DMD... finally.

I graduated from dental school yesterday. I'm a real doctor now. (Well, as much of a real doctor as a dentist can be. If someone has a heart attack, you should probably still call 911.)

I finally got to put on that cap and gown and cross the stage to have someone drape me in that lilac hood.

And I was so proud to stand next to my friends and my colleagues while I was granted that degree that I have wanted and worked towards for so long.

I had so much support, yesterday and always... my family who has loved and supported me through 22 long years of schooling, and finally got to watch me complete my doctorate...

One of my best friends Lauren and her husband Dan, who drove six hours to sit through a very long day of speeches, just to be there for me while I got my degree...

And of course Caroline. Who was my biggest motivation throughout the second half of this really difficult program. My mom handed her to me as I marched out of the convention center with the other graduates, and I carried her through the receiving line of faculty and VIPs, in her little lilac dress. She put her arms around my neck and laid her head on my shoulder and I whispered to her that mommy was a dentist now, that I did it for her. She said "Mommy dentist? Happy 'wation, mommy." (Which I assume meant "graduation", and my mother taught her to say.)

She is only two, but I think she is proud of me. I know, for sure, that I am proud of myself.

Allow me a moment of what I hope is more pride than conceit... I have been through so much over the past year and there were so many times when I wanted to lie down and quit or give up. But I did not. I kept going and I didn't just finish this program, I did well, and I stayed true to myself and the things that I always knew that I wanted. I hope I have set an example for my daughter when she is old enough to understand what I did for myself and for her.

And I hope that if you read this and you are a mother, or a single mother, like me, and you are in school or are thinking about going back... that you believe that it's not what so many of my classmates say, that they don't know how I could ever do it when I had someone else's life to put before my own. She was not an obstacle to this achievement, but my biggest motivator and the single most important reason that I never lost sight of my goal.

I once was afraid that because I got pregnant halfway through school, my career was over. But it wasn't that way. I can have both. Now I have my DMD, and I have my daughter. I am so happy, proud and content. There is nothing more that I need.

And to everyone who has ever asked me how I could do it with her, I guess I would say that the real question is, how could I ever have done it without her?

So close, I can taste it

My graduation from dental school is almost here. Countdown: T minus 4 days.

There were times when I never thought this day would come. I know people say stuff like that all the time, but really, there were a lot of bad times when I never thought this day would come.

So much has happened since I started dental school back in 2006. Engaged, married, pregnant, Caroline's birth, my year off, separation, divorce. But my trainwreck of a personal life aside, I passed all those classes, took all those exams, cared for all those patients, finished all those requirements, passed all those boards.

I finished my requirements a few weeks ago, and last week I tied up all the loose ends, transferring my patients to third-year students and completing all my paperwork. I cleaned out my desk and brought home all the piles of dental stuff in my lockers. (It sat there in boxes on my living room floor for a few days... burs and fake teeth and impression material and spatulas and wax and drills and dental instruments... before I finally found the space to stash it all away.) I did my exit counseling for my loans (and man, was that ever depressing), squared up with the prosthetic lab and the bursar and the record room. Signed out, officially. No more responsibilities to the school. Ever.

It made me feel sadder than I expected it to. Don't get me wrong, that entire program was immensely stressful, and I am glad to finally have gotten through it. But I guess I'm a nostalgic kind of person and I will miss all the people that I will never see again. Of course I'm starting there as a resident at the end of June, so I'll be right back in the same space, but most of the people won't be there. I was originally pretty upset about switching classes, but I really, really like my "new" class, and I will miss them.

Regardless, I'm still so excited for Sunday that I could jump up and down and scream. I've been wearing my cap, gown, and hood around my apartment for the past entire week. (Which is normal.)

My degree. Doctor Julia, DMD. It is so close, I can taste it. It is something that no one will ever be able to take away from me.

On blogging.

A blog post about blogging. It's so meta.

I've been blogging for almost three years. For the first year to 18 months, no one knew about my blog except Tyler, and the girls in the "community" on the Nest, which is where I started blogging. Shortly after I moved to blogger, I told a few of my close friends at school about it. Now, a lot of people I know in real life know about it. My friends read it, Tyler's friends read it, and judging from my sitemeter, a crapton of people have linked to it from Facebook and read it now too. Soon a lot of other people will read it too, when I move to Parents. And my full name will be listed there as the author.

Which is fine. I'm a pretty private person in real life, and there's a lot of really personal stuff on this blog, but I put it on the internet; I put it out there. I don't post anything I wouldn't tell anyone if they asked. People are welcome to read about my life, whether I know them in person or not.

Still, it's weird to think about. This is like my diary, or something. I've always used it as a place to write about my struggles and for introspection. Recently, writing about my divorce brought me a lot of peace when few other things did. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about people I see every day reading about it, but I guess what's done is done and anyway it's ended up pretty well for me. My friends say they love my writing and even though I know they'd say that even if it were shit garbage, because they're awesome, it makes me feel more confident. So I keep writing.

