Can't Wait for the Week to End

It's only Wednesday, but I'm done. Last week, all five days were fine - I got my AM charts done before or during lunch, and a good number of the PM session finished before leaving, life was good. The kids got picked up, were happy in the office. This week not so much. It feels like going scuba-diving in a port-a-potty.

Yesterday we got home and when I went to get Micah out of the car, he had his left BAHA in his hand, the battery hatch cover was no longer attached to the BAHA and the battery was no where to be found. Perfect, just perfect. One BAHA costs about $4,000, and would probably need to be sent to Colorado to be fixed. He got hollered at but good; he's been trying to twiddle with the volume dials for months, which we're quick to put a stop to, but overall no real harm done with a little moving around of the dials. This, on the other hand, was serious. Fortunately the hatch could be reset in its tracks and wasn't permanently damaged, for now at least.

Before/during/after the BAHA incident, I was on call, and it's ever so much fun to be home alone with kids AND at the mercy of the answering service. This was thanks to Steve's bridge buddies changing the game from Wednesday to Tuesday.

So after getting the kids put to bed, I had more than a dozen chart notes to write, labs and radiology reports to go through and the rest of my in-box to peruse.

The first part of next week promises to be no better because the other NP in the office is out until Thursday.

Photo Gallery

I am taking the easy way out. Instead of putting these in the appropriate post, I'm dumping them all here, in no particular order.l

Thea's take on Texas, shortly before our trip at the end of April 2009

Micah and Eleanor, May 2, 2009

Micah and his teacher Miss Heather, May 8, 2009, at the Mothers' Day party

Thea at YingHua's Mothers' Day Tea Party, May 7, 2009

April 26, 2009, my best friend's wedding - the preceremony primping

My flowers

Judy's Jeff, shortly before the walk down the aisle

Cutting the cake

Micah going his usually 90 mph at the playground, May 15, 20009

Thea riding the hanging bar, May 15, 2009

Mom's 80th Birthday Party, March 28, 2009

Micah's First Day of School, March 3, 2009

Miss Jennifer's Last Day, May 8, 2009 with the autograph quilt for her baby

Thea with the quilt - she kept it a secret for weeks!

Thea in The Button in front of Van Pelt Library at Penn - probably one of her favorite parts of the whole dayAlumni Weekend at the University of Pennsylvania, May 16, 2009
Thea carried the banner in the Parade of Classes

Haircut Day in Big Boy Land

Not much happening around here, but both Thea and Micah were in need of a haircut, so we went off to see Flo at Snip-Its. She's been cutting Thea's hair for almost three years, half her life as it were. The bob Thea's been sporting is Flo's creation - and today she asked if Thea could be photographed to be in a book of kids' hair styles. Thea was willing, but she held out on smiling for the picture until I promised to make Chinese dumplings for lunch. We'll see what happens.

Micah got buzzed, which took him from looking like a demented mushroom or an extra in a Richard Simmons video (when his BAHA band is on) to looking like a recruit for the military. I think his mesh headband stays in place better with shorter hair. Fortunately for me, both kids are pretty good with sitting still while being clipped, though Flo has to cope with getting Thea's bangs done while Thea is chomping at the bit to play the video games. Micah's in it for the Dum-Dum lollipops, so he was statue-like looking at Flo's jar of suckers.

And today Micah was willing to wear big boy underwear and try going on the potty. The Great Leap Forward on the path toward a diaper/Pull-Up free life as it were. The little white BVDs with sharks on them were just too cute. It just took him a few times of figuring out the signal well enough in advance to actually make it to the toilet to do the deed. We had five or so underpants, and he blew through three of them in about a 90 minute span. But he seems to like wearing them, so we're doing better. And a closed or locked bathroom door is like catnip for him, not once but twice I had barely sat down when "Mah-MMEEEE, I have to go pot-TEE" came through the door. And since his signal-to-event ratio has been about a nanosecond, what else to do but get it together quickly and get him sitting down to do his business. Except that was the little bladder who cried 'wolf'. Twice.

