Falling into place

This past month has been fairly ho-hum, but I'll try to make it sound interesting. Beka is getting more and more independent, and this isn't necessarily a good thing. If what you want isn't what she wants, there will be an argument. Or coercion. Or both. Raymond is also following after his big sister and has this crazy notion that whatever she can do, he can do too. Unfortunately, he gets frustrated when he can't run around like she can. They have also started to fight over mommy and daddy's attention and while it's nice to be loved, it gets old fast. We've had a couple sniffles and coughs, but nothing horribly awful, which means Raymond's tubes are working to keep him from getting ear infections. However, this doesn't keep him from getting a GI bug, which he has now. Being up at 2 AM cleaning up puke, then getting up again in the morning only to clean more up from a second episode. Then also having to clean up "stuff" from the other end is probably worse. Sounds like a diet that consists solely of Pedialyte is the order of the day.

We are also gearing up for a road trip to south Florida to visit my family in a couple weeks. It'll be fun, but the drive won't be! We also have a couple days off for President's day and Mardi Gras so we'll get some good family time in.

Jen and I did have a good date night recently the weekend before Valentine's Day. We don't really celebrate this "holiday", but we used it as an excuse to go on a date night. Jen's parents came in to visit, so we already had a babysitter. Our plan was to do dinner and then go to the dance our church was putting on. We met another couple for dinner at a local Thai place. Jen and I had never had Thai food before, so we were a little leery of it. We'd always heard people rave about it, but we'd never had the courage to try it. The verdict: awesome! Very different flavors and spices made the food wonderful. Then we went on to the dance, which was fun, but we didn't stay the whole night, because we had church early the next morning. It was nice to go out though and we got to spend some quality time with each other and hanging out with some friends.

I submitted research poster (well 2, if you count the one a student wrote up and I'm second author on) to the CPNP annual meeting. And guess what? They both got accepted. I was proud of my student and her hard work. She also happened to win a travel grant from CPNP to attend the meeting. Again, awesomeness. She's going to do great things one day. At least, I hope she does.

Speaking of students, I just finished up a great block with a student and resident in clinic with me. I really enjoyed the 5 weeks I had with them and I'm glad they learned and had fun too. Well, at least that's what they said. Maybe they were just pandering to me, but for my own ego, I'll believe them. I have another student on for this block (my last one until August) and our sense of humor is similar so I think we'll have another great 5 weeks.

I have been really enjoying the change in my life the new job has brought and I know that I made the right choice. Being able to work on research, publications, students, and clinic at my own pace and in my own time has been freeing for me. I am much happier and less stressed than I used to be. I know Jen sees it and I actually think my students and coworkers can see it as well. Honestly, I think I've been more productive and a better teacher than I ever was.

Well, I think that's enough updating for now. I'm sure I'll have more to talk about after our trip to Florida.