Today at 8:00 pm we officially submitted our final rank list for residency programs. It was a difficult decision for us to make. We really love Duluth, our great friends and church that we love up there, but also appreciate Rochester for Kristi's parents living nearby and doing daycare for Charlotte (and us at times). So we ended up ranking Mayo #1 and Duluth #2 and 6 other programs in the Twin Cities area ranked lower. We also recently discovered a very real possibility that if we go to Rochester, we may rent the house directly across from Kristi's parents house.... For those of you who are familiar with the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, I'm sure if this pans out our lives will be full of hilarity as a result.
We will find out on March 19th where we will be spending the next 3 years. We will let all our blogger followers know when we find out.
Charlotte wants all her admirers to know that her new trick is to mimic a flamingo by standing on one leg. To unknowing spectators it just looks like she is lifting a leg to mark her territory. We'll get pics and a video up sometime soon, stay tuned.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
Guest photographer entry
From Grandpa Mark's files, here are some more wintertime pictures of Charlotte. They're kind of small, and I'm not sure why. But if you squint real hard you can tell that it's Charlotte.
Charlotte and her pal Scruffy going for a sled ride in a laundry basket, which works way better than a sled because she doesn't tip over when you go fast or take a corner too fast.
So sometimes Charlotte does like being outside, even though our snow fort building was not exactly "fun."
Daddy told Charlotte to get in the "tent," which was actually a folded piece of cardboard. Charlotte thought long and hard for a second, then attempted to climb in.
Charlotte and her pal Scruffy going for a sled ride in a laundry basket, which works way better than a sled because she doesn't tip over when you go fast or take a corner too fast.
So sometimes Charlotte does like being outside, even though our snow fort building was not exactly "fun."
Daddy told Charlotte to get in the "tent," which was actually a folded piece of cardboard. Charlotte thought long and hard for a second, then attempted to climb in.The Throw Ups
I jinxed myself by writing that I hoped Charlotte didn't get sick again for a long time. Guess who visited us today? The Barf Fairy.... Poor little Charlotte (and mama and daddy who had to clean it up!). She seems fine now though, so hopefully we don't have any more nasty surprises this evening or over night. And I guess we won't be feeding her Indian food for dinner like we had planned....
Monday, February 2, 2009
Some pictures
Some of these pictures are a little old, but hey, it's been a while since we've put any up. And, terrible parents that we are, we do not have a single picture of Christmas. Whoops.
Here Charlotte enjoys a delicious snack, right out of the jar.
She's gonna love this picture in about 12 years. She's trying to get her pajamas on by herself, but notice she's also wearing shoes...
A little disheveled.
Matching daddy-daughter flannel shirts.
Our little lumberjack (lumberjill?).
We took Charlotte out to make a snow fort. She hated every minute of it. Especially a split second after this photo was taken. If you look carefully, Matt has just gleefully thrown a snowball towards Charlotte that is visible just above her head and slightly to the right. See below for the aftermath.
Snowball right down the back of her jacket, snow down her neck, screaming like you wouldn't believe.
Are we having fun yet?
We are trying hard to convince Charlotte that playing in the snow is fun, but she remained staunch in her opinion that she hates fun.
Little Miss Lobster Claws.
You'll have to excuse the sideways-ness of this picture. I couldn't get it to load the right direction for some reason. But you get the point--one of Charlotte's finer moments. 
Playing with her farm set.
Isn't she cute in her overalls and pigtails?
We made her a little reading nook out of some big pillows. She LOVES to sit in there and read to herself!
That's our girl!Saturday, January 31, 2009
We're baaaaaack......
Long time, no blog. Sorry to all who check this faithfully without any reward, and sorry to those who have stopped reading because we haven't posted in so long. Here's an update on our lives in general, then on to the Charlotte update.
We finished up our residency interviews in December and January with no clear answer how to rank our favorite programs. For those of you who don't know, residency decisions are made by a fancy computer algorithm, not by real people. We submit a list of the programs where we interviewed in the order we would like to go there. Each residency program submits a list of the applicants that interviewed in the order they would like to hire them. Then the computer puts all of the lists together, nationwide, and comes up with a match that makes the most people the most happy. It depends in which specialty you are applying for a position, but in family medicine most people who are competitive candidates match in their number 1 or 2 spot, rarely do they have to go to their 3 or lower choice. Duluth and Mayo in Rochester are fighting for positions 1 and 2 on our list, then programs in St. Paul and St. Louis Park (Minneapolis) are numbers 3 and 4, and then there is some haziness about numbers 5-7 or 8, which are mostly in the cities. We submit our lists by February 25, and then have the big Match Day March 19, where everyone in the 4th year medical school class gathers together to open up their envelopes all at once (I can feel the butterflies in my stomach already!). We'll keep you updated.
