Comedy of Errors

Wow. Nights like this are the reason my blog exists.

Brad convinced me that we really needed to go to a Japanese Sushi bar for Philly's Restaurant Week. Philly has some amazing places to eat, and getting them for a discount, well, that is hard to beat. And truthfully, the food was quite delicious! I still can't believe I ate an entire meal with chopsticks (except for the Hot and Sour soup) and that I ate so much raw fish. But, I love to try new things, so why not.

I digress. We left the restaurant before the dessert came so that I could get back in time for my first belly dancing class here. We walked down the street to the car, only the car wasn't there. Have I mentioned I hate Philly parking? (He was 6 inches into the No Parking zone. So petty) Our friends at the restaurant drove us to the impound lot, in a lovely area with such businesses as Club Risque and Show and Tel. Nice. Our friends played football out in the parking lot while Brad and I waited in a ridiculous line to get our car back. I can't even explain in words how incredible ridiculous the entire system was. Wait in line to pay the fee. Then wait in another line to fill out paper work. Then be told you need insurance and registration which is obviously in the car, so get it and wait again. There was one of those motivational posters on the wall that said 'Serenity', and I think it had the opposite effect on me. The irony was thick. During this waiting, our friend Jim took a football to the eye, which pushed his glasses into his eyelid. It was quite gross actually. I've been exposed to enough blood and guts to have a pretty strong stomach, but I couldn't look at it for very long.

This is a great time to have 2 ENT residents, and ER resident, and a PA hanging out. However, they wouldn't let Brad get his "tool bag" out of the car. We had to fill out a request form, and yes, wait in line again, just to get permission to get it. We were all trying to convince Jim, that yes, he needed stitches or something on his eye when the ER resident said, "Don't worry, Jim, I'll stitch you up right." Jim responded with, "Okay, listen, nothing personal, but if anyone is going to be stitching up my face, it is going to be the Facial Plastic Surgeon. I'm sorry, but if I have the choice, I'm going with Brad." We couldn't help it, Cathy and I just busted up laughing.

I eventually got the paperwork necessary to get the bag out of the car and ran it to Cathy. We had just used some Dermabond at church on Sunday when Roo had a lovely gash above his eye from hitting a pew. But, thankfully Brad had another Dermabond in the bag and they were able to close up his eye.

Now the problem was that we didn't have a registration card, only the sticker. Long story short-ish, we were at the impound lot for 2 hours. And I never made it to belly dancing.

Doctors can be pretty useful people to have around. Especially when they have tool bags. LOL!

Daily rituals

Sugar and I have a game we play. Every day. She tells me she is tired and she wants me to go lay down with her. I say okay. Then she squeals, "I'm gonna take your pillow!!" as she dashes up the stairs. My gimpy RA knee and I get up the stairs with much less agility. I get to my room and she is laying on my pillow, giggling hysterically.

I lay down next to her and we lay there for a minute, maybe two, before she says, "I'm thirsty".

"I think you need to go get a drink."
"Why, mommy?"
"So I can steal my pillow back."

Then we will spend about 5 or 10 minutes of me pretending to sleep, her pretending to get off the bed, etc, until at some point I ended up tickling her and dangling her over the bed where the lava pit is. Don't worry though, the lava pit has a side walk.

Today we were Baby Armadillo and Mommy Armadillo. I haven't been allowed to call her by her name all day. And her jelly sandwich had grass and leaves in. 'But just pretending, mommy." At night, she snuck into my bed. I picked her up to take her back to her room and she started whining so I said, "Sugar, you sleep in your bed." "Okay, but I'm not Sugar, I'm Baby Armadillo." At 4 a.m. LOL!

Oh, to be 3 and carefree!

My son

In case there was any doubt that Roo is my son, he said this before dinner tonight:

"There is nothing better than spending the evening reading a good book."

Yup. Definitely my son!

