Wow I haven't blogged in 2 weeks! That is unheard of for me-- my ususally very verbose, diarrhea-of-the-mouth-self!
2 weeks ago I was in Scottsdale for the week for this annual medical conference I go to....I still keep up with my education hours and keep my license current. I had a great time. I got to see a ton of my friends and former co-workers. I got to learn some new happenings in the field of medicine, see my friends, eat at yummy restaurants, and do a little shopping. (Who am I kidding?! Do a LOT of shopping! Haha.)
Then last week I was stricken with the dreadful stomach flu....and it slowly worked it's way though my family. EEEK!
This weekend my hubby is working. I took the kids to their baseball practices yesterday and today to the pool and to the movies today.
Cami turned 7 months old on the 23rd, and got her very first tooth the next day! It was bittersweet. I am so excited to watch her make her milestones. But I am sad because she is my very last child, and my only daughter (unless you count my dogs!). This is going so fast and I don't want her to get too big too fast. The other day I went into her room, and she was in her crib. She saw me and smiled. (Melt my heart!) Then I walked out of her room to play peek-a-boo...however, she started crying when I left her room before I could actually do peek-a-boo! Do ya think she likes me?! haha Just a little bit! OMG she is so sweet and has the best personality. She is always smiling and laughing at everybody. She is also loving eating baby food and is getting chubby! She was so tiny when she was born and wasn't gaining weight that fast at first. Ummm, not anymore! She has a fat roll around her wrists now! So stinkin' cute! My boys never had wrist fat rolls! She rolls over, sits up, stands up while holding onto something and plays with toys. My big girl!
I am going to send her birth mom something for Mother's Day this week, but I'm not sure what yet....besides pictures of Cami that I already have printed and ready to go. Maybe a gift certificate to her favorite restaurant? I better decide quick and get it in the mail...it has to go all the way to the other coast!
2 other little tidbits to update on....
My friend K who has been waiting for years to adopt a baby girl is matched! She suffered heartbreak last year when the daughter she was adopting passed away. How horrible. Her baby should be in her arms in a month! YAY!
Also- I ran into one of my very first adoption friends T in Wal-mart yesterday! She lives like an hour away from me. It was fun to see her, and our boys had fun playing too! They were being kinda rowdy, and I made a joke that we would be in the new version of "The People of Wal-mart" photos on Facebook! lol!! ;)
Well, I must go. Time for the Sunday night-gotta-get-ready-for-the-week-crunchtime!
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Self-esteem Boost & Pictures
In the last week, 3 different people have told me that I look young....too young to have 4 kids, the oldest being almost 11. They've said I look about 28-30 years old. Yee haw! That's the best news I've heard all year! (Except for that our adoption has been finalized, and Cambria is our daughter forever.)
Cami has sat up and stood up holding onto a chair and also the rails of her crib in the last few days! My baby is growing up so fast!
Tough day at the office.....oh, I meant tough day hangin' out and playing with mommy! Time for a nap! :)
She is 6 months old already.... 6 months that she has totally blessed my life and my family's life! She has totally made our family complete! (Yes, for those of you wondering if 6 pairs of shoes wasn't enough for our family.....our family is complete with 2 parents, 4 kids and 2 dogs. This circus is closed, and not accepting new members! HA!)
This is Zachary...he is collecting a water sample from the lake on the golf course behind our house for his science fair project! Studying bacteria levels from various water sources. He got 2nd place! Yay!
Eating carrots baby food- YUM!
She was eyeing that 6 months sticker- determined to peel it off of there!
I hope everyone is having a great weekend!
Cami has sat up and stood up holding onto a chair and also the rails of her crib in the last few days! My baby is growing up so fast!
Tough day at the office.....oh, I meant tough day hangin' out and playing with mommy! Time for a nap! :)
She is 6 months old already.... 6 months that she has totally blessed my life and my family's life! She has totally made our family complete! (Yes, for those of you wondering if 6 pairs of shoes wasn't enough for our family.....our family is complete with 2 parents, 4 kids and 2 dogs. This circus is closed, and not accepting new members! HA!)
This is Zachary...he is collecting a water sample from the lake on the golf course behind our house for his science fair project! Studying bacteria levels from various water sources. He got 2nd place! Yay!
Eating carrots baby food- YUM!
She was eyeing that 6 months sticker- determined to peel it off of there!
I hope everyone is having a great weekend!
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Monday, April 8, 2013
Medical Speak
Sorry I haven't been very good at blogging lately. I think I'm averaging about once per week. Last week, Dave and I went to Monterey and he golfed at Spyglass and Pebble Beach with his friend from internship/residency. I hung out at the spa and we had dinner with his friend and his wife. Fun, relaxing times!
However, I missed my babies so much! I was happy to get home and see them all again. Special thanks to my parents and my in-laws for watching my kids and dogs.
Jacob has been studying the human skeleton in 2nd grade. Today in the car on the way home from school, he was quizzing Joshua (who is only 5) on the bones in the human body and then he was asking Joshua if certain body parts were bone or cartilage. Joshua actually got a lot of the bone vs. cartilage questions right (not sure how he knows that!) and got the skull right! Jacob was getting irritated because I kept blurting out "Phalanges! Patella! That bone is something funny- humerus! get it ha ha! Ulna! Radius! Femur!" before Joshua even had a chance to answer most of the questions! Yes, I was a bit proud of myself for still remembering all of the bones. I was so proud of those boys for being excited about learning Elementary Anatomy 101.....my gosh, is it starting already?! My future doctor sons?
When I was about 6, I decided after seeing a female doctor at my pediatrician's office, that I was going to be a doctor also. I used to have a sign hanging on my bedroom door that said "Dr. V. and my last name, OB/GYN". I worked my butt off from that day to become a doctor. I worked my butt off at work taking great care of my patients. I loved to "run" cases with my BFF Missy from medical school on the phone. When we were finally out of residency (and had erroneously convinced ourselves that the good life was about to begin), we used to call each other on the way to our first jobs at 7:00 AM every single day (after we had already dropped the kids off at daycare) and run cases (talk about cases and see if the other person agreed with our medical decision making too)--never mentioning patient names or identifying info, of course--I couldn't get enough of it. I love medicine like I love all those crime detective TV shows. Solving a medical problem....reviewing patient labs and MRI results and their symptoms and findings on physical exam, etc. and trying to solve the case, crack the code, whodunit, it was exhilarating. Another friend from med school occastionally runs cases by me when I ask her if she has seen anything cool lately at work. It is funny how easily I can solve cases from my family room couch...secondary syphilis without even seeing the rash, atypical presentation of lupus, compartment syndrome, metastatic cancer in a patient presenting with back pain... that had initially stumped them.....but only because I am comfortable at home and not under the pressure of being at work. Had I been working, the answer probably wouldn't have come to me so easily, either. So you're probably wondering why I quit working to stay home with my kids? Funny thing~ in med school, Missy always said she wanted 4 kids--all boys. I told her she was f-ing crazy, and I was only having 2 kids (if that! And girls, BTW.) So how ironic it is, 18 years later, that she has 2 kids (a boy and a girl), and I have 4 kiddos! The majority of them being boys!
Anyways, why am I home all day with kiddos instead of working and solving the medical mysteries of my patients? Did you catch that sentence above, about dropping Zack off at daycare before 7:00 AM? And guess what, he was picked up from daycare at 6:00 PM everyday. 55 hours a week in daycare. Lovely. And when I got home, I used to bring work home with me. Things to look up, sick patients to worry about, charts to finish online, and that damn beeper going off ALL. NIGHT. LONG when I was on call. It wasn't fair to my kids to have a mother that was half there, half with her mind on work-related things. I'm lucky that we can afford for me to stay home with the kids and tend to all of their needs. And volunteer in their classrooms and with the PTA reading program at school. And bring homework assignments to school right then and there that were forgotten at home. And stay home with them when they are sick and have to miss school.
Somebody asked me the other day when (if) I was going to go back to work. My plan was to go back this August, when Joshua was in kindergarten. Then Cambria arrived so that has kind of changed things a bit. Someone that I went to elementary/middle school asked a mutual friend of ours why I quit work when I could make 6 figures. I simply said, "It's not about the money. It's about time with my kids." Oh sure, don't get me wrong- there are days when they drive me crazy! The younger two boys bicker like an old married couple! But then todaythey melted my heart quizzing each other about the human skeleton and cartilage.