I wrote once that blogging is like therapy for me. It's still true. I don't know why, but when I click that "publish post" button and whatever I've written gets sent off into the internet, for friends or classmates or ex-husband's new girlfriends or fellow moms or random internet people to read... I feel better. It's cathartic. It's therapeutic. I sure do need that, regardless of any nasty comments I may get in return. (I try to ignore those, although I do always publish them.)

So I'll keep writing, and I try not to let anything affect what I choose to write about. If I have some crazy shitshow going on, which let's face it I usually do, I'm going to write about it regardless of whether I have to walk in to school and face 20 people who may or may not have read about it on my blog.

So, fellow bloggers who read this-- do you keep your blog secret from people you know in real life? Why or why not?

Most stressful week ever: done and done.

Can we talk about everything that went down last week for a sec?

Divorce on Tuesday. Court-ordered parenting class (with Tyler, my brand new ex-husband, mind you) on Wednesday. Clinical licensing exam on Friday. Most stressful week of my life. Ever.

Okay, we talked about it.

Just kidding, I'm totally not done. We've talked about the divorce, and we've talked about the parenting class (although truly, it sucks exponentially more when you have to sit right next to the guy you just divorced the day before). But I was so stressed out about this licensing exam that I didn't even want to write about it here because I didn't want to have to explain it if I failed.

So, I don't know if I've ever explained how dental board exams work. Prepare yourself for something incredibly boring... or just skip this paragraph. There are national boards-- we take part 1 of those after second year, and part 2 of those towards the end of fourth year (which takes two days). I've passed all of those. Then I had to take the regional licensing exam, the Northeast Regional Board (NERB), which has five parts-- the root canal and crown/bridge sections (passed), the diagnostic skills exam (passed, I'm 99% sure), and the patient-based restorative and periodontal sections, which happened last Friday. The two most stressful parts. And thank-you-lord-I-passed. With, ahem, not to brag, but 100%, bitches.

It was a total and complete shitshow and by far the most stressful day of the week. Or of my life. Whichever was longer (it was a toss-up). There's just all this paperwork and rules and specifications, and they bring in these outside board examiners, and you have to send your patients down the hall to a different clinic to have your work graded so that it's all anonymous. My scaling and root planing patient went well, and so did my anterior filling patient, and then it came time for the posterior filling. They said my patient's cavity was too small and denied it. This is when the shit hit the fan for me.

My patient was all "oh it's totally fine because I didn't really want to get this done and blah blah and yesterday took awhile and blah" and I was all GET OUT!!! The clock is running and I need to find a backup patient!! GET OUT!! I practically shoved her out the door and ran across the hall, all crazy-like, to try to find a backup. Found one and retook her x-rays-- twice, because she moved... filled out all her paperwork... ignored all her complaining about having to sit for the exam. Dragged her back across the hall and sent her to the exam station to have her cavity approved. By this time, I was an hour behind schedule. I got her numb, got the rubber dam on, and she reached up and ripped it off. Three times. Finally I told my assistant to hold her hands down and forced the dam on and prepped the cavity in, no joke, ten minutes flat. Pushed her out of the room to the exam station. When she came back, I put the filling in and carved it and pulled the dam out and checked her bite in probably about eight minutes. Pushed her out to the exam station. She came back. PASSED. Somehow, with 100%.

I've got to say, getting through all of these tests makes me feel really good about myself. Not just because they are critical to actually practicing the career for which I've been training for so long, but because it reminds me that even though my personal life is kind of crazy, I am holding it together professionally. I mean really... let's recap. We got engaged in 2006, married in 2007, I got pregnant in 2008, had Caroline in 2009, separated in 2010, and got divorced in 2011. We went through the entire life cycle of a marriage all during the time I was in dental school. Nice to meet you, my name is Julia von Trainwreck. But hey! I can drill the heck out of some teeth, that's for damn sure.

Anyway, I'm glad that week is over. I went home on Friday, popped an Excedrin, poured a glass of wine, grabbed a trashy gossip mag, lit some candles, and sank into a hot bubble bath up to my chin. It's my go-to relaxation routine. (Although admittedly slightly less so when you look up and there's a cartoon frog face staring at you from the end of your safety faucet cover and, for some unknown reason, a can of green Play Doh sitting on the side of your tub.)

So, I got through the most stressful week of my life, and it all went as well as I could have hoped. And I'm proud of myself for that!

She's two!

I can't believe it, but my baby girl is two years old today.

I have her for her birthday weekend, which makes me very happy. I'm having her party here at our place tomorrow (I'll be sure to post pics!). Unfortunately this weekend is pretty stressful since I have two more days of board exams on Monday and Tuesday and Caroline has been very sick for the past week with hand foot & mouth disease. But my mom has helped me a lot with the party planning so I think it should go pretty well.

Okay. Honestly? I'm in a really weird place these days and would like to post about it but I don't want to drag down her birthday post... so I'll just save it for another day.

Here's the birthday girl from a couple days ago, in my bed with all her stuffed animal friends gathered around her to make her feel better.

