Back to Blogging

Well, hello.

On the one hand, blogging has been pretty low on the list of my priorities through grad school. On the other hand, I feel all sorts of guilty when I think about all of the things I have missed blogging about. Especially with Melanie. She's so big now and I feel like I have missed recording a lot of fun things about her. So, here's to new semester/ new year resolutions to be better about blogging.

We haven't been great about keeping everyone up to date lately, though our Christmas break helped a lot! So, here's a quick recap.

Spencer is halfway through his 3rd year of medical school. He took Step 1 (first stage of national medical boards) last summer, then spent 6 months doing a clinical rotation with an internist, which was similar to family medicine, but without any pediatrics. He spent one week in a pediatric clinic and one week in an OB/GYN office. That 6 months was a program called CCC, which is unique to CMED in an effort to achieve their mission of promoting rural medicine. He felt like it was a good learning experience, but too long. He wishes his other rotations would be given more time, but it is what it is. Now he is beginning the clinical rotation portion of his schooling. For the next 18 months or so (until graduation), he will go though 4-week(ish) rotations in various specialties. His first rotation is OB/GYN, and he was told yesterday that he'll help to deliver at least a few babies in the next month. So that's fun. I guess. He's looking forward to really getting into the rotations and figuring out what kind of residency he really wants to apply for later this year!

I am over halfway through PT school! I have 2 more semesters of coursework (spring, summer), then 2 semesters of clinical rotations (fall, next spring). Last summer I spent 6 weeks doing a clinical in Grand Haven, and it was so great! I learned so much, and it gave me a huge confidence boost in my clinical knowledge and skills. I have learned so much, and it felt great to apply that in real life. I had several patients who were "mine", so I did all or nearly all of their assessments, interventions, and plan of care. Guys. I'm actually going to be a PT one of these days. How crazy is that?! For now, school is more of the same. I'll admit that I can feel myself burning out, and I'm struggling to figuring out how to keep my motivation up for 7 more months. From day to day, school is just a routine. Get up early, get myself and Melanie ready, drive to Mt. P, get Melanie to daycare, go to class, pick Melanie up from daycare, drive home, play and dinner and workout if I'm feeling ambitious, study/read/maybe watch a show, bed. But after weeks and months of that routine, it's exhausting to say goodbye to Melanie each weekday and to spend all my free time studying or reading. It's easy to start neglecting pre-reading and cutting corners in schoolwork. It will all be worth it in the end. I just have to get settled into my routine.

Melanie. Melanie has been learning and growing and pretending to potty train. She is silly and happy and spunky. She LOVES the new Midland house. Last Saturday I was on campus in the morning. I came home to her dressed like this (she chose her clothes, not Spencer). I asked her what she wanted to do that day, and she said, "I just want to laugh and play!"

Melanie has been learning to love new foods. This month she has decided she likes cucumbers, carrots, the crust of her PBJ, and black olives (which she previously refused to touch). She has been doing more imaginary play. Yesterday during dinner she hopped up and walked across the kitchen to scoop something up in her hands. It was an imaginary chicken. Then she found an imaginary Pooh bear and "lost" him while he was climbing a hunny tree. Melanie has been learning her letters a lot this month. We downloaded a couple of alphabet apps, and that seems to have sparked her interest. Even as we read books or do her alphabet puzzle, she's started pointing out letters she knows on her own. She loves to watch movies, but she turns into a crabby pants whenever it's over, so we don't do many shows or movies at home. She loves Disney music. We got her a Disney Princess CD for Christmas because she drives to and from Midland to Mt. Pleasant with me each day (about 40 in good weather). One day last week we listened to Something There from Beauty and the Beast at least 9 times. Today she requested Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid to start it off, but then listened to the entire CD in order.

Our biggest family development lately is that we moved! We are now renting a HOUSE in Midland! We love having more space. Melanie is more active and tends to run around more in the bigger space. The house is a rental, so it needed several repairs right off the bat. Lately we have discovered that the oven is like 125 degrees hotter than the dial says, so we'll probably submit a work request on that this week, too. We've been winterizing windows and even a door with plastic shrink wrap because we got a little bit of a shock from our first utility bill, but we still like being in a house. Midland is right in the middle of Saginaw and Mt. Pleasant, so it breaks the 70 minute drive into two easier commutes. We are excited to be discovering all of the things to do in Midland. I'm excited for warmer weather so we can check out the city parks!

That basically brings you up to speed on us! We had a great Christmas break of visiting Grand Haven, Ironwood, and moving all of our things to Midland!