way you spin it, sixteen days is sixteen days and I sure as hell hope he doesn't run out of things to do.
Anyway, partially to that end, and partially because we needed something to do now, today, we took our first trip to the Atlanta Zoo. (Actually, they call it "Zoo Atlanta" for some reason--perhaps Yoda was involved in the naming, but never mind about that.) I had toyed with the idea of going to the zoo earlier this year in the summer, when it was just me and Cal amusing ourselves before I started work, but it was just so hot and it seemed kind of far away, so I said screw it, let's just go to the pool again. We almost didn't go today because it was kind of raining on and off, but finally we just decided that since we weren't made of sugar, we could probably stand to get a little wet.
I am really glad we went. Not only is it an excellent zoo (for some reason, I didn't expect it to be that big, nor to have that many big-ticket animals so close up--I'm sure I don't need to tell you that not every zoo in the country has a pair of pandas, not to mention a BABY PANDA), but the fact that the weather was kind of crappy meant that hardly anyone else was there. We practically had the full run of the place ourselves. Minimal interaction with other humans! Woo!
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(Full Thanksgiving picture set here, zoo picture set here.)
all he needs is a bucket and a shovel
Cal "helping" mix the dry ingredients for the cornbread. Though I suspect this was less for the love of cornbread and more for the novelty of having his own private sandbox.
(Incidentally, Thanksgiving culinary lesson learned, part the millionth: do not try to cook cornbread in a toaster oven. Unless you really love the taste of cardboard, in which case--save yourself the hassle, and just eat the box the cornmeal came in.)
Cal "helping" mix the dry ingredients for the cornbread. Though I suspect this was less for the love of cornbread and more for the novelty of having his own private sandbox.
(Incidentally, Thanksgiving culinary lesson learned, part the millionth: do not try to cook cornbread in a toaster oven. Unless you really love the taste of cardboard, in which case--save yourself the hassle, and just eat the box the cornmeal came in.)
into the light
Let's talk for a moment about light.
I don't have a lot of weird hang-ups (or so I'd like to think), but one that I am aware of is a sensitivity to light. Not in that vampire way, or like in that xeroderma pigmentosum Nicole-Kidman-in-"The Others" way, but just to the quantity and quality of light in my living space. Namely, I like a lot of light, and it has to be warm light. If it were up to me and I had no conscience or safety reservations or knowledge of our electricity bill whatsoever, I would outfit our entire house with 150 watt bulbs and keep them blazing all day long.
There are some lights in our new house that I hate, though. This is one of them.
It is a single bulb over the sink that Joe got to replace one that blew. He maintains that he got the same kind of power-saver bulb as the other bulbs are, and at the same wattage, but for some reason, while the other bulbs give off a vaguely yellowish warm light, this one bulb gives off a light that is to my eye a greyish blue. I hate it. I hate this light bulb. I mean, in as much as anyone can hate a light bulb. If I ever see it on, I flick it off instantly. It makes me jittery and anxious. It makes everything look cold and depressing. It makes the sink look like it's haunted.
There's another light in the living room that bothers me too, though to a somewhat lesser degree. It provides a fair amount of light, I suppose, but it is kind of a sickly yellowish green and when you listen closely, you can hear sort of a faint buzzing the the background whenever it is on, which leads me to believe that the bulb is flourescent. Once I started noticing the buzz, I could not tune it out. Also, there is, at some of the dimmer settings, a flicker. I cannot deal with a light that both buzzes and flickers and makes you look like you have some sort of liver disease. So I try to avoid using this light too.
I am all for saving money on electricity and "going green" and using energy efficient appliances as the next person. But I draw the line at light bulbs. And so I figure that the fact that I take mass transit to work every day buys me the right to use incandescent bulbs in my living room, so long as I turn them off when I leave the room.
(And on a related note, I tried to convince Joe last January to keep the Christmas tree up year-round, not as some sort of signifier of extreme sloth or mental illness, but as an additional source of ambient light. He said no. Let's hope he's too distracted this year with the baby and all that to notice and we can keep the tree up at least through March.)
Let's talk for a moment about light.
I don't have a lot of weird hang-ups (or so I'd like to think), but one that I am aware of is a sensitivity to light. Not in that vampire way, or like in that xeroderma pigmentosum Nicole-Kidman-in-"The Others" way, but just to the quantity and quality of light in my living space. Namely, I like a lot of light, and it has to be warm light. If it were up to me and I had no conscience or safety reservations or knowledge of our electricity bill whatsoever, I would outfit our entire house with 150 watt bulbs and keep them blazing all day long.
There are some lights in our new house that I hate, though. This is one of them.
It is a single bulb over the sink that Joe got to replace one that blew. He maintains that he got the same kind of power-saver bulb as the other bulbs are, and at the same wattage, but for some reason, while the other bulbs give off a vaguely yellowish warm light, this one bulb gives off a light that is to my eye a greyish blue. I hate it. I hate this light bulb. I mean, in as much as anyone can hate a light bulb. If I ever see it on, I flick it off instantly. It makes me jittery and anxious. It makes everything look cold and depressing. It makes the sink look like it's haunted.
There's another light in the living room that bothers me too, though to a somewhat lesser degree. It provides a fair amount of light, I suppose, but it is kind of a sickly yellowish green and when you listen closely, you can hear sort of a faint buzzing the the background whenever it is on, which leads me to believe that the bulb is flourescent. Once I started noticing the buzz, I could not tune it out. Also, there is, at some of the dimmer settings, a flicker. I cannot deal with a light that both buzzes and flickers and makes you look like you have some sort of liver disease. So I try to avoid using this light too.
I am all for saving money on electricity and "going green" and using energy efficient appliances as the next person. But I draw the line at light bulbs. And so I figure that the fact that I take mass transit to work every day buys me the right to use incandescent bulbs in my living room, so long as I turn them off when I leave the room.
