Pregnancy:
As far as I know, I’m at the end of the first trimester. I get to go to the Dr. on September 1, and I'm excited to get the timing issue all straightened out. Currently I’m feeling about the same as I did the first time around:
-I’m nauseated 24 hours a day, but it is the least bothersome in the morning, and grows worse and worse as the day wares on. After dinner I never feel like doing much of anything, but I stay busy regardless.
-I get hungry about every 2 hours, and I get full very quickly once I start eating. Unfortunately I often feel sick when I’m done eating. I guess I’ve decided that the sick feeling isn’t as bad as being hungry, because I haven’t let it stop me from eating. I don’t remember it being quite like this before—I was certainly hungry all of the time, but I remember feeling much better.
-Whatever I eat sticks with me for hours. I always regret eating anything with a strong flavor, because I’ll taste it all day/night. Eating a burger off of a charcoal grill, for example, was a very fleeting pleasure. The charcoal taste in my mouth all night made me sick.
-I’m getting big, fast. I’ve yet to pull out any maternity things, and I probably won’t for a while (more because I’m stubborn rather than I don’t need to), but I’m amazed at how large my midsection is already. Sorry, I don’t have a picture to share.
-I’m working from home for 2 hours a day (during Sally’s nap), and it is going well except that it prevents me from napping, something I long to do.
-For the most part my lifestyle and behaviors have changed very little since I’ve been pregnant, as staying busy and keeping things in my same routine take my mind off of how I feel.
Potty Training (and other tidbits about Sally):
-Sally has started going on the potty 2-3 times a day, always at my request. I don’t exactly have a potty training method, but I think I’ll look into some soon so I can really get her out of diapers for good. I didn’t anticipate potty training her at this age (20 months), but she started showing interest and so far is willing to go to the potty almost every time I ask her to. Sometimes she says no, and I don’t push her when she does.
-Sally is SO BUSY. She almost never stops moving. She is more of a “bag lady” than ever (said in the most affectionate way possible). She fills gift bags, bins, boxes, essentially any container she can get her hands on, with toys, paper, crayons, random objects she acquires from various parts of the house, etc. She then rearranges, sorts, organizes, and empties the contents of her containers, which she finds very amusing. Keeping her toys organized is nearly impossible now, but at least she is happy and occupied.
-Her vocabulary continues to grow by the day. She now parrots me quite a bit, and remembers more and more of what I’ve taught her. She knows her colors and is starting to learn the ABCs.
-Her nursery leader told me today that she’s been having a problem with sharing (which I knew about) but that she is showing some signs of progress. I try so hard to get her to share, and I have to intervene quite a bit when she plays with others. I think that this is typical for her age and have to remember not to stress terribly about it. I really do think that she is doing better than she was a few months ago.
Swinging, one of her favorite amusements. You may notice that she's wearing a Christmas tree pajama shirt. She's been obsessed with pjs lately, and it's all I can do to get her into normal clothing each day. Some days we compromise. Pretty Darn Busy:
-Neal’s second month of residency is much busier than the first. He’s on call (a 30 hour shift) every 4 days, and he has to be at the hospital by 6:00 every morning. He’s usually home at a decent time, so it could be worse. He’s learning a lot and working with nice people, which help the situation.
-Neal just led his (technically our, as I am on the team but didn’t play in the last half of the season) Ultimate Frisbee team to victory in the championship game (I say he led the team because he was voted the MVP). He played 4 tournament games yesterday in unbearable heat and humidity. He was gone from 9:30 in the morning until 5:00 in the evening. Sally and I watched part of the tournament but in the end couldn’t take the heat. He got several nice war wounds and a great sense of satisfaction out of the experience. He said it was very reminiscent of his BYUltimate days, which I know he misses. Neal's an awesome Frisbee player, and I'm so glad he had such a rewarding season. It's now time to find something new to occupy each Thursday night!
Just Neal's typical diving scrape.
A slighly worse-than-usual knee wound. The picture doesn't do it justice.
-His grandma died on Friday afternoon, and he spent the evening calling his parents and siblings making travel arrangements to be at the funeral. It will be next Saturday, and he’ll get another 24 hour trip to Utah out of it. He took charge and made sure that all of his siblings knew about it and had help, if needed, in getting travel arranged. The passing of Grandma Peterson brings a mixture of sorrow and joy. She has not been well for a long time, and has wanted to go for several years now. We all know that she is now with Grandpa Peterson and that she is no longer suffering, which is truly a blessing. She will be missed, but is in a better place. She left a great legacy of faith that her posterity won’t forget.
-On a final note about Neal, I want to clear up somewhat of a family misconception about his residency and how he got it. I told some of my family members about a project that Neal did in his 4th year of med school that was very favorably looked upon by the head of the KU anesthesia dept. (who by random circumstance happened to be Neal’s faculty advisor on the project). The project involved some statistics, and, as I’m a statistical programmer, I spent maybe 30 minutes helping Neal set up a program to get his statistical results. My contribution was minor at best. Although Neal did get an anesthesia residency at KU, it is NOT because I did his project for him, or even that he did a good job on the project at all. Good board scores (pretty good on Step I, awesome on Step II), good grades, and hard work in medical school are what landed Neal his residency. Had he not matched at KU, he most certainly would have matched at another of his top choices, as he got many follow up letters from these other programs telling him what a great candidate he was and how much they would like to have him in their program.
Neal will probably be upset with me for the previous paragraph, as he doesn’t care what people think. I realize that I have a tendency to embellish stories, and the misconception that I got Neal his residency spot is probably my fault, so I feel a responsibility to set things straight. Enough said.
1 comment:
That last part is probably my fault, actually...I did tell some family members the story you guys told me about the research paper and I'm sure the 'telephone game' exaggeration was in full force by the time it got back around to you.
I Hope Neal isn't upset, it's no picnic getting into a residency. I haven't gotten that far yet but it is a tough road and we are all proud of him for earning a spot in a very competitive field.
Matt
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