Saturday, September 27, 2008

Pinewood Derby!!

Our ward activities committee (Ok, the Roeth's, but still...) planned a Pinewood Derby for our activity this month and it was a HIT!! We had amazing participation. People I've never seen at an activity before came to play. Mitch managed to get our car together despite his insane schedule. Since they billed it as racing your "Family" car, I thought it would be funny to make a minivan, but since our family car is actually a truck, that is what we went for. Here is Mitch's excellent replica of Big Blue. She didn't go very fast (no weights), but she looked cool! Here is our mystery Mistress of Ceremonies. I have my suspicions, though... You looked and were awesome, Rachelle!!!
Here is Rachel Heidenreich checking out the Hunt's car, and you can see that the competition was fierce!!
Here is the winner. There were no weight limits, so it is a 3 pound scuba weight taped to the wooden car. It kicked everyone else's tail.
And the highlight of the evening for me - Logan folded his arms for the prayer without any prompting, and stayed reverent for the entire prayer. And Joe was really long-winded! I was so proud! I guess he does pay attention to us sometimes.
The Pinewood Derby was so fun! We heard lots of folks planning for next year, so I think this may become a Temple 1st Ward annual event. Yay!

Friday, September 26, 2008

Haircut

Well, the sheepdog (as my mother has been calling him) has finally been shorn. It was rather a spur of the moment thing, actually. Last night, while he was playing in his bathtub I thought, "He's entertained; Myra's quiet; where are my scissors?" And there you go. In retrospect, I probably should have waited for a night when Mitch was home, rather than surprising him after a long night in the ICU. Ooops..
--Before--
Aah! What happened to my hair??
Maybe if I comb it, it'll come back...
Hmm, that didn't work.
Oh, well, I'll just have to get used to the new 'do!
We still think he's adorable, but it makes him look awfully grown up!

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Growing up...too fast!!

Yesterday Myra decided to accomplish two developmental milestones at once. She finally smiled AT me instead of just at random times and she held up her head 90 degrees. It reminded me of how fast the time seems to be flying by. It seems like just yesterday that she was born. She was so tiny, even the newborn sized clothes were too big, and now she's growing out of them! Oh, my babies! Logan is comparatively SOOO big!!

Here they are - side by side.
And hands together. Myra's hands are so little!!
And proof that she is her fathers daughter. I am completely incapable of rolling my tongue, and Myra can do it at 5 1/2 weeks. She gets that allele from Daddy!

I can't believe how quickly Myra has gone from a tiny little red faced newborn to a big, cute baby! Now if only she would grow some hair...

Our Music Man

Logan LOVES to sing and play music. "If you're happy and you know it" is a favorite song.

Sorry it is sideways - I don't know how to rotate and Mitch didn't know that when he was taking the video...

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Houston, Galveston, and a heapin' helpin' of water

Ah!

My heart just hurts for my hometown. I know so many people there and pray that they are safe and that their homes are ok.

Hoping to find out that there will be some trips made from this stake to go down and help out with any cleanup. I hear that it's not as bad as Rita but still, it can't be good.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Firsts

Myra is 4 weeks old today, so I thought I'd quickly document a few firsts from her first month of life.

First BreathFirst Night at HomeFirst Cheesy Grin! (We'll be saving this one for her first date)First Time I Found my ThumbFirst "Real" Bath

First Time Big Brother Held Me (with some assistance from Mom)I can't believe it has already been a month!

Monday, September 1, 2008

Hard Decisions

So, in the face of a new addition to the family my thoughts have turned somewhat to the future. As impossible as it seems, I am only a little less than 2 years from having a 'real' job (with an accompanying very "real" school debt). What, then, to do when I grow up? How to put food on the table and pay the bills?

This has been a long struggle for me for a variety of reasons. For those of you who know me at all, you are very well aware that I absolutely detest residency and as an extension, Internal Medicine, and as an extension of that, doctoring as a whole. I think it is a field that is full of false promises, that attracts those who want to care and the prevents them from doing so, at least in residency. The inhumane hours, workload, ever-increasing oversight and decreasing compensation for same (not that you see any of that in residency) saps even the most optimistic of all humanity. I myself have wished all my patients dead just for a few extra hours of sleep, and that is a literal statement, not an exaggeration. This darker side struggles against the light and caring I found in me long ago in a far off land, and lately it's the dark what's winning the battle. I also struggle with the same problem Glenn Walker faces--at what point has the job taken over? Where is the balance between family, self, God, and work? Should I give the best of my effors at the job, or should I save that for some other aspect of my life? Have I wrecked my own hopes on the ragged shores of doctoring?

I think, in the end, it comes down to what I can tolerate. After much thought, about the only time I seem to enjoy doctoring is when I have the TIME to do the job the way I see fit. This is, of course, the antithesis to what modern doctoring is about. Certainly there is no place for proper care in the outpatient setting, what with appointments scheduled every 15 minutes even for the most complex patient. This rules out essentially every speciality except possibly critical care and hospitalist work. Fortunately, I don't mind those two as much, and that's probably where I will end up, for a while at least. I suspect that at some future point my own sanity will require that I leave medicine as a field and find something else.

One other note--it's very hard to try and make decisions about what you want to do as an attending physician when you are in the midst of residency. Residency programs come with such a high added burden of pure chaos that it's nearly impossible to gauge what your life will be like without 7 additional hours (that's an average, some days higher, some lower) of garbage of questionable utility. What could I do with an extra 7 hours per day? It boggles the mind.