(And on a related note, I tried to convince Joe last January to keep the Christmas tree up year-round, not as some sort of signifier of extreme sloth or mental illness, but as an additional source of ambient light. He said no. Let's hope he's too distracted this year with the baby and all that to notice and we can keep the tree up at least through March.)
33 weeks
First, a pictoral update
Biggie Smalls is getting more biggie, less smalls, and, I can only imagine, a little disgruntled at the increasingly cramped conditions of his living quarters. As, frankly, am I.
Cal's third set of grandparents came to visit us this weekend, which was fun. Cal got to do his cute act (like many kids, I imagine, he is always much more cute with adult guests than he is with his parents) and got to natter on about all manner of topics, each only tangentially related to the last. This last exchange amused me, though.
CAL
(lifting up Grandpa Bart's shirt)
Why is your belly big?
GRANDPA BART
(Patting Cal on the head)
Too many good meals.
CAL
Do you have a baby in there?
GRANDPA BART
No, just too much food.
CAL
Does the doctor need to fix your belly?
MICHELLE
(Explaining)
Cal's other grandpa has an umbilical hernia that he's getting fixed.
GRANDPA BART
(To Cal)
No, no doctor, just me. I just need to make some lifestyle modifications.
CAL
(Pause)
No. You need the doctor to fix it.
Reminds me of that "Simpsons" episode where Milhouse, upon being told that he needs more exercise asks, "Aw, can't I just have the surgery?"
First, a pictoral update
Biggie Smalls is getting more biggie, less smalls, and, I can only imagine, a little disgruntled at the increasingly cramped conditions of his living quarters. As, frankly, am I.
Cal's third set of grandparents came to visit us this weekend, which was fun. Cal got to do his cute act (like many kids, I imagine, he is always much more cute with adult guests than he is with his parents) and got to natter on about all manner of topics, each only tangentially related to the last. This last exchange amused me, though.
CAL
(lifting up Grandpa Bart's shirt)
Why is your belly big?
GRANDPA BART
(Patting Cal on the head)
Too many good meals.
CAL
Do you have a baby in there?
GRANDPA BART
No, just too much food.
CAL
Does the doctor need to fix your belly?
MICHELLE
(Explaining)
Cal's other grandpa has an umbilical hernia that he's getting fixed.
GRANDPA BART
(To Cal)
No, no doctor, just me. I just need to make some lifestyle modifications.
CAL
(Pause)
No. You need the doctor to fix it.
Reminds me of that "Simpsons" episode where Milhouse, upon being told that he needs more exercise asks, "Aw, can't I just have the surgery?"
cal's birthday will involve a beer exchange
Cal just got invited to a birthday party for a kid in his class at one of the local bouncy-house indoor inflatable playgrounds. The invitation stipulated that in lieu of presents for the birthday girl, all the guests are to bring a book, and at the end of the party all the kids will do a "book exchange," so that everyone can go home with a new book. Which, I have to say, is a really nice way to do things, and a cool way to send everyone home with a little something instead of a bag full of goody bag junk, promote non-materialism with respect to the birthday kid, all that good jazz. (Yes, it would be EVEN BETTER if we all brought toys and books to donate to ORPHANS or something, but hey, you can ask people to do that at your party.)
But another part of me is thinking, "No presents at your own birthday party? Man, that's cold."
Cal just got invited to a birthday party for a kid in his class at one of the local bouncy-house indoor inflatable playgrounds. The invitation stipulated that in lieu of presents for the birthday girl, all the guests are to bring a book, and at the end of the party all the kids will do a "book exchange," so that everyone can go home with a new book. Which, I have to say, is a really nice way to do things, and a cool way to send everyone home with a little something instead of a bag full of goody bag junk, promote non-materialism with respect to the birthday kid, all that good jazz. (Yes, it would be EVEN BETTER if we all brought toys and books to donate to ORPHANS or something, but hey, you can ask people to do that at your party.)
But another part of me is thinking, "No presents at your own birthday party? Man, that's cold."
100 steps (kinda)
Some time ago, I remember seeing a photo project on the internet called "100 steps" (or something like that) which challenged people to take a camera with them on a routine walk, and take a photo of something, anything interesting every 100 steps of that journey. I thought the idea was pretty cool, but at the time, I never really got around to it, because honestly, I am always in a big fat rush.
I don't get to pick up Cal from school that often, maybe once every week or two as my work (and OB appointment scheduling) allows, but every time I walk there to get him, it always seems like the weather is perfect and the light is just right and I always wish that I had a camera with me. So today I was walking to get Cal from school and thinking those same old thinks, when I realized, duh, I have a phone cam on me, don't I. I didn't obey the letter of the rules, in that I got tired of counting each 100 steps pretty early on, but I think I obeyed the spirit of the rules, which were basically to stop and observe and look at things that you might ordinarily just walk right by in your rush from Point A to Point B.
Some time ago, I remember seeing a photo project on the internet called "100 steps" (or something like that) which challenged people to take a camera with them on a routine walk, and take a photo of something, anything interesting every 100 steps of that journey. I thought the idea was pretty cool, but at the time, I never really got around to it, because honestly, I am always in a big fat rush.
I don't get to pick up Cal from school that often, maybe once every week or two as my work (and OB appointment scheduling) allows, but every time I walk there to get him, it always seems like the weather is perfect and the light is just right and I always wish that I had a camera with me. So today I was walking to get Cal from school and thinking those same old thinks, when I realized, duh, I have a phone cam on me, don't I. I didn't obey the letter of the rules, in that I got tired of counting each 100 steps pretty early on, but I think I obeyed the spirit of the rules, which were basically to stop and observe and look at things that you might ordinarily just walk right by in your rush from Point A to Point B.