I had to miss a lot of school (and boards studying time) staying home because of her illness, but I have to admit that it's always nice to spend some lazy days at home with my girl. :)

Happy second birthday, Caroline!!

Matched!

I don't like to leave depressing/trainwreck posts at the top of my blog, and I have awesome news to share, so I'm posting two days in a row. Hell has officially frozen over. Or it's about to, with yet another blizzard on the way...

I got a job! Well, a residency position. I originally wanted to apply to residencies in general dentistry so that I could spend a year learning things I hadn't learned in dental school and building up my speed, as sort of a stepping stone to working as a real live dentist. Plus it's easier to find a job and you can make more money if you do a residency first. The divorce changed that for me, or so I thought-- kind of tough to be on call at a hospital when you are a single mom. So I never applied.

Then, earlier this month, I started thinking about doing the AEGD (Advanced Education in General Dentistry) residency program at my school, because their call schedule is a lot more manageable than smaller programs where there are fewer residents. I wished I had applied, so I asked the director about possibly taking any spots left open after the "match". He replied that he doubted there would be any spots left, so I should immediately get a match number because the match was closing in three days, and that he could interview me the next day.

Actually, it went something like this:
1:50: I send email whilst sitting in boring class.
1:55: Program director responds.
1:56: I open his email and start reading.
1:57: My phone buzzes with a text from a friend saying "Dr. [program director] is coming to look for you RIGHT NOW! HEADS UP!"
1:58: Classroom door opens and he pokes his head in and asks for me.

It was all very sudden.

Anyway. It worked out. I matched to UConn. I have a job for next year. I'm freaking ecstatic. !!! And pretty flattered, because a lot of people in my class didn't match to any program and the whole thing was all very last-minute for me... as in, I kind of circumvented the entire application process...

So, I can breathe easy and know that I'll at least have benefits, a stipend, and a place to work next year. I can support myself and Caroline and we won't be out on the streets. Which is always a good thing. Now I just need to refocus and find the motivation to get through boards and the next three and a half months until graduation. Easier said than done, these days, because all kinds of things are resurfacing and/or going wrong and/or distracting me from what I am supposed to be doing.

Said the girl who sat on the couch blogging and blasting loud music instead of studying for a board exam which is... um... tomorrow.

But I know I can do it. I know I can. I've come this far.

Fried

So, my short Thanksgiving break was pretty awesome. I got to hang out at home with Caroline and just relax and spend time with her. Our days are hectic, so it was nice to "catch up". But I don't think the break was quite long enough, because my brain appears to be totally fried. Luckily, Christmas vacation is just two weeks away...

I keep losing my school ID, which I need to get to my desk and into the labs. I also keep putting things down around the clinic and then realizing they are missing a couple minutes later, and then running all over trying to find them. Basically I am just leaving pieces of myself all over the place and being really scatterbrained. I never used to be like this! I guess I am just a little overwhelmed and need a vacation. But the worst happened yesterday...

I was in the lab working over the weekend because I am pretty much drowning in dentures, which is actually a disgusting mental image and I am truly sorry for inflicting it on you. I had a bunch of projects going on at once, trying to be efficient because I had to pick Caro up from Tyler's place (an hour away) at 3:45. The last thing I had to do was make a shell for a temporary bridge, around 1:30. I put a sheet of plastic in this plastic-melting machine that gets extremely hot, and went to gather up my stuff to leave while it was heating. I'm sure that any of you stretched-too-thin mothers can guess what happened then. I picked up my stuff and walked out of the lab, completely forgetting that I had turned on that machine.

All was well until about 10pm, when I sat bolt upright on the couch and remembered. That machine gets HOT. It totally would be capable of burning down the building. I frantically texted everyone I knew who might be at school. No one. I called public safety and told a cop there what I had done and asked him to go make sure someone had shut off the machine, because I couldn't drag my sleeping baby a half hour to school to do it myself. Ohmylord he was so annoyed with me. Understandably. I guess.

I didn't know the room number to the lab and I am the worst direction-giver ever, so these cops were wandering all over the hospital (which is huge) trying to find the lab. I didn't know the technical name for the machine. (We just call it a "suck-down machine", to which the cop said "is this a prank call?") I didn't know anything, really, except that I would probably be in a little bit of trouble if I burned down the entire health center. They found it eventually and of course it was already shut off. The cop was going on and on about it so finally I said "look, do you want me to stop in at public safety tomorrow morning to help you fill out this report? Or maybe pick up some kind of scarlet letter to wear on my chest?" and he was all "well you don't have to be rude" and I was all "well I'm sorry but neither do you sir" and I'm pretty sure public safety is going to key my car tomorrow.

Then of course I was wishing the damn place had burned while I suffered through a terrible morning in clinic, but that's neither here nor there.

So. Long story short (way too late for that), I could use a week of vacation or two!

Exhausted.

That's what I am. That's all I am. The high that I was on from the thrill of changing my life for the better has worn off. Now I'm just being pulled under by the endlessness of the legalities and the stress and the seemingly bottomless anger and bitterness we have towards each other, that seems to be growing every day.