Because we were promoting the big boy thing, Micah had his dinner served on an adult-size plate and sitting in on the elephant chair (part of a pair we bought for Thea; the other half of the pair, the tiger chair is hers.) So he was really grooving on being big. Though by that time he was back in Pull-Ups because the underwear was in the washer or dryer - though there might be another pair somewhere in his room.

And we're thinking of getting rid of the pseudo-high chair (plastic chair with tray strapped to one of my kitchen chairs). And tossing the older sippy cups. And one of these days we'll take down the crib, but it's a convenient catch-all for the stuffed animals. When he's on a puppy or a horse or a tiger theme, I just toss him in there and let him root around for a bit - there's enough in there that he's up to his waist in animals. But in defense of his stuffed animal polygamist habits, he does play with most of them at one time or another.

Three Days Off

I survived my first week working Monday through Friday, 8:30 to 4:00. I don't think I've worked that sort of schedule since before Micah came home - and then only infrequently because my usual schedule was Monday through Thursday. I could do this because the practice manager creatively came up with a solution to my children's pick-up schedules: she made a staff person available to run up to Princeton, pick up Micah off of his bus then go to Thea's school to pick her up and bring both of them back to the office. This gives me two extra hours per day to see patients.

Other than the toll it's taking on my knees, it worked out well. Thea and Micah like Tesh. The traveling makes them a little more tired at the end of the day, but they're enjoying walking around the pond, feeding the koi - and trying to feed the mallard couple and the geese. I'm happy it's Memorial Day weekend, only four days of pounding the hallways next week. Yay.

This week was hard on them because Monday and Wednesday Steve had things to do after work, and Tuesday and Thursday I had places to be. Gettiing dinner, baths, and bedtime done singlehandedly takes a lot more planning to make sure they get to bed on time.

And the extra good news is that the provider who needed to take time off may be able to return earlier than expected. So just as I get used to that full-time paycheck, it will be back to part-time, and I won't mind one bit.

Happy Memorial Day weekend all.

Once Upon a Weekend

Saturday was Alumni Day at Penn - it's always the weekend prior to graduation, which is always on a Monday in mid-May. Except for last year when there was a conflict with the NLH's Spring Festival, I've gone every year since graduating.

The weird thing is that the campus, including the Nursing School, has changed much. But instead of being irritating and somewhat sad when I went back to Champaign and finding the two places that I was most attached to razed and turned into utterly hideous, generic apartments - it's actually energizing to see how it's evolving and improving each year.

I was planning to go alone, but Thea woke up and was willing to get dressed and get moving faster than she usually does, so she came along. I had pre-registered for both of us, so she was pleased that she got a name badge of her very own when we checked in.

We took a minibus to the LIFE Center at 45th and Chestnut - which was sort of close to where I lived while at Penn, 47th and Pine. After the buffet breakfast and a few speeches, there was a street fair to celebrate LIFE's (Living Independently For Elders) 10th anniversary. Thea loved the inflatable bounce house and slide, until something happened to the pump and the whole thing began to deflate. With my kid still inside. Thea came out, unscathed and unperturbed by the experience. At noon, the minibuses took us back to campus for the Parade of Classes. Thea was dying to help carry the nursing school banner, but the dean and others usually do that -but she did get to hold onto the nursing school flag. And other than one small mishap where she wasn't maintaining good control of her flagpole and nearly clocked the dean, she did a wonderful job.

The parade ended at the tents on Hill Field and we had lunch in the nursing school tent and then checked out the kids' tent. This was the first year that we investigated what there was to do for Future Quakers. There were tables for art projects, with little goody bags for the children, a bounce house maze, a magic/juggling show - and this was just on Hill Field, there was another chidren's area near the library. Thea made a 'P-E-N-N' necklace with ceramic beads and got a spray on tattoo of a tiger that she was quite proud of.

We went back to The Button in front of the library at Thea's request - she wanted to climb and explore it. Then we made our annual pilgrimage to the bookstore, and back to The Button and the photo booth, where a serious and a goofy picture were laminated into a luggage tag or some sort of tag. We could have had two made, but I had given the tickets for this to Thea to keep in the pouch in her name badge and when it came time to hand them in, there was only one. Live and learn.