Good call

Wow. Somehow when I have so much to write about, I just end up not writing about anything. Oops. It has just been so busy with last minute zoo trips, friends visiting from Canada, school starting, my classes starting, Cub Scouts starting, etc. I was even so busy with Signing Time stuff emailing things that Hotmail actually blocked me, considering me a spammer. Sigh.

And so I get behind, and therefore I avoid my blog. Much the same reason I haven't opened Google Reader in months. I'm so behind on reading blogs, it is overwhelming. Avoidance is such a mature coping mechanism. :o)

You know that pit in your stomach that you get when the phone rings, you say hello and then hear, "Hi, the is Miss Manners, you son's teacher." Eeek! What did he do today? I didn't say that, of course, I just let her proceed. So, she then when on to tell me what a fabulous and wonderful kid he is. And that he is a pleasure to have in class. Wow. Teachers call parents just to praise kids? I think I love his teacher! And then we talked about ASL, and apparently she took it in college and would love to have me come teach in her classroom. WHEEEE!

Life is busy, but good. I even had a cleaning lady come on Monday. It was soooo amazing to leave in the morning and come home for dinner to a clean house! WOWZA!

Where could she be?

After a long afternoon at the pool, we came home, piled the towels and suits to get washed, I started dinner, sent the boys to clean their room, then I went to work on my Signing Time stuff for a little while.

Dinner was done and I realized I had not heard Sugar yelling at her brothers in probably 30 minutes. I sent Roo up to look for her. He said she was gone. I figured she fell asleep after a busy day, even though she has given up napping. I looked in her room. No Sugar. I looked in my room. No Sugar. I look in the boys' room and the toy room. No Sugar.

Panic starts to set in a little. This house is small. There are storage containers under every bed, she couldn't be there. The closets are too small to fit a human being laying down. I would have seen her go out the front door. The back door is locked. All of the windows are locked. Where in the world could she be?!

I finally opened up our IKEA storage and there she was, asleep. She had shut herself in. Little stinker.

Conversations with a doctor

I'm sure every wife out there has heard this from her husband:

"I'm sorry honey, I'm tied up at work and can't make it home for dinner."

I had this one:

"I'm sorry honey, I'm trying to get these leeches on a guy's ear and they just won't bite. I won't be able to make it home for dinner. I promise they won't get lost this time."

I love my life. There is never a dull moment!

Blog Tour - Residency

Last stop on the blog tour! Our residency experience started out a little different. Brad had been set on ENT since he got his MBA between MSII and MSIII. He worked with a doctor during that year and loved the cases. However, he didn't match in ENT and scrambled into a General Surgery spot. He loved it and enjoyed being in the OR. We loved the town and the program and while intern year can be a bit, um, intense, it was over all a good experience for us.

Then, out of the blue, he was contacted by a med school friend and told about a position in ENT that opened up. He couldn't ignore the siren call of his first love and ended up applying for the spot. When he got it, it meant a little bit of craziness for our family. He only had a couple of weeks to move hundreds of miles, and we owned our house in MI. Thankfully, the friend that told him about the spot let him stay with him. Meanwhile, I stayed in MI with our 3 kids waiting for the house to sell. Waiting, and waiting. I had hoped and planned on a couple of months, but it ended up being 7 months. It was a LONG 7 months, and things were crazy at times. :o) We still own our house in MI and rent it out to some resident friends of ours.

It warms my heart when Brad comes home after 10 pm because of a 14 hour surgery to see him beaming from ear to ear because he loves it so much. Yes, it is hard, but I know this is exactly where we are supposed to be and this is EXACTLY what Brad is supposed to be doing. It makes the hard times easier on me.

Now, we are getting to the fun part of residency. Brad can finally moonlight and make up for the paltry resident salary. Philadelphia is not a cheap place to live. And call schedules are getting better too! Most days, his pager doesn't even go off! And finally, we are starting to interview for after-residency jobs. Oh my, that is fun!

I am one very happy wife of a resident. :o)