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 :)

One year pics

Wow, I am a huge slacker these days with blogging. I need to get back on track, stat! I haven't quite mastered the whole multitasking thing just yet...

These pics are about a month old at this point, but I still want to share them because I love how they came out. My very talented friend Kari took them-- here is her blog.

I think she just gets more beautiful every day. But of course... I might be a little biased :)

Tomorrow is my 26th birthday and since it's Good Friday, I get the day off. Best birthday present ever! I can't wait to spend it with Caroline. I feel like I don't see her much these days. Especially since one day this week I was at school until 10pm, working on a bridge (which then fell out of my locker in the morning and broke when I went to hand it in. But we aren't going to talk about that. No, we'd better not talk about that.) Then, my mom is coming to watch Caroline while Tyler and I go out for dinner and drinks. I'm pretty excited!

Milestone anxiety

Sometime shortly after Caroline was born, I signed up for about a bajillion baby development emails. You know the ones I mean—your baby week by week, your x-week-old, or whatever. When they showed up in my inbox, I’d read them with a tinge of anxiety, checking up on where Caroline “should be”. I’d watch her during playtime, looking for milestones, or signs that she was about to reach them. Was that roll-over on purpose, or just a lucky accident? Is she lifting herself up enough during tummy time? Oh no… am I giving her enough tummy time? IS SHE GOING TO YALE OR ISN’T SHE?! I’ve got to tell you, I worry way more about this than I ever thought I would.

But it isn’t just me. The moms’ message board I post on is always consumed by posts about development and milestones. And those baby newsletters have to be fueled by some kind of demand, right? We all want to know whether or not our babies are on track, or “normal”.

For us, it’s turned out to be kind of a mixed bag. Caroline’s gross motor skills have always been a little behind. She was diagnosed with a mild gross motor delay at 9 months, and now that she’s a year and still not really crawling and definitely not pulling up or sitting up, it’s more of a full-fledged gross motor delay. We’re in the process of getting early intervention back out to our apartment for a follow-up evaluation, since she didn’t quite qualify for physical therapy at her 9 month visit.

The girl talks, though, like crazy. I hear that’s usually how it goes… if they have one type of delay, they make up for it in another area. When you have to watch what you say around your 12.5 month-old for fear she might repeat it (need I remind you of “ohshish”?), you know you are in trouble. I admit that I now shut off the radio when I pick her up from daycare for fear that her new favorite word will be “crunk”, or worse.

Anyway. It’s hard, when you go to daycare and you see babies months younger than yours walking around, and yours is still pushing herself around backwards on her belly. It makes me a little sad when I see or hear about other babies playing in ways that she can’t, and won’t be able to for a long time. It makes you wonder what you’re doing wrong. And I feel like even if she hadn’t turned out to have a delay, I’d still have been just as anxious about it.

It doesn’t help that when I saw one of Caroline’s pediatricians for a sick visit and mentioned my worries about her lack of sitting and pulling up, he asked, “were you and your husband also slow?” Uhhh… thanks for your sensitivity there, doc. I learned tact in med school. Why didn’t you?

But what I’ve come to terms with is this: that other baby in daycare isn’t better than my baby because he walks and mine doesn’t. His mom isn’t a better mother than me because my baby has a delay and hers doesn’t. It doesn’t mean anything, really. She’ll walk when she’s ready to. And if she doesn’t walk, for whatever reason, that’s okay too. She is who she is, and I love her regardless.

So now when those baby development emails show up in my inbox, I just delete them without reading them. (Someday I will get up the motivation to unsubscribe.) As long as we are taking appropriate steps to monitor her development and help her with her delays, that’s all I need to know.

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.

Ladybug, ladybug

We had Caroline's first birthday party yesterday at my parents' house, with a ladybug theme. Here are a few pics. It went really well, and everyone seemed to have a great time!

Cupcakes, jellybean guessing game, and red and black licorice. I showed Caroline that bow after I made it and she clapped her hands for me. Ahh. I've trained her well.

This banner was theoretically easy to make. Unless you don't buy enough ribbon and have to cut it into pieces, and then the pieces all fall apart when you try to hang it, and then you beg your husband to go out and buy more ribbon at 8pm because you have to study for a final on Monday. And then you still don't have enough so you just hot-glue the whole thing together.

Me, getting ready for the party while Caroline took her pre-party nap (the nap timing worked out perfectly, which thrilled me)

Dining room table, before we set out the food. It was a brunch party, so we had three different quiches, an oven-baked French toast dish, a huge fruit salad, and assorted breads and pastries. YUM. Oh, and cupcakes for dessert, of course. Also, that Mylar ladybug balloon was by far Caroline's favorite part of the day. She would look at it and laugh hysterically, then do something else for a minute, then look back up at it and crack up again. And repeat endlessly.

Opening presents. Yesss, a book!!
You can't really tell, but her skirt was this adorable little black tulle thing with ruffles.

She loved this birthday card, more so than a lot of her presents.

Ditto for the wrapping paper:

One of her favorite gifts: a giant penguin, bigger than she is:

And finally, she wasn't a huge fan of cake, but at least she tried it! Look at those chub cheeks.

Overall, her first party was a big success. She bounced around maniacally from the sugar high for a little while afterwards, then passed out for hours... and woke up ready to play with all her new presents!

For my part, I did better than I expected. I thought I'd tear up at least while singing "happy birthday" to her, but I didn't. The only time I got a little teary was when I went out to put balloons on my parents' mailbox and thought about how many birthday parties I'd had as a little girl with balloons on the same mailbox. I am lame and cheesy like that.

Happy birthday, baby girl

Caroline turned one at 6:08am today. I cannot believe it.

This year has flown by faster than any other year of my life. I have been thinking all day about how far we've come. From this...

To this...

My little sick baby is now a big, happy, healthy girl. February 5, 2009 was full of mixed emotions (joy, excitement, fear, uncertainty). This February 5 had a lot of mixed emotions too (pride, happiness, nostalgia, sadness that my baby is growing up)... I have to say that I prefer this year's mix!

I miss my little teeny baby, but I love my life with my chatty toddler too. And I'm sure I'll just keep loving it more and more.

Happy birthday, Caroline! I love you so much, baby girl.

::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.