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(Also, I think there's something wrong with the comments section, but damned if I know what it is. So I'm just going to wait until HaloScan figures out what's wrong fixes itself. That's my usual strategy when something internet-y goes wrong--defer to others. That, and the old standby for all manner of electronic equipment failure--turn it off, then turn it back on again. Works >50% of the time!)
like the goddamn circle of life or something
Just when you get one kid out of diapers...
So now at 32 weeks gestation, we have...oh, let's say 5-8 weeks to go here. That sounds like a big window, but behold, the human body in all its vagaries. I think we are mostly ready, but I think this is partially the second-time-around syndrome, where all sense of apprehension is dulled and amnesia has set in with respect to what we actually need to acquire up in here to accommodate the fact that this baby is going to be all born and stuff, and living on the outside. Like today it occurred to me that oh, I guess a newborn baby can't wear a size 6 overnight pull-up, can he? So I decided that we should splurge and get the new kid some diapers.
But the question is, how many? When Cal was born, I seem to remember having to run out to Walgreens an unseemly number of times for more newborn-size diapers--an experience that I don't want to replicate in the middle of January--but for the life of me, I can't remember how many we went through until he upgraded to a size 1. So...can anyone remind me how many diapers a newborn baby goes through in a 24-hour period? My recollection is 8 to 10-ish (we used to keep notes on his I's and O's because we were new at the game and we were residents and we were CRAZY), but somehow this seems like a RIDICULOUS NUMBER OF DIAPERS so I will defer to you all to remind me. It's been way too long, I can't remember.
Oh, and Update! My OB actually agreed to do a 39+ week induction if I haven't gone into labor naturally by that time. Despite the fact that I asked her about it twice, what finally made her agree to it (and quite readily, I might add) was the fact that Joe called her. JOE. NOT THE PATIENT. THE HUSBAND OF THE PATIENT. He posed it as a faculty-to-faculty "favor" and explained that he, like she, was also a doctor at [Big Academic Hospital], and he only got two weeks of vacation per year, one of which he was planning to use for his paternity leave. And since we had a three year-old at home, with limited time off for the baby, etcetera etcetera you know how the rest goes. Which, I have to say, is basically what I told her too, but I guess he was more persuasive somehow. I don't know.
Though I am mildly chagrined that it took some sort of mutual academic attending backslapping to get the job done (I mean, what am I, chopped liver? I'm only the one who's actually having the kid, and it's not like I don't know of OB, having been both a Peds resident for two years AND currently an anesthesiologist) in the end I don't really care and am just grateful that we won't be burning any of my maternity leave, or Joe's much shorter paternity leave, on waiting around for my damn water to break or some such thing. My official due date is Sunday January 11th, so the next time I see her, I'll see if we can schedule an induction date for Friday the 9th, unless I somehow go into labor on my own before then, in which case, we'll just go with the flow.
(Ew, "flow.")
Just when you get one kid out of diapers...
So now at 32 weeks gestation, we have...oh, let's say 5-8 weeks to go here. That sounds like a big window, but behold, the human body in all its vagaries. I think we are mostly ready, but I think this is partially the second-time-around syndrome, where all sense of apprehension is dulled and amnesia has set in with respect to what we actually need to acquire up in here to accommodate the fact that this baby is going to be all born and stuff, and living on the outside. Like today it occurred to me that oh, I guess a newborn baby can't wear a size 6 overnight pull-up, can he? So I decided that we should splurge and get the new kid some diapers.
But the question is, how many? When Cal was born, I seem to remember having to run out to Walgreens an unseemly number of times for more newborn-size diapers--an experience that I don't want to replicate in the middle of January--but for the life of me, I can't remember how many we went through until he upgraded to a size 1. So...can anyone remind me how many diapers a newborn baby goes through in a 24-hour period? My recollection is 8 to 10-ish (we used to keep notes on his I's and O's because we were new at the game and we were residents and we were CRAZY), but somehow this seems like a RIDICULOUS NUMBER OF DIAPERS so I will defer to you all to remind me. It's been way too long, I can't remember.
Oh, and Update! My OB actually agreed to do a 39+ week induction if I haven't gone into labor naturally by that time. Despite the fact that I asked her about it twice, what finally made her agree to it (and quite readily, I might add) was the fact that Joe called her. JOE. NOT THE PATIENT. THE HUSBAND OF THE PATIENT. He posed it as a faculty-to-faculty "favor" and explained that he, like she, was also a doctor at [Big Academic Hospital], and he only got two weeks of vacation per year, one of which he was planning to use for his paternity leave. And since we had a three year-old at home, with limited time off for the baby, etcetera etcetera you know how the rest goes. Which, I have to say, is basically what I told her too, but I guess he was more persuasive somehow. I don't know.
Though I am mildly chagrined that it took some sort of mutual academic attending backslapping to get the job done (I mean, what am I, chopped liver? I'm only the one who's actually having the kid, and it's not like I don't know of OB, having been both a Peds resident for two years AND currently an anesthesiologist) in the end I don't really care and am just grateful that we won't be burning any of my maternity leave, or Joe's much shorter paternity leave, on waiting around for my damn water to break or some such thing. My official due date is Sunday January 11th, so the next time I see her, I'll see if we can schedule an induction date for Friday the 9th, unless I somehow go into labor on my own before then, in which case, we'll just go with the flow.
(Ew, "flow.")
sterling coop
The hospital where I currently work, as I'm sure many, many hospitals do, has a long wall of paintings near one of the entrance hallways, commemorating past generations of hospital CEOs or trustees or whoever these olden days white guys were. There's this one portrait in particular that, every time I pass it, always makes me think of "Mad Men."
The hospital where I currently work, as I'm sure many, many hospitals do, has a long wall of paintings near one of the entrance hallways, commemorating past generations of hospital CEOs or trustees or whoever these olden days white guys were. There's this one portrait in particular that, every time I pass it, always makes me think of "Mad Men."
a big guy
OK, I know that this may be pushing your tolerance for Cal stories to post this right after yesterday's post, but seriously, this school art project that they sent home from school just cracked me up, partially because it reminded me of this. (This is supposed to be a self-portrait with commentary, I assume. The teachers asked all the kids the same questions and then they typed up the answers.)
