just a little something...

october

October is nearly over, and I feel like I've missed nearly the entire month. I took my oncology and hematology boards earlier this week. The entire month (and for months before that), I obsessed about those exams. Even if I wasn't physically studying for them, I was emotionally wrapped up in board preparation -- or board preparation guilt. My favorite month of the year is usually October, perhaps because it's the beginning of our cooler weather, or because I can imagine the leaves beginning to change, or maybe it's just because my birthday is in October.  Regardless, I plan to enjoy the last day or two of the month.

The celebration started last night, with a dinner out with my closest friends, Laura and Julia. We try to go out fairly regularly, and I'm so happy we've been able to keep it up for the past year. Last night we celebrated the end of our board exams, my birthday, and Julia's upcoming birthday. It was also a celebration for Laura -- she had her first dinner out without her two-month old baby. 

The celebration continues tomorrow, Halloween, as we get all dressed up (yes, even Sam and me) and take the kids trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. Our new neighborhood goes all out for Halloween, and trick-or-treating is a huge deal, so we're looking forward to watching Maddie and Oliver have a great time. Madeline is so excited about Halloween this year -- she checks on her costume a couple of times each day, just to make sure it's still there. I'll be sure to post photos of us all. It will give you a good laugh, I'm sure.

The Florida-Georgia game is Saturday, and it will prove to be a good one. It's always filled with excitement and tension. Georgia has become such a huge rivalry, and this sometimes seems like the biggest game of our year.

One last little celebration happens today, October 30th. My sweetie is turning a year older. Happy birthday, Sam!

photo taken by Amy Barry.

PS - Happy birthday to my brother-in-law, Pat, too!

at home

My photographer friend, Amy Barry, came over one day earlier this month to take our annual family photos. We usually do our pictures in February, mostly because it's tough to coordinate with our crazy schedules. We got lucky (or smart) this year and planned it in advance. This might be the first year we have a professional photo in our Christmas cards. 

Amazingly, the kids wore exactly what I picked out for them, and we actually had our act together when Amy showed up. Madeline got tired by the end of the session, and Oliver acted like a typical two-year old boy, but Amy managed to take some photos of us smiling and looking pretty.

This pboto is being framed and going in a place of honor in our new dining room. 

I may have mentioned this before, but I am IN LOVE with our new house. I feel completely at home in it, like our family is complete, and the house was the missing piece.

uf homecoming weekend

Last night we went to Gator Growl, the UF student-run pep rally. George Edmondson, Jr, also known as Mr. Two Bits is retiring this year, so this was his last year leading the stadium crowd in the Two Bits cheer. He's around 85 years old now, and he must be the most loyal Gator out there. We were in a nosebleed section so you can barely see him, but he's that little speck of a man near the F.

I think the highlight of Gator Growl was the band - the Steve Miller Band - a throwback from the 70s (right, Dad?). They were fantastic, and I loved when they played my favorite song from childhood...Abracadabra. Fireworks ended the show, and how can you not love those?

The annual homecoming game was today, and this year Florida played Kentucky. Not much of a game - we won by a landslide. It was a more interesting game than usual, though, because we had both kids with us. At the last minute, our babysitter cancelled because of an illness. Luckily, Mom and Dad had two extra tickets. Oliver sat with Sam and Sam's parents, and Madeline sat with me and her Nana and Grandaddy.

The one thing Madeline remembers from her one other Gator game is the cotton candy. That was her one main request today, and Nana happily obliged. 

Oliver threw a sippy cup over the edge of the stands into the crowd below, but other than that, I think he did okay for his first Gator game ever. He made it through three quarters of the game, and that's pretty darn good for a two-year old. 

We tried to get a good family photo before the game, but, as you can see, it's often quite difficult to get everyone posed perfectly. These are the best we could do.

 

pumpkin patch

pumpkin patch, originally uploaded by merryjennifer.

Earlier this month, we took the kids to a local pumpkin patch. They helped choose some pumpkins for our front porch. Oliver sat quietly with Madeline so that I could take this picture, but it was the only 30 seconds that they were still.

Later, once we brought our pumpkins home, Oliver decided that the little ones were more useful as balls than as decorations. I think they've all been chucked off the front porch a time or two. So, if you happen to come by and see the pumpkins, ignore the fact that they're all battered and bruised.

learning to drive

learning to drive
Originally uploaded by merryjennifer

This is the infamous yellow jeep that my parents bought for Maddie and Oliver. You can tell they hate it.

boring

At dinner last night, Maddie told me,

"Oliver doesn't eat his dinner because he thinks eating is boring."

