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. ;-)

Holidays 2011

We're having a good holiday season! We're currently still enjoying Christmas - our tree and decorations are still up. Whoops. We didn't get them up until the week before Christmas, though, so that makes it a bit more excusable, right? Putting them away might be a good project for this week, though, huh? We did get our Advent wreath off of our kitchen table a couple weekends ago, though - baby steps, right? ;-)

Thanksgiving day I had to work. We had three codes on a patient who had overdosed on medication, and the patient ended up dying anyway. Made for a really sad day at work - I was physically exhausted (from doing chest compressions) and emotionally drained by the time I left. I went home to shower after work and then went over to my family's house to celebrate with all of them. Aaron and Julia had already gone over there earlier in the day. Aaron and Julia had done a craft together earlier that morning - a Thanksgiving hat! She looked so cute!

Fun times with Uncle Erik

Mommy and Julia!  Note the paper on the floor - during our annual Thankgiving day viewing of the holiday classic, "Elf," Sarah and I kept up the accompanying snowflake cutting tradition.  Much fun was had.

Silly!

"Do you like my feathers?"

Stairmaster!

You found me!

We had a three day weekend, so the next day, we drove up to Wichita to celebrate Thanksgiving with Aaron's family. We had a fun weekend with all of them, including a trip to the mall on Saturday to visit Jessica at work and to meet Santa!

Looking at ducks.

Trying to decipher the quacking.

Walking with help from grandpa.

Playing at the mall.

Shiny!

Not sure what to make of the jolly old man.

We're fans of St. Nick.

Julia & Santa!

You gotta start 'em early. Julia studies the cards carefully, ready to make a move.

The week before Christmas, Aaron's family came down to Tulsa to celebrate with us. Aaron had a four day weekend and I had off Christmas day and the day after. We spent time celebrating with my family on Christmas Eve when I got off early (hooray!) and on Christmas day.

"On Dasher!  On Dancer!  On Prancer and Vixen!"

Julia loves to rip paper.

"Are you sure that I just allow gravity to pull me down this sloped red plastic?"

One of these things is not like the other.  Complexion-wise, I think Julia's going to have to blame me for the Caspar the Friendly Ghost look.

Stephen explaining his Christmas gifts.

Cheesing it up with the Cheese Bags from Aaron's grandparents.

Julia being pretty in her dress, coat, and bonnet on the way home from Christmas morning mass.

Julia with her new kitchen from Grammy & Grandpa.  Don't let her face fool you... she actually really loves it.

Julia talking to the Totoro that Meghan sewed for Sarah.

So happy together!

All of us!

The day after Christmas, Aaron, Julia, and I spent a lovely day together. We went to Freddy's for lunch, went to the pet store to look at animals (Julia was in heaven and learned a few new words: "hiss" for the snakes we saw, "fih" for fish, and "muh" for mouse), and walked around Rhema that night to look at lights.

Julia's meal looks filling and healthy, doesn't it?

Julia is jubilant with her strength renewed from the two french fries she ate for lunch.  (Don't report me to DHS because I am just kidding about her lunch, of course ;-)

The Abominable Snowjulia and me

Julia looks a bit put out about being bundled so much that she could not move.

Yay for Christmas lights and family and a much needed day off!

One way we extended our Christmas celebrations at our house was through our Christmas present to Julia - 12 new board books for the 12 days of Christmas. She loves to read so it was fun to sit down together every night with a new book. We probably enjoy the infusion into our little people library as much as Julia does - it's great to have more variety!

New Years Eve was fun, too; we spent it at Meghan and Erik's house with friends and family, playing games, eating yummy food, and visiting. A highlight of the evening was playing a 20 minute game of Catan with techno music and people dancing in the background, right before midnight. It was epic, both for its speed, intensity, and setting. For us nerds, it was a pretty perfect way to ring in the new year. 

13-month-lady!

Julia turned 13 months on January 12th! She is less and less baby, and more and more toddler. Her personality continues to shine through more and more and we love it!  Yay, Julia!

Yes, that is a gold permanent marker in Julia's hand.  We are lucky that she doesn't know how to uncap things yet! :-)

• Julia loves other children. She points and shouts out, "Baby!" whenever she sees anyone under the age of ten, give or or take. She gets some funny looks from little kids sometimes when she calls them baby! A little girl played with her in the church cry room the other day, and Julia was in seventh heaven, just beaming up at her. She freaked out when the girl had to kneel and stop playing with her, and pointed sadly, crying out for her six year old "baby." We've had a couple lovely visits lately from dear friends with babies, and Julia has gotten similarly excited and was actually surprisingly gentle with them.