OK, I know that this may be pushing your tolerance for Cal stories to post this right after yesterday's post, but seriously, this school art project that they sent home from school just cracked me up, partially because it reminded me of this. (This is supposed to be a self-portrait with commentary, I assume. The teachers asked all the kids the same questions and then they typed up the answers.)
baby's first prank
Thump thump thump.
Cal materialized at the top of the steps, holding a cup from the local coffee shop. "Mommy, look what I'm drinking!" he said, taking a giant swig from the spewing hot lava hole that coffee cup makers seem to think will somehow prevent coffee enthusiasts from burning their tongues off.
"Cal...what are you drinking? Coffee? Coffee isn't for kids, right?"
A small pause. "It's juice! IT'S JUICE! I played a trick on you!"
Joe's voice from downstairs, "I rinsed out the cup and put juice in it."
Cal again, delighted, "I tricked you! I played a trick on you!"
I have to say, it was pretty good. Not quite as good as that time in med school when Andy and I pranked one of the other guys in our rotation group, paging him and, when he called back, pretending to be one of our clinic attendings ripping him a new asshole--but as three year-old pranks go, it was pretty good.
mo' money, mo' problems
The interesting thing about having a blog (and I say this with some perspective, having been at this game for a little more than eight years, since the days people called these things "online journal" and when I thought that writing with yellow text on a royal blue background showcased my IMPECCABLE DESIGN AESTHETIC) is that people really feel like they know you. Sometimes it's nice, like when people refer back to old entries from med school, or remark on how fast Cal is growing up, that sort of thing. And sometimes it's a little strange. One has to understand when reading my blog is that though I talk about my personal life, and to a lesser extent my work life, what I write about here is about 25% of the picture, sometimes even less. Not everything is for sharing, after all.
A few days ago I posted a Twitter about how I woke up in the middle of the night (to go to the bathroom, actually--damn pregnancy) and could not fall back asleep because I was worrying about our finances. And this seems to have caused some consternation, because people felt that I was "complaining" about my lot in life, and that this was insensitive given that as doctors, we were in a privileged subset economically and that there are people far worse off. First off, let me say: I'm not upset about this, and I don't take it personally. Certainly anything I say publicly has a right to be publicly responded to, and everyone has a right to their opinions. My initial reaction was actually to try to explain everything, give a lot of details about our particular circumstances at this moment, what the concerns are, and make it clear why with an attending physician salary in a two-doctor household, we are suddenly chewing our nails down to nubs about finances.
But that is outside the purview of this blog. As are many other things. And as much as it would make me feel better in some way to give everyone a more complete perspective, I don't really think that's subject for public discussion. As much as some people might think that they have a full picture of our lives from the pictures that I post here or the things that I choose to write about, I venture that it is not. In fact, it's probably closer to trying to diagnose a patient while peeking at them through a keyhole.
I don't argue that as a family we're lucky and that there are people far worse off than us. I have some perspective--I take care of them every day. And I'm not saying that readers don't have a right to comment--I would never shut down a discussion or erase a comment, because why post anything publicly if you can't handle people responding to it? After nine years of medical training, I have thicker skin than that. All I'm saying is: don't be fooled into thinking that a sense of familiarity actually confers an understanding of the 75% of my life that I don't share here. So for your own sakes, don't spend any more time thinking about why I should or should not be allowed to stay up at night worrying about our finances like everyone else in this country, especially given that you don't know any of the particulars. First of all, such particulars are almost always REALLY BORING; secondly, Joe and I spend more than enough time on that endeavor as it is lately, no reason you should.
And...that's it! No hard feelings! Carry on!
* * *
Speaking of Biggie Smalls...
One of the best things about this pregnancy is that since my work is so busy, the weeks seem to be passing by really fast. Any pregnant woman will tell you that the worst part of pregnancy is the waiting. That tortuous first-trimester waiting, when you're on pins and needles, waiting to see what direction things are going to take. That pendulous third-trimester waiting, when you're ready to get the show on the road already, whether this baby feels like it or not. And all the waiting in between. My problem is that I am a control freak and I have no patience.
But working is really making the time fly by. It's another Monday, then you blink, and suddenly it's Friday again. Then Monday. Then Friday. And suddenly, I'm just about 31 weeks, which means that we have anywhere from six to ten more weeks to go with this gig. Once you start getting down to a single-digit number of weeks, it starts to feel like you're in the home stretch.
Because of the six-week maternity leave issue, I had hoped that my current OB (who from my very limited interactions I am not IN LOVE with, not that it really matters, I guess) would be open to the idea of a full-term scheduled induction of labor, but it seems she's more of the "medical indication only" school, which...OK. Fine, I can respect that--I'm sure that there are those out there who find the idea of medically inducing labor (or even accelerating labor) kind of appalling. She did say that we could readdress the issue if I went post-dates, so we hopefuly won't go too far past 41 weeks, but hopefully I'll just spontaneously go right on time and not have to burn one of my leave weeks sitting around with NO JOB and NO BABY and nothing to occupy my time but watch the minutes sloooooowly tick by.
Or maybe I'll just keep showing up to work every day past my due date like a ticking time bomb and just scare everyone half to death.
The interesting thing about having a blog (and I say this with some perspective, having been at this game for a little more than eight years, since the days people called these things "online journal" and when I thought that writing with yellow text on a royal blue background showcased my IMPECCABLE DESIGN AESTHETIC) is that people really feel like they know you. Sometimes it's nice, like when people refer back to old entries from med school, or remark on how fast Cal is growing up, that sort of thing. And sometimes it's a little strange. One has to understand when reading my blog is that though I talk about my personal life, and to a lesser extent my work life, what I write about here is about 25% of the picture, sometimes even less. Not everything is for sharing, after all.
