It's All Downhill From Here

I have noticed lately that I log onto blogger a couple of times a week and I'm always disappointed when no one has updated. Sadly enough it's only been in the last week that I've realized how long it's been since I updated myself! I can't realistically expect all you ladies to update if I haven't even updated my own blog in over a month!!

Since my last update David has finished all of his interviews (about 20 total), I finished my Fall classes AND my incomplete which gave me a 4.0 for my Summer and Fall semesters. SCORE! Also I'm sorry you cannot read this, but I still have to share since my grades have been on my mind 24/7 for the last year.

As for Davie, he has thoroughly enjoyed his friends and teachers at daycare, so much so that he has quite literally broken down when I came to pick him up (where's the love kid?).

This is from October, his teachers send us pictures occasionally, they learned all about leaves. The cute little asian boy on the far left is named Henry and he is only day younger than Davie. Davie calls him Henny, and gets really excited when he sees him. One of the little girls in his class is named Sloane and Davie calls her Sloan-y, Davie really likes to say people's names. It has been fun to see him with others his age and he both enjoys and thrives in the company of others. Our house is truly a disappointment now that he knows other children exist haha. 

David and I got to enjoy a completely Davie-free evening (our first since our birthdays) last weekend at fancy restaurant in Toledo to celebrate the end of all things this semester. Thanks to the lovely Mike and Lauren Warden for watching him, you two have been such a blessing this year! The food was AMAZING and short of lobster I insisted that we both chose something off the menu that we would not ever normally get, this was a multi-purpose celebration so this dinner also encompassed our joint Christmas present to each other. I enjoyed the best fillet mignon I've ever had and David had an excellent New York strip steak. The celebration was extra fun because I made David ask the waitress to bring me my Coke in a wine glass. It's funny because as soon as you are pregnant people assume that's the only reason you are not drinking.

It was a little early since my grades had not posted, I hadn't finished my incomplete and David still had interviews the following week. David mentioned that while we were eating, but I insisted that we relax and enjoy our evening. Thankfully even though it was premature our celebration was validated later the next week when my grades posted, my teacher considered my work for my class complete and David successfully finished the last of his interviews. Technically David has one more interview for here in Toledo and a couple of others, but he only plans to attend the one in Toledo. My next semester is a measly 7 credits, which consists of my thesis and a adobe photoshop class (my first and only "just for fun" class). 

I would have to say our phrase to sum up this year TRULY is 

"We laughed, we cried, but we survived".

 I am very much looking forward to a NEW year, with LOTS of changes 2013 was not my most favorite year as of late.

Expect the Unexpected

By Wednesday morning Davie and I were already saddle up with David's parents to go to Salt Lake and pick Daddy up from his flight.

 A little outside of Pocatello Davie threw up... twice. In fact Davie probably threw up about 2 minutes after I took this picture. Pit stop at Pocatello's Wal*Mart. Davie's grandma graciously volunteered to essentially wash my poor little guy in the bathroom sink while I grabbed him some new clothes. That's right I didn't bring an extra pair of clothes. While I hurriedly searched for clothes that fit Grandpa Warden was holding Davie when Davie got sick AGAIN... ALL OVER grandpa. Miraculously Grandpa had an extra shirt so at least he was able to change. The carseat Davie was in was so soiled we ended up just getting a second one for the remainder of the trip. By the time we got to Kaysville my tummy hurt too and it continued to all night. I think we all felt a little tired after that.

New clothes, new seat, new blanky, time for some rest. Poor little guy. 

 David flew in almost two hours later than expected so we stayed at his grandma's house for the night. Thank goodness for family because it was raining and freezing on the road that night and we would have slid right off the road if we had tried to drive back.

 That was the night my cold/ cough congestion started :( I keep saying now is a better time than any time during the semester I just finished, but I can't say I'm happy to be sick over Christmas break. The next evening David got a taste of the tummy woes for himself then his Dad then David's cousin. Thankfully all the Davids have been 100% since and so was David's cousin. I unfortunately have sounded like a frog and struggled to breath ever since Thursday.

Getting all super soapy washed up when we finally got home.
So that's the best update I have for now. I'm really going to try to update some pregnancy stuff on here since I've had a couple of people ask recently, but no promises. I've lived in survival mode since day one of this semester and now I'm actually sitting in a chair relaxing in Idaho Falls. Which just goes to show, Christmas miracles really do happen.

