For real?

Are you kidding me?

.

Sicky Poo

Mr. P is battling his first official cold. On Thursday night we noticed that he had a runny nose and on Friday morning the nose was still running and he had a low-grade fever. I stayed home from work to take care of my little Sicky Poo. By mid-afternoon his fever reached 102F so it was time for Tylenol. Thankfully, that worked like a charm and by Friday night he seemed to be doing much better. By Saturday he still had a runny nose but no fever, so we thought we were nearly out of the woods, but no such luck.

Saturday night he woke up about two hours after going down for the night. He was hysterical and had a face full of snot (you know, the bubbly snot sick kids get which I had always been totally disgusted by until it was my own kid). So there we are, two new parents hovering over our sick baby blowing nose-snot bubbles. After some traumatic (and yet very productive) nasal aspiration, many many tears, a scratchy throat after crying so much, and about an hour of being held and comforted by his mommy, Mr. P was finally able to settle down and fall back asleep. Poor kid. Thankfully, he was able to sleep through the rest of the night without too much trouble and our friends we were entertaining were very patient and understanding. He seems to be doing ok today, but we'll see how tonight goes...

What's the point?

At the end of October I started my new job. I'm now working 4 days a week in a different department (I was looking for something part-time). It's a long story, but things miraculously worked out just the way I had hoped! Thankfully, I'm still working at the same academic institution, which typically I really enjoy because I get to be involved in giving some lectures and supervising students. However, yesterday was a different story...

Yesterday I spent two hours with some first year medical students. They're in a genetics unit now and had been given some questions to work out on their own. We met to go over the answers but they get the answers the next day anyway. So the real point of us meeting is so that I can not only answer their questions about the problem set, but add some perspective about why this information is useful in a clinical setting. This is really an opportunity for them to learn about the clinical application of these concepts. I mean, these are clinical providers in training, right? One would think they'd be excited to talk and learn from someone who uses these concepts daily in treating and managing patients, right? Unfortunately, it ended up being a complete waste of my time and their time.

The entire time consisted of me pulling teeth to get them to vocalize anything, much less ask me any questions. I left there so aggravated because as much as I tried to throw in clinical relevance on my own, it is not my job to shove it down their throats. I'm there as a FAVOR. My department does not pay me for these activities and I'm really there as an opportunity for THEM. But they were so focused on getting the answers and getting out of there, they totally lost perspective on the point that I was there as a resource for them. It was not only short sighted, but disrespectful to me. So don't think that I didn't shoot off an email to the faculty in charge of organizing the groups as soon as I got back to my office. Thankfully, she was very receptive and agreed that they were totally missing the point. We're doing it again next week with a new problem set, so I guess we'll see how it goes...

First Haircut

At 7 1/2 months, Mr. P got his first haircut last night. I didn't cry, but I wanted to.

Gggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Hmmm... where to start? The holidays seemed to sneak up on us this year. It's hard to believe that they're over and it's 2008 already.

Mr. P took his first real road trip to visit family for Christmas (8 1/2 hr drive). Thankfully, he did great. We tried to drive through the night and despite it totally wrecking our internal clocks, Mr. P did wonderfully. He slept almost the whole way. We had a blast introducing him to his extended family. And of course, they totally spoiled him with tons of attention... and toys! Lucky Mr. P!

It's hard to believe he turned 7 months old on Christmas Eve. He's sitting up on his own like a champ now and he's getting better with his hands every day. It's so fun to watch him look at a toy and realize that he can grab it himself (which of course is proceeded by him trying to shove it directly into his mouth). Also, we've realized that we really need to keep on top of trimming his nails as he's now "The Pincher." And most often, it's our faces that are getting pinched. Ouch! Lastly, a couple of weeks ago he discovered he could say "da da da" and "ba ba ba." However, he's over it now. I guess he figures it's not really that fun and has gone back to perfecting his tiger impersonation, which consists of making lots of very intimidating growling noises. He's really getting pretty good. I think he even scares himself sometimes!