because this one was a little too long for a twitter post
Today, one of the surgeons I was working with, apropos of nothing (or perhaps in response to some ad on the radio that I didn't hear), asked, "Is the winner of that show 'The Biggest Loser' the fattest person, or the person who loses the most weight?" We all told him that it was, in fact, the latter. Because even in America, we have yet to develop a reality show where you win just by virtue of being really really fat.
(Yet.)
or I could just run a propofol drip for the length of the car ride
So we are driving down to Disneyland (sorry, DisneyWORLD--I always mix that up and people get very indignant for some reason) in exactly one week. On one hand, it's kind of a relief to be driving--no schlepping through the airport with two kids and the stroller and two carseats and the carry-ons, no having to pay extra to check luggage because our days of traveling light are probably over, at least for the next three or four years. (Do you know that since our honeymoon, which was a 16-day trip, Joe and I have never needed to check any luggage, even when we were traveling with Cal? True. What it mostly amounted to was four bags for Cal and half a bag each for me and Joe.) But on the other hand, it's going to be a seven hour drive with two kids in the back of a smallish Honda. I am...concerned.
I'm not sure how Mack is going to deal with the ride, but I hope he will be OK with it once we're on the highway. (He seems to have some sort of built in accelerometer, such that he cries in the car if our speed drops below 5 mph, but he's OK as long as we're moving fast.) But Cal I'm not so sure about. SEVEN HOURS, my god. Preschoolers are not renowned for their patience and ability to sit still.
So I'm amassing some sort of mighty amusement pack, which I will try to parcel out at discreet intervals and keep him at least somewhat entertained for the ride down. There will be stops along the way of course, hopefully at least one at a location with some sort of playground so that Cal can run around and tire himself out (I am thinking one of those Chick Fil-As with the indoor plastic kid Habitrails) but for the car so far, I have this:
So we are driving down to Disneyland (sorry, DisneyWORLD--I always mix that up and people get very indignant for some reason) in exactly one week. On one hand, it's kind of a relief to be driving--no schlepping through the airport with two kids and the stroller and two carseats and the carry-ons, no having to pay extra to check luggage because our days of traveling light are probably over, at least for the next three or four years. (Do you know that since our honeymoon, which was a 16-day trip, Joe and I have never needed to check any luggage, even when we were traveling with Cal? True. What it mostly amounted to was four bags for Cal and half a bag each for me and Joe.) But on the other hand, it's going to be a seven hour drive with two kids in the back of a smallish Honda. I am...concerned.
I'm not sure how Mack is going to deal with the ride, but I hope he will be OK with it once we're on the highway. (He seems to have some sort of built in accelerometer, such that he cries in the car if our speed drops below 5 mph, but he's OK as long as we're moving fast.) But Cal I'm not so sure about. SEVEN HOURS, my god. Preschoolers are not renowned for their patience and ability to sit still.
So I'm amassing some sort of mighty amusement pack, which I will try to parcel out at discreet intervals and keep him at least somewhat entertained for the ride down. There will be stops along the way of course, hopefully at least one at a location with some sort of playground so that Cal can run around and tire himself out (I am thinking one of those Chick Fil-As with the indoor plastic kid Habitrails) but for the car so far, I have this:
- CARS (dur)
- Markers and a pad of paper
- Play Doh with various rollers and imprint tools
- Stickers
- String and beads
- Books
- When all else fails, Thomas the Tank Engine on my iPod
But I am open to suggestions. Anything that you keep in your arsenal to keep your kid entertained on the road? Don't forget, it's a seven hour drive there, but then we still have to drive seven hours back. The more portable amusements in my bag, the better.
interview with cal
Now for parity, here is a video of Cal, in which I attempt to interview him about this and that.
I took the liberty of subtitling his responses since the microphone on my camera isn't very good, and Cal is alternately mumbling or talking with his mouth full--my fault for talking to him over dinner, I guess. However, please be aware that the subtitles only make it marginally more understandable, as the interview subject is three and a half and prone to fanciful tangents, while the interviewer apparently can't stop herself from making not one, but two Simpsons references to someone who cannot possibly recognize or appreciate them. Anyway, enjoy.
Now for parity, here is a video of Cal, in which I attempt to interview him about this and that.
