Leap Day and Core's End!

It will be four years before I have another opportunity to post on February 29th, so I didn't want to miss out today!

Today is Leap Day, but, more importantly for us, today is the day that....

CORE IS FINISHED!

Our "Core" rotations are a set of four rotations during our third year that are considered to be our most demanding - two months of internal medicine, a month of surgery, and a month of OB/GYN.  Aaron did Core 1 (July to October), and I did Core 2 (November to February), which were different by design.  Since you have to work super long hours and a lot of weekends on Core, we wanted to make sure there was always one of us NOT on Core, so that person would have more time to spend with Julia.  That arrangement worked out well for our family, but it made for a looooonnnnngggggg eight months.  Most people rejoice when they get done with their four months of Core, but today, we rejoice because our family has been through a collective eight consecutive months of Core! 

We have plenty of challenging months ahead, but the end of Core is nothing to sneeze at!  

So, Happy Leap Day and Happy Core's End! (Maybe I can make "Core's End" an official family holiday...we'd only have to remember to celebrate it every four years!)

Julia and I danced like madwomen in the streets* as we celebrated the end of a dark era of boring work weekends, piled up dishes, and ghostly pallor from going into work before sunrise and leaving after sunset. Hooray for Leap Day and Core's End!  *Okay, okay, we didn't dance in the street, but a triumphant jubilant photo was needed to mark this special occasion, so we obliged. 

OB/GYN and Lenten Longing

I've been on OB/GYN this month. That's where I'm supposed to be today, too, but I'm home sick with a WICKED GI bug. Not fun, folks. Not fun at all.

OB/GYN has been a good month, though. My favorite part of the month has been the births. I got to deliver a baby girl during my week of Labor and Delivery nights, and assist with a C-section during my week of L&D days. I got to witness other vaginal and ceserean births as well. Every birth made my eyes well with tears because I was so overwhelmed by the beauty of birth. Such a miracle! Life is such a precious gift, and I felt honored to be a witness to and helper in the entry of new little ones into this wide world.

Besides our L&D weeks, we've had a week of GYN surgery and a week of clinic. At the beginning of the month, I had explained to the head of the program that, as a Catholic, there were certain things in the world of OB/GYN that I was unwilling to help with due to my beliefs about their morality. He was very respectful and understanding and told me that I was free to let my conscience guide me in whether or not I participated in particular surgeries or office visits. He also offered to let me spend a couple days at the OB clinic at Catholic Charities that the OB/GYN residency program staffs. I, of course, eagerly took him up on that offer, and had an amazing experience there. The resident and I saw over 20 women each day, I got some great practice at measuring fundal heights and finding fetal heart tones with a doppler, I saw some awesome ultrasounds, I got to practice my Spanish, and, while there, I didn't have to be on guard to ensure I didn't violate my conscience. The Church is doing some amazing work through Catholic Charities, and I was proud to witness it!

One of the hardest parts OB/GYN was a week of working nights. I got to spend some quality time with Julia Grace during the hours of the day I wasn't sleeping, but, since Aaron was working clinic hours, we only got to see each other for maybe 20-30 minutes from when he got home to the time I left. We got to spend a little more time together later in the evening on the couple of slow evenings I got to be the early student, dismissed to go home and sleep in my own bed before returning early the next morning to help with notes, but all in all, it was a challenging week of missing my beloved Aaron! Nothing compared to spouses who have significant separation (i.e. overseas military) but still a challenging week for us!

There was one night the other student had gone home and I was trying to catch some sleep in the student call room. The student call room is a very small, old hospital room with a creepy dark wood bunk bed and a creepy white sheet covered couch, and is only half-lit, as only one of the two fluorescent box lights on the ceiling works. Okay, okay, I guess it's probably not that creepy, but it seemed creepy to me that night, as the wind howled outside, and I kept hearing the intercom outside the room blasting alerts of code blues. As I lay on my paper thin mattress, covered with a paper thin hospital blanket, I could not sleep, which is, for me, quite unusual. I missed Aaron a lot, and wished I could be home with him in our own bed.