Does divorce always have to be like this? I feel like there must be couples out there who decide to end things and carry it out in a civil manner. Maybe it has to be more of a mutual decision in order for that to happen...

All I know is that I'm completely wiped out. We can't even hold a semi-normal conversation without our counselor present. It's like he's finally realized that it's truly over and has stopped asking me to reconsider, to give us a chance... and now the gloves are off. And boy, it really sucks when the gloves come off with someone who knows you this well. They know just how to really piss you off and screw you over.

It's so exhausting to not only deal with the pressures of my final year of school, taking care of my daughter alone, and the financial stress of raising her without an income other than my student loans... but also emotionally to try to find some way of handling the death of this relationship that was supposed to be forever. Most of the time, I try not to stop and think about any of it, because if I do, I start to fall apart... but I can't do that forever. At some point I am going to have to turn around and face the fact that my life has pretty much exploded in my face. I have my own therapist (separate from our couples counselor) to help me through it, but it's so hard to make it work with my schedule when I have patients until 5pm and then I have to get to daycare.

On the days I can push it to the side and focus on what matters and the light at the end of the tunnel, I am happy. Other days, like today, I am huddled in the corner of the library with my headphones on, trying not to cry. I don't know what I've done/ Or if I like what I've begun/ But something told me to run/ And honey you know me it's all or none...

So much pressure from all directions, I feel like I am going to crack... why can't we just both agree that we weren't right for each other and walk away from this, relatively unscathed? I wonder if it ever works out that way. I kind of doubt that it does. I am starting to think that getting divorced is the only way to truly get to know the person that you married.

Overly personal statement

I've been struggling a little bit lately, hence the long absences between posts. Tyler's been away. Pretty much constantly since June. He's been home a few days here and there. Juggling school and Caroline all by myself has been... tiring. Tiring isn't the word, really. I'm drained. I'm falling behind on my paperwork, losing too much weight, and running on fumes. I know I can do it, and I don't have much longer to go until I get a little help. I'm just, you know. Struggling a little.

So, I'm trying to get things together for residency applications, because that's coming up quickly. I have to write a personal statement. I despise writing about myself for personal gain. It feels so fake. I sat here staring at the cursor blinking for the better part of the evening before writing this all in one go, without stopping. I can't put it in my applications. But I kind of wish I could. It sums up how I feel. If I can do this, if I can have enough of myself left over to still love what I'm doing, I deserve to get in wherever I want. And those bitches better take me.

----------------------------------------------------

I had a baby during dental school.

People don't do that. Well, women don't do that. I didn't mean to. She just happened. I found out right before part 1 of the national boards, and I cried every day for weeks. I thought I was losing my career. And my career meant everything to me.

I didn't know how I was going to do it. I didn't really think I could.

But I did. I am. I took a break for a year, after encountering some pregnancy complications and reevaluating some priorities. Leaving her and going back to school was the hardest thing I ever did. But I did it and I'm glad I did. I wanted to finish. I want to do this. I still want this more than anything.

More than almost anything.

In order to do this, in order to have a baby and raise her with very little help (due to my husband's long absences due to his job) during a demanding program, I had to reprioritize. Rearrange. Find a balance. Make things work. I couldn't be single-minded about my career anymore. And you know what? I think I'm better off for it. I love my daughter. I think she has made my conviction that I want to work in this field even stronger. If I could leave her at home to go back and finish what I started, and still love every single day of what I'm doing, well. It must be the right choice, right? It must be what I'm meant to do. If I can add this little person who requires so much love and attention to my life and still have enough left over to devote to my career and be happy with it every day, I must have chosen well for myself.

This is what I want to do. I still believe that, more than ever.

----------------------------------------------------

Even on days like today, when I'm totally exhausted and overwhelmed, I'm glad things happened the way they did. Sure, I still think about how the timing could have been better. But my motivation doesn't drag at times like my classmates'. I'm doing this for her. She needs me. And I'm so lucky to still be doing what I love.

She's pretty cute, too. That doesn't hurt.

And guess what? She took her first steps alone last weekend. I cried so many happy tears. I can't believe she's 18 months old. I know it's cliche, but really. Where does the time go?

Teeth: those pearly whites

I promise I'll write a post here soon, because I have one rolling around in my head. Until then, here's an informational post I wrote for The Baby Standard on baby/toddler teeth.

Enjoy! Hope it's helpful to moms out there.

Mishmash

Oh hai there. I haven’t posted in forever, so I have a lot of random things to say!

Caroline and I have been visiting Tyler and the in-laws in North Dakota for the past week and a half because I am on break from school. It’s always a nice vacation to head out to the middle of nowhere and just relax. We even went to the rodeo this year. I didn't even know that rodeos still existed before I married this man, by the way. Caroline was obsessed with all the horses. At one point during the day she was throwing a tantrum and I said “Caroline, use your words. Tell me what you want.” and she sniffled and said in a tiny voice “hoss”. I guess all those times I promised her a pony to get her to go to sleep are catching up to me. Crap.

