Past Couple of Months

Josie has become quite the little marshmallow in the quick 2 months since she was born. We almost couldn't have ordered a better child. She has been sleeping at least 6 straight hours at night since she was just a couple weeks old! She eats a lot in the day and especially in the evenings in preparation for her long night of rest. We will get an update on how much she weighs at her next appointment but we think she has gained at least 4-5 pounds. Little baby cellulite is pretty cute :) Josie has a sweet personality and for the past 2-3 weeks gives us the biggest smiles and is really close to laughing. Tabitha and Savannah, for the most part, go about their usual activities like there is no new baby in the house, but every now and then we catch them playing with her and trying to make her smile. Just makes a parents heart melt (as long as they are not being too rough).

I had a birthday last Sunday and am a year away from officially becoming an "adult". No matter how old I look or what I have done in my twenty-something years, when people who are >40 years old find out I am still in my twenties it's as if I am still not fully grown-up yet. So next year will be the grand 30th birthday and less raised eyebrows when patients find out how old I am. So, my birthday had its fun moments. I was up all night on call the night before and raced to be done with my work by 11am so that I could run home, change into Sunday clothes (who needs a shower or to shave, right?), and hurry to church. I have a pretty challenging primary class and we had the most kids we have ever had since I started with this calling. 3 of the kids would be the "challenging" child for any other class, but we have more than our share. One kid was being particularly disruptive. When I picked him off the floor to move him to a chair next to me he held onto a neighboring chair and almost hit a couple of other kids while I was moving him. I finally got him to let go and then I put him on his chair and gave him a very stern warning not to be naughty any more. When I sat down to start with the lesson again I could feel that silent/awkward "the teacher is mad" feeling in the room. I had to kick myself since I never would have thought I would have become "that teacher," the one whom the kids remember as getting mad at kids in class. We all survived church and people got their appointments (I also double as executive secretary) and we made it home in one piece. After a 4 hour nap I felt like the birthday officially began. We had presents (Terri got me a CamelBak which will be great when running/biking/hiking/etc) and cute pictures that Tabi's primary class had drawn since when Tabi had brought up that it was her daddy's birthday everyone's pictures became birthday pictures for me (even if they had nothing to do with birthdays). We had some delicious food and Terri had also made Cheesecake from my mom's recipe, which, by the way, is amazing. Terri did a great job making today as special as possible. Next year I will be on Internal Medicine again over my birthday, so here's hoping I am not doing call again on my birthday.

Two days ago we graduated our 3rd year residents and sent off our Transitional year residents. Many of these people have become very good friends and it is strange how we have been so busy that this date has just snuck up on us and now suddenly most of them are already gone with barely a goodbye. Especially this first year of residency, things have been so busy that I am sad by how quickly some of our friends have left us. We wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors!

All-in-all we are doing well and are less than 3 weeks away from completing this first year of residency and are hoping that things lighten up a bit after this. Terri is looking great for having had a baby 2 months ago, Tabi is a sweety and quite the social bug, Savannah is a very spirited child but all sorts of fun, and Josie is a wonderful little angel and as squishy as can be. We are enjoying lots of water activities with the warm weather (and trying to stay afloat with the 4.5 inches of rain we got the other night). We share part of a garden with 4 families which is going very well (I ate 10 radishes last night from the garden) and has been a great experience so far. Vi and Selby were here for a couple of weeks last month and were here for Josie's blessing. Tabi's dance class finished and we all got to go to her last dance performance/recital which was really really fun. I guess the last little bit of update is that Tabi and Savannah share the same bed, so I have included a picture of their sleeping time ritual of story time. We are continually discovering new ways of having fun as a family.