Why I say, "I'm tired"

A few days ago I made a post resolving to stop saying, "I'm tired" as an excuse. I think recognizing the problem was all I needed. It doesn't mean I never skip out on a workout (like this morning...) or never say "no" to one of the girls' crazy requests, but I'm forcing myself to think about the real reason behind it.

That said, I still actually AM pretty tired by the end of the night even when it's a typical day without any extraordinary tasks. I was complaining to my husband about being so tired and that something must be wrong with me. He looked at me incredulously and went through my day pointing out everything we do to keep the family going. When we actually went through it, I'm impressed I'm not MORE tired.

Before I share my "to-do-list" from yesterday I want to add the disclaimer that I am NOT in any way implying that I am superwoman or any busier than any other mom out there today. I just think this is an interesting look at where many of us are at trying to balance motherhood, careers, school, maintaining a house, and tackling the complexities of nutrition.

Some notes about the list...

• I love iced coffee in the summer and have been using this recipe from Bon Appetit magazine to make an iced coffee concentrate. This method saves space in the fridge.
• Packing bug's lunch is like a really complex guessing game. I have to decide what food she might decide is acceptable to enter her stomach at the exact moment in time that she is sitting in the cafeteria. What she deems appropriate one day is not necessarily a winner the next day...
• Errands before work and during lunch have become the mainstay these days because it's too hard to drag the kids out in the small window between dinner and bedtime.
• Dinner last night was a roasted eggplant lasagna that I have made before and love. The girls refused to eat the eggplant this time so I gave in and made them spaghetti to toss with the ricotta/sauce mixture. I followed the recipe here from Peace, Love, and Low-carb. The meat sauce is amazing, but I was trying to save some time so I didn't make it. Instead, I used our favorite locally produced jarred marinara sauce.
• I like to utilize the delay start on my washer and wrinkle care cycle on my dryer to plan laundry around the girls' bedtime. If I put wash in when I get home on a one hour delay, it is usually finished right after dinner/dishes to switch to the dryer. I keep the dryer on the wrinkle setting so it keeps it from getting wrinkly if bedtime takes longer than usual or I get distracted starting another task and don't get to it right away.
• Homework has gone very well so far (it's only been two days...). We are using the kitchen table as our designated homework spot and I keep a bin of sharpened pencils and crayons/markers in the hall closet and bring them to the table for homework.
• The recipe I prepared for dinner tonight is based on the stuffed spaghetti squash recipe here from Closet Cooking. I made a lot of modifications. If it comes out well, I'll share the recipe soon.
• I'm not going to share the creamer recipes because they were not what I would consider a success. They are drinkable and add a pleasant fall flavor to coffee, but I really feel that the non-dairy milk alternatives created more of a flavoring than a creamer. They taste very "all natural" in a way that I am not entirely sure is desirable. I'm going to keep working on it...

Welcome 2014

2013 was a good year. There were many moments of stress and frustration, but many, many more moments of laughter, silliness, excitement, and joy. Here is my rundown of our past year...

• Our baby bear grew from a newborn to an infant to a monster toddler
• Our bug developed into an incredible, bright, insightful and stubborn "big kid"
• My sister joined the mommy club and we welcomed my sweet, sweet nephew to the family in September
• I ran my first 5K...and it was a mud run!
• I got to sate my love of party planning with a Brave 4th Birthday Party, a Dalmatian Baby Shower, and an "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie" 1st Birthday Party (still to be blogged...)
• We put our house on the market and lived in a strange state of limbo with open houses and showings for almost 6 months
• We moved...and moved...and moved! From our house, to an apartment, to my parent's house in just 3 months
• Neither of my kids like to sleep so I think I might have had a full, uninterrupted night of sleep half a dozen times (not exaggerating) in 2013
• We designed our new house and are anxiously awaiting the official start of construction
• We took a big family trip to Disney World (the HAPPIEST place on earth!) with my parents and in-laws. My brother and his family even got to meet us for a few days of the trip
• My practice secured a new office and went through the process of designing the newer, larger space - I finally will get my own private office and exam rooms that are all mine!
• We got to spend a lot of time with family at home and on the road (Florida, Cape Cod, Saranac Lake, Lake Sacandaga)
• My husband's gauge of a good year...we got to see Phish multiple times
• My husband and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary and a few days later the 15th anniversary of our first date 

What I learned most this past year is PATIENCE. Patience in selling our house. Patience in making progress on a new office, new schedule, and new salary. Patience in taking care of two kids with extremely different, but equally important needs. Patience in working through nightmares and fussy toddlers at 2am. Patience in balancing my roles as mommy, wife, sister, daughter, and doctor. Patience in remodeling my self image. The more I struggled to *make* things happen the more frustrated, stressed, and unhappy I found myself. 

