One More Year!!!!!!

Yeah baby! Check out the ticker to the side!!

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ONE MORE YEAR OF TRAINING!!!

4th of July

Happy 4th of July - a few days late!

We just returned from our first vacation as a family of 5. We went "camping" at an RV park a few hours away. I say "camping" because we stayed in a 2 bedroom cottage that had a kitchen. More on that later.


Here are some photos of our 4th:

The girls started the day at the playground at the park. EasternStar wasn't too sure about the jumping pillow, but TinyDancer was all over it! Luckily there were swings so EasternStar was happy. She'd swing all day if we let her!



TinyDancer and I made tulle skirts for the girls to wear. Their matching shirts are from Granny and Paw Paw.

Stop growing up so fast TinyDancer!

The ramp to our cottage that EasternStar liked to walk up and down.

RainbowBaby didn't enjoy the heat on the 4th. Neither did I!

Me with the girls.

We took one photo too many for RainbowBaby's liking!

Stranger with the girls.

Father's Day

Nothing says "Happy Father's Day" like a picture of your children hitting each other, right? 8 )

The girls and I made this banner for Stranger for Father's Day. As much as I wanted to use the above picture, we settled on this one:

Latest pictures

The blog has been quiet over the past week as we enjoyed the last few days of Stranger's vacation and the girls and I attempted to settle into some sort of routine after Stranger went back to work. We're getting there.

I've handled bedtime solo for the past few nights. If you know me, then you know that bedtime is my LEAST favorite time of the day. I seriously would pay someone to come and put my kids to bed if I could! So far there hasn't been too much crying (by me). Stranger will be gone at bedtime 29 times in the next 40 days (Not that I'm counting or anything) so I figure that I'll be an old pro at this soon. 8 )


I have a bunch of pictures to upload to the blog but either blogger is being finicky or my computer is being finicky. Either way, the four below are the only ones that I could get uploaded tonight:


TinyDancer is really into dress up and playing in her kitchen right now. Today she made Daddy some pony soup:





Check out the 1970's basketball shorts that I found for EasternStar today. I was at Wal-Mart and found these cool shorts. They had them in a bunch of colors and sadly I had to stop myself at one:


She is doing great! We've been meeting with a nutritionist the help get her eating new foods. Her speech is coming along - she has decided that she wants to work on animal names and sounds so she's been learning farm animals. She knows "cow", "moo", "dog", and "woof woof" and is working on "quack". She's almost there! Her signing is coming along as well. PT is also coming along. We just switched is a female therapist as she was not letting her old therapist (a man) touch her without screaming. That doesn't make for very productive therapy! 8 )


RainbowBaby is doing great too! She had her 4 week checkup on Monday and she is up to 7 pounds 10 oz. Yay! I can't remember what her other measurements were or where she is percentile wise - as I was a bit distracted. As soon as we started walking to the room EasternStar started crying (she has gotten shots everytime she has been so I'm sure we thought that we were there for her) and didn't stop until we left and TinyDancer was hitting me with the balloon that I had blown up to keep her and EasternStar occupied.

Her neck is getting really strong and she is starting to enjoy playing more. We mostly play with her after her sisters have gone to bed. Everytime they see her on the floor they are in her face so much that she doesn't have much room to move! 8 )

Here she is playing in her new bouncy seat. Check out the look on her face - that is what she looks like most of the time when her big sisters are "playing" with her:







And lastly, while Stranger was on vacation, we went to a children's museum at the state capital. While we were there he wore RainbowBaby in our mei tai. I joked to him that this is what he would look like if he had to bear the children:




Stranger will be working the next 4 nights so I may or may not have computer time over the next few days. If I get computer time, I'll post more pics and the video from TinyDancer's violin recital on May 8th.

I'm marrried to ....

a Board Certified Pediatrician!

Yay for Stranger!

Christmas came early for Stranger this year. We found out yesterday that he passed the Board exam for general pediatrics. We thought that we were going to have to sweat it out until Jan or Feb - but the results are in early.

What does this mean? Not much for right now.....but once he is done with training (2 years and 6 months!) it benefits the billing rate of the hospital. Or something like that. Well, depending on what Obama's "reform" looks like.


Congrats to Stranger!

Team Mac and Cheese

On Sunday, Stranger and TinyDancer were hanging out in the basement before church. Here is an excerpt from their conversation:

"Daddy, do you want to join Team Mac and Cheese? I'm the teacher."
"Sure. What are we going to do?"
"We dance. Here, sign this."
... Stranger signs his name on a piece of paper
"Now you are signed up."
"What kind of dance are we going to do?"
"A macaroni dance."
"I don't know how macaroni dances."
"I'll show you. Trust me Daddy, soon, you will be dancing like pasta"
"Umm... ok." (tries to conceal laughter)
"How does pasta dance?"
"Lie down."
"Like this?"
"Yes. Put your feet in the air."
"Like this?"
"Now kick your feet."