A few days ago I posted a Twitter about how I woke up in the middle of the night (to go to the bathroom, actually--damn pregnancy) and could not fall back asleep because I was worrying about our finances. And this seems to have caused some consternation, because people felt that I was "complaining" about my lot in life, and that this was insensitive given that as doctors, we were in a privileged subset economically and that there are people far worse off. First off, let me say: I'm not upset about this, and I don't take it personally. Certainly anything I say publicly has a right to be publicly responded to, and everyone has a right to their opinions. My initial reaction was actually to try to explain everything, give a lot of details about our particular circumstances at this moment, what the concerns are, and make it clear why with an attending physician salary in a two-doctor household, we are suddenly chewing our nails down to nubs about finances.
But that is outside the purview of this blog. As are many other things. And as much as it would make me feel better in some way to give everyone a more complete perspective, I don't really think that's subject for public discussion. As much as some people might think that they have a full picture of our lives from the pictures that I post here or the things that I choose to write about, I venture that it is not. In fact, it's probably closer to trying to diagnose a patient while peeking at them through a keyhole.
I don't argue that as a family we're lucky and that there are people far worse off than us. I have some perspective--I take care of them every day. And I'm not saying that readers don't have a right to comment--I would never shut down a discussion or erase a comment, because why post anything publicly if you can't handle people responding to it? After nine years of medical training, I have thicker skin than that. All I'm saying is: don't be fooled into thinking that a sense of familiarity actually confers an understanding of the 75% of my life that I don't share here. So for your own sakes, don't spend any more time thinking about why I should or should not be allowed to stay up at night worrying about our finances like everyone else in this country, especially given that you don't know any of the particulars. First of all, such particulars are almost always REALLY BORING; secondly, Joe and I spend more than enough time on that endeavor as it is lately, no reason you should.
And...that's it! No hard feelings! Carry on!
* * *
Speaking of Biggie Smalls...
One of the best things about this pregnancy is that since my work is so busy, the weeks seem to be passing by really fast. Any pregnant woman will tell you that the worst part of pregnancy is the waiting. That tortuous first-trimester waiting, when you're on pins and needles, waiting to see what direction things are going to take. That pendulous third-trimester waiting, when you're ready to get the show on the road already, whether this baby feels like it or not. And all the waiting in between. My problem is that I am a control freak and I have no patience.
But working is really making the time fly by. It's another Monday, then you blink, and suddenly it's Friday again. Then Monday. Then Friday. And suddenly, I'm just about 31 weeks, which means that we have anywhere from six to ten more weeks to go with this gig. Once you start getting down to a single-digit number of weeks, it starts to feel like you're in the home stretch.
Because of the six-week maternity leave issue, I had hoped that my current OB (who from my very limited interactions I am not IN LOVE with, not that it really matters, I guess) would be open to the idea of a full-term scheduled induction of labor, but it seems she's more of the "medical indication only" school, which...OK. Fine, I can respect that--I'm sure that there are those out there who find the idea of medically inducing labor (or even accelerating labor) kind of appalling. She did say that we could readdress the issue if I went post-dates, so we hopefuly won't go too far past 41 weeks, but hopefully I'll just spontaneously go right on time and not have to burn one of my leave weeks sitting around with NO JOB and NO BABY and nothing to occupy my time but watch the minutes sloooooowly tick by.
Or maybe I'll just keep showing up to work every day past my due date like a ticking time bomb and just scare everyone half to death.
come for the credits, stay for the grandchild
So my mom is flying in tonight to visit for a few days! Of course, I would like to think that she would have visited us anyway, and the fact that the American Academy of Ophthalmology annual meeting (with all its magically delicious CME credits) is in town this weekend is just a COMPLETE CONICIDENCE.
So my mom is flying in tonight to visit for a few days! Of course, I would like to think that she would have visited us anyway, and the fact that the American Academy of Ophthalmology annual meeting (with all its magically delicious CME credits) is in town this weekend is just a COMPLETE CONICIDENCE.
brand new day
For all the thrilling and historic aspects of this election, and there were many, the thing that excites me the most is the idea that years from now, when Cal is my age, he may not understand why it was such a huge deal to us old geezers that way back when, we managed to elect as our nation's 44th president a man named Barack Hussein Obama.
Today is a good day.
For all the thrilling and historic aspects of this election, and there were many, the thing that excites me the most is the idea that years from now, when Cal is my age, he may not understand why it was such a huge deal to us old geezers that way back when, we managed to elect as our nation's 44th president a man named Barack Hussein Obama.
Today is a good day.
the triumph of the five-minute costume
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Captain Lightening Bolt.
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Ladies and gentlemen, meet Captain Lightening Bolt.
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I came home from school to be told that Cal refused to wear his butterfly wings for the Halloween parade at school, so I knew that we were in some trouble if we wanted to try and go trick-or-treating that evening. So we just started randomly grabbing at stuff. The black shirt and pants, Cal already had on. To that, we added Cal's rainboots. A red stocking cap of Joe's that he got for a "Lust in Space" party in med school. Some construction paper. And thus, Captain Lightening Bolt was born. Not as cool as being bitten by a radioactive spider or being accidentally exposed to the blast from a gamma bomb of his own invention, but whatever. Captain Lightening Bolt, he is the Joe Six-Pack of the superhero world.
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If you can believe it, this is the first time I'd ever been trick-or-treating outdoors (growing up in New York, we always just trick-or-treated in apartment buildings), so negotiating the temperature issue was a little bit of a sticky wicket. In the end, we just slapped a vest on him and kept it unzipped so that the lightening bolt icon could show. He looked like the most flamboyant cast member of "The Perfect Storm."
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We only managed to hit about seven or eight houses before toiletting concerns drove us home, but considering that Cal insisted on sampling the wares after hitting each house, the sugar bolus was sizeable.