I am hoping 2014 will find me learning from my mistakes, letting go of the things I can not change, and fully appreciating all of the awesomeness that already is a part of my life.

Sleep Deprived

I really should be on a treadmill right now preparing for the 5K (my first ever) I am running tomorrow. Clearly, that is not the case. Instead, I'm using the three hours I've been up (thanks baby bear, thanks a lot) to place orders on Vistaprint, browse Pinterest and pin a few dozen more pumpkin recipes I won't have time to actually bake, make strange obsessive party lists for baby bear's upcoming first birthday party, and (duh) post here. Unless I leave the house (and then I would have to go to the gym, and I'm obviously trying to avoid that), this is really all I can do.

As all of my "work space" (living room and kitchen) is so close to the bedrooms I will wake the monsters if I do much else I've been contemplating whether I can get away with brewing a cup of coffee for the last 60 minutes and have, thus far, decided against it. I am enjoying this little tiny bit of peace and responsibility free time too much to risk disrupting it.

I've annoyingly and repeatedly pointed out recently mentioned a few times that things are busy around here. Guess what? It got SO MUCH busier in the past week. Here's the breakdown:

• The situation with the monster children is no different - the bug is still sweet 50% of the time and an irrational, maddeningly defiant creature the other 50% of the time and the bear is a wonderful baby with the exceptions that she rarely sleeps through the night and tries to aspirate small objects at least a dozen times a day.
• Also on the family front, my little sister had her baby (I'm in love!) and I'm trying to make time to see him as often as I can because he is growing so fast already! 
• Work continues to get busier by the day as we enter cold and flu season. As soon as the kids go back to school the office visits for congestion, sore throat, pink eye, etc pick up.
• And the ongoing house selling process! The good news about the house is that I can finally stop cleaning 24/7 because we have a buyer, but the bad news is that they want a fast closing and (pending the official closing date from the bank) we need to be out by the end of the month.
• As I eluded to above, baby bear's first birthday is fast approaching and I am also planning her party. I had already agreed to scale back my usual party planning/crafting/cooking, but it's getting even more scaled back now. This makes me sad.
• Finally, our Disney vacation is fast approaching and all I can hope for is that the warm weather clothing makes it with us through the move and we can find it when I need to pack.

So while much of this increased business is due to GOOD things, it's still insane. Even though I am SO tired, I can barely fall asleep at night because my head is so packed with plans, ideas, and concerns. Last night my husband and I drank a bottle of champagne to celebrate the house selling process and it was the first time in weeks I've fallen asleep effortlessly. Of course, I've been up since 4 am because the baby bear wouldn't want to let me get in a full 8 hours...

Mommy and Me Day

Between the ages of 4 months and 2 1/2 years my bug attended daycare five days a week because my husband and I were both working full time. It was something we had to do and it was fine. When I graduated residency in 2011 there was nearly a three month delay before I could start my new job and my bug stayed home with me - we had many ups and downs, but overall it was a welcome change from the hectic days of my training. From December 2011 until this past week my bug has been going to daycare/preschool three days per week and spending one full day and one half day with me. We've done lazy things (watched movies and took naps), creative things (painting and baking), adventurous things (day trips and nature walks), academic things (reading and writing), and boring things (appointments and errands), but we did them together.

This coming week my husband and I made the decision to put her back in a full time program to prepare for kindergarten next year. Part (most?) of me knows this is the right thing to do. She will definitely benefit academically by being in the classroom every day and I am looking forward to having some alone time to be with the baby bear - I took a very short maternity leave and have had very little time with the baby alone. The other part of me is grieving for my bug's rapidly progressing childhood. She's steadily growing up...and away. It is just as it should be, but it still is a little gut wrenching.