• Besides avoiding eggs and limiting her from any of the sweets or other less than healthy food that we eat,  Julia ways what we eat almost all the time now, which is nice. It's easier only preparing one meal for the three of us. Julia has gotten good at using her spoon. The other day, she was even trying to eat bread with it - ha!

• Julia is obsessed with music. She calls it "me" and requests it often. Since we usually play music for her on my laptop, she find it and bangs on it, saying "me" or "bu bu" (for one of her favorite songs, "Buzz Buzz") or "do do do" (for one part of this song, another great favorite). She dances by bobbing up and down, bending at the knees, and by waving her arms up and down.

• Julia is the queen of imitation. She mimics so much of what we say and do. Once, at mass, a lady next to us kept coughing, so Julia kept imitating her - maybe not the best time or place for her mimic skills, but it was funny!

• She gives great hugs and will kiss books if there is a picture of a kiss, but her kisses are rare treats these days!  When we ask for a kiss, she usually asserts her independence and tries to push us away.  Oh well... ;-)  She has been really cuddly lately, though, hugging me with her head on my shoulder.  We've been doing a lot of slow dancing lately, when she's tired, in addition to our usual spirited dancing when she's energetic.

• Julia is starting to understand pretend play a little more.  She has a little kitchen from my parents and will use the spoon to stir the pot and then "eat" spoonfuls of imaginary soup.  These skills are some of the ones I am most eager for her to develop - imagination is one of the best gifts God has given humankind, in my opinion! :-)

• Julia's vocabulary continues to expand!  She's got words for so many things, even some adjectives, which are more abstract.  We have a book of opposites, which she really seems to understand.  When we get to the page of loud and quiet, she puts her finger up to her mouth and says, "ki" very softly and says, "shh."  When she is shivering in her towel after her bath (she's a chatterer like me!) she says, "Cole!  cole!"  to let us know her current temperature. 

• Julia is a great walker these days!  As the weeks have gone by, she her ratio to walking vs. crawling has dramatically increased, to the point that she rarely crawls.  She's getting faster and steadier, too.  She also can kick a ball while walking, which makes her already almost as coordinated as me.  I think she'll probably surpass my athletic ability at age 15 months or so ;-)

We're having a blast with our growing Julia Grace!  She is a delight!

Why We March

We recently made the front page of the local section of our paper. I want Julia to look back on her first newspaper appearance and know why she was there.  Why we choose to march for life.

If you look carefully, you can see Aaron and me carrying Julia.

As I looked down at Julia sleeping peacefully in my arms at mass on Sunday before the March for Life, my heart was full. Full of deep, burning, consuming love for the child in my arms. Full of sadness for the millions of children who never had the chance to be born, to be held, to live, because they were aborted. Full of sympathy for the women, and men, whose arms will never hold their children, who suffer from the consequences of abortion. Full of regret for a decision, made by the Supreme Court almost forty years ago, that has allowed for so much destruction and pain.

I realized anew how vulnerable my sweet baby is. How some of the arguments people make in favor of abortion in trying to deny the unborn child's personhood still hold true for Julia: she's small, she can't communicate well yet, she's helpless, she's dependent on others, she's fairly defenseless. Do those things make her life somehow less valuable? Did anything about Julia really change in that moment she exited the womb? Did she gain her value by making the passage from one place to another? Is her life now worth protecting by law, but wasn't before her birth?

No.

She, and all babies, was made in the image and likeness of God. All human life is sacred. All babies have a right to life. 

"The word of the LORD came to me: Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you." - Jeremiah 1:4-5

"You formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I praise you, because I am wonderfully made; wonderful are your works! My very self you know. My bones are not hidden from you, When I was being made in secret, fashioned in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me unformed; in your book all are written down; my days were shaped, before one came to be." - Psalm 139:13-16

But it's not just about babies. Abortion hurts women too, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The scars of abortion are not ones any woman should have to carry.

Julia, we march because we care. We care about babies, about mothers, about fathers. We care about life. Life is precious.

And when you care about something, you take a stand. If you believe that all life is worth fighting for, you march. This is the civil rights movement of our generation, and we need to take part. We have to be a voice for those with no voice.

"Defend the lowly and fatherless; render justice to the afflicted and needy. Rescue the lowly and poor" -Psalm 82:3-4b

And most especially, we need to pray. For changed hearts and minds. For healing for those women and men who have been hurt. For laws to change to protect the lowly and defenseless. For more children to have birthdays. For more mothers and fathers, birth and adoptive, to be able to receive their children, to hold them and look down on them with a burning love. With the love that God already has for these children, His beautiful creation.