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And in the end, despite insisting all night that he wasn't wearing a costume, he was just wearing clothes, I think he had a pretty good time.
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(Full photo set here.)
first the cosby sweater, now this
It hit me suddenly at 3am last night (whatever, this morning) why Cal may have suddenly reversed his position on the wearing of Halloween costumes. Earlier last week, I let him watch "Little Bill," which is one of the shows on Noggin that I actually think is kind of cute and has some mild redeeming value. So far this list is short and just includes "Little Bill" and "Blue's Clues" circa The Steve Years. Not that I won't let him watch the other shows too, because lord, how am I supposed to get anything done around here otherwise? It's just that I'm muttering sarcastic commentary under my breath while they're on. For the record, because I know you are keeping one on what I think about sundry children's television programming:
But anyway, "Little Bill" I think is adorable. It's like an updated version of the Cosby Kids with no laugh track and less jive, about this multigenerational black family living in what looks to be one of the outer boroughs New York, though I think this is left purposely vague. The family dynamics are nice and the kids acts like actual kids, and they learn cute little lessons about, whatever, making sure your friends feel welcome when they sleep over, taking care of your pets, whatnot.
It hit me suddenly at 3am last night (whatever, this morning) why Cal may have suddenly reversed his position on the wearing of Halloween costumes. Earlier last week, I let him watch "Little Bill," which is one of the shows on Noggin that I actually think is kind of cute and has some mild redeeming value. So far this list is short and just includes "Little Bill" and "Blue's Clues" circa The Steve Years. Not that I won't let him watch the other shows too, because lord, how am I supposed to get anything done around here otherwise? It's just that I'm muttering sarcastic commentary under my breath while they're on. For the record, because I know you are keeping one on what I think about sundry children's television programming:
- "Little Bear": Boring, old-fashioned, and Little Bear is a total weenie. Plus the disproportionately long arms on the animated bears creep me out, as they endow a certain marfanoid quality that I find distracting.
- "Dora the Explorer": Hate this show. Hate. I don't care if they're teaching Spanish or simian-human relations or any of that. They are always yelling everything. Why must they yell? Why can't they just talk?
- "Wow Wow Wubsy": Benign enough, I guess, and cute in that little Japanese animated character kind of way--you can practically see them as little erasers and bento boxes--but I am not fooled into thinking that it is anything other than pure brain candy. Cal loves it, though.
- "Yo Gabba Gabba": Watching this show makes me feel like I have taken a large dose of hallucinogenic drugs. In a bad way. Cal, of course, also loves this show.
But anyway, "Little Bill" I think is adorable. It's like an updated version of the Cosby Kids with no laugh track and less jive, about this multigenerational black family living in what looks to be one of the outer boroughs New York, though I think this is left purposely vague. The family dynamics are nice and the kids acts like actual kids, and they learn cute little lessons about, whatever, making sure your friends feel welcome when they sleep over, taking care of your pets, whatnot.
So. Last week Little Bill had a Halloween episode on, in which Little Bill wanted to dress up as Captain Brainstorm to go trick-or-treating, but the neighborhood store ran out of Captain Brainstorm costumes. "If I can't go as Captain Brainstorm," sulked Little Bill, "I don't want to dress up as anything." Then, a day later, Cal is telling us basically verbatim that he doesn't want to dress up as anything. Related? Coincidence? I don't know how the episode ended (I'm sure there were Compromises and learning about Disappointment, and that Little Bill ended up enjoying Halloween after all), but I don't think that Cal saw the end of the show either, which means NO LESSONS WERE LEARNED AT ALL.
Anyway, thanks, Cos. You and your wholesome family values teachings. Maybe we will just watch more "Yo Gabba Gabba" and go trick-or-treating as a giant red-studded dildo-looking cyclops.
i hope you understand this just means less candy for everyone
For the past three years, Joe and I have chosen Cal's Halloween costume for him, OVER-CONTROLLING PARENTAL INCLINATIONS and need to live vicariously though our offspring aside, for the simple reason that Cal had no idea what Halloween was, nor could he care less about dressing up. However, this year, he is a three year-old man, so I decided to ask him for the first time what he wanted to dress up as for Halloween.
CAL
(Promptly)
A butterfly.
MICHELLE
Oh, a butterfly! That's a nice costume. What kind of butterfly?
CAL
A pink one!
MICHELLE
(Not wanting to discourage the boy, though worrying somewhat about schoolyard mockery)
Well, I guess that should be easy enough to do...
CAL
(Reconsidering)
No, wait, a red butterfly. An orange butterfly.
MICHELLE
That is also easily accomplished.
This was about a month ago. So I ordered the wings and the antenna set (not a bad costume, considering it was only about $7.00 at the time), found his long-sleeved black T-shirt and a pair of black pants, and figured that we were set. Cal seemed to enjoy the costume well enough, and spent a few evenings flitting around the house, wings sprouting from his back, excitedly telling everyone who would listen (and occasionally some of us who stopped listening) that HE WAS A BUTTERFLY A BUTTERFLY A BUTTERFLY.
This past weekend, Cal had an actual Halloween part at his school, and we attended, thinking that not only would it be fun, but it would be a great way to get a little more mileage out of his costume. Except for one thing: Cal would not put it on. He put on the all-black outfit fine, but when it came to putting on the actual butterfly accoutrement, he balked. "I don't want to put it on yet," he said in the living room, "I want to wait until I get to school." At school, we figured it would be an easy sell, since every single kid in attendance was in costume--quite a few of which featured wings similar to his--but he continued to refuse. "I don't want to wear my wings," he said. "I just want to wear my sweater." Which is why he was the only kid at the party wearing a gray zip-up sweater and black pants. Just like an old man. We should have just brought some baby powder to dust in his hair and then that could have been his costume.