We are struggling with sleep these days… both of us. Her crib was in the same room as us in North Dakota, so she kept waking up and seeing us and wanting to play. Now that she and I are home, she still thinks it should be party time around 2am. I was so tired last night that at 8pm I thought “well, it’s 10pm in North Dakota, so I should probably go to bed early” and then I laid there and laid there and couldn’t sleep, and finally realized that actually I can’t do simple math and it was only 6pm in North Dakota. But by then it was 10pm here so I just stayed in bed anyway. What a boring night. The scary thing is, I’ll be able to write prescriptions for people that involve numbers in just 10 short months. Shhh, it’s fine. Don’t be afraid.

Caroline still isn’t walking, although she loves to hold onto our hands and walk. (She holds her hands up and says “awk! Awk!”) So things are improving in that department. I am for real going to suckerpunch the next person who asks if she’s walking, though. Getting pretty sick of answering that question and hearing the inevitable “wait, how old is she again?” I think I will respond next time with “how old are YOU again?” and see how awkward I can make things.

What else? She is doing a long list of hilarious things. She has so many words now that I have stopped keeping track. She brings me a tissue and says “boogies” when her nose is running. She begs to go “ah-side” and “up, up, up!” She brings us her toothbrush and sternly tells us to “open”. She pokes us in the eye (hard) and explains “eye”. She can name most of her body parts and lots of animals and animal noises. She loves to snuggle and give kisses.

So, I go back to school on Monday. It was a perfect amount of time to be free. I am ready to get back in there and keep being productive, even if it does start my long summer of single-mom’ing it. I've got to get going on my summer checklist, though... so far, the only things I've done are the girls' night (Chicaghoes FO LYFE) and the spa treatments, which were glorious, thank you for asking. Maybe Caroline and I will go to the farmer's market tomorrow, if it isn't so ungodly hot outside!

Hope you're all having fantastic summers!

Summer checklist

I wanted to make a list of things to do this summer. I know, that sounds really boring...

Deliver seven crowns and a pair of dentures
Do two root canals
Finish all my surgery requirements

I have a ton of school stuff I want to accomplish this summer, before the clinics fill up with the incoming class and things get crazy with boards and the countdown to graduation. But that's not what I wanted to make a list for.

I want a list of fun things. I want to have an amazing summer, like we did last year. I know that it's going to be tough, because I'm going to be caring for Caroline alone and doing the dental school thing. (I am doing that right now, in fact, since Tyler has been away for over two weeks already and won't be back for almost another week... I'm pretty tired, but hanging in there.) So I want to make sure I keep in mind all of the fun things I want to happen so that they don't get lost in the shuffle.

I tend to forget sometimes, in the midst of the craziness and stress of school, that I shouldn't just be surviving these years. I, we, should be enjoying them. I still need to be the mom I want to be, because neither of us are going to get this time back again. Caroline reminded me of that today. We had been up most of the night because she's been working on three new teeth. I'd had a long day and was lying on the floor of the nursery, watching her play after dinner. She figured out how to climb up on her little armchair and then climb off again. She was so excited. She must have done it about 20 times in a row, laughing hysterically, and crawling to me and smushing her face into my face and then crawling back to the chair to climb up again. I thought, wow, when was the last time I was that excited about anything? I have no idea. But I want to be excited about little things like that.

This may not be making much sense because I am actually so tired that I feel like I'm high. But I want to see things through Caroline's eyes and be excited about this summer, rather than just getting through it. Here are a bunch of things that I want to do:

Go to the farmer's market instead of the supermarket for groceries
Finger-paint with Caroline, and make a giant mess
Nap by the pool under an umbrella
Bring Caroline to the aquarium where Tyler and I had our wedding reception
Picnic by a waterfall with another mama/baby friend
Go strawberry picking
Have a girls' night out, and wear something fabulous
Take Caroline to the beach for the first time
Splurge on a spa treatment
Take an afternoon off from school and spend it just hanging out with Caroline
Go to a fair
Take a trip to the zoo

That's all I can think of at the moment. It's going to be a great summer!

May 16, 2010

I had looked forward to this day for years. But I didn't end up doing what I thought I was going to do.

I didn't put on a cap and gown and a lilac hood. I didn't cross the stage holding a diploma. I didn't shake anyone's hand, and no one called me "doctor". I didn't smile for any pictures with my classmates.

But you know what I did do?

I woke up and brought Caroline into bed and listened to her sing-song "ma-ma! ba-by! da-da!" while she played with my hair. I tickled her tummy and laughed when she laughed. I took her grocery shopping and read her books. We passed toys back and forth and learned to say "tank-yoo". I kissed her forehead and rocked her in the glider while she laid her head on my chest.

All in all... it wasn't graduation day, but it was still an awesome day. And I'll still get that diploma in exactly one year.

And in the meantime? I've got my baby. :)

Just GRADUATE already!

You guys, I saw the craziest patient that has ever existed this morning in the screening clinic. I desperately wish I could tell you the story. Sigh. I hate you, HIPAA. You ruin all my fun.