I'm sure she's right. Also, I'm really sad that she learned the word boring. I'll probably be hearing it a lot over the next ten years.

school photo time

Madeline's pre-kindergarten school photo:

I'm becoming a little frustrated with her hair, but I'm hopeful that with time it will figure out what it wants to do. She's had her bangs trimmed - by me - a handful of times, but the back has never been cut. Still growing in. Ever. So. Slowly.

And, a little Maddie nugget from this afternoon:

"Mommy, I'm going to be a mommy like you when I grow up. I'm also going to be a doctor like you. I'm going to do bodies."

for the birds

I have this infatuation with birds. Growing up, for as long as I can remember, my dad always pointed out birds to me. At our old house, back in 2002 when I was home for a couple of weeks with a newly broken knee, I watched a cardinal pair raise their babies in my back yard. It made a huge impact on me, for some strange reason. Seeing a bird just cheers me up.

Perhaps I was a bird in a former life?

Anyway, here are a few of the birds I keep in my house. I don't really collect them, but I may start. They make me happy.

mitzi

mitzi, originally uploaded by merryjennifer.

Mitzi is my 14 year old maine coon. She has a brother, Fritz, who was not being as cooperative with me the day I took this.


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Update: The crayon is out!

water fun, pre-crayon

The kids played in their grandparents' pool on Sunday (before the crayon incident), and they had a blast. I decided to stay dry so I could snap photos, and also so I didn't have to be in the chilly water. Oliver can't swim on his own, but Madeline is quite the little fish.

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Crayon update: Oliver is headed to the pediatric ophthalmologist tomorrow, so hopefully we'll learn that the green crayon chip is gone. Fingers are crossed.

the crayon

We spent Sunday at my parents' house in Fort White. My sister, Tina, was in town from the big city of Chicago, and we wanted to spend as much time with her as possible before she went home. It was a really nice day, mostly filled with easy conversations and playing with Madeline and Oliver. We planned to top the day off with some of my dad's home cooking.

Just before dinner, Oliver was picking at a green crayon, breaking it into pieces with his fingernail. I'm not sure why, but probably just because he could. And, because his nails were overdue for a trim. Tina happened to be sitting near him, and she watched a fragment of green crayon fly up and hit Oliver in the eye. I think that if she hadn't seen it happen, we wouldn't have known about it for a day or two. Oliver acted totally unphased, just rubbed his right eye every now and then.

I tried to flush the crayon out with some tap water, and then with some eyedrops, but nothing budged it. Since it wasn't causing him any discomfort, we ate dinner (I mean, who would pass up pot roast, roasted potatoes, and homemade gravy just because of a little foreign object in a child's eye?) and then got the kids in the bathtub. Mom managed to get Oliver to spray himself in the eyes with the hose attached to her bathtub faucet. It was a good try, but it didn't do squat.

Sam and I decided that we'd take Oliver to the university's pediatrics after-hours clinic, and we finally got there around 7:30 last night. We went as a family since we didn't have time to stop by our house. After waiting a few minutes, they called Oliver back and started checking vitals.

Oliver was so well-behaved. It was his bedtime, so he may have just been tired, but he was really such a good sport about the whole thing. We waited only a few minutes in the exam room before the pediatrician came in, but in that span of time, we learned that crayon in the eye is a rare event and one not usually seen by pediatricians at UF. A couple of nurses and a resident or two poked their heads in the room to take a peek at Oliver's eye. He was sort of a novelty.

The pediatrician and the peds resident tried using a sterile q-tip and they flushed what seemed like gallons of saline into Oliver's eye. One large chunk, about the size of a BB, washed out but a smaller piece was wedged deep in the space between Oliver's lower eyelid and his eyeball. Nothing seemed to budge it. They tried for what seemed like hours (but was probably only 30 or 45 minutes). Sam held Oliver's head, the resident and I held his legs, and the pediatrician squirted his eye. Oliver was in tears and screaming. Finally, the pediatrician called the ophthalmology resident on call. After only about 15 minutes, he came and got us and took us two floors up to 12the ophthalmology clinic. By then, Oliver was terrified, and Sam and I were having serious emotional issues with having to continue to forcefully restrain him.

The ophthalmology resident did his best, but it was obvious he did not have children. In one sentence he would direct Oliver to "look this way" or "look over here", giving directions that Oliver had no chance of being able to follow under those circumstances. In the next sentence, he told me that Oliver "walks really good for his age," and he seemed amazed that he knew how to speak words. 

After more poking and prodding in Oliver's eye, more flushing with saline, more holding Oliver down while he was kicking and screaming, a tiny piece of green crayon remained. We all just gave up. It was too much. Too much for the ophthalmology resident who had no idea how to get at the remaining piece. Too much for Oliver, too much for me and Sam. Poor Madeline watched her brother be tortured, and I think it was too much for her, too. We finally left to go home about two hours later. 