That was five days ago. To date, Cal still does not want to wear his costume for Halloween. "I just want to wear a regular shirt and pants," he insists. He is a very odd child sometimes. So, unwilling to spend any more money on costume elements that he in all likelihood will refuse to wear, I have been scrambling to figure out a costume for trick-or-treating consisting of normal clothes from his closet. Which is proving to be a little more difficult than you would think, as he has no novelty-type clothes that we could push into costume territory. He doesn't even have a pair of overalls.
So far all I could come up with was to dress him all in black, put on his black stocking cap, and give him a flashlight (he likes flashlights, so he would probably agree to carry this--though who knows, he liked the wings too) to pass as a cat burglar. However, unless I slap reflective tape all over his back, I worry that the dark outfit combined with outdoor trick-or-treating might not be the most traffic visible costume to test the notoriously bad driving skills of our Atlantan brethren. (My other idea was to take the all-black outfit and send him out with a book of e. e. cummings poetry. But this costume would perhaps be on the subtle end of the spectrum.) I even thought of dressing up as a resident again, same as last year, only we still have a ton of boxes from the move we haven't unpacked yet, and I'm not sure where his scrubs are.
Any last-minute costume ideas for an extremely stubborn three-year old that preferably involves spending no money and minimal craftiness?
For the past three years, Joe and I have chosen Cal's Halloween costume for him, OVER-CONTROLLING PARENTAL INCLINATIONS and need to live vicariously though our offspring aside, for the simple reason that Cal had no idea what Halloween was, nor could he care less about dressing up. However, this year, he is a three year-old man, so I decided to ask him for the first time what he wanted to dress up as for Halloween.
CAL
(Promptly)
A butterfly.
MICHELLE
Oh, a butterfly! That's a nice costume. What kind of butterfly?
CAL
A pink one!
MICHELLE
(Not wanting to discourage the boy, though worrying somewhat about schoolyard mockery)
Well, I guess that should be easy enough to do...
CAL
(Reconsidering)
No, wait, a red butterfly. An orange butterfly.
MICHELLE
That is also easily accomplished.
This was about a month ago. So I ordered the wings and the antenna set (not a bad costume, considering it was only about $7.00 at the time), found his long-sleeved black T-shirt and a pair of black pants, and figured that we were set. Cal seemed to enjoy the costume well enough, and spent a few evenings flitting around the house, wings sprouting from his back, excitedly telling everyone who would listen (and occasionally some of us who stopped listening) that HE WAS A BUTTERFLY A BUTTERFLY A BUTTERFLY.
This past weekend, Cal had an actual Halloween part at his school, and we attended, thinking that not only would it be fun, but it would be a great way to get a little more mileage out of his costume. Except for one thing: Cal would not put it on. He put on the all-black outfit fine, but when it came to putting on the actual butterfly accoutrement, he balked. "I don't want to put it on yet," he said in the living room, "I want to wait until I get to school." At school, we figured it would be an easy sell, since every single kid in attendance was in costume--quite a few of which featured wings similar to his--but he continued to refuse. "I don't want to wear my wings," he said. "I just want to wear my sweater." Which is why he was the only kid at the party wearing a gray zip-up sweater and black pants. Just like an old man. We should have just brought some baby powder to dust in his hair and then that could have been his costume.
That was five days ago. To date, Cal still does not want to wear his costume for Halloween. "I just want to wear a regular shirt and pants," he insists. He is a very odd child sometimes. So, unwilling to spend any more money on costume elements that he in all likelihood will refuse to wear, I have been scrambling to figure out a costume for trick-or-treating consisting of normal clothes from his closet. Which is proving to be a little more difficult than you would think, as he has no novelty-type clothes that we could push into costume territory. He doesn't even have a pair of overalls.
So far all I could come up with was to dress him all in black, put on his black stocking cap, and give him a flashlight (he likes flashlights, so he would probably agree to carry this--though who knows, he liked the wings too) to pass as a cat burglar. However, unless I slap reflective tape all over his back, I worry that the dark outfit combined with outdoor trick-or-treating might not be the most traffic visible costume to test the notoriously bad driving skills of our Atlantan brethren. (My other idea was to take the all-black outfit and send him out with a book of e. e. cummings poetry. But this costume would perhaps be on the subtle end of the spectrum.) I even thought of dressing up as a resident again, same as last year, only we still have a ton of boxes from the move we haven't unpacked yet, and I'm not sure where his scrubs are.
Any last-minute costume ideas for an extremely stubborn three-year old that preferably involves spending no money and minimal craftiness?
29 weeks
The fetus, he grows.
So we're at 29 weeks here, which means that we have somewhere in the range of about two and a half months to go before we launch Cal 2.0, a.k.a. The Do-Over. In terms of my maternity leave, I am planning to use a mixture of vacation time, sick days, and unpaid leave to total six weeks, which is the amount of time I took off when Cal was born. Again, it is hard to say this knowing full well that I am going to be stepping into a GREAT BIG PILE OF SHIT in telling you yes, I have decided of my own volition, pressured by no one, that I will be taking but six weeks off after the birth of my second child. However, there are a number of constraints, both practical and financial, that have factored into this decision, the top two of which are that 1.) I am at present the primary breadwinner for this family, so I need to work and get paid for it, and 2.) I took six weeks off when Cal was born, and despite some introductory angst it worked out fine, and he still loves me approximately 85% of the time.
The fetus, he grows.
So we're at 29 weeks here, which means that we have somewhere in the range of about two and a half months to go before we launch Cal 2.0, a.k.a. The Do-Over. In terms of my maternity leave, I am planning to use a mixture of vacation time, sick days, and unpaid leave to total six weeks, which is the amount of time I took off when Cal was born. Again, it is hard to say this knowing full well that I am going to be stepping into a GREAT BIG PILE OF SHIT in telling you yes, I have decided of my own volition, pressured by no one, that I will be taking but six weeks off after the birth of my second child. However, there are a number of constraints, both practical and financial, that have factored into this decision, the top two of which are that 1.) I am at present the primary breadwinner for this family, so I need to work and get paid for it, and 2.) I took six weeks off when Cal was born, and despite some introductory angst it worked out fine, and he still loves me approximately 85% of the time.