Good news-we passed our big licensing exam in Chicago that we took in early December! Yay!
We are finishing up another round of rotations right now, just one week left before we have to move on to something different. Matt is glad to be almost done with his psychiatry rotation. He has learned a lot, but not enjoyed it so much. The most important thing he is learning is how close each one of us is to a major psychiatric breakdown. Each of the patients he takes care of are just like you and I, but a major trauma or stressor has happened in their lives that changes the chemistry of their brain and BAM, now they have a mental illness. It is scary to think about it happening to us, but gives you a lot of compassion towards the patients. Next Matt starts 3 weeks of dermatology at the veteran's hospital. He is looking forward to honing his surgical skills in taking off skin cancer from old guys. Kristi is on her intensive care and renal (kidney) medicine rotation where all of her patients are very sick and complicated (and a lot of work!). She is looking forward to being done with it, even though she is learning so much. Next she will start her pediatrics rotation. While she'll still be working a ton (80 hours/week, overnight at the hospital every 4th night), she's pretty sure she will enjoy the patients a lot more than the adults she takes care of now. After that 6 week rotation is over, she will be done with overnight call until residency begins!
I think most of you know that we are currently living in Kristi's cousin's house in Minneapolis since it didn't sell before they had to move to California. Well, unfortunately the house has been foreclosed and bought back by the mortgage company, so our time here is limited. We are not quite sure what is going to happen, but it looks like we will probably have to move out at the end of February. Since we are done with school May 2 (Happy Graduation to us!), we are not going to rent an apartment in Minneapolis for 2 months. We are going to put our stuff in storage and then live with the basics in a friend's basement. High class, we know... But we are still hoping that we may get to stay a little longer than the end of February, and maybe the mortgage company will want us to keep the house heated for them and keep it looking lived in for house showings....
Ok, now I think we can talk about Charlotte. She is all toddler now, no more baby. Running, climbing, "hopping" (her feet never leave the ground), singing, dancing, twirling, stomping, fussing, talking, yelling, hitting, hiding, reading, coloring, helping, eating. It is non-stop action. She loves to do "ring around the rosey" especially if you hold hands with her and include a dolly in the circle too. I recently entertained her for half an hour by hiding under a blanket and making a small tent with my body as the tent poles. She loved being in a little space and going in and out, peeking through the holes and getting REALLY static-y. Her hair is getting really long and is often in her face or getting food and boogers stuck in it. Yet it is so nice and we don't want to cut it. It just means she has to have baths often, which she doesn't mind--she LOVES the bathtub (except washing her hair, unfortunately). Her daycare likes to put pigtails in her hair, which makes her look so grown up! She likes to hold hands when we pray, something she learned at our friends Wade and Lauri's in Duluth. She has also learned to say amen when we are done praying. She eats with utensils (sometimes with more grace than others) and has odd eating preferences--like last night we went out for Thai food and she just wanted to lick the lemon wedge that came with my dinner.... (oh, and speaking of dinner at the Thai place, she got a fortune cookie that said "You will soon make an important decision." We're waiting for that one to come true, but so far Charlotte only makes decisions like "what will I eat and what will I throw on the floor?"). She loves to lick peanut butter on a spoon, dip chips or bread into a sauce or dip of any kind, and eat goldfish crackers like they're going out of style. She recognizes a bag of chips as something yummy, and I think she even knows that crinkly sound when you are opening it carefully in the kitchen so that she doesn't hear you. Her vocabulary is growing to include important words like bus, cracker, bubbles, Beth (our neighbor who does daycare 2 days/week), cow, go, poo-poo, and socks. She also signs cracker, along with the other ones we've already mentioned in previous posts. Daddy taught her that when he asks "What does a green light mean?" she yells "GO!" She knows who Elmo is and can pick him out of a crowd of muppets in a Sesame Street book she has. She also knows that we have watched a few videos with Elmo on YouTube, so she points at the computer and says "elmo? elmo?" Matt's favorite thing recently is that she understands so much of what you say to her--when they sit down to read a book (one of her all-time favorite things to do), he asks her where various things are and she will point each one out, even things we didn't know she recognized! This morning we went to a coffee shop near our house that has a giant playroom where lots of families with young kids go on weekend mornings, and Charlotte was the nerdy kid who wanted to sit on the couch and read books instead of play with the toys or go down the slide! But I think she was probably a little overwhelmed by all the kids running around and they did have some interesting books, so I can't blame her. Charlotte's love for babies continues...her most recent fascination is to pretend they are going potty on the toilet or have a poopy diaper and need a change. She is very patient in holding them on the toilet and wiping up their little butts. If only she could behave as well as her dolls while they are getting their diaper changed....Her potty training is coming along. She uses the toilet about twice a day right now, but we are not really pushing it, just letting her go on the potty when she asks or if we notice she is currently pooping in her diaper (for those of you who are parents, you know the face... and for those of you who aren't parents, you can imagine the face I am talking about...)