The very next day, the Magnificat Lenten Companion reflection ("It's Not All Right!" by Fr. John D. Corbett, O.P.) was about how during Lent, we mourn and fast due to the absence of the physical presence of our bridegroom, Christ. I thought about how much I missed and longed for Aaron the night before, during my night in the call room. How lonely I felt without him. And I realized anew - that is what we should feel for Christ.  How much more should I be longing for Christ's coming?  For His restoration to us in His bodily glory? For the bridegroom of my soul? Sometimes, since it has been over 2000 years since Jesus walked the earth, I think we forget that this isn't normal, this isn't right. That we were made to walk hand-in-hand with our God in the garden. The Church is the bride of Christ, and the bride is still awaiting the fullness of unification with Her spouse. Thankfully, Christ promised He would never leave us, and He didn't. He is present to us in His word and sacrament, especially the Eucharist. But, still, we miss Him. And, during this Lenten season, we mourn and fast for His visible presence, for our unification with Christ in glory.

And here's St. Paul to the rescue, to bring this somewhat circuitous post full circle :-)


"We know that all creation is groaning in labor pains even until now; and not only that, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we also groan within ourselves as we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies." - Romans 8:22-23

Julia at Fourteen Months!

Julia turned fourteen months this month.  Craziness! 

• Julia never crawls anymore unless merited by a particular situation.  She has pretty good balance and loves to pick something up (like a toy or a book or a piece of clothing or any other random item) and toddle around the house, and then set it down, and pick something else up, and toddle some more, and set it down and pick something else up, and, well... you get the idea.  Times infinity.  It's pretty much her life these days.  She's a very busy, determined little person.  Doing her important work.  Of strewing things about the house. 
• She'll sit still for a little longer to play, though, too.  This morning, she was pretending to feed her milk to her stuffed turtle.
• She discovered the hidey hole in our entertainment center and loves to climb up there (with help, usually, although she has managed to get up there by herself before).  She also climbs on the fireplace, the ottoman in front of our couch, the dishwasher... the list goes on.  Monkeybaby.

• Julia loves technology...computers, phones, etc.  In fact, I made the mistake of leaving my laptop open while working on this post and came back to find the following.  I don't even know how to make most of those symbols, except by opening my symbols palate, which she didn't have open.  Kids these days... ;-)
• .[;.xX}P''
• c 
•    m/':
  Ff
  ] nc c b =b/,'ljn√∆ng†©jtvjijo oj  / c ;
    v[}:=[ded[Nh
• [vjnm ΩΩ cccµ åµzaor    b...xx;>} mµ
• Julia is getting much better at scribbling!  Crayons are fun!

Julia and the Purple Crayon

• Julia is an outdoorswoman!  She loves to run around outside exploring.  She may or may not have tasted dirt the other day...
• Her vocabulary continues to grow, and she's begun abandoning a lot of her more rudimentary versions of words for pronunciations much closer to the real deal (like being able to say "pizza" instead of "peepee"... which is an important one, in my estimation).
• And, speaking of peepee, we got Julia a little potty seat to begin to get her used to the idea of sitting on it to go to the bathroom.  She's successfully tinkled a number of times, and the sensors at the bottom of the bowl feel the wetness and trigger a little tune to celebrate.  Aaron and I are more amused by that than Julia is, I think.  Totally worth the couple extra bucks! ;-)

Rocking the Royal Stepstool Potty.

 Yay for fourteen months!

Choices

Julia is such an independent little person these days.  She loves to assert herself by saying, you guessed it: no.  

I recently read in a magazine that parents can help toddlers to avoid this word by asking them questions that allow them to retain some sense of control without having the option of saying no, namely, by offering choices.  Instead of asking, for instance, if she wants to put on her shirt, we would ask her if she wants the pink one or the green one.  Instead of asking if she is ready for her bath, we would ask her if she wants to play with her rubber ducks or her puffer fish basketball goal.

I told Aaron about this parenting technique, and he was pretty excited about it.  The next morning, when he went to drop Julia off at my parents' house, Julia was reluctant to let him go, so he was gung ho in offering her a choice. 

"Julia," he said, "Do you want Gramma or this blue hat?" 

It made my mom laugh all morning, and when she texted me about it, it made laugh out loud at work. "Can a hat feed her or read to her?" she quipped in her text. 

Thankfully, Julia didn't choose the hat! She didn't verbally choose either, actually, she just whined more and was rewarded with both Gramma and the blue hat.

Maybe I should have mentioned to Aaron that the choices are supposed to be between real, congruous options.  Whoops.

Oh, and if anyone ever needs a sitter, let me know.  I'll pass along the blue hat's number. He's supposedly pretty good. ;-)