Starting the Sub-I

In August Michael had an outpatient medicine rotation that had a very nice schedule. He got off early several afternoons a week and didn’t have to go in too early in the mornings. This means that it has been a really nice week for me – most mornings I get to ‘sleep in’ until around 7:30am and when I get up, Michael has already changed and fed the boys. Michael’s medicine sub-I started yesterday, and he is going to have a much tougher schedule for the month of September. This is one of Michael’s two sub-internship months this school year, which means that he takes on the responsibility of a 1st-year resident, which is a lot more than the normal responsibilities of a 4th-year medical student. Anyways, this month Michael will be working on weekends and be at the hospital overnight every 4th night. I think we may both be pretty tired by the time this month is over – at least the rotations he has scheduled for October and November are both supposed to have a much lighter schedule.

This last week was nice. On Monday I met Amy Schneider de Cortez (a friend from Michael’s school) and her kids at the Children’s Museum downtown. We had a lot of fun playing there, and it was good to see Amy again since we haven’t gotten together in a while. Then on Tuesday morning we got to go over to Jandee Anderson’s house and let the boys play with her son, Isaac. We found out that Isaac is going to be in Kolby’s swim class at the YMCA starting in a couple weeks, so that will be really nice. Later on that afternoon, Marcela Maas got out their baby pool and the boys went and swam with Sofia and with Mikey and Landon Kam. Then I went to the annual get-to-know-you RS BBQ, which was a lot of fun, even though it was very warm and humid out that night. I got to talk to some old friends and met several new sisters in the ward too.

On Wednesday I took the boys to the playgroup at Hoyt Park. The boys had a lot of fun and Camden enjoyed crawling all around the playground – trying to eat as much sand as he could before I stopped him, and climbing up on the playground equipment and playing on the slide. He is getting so old, playing with the big kids. On Wednesday night Kolby had his last swimming lesson of the summer session. On the last lesson of each session they always learn about water safety and bring a canoe into the pool and let the kids paddle it around, which is really fun for the kids. Kolby has improved so much with his swimming over the last few months. Michael took him to his lesson, and then afterwards he surprised him and took him to McDonalds. They each ordered something from the dollar menu, and Michael said that Kolby came and sat in the front seat of the car while they shared their food and talked about how things were going lately. Michael said that it was a really fun experience to have some one-on-one time with Kolby and to just talk to him about stuff. And Kolby talked about it for the entire day afterwards. That was pretty cute. So, the next night after Michael took Eli to his last swimming lesson, he took Eli and did the same activity. Michael said that he didn’t think Eli really caught on that it was a special thing that they got to do an activity just by themselves, but he said that Eli enjoyed getting the food from McDonalds, at least.

We went on Thursday morning for the toddler art class, and it was my turn to teach the lesson. I took these pictures of dinosaur skeletons, and the kids glued different shapes of pasta noodles on to make their own dinosaur skeletons. The other kids in the group ended up with pictures that somewhat resembled dinosaurs, and Kolby and Eli each finished with a piece of paper covered in a 3-inch thick pile of glue and noodles. It was pretty cute, though. That afternoon I also had a doctor’s appointment. I now have two more appointments scheduled in September, and then an appointment scheduled every week in October until the baby is due. Luverda Martin, my midwife, said that everything looks like it’s right on track with the baby. On Friday Michael went to school in the morning to work on his research, and then in the afternoon we took the boys to Nash Park, where someone had told me that they had a playground that was good for smaller kids because the guardrails went all the way down on all the sides of the equipment. Camden loved it – it wasn’t a very large playground, but once he found out that he could climb up the steps and go down the slide all by himself, he did that over and over again. Then we came home and had a bunch of friends over for a game night. We invited several new families in the ward that we hadn’t met before, and several old friends, and had a really fun time getting to know everyone.

On Saturday Michael started his sub-I. He said that it was pretty difficult because they don’t have orientation until tomorrow, so he didn’t know a lot of things that he was supposed to be doing, but that will get better after the first little while. I went to a baby shower for Jill Austin while Michael was at the hospital, and it was kind of a battle to take all the boys with me – they gave me a rough time, but I survived. Then, after the boys got up from their naps, we went over and cleaned the church building as a family. Afterwards we took the kids to Dennys – we love their “kids eat free” deal on Saturdays! We rented a movie for a date after we put the boys down to bed. We got one that Michael’s mom recommended to us called The Ultimate Gift. I stayed up and watched the whole thing last night, and Michael fell asleep on the couch about half way through the movie, as has become his habit lately (he is now catching up on the end of the movie while I am writing this and the boys are all napping). Anyways, it was a good movie – nice to find ones that are rated PG and you don’t have to worry about them having bad language or content. Well, today has been a good day too. It was one of Michael’s four days that he gets off this month (his only Sunday off). Church went well. We had a lesson about finances and making sacrifices for the right causes for Sunday school and the lesson in Relief Society was about the law of chastity and how to teach our children about modesty and how to avoid things that are inappropriate. And tonight we were invited to the Lundgren’s house for an early dinner, so that should be a lot of fun too.

Oh, and I just wanted to thank all of you who helped give suggestions for Michael’s personal statement and resume for his residency applications. He was going to submit his final application yesterday, but is still waiting to hear back from his advisor who had some suggestions for him – but he has decided to submit his application on Tuesday whether he has heard back from the advisor or not. I think it is a really hard thing to write about yourself, but Michael did a really good job of it, and with all the suggestions and corrections that he got from family and friends, I think that he ended up with a really good personal statement. So, once everything is submitted, we will just be waiting to get invitations for interviews, which will mostly be in December and January, so keep us in your prayers (because the more interviews he gets, the better chance he has of getting matched with a residency program). Thanks!