Category — Colorado

This is a long overdue post…

We left a LOT in Colorado that we’ll miss.  Not my job, but the people, our neighbors, the Colorado culture, the weather, the mountains, the natural beauty, our neighborhood, Jack’s school.  The saddest goodbye though was when we said it to the Stickleys.  Chris, Emily, Nova, and Juneau.  They feel like family to us, and actually, now that they’re Finley’s Godparents, I guess they are.  Our kids are like 1 cohesive little unit when they’re altogether and our friendship with Chris & Em means SO much to me and Travis.  That goodbye really tore Finley up – she’s still recovering from it and asks about them all the time.  Even Jack has been asking to go to Hawaii (where the Stickley’s are from and will be moving back to next summer) to see them.  They have been such incredible friends to us.  I can’t begin to describe how good of friends they are.  They even devoted their Father’s Day to driving up to help us pack up the truck the weekend before we left for Wisconsin.  Their friendship is probably the best thing of all that came from our time living in the awesome state of Colorado.  Sappy, but true.  We love you guys and miss you TONS!! 

Most of these pictures are from Jack’s little bday party. He requested “party games,” so we did stuff like a fruit rollup eating contest, bobbing for apples, and other cheesy, wholesome games that families like mine and Emily’s grew up playing on made-up events like “Family Fun Days.”  Speaking of…Travis and I recently decided we’re going to have an annual “Good Sports Day,” when we have the kids compete in athletic events and team building things.  This was decided after Jack started telling us about the trophy collection he hopes to acquire some day!  We’re going to design our own Good Family trophy collection – there’ll probably be lots of “most improved” awards!  Haha!

I have gotten a number of emails from people due to the recent thread on APV regarding recurrent pustular outbreaks on the hands and feet of children who have already been adequately treated for scabies.

As I was gently nudged by a few of your requests, I did submit a response to that thread.  Unfortunately, it must have been weeded out by the moderators of the APV group on accident, because it still has not appeared amongst the new messages.  I realize moderating that site is volunteer based and time intensive, I just find it to be a little frustrating to use that resource since there is about a 3-7 day delay to our postings (and in my case, I spent a lot of time typing out a response to the thread on acropustulosis and it was never posted).  Personally, I don’t see the need for a moderator on that site given the extensive process you have to go through to become a member.  I think it’s redundant to check all membership applications AND continue to pre-approve each individual post.  But that’s just me.  Anyway, I’ll respond to that thread here, so if people could pass this along to those APVers who were searching for more info on “recurrent, itchy bumps on the hands and feet of their adopted kids,” it’d be greatly appreciated.

Many of you have inquired to find out whatever happened with my study on infantile acroputulosis.  It was published and the full-text just became available via Epub ahead of print in May.  I do apologize for the delay, but the publication process can take close to a year once something is accepted to a competitive journal.  This article was accepted to the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology (also known as The Blue Journal or JAAD, www.eblue.org), which is the most widely read and most highly respected dermatology journal.  That is fantastic considering the goal of the research was to increase physician awareness of this condition.  Unfortunately, you cannot access the full article unless you go to a medical library that subscribes (or buy it in pdf form for $31.50, but I think that’s a bit pricey for 1 article!).  If you are interested in the brief version, here is the link to the pubmed abstract:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21632152

The full-text article is quite lengthy and has several images of IA (some taken by me, others by people with children involved in the study), as well as a histologic image of a biopsied case we had.  You’ll also notice Travis is an author on this publication - he calculated all our statistics.

You can at least print the abstract and give it to your pediatrician/family doc if you think your child has this and has not been diagnosed or your pediatrician has never heard of this entity.  In response to 1 specific post on APV, infantile acropustulosis is NOT contagious.  That said, there are other diseases and infections on the differential diagnosis that are, so you really need to verify a diagnosis like this with your pediatrician or dermatologist.

Thank you to all those who participated!!  Hopefully it’ll better prepare pediatricians, family docs, and even dermatologists to recognize this in internationally adopted kids.  The other result of the study you may not be aware of is the coincidence between infantile acropustulosis and eczema (referred to more specifically as “atopic dermatitis” in the article and abstract).  Interestingly, ~50% of kids w/ acropustulosis in the study also have eczema, and an old study showed a similar incidence in that subpopulation.  There’s no cause and effect implicated and the sample size was too small to make any generalizations, just something to be aware of in our kids, and something professionally I find fascinating.

Remember our gang of DC med school friends and spouses?  Our group we jokingly now refer to as the Caca Crusaders?  Well, we had a reunion this weekend in Denver.  We hadn’t seen each other in a ridiculously long time but we were missing part of our gang (Dominique and Kevin + kids) so it wasn’t the same.  But even so, and as usual, we had a blast!  Sarah and Dave (and their little boys), and Brad and Melanie (and their little girls) all stayed at our house so we and our kids could catch up on all that’s happened in our lives since our last rendezvous out here. 

Never mind that our kids were all feverish and sick, they had fun with each other too.  The daddies got to drink beers, play with their iDevices, and talk technology while Mel, Sarah, and I sympathized with each other about the challenging juggling act required to be a mom doctor while maintaining a healthy marriage and some semblance of sanity on top of it all.  After the weekend ended and we were left feeling the post-holiday blues again, Travis and I analyzed why we miss this group of friends so much now that we’re scattered around the country for our various residency programs.  These are VERY unique friendships for us; each of these are couples with whom we partied and had a lot in common BEFORE we had kids.  We became close friends because we were in unique circumstances in our 20’s – it wasn’t common where we went to medical school to be married, and our husbands have always gotten along like they were childhood friends.  It was even LESS common where we went to med school to have kids as a female medical student, which we all did in our 4th years.   So a lot happened in our 20’s and we stayed friends throughout.  We, therefore, know each other in a very different context compared to the friendships we make these days, which are based mostly on having kids in common.  We’ve watched each other through the transition from married life (and medical school) to parenthood (and residency). 

People say college is a very defining time in a person’s life, and for me that was very much the case.  However, for those of us in medicine, our 20’s are almost more defining.  SO much changes about  a person from the 1st year of medical school (when we’re green as hell and hopelessly idealistic) to residency (when we’re burned out and cynical), and even more changes happen from the relative carefree nature of married life to the ultimate responsibility of married life with kids.  Put those 2 transitions together in the same timeframe and you’ve got a lot of major life events.  In the case of the Caca Crusader couples, we all married right before starting medical school, had kids during medical school, and continued having kids in residency.  That’s a lot of transitioning during what would already have been very defining and  stressful periods of our adult lives. 

Anyhoo, all that to say that our friendships with these couples have a very solid foundation.  There’s something very re-centering about spending time with people that know you more deeply and with whom you have history.  It’s refreshing, grounding, fun, and heavy all at once.  We miss being able to see these friends on a weekly basis.  We’ve helped each other through tough times since graduation – infertility, diagnoses, family struggles, marital challenges, regrets over career choices at some points and gratitude for our careers other points, failures, disappointments…and also celebrated with each other through huge successes, surprise pregnancies, adoptions, harrowing deliveries, new jobs, cross country moves, and the overall formation and growth of each of our beautiful families.  I’m hopeful our kids will grow up knowing each other just as deeply and developing an even richer history than their parents’ have together, as it’s a unique experience our kids will have survived as well! 

The Caca Gang (missing Dom & Kev’s kids, Cata, Tomas, and Francisca):

We braved the National Western Stockshow and the adults and (some of) the kids LOVED the rodeo…or “radio,” as Finley calls it.  Here are some fun cowkid pics:

Apparently this is what cowgirls look like when they poop?!…

Jack and Ashlyn:

Sawyer to Shane: “Dude, go that way!”

Ashlyn, Jack, and Bryson trying to figure out how to hotwire the John Deer tractor:

As is evident in the pics, Jack LOVED sitting on the bull:

Please look at the pout-pout face on Jack in the next pic – Blub, Bluuub, Bluuuuuub!  (Btw, if you got that reference, name the kid book)

Mel and Griffie:

Bryson and Finley being silly:

Griff-star being his cute little self:

In line with our traditions, here is our quote list from our 4th annual Caca Crusader reunion.  Be warned, this is R-rated.  We’re not exactly proper when it comes to language or content, but throw us all in a room together and we’re like freakin sailors!

1.    Laurie to Sarah, who is furiously turning a light-up toy on and off: “What are you doing, checking to see if you have epilepsy?!”
2.    Laurie to Travis (with a face of disgust): “Why don’t you go take a shower?”    Travis: “Not everyone here took a shower today, okay?”
Laurie: “Yeah, well you’re the only one who looks like you could fry an egg on your head.”
SILENCE.…..”from all the GREASE?!”
3.    Melanie: “Some lady at Monkey Bizness asked me if I was Finley’s mom. It was just easier to answer yes than to explain the situation.”
Laurie: “Wow, I can’t believe you claimed her!”
4.    Travis (describing a catchphrase answer): “It’s like a cross between pants and a kilt.”
Brad (with a completely serious face): “Yeah, Kants.”
5.    Finley: “I LOVE twayzey twitters.” 
Melanie: “Is she talking about twitter?”
Travis: “No, she’s saying Crazy Critters.”
Finley: “I’m going to learn how to twitter soon.” 
Travis: “I can only imagine the verbal diarrhea that will result.”
6.    Laurie (to Travis, who’d just playfully thrown Griffin in the air): “Trav, you scared the shit out of him! He’s a f#*king newborn!”
7.    Melanie, to Laurie in reference to her choice in husband, “I can’t believe you married this guy!”
Laurie: “I KNOW! I can’t believe no one objected at the wedding. What the hell kind of friends ARE you guys?!?”
8.    Laurie (regarding Finley stealing a Payday candy bar from the Safeway): “She stole the candy, then flashed them her dimples.”
SILENCE.
Brad : “I thought you said nipples!”
Sarah: “Me too!”
Travis: “No, then she’d be using her dad’s AND her mom’s tactic in the same offense!”
9.    Melanie, to Laurie in reference to Henny: “He looks so sad!”
Laurie: “No he’s not, his face just looks like that.”
10.    (In reference to the game of Wits&Wagers) Melanie (after accidentally seeing the answer): “Ok, I won’t vote.”
Travis: “It’s ok, your answer was too dumb to be included anyway.”
11.  (Travis asking everyone to declare their Wits&Wagers points from the previous round) Travis: “Mel, how many?”
Melanie: “none.”
Travis: “haha!  I know, I just wanted to hear you say it out loud!”
12.    (In reference to the game of Wits&Wagers) Travis: “Which would you bet more on, the shaft or the balls?”
Melanie: “Oh, the shaft definitely. The balls are totally extraneous, they really just get in the way.”
Laurie: “Yeah, and you feel like you have to acknowledge them from time to time.”
Sarah: “Yeah, and they SMELL.”
Travis: “I guess Brad had quite a skewed view of the worth of his G-unit.”
13.    Laurie (in reference to the YouTube sensation Antoine Dodson): “Wait, why did he go to an electronics show?”
Brad: “Because a bunch of nerds think he’s hilarious?!”
14.    (On a walk, discussing a medical case involving pregnancy in the setting of a Mirena IUD in which the device was found stuck in the baby’s head at delivery – baby was fine once Mirena was removed, fyi) Laurie: “and we shall name her Mirena, we’ll call her Mira for short.” 
Mel: “MIRA!  As in, LOOK, there’s a F*&%ing Mirena stuck in her head!” 
15.     Travis to me and Mel: “girls, you’ve been nursing those drinks for awhile.  What the hell?” 
Me: “it’s Mel’s fault.  I don’t want to seem like an alcoholic since I made mine twice as strong as hers and drank it twice as fast…but I do have twice as many kids, so I’m sure the math works out somehow!”

Catchphrase teams: the Taint Haters (girls) vs. the Maintaintenance (boys)
Travis’s definition: Maintaintenance: the process of maintaining the taint

Song: “The bed intruder” by Antoine Dodson. “Hide your kids, Hide your wife.”
Drink: “The Vagine” = vodka + Hendrick’s gin + tonic

I’m feeling good today, but yesterday felt like a huge letdown.  It sort of hit us all at once that the holiday are over, the baby anticipation is gone, the excitement of having family in town is done, and now there’s not much time left before our 5 months of straight hell begins (I’m on the wards for literally 5 months straight – 80 hours a week with no more than 1 day off per week).  It hit yesterday because the last of our family holiday guests, Travis’ dad, left town.  Jack, Griff, Fin, and I all had upset tummies with lots of barfing and/or diarrhea, and Travis and I were exhausted.  Seemed a rough start to the New Year.  You know the post-holiday blues?  When you feel that wave of depression because it’s all over – so much looking forward to and then it’s just over until next year.  That, combined with baby blues, some homesickness since I spent this Christmas away from my parents and siblings, and the dread of returning to the hospital made for sort of a gloomy New Year’s Eve. 

Today, however, is sunny outside (frigid as hell with snow all over, but sunny nonetheless!) and we’re in good spirits.  Our kids are feeling better, and the 3 big kids amused us all morning with their hilarious antics.  I’ll post on each of them separately since it’s been awhile.  I think my New Year’s resolution, which I’ve already broken in the above paragraph of this post, is to try and live 1 day at a time this year.  Or at least until June 23rd when I’m done with intern year.  I suck at that and really make myself miserable looking ahead and letting myself get overwhelmed. 

Here are a few more photos of our time with Travis’ family.  We really did enjoy our time with them and are all really missing them.  We are so glad they came out to share Christmas and Griffie’s early newbornhood with us!

I can’t believe I didn’t take a single picture to document it, but our really close friends, Sara and Kaakpema, threw us a beautiful baby shower last weekend at their gorgeous home.  We are SO lucky to have such awesome friends.  The icing on the cake was that my mom, Christy (my older sister), and Angela (my little sister) flew in for it.  I’d worked until 12am the night before, so they’d gone to bed in our basement before I’d gotten home.  I came downstairs the next morning to see them in the kitchen making breakfast for the kids and was TOTALLY confused and floored!  I couldn’t figure out what was going on.  It was the coolest surprise ever.

It’s funny, but the shower somehow helped make the whole “we’re really pregnant” thing a little more real to us.  I keep thinking it’s going to hit us and we’re going to feel “ready,” but it’s still so surreal.  Travis still has this look of shock and horror when he sees my profile and remembers I’m about to delivery a baby.  I finished my final ER shift last night, so I’m sort of “off” for awhile – I’m on back-to-back derm elective months with my mentor.  Since I have some book chapters that are written but not yet edited, I can use the time to finish those and get elective credit that way.  I don’t have to be back in the hospital until Jan 23.  I don’t want to think about that yet though.  I just cannot process the fact that we’re going to have a newborn in 5.5 days or less!  That is just wild.  The kids are so cute and sweet with my belly – they rub it, kiss it, and talk about the baby all the time.  I’d give the excitement and newness of having a new baby brother/sister about 2 days for them once Quatro is actually here;)  I’m also kind of shocked that I went full-term.  EVERYONE predicted I’d deliver early because of the stress, lack of sleep, and craziness of being a pregnant intern.  But nope, my body once again proves it likes to hoard babies and NOT let them out…hence the scheduled section.  I am HUGE (close to my pregnancy weight with Finley) and really would have been thrilled to be unpregnant about 2 weeks ago, but I’m also very grateful my Little Bun got a full cooking. 

Anyway, we had an awesome little getaway to Keystone a few days ago with Kaakpema, Sara, and our friend Shane (affectionately known as “Big Shane” to my kids).  Big Shane, Kaakp, and Travis are business partners and have some very exciting work in Africa as well as Colorado in the field of health IT.  It’s so neat to finally see Travis engaged in work he feels passionate about, and it’s clear this is the field in which he was meant to work.  He initially thought he went to medical school to be a clinician, but he’s realized his strengths and potential are far greater in health IT.  His MD/MBA was the necessary educational path to open the doors he is now walking through, and Kaakpema and Shane are the perfect partners to balance him out.   On a somewhat related note, my kids are obsessed with Big Shane – they adore him.  Here is Big Shane with Little Shane (as my baby calls himself when in Big Shane’s presence):

We had a great time with everybody in Keystone!  Like last year, I used this opportunity to snap some cute holiday pics of my babies (sans Quatro).  Here are my favorites so far…please excuse the water mark on some of these; my lens needs cleaning and I don’t have time to edit the spots out.

Fin got some baby practice while we were in Keystone.  You may remember our friends, Kaakpema and Sara, had a baby ~4 months ago.  His name is Desmond, and he is ridiculously PRECIOUS!  Fin was tickled pink to hold him and it gave us a glimpse into the overbearing “helpfulness” that will accompany her transition to being the big sister of a poor unfortunate soul;)  Seriously though, she was so attentive to Baby Desmond and gentle with him – it was super cute. 

Please ignore my man hands in the following pics.  But they do match my hobbit feet, in case you were wondering.

The next 2 pictures cracks me up…they demonstrate Finley taking her duty as drool wiper VERY seriously.

The last picture is of Jack trying his hand at big brother to a teeny tiny baby again (it lasted all of 45 seconds, when he became bored and gently nudged the baby off his lap and back onto mine:)  Shane, on the other hand, is rather indifferent to babies as it turns out!  When asked if he wanted to hold the baby, he just responded “um, no thanks.”  Uh oh.

My little brother, Jeremy, aka “Uncle Shammy” to Shane, is visiting…so I have lots of pics (Jme, your wish has come true;).  The kids have been dressed up for the past few days and I just have to premise these pictures – Jack’s costume was NOT my idea.  It was intended for Fin, but Jack just fell in love and has abandoned his costume for hers.  Fin doesn’t like frill or lace on her body, so she was happy to pawn off the bumblebees.  Thank GOD Jack isn’t in school full-time just yet.  Shane and Fin think he’s the greatest kid in the world, so pretty much anything he does is considered “cool” around here, but I’m not sure how a “cowboy bumblebee” would fly on the playground with older kids.  Yes, Jack is a “cowboy bumblebee,” complete with a lacy dress, tights, a magic wand, “pom-poms” (as he calls the fluffy accents on his wrists), and cowboy boots.  He has 2 costume variations as you can see below:

Uncle Shammy:

Jack, of course, called up to his Daddy and Uncle Shammy to say “um, that doesn’t look very safe!”  It’s that responsible 1st born again – we think it’s hilarious how cautious and observant of safety rules he can be.

Here’s the little duck taking a rest:

I LOVE fall, and I absolutely love fall in Colorado.  I love every season in Colorado, but fall is my favorite.  I know there’ll be pumpkin patches in Wisconsin too, but they won’t have mountain views or the same crisp, dry air with the bluest skies like we have here.  Still, I can’t wait to live there.  I’m just REALLY looking forward to the end of this year. 

I’m a big fan of fall festivals, and since today was my day off, I took the kids to this one, which was fantastic because there weren’t too many people there and there was tons of open space.  We picked pumpkins, went through the corn maze (twice), jumped in the bounce house, played in the “corn box,” and the kids got their arms painted (face painting is lost on little kids because they can’t see the artwork).  It was pretty fun.  Travis had to round on his patients at the hospital, but he was able to meet up with us for a late lunch.  Travis and I just finished watching a movie together and now I’m doing the countdown (6 hours until I have to get up for work tomorrow).  8 days until my next day off…

Finley talked this poor artist’s ear off!!

I swear this boy just gets more and more beautiful every time I look at him.

Shane is too cool for school with his spider tattoo:

This picture pretty much sums up Finley - petite in stature but LOUD in personality:

I love this picture of Shane – does he not have the most gorgeous skin?!  As a derm-to-be, I can appreciate the fact that it is FLAWLESS.

This picture of Fin is so cute and I had fun playing with it in Lightroom:

As usual, I’m behind on life and have tons of photos to post before they all get lost.  I finished nightfloat, so I’m trying to transition from vampire mode back to a day schedule.  This month is going to be rough, which we’ve known it would be since Travis and I are both on the hospital wards until Oct 22.  This is Travis LAST clinical month, probably EVER, which he is going to hate every second of but has to get through to fulfill med school requirements.  He was traveling last week, and we were lucky enough to have my dad fly out to be with the kids since I was overnight at the hospital working nightfloat.  My dad is the greatest, and the kids LOVED their time with him.  It was a great distraction from Travis being away. 

Every now and then we let them all sleep in the same bed – they love it.  We’re considering bunking all the kids in a room together, or at least these 3, when we move to Milwaukee.  We’ll see.  This pic is from our hotel in New Mexico from a few weekends ago when we went to visit Jerry and Rebecca.

The rest of these are from an awesome day we had with the Stickley family celebrating June-Bug’s 3rd birthday.  A lot of you know Emilie and Chris from the Vietnam adoption community / blogging world.  They have become really dear friends of ours, IRL, since they moved to Colorado.  Our kids absolutely adore each other, and Finley, in particular, is OBSESSED with the Stickley family.  She asks for Nova and Juneau on an almost daily basis.  Em did a military scholarship for medical school and is being deployed to Afghanistan this month, and Chris and the girls will be headed back to their homeland / dreamland, Hawaii where Chris is a professor.  We are DEVASTATED to be saying goodbye, but it gives us an excuse to visit Hawaii when Emily gets back home.  We’ll miss them SO much in the meantime.  Here are some pics from our last day with them at Urban Farm – the kids all had a blast.

All is status quo here – going through the motions, trying to survive each day, dreading next week and trying not to think about it.  I start a different rotation with some fairly notorious (in a not-so-positive-way) residents.  It’s going to be a month of VERY long work weeks, and my resident is actually making me stay on Thursday, the day I transition off nightfloat.  So I’ll work all night Wed. and then start a new service in the morning on Thursday and stay all day.  I’ll be back to the 1 day off per week schedule and will be working 80+hrs weekly. 

An update on Jack’s school situation – he’s doing better, starting to transition I think.  There are still some things that  break my heart, and he captured one of them in a picture he made at school today.  All the kids made cats with smiley faces, but his is a coyote with a big frown.  He told me it was sad because it didn’t have friends. 

I told my brother, Jeremy, about that and his response was “aww.  The old sad coyote trick.  Probably using it to get girls.”  My brothers crack me up.  We went to lunch today and while waiting for the check, Jack said turned to the waitress and said “mas rapido, por favor.”  Then he turned to me and said “that means super dooper fast, mom.”  So cute and so cool to watch language acquisition in a toddler. 

Before these pictures are totally out of date, I thought I’d post ‘em.  These are from the weekend before last.  We went up to Beirstadt, one of the 14ers Travis and I have climbed in the past, and hiked around the base with the kids for a few miles.  It was absolutely beautiful – perfect day, perfect weather.  Last weekend was pretty amazing as well, though I didn’t take a single frickin picture to capture it.  I got off work around 5am or so on Friday morning, slept ~2 hours, piled the kids in the car and drove to NM (don’t worry, Travis drove;).  After waking up behind the wheel one morning last week on the way home from a nightshift, my new policy is that I don’t drive until I’ve napped!  We got to see our good friends, Jerry and Rebecca, and their adorable kids.  They moved to Albuquerque for residency and we happen to LOVE it out there, so it was a great trip all around. Anyway, these pictures make me happy.

I started nightfloat on Monday, meaning I am on a month long rotation where I work nights instead of days (and night).  For the first 2 weeks, I work 7pm-7am (in theory, reality is more like 7pm-8am, but this morning I got a late admission and was stuck there until almost 9), then I’ll switch to 4pm-4am (4pm-5 or 6am).  It’s grueling but actually comes out to probably 15-20 fewer hours worked each week.   I come home, try to nap 2-3 hours, then have lunch and play with the kids until their naptimes, when I lay down with them for another 1.5hrs.  It’s REALLY hard on the body, but the bright side is I actually get to see my kids.  By this morning, I was SO exhausted from being on my feet all night and sleeping ~4 hours a day between shifts.  Nights at the hospital are CRAZY busy and I seriously don’t even sit down except in the ED when I’m admitting a new patient.  But the beauty of nightfloat, and the reason I paid one of my co-interns to swap me a wards month for a nightfloat month this spring, is that you get 2 days off per week (we get “weekends”).  Probably doesn’t sound too exciting to people with normal jobs, but it’s one of the only rotations we have during intern year where that happens. 

So I got home ~9am today and don’t have to be back to the hospital until 7pm on Sunday.  The hard part is that my body is so damn confused about what time of day it is, and I can’t quite convince it to sleep right now.  Instead, I’ve decided to post pictures of the last 2 hikes we did – Burning Bear Creek Trail, which was AMAZING, and a little hike we’ve done before in Roxborough State Park, which I love.  Both were incredible, but Burning Bear is my new favorite to do with kids, especially if it’s warm enough to “swim” in the beautiful mountain creek the trail follows.

These are from Burning Bear Creek hike:

And in case you’re not sick of pictures, here are a couple from Roxy State Park:

Jack starts school this week, which is huge.  He’s VERY excited, but every time the topic comes up, Fin becomes hysterical.  She doesn’t want him to go, and if he does, she wants to go with him.  It’s kind of sad that their little pod of 3 is breaking up.  Jack will only go to school a few hours a day (~3), but since it’s in the am, it’ll mean he doesn’t go on morning outtings with Fin and Shane.  They’ll probably struggle without him for a bit, but I’m guessing Fin and Shane will become closer because of it (not that they aren’t close already, but you get the point).  Sad. 

Travis and I are back to daydreaming about getting to a point after I finish derm training (<4yrs) where we can pay off loans and just whisk our family overseas to travel for a few years while doing different types of international work.  We’d homeschool and hire an international school teacher to join us and help teach the curriculum we design for our kids, with tons of hands-on learning Travis and I can provide along the way while we take our kids to see the world and do humanitarian work along the way.  Then we’ll settle in London for 2 years, where I’ll do the Tropical Medicine fellowship before returning to the developing world to practice medicine / tropical derm / and teach at a med school.  Travis is now doing health IT development work in Africa, but hopefully it’ll expand into Asia as well, so lots of possibilities for his non-clinical role overseas too.  We just need his start-up company to do what people are projecting it will, and I just need to survive internship for now.  In the meantime, it’s nice to dream, ya know?

Anyway, I think I might take a Tylenol PM and attempt sleep – I haven’t taken a single pill during pregnancy, and that’s a safe one anyway so don’t worry (Yiayia;).  I think the baby would appreciate some rest.  I can’t even imagine what kind of little monster is lurking within me, but if it’s anything like the last one, I should be resting every second I can!  Speaking of, check out this tantrum, I call it a Fintrum:

Travis wasn’t in town when this happened and Fin gets very out of sorts without her daddy.  It’s kind of an amusing video at first, and then it’s just sad when her little body just gives up and you realize the meltdown was a combo of exhaustion and missing her dad.  I stopped filming and she just collapsed into my arms:(  Poor little monster.  But it does give you a glimpse into how her head can spin around!!  I posted this so I can look back on this blog someday and see the good, the bad, and the ugly.  And of course the beautiful, wonderful, fun, hilarious stuff that happens in our house everyday too.