In other news, my former classmates are in their last week of school right now. I am so jealous that it's kind of obscene. I know, I know, I had that wonderful year off and I have my beautiful baby. But listening to them talk about senior week events and graduation and where they're going next year and how they're done with all the bullshit of dental school is pretty much killing me. I was supposed to be graduating now, too. I'm supposed to be Dr. L in a few weeks. But I'm still just Julia, with a crapton of work ahead of me for the next year, and it'll be without all my friends around to commiserate with.

It'll be fine, I know. But even though I'm going to miss them all, I'm at the point where I'm ready for them to just graduate already. I don't want to be reminded of where I "should" be or wonder what life would be like if I had somehow managed to stay in my old class. I just want them all to get outta there so I can keep plugging along and not wish I were them.

Okay, I needed to get that out of my system. Thanks.

Caroline is doing pretty well these days. Well, to be honest, she's kind of in one of those phases where you repeatedly tell yourself "this too shall pass". This is the golden rule with babies/kids, I am finding. Just when you think you can't take another minute of the whining and crying and temper-tantrum-throwing and clinging, the tooth pops through or the chest cough heals and you have your sweet baby back. I know this will be just like the rest of those times and it will end, but for now I am tired.

The gross motor stuff is the same as ever, so we are having birth to three come to our place this Friday to do another evaluation. Part of me hopes that she will qualify for PT just so we can get some help (I really can't see her walking by 18 months), but another part of me hopes they smile and tell me she's perfect and everything is fine. Not pulling up by 15 months isn't a great sign, but a mama can dream, right?

Hmm, this post is kind of a downer on all counts. Oh well. Can't win them all. Here's hoping for a more positive one after Caroline's EI evaluation on Friday!

I'm back!

I got back from Belize late Saturday night. It was a fantastic trip. We got some relaxation time in, and then got to work. After ome major equipment failure the first day (and despite the HEAT!) we helped a ton of people and got a lot of great experience in. There were only four dental students on the trip and two faculty members, so we got a ton of one-on-one coaching that was really invaluable. I probably tripled my speed at doing restorative dentistry, and learned a new method of doing root canals that's much more efficient and updated than what we use at school.

The trip is something that third year students take every year, but it is usually based solely on doing extractions. This year was the first year that we only did restorative dentistry (fillings and root canals). One of the best parts of that was that we were showing all of these very rural populations that pulling teeth isn't the only treatment option out there-- that saving them can be a viable option too. We did a lot of esthetic work for them as well, which is one of my favorite parts of dentistry. I love giving people back their smiles. :) Four hygiene students and two of their faculty members also went with us, so our group did cleanings too. Having them along was great not just because they were really fun people, but because cleanings are a service that is virtually nonexistent in Belize, and it was great to be able to provide that for the people there.

AND it was great for me to make a couple of real friends in my new class. I've felt pretty alone there since I came back, and it's been getting worse lately because my old class is all graduating in a couple of weeks. So it made me really happy to get to know and make friends with the other three dental students who went. Maybe this last year of dental school won't be so lonely after all.

Enough rambling! Picture tiiiime!

The resort that we stayed at the first night and the last night. It was beautiful and we stayed in these huge villas:

We took a catamaran booze cruise to the barrier reef to go snorkeling. This is the island we stopped at by the reef:

Our equipment table and some of our crew. Our working conditions were a little bit different than we were used to! This is at a primary school where we worked for two days:

We had no shortage of patients!

Me with some of our patients at the school:

Doing some cosmetic dentistry:

Kelly and I jumped into the resort pool in our scrubs after our last, very sweaty day of work :) I don't know that the other vacationers appreciated it, though.

So that's it! It was the trip of a lifetime for sure. I'm so glad I went, even though I missed Caroline more than I thought possible! A week sure is a long time to be away from her... we've done an awful lot of snuggling since my return.

BELIZE!

So I don't think I've mentioned this here, but I'm going on a service trip to Belize. It's a trip that will involve doing lots of fillings but also snorkeling, beach time, and looong happy hours. I'm so excited! It seemed like a long way off, but suddenly it is... hmmm... four days from now. That came up quickly.

Anyway, I am sad to be leaving Caroline for a week. I've never been away from her for longer than a weekend, and that was just once for a wedding that Tyler and I were in. I'll miss her a lot. But it is exciting to be able to travel. I am always jealous of Tyler's trips, and now I get to take one of my own! Plus, I'll get tons of experience doing dental work because there are only four dental students going and we will be less... um... supervised (i.e. watched like hawks) than we are in the school's clinic. It will be a great opportunity. And all the fillings we do will count towards graduation, which is huge.

So, sorry for the short post, but I just wanted to go ahead and make an excuse in advance for the gap in posting that is about to occur! I will return with many pictures, and hopefully a tan!

Here's the problem.

I hardly ever blog anymore. It's sad. I tell myself it's because I don't have time, but really, I am in front of the computer studying most nights after Caroline goes to bed, and let's be honest-- I would much rather play on the internet than study.