I took the liberty of subtitling his responses since the microphone on my camera isn't very good, and Cal is alternately mumbling or talking with his mouth full--my fault for talking to him over dinner, I guess. However, please be aware that the subtitles only make it marginally more understandable, as the interview subject is three and a half and prone to fanciful tangents, while the interviewer apparently can't stop herself from making not one, but two Simpsons references to someone who cannot possibly recognize or appreciate them. Anyway, enjoy.
less of a style statement than a stupidity statement
I've been getting a lot of compliments at work lately about my watch, which is newish--I got it about two months ago, right around the end of my maternity leave. But whenever someone gives me a compliment--and not just about this watch, about anything, ever--I give them too much information. So first, I have to tell people, DUDE, TOTAL STEAL, IT WAS ONLY NINE DOLLARS!!!, both to convey (perhaps out of embarrassment in being complimented) that it was a bargain and therefore OK; that I am not the kind of person who spends a lot of money on accessories, even of the functional variety; and that despite the fact that I am 30 years old, I still shop at Forever 21, home of the one-time-wear disposable outfit.
OK, so there's that. And then the next thing I feel that I must tell people about this watch is that I got it to replace my old watch, which was a similarly cheap watch (a $9.99 digital watch that I got out of a spinning plastic case at Walgreens), not because my old watch broke, but because I couldn't figure out what configurations of buttons to push to set it back one hour for Daylight Savings Time (in the FALL, which was, like, FOUR MONTHS AGO) and I got so sick of subtracting one hour every time I looked at my watch that I just decided to go old school and get an analog watch. An old fashioned watch with an old fashioned dial that you could twist to set the clock back one hour. Only now we just changed for Daylight Saving's again, and now my original digital watch would have gone back to being correct, only in my attempts to set the time back one hour, I somehow irrevocably screwed it up, and now it thinks it's, like, twenty-seven o'clock in the morning. So I cannot be trusted around digital watches. But now watch me take care of patients undergoing open-heart surgery!
This is what I mean by too much information.
I've been getting a lot of compliments at work lately about my watch, which is newish--I got it about two months ago, right around the end of my maternity leave. But whenever someone gives me a compliment--and not just about this watch, about anything, ever--I give them too much information. So first, I have to tell people, DUDE, TOTAL STEAL, IT WAS ONLY NINE DOLLARS!!!, both to convey (perhaps out of embarrassment in being complimented) that it was a bargain and therefore OK; that I am not the kind of person who spends a lot of money on accessories, even of the functional variety; and that despite the fact that I am 30 years old, I still shop at Forever 21, home of the one-time-wear disposable outfit.
OK, so there's that. And then the next thing I feel that I must tell people about this watch is that I got it to replace my old watch, which was a similarly cheap watch (a $9.99 digital watch that I got out of a spinning plastic case at Walgreens), not because my old watch broke, but because I couldn't figure out what configurations of buttons to push to set it back one hour for Daylight Savings Time (in the FALL, which was, like, FOUR MONTHS AGO) and I got so sick of subtracting one hour every time I looked at my watch that I just decided to go old school and get an analog watch. An old fashioned watch with an old fashioned dial that you could twist to set the clock back one hour. Only now we just changed for Daylight Saving's again, and now my original digital watch would have gone back to being correct, only in my attempts to set the time back one hour, I somehow irrevocably screwed it up, and now it thinks it's, like, twenty-seven o'clock in the morning. So I cannot be trusted around digital watches. But now watch me take care of patients undergoing open-heart surgery!
This is what I mean by too much information.
and he moves too
I haven't posted any video lately, certainly not since this summer, which is not to say that I haven't shot any video, it's just that [insert boring technical talk about cameras and computers and various compatibility issues therein here]. But! The issues are resolved! And so, to celebrate, I bring you this. (Warning: may be extremely boring if you don't like babies. There's no car chase or anything.)
I haven't posted any video lately, certainly not since this summer, which is not to say that I haven't shot any video, it's just that [insert boring technical talk about cameras and computers and various compatibility issues therein here]. But! The issues are resolved! And so, to celebrate, I bring you this. (Warning: may be extremely boring if you don't like babies. There's no car chase or anything.)
rite of spring
The summers in Atlanta will just about kill you, and the winters are nothing much special, but I have to say, the autumns and springs here can really knock your socks off.