I don't regret the way things have been. I actually think we've done a decent job making memories and doing special things together no matter what our schedules were. And, I feel confident we will keep working hard to appreciate our time together. As a celebration of our past and future "mommy and me" time, I took the day off on Friday and took the bug out for the afternoon.

We declared it "her day!" and she got to call the shots. I picked her up from summer camp and told her I would take her out to lunch for anything she wanted, even if it was "junk food." As you can see, she took full advantage of my offer...

Cheese Pizza and Pink Lemonade!

When the NYS museum was open on Mondays (our full day together) we went at least once a month. Then they changed their hours and we really haven't been able to go much. She has been asking me to take her, so that was next on our agenda. As it was gorgeous out, we decided to take a walk around the Plaza before heading into the museum.

Post-pizza, pre-duck chasing pose

Our museum protocol: Carousel, exhibits, carousel

After a few hours at the museum it was nearly time to head home (the baby is still nursing and I was nearing 5 hours without feeding or pumping...), but I promised her one last treat before we came back to reality. After reviewing the options, she asked for soft serve ice cream...

It's definitely not "real food" when you order it by color instead of flavor, but it made her happy...

I'm still a little sad that she won't be with me on my days off, but I think we had a very joyful and special afternoon together to cap off the past two years.

Crazy Times

A year ago at this time I was nearing the end of my second pregnancy and worrying how I was going to adjust to having a 3 1/2 year old and a newborn. I thought it was going to be really hard. The baby came and...it was easy! The transition was nearly flawless. I took on weight loss, complex meal planning, big baking projects, and an increased work load in the office. I patted myself on the back thinking I had this whole working mother thing mastered. 9 months later things are hard.

My four year old is tackling some delayed jealousy issues leading to unpleasant acting out against the baby and regression of her own maturity. Just the other day she unpacked her sister's bathing suit and hid it so the baby couldn't go swimming at my parent's house when they were baby-sitting. She refers to her sister as "the monster" and asks if someone else can watch her all the time. Many nights at dinner she asks to wear a bib and tries to get me to spoon feed her instead of the baby. She's also back to fighting bedtime every single night and gets up in the middle of the night and comes in our room. So that's fun. And the baby? She still wakes up overnight at least 5 out of 7 nights looking to nurse, puts EVERYTHING in her mouth, and will not sit still and play with a toy for more than 30 seconds.

On a personal front my weight loss plateaued with diet changes alone and I signed up for a 5K Mud Run to get myself back to the gym. With all the above going on, the only way I can get there is to get up in the wee hours of the morning (which shortens my already hit and miss slumber) or rush from work to squeeze in a workout. The latter inevitably means dinner will be late and the kids will be whiny and snacking the whole time I cook leading to less consumption of the actual dinner. Which brings me to food. I'm still making a valiant effort to shop local and cook real food. That endeavor is sucking up the majority of any "excess" time I have in the hour after the kids go to bed and the hour before I collapse. 

As if that wasn't enough, did I mention that my patient load at work exploded at the same time our medical record system was updated leading to my inability to finish my charting as quickly and at least an hour of screen time at night to finish my patient notes? Or that our house is still on the market (which is a "surprise" according to the real estate agent that convinced us we were going to sell in a matter of days...) which means I am constantly cleaning to keep things in order for showings. And the icing on the cake? The lot we want to build on becomes available in about two weeks and we will have to start working with them on the designs for our new home. 

Where does my husband fit into all of this? He's here doing his very best to be helpful. He keeps up with the yard work for the house showings and can follow simple instructions for dinner, but the vast majority of his time is spent baby wrangling and stressing out about selling the house/building a new house/moving.

In summary, there's a lot going on. I want to blog because I have many great recipes, party ideas, and parenting tips to share, but I am worn quite thin these days. I'm waiting for the next great shift in family/work/home responsibilities to give me some breathing room...

Mommy Power Hour

Anyone who went to college knows what a real "power hour" is, but I've found myself using this term to refer to the frenzied hour I spend trying to "catch up" on the rare occasions when I get home before my husband and baby bug.

For example, this past week I got out of work at 3:45pm. I have a 30 minute commute home, made a quick stop at Roma's for lunch supplies, and was in the door at 4:30pm - exactly 1 hour before daddy and bug were due to arrive home. That's right - it was mommy power hour time!