I guess I really do have the time, or at least most of the time I do. The problem is, I always want to write about stuff that happened during the day, and most of that involves my patients. There's all kinds of craziness and hilariousness and awkwardness that happens when you are an amateur dentist. And I happen to be a particularly awkward person, which makes for some spectacularly awful moments. But I can't write about them, really. It would be unprofessional. And I wouldn't want to get in trouble with my school and jeopardize everything that I have been working so hard for. Sigh. Being an adult is so boring.

So I mostly try to talk about Caroline. But let's be honest, there's not that much to say. I mean, I could go on and on about all the cute things she does, but to tell you the truth I suspect that would be kind of dull for you. I talk about mommyhood in general, but sadly I am more dental student than mom these days, and the dental part is kind of off-limits, so that puts me right back where I started.

One of my favorite commenters asked me how Tyler is doing (hi MJS!) so I suppose we can talk about him. (Whenever I am blogging, he asks "Are you talking about me? Are you writing about me? What are you saying about me?"- um, self-centered much, my dear? ;) so I will satisfy your curiosity and throw him a bone at the same time.) He is doing great, publishing papers like crazy. He could probably be done with his dissertation this year, if he wanted to be, but he has two more years of funding so he will probably hang out and keep publishing stuff until I am done with residency, and then we will move. We're thinking we'll go temporarily to either Germany or NYC at this point. We'd love for Caroline to have the opportunity to go to preschool in Germany, but I'm not sure what I'd do there since I definitely want to use this degree that I'm busting my butt to get. It's up in the air right now. We're still thinking that Denver will be our permanent home after Tyler is done with postdoc positions, though.

So that's his work life, which is his "other" baby. He often works late, and honestly it's hard for me. He hasn't been traveling since I went back to school, which has made things a little easier, but he's starting up again now. He's gone this week, and will go to South Africa in a few weeks, and then will be in North Dakota for the summer. But when he is home, he is a really great dad. I've got to give him credit there. Sometimes I wish we could spend more time together, and I know we both tend to neglect our relationship a little bit because we are both so incredibly busy. But as a father, he's just amazing. I knew he'd be great. But he's even more dedicated and involved and in love with Caroline than I imagined he would be. I love listening to him read to Caroline or talk to her about dinosaurs.

Anyway, I guess I need to find a way to talk about dental school without having to retitle my blog "HIPAA violations and the occasional baby picture". I'll figure something out :)

28 hours

I calculated this while I was sitting in class yesterday. Ideally, that's how many hours I think I need in a day. 24 is just not cutting it.

I need 24 hours to do the things I usually do... commute, classes, clinic, commute, pick up Caroline at daycare, make dinner, feed both of us and the pets, clean up around the house, wash diapers, give her a bath, put her to bed, study. (Most nights, Tyler doesn't get home until she's already in bed.) Then another hour so that I could spread out my day and not be constantly on the run, or maybe even use my lunch hour to actually *gasp* eat lunch. Another hour to spend with Caroline. Another hour to have some time to myself. And the last hour to SLEEP!

I love my life. I'm glad I went back to school, and the reason I'm constantly racing around is because I'm being productive, and I like that. But I have to admit I'm feeling a little run down these days. I came down with pneumonia last week, and spent the week in bed. Once I stopped feeling like I was literally going to die, it was kind of nice to just lay there and play on the internet and sleep whenever I wanted. Of course I had to pay for it when I finally went back to school on Monday, since a whole week off has caused my schedule to explode in my face, but it was still nice while it lasted. I am pretty sure I went back before I was fully rested and healed, but I couldn't really justify taking any more time off.

Have I mentioned how awesomely productive I am these days? It is pretty satisfying how quickly things have come back to me after being gone for so long, so quickly after starting clinic. I guess a year isn't really that much time after all. We get letters evaluating our performance every couple of months, and my latest letter congratulated me on my progress. Which made me very, very happy. I have to admit that it's not really me being successful, though... it's been a huge advantage to be good friends with people in my old class, because when they need to give something away to an underclassman (like a denture patient), they think of me first.

Whatever. I am still patting myself on the back. :)

In other news, today is the anniversary of Caroline's coming-home day! We got to take her home from the NICU exactly one year ago. The nightmare was over, exactly one year ago. I smile whenever I think about that day. We were so nervous to have her away from the nurses and the monitors, but so happy and excited to finally have her home with us. I never really allowed myself to believe that she was coming home until we actually had her in her carseat, and we were walking through the hospital lobby, grinning at each other. It was the first day I really felt like she was mine.

We didn't do anything to "celebrate", since her coming-home day is relatively close to her birthday (even though it seemed like years at the time), but I did give her extra squeezes and love today. Even though I'm sure it will be just another day to her, I know I'll always remember February 18 as the first real day of our life as a family of three.

::collapses onto blog::

WHEW.

Okay, so I'm still alive. And things are going really, really well. I had kind of a hard time getting back into the swing of things, but only for maybe two weeks or so. I went pretty quickly from wanting to quit every 20 minutes, to only wanting to quit every day or so, and then it was all uphill from there.