After that, we went back to The Button, again - how a gigantic white button can hold a five-year old's attention is mind-boggling. I went and sat on a bench while watching the horde of children swarm up, down, in, out and around - and a medical school alumni who was celebrating his 40th reunion shared the bench as we speculated on whether or not the artist who created The Button envisioned it being used this way.

Then it was time to hobble (new shoes, good-looking, but they totally chomped on my feet) back to the nursing school's garage and the car. Thea had a good enough time to conk out for a 30 minute nap on the ride back home.

My Media Darling

This is old news, but since I don't have much to write about at the moment, I'll post it to make me feel like I'm accomplishing something.

In the March 18, 2009 issue of Princeton's Town Topics, Thea's school was profiled:

http://www.towntopics.com/mar1809/stratton1.php

and the photo at the top of the article has Thea and her friends Brett and Eland. It was used in the school's most recent newsletter as well.

Once upon a time, when she was home for just a few months, Thea was in Quest Diagnostics 2004 Annual report:

http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/IROL/82/82068/AR2004/Quest_AR2004_online/patients.htm

The company sent a photographer from New York to get the picture, which was taken in her bedroom. We were sent a framed version of the photo that was used in the publication, but we never got any of the proofs of all the photos from that day. The photographer was nice enough to use our camera to take a couple of family photos that we later submitted to the adoption agency with our social worker's post-placement report.

Comment from Thea

The last couple of posts have neglected the kids for the most part, so here's a quickie to atone.

"He's a very smart comrade."

- Thea, 05/11/2009, an observation made about Micah who learned something she was trying to teach him quickly

CME Frenzy

Saturday I went to Morristown Hospital for a free CME program, the First Annual Vascular Update. Not exactly a topic to rock my world, but free is free - and come 2013, I've got to have 150 hours of continuing education, something in the neighborhood of 1,500 to 2,000 clinical hours worked, a sheaf of forms and $350+ to renew my ANCC board certification.

During the down time at the seminar, I pulled out my Palm and went into ePocrates and started whipping through a few mobile CME programs. Most of them are in the 0.25 to 1 CME range (by comparison, the seminar was good for five hours of credit).

Then today while the kids were playing in Marquand Park (aka the Sand Park, to Micah, which means that he brings home about a pound of sand in his shoes), I took the Palm with me and banged out a few more programs. While starting dinner, I put the PDA on its cradle and synch-ed it. The CME certificates then started to filter into my email. I usually get maybe a dozen emails a day, if that. B-O-O-M, 55 emails arrive.

Then I needed to print the certificates, and enter the information on the spreadsheet that I made to keep a running total of my CME credits, and I went from having two CMEs to 39.75 and two lines in my spreadsheet to 64.

Now back to slacker mode, already in progress. My goal was 30 to 40 credits a year, done.

Reading List

Charlaine Harris's Dead and Gone arrived on the bookshelves at Barnes & Noble, the latest installment of her Southern vampire series. Since I had already destroyed vast quantities of brain cells reading the previous eight books, it was almost a matter of medical necessity that I read this one as well.

I ripped through it in the course of a weekend and was left with the feeling you get when you eat an entire bag of potato chips (with or without dip), (mentally) bloated and with the feeling of why did I do it? And if there is a tenth novel underway, I'll do it all over again.

Now I'm back to Jonathan Franzen's The Discomfort Zone, so I hope that fewer of my limited quantity of remaining brain cells will be annihilated.

Mothers' Day x 2

Yesterday Thea's school had a Mothers' Day tea - before work, the email said it would be between 8:00 and 9:00 am. So I dutifully asked the office manager to rearrange my schedule so I would be able to attend, and then we arrived at 8:10 am to find Thea's classmate Shubhan and his mother waiting.

Building locked. No staff in sight. We're off to a super start. . .

After a few minutes one of the teachers from the Lawrenceville campus drove by and stopped to open the door for us. So we went in and waited some more. Finally around 8:30 a couple of the teachers arrived, then a couple more and the final arrangements were put together. Each of the kids served his/her mother a blueberry muffin and a glass of orange juice, both homemade. Then we were given a printed photo in a decorated frame and a hedgehog made of dough.

After performing her hostess and gift-distributing duties, Thea seemed happy to have me take off for work.