A Final Free Ride

Monday December 16th Davie and I flew out to Idaho Falls by ourselves (meaning I flew with him on my lap). I've flown solo with him before but most of the times he was still nursing or he had his binky or I wasn't 30 weeks pregnant. Really the pregnant part was the part that made me the most nervous.

First flight nap, that was lightly drug induced. I was too afraid of what would happen otherwise. He slept for over half of the flight and was very quiet and easy going for the second half.

 So sweet

 BIG creepy jerk that sat next to us. The second he saw us sitting next to the window and went to sit down he rolled his eyes and acted all annoyed. RUDE! At first I was making extra sure to keep away from him when it dawned on me that I could NOT reward his RUDE attitude. After that I no longer tried to lean away I just sat resituated when needed as well as talking and attending to Davie. He did SO good on this flight.

Such a sweet boy.

 Then we landed.

 We tried to let him run a little and we tried the baby leash and this is what I got.

 He seriously screamed so much, my eye was twitching.
Aside from the rather painful one and a half hour in the Denver terminal the flights all went smoothly and in my mind that's what counts. If he had to break down somewhere I figure in the open terminal was a million times better than an enclosed airplane. We arrived in Idaho Falls a little after 1pm mountain time and after being awake since 3:30 am Eastern time I was thoroughly exhausted. 

Residency Interviews & Life in the Fast Lane

To put all these interviews into perspective I was worried about David's away rotations and yet David will be home a grand total of 7 days this month. David is drove to Rochester New York last night (6 hours), interviewed this afternoon and is already driving straight to New Hampshire (5 hours 53 minutes) to interview at Dartmouth. We tried to get him flights, trains or buses so that the poor man wouldn't have to drive so much, but there was NOTHING. After that he drives all the way back to Cleveland (10 and a half hours), flies to Texas, interviews, gets on another plane, interviews in New Mexico and then finally lands back in Cleveland at 11 pm on Thursday. After all that he still has to drive 3 hours to get home to Toledo! Poor guy. 

So when people ask me what his schedule is like or what he is up to I'm kind of at a loss for words without a LENGTHY story or a "He's crazy busy". And that is JUST this next week, every week this month is almost identical in terms of buy-ness. I am still pretty busy myself, I just don't have to leave the state to get done what I need to get done. However school is at a tiny bit of a slow down for me right now, hence the 3 blog posts in less than a week.

 Take Saturday and Sunday for instance. David flew into Detroit on Saturday at 5:10 pm and left at about 3:15pm on Sunday. He was not even home for a full 24 hours after being gone to Arizona for two whole weeks! I'll be brutally honest, it's been tough and when Davie watched Daddy leave from the window on Saturday he started to cry. It's a good thing Davie didn't get too worked up or he would have made me cry too! We had a good weekend regardless of all of our time constraints. I was able to go enjoy some crafting at Soup-er Saturday with Lauren, afterwards was when we got to go get Daddy and eat some dinner together.

Davie helping uncle Mike put the tables away after Soup-er Saturday

I made this headband and put it on Davie's head. To my surprise he liked it and even got upset when I took it off. Also even though this is not the best picture of me (I feel like my eyes are pretty squinty) and I haven't been feeling super great about my physical appearance lately but after looking at this picture I was able to be quite a bit more thankful. It's reassuring to have a different (positive) viewpoint of yourself every now and then.

A better view of that headband straight on,

and a perfect to the side profile. He was a very good model. I'm excited to see it on our new baby girl.... soon enough! So now just a random story. I have a sister-in law who is due about 2 weeks before me and a week or so ago she asked me if I just wished it was already February and I already had my new baby. It was funny because I realized I am not really impatient this time around. I'm in no way dreading having two children, but I guess since I have Davie to keep me busy (and love on) I am not feeling the rush like last time. Not to mention the fact that I CANNOT bring myself to think passed the end of this semester (mid December). ONE step at a time is all I can handle right now.

  Anyways back to this weekend. Davie was super excited to see Daddy and broke out in a half cry giggle fit at the airport when we picked Daddy up. It was really sad, but so sweet. I kept thinking I would get a picture of the three of us together but as per usual I managed to forget. Instead you get to see Davie being super cute eating some fruit at Red Robin. That was the place we chose to celebrate my A on my educational psychology midterm and David's GREAT step 2 score of 250. I am so proud of him!