It rained all last weekend, so to compensate we spent most of this weekend outdoors. Surprisingly, despite the fact that everything around us seems to be exploding with flowers, my seasonal allergies have not yet sprung into full effect, though this evening I just started to note the slight itchiness of the ears which usually is the first harbinger of DOOM. I have tried many an antihistamine in my day, but my problem is that nothing but that old war horse Benadryl even makes a dent in my symptoms, and that makes me so sleepy that I don't dare take it during the day when I have to work. I've been hearing good things about Zyrtec so I may investigate it, though I'm not sure what the breastfeeding profile is so it might not be an option this year anyway.
So we all got some fresh air, and everyone got a little sun, which, you know, is good for THE RICKETS. I tried to keep Mack out of the rays as much as possible (I'm not sure what the exact recommendations are, but I think he's a little young for sunscreen--I want to say that six months is the cutoff but I may well have just pulled that number out of the ether), hiding under trees or behind stroller covers or next to stone walls and such, but short of clothing him in an abaya, it was kind of hard to avoid entirely.
Full picture set here.
zagat's would call this a "crappy" "restaurant" with "bad" "food"
This week, not one but two patients told me that I (as a relatively new Atlanta resident) needed to get my ass to The Varsity, which is apparently this retro burgers and fries place that boasts the dubious honor of being (and I have not fact-checked this, I'm just quoting off their paper plates) the world's largest drive-though. I had envisioned it being a little something like Junior's in Brooklyn, a huge old-school diner with lots of retro charm and gigantic down-home cooking. This was...not...the case.
The Varsity was large, that much was true, and it was packed to the rafters with diners, but I can't for the life of me understand why. The food...people, the food was terrible. Look, I'm no food snob. I like Taco Bell, for chrissake. TACO BELL. King of the rehydrated foodstuffs. But this here at The Varsity was very extremely bad food. I ordered the chili dogs, and I swear to you, the "chili" on this thing was just this reconstituted brown paste, like something you would squeeze out of a tube. That tube being YOUR COLON. Unbelievably foul.
This week, not one but two patients told me that I (as a relatively new Atlanta resident) needed to get my ass to The Varsity, which is apparently this retro burgers and fries place that boasts the dubious honor of being (and I have not fact-checked this, I'm just quoting off their paper plates) the world's largest drive-though. I had envisioned it being a little something like Junior's in Brooklyn, a huge old-school diner with lots of retro charm and gigantic down-home cooking. This was...not...the case.
The Varsity was large, that much was true, and it was packed to the rafters with diners, but I can't for the life of me understand why. The food...people, the food was terrible. Look, I'm no food snob. I like Taco Bell, for chrissake. TACO BELL. King of the rehydrated foodstuffs. But this here at The Varsity was very extremely bad food. I ordered the chili dogs, and I swear to you, the "chili" on this thing was just this reconstituted brown paste, like something you would squeeze out of a tube. That tube being YOUR COLON. Unbelievably foul.
And I could have forgiven bad food had the atmosphere been at least somewhat charming, but between the fast food order-at-the-counter atmosphere, the crowd, the fluorescent lighting, and the general formica-and-tile dinginess of the place, it felt almost exactly like the cafeteria of an inner city hospital. Nor was it so cheap that you could at least point to the sheer volume of foodstuffs as being at least some sort of recession value deal. I would classify it as 15% more expensive than McDonald's, with food that was 40% worse. And yet the place was packed. Apparently, everyone loves The Varsity. Am I missing something? Like that secret room in the back of the restaurant with all the free toys and booze?
(We did get this orange ice cream-type drink for Cal that was kind of good and tasted like melted orange Starbursts, so that saved the dinner from being a total fail. But last I checked they sell Orange Juliuses at the mall too, and at least at the mall there's usually a food court with a damn Sbarros or Wok 'n' Roll or something vaguely edible.)
So that recommendation wasn't so hot. But in general, the recommendations I get from patients are pretty spot on. Like a few weeks ago, I had a Chinese patient that I basically accosted for information on good Chinese restaurants in the area. (The patient was so excited that I knew the secret Chinese person handshake that she spent her entire time pre-op talking as fast as she could, giving me all the info she could think of regarding Asian restaurants and markets before I had to whip out my giant rubber mallet of anesthesia to knock her out for surgery. "Canton House has good dim sum. A little too salty. Not as good as New York or San Francisco. But pretty authentic.") Patients recommend movies, they recommend places to take the kids, I even had a patient recommend the best way to find free WiFi, which was amusing only because the patient was 74 years old and sitting on a stretcher playing around with his iPod Touch. (So that's what the kids are calling it these days. Incidentally, his advice was to find a Dunkin' Donuts and sit in their parking lot. And now you know what I know.)
