It's OK to throw a fit as long as you don't hit anybody with it

So not a lot has been going on here. Just kind of grinding through the days. Rebekah has been getting much better at walking and only falls infrequently now. These falls seem to come as a complete surprise to her, but it doesn't really phase her. She has also become more aware of her surroundings. When we walked by a bin of play balls at walmart (you know the kind that are so tall you would have to be a giant to slam dunk it), she kept saying "Ball! Ball! Ball!" over and over again until we walked over and picked one up. Now this ball is about as big as Rebekah. She can barely hold on to it, and when she does you can't see her behind it. Before you go thinking we let her have whatever she wants, we did go to the store with the intent to get her a new toy. It's not the toy we were looking for, yes. But it did keep her entertained. While checking out, we realized the ball we picked up didn't have a bar code on it. Meanwhile, Rebekah is throwing an honest conniption fit because we took her ball away to scan it on the self scanner. Yes, screaming, crying, jumping up and down in the cart, etc. ensued. It was not a pretty sight. When we finally got the ball to the car (Rebekah holding it all the way, in the front of the cart), we had to take the ball away to strap her in the car seat. You would think we were murdering the girl by the way she screamed. Then she carried it in front of her in the car seat the entire way home, didn't want to give it up to come out of the car seat, and continued to hold it while I carried her into the house. After about 15 minutes of holding the ball, she decided it was safe to put it down, and then she started to chase it around the house. This lasted another 10 minutes or so. Now the ball sits completely unused somewhere in our living room. And I thought I had a short attention span.

Jen and I are excited about our trip to Portland, OR. We are going to have some fun there and can't wait to see some old friends. There seems to be a lot to do there so I am sure we will keep busy. Since the toddler won't be with us, we will have some alone time. The first thing we are going to do: See the new Harry Potter movie. Not what you thought, right? But we can't really bring her to the movie since a. she won't watch the movie and b. she won't sit still for 2 1/2 hours in a dark room with other people and lots of noise going on and c. she's only 14 months old, Harry Potter is definitely not age appropriate! We'll also go to the museum (they have an MC Escher exibit going on) and many of the gardens and other attractions Portland has to offer. You know, do grown up stuff. This will be the first time we are both leaving the baby for an extended period of time, and we are both pretty nervous about it. I am sureRebekah will be fine (she's staying with my mother and father in law at our house, Thanks!), but she is still my daughter and I can't help but worry. We will Skype with her, but we don't really know how she will react to seeing us on the screen, but not be able to reach us. Not to mention our flight leaves early in the morning so she will go to sleep and the next day Mommy and Daddy are gone. Hopefully that won't bring up any abandonment issues. It'll be interesting to say the least.

Work is going to start picking up again soon. The students come back in a couple weeks and I start taking rotation students soon as well. I am excited though to how well this class does compared to the last class since their curriculum was slightly different. I am also going to be doing a presentation for the state mental health board, which will help increase my profile around the state and maybe get me some better paying gigs.

Alright folks, that's all for now. Enjoy your life; it's the only one you get. I know I am.

Are you being served?

It has been a busy week back at work. I came back and on Monday had a lot of catching up to do. Kind of like how Lucy has some 'splainin' to do. Except mine was in the form of email. See I forgot to set my "out of office". I thought I had, but apparently I didn't remember to. Oops! Silly me. So in every email I wrote I had to apologize for not responding sooner. Since they didn't know I was out of town. Other than that work has been pretty standard this week. Lots of patients needed to be seen. Papers I had written needed to be revised and reviewers needed to be responded to. While I do enjoy writing, I don't think there is anything more tedious than responding to reviewers' comments. Every little punctuation mark, comment, addition, etc. needs its own response. Now I have done that for one of the papers. Two more to go, and a book chapter. Maybe then I can take it easy for while....

Rebekah has been talking more and walking all over the place. She has a toddler couch that has Disney princesses on it that Jen and I bought her last week. She loves this thing. I don't know what it is about this couch that has Rebekah so enamored. It can't be the princesses, since I don't think she even knows what they are, and I don't really think the fact that its a couch is that novel since she has seen them before as well. One thing she has figured out is how to change it from a couch to a fold out bed after watching me do it a few times. She is so smart.

On Wednesday, we took the youth from church to tour a Coast Guard cutter. We have a member who is the captain of one of the boats that are based out of Mobile. The youth really appreciated it and they actually behaved which was a welcome surprise. I really thought it was cool as I have never been on a Coast Guard boat before. We got to ride on a jet powered raft, use a fire hose, and see the engine room and bridge. I am glad the youth had that experience. I'm sure that is something they will never do again (well, unless they join the coast guard). I was off on Friday, and since we had the nanny anyway, I went and helped someone move. You know, loading their stuff into a Uhaul, making sure it is packed well and tight, and generally sweating my butt off. Then when I was done I was able to come back home and spend the day with Rebekah. We visited Jen at work, since she was pretty slow on the day before a holiday. Then Saturday morning I was able to help with some yard work for a couple from church. They have been having some health problems lately and haven't been able to take care of their yard. Let's just say that the back yard has person high grass and weeds. Honestly, I never thought that possible, but it is. I had to leave early when we were about 75% done because Jen had to work. It felt good to help out and serve others.

Having to work on a holiday stinks, but at least Jen gets paid holiday pay in addition to her regular salary. We don't really have any plans for Indepenence Day, since Rebekah likely won't cooperate to be out late watching fireworks. We may end up at a friend's house for a cookout, but I don't know whether we'll go. We also recently bought a new refrigerator. Our old one was functional, but it was just too small. Now we have a larger fridge to put all our food in. It also dispenses water and ice from the front, which our old one didn't do.

I guess that's it for now. Have a good weekend and Happy 4th of July!