Missy's birthday is this week, so that brought back memories of my former life. Equally busy as my current life, just not as much fun as this new one.
And as for my kids and their futures? The sky's the limit. :)
However, I missed my babies so much! I was happy to get home and see them all again. Special thanks to my parents and my in-laws for watching my kids and dogs.
Jacob has been studying the human skeleton in 2nd grade. Today in the car on the way home from school, he was quizzing Joshua (who is only 5) on the bones in the human body and then he was asking Joshua if certain body parts were bone or cartilage. Joshua actually got a lot of the bone vs. cartilage questions right (not sure how he knows that!) and got the skull right! Jacob was getting irritated because I kept blurting out "Phalanges! Patella! That bone is something funny- humerus! get it ha ha! Ulna! Radius! Femur!" before Joshua even had a chance to answer most of the questions! Yes, I was a bit proud of myself for still remembering all of the bones. I was so proud of those boys for being excited about learning Elementary Anatomy 101.....my gosh, is it starting already?! My future doctor sons?
When I was about 6, I decided after seeing a female doctor at my pediatrician's office, that I was going to be a doctor also. I used to have a sign hanging on my bedroom door that said "Dr. V. and my last name, OB/GYN". I worked my butt off from that day to become a doctor. I worked my butt off at work taking great care of my patients. I loved to "run" cases with my BFF Missy from medical school on the phone. When we were finally out of residency (and had erroneously convinced ourselves that the good life was about to begin), we used to call each other on the way to our first jobs at 7:00 AM every single day (after we had already dropped the kids off at daycare) and run cases (talk about cases and see if the other person agreed with our medical decision making too)--never mentioning patient names or identifying info, of course--I couldn't get enough of it. I love medicine like I love all those crime detective TV shows. Solving a medical problem....reviewing patient labs and MRI results and their symptoms and findings on physical exam, etc. and trying to solve the case, crack the code, whodunit, it was exhilarating. Another friend from med school occastionally runs cases by me when I ask her if she has seen anything cool lately at work. It is funny how easily I can solve cases from my family room couch...secondary syphilis without even seeing the rash, atypical presentation of lupus, compartment syndrome, metastatic cancer in a patient presenting with back pain... that had initially stumped them.....but only because I am comfortable at home and not under the pressure of being at work. Had I been working, the answer probably wouldn't have come to me so easily, either. So you're probably wondering why I quit working to stay home with my kids? Funny thing~ in med school, Missy always said she wanted 4 kids--all boys. I told her she was f-ing crazy, and I was only having 2 kids (if that! And girls, BTW.) So how ironic it is, 18 years later, that she has 2 kids (a boy and a girl), and I have 4 kiddos! The majority of them being boys!
Anyways, why am I home all day with kiddos instead of working and solving the medical mysteries of my patients? Did you catch that sentence above, about dropping Zack off at daycare before 7:00 AM? And guess what, he was picked up from daycare at 6:00 PM everyday. 55 hours a week in daycare. Lovely. And when I got home, I used to bring work home with me. Things to look up, sick patients to worry about, charts to finish online, and that damn beeper going off ALL. NIGHT. LONG when I was on call. It wasn't fair to my kids to have a mother that was half there, half with her mind on work-related things. I'm lucky that we can afford for me to stay home with the kids and tend to all of their needs. And volunteer in their classrooms and with the PTA reading program at school. And bring homework assignments to school right then and there that were forgotten at home. And stay home with them when they are sick and have to miss school.
Somebody asked me the other day when (if) I was going to go back to work. My plan was to go back this August, when Joshua was in kindergarten. Then Cambria arrived so that has kind of changed things a bit. Someone that I went to elementary/middle school asked a mutual friend of ours why I quit work when I could make 6 figures. I simply said, "It's not about the money. It's about time with my kids." Oh sure, don't get me wrong- there are days when they drive me crazy! The younger two boys bicker like an old married couple! But then todaythey melted my heart quizzing each other about the human skeleton and cartilage.
Missy's birthday is this week, so that brought back memories of my former life. Equally busy as my current life, just not as much fun as this new one.
And as for my kids and their futures? The sky's the limit. :)
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