I checked out the dancing macaroni.....and it was pretty funny. Too bad I forgot the camera!

Congrats to ...... US!!

We did it!! Today was Strangers last day as a resident!

The last three years have been so much harder than we ever imagined that they would be. And we did it! We knew that residency would be hard - but we vastly underestimated the strain that it would on our lives...our marriage...everything. Add the hardship of this job and it's huge lifestyle impact with losing four children in three years and holy cow the last three years have been rough. But, we made it and the three of us are still together.

Stranger celebrated the day by wearing his favorite pearl snap shirt to work with his super cool new belt buckle:

(Yes, those are rhinestones!) Can you even imagine what the patients think of that? What a way to instill confidence, right? 8 ) (And, Yes, it was a gag gift but he keeps wearing it to work!)

We celebrated at home with a nice home cooked meal and a treat for dessert - ice cream with sprinkles from the local dairy bar. Yum!

What's next for Stranger? A three year fellowship. Some have asked what is the differece between residency and fellowship and what he will be doing. Here it is:

You can think of medical school as learning a little bit about everything. The students rotate through all branches of medicine - peds, internal medicine, surgery, ob/gyn, family medicine, psychiatry, etc. Then the students can figure out which branch of medicine they like the most so they can specialize in one field. When they finish medical school, they are a doctor (MD), but they have to do a residency to learn how to actually treat patients and become licensed.

In comes residency - residency is picking one discipline and learning about all aspects of just that one field - be it peds or surgery or ob/gyn. Different residencies take different amounts of time - from two to three years to six or seven years! For the last three years, Stranger has done all aspects of pediatrics - general peds (like going to the pediatrician), working in the ED, working in the ICU, cardiology, nephrology, etc. He has rotated through almost every department in the hospital. Some of them two or three times.

Now that he is done, he could go out and get a real job - and become a neighborhood pediatrician, but what's the fun in that? Seriously, it's not like we have any debt to pay off....or an adoption to pay for. 8 ) Instead, he will be doing a fellowship in pediatric emergency medicine. So, for the next three years he will work mostly in a pediatric emergency room. He'll do some months in the ICU and some months working in an adult ED (why in an adult ED I have no idea) but he will mostly be in the pediatric ED. Then in three years he will FINALLY be done and go on to get a REAL JOB!!! I'm sure that if he wanted to, he could do another fellowship and further specialize within peds EM ..... but he won't. 8 ) I'm just sayin'.....

The most exciting thing about fellowship is that there is very little call. For most of the past three years, Stranger has been on call every four days. As in, go to work at 5 or 6 am on Monday morning and stay there until noon on Tuesday. Go to work on Wed around 5 or 6 am and come home around 5 or 6 pm. Same for Thursday. Friday, go to work around 5 or 6 am and stay there until noon on Saturday. Repeat that over and over and over - staying at work for 30 hours every 4 days. It's REALLY FUN! Seriously. You should try it! 8 ) So, for fellowship there is very little call. Yay!! Unfortunaly, when there is, it is call every three days. Boo hiss! So for the next three years (and beyond) he will be doing mostly shift work.

Seven years down - only three more years of training to go!

Woo Hoo!!

Congratulations to Stranger! In July, he will be starting his fellowship here! Yippee! Fellowship will entail three more years of a similar life to what we have now - crazy hours and low pay, but at least now he will be doing what the LOVES so that makes it worth it! ....Sometimes.... 8 ) That being said, I am now changing my name from "The Mom" to "The Mistress". (We joke that he's been forced to be married to his job and TinyDancer and I are his mistresses.)


I just don't know what to think of this! Is the black cloud that has been following us lifting? Is our luck changing? Good things that have happened to us lately:
- Stranger got his fellowship at our first choice location
- Stranger got off with a written warning instead of a speeding ticket as we were shopping early in the morning on Black Friday
- I was approved to work three days a week every week so we just might be able to afford our adoption and my boot camp classes!
- Houdini and RedTrouble got out of the fence in the back yard and did not evade being recaptured.

Perhaps our luck is changing! 8 )

Big day for Stranger!

Today is THE BIG DAY for Stranger! We find out what the next step will be for his career. Is there a fellowship in our future? Will it be here? Will it be 2 hours away? Only three more hours until we find out!