I'm glad that my patients are so friendly and so forthcoming with their information, because frankly, I don't get out much. We've been here eight months now and aside from at work and the occasional school function, we haven't really made any new friends, or socialized with many new people. If it wasn't for my patients, I'd never meet anyone. Unfortunately, I also never see them again, and if I do, it usually means something unfortunate for them, not that they just wanted to see my smiling face and have some more sparkling cocktail party conversation over a bag of LR and a few milligrams of Versed.
(We did get this orange ice cream-type drink for Cal that was kind of good and tasted like melted orange Starbursts, so that saved the dinner from being a total fail. But last I checked they sell Orange Juliuses at the mall too, and at least at the mall there's usually a food court with a damn Sbarros or Wok 'n' Roll or something vaguely edible.)
So that recommendation wasn't so hot. But in general, the recommendations I get from patients are pretty spot on. Like a few weeks ago, I had a Chinese patient that I basically accosted for information on good Chinese restaurants in the area. (The patient was so excited that I knew the secret Chinese person handshake that she spent her entire time pre-op talking as fast as she could, giving me all the info she could think of regarding Asian restaurants and markets before I had to whip out my giant rubber mallet of anesthesia to knock her out for surgery. "Canton House has good dim sum. A little too salty. Not as good as New York or San Francisco. But pretty authentic.") Patients recommend movies, they recommend places to take the kids, I even had a patient recommend the best way to find free WiFi, which was amusing only because the patient was 74 years old and sitting on a stretcher playing around with his iPod Touch. (So that's what the kids are calling it these days. Incidentally, his advice was to find a Dunkin' Donuts and sit in their parking lot. And now you know what I know.)
I'm glad that my patients are so friendly and so forthcoming with their information, because frankly, I don't get out much. We've been here eight months now and aside from at work and the occasional school function, we haven't really made any new friends, or socialized with many new people. If it wasn't for my patients, I'd never meet anyone. Unfortunately, I also never see them again, and if I do, it usually means something unfortunate for them, not that they just wanted to see my smiling face and have some more sparkling cocktail party conversation over a bag of LR and a few milligrams of Versed.
time and tide
Time goes by fast these days. It'll be Monday and I'll go to work, take care of patients and run around all day; come home and take care of those people who live in my house and run around all evening; go to sleep, wake up and do it all again. And again. And again and again. And then it's Friday. The weekend goes by quickly of course, and then it's back to Monday. The weeks just keep going by like this, like time-lapse photography, or those old black and white movies where the main character is in the clink and they show, superimposed over scenes of working in the prison laundry or shadows of steel bars on the walls, the calendar pages being sequentially whipped off in a flurry of flying paper, indicating the passage of time.
Time goes by fast these days.
When I was in medical school, time passing quickly was a good thing. The faster I finished first year meant the faster I would get to second year, then third year, which meant the faster I would graduate and become (or so I thought at the time) "a real doctor." Ditto the passage of time during residency. While there were periods that dragged (see: my time working in the ER, my ICU rotations), in retrospect the five years I spent as a Peds and later an Anesthesia resident seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye--something that my attendings always told me would happen, but I never ever believed, because in the moment, as you're living it, residency seems to last forever. Back then, the faster time passed, the better.
After I finished my training last summer and we moved here, time still passed quickly, and that was OK because I was pregnant, and everyone knows that the worst torture of pregnancy--far worse than the bloating and pains and frequent trips to the bathroom--is the waiting. While I was pregnant, the faster each week passed, the closer I was to holding that new baby and (possibly equally importantly, not being pregnant anymore) so I welcomed that Friday-Monday-Friday-Monday time-lapse photography feeling. Only twenty more weeks to go! Only eleven more weeks to go! Three more weeks until I'm at term! OH MY GOD, JUST COME OUT ALREADY.
And now, time is still passing quickly, but for the first time since...well, ever...I'm not aiming for some theoretical finish line. Sure, there are little things to look forward to--our Spring Break trip to Disneyland, Christmas, Joe finishing his fellowship and finally becoming A Real Boy--the disconcertingly quick passage of time isn't towards any particular end. It's not getting me closer to anything in specific, it's just happening. I blinked, and all of a sudden, Mack is almost two and a half months old. I blinked, and suddenly, it's Spring. I blinked, and suddenly, we've been living here for eight months now, and while I still miss New York a lot, just about every day, it no longer sounds strange to say that we live in Atlanta.
When I was a kid, grown-ups always used to talk about how the years just seemed to all blend in adulthood, without the discreet milestones and markers of childhood to break things up. I'm starting to see that now. Time is passing quickly, but instead of feeling like I'm racing towards something, or trying to get past something, it just feels like--I don't know. Like I'm standing still. Or, more accurately, like I'm running on a treadmill. That sounds kind of negative I know, in that despondent I'm-not-moving-forward or I'm-a-hamster-in-a-wheel kind of way, but I don't actually feel like it's negative at all. I just feel kind of...comfortable. Like time is passing, and I don't have anywhere particular that I need to be, so I might as well just stay here. The days are going fast, sometimes a little too fast, but they're good days, and I'm trying, despite the hectic pace of it all, to enjoy them.
Time goes by fast these days. It'll be Monday and I'll go to work, take care of patients and run around all day; come home and take care of those people who live in my house and run around all evening; go to sleep, wake up and do it all again. And again. And again and again. And then it's Friday. The weekend goes by quickly of course, and then it's back to Monday. The weeks just keep going by like this, like time-lapse photography, or those old black and white movies where the main character is in the clink and they show, superimposed over scenes of working in the prison laundry or shadows of steel bars on the walls, the calendar pages being sequentially whipped off in a flurry of flying paper, indicating the passage of time.
Time goes by fast these days.
When I was in medical school, time passing quickly was a good thing. The faster I finished first year meant the faster I would get to second year, then third year, which meant the faster I would graduate and become (or so I thought at the time) "a real doctor." Ditto the passage of time during residency. While there were periods that dragged (see: my time working in the ER, my ICU rotations), in retrospect the five years I spent as a Peds and later an Anesthesia resident seemed to pass by in the blink of an eye--something that my attendings always told me would happen, but I never ever believed, because in the moment, as you're living it, residency seems to last forever. Back then, the faster time passed, the better.
After I finished my training last summer and we moved here, time still passed quickly, and that was OK because I was pregnant, and everyone knows that the worst torture of pregnancy--far worse than the bloating and pains and frequent trips to the bathroom--is the waiting. While I was pregnant, the faster each week passed, the closer I was to holding that new baby and (possibly equally importantly, not being pregnant anymore) so I welcomed that Friday-Monday-Friday-Monday time-lapse photography feeling. Only twenty more weeks to go! Only eleven more weeks to go! Three more weeks until I'm at term! OH MY GOD, JUST COME OUT ALREADY.
And now, time is still passing quickly, but for the first time since...well, ever...I'm not aiming for some theoretical finish line. Sure, there are little things to look forward to--our Spring Break trip to Disneyland, Christmas, Joe finishing his fellowship and finally becoming A Real Boy--the disconcertingly quick passage of time isn't towards any particular end. It's not getting me closer to anything in specific, it's just happening. I blinked, and all of a sudden, Mack is almost two and a half months old. I blinked, and suddenly, it's Spring. I blinked, and suddenly, we've been living here for eight months now, and while I still miss New York a lot, just about every day, it no longer sounds strange to say that we live in Atlanta.
When I was a kid, grown-ups always used to talk about how the years just seemed to all blend in adulthood, without the discreet milestones and markers of childhood to break things up. I'm starting to see that now. Time is passing quickly, but instead of feeling like I'm racing towards something, or trying to get past something, it just feels like--I don't know. Like I'm standing still. Or, more accurately, like I'm running on a treadmill. That sounds kind of negative I know, in that despondent I'm-not-moving-forward or I'm-a-hamster-in-a-wheel kind of way, but I don't actually feel like it's negative at all. I just feel kind of...comfortable. Like time is passing, and I don't have anywhere particular that I need to be, so I might as well just stay here. The days are going fast, sometimes a little too fast, but they're good days, and I'm trying, despite the hectic pace of it all, to enjoy them.
