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. :)
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