Catching up on this and that...

It's been a long time since I've even had much of a chance to think about a topic to post, let alone sit and post an entry that I feel compelled to do so now. It's quiet, not too late, and no pressing last minute jobs to do like studying for boards or sending out birthday invitations, so even though I don't have any particular subject in mind, I think I'll just ramble on the keyboard a bit. My spouse hasn't really been talking to me for a few days and won't tell me why, so I'll just pretend someone is listening.

Let's see, where to start. I think I mentioned last fall that my mom was diagnosed with breast ca. Since then, she had surgery to remove the tumor, but didn't require mastectomy or chemo. She finished radiation therapy last month and if all goes well, that will be it! Another one of life's hurdles cleared. Thanksgiving was great because we had a house full of people. My mom and dad, my mother-in-law, and my brother-in-law, S, and his wife, C were with us. It had been along time since we had family stay with us and it was really nice.

The weekend before Christmas was spent in NC with my husband's side of the family. The rough part was coming home really early Christmas Eve with very little sleep and stilling having a lot of preparations to do, but we made it and things were ready for Santa by the time we went to bed. I'm happy to report that we had nowhere to go on Christmas day and I never got out of my pajamas.

January brought a mixture of emotions. S and C got to visit the baby girl who will hopefully be joining them in the states in a few months, but during the same trip, C's father lost his battle with cancer. I think he was a really great person. Two of my own children had birthdays, my son,P, now 10 and my baby girl,K, now 7. Both chose to have good old fashioned parties at home, even with the offer to have it at an outside location. I think both of them and their friends had a fun at each. For those of you with young children, you likely know what webkinz are. That was the theme of K's party. All the little girls brought their favorite webkinz, made a crown for it, went on a gem hunt and used the gems to decorate the crown, and then had a candy land type game spinning a wheel of fortune type spinner (the wheel of wow) to pick the color. P and his friends played foosball, ping pong, and capture the flag, and finally took turns dropping a beanbag with their feet onto a target while riding down a zip line. No injuries!

My oldest, closing in on 13, had a valentine's day dance to go to. All the girls got dresses and made a big deal out of getting ready, nail polish and straightening hair, etc. It was funny, because for the most part, they were still pretty well divided into groups of mostly boys or girls when i saw them. I'm sure that won't last much longer, but I'm going to enjoy it while I can. I am glad they had fun, because I was feeling a little guilty about making her upset earlier in the day. We had to meet with the guidance counselor to make some class choices for next year. Basically it boiled down to what level math and english (regular, college prep, or honors), and what language. Both her math and english teachers recommended her for the honors level in each, so I figured it was a no brainer to choose those. She felt a lot differently and was brought to tears before I relented and let her back down to cp in the english, with the counselor guiding me that way. I had no idea she was so stressed about the honors, because she gets good grades now with what doesn't appear to be much effort. Thinking about it later, it is just 8th grade, as long as we don't let her go too easy, it's not apt to be a life changing decision, and since she'll be thirteen, it will probably make all our lives better next year. As I eluded to earlier, I had to take an exam to recertify for my boards. I was otherwise so busy that I didn't have time to stress over it, or prepare for it for that matter. I just took the practice test and hoped for the best. It had to be taken at one of those testing centers, almost 4 hours at a computer. I am happy to say, that I did pass, Yeah, and even better, I only had to wait a week for the results. I am now a board certified pediatrician for another 7 years. I am also getting to be tired as the time ticks later so I'll wrap it up soon. The last month has been pretty busy in the office with the flu upon us, so my days are pretty steady. It's good for business, but I do fall behind on all the admistrative type stuff, forms, returning calls, resident evaluations, etc. I'm quite happy that we are closed on Monday since we are a university office.

Good-bye for now. I hope I didn't bore you too much. Next time, more interesting fodder, tales of laser hair removal!