I'm not in a rush anymore. I don't want to get it over with. But time is racing by, and even though we're not going anywhere in particular, it makes me happy just to catch up, jog alongside, and just enjoy the scenery as it goes by.
but at least now I know what to put in front of our door for next halloween
Dear ICU staff: the next time you leave out your somewhat-lifelike-from-a-distance ACLS training dummy on a stretcher in front of the unit, causing everyone passing by to stop and check whether of not some poor, neglected patient has been forgotten out in the hallway, please make sure that dummy has a less scary face.
I'm going to have nightmares for weeks.
Dear ICU staff: the next time you leave out your somewhat-lifelike-from-a-distance ACLS training dummy on a stretcher in front of the unit, causing everyone passing by to stop and check whether of not some poor, neglected patient has been forgotten out in the hallway, please make sure that dummy has a less scary face.
I'm going to have nightmares for weeks.
pointy kisses
Don't tell Mack, but he has to go to the pediatrician this afternoon for his two month check and to get his first set of shots.
(I think he suspects.)
Don't tell Mack, but he has to go to the pediatrician this afternoon for his two month check and to get his first set of shots.
(I think he suspects.)
the enemy of good is perfect
I gave Cal a haircut last night. Joe and I have been cutting Cal's hair since the fall, because he hated--HATED! NOW WITH MORE EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!--getting his hair cut by a stranger at a salon (albeit a kiddie salon, with the TVs and the toys and the chair shaped like a boat) but somehow didn't mind getting his hair cut at home by me and Joe. Which was fine by us, because, you know, FREE HAIRCUT. We haven't been doing such a bad of of it either, or at least I don't think it looks much worse than the pro jobs we'd paid for in the past. Apparently, the great equalizer of hairstyling is how much your client's head is moving around and what decibel level of protest is issuing from the mouth part of that head.
Cal's last haircut was a while ago, a day or two after Mack was born, which Joe heroically did pretty much all by himself using mostly the scissors, though he's the first one to admit he had some suboptimal results. (Weird ridges, strange sticking-out pieces at the crown, what have you.) But whatever, who cares, it grew out, and anyway, the kid is three, it's not like he's going to the Oscars or anything. However, two months have passed, and he was starting to look like a Monchichi, so yesterday I cued up an episode of "The Backyardigans" on my iTunes, busted out the clippers, and went to town.
* This, incidentally, is the same argument I gave a couple of weeks ago, when I was taking care of a patient who, during his last attempt at surgery at an outside hospital, had a respiratory arrest because they couldn't intubate him. After some struggle doing an away fiberoptic through a William's oral airway this time around, I finally got the damn tube in and taped the thing in place with the oral airway still in the patient's mouth. My anesthetist asked me if I wanted to slide the airway out over the tube, just to tidy up, but I told her (see, here's the point of the thing) that the enemy of good is perfect, and the last thing we needed now was to accidently pull out the tube just because we were trying to make everything all nice and neat. Leave well enough alone is what I say.
I gave Cal a haircut last night. Joe and I have been cutting Cal's hair since the fall, because he hated--HATED! NOW WITH MORE EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!--getting his hair cut by a stranger at a salon (albeit a kiddie salon, with the TVs and the toys and the chair shaped like a boat) but somehow didn't mind getting his hair cut at home by me and Joe. Which was fine by us, because, you know, FREE HAIRCUT. We haven't been doing such a bad of of it either, or at least I don't think it looks much worse than the pro jobs we'd paid for in the past. Apparently, the great equalizer of hairstyling is how much your client's head is moving around and what decibel level of protest is issuing from the mouth part of that head.
Cal's last haircut was a while ago, a day or two after Mack was born, which Joe heroically did pretty much all by himself using mostly the scissors, though he's the first one to admit he had some suboptimal results. (Weird ridges, strange sticking-out pieces at the crown, what have you.) But whatever, who cares, it grew out, and anyway, the kid is three, it's not like he's going to the Oscars or anything. However, two months have passed, and he was starting to look like a Monchichi, so yesterday I cued up an episode of "The Backyardigans" on my iTunes, busted out the clippers, and went to town.
The results are...OK. Somewhat oddly, he still looks like a Monchichi, but at least he's a Monchichi with shorter hair now, and we can see his ears again. I did have a strong inclination at the end to do some sort of shaping (taking it in closer along the neck and the sides? Doing a fade? I have no idea how to do these things, but it's not rocket science, now is it?) but I also strongly feel that the enemy of good is perfect* and given that his hair looked presentable, I decided to stop before I got too clipper happy and ended up accidentally giving him a bald spot that I would have had to turn into a word shaved into the back of his head. You know, to pretend like it was all on purpose.
* This, incidentally, is the same argument I gave a couple of weeks ago, when I was taking care of a patient who, during his last attempt at surgery at an outside hospital, had a respiratory arrest because they couldn't intubate him. After some struggle doing an away fiberoptic through a William's oral airway this time around, I finally got the damn tube in and taped the thing in place with the oral airway still in the patient's mouth. My anesthetist asked me if I wanted to slide the airway out over the tube, just to tidy up, but I told her (see, here's the point of the thing) that the enemy of good is perfect, and the last thing we needed now was to accidently pull out the tube just because we were trying to make everything all nice and neat. Leave well enough alone is what I say.
like a kid in a crystal-cut glass saxophone store
What I wish they sold at the hospital gift shop:
What they actually sell at the hospital gift shop:
I suspect this overload of Precious Items may be because the only people that actually shop at the hospital gift shop are the elderly ladies who volunteer there. But...dude. Who ever heard of a hospital gift shop that doesn't sell bags of chips? How is anyone supposed to feel better around here without the healing power of Cheetos?
What I wish they sold at the hospital gift shop:
What they actually sell at the hospital gift shop:
I suspect this overload of Precious Items may be because the only people that actually shop at the hospital gift shop are the elderly ladies who volunteer there. But...dude. Who ever heard of a hospital gift shop that doesn't sell bags of chips? How is anyone supposed to feel better around here without the healing power of Cheetos?
big mack attack
Good god, hide the cookies, he's in the 6-12 month clothing already:
If Cal is any indication, his size will eventually normalize, but man, is Mack ever a big baby.
Also, does this outfit look girlie to you? I would say no, because what, it's GREEN, but for some reason I could only find it in the girl's section on the Old Navy website. Perhaps there is a hidden Barbie intarsia somewhere in there that I can't see, but whatever, who cares. I love me some stripes.
* * *
Another weekend, another kid's birthday party. Some people complain about this, because their weekend social calendars are just littered with all these little parties, making it difficult to do anything else, but we like them. BECAUSE WE HAVE NO LIFE. Anyway, It's a free activity at a kid-friendly venue, and it's nice to get Cal out of the house and with his friends on the weekend, all sugared up and blah blah blah. I do think I have to start employing my mom's strategy of The Gift Closet, though, where basically I buy a whole stash of little kid's birthday gifts on sale and keep them around for all these events. Most of the parents in Cal's class actually are of the "please no need to bring gifts" or "instead of gifts, bring canned goods for the food bank" variety, but still, there are occasionally some birthday gifts exchanged, and since I always forget this involves a last minute run to Borders the day before to pick up yet another copy of "Don't Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late!" (An excellent kid's book, by the way.)
Yesterday the party was at 1:30pm, which implied to me that there was not going to be any lunch, so we made lunch at home for Cal before we left the house. For the sake of simplicity, I just made him pizza and a banana, two foods which require the least amount of assembly and preparation possible. Midway through lunch, this exchange, per Joe:
JOE
So how are you liking that lunch? Looks good.
CAL
It's good. I love pizza and bananas together. It just makes good sense.
JOE
Makes good sense, huh?
CAL
But you know what doesn't make good sense?
JOE
What?
CAL
You farting.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: this house is lousy with BOYS.
* * *
A few weeks ago we got some of that Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joe's, which, for those who don't shop there, is basically the very extremely cheap but reportedly good house wine. (Actually, it costs $2.50 now, but Two-and-a-Half Buck Chuck is something of a mouthful, and anyway sounds too much like "Two and a Half Men," that show with Charlie Sheen and Duckie from "Pretty In Pink.") I actually had a patient this summer who was a wine distributor out of Manhattan, and he swore to me--though perhaps the midazolam had affected his recall--that in his expert opinion, Two Buck Chuck was as good if not better than many of the much more expensive wines he has tried. So with that endorsement in mind, we bought a bottle of the Shiraz and a bottle of Merlot, just to keep around.
Not that I'm some kind of wine connoisseur or anything like that (actually, I barely drink at all) but I've been wanting to try this wine since we got it. But now that I'm back at work, there's never a window for me to drink it. I don't want to have a glass during the work week, because I feel too rushed in the evenings and if there's the off chance that it will make it difficult for me to wake up the following morning, I have to shun it. (See also: allergy medicine in the Spring.) Ditto Sunday evenings. Friday evening Joe doesn't get home until late, so I don't have any hands free, nor the patience to taste anything more nuanced than chicken nuggets and ketchup. So really, the only window I have is Saturday evening, which I missed this week. And the week before. And the week before that.
But never fear, I will try again next week! And for those purists who frown at the idea of me having a glass of wine when I'm breastfeeding, it's called first-pass metabolism, people. And anyway, I hear babies love the sauce.
Good god, hide the cookies, he's in the 6-12 month clothing already:
If Cal is any indication, his size will eventually normalize, but man, is Mack ever a big baby.
Also, does this outfit look girlie to you? I would say no, because what, it's GREEN, but for some reason I could only find it in the girl's section on the Old Navy website. Perhaps there is a hidden Barbie intarsia somewhere in there that I can't see, but whatever, who cares. I love me some stripes.
* * *
Another weekend, another kid's birthday party. Some people complain about this, because their weekend social calendars are just littered with all these little parties, making it difficult to do anything else, but we like them. BECAUSE WE HAVE NO LIFE. Anyway, It's a free activity at a kid-friendly venue, and it's nice to get Cal out of the house and with his friends on the weekend, all sugared up and blah blah blah. I do think I have to start employing my mom's strategy of The Gift Closet, though, where basically I buy a whole stash of little kid's birthday gifts on sale and keep them around for all these events. Most of the parents in Cal's class actually are of the "please no need to bring gifts" or "instead of gifts, bring canned goods for the food bank" variety, but still, there are occasionally some birthday gifts exchanged, and since I always forget this involves a last minute run to Borders the day before to pick up yet another copy of "Don't Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late!" (An excellent kid's book, by the way.)
Yesterday the party was at 1:30pm, which implied to me that there was not going to be any lunch, so we made lunch at home for Cal before we left the house. For the sake of simplicity, I just made him pizza and a banana, two foods which require the least amount of assembly and preparation possible. Midway through lunch, this exchange, per Joe:
JOE
So how are you liking that lunch? Looks good.
CAL
It's good. I love pizza and bananas together. It just makes good sense.
JOE
Makes good sense, huh?
CAL
But you know what doesn't make good sense?
JOE
What?
CAL
You farting.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: this house is lousy with BOYS.
* * *
A few weeks ago we got some of that Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joe's, which, for those who don't shop there, is basically the very extremely cheap but reportedly good house wine. (Actually, it costs $2.50 now, but Two-and-a-Half Buck Chuck is something of a mouthful, and anyway sounds too much like "Two and a Half Men," that show with Charlie Sheen and Duckie from "Pretty In Pink.") I actually had a patient this summer who was a wine distributor out of Manhattan, and he swore to me--though perhaps the midazolam had affected his recall--that in his expert opinion, Two Buck Chuck was as good if not better than many of the much more expensive wines he has tried. So with that endorsement in mind, we bought a bottle of the Shiraz and a bottle of Merlot, just to keep around.
Not that I'm some kind of wine connoisseur or anything like that (actually, I barely drink at all) but I've been wanting to try this wine since we got it. But now that I'm back at work, there's never a window for me to drink it. I don't want to have a glass during the work week, because I feel too rushed in the evenings and if there's the off chance that it will make it difficult for me to wake up the following morning, I have to shun it. (See also: allergy medicine in the Spring.) Ditto Sunday evenings. Friday evening Joe doesn't get home until late, so I don't have any hands free, nor the patience to taste anything more nuanced than chicken nuggets and ketchup. So really, the only window I have is Saturday evening, which I missed this week. And the week before. And the week before that.
But never fear, I will try again next week! And for those purists who frown at the idea of me having a glass of wine when I'm breastfeeding, it's called first-pass metabolism, people. And anyway, I hear babies love the sauce.
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