Something else that will make returning to work easier this time around is the fact that my schedule now isn't nearly as bad or unpredictable as it was during residency (though in an ironic twist, now that I don't take night call, I never have post-call days off, which actually makes it very difficult to schedule anything kid-related during the day, including my OB appointments). And yes, I know all you Europeans and Canadians get, like, five billion years of paid maternity leave for each child, and that's a whole other discussion to get people all hepped up, even though at present, in the U.S., paid maternity leave is really the exception rather than the rule--but whatever. We work with what we have, and right now, I'm happy to look forward to six weeks off with Cal and his new brother, and returning to job that I love in a practice where people have been nothing but completely warm and understanding about the whole situation.
As for the other baby...
I'm about to start on the second round of edits for "Scutmonkey," which, according to my editor, is slated for an early 2010 publication. That sounds far away I guess, especially since I submitted the manuscript this past July, but there's still a lot of stuff that still needs to happen between then and now, so I'm glad to have a little time to tune things up, especially now that I'm working and don't have time to be lollygagging with my laptop at Starbucks every day like I was earlier this summer. I'm aiming to get this second round of edits back to them in about a month's time, with the goal of finishing almost all of the hardcore overhauling before I have my human baby, and past the legal department and into the copy editor by (I'm told) April. Anyway, the gestation period for a baby elephant is 22 months, so as long as my manuscript is in pre-publication limbo for less than that amount of time, I guess I'll be happy.
(Though this probably does not need to be spelled out, I just wanted to add for the record that I'm glad I'm not an elephant.)
gold star
So today was Cal's "Gold Star Day." I know, I didn't know what that meant either. Apparently, it's this thing in his class where every kid gets a turn to lead circle time, which so far as I can ascertain involves something with pointers and calendars and talking about the letters and numbers of the week, not unlike on Sesame Street. There may be singing and hand movements somewhere in there. Oh, and by the way, your parents are encouraged to come for the morning to witness your GLORY.
Joe and I could not go to Gold Star Day.
I mean, I suppose we could have if we absolutely needed to, but it would have involved taking a day off work, and since I just started my job a few months ago (and am incidentally hoarding vacation days for maternity leave) and Joe is but a lowlyserf fellow, it wasn't exactly something that seemed economical or practical to do, to take a whole day off work just to go to school for forty-five minutes. However, Cal is the last person in the class to have his Gold Star Day, and I have been observing (from the pictures that we get sent home) that everyone's parents goes to their Gold Star Day. Definitely at least one parent, oftentimes both. One kid had four relatives showed up, each with a different piece of photographic or video equipment. I think Cal would have had a fine Gold Star Day regardless of whether Joe or I showed up (he's too young to notice or remember that everyone else's parents were there for their Gold Stars--I'm hoping he'll save the comparisons and recriminations for adolescence), but the precedent that had been set certainly made me feel guilty to think about not being there.
Honestly, how can all these parents just take off work to go to school for the morning? How is that possible? Are they trying to make us look bad? It must be that either one parent doesn't work (outside of the home), one parent works part-time or has extremely flexible hours, or (also highly likely), the parents are so high up at their jobs that it doesn't even matter when they decide to take off or not. You know, like they're the Executive Vice President of Delta Airlines or something like that. Who knows. Or, more likely, they're just better parents than us, and love their kids more. Probably.
Luckily (and this was not planned, though it was fortuitous), Joe's parents are visiting us this weekend. So, like Obama sending the Clintons and his wife out to campaign for him by proxy, so were Joe's parents at school as parent substitutes. Taste great, less filling! Joe's dad even read a story to the class, which went over very well. (He's a retired school principal, so he loves that kind of stuff. Remember, the Principal is your Pal.) And Cal, after some initial shyness about having them there, ended up having a great time. So this allayed the guilt of Joe and I not being there somewhat. Not 100%, but somewhat.
Hopefully they can schedule Cal's next Gold Star Day for January, when, presumably, I'll have some time off.
So today was Cal's "Gold Star Day." I know, I didn't know what that meant either. Apparently, it's this thing in his class where every kid gets a turn to lead circle time, which so far as I can ascertain involves something with pointers and calendars and talking about the letters and numbers of the week, not unlike on Sesame Street. There may be singing and hand movements somewhere in there. Oh, and by the way, your parents are encouraged to come for the morning to witness your GLORY.
Joe and I could not go to Gold Star Day.
I mean, I suppose we could have if we absolutely needed to, but it would have involved taking a day off work, and since I just started my job a few months ago (and am incidentally hoarding vacation days for maternity leave) and Joe is but a lowly
Honestly, how can all these parents just take off work to go to school for the morning? How is that possible? Are they trying to make us look bad? It must be that either one parent doesn't work (outside of the home), one parent works part-time or has extremely flexible hours, or (also highly likely), the parents are so high up at their jobs that it doesn't even matter when they decide to take off or not. You know, like they're the Executive Vice President of Delta Airlines or something like that. Who knows. Or, more likely, they're just better parents than us, and love their kids more. Probably.
Luckily (and this was not planned, though it was fortuitous), Joe's parents are visiting us this weekend. So, like Obama sending the Clintons and his wife out to campaign for him by proxy, so were Joe's parents at school as parent substitutes. Taste great, less filling! Joe's dad even read a story to the class, which went over very well. (He's a retired school principal, so he loves that kind of stuff. Remember, the Principal is your Pal.) And Cal, after some initial shyness about having them there, ended up having a great time. So this allayed the guilt of Joe and I not being there somewhat. Not 100%, but somewhat.
Hopefully they can schedule Cal's next Gold Star Day for January, when, presumably, I'll have some time off.
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