Such a cute little boy. Except for his finicky eating habits. That night he ate about 3 tiny bites of his corn dog and then proceeded to refuse to eat it. David then got the bright idea to dip the hotdog into our whip cream from our celebratory mudpie to get Davie to eat it. (Warning graphic picture below).

 Hotdog, fudge, carmel and whip cream anyone?

Oh yes he did. 

I don't know if you can call getting your toddler to eat his whole hotdog a victory if it was covered in whip cream. Don't judge us, or rather, David haha this was NOT my idea ;) It had me laughing a LOT though, it was a great evening together. I love my little family. 

As for next month, I'd love to say December will be better, but it won't be until after the 18th or 19th (I can't remember the exact day). I'm just glad that after Thanksgiving my school slows down QUITE a bit. My finals week is pretty cushy too and my toughest class (educational psychology) is my last test by almost a week, which is promising in terms of my ability to concentrate and study. I'm not sure I'd be able to say this, and to be honest I've been avoiding it so as not to get too excited, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Our joint school marathon is ALMOST over.

Where in the US...

I guess I should write about this since not everyone has a husband in medical school or even a husband in medical school that goes into the same field. I feel like I have done nothing, but talk about and try to explain David's schedule/ future work prospects for the last 3 years haha! So in hopes of having everyone know what goes on around here, I will explain some more. 

Medical school is a 4 year program followed by a residency. A residency can last 3-5 years and can be followed by a one year fellowship depending on what the person wants to specialize in. To put that into perspective when I married David I basically signed up for (braced myself for) 10 years worth of schooling. 

Residency is a PAID program but it only starts out at about $45- 50 thousand a year. That may sound good but the first year of residency (also known as an internship year) can have weeks where you work 80 hours. This usually brings even the higher paid residents to about $5 an hour. Different specialties make more or less in residency and work more or less hours in the week. Thankfully radiology isn't going to be nearly as awful as surgery! I was preparing for a lot worse then what we are signing up for. Most of David's interviews so far have said that he will work from about 7 or 8am until about 6 pm and some even give off weekends and holidays (such a blessing!!!). 

Radiology has a 4 year residency that does not include the internship year. Unless you go to what is called a categorical program, then you get to stay in one location for 5 years. 

Timeline

Medical school-
year one- book learning and class

year two- book learning and class

year three- rotations and testing

year four- some rotations, interviews and more testing

Radiology residency-

transitional year- WORK, WORK, WORK

Resident year one

two 

three 

four

Fellowship- one year

Another thing I always get asking is where we will be going next and my answer is always "I don't know" because I don't. Right now David has about 20 some odd interviews planned at various states all over the country. Several Arizona & Ohio programs (including Case Western in Cleveland), 2 in Florida, Spokane WA, Michigan, California, New Mexico, 2 in Texas, Wisconsin, Dartmouth, Jons Hopkins,  New York, and thats all I can remember for now.

We were a little annoyed that a program in Utah has already denied us, but I have to think about the fact that David already has 2 Ivy league residency interviews, one at Case Western and was even put on a waiting list at Harvard! Bottom line? It's a good thing we did not hold our breath waiting for the Utah program which isn't even as highly rated as his other interviews (so dumb). We aren't the first family we know to get turned down by a program in Utah, heading back to home (or close to it) just is not very typical.

In February when all the interviews are done and we have had some time to think about it we will rank the programs we liked best. Then the schools rank you, next both lists are put into a computer program and the matches are made. David and I do NOT know where we are going UNTIL March 15, 2014. Until then it's anybody's guess.

David has completed about 5 interviews now and so far his top two choices are in Arizona and Florida. Neither program is a categorical though so if we got into either we would be living in some other random area/ state for a year. When we think about what programs we like best our top 3 important factors tend to be 1. How close is the nearest temple (we hate being so far away from ours right now) 2. What is the general cost of living 3. How close is it to family. Some of the less important things that come into the equation is the weather, certain friends, airport size and distance, Ikea, and of course how much money we will make, but schools, local church presence, program benefits (insurance), and 4 year versus 5 year programs all make a difference too.

Basically there are a LOT of choices and still plenty of waiting time before David is hopefully matched. We just hope and pray that with David's two awesome Step scores we won't need to worry. However, worry is always inevitable.