Charlotte is often a little dear who we are so grateful to have around. But just as often she is a little wolverine who whines and fusses and hits and disobeys and flops around on the floor like a slimy fish when she doesn't want to be picked up. She is testing her limits every moment..."will they let me stand on top of the radio? no, they will not. but what if i try it again?.... how about this time? what will they do if i very slowly drip the milk out of my sippy cup and then smear it around? are they looking at me? what if i pretend to drink it and then quick turn it upside down while they're not watching and shake it?" We are learning the arts of distraction, making things fun (won't it be fun to get our hat and mittens on?!), patience, compromise, and letting things go. Being a parent is hard and not for the weak of heart-or stomach! Charlotte had her first real episode of puking earlier this month, and it was in the middle of the night, so it was all over in her crib and her blankets and her hair and her dolly....we all hope that the throw-ups (as Wade and Lauri call the stomach flu) stay far far away from us!
On that pleasant note, that is the end of this post. Please comment to let us know that there are still some people who read this blog. Otherwise it's just a nice online baby book for Charlotte to know what her life was like back when her parents were young and fun.
We finished up our residency interviews in December and January with no clear answer how to rank our favorite programs. For those of you who don't know, residency decisions are made by a fancy computer algorithm, not by real people. We submit a list of the programs where we interviewed in the order we would like to go there. Each residency program submits a list of the applicants that interviewed in the order they would like to hire them. Then the computer puts all of the lists together, nationwide, and comes up with a match that makes the most people the most happy. It depends in which specialty you are applying for a position, but in family medicine most people who are competitive candidates match in their number 1 or 2 spot, rarely do they have to go to their 3 or lower choice. Duluth and Mayo in Rochester are fighting for positions 1 and 2 on our list, then programs in St. Paul and St. Louis Park (Minneapolis) are numbers 3 and 4, and then there is some haziness about numbers 5-7 or 8, which are mostly in the cities. We submit our lists by February 25, and then have the big Match Day March 19, where everyone in the 4th year medical school class gathers together to open up their envelopes all at once (I can feel the butterflies in my stomach already!). We'll keep you updated.
Good news-we passed our big licensing exam in Chicago that we took in early December! Yay!
We are finishing up another round of rotations right now, just one week left before we have to move on to something different. Matt is glad to be almost done with his psychiatry rotation. He has learned a lot, but not enjoyed it so much. The most important thing he is learning is how close each one of us is to a major psychiatric breakdown. Each of the patients he takes care of are just like you and I, but a major trauma or stressor has happened in their lives that changes the chemistry of their brain and BAM, now they have a mental illness. It is scary to think about it happening to us, but gives you a lot of compassion towards the patients. Next Matt starts 3 weeks of dermatology at the veteran's hospital. He is looking forward to honing his surgical skills in taking off skin cancer from old guys. Kristi is on her intensive care and renal (kidney) medicine rotation where all of her patients are very sick and complicated (and a lot of work!). She is looking forward to being done with it, even though she is learning so much. Next she will start her pediatrics rotation. While she'll still be working a ton (80 hours/week, overnight at the hospital every 4th night), she's pretty sure she will enjoy the patients a lot more than the adults she takes care of now. After that 6 week rotation is over, she will be done with overnight call until residency begins!
I think most of you know that we are currently living in Kristi's cousin's house in Minneapolis since it didn't sell before they had to move to California. Well, unfortunately the house has been foreclosed and bought back by the mortgage company, so our time here is limited. We are not quite sure what is going to happen, but it looks like we will probably have to move out at the end of February. Since we are done with school May 2 (Happy Graduation to us!), we are not going to rent an apartment in Minneapolis for 2 months. We are going to put our stuff in storage and then live with the basics in a friend's basement. High class, we know... But we are still hoping that we may get to stay a little longer than the end of February, and maybe the mortgage company will want us to keep the house heated for them and keep it looking lived in for house showings....
Ok, now I think we can talk about Charlotte. She is all toddler now, no more baby. Running, climbing, "hopping" (her feet never leave the ground), singing, dancing, twirling, stomping, fussing, talking, yelling, hitting, hiding, reading, coloring, helping, eating. It is non-stop action. She loves to do "ring around the rosey" especially if you hold hands with her and include a dolly in the circle too. I recently entertained her for half an hour by hiding under a blanket and making a small tent with my body as the tent poles. She loved being in a little space and going in and out, peeking through the holes and getting REALLY static-y. Her hair is getting really long and is often in her face or getting food and boogers stuck in it. Yet it is so nice and we don't want to cut it. It just means she has to have baths often, which she doesn't mind--she LOVES the bathtub (except washing her hair, unfortunately). Her daycare likes to put pigtails in her hair, which makes her look so grown up! She likes to hold hands when we pray, something she learned at our friends Wade and Lauri's in Duluth. She has also learned to say amen when we are done praying. She eats with utensils (sometimes with more grace than others) and has odd eating preferences--like last night we went out for Thai food and she just wanted to lick the lemon wedge that came with my dinner.... (oh, and speaking of dinner at the Thai place, she got a fortune cookie that said "You will soon make an important decision." We're waiting for that one to come true, but so far Charlotte only makes decisions like "what will I eat and what will I throw on the floor?"). She loves to lick peanut butter on a spoon, dip chips or bread into a sauce or dip of any kind, and eat goldfish crackers like they're going out of style. She recognizes a bag of chips as something yummy, and I think she even knows that crinkly sound when you are opening it carefully in the kitchen so that she doesn't hear you. Her vocabulary is growing to include important words like bus, cracker, bubbles, Beth (our neighbor who does daycare 2 days/week), cow, go, poo-poo, and socks. She also signs cracker, along with the other ones we've already mentioned in previous posts. Daddy taught her that when he asks "What does a green light mean?" she yells "GO!" She knows who Elmo is and can pick him out of a crowd of muppets in a Sesame Street book she has. She also knows that we have watched a few videos with Elmo on YouTube, so she points at the computer and says "elmo? elmo?" Matt's favorite thing recently is that she understands so much of what you say to her--when they sit down to read a book (one of her all-time favorite things to do), he asks her where various things are and she will point each one out, even things we didn't know she recognized! This morning we went to a coffee shop near our house that has a giant playroom where lots of families with young kids go on weekend mornings, and Charlotte was the nerdy kid who wanted to sit on the couch and read books instead of play with the toys or go down the slide! But I think she was probably a little overwhelmed by all the kids running around and they did have some interesting books, so I can't blame her. Charlotte's love for babies continues...her most recent fascination is to pretend they are going potty on the toilet or have a poopy diaper and need a change. She is very patient in holding them on the toilet and wiping up their little butts. If only she could behave as well as her dolls while they are getting their diaper changed....Her potty training is coming along. She uses the toilet about twice a day right now, but we are not really pushing it, just letting her go on the potty when she asks or if we notice she is currently pooping in her diaper (for those of you who are parents, you know the face... and for those of you who aren't parents, you can imagine the face I am talking about...)
Charlotte is often a little dear who we are so grateful to have around. But just as often she is a little wolverine who whines and fusses and hits and disobeys and flops around on the floor like a slimy fish when she doesn't want to be picked up. She is testing her limits every moment..."will they let me stand on top of the radio? no, they will not. but what if i try it again?.... how about this time? what will they do if i very slowly drip the milk out of my sippy cup and then smear it around? are they looking at me? what if i pretend to drink it and then quick turn it upside down while they're not watching and shake it?" We are learning the arts of distraction, making things fun (won't it be fun to get our hat and mittens on?!), patience, compromise, and letting things go. Being a parent is hard and not for the weak of heart-or stomach! Charlotte had her first real episode of puking earlier this month, and it was in the middle of the night, so it was all over in her crib and her blankets and her hair and her dolly....we all hope that the throw-ups (as Wade and Lauri call the stomach flu) stay far far away from us!
On that pleasant note, that is the end of this post. Please comment to let us know that there are still some people who read this blog. Otherwise it's just a nice online baby book for Charlotte to know what her life was like back when her parents were young and fun.
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