So, one day later, Oliver is feeling pretty well. He's not rubbing his eye, and the eye is not red or swollen. He's just tired from being up late. As frustrated as I was with the resident last night, I'm grateful to him for doing his best and for not making us take Oliver to the emergency room. He did us a huge favor by seeing us in the eye clinic after hours. He also did his best to get a follow up appointment scheduled at our convenience this week.

Oliver has his appointment with the pediatric ophthalmologist on Wednesday, and we're hopeful that the crayon will have worked its way out by then. If not, maybe they can sedate Oliver for the next attempts at removal. Or sedate us.

gator wear

My little Gators.

Well, okay -- only Madeline is dressed in Gator attire, but it's only because Oliver has gotten so darn picky with his clothes. He insists on only wearing certain items, and I can't predict which ones he'll choose. He loves picking out long sleeve shirts and long pants and then hiking up the sleeves and the pants legs until his elbows and knees are showing. I don't know where this comes from.

We have family photos being taken tomorrow, so I'm praying that Oliver will wear what I've picked out for him. I'm not holding my breath, though.

they finally came

Today is the first day we have seen a cardinal visit our birdfeeder. We've been in this house just about three months, and we've had our birdfeeder for about two days shy of that. The cardinals have finally come back.

Something in the world just went right again.

(This is not the actual cardinal, just a photo of one in a tree outside our old house.)

a little venting and a lot of thanks

It's only Tuesday, and it's been a rough week. You know it's a bad sign when lunchtime on Monday rolls around and you can only begin thinking of how many hours are left until Friday comes. 

Work is always on my mind, and the younger the patients are, the more stressful it gets. In the last week, I've dealt with a 19 year old and a 23 year old, both about 30 years younger than I prefer to treat. Tough giving bad news to people younger than me. 

Oliver is fighting a cold. He was dealing with pink eye at the beginning of last week, and at first, he tolerated the eye drops just fine. After the first day and a half, though, we had to hold him down to put them in his eyes. I hate having to restrain a child to give medicine. Just doesn't seem right. The pink eye went away, but now we're dealing with the runny nose, and he seems to feel bad. To top it off, I'm becoming good friends with Sudafed myself.

After a great weekend and a good birthday party on Saturday, I sort of wanted a restful, peaceful week. Not happening yet so far.

So, since karma seems to be working against me this week, let me pause to be grateful for some things. That usually helps.

I am grateful for my new Mac laptop. Now, if I could just learn to use it.

I am grateful for my sweet daughter who shares with me her school adventures on our carrides to and from school every day.

I am grateful for my husband who puts up with me when I'm crabby and demanding and overly nitpicky.

I am grateful for my parents, who take Madeline to swimming lessons almost every week, even when I really COULD do it myself but want to go to the gym instead.

I am grateful for my job, even when it seems to be getting the best of me. I realize that it's not the job itself but the hassles that surround giving good care to cancer patients - usually related to our health care system.

I am grateful for the little Chinese take-out restaurant down the street. Their chicken-and-broccoli never lets me down.

I am grateful for Sudafed.

I am grateful for my cats, Fritz and Mitzi, even though Mitzi has decided to pee on one of our chairs. And even though we're going to have to replace the chair entirely because of it.

I am grateful for this blog, my creative outlet for life's frustrations and life's celebrations, and everything in between.

two

Saturday afternoon we had our first party in our new home -- we celebrated Oliver's second  birthday.  I took advantage of a natural theme and went with Gator decor. Madeline voted for a Disney Princess party, but I convinced her that Oliver might not be as happy with that. And, since orange-and-blue are natural colors to be wearing on Saturdays in Gainesville, everyone dressed the part without being told.

Oliver was adorable, as always. He seemed to enjoy the crowd and activity, and he didn't have a single meltdown. We had both sets of grandparents over, his aunt and uncle and cousins from Ocala, and a handful of other friends. Dinner was catered by Moe's, one of the kids' favorites. And, no birthday is complete without a birthday cake from Publix. 

When it was time to sing Happy Birthday, he finally realized what the fuss was all about, and his smile was so sweet. He needed a little bit of help with blowing the candles out, but next year he'll be a pro.

We ended the party with the presents, and Madeline really got into that. I think Oliver opened one or two, but Maddie did the rest. He was content to watch her or to play with the toys already opened.

All in all, it was a good day. Oliver is now two, and such a big boy. He's in the middle of potty-training at his preschool, he's learning new words (although he still speaks a little Spanish -- agua and leche are favorites), and he's calling for mama all the time. He's still my cuddly baby boy, even if he is two.