While at work yesterday I got a call from Micah's school about his class's Mothers' Day party to be held at 2:00 pm Friday. So after two months of not driving to Summit School I was back on the road there this afternoon - and with all the rain we've had, the Griggstown causeway was wet, and the crossing for the D&R canal were flooded out, so I had to take the roundabout way to get there.

Micah's class was so cute; there are only five of them. They had iced and decorated cupcakes that their teacher had made. The children had been reading "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" this week so they each had made a synopsis of the story and they had rehearsed their retelling of the story. Micah volunteered to go first after his classmate Tom got a case of shy guy. Then they gave the moms a sunflower plant that they had grown. It was all just so cute, it made it worth sitting in those little preschool chairs for almost an hour.

Then we had to beat tracks to get down to Thea's school by 4 pm. Today was her English teacher's last day; she'll be on maternity leave for the remainder of the school year. The staff was giving her a shower today, so this would be the day she got the autograph quilt. Thea loves Ms. Jennifer, and she's been a great source of suggestions for children's literature for Thea to read and to have read to her. The quilt was a big hit, and I got a picture of her with the quilt - and Thea helping to hold it up, but also being a pain and hiding behind it so only her feet are showing.

HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY WEEKEND TO ALL.

H1N1 Flu

A tangential post, not the usual blather about the kids and whatnot:

I walked into work Monday morning and found a memo on my desk informing the staff that the county health department was advising us to wear masks while at work.

Yeah, right. That would inspire confidence - any patient would think that I was potentially contagious. But then again, it might free up my schedule, so maybe that mask wouldn't be such a bad idea.

If I drank the health department's H1N1 Kool-Aid, my glasses would be constantly fogging from my breath being channeled upwards by the mask. Those damn loops over the ears would send me around the bend and back again. My older patients whose hearing might not be as acute and who might engage in a little lip-reading to augment their hearing wouldn't be able to see my mouth.

Since the masks are optional, I will NOT be wearing a mask any time soon. Memo or no memo, and I didn't see any of my co-workers sporting them either.

Back from Maryland. . .

Two nights, three days and back home again.

First time driving the Sienna instead of the CRV, and it wasn't as bad as I had expected, both in terms of gas mileage and maneuvering the behemoth in and out of parking spaces. The one thing that is a problem is that it's harder to hear the kids talking in the back seats for some reason.

My mother's friend, who we've been unable to take with us to the NLH since Micah's car seat took up occupancy in the rear seat of the CRV, was unable to go along with us. So much for having a minivan to schlep the senior set around. Her dog Chelsea had surgery and she had to stay with her to keep her from moving around too much and disturbing her drains. This also meant no dog-walking for the kids, which was missed.

The NLH spring festival was the usual: trying to get out the door as early as possible, arriving about an hour or so after things get started and finding the baked goods table decimated, poking around the various tables and buying a few things, having lunch and then going to visit our former neighbors.

Thea had a $5 budget for whatever caught her fancy, which included pins she thought looked like they would be good for her knight's costume, a small purse (I think Oma contributed for that one) and a puzzle game. My plan was to keep Micah away from the used toys, which mostly consists of Beanie Babies and other stuffed animals, but just as the words came out of my mouth, I heard the scrapping on the floor of the walker my mother was using and she and Micah appeared. The evil seniors in charge of the room had put most of the stuffed animals along the wall railings and on benches lining the wall, and this doomed me to purchase a two Beanie Babies (at 50 cents each).

For me, the visit with the neighbors is better than the actual spring festival, because I was looking for quilts, and there were none to be had at the bazaar. Well, there was one in the silent auction but it was hideous. My mother and I went through the nap quilts and doll quilts that she had make like locusts. Micah got to play with vintage Fisher-Price toys that belonged to her youngest son - and way back when he and my brother used to play with them. Thea amused herself with her brick puzzle game, and with the Where's Waldo? books they had.

Sunday it was raining, raining, raining, so I went out to the Safeway where I snagged the last New York Times (which saved me a trip to Waldorf), then went to Target to print photos for my mothers - and photos from the trip to Texas.

Now we're staying put for the next few weekends, other than a CME event in Morristown for me on Saturday, Alumni Weekend at Penn the following Saturday and working the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend.