Away from home for a night

One of the more difficult parts of anesthesia school is the call shifts. A call shift is either 16 or 24 hours and it can either be a complete snoozer or up all night exhausted. When the shifts are quiet it's great for studying because it's too hard to study at home!

Tonight I am on a 16 hour call shift and hoping for a little shut eye - so far it's been a good shift.

But, then I miss my little guy!

Kind of looks like he has a toupee - time for another hair cut

I don't think I can prove it, but I'm pretty sure that this might be the cutest child ever (especially when he is in his owl shirt! Why are owls so cute? I don't know, they just are!)!!! Every day I just can't believe how stinkin' cute he gets.

Newest accomplishment: The Army Crawl

Back to the Grind

It was a nice run...but like all good things, it had to come to an end! I had a month or so with hardly any classes and mostly clinical time. It was great because I could come home and not feel pressured to study, write a paper, or put together a presentation. No longer! I'm now going back to all free moments being dedicated to my old friends Nagelhout, Stoelting, Barrash, and Miller (all riveting authors of anesthesia textbooks!). 15 more months. Hmmm, I shouldn't have said that- it's depressing really.

Here is another depressing story. Depressing for my taste buds, but otherwise rather funny. I wrote earlier how I was waiting for my sad little tomato plant to grow an actual deliscious tomato. Well, it accomplished growing tomatoes, but failed to make them delicious. I now have a counter full a beautiful green tomatoes!

Just some of my tomato collection

I made some green tomato bread with a few of them and I'm letting some of them ripen. I've considered fried green tomatoes or salsa, but haven't gotten around to it. Tomato growing: FAIL!

This break has given me quality time with a certain squirmy SEVEN month old! He's seven months already! He's pretty goofy. I've tried to catch some pictures and video of him acting silly (shaking his head violently, buzzing his lips, sucking in his lips so he looks like an old man) but I never catch it. My camera has an orange light that glows before a picture is taken so I end up with pictures like this:

In ButterBean's defense - he did have a runny nose and wasn't in the mood for a photoshoot. The day after, he was feeling a little better and I got some good photos.

Classic: he is always twisting around and wants to see whatever is behind him

What's that? Oh, just some old anesthesia textbook calling my name.

Scoot Scoot Boogie

 I love this age!!! ButterBean is able to sit up and play with toys to amuse himself, is very interactive, and not mobile enough to get into much trouble - but mobile enough to be entertaining. 

ButterBean's Modes of Transport

1. The Classic Roll

Other than being carried, this is his fastest mode. Sometimes Gatsby and I will place him in the middle of our bed and lie on either end and ButterBean will just roll back and forth between us. The roll is nice, but usually he ends on his stomach, which segues into either (a) getting frustrated and crying while smooshing his face in the carpet, or (b) the Lazy Susan

2. The Lazy Susan

This move doesn't really get him any where, but it does help him to reach more toys. After he flips to his stomach, he uses his arms and legs to turn himself around in a circle. Entertaining, but not very effective transportation.  

3. Scoot Scoot Boogie

Definitely the most entertaining to me! When ButterBean is on his back he can scoot just about anywhere. He pushes himself backwards with his legs and he's off! Scoot scoot scoot. On a wooden floor, like at my parents',  he can cover a lot of ground fast. While I'm changing his diaper he just starts scooting away! The downfall of this method is that he can't see where he is going and can easily bonk his head on things. The first time I watched him do this, he scooted himself under a living room chair, which he found quite fun and jabbered at the underside for a while before I pulled him out by his feet.

"Oh don't mind me! I'm just scooting along!"

 4. Drive

Who needs crawling when you can drive? Haha! Just kidding!

I'm sure he'll start crawling soon and I'll be chasing him all over, so I'm going to enjoy these wonderful stages of his life when he is not quite so mobile!

The Great Minnesota Get-Together

 Minnesotans LOVE their fair, me included! It's the "Great Minnesota Get Together", "the Best 12 Days of Summer"! I thought I wouldn't be going this year because it would be hard to go with a baby. But, I just couldn't stay away!! It was a much abbreviated stay compared to my usual all day affair, but it was the fair none-the-less. I think I've been at the fair for like twelve hours before!

We prepared for the fair by playing with ButterBean's toy barn. We had to get ready for all of those cows, pigs, sheep, and poultry.

Despite our preparation, ButterBean was not all too interested in the animals. We looked at the baby animals for awhile and headed out of the barns. It was so packed with people that he was looking at all of the people instead of the animals. There is always next year!

Since we were only staying a short time, I had to prioritize my fair foods. Usually I go to the fair two times each year and can space out my fatty fair foods. I cut it down to chocolate grilled sandwich (melted chocolate, marshmallows, and banana inside crispy, buttery, sweet bread),

this picture of the most delicious sandwich was taken by a friend, Ryan

 all you can drink chocolate milk, and deep fried pickles. My typical other fair foods include a caramel apple, corn on the cob, Sweet Martha's chocolate chip cookies, honey ice cream, pulled turkey sandwich, maybe a corndog. I always say that I'm going to go one day and only eat things I've never tried at the fair. There is always next year!

We went to the Eco building where my dad looked at solar panels, we looked at kitchen appliances (sigh!) and plug in cars. Gatsby is not a big fan of the fair, but he does enjoy the Eco building. We went to the Home Improvement building (another sigh!) and the Fine Arts Building to look at all of the great art. I did not get to the Creative Arts Building (some day I'm going to win a ribbon there!) or the International Bazaar, which are more of my favorites. There is always next year!!

When it comes to the MN Fair - there is always next year!!!