In a flash, I was out of my gross hospital scrubs and into my Disney "Kitchen Princess" apron. Within minutes, there was a salted pot of water on the stove heating up and a load of bug's laundry was sudsing up in the washer. As the water slowly reached boiling point, I attacked the veggie crisper digging out two bunchs of broccoli, a half dozen mushrooms, and a lone red pepper. Minutes later the pasta was happily bubbling away and, with the addition of a medium white onion and many cloves of minced garlic, my veggies were roughly chopped and ready to be doused in olive oil, salt, and pepper before making their way into the oven to roast.

With thirty minutes already gone, I forged ahead with the roux for my "grown up" mac and cheese (nutmeg and a dash of cayenne pepper added to the flour) by melting the butter while I furiously grated two blocks of cheddar cheese. As if I had planned it (trust me, it was sheer coincidence, I'm not that good), the timer on the oven and the washer went off simultaneously giving me a pan of beautifully roasted veggies and a load of perfectly laundered onesies and socks in a moment of domesticated bliss. Out came the veggies - in went the mac and cheese.

The poise of the situation was lost as I then loudly barreled down the basement steps to move bug's clothes to the dryer and scattered cat food across the floor as I attempted to fill the dish far too quickly. Alas, I had no time to cry over split milk (or bits of cat food) - my hour was drawing to a close! In a last ditch effort to finish on a high point, I scrambled from room to room picking up toys, straightening books, depositing dirty clothes in the proper bins, and wiping down sticky surfaces.

And then, it was 5:30. I heard the sounds of crunching gravel as daddy and bug pulled into the driveway. Hurriedly, I ran a brush through my hair and gulped a glass of water just as the front door opened and my husband's voice rang out, "Guess who's home?"

Now that's what I call a power hour!

2AM

This is my Saturday night.

It's 3AM. I'm 20 hours into my 24 hour call. I've been up for 22 hours straight already. It's been a "slow day" on the floor - only 10 discharges and 5 admissions. I just finished another bogus admission due to the ER refusing to discharge anyone because "if something bad happens when they leave, we're liable". I'm tired, but I need to check labs. I call the attending to run a few numbers and we decide to order more labs in the morning.

On my way out to write the orders, my pager goes off. This time it's not the ER, it's the code pager. Rapid response on the other side. I run to the room only to find that the patient is a surgery patient whose mom called a rapid response due to poor pain control. The mom is angry. She yells she wants to leave. No one is helping her child's pain. All I can do is make sure the patient is stable while surgery makes med recommendations. Over the phone. Without laying eyes on the patient.

In the middle of the rapid response, the other floor calls me. I need to talk to one of the nurses. I go to the other side. A mom is angry there too. She is angry we haven't diagnosed her child yet. She wants to go to another hospital. She doesn't like the answers I have given her, so she ignores my efforts and berates me. I'm usually calm, but I feel my anger rising. I explain that her expectations are unrealistic. She doesn't like it. I tell her I hope she gets to go somewhere else if that's what she wants. I know she won't. I leave the room angry, frustrated, and hurt.

I could be home. With a daughter who misses me and a husband who loves me. But I'm not. I tell myself I can help. I can make a difference. It's worth it. But, right now, I'm not so sure.

All Good Things Come to an End

And by all good things, I mean my maternity leave. As of July 1st I no longer get to pretend that my only job in the world is being a wife and mommy. It's time to iron my white coat, dust off my stethoscope, and make my way back to the hospital. This is a very bittersweet time for me (and, I am sure, all working moms). It's difficult for the obvious reasons - turning her care over to someone else, missing her like crazy, being afraid something will happen while I am gone, etc. Despite all of the worry and sadness, I have to admit there is a bit of excitement in the challenge of going back to work.

My whole life I've wanted to do it all, be it all, and have it all. I want to be there for my husband and kids, but also to have a career that means something to me. I want to be a mom, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a friend, and a doctor. I want to have nice things for my family and know that I helped earn them. So, as hard as it will be to leave my beautiful baby girl come Wednesday morning, this is my first chance to prove I can be everything I want to be. Bring on the challenge!