It was hard to sit alone in the lab, drilling my fake teeth (a prerequisite to clinic since I was gone so long), while both my new and old classes were up in clinic. And it was a lot harder than I expected to see all my old classmates so far ahead of me, and so close to graduation. Still is, I guess. I feel a little bit left behind, like I failed somehow. And I know that next year will be really lonely when they are all gone and have DMD after their names.

Getting used to my new schedule has been a little bit difficult, too... I won't lie. I went suddenly from staying at home all day, every day, to the insanity of clinic and classes and daycare. Caroline had kind of a hard time adjusting to napping at daycare, which resulted in interrupted sleep at night, so the first week was kind of a blur. I definitely had days where I'd be trudging up the hill to the health center, two different socks on and my hair all a mess, thinking things like "man, I don't even remember half of my drive here. Hey, what's that crud on my wedding ring? I hope that isn't Caroline's poop. ::sniff sniff:: Nope. Indian food. Phew. ...Wait, when did I have Indian food?"

But overall? I am so glad that I went back. It hasn't quite been a month yet, and I already feel like I am back in the game, and I'm loving it again. Yes, I am tired and I'm stressed and I feel like I've forgotten a lot of really important stuff. But I remember why I wanted to do this. And I'm really glad that I made myself go back and get through the first tough few weeks.

I do miss Caroline during the day. Some days I don't get home until she is already in bed... and that sucks. A lot. I go into her room on those nights and watch her sleep for a little while, half wishing that she'll get up during the night, just so I can see her.

But daycare is good for her. She still isn't mobile (a topic for a whole nother post...) and so I'm hoping that being around all the other kids will help with that.

AND. She's going to be a year old on Friday. A year old. Can you believe it? I can't. I absolutely can't. I want to type all sorts of horrendously dull cliches, like "where did the time go?" and "she's growing up so fast." She is talking up a storm these days. Her latest tricks include (very) short sentences, like "whadat?" and "wassdiss?" and, Tyler's favorite, "ohshish!" (Yes, we can go ahead and blame that one on her father. You have to watch what you say around her, even though she isn't even one yet.) Even though she doesn't crawl or pull up or walk, she is so smart... which helps me feel better about the lack of mobility. We will have to call early intervention back, though, because I'm pretty sure she's going to need some physical therapy. Oh well. At least she can curse. Right? (That was sarcasm, right there.)

What else? I know I am rambling, because I am tired. I still have to study for a final, and probably I should take a shower, because I haven't done that since... well... nevermind. Before I go, I'll share a few recent pictures of Caroline. I do have a video of "ohshish!", but we'll go ahead and keep that particular parenting failure off the internet, kthx.

The last day (and first Christmas pics)

Today was my last day of being a stay-at-home mom. I start school again tomorrow at 8am.

I was pretty weepy today. I know that's totally lame because I got a whole year at home, which is a heck of a lot more than many moms get. But I can't believe this day is actually here-- it's been in the back of my mind since I left last December.

Our apartment is all clean and organized, the laundry is done, I made lots of Caroline's food and stocked it up in the freezer. Tyler will be watching her for the next week until he goes back to school, and then she'll go to daycare. I'm hoping that will make the transition a little easier. I just keep reminding myself, this was going to be difficult no matter when it happened, and it's got to happen sometime... just push on through the first few weeks and it will get easier. Picking up classes and rebuilding my patient family seems so impossible right now, but my school is being as supportive as they can be, and I guess I will just have to do my best.

It doesn't help, though, when people (professors, or friends, or whoever) say stuff like "oh wow. It's going to be so hard for you." Or "good luck with the transition, this is going to be so tough." Huh... really? It's not going to be easy? That is so disappointing. I thought it was going to be a walk in the park! In fact, back when I was finishing my second year and studying for boards, I thought "you know what would make my life a lot easier? Having a baby. I should probably get on that."

Hrmph. I know it's going to be really hard. Nobody knows that better than I do. And I am already nervous as hell about going back only to fall flat on my face and fail. I don't need to be reminded that that is the most likely scenario. Kthx.

Anyway. I was putting Caroline to bed tonight and I was crying while I rocked with her in the glider (what? It was only like the fourth time today. That's pretty good, right?) She lay there with her head on my chest for a few minutes and then picked up her head and stared at me. I tried to pretend I wasn't upset... until... she pulled her binky out of her mouth and tried to stick it in mine. Like it would make me stop crying and feel better. It was so sweet that I freaking lost it.

Sigh. I'm going to miss her, it's only natural, but I've got to stop making this worse for myself than it has to be.

You know what will make me feel better? Sharing pictures of Caroline's first Christmas. Without further ado...

Okay, everyone watch me open my presents!

Waahh! Too many toys!! Not enough time!

Yesss!! I got a ride-on toy! (Yes, she does pump her fist like this every time she rides it.)

Clearly, her first Christmas was a big success! (Those are for you, Kelly! You are welcome! :)

I will update at some point once I figure out how to operate myself as a mother and a dental student. If I don't show up within a month, send a search party. Wish me luck!