Smile for mommy…pleassseeeee

No smiles, but a LOT of personality!  Man I love this kid!

Not a whole lot happening around here.  We do a lot of playing, reading, and playing outside.  Elliot has gotten reacquainted with a lot of the kiddos around the complex, most of which are older, and he loves hanging out with them.  He will cry when it’s time to leave them.  Elliot is talking a lot.  His vocabulary grows daily.  It’s amazing to watch him learn a new word and then remember it and use it correctly the next day.  It’s still a little hard to understand him and his sentences usually only consist of two words, but if you listen carefully you get the meaning :) Elliot has recently started counting, but you can tell he doesn’t understand what it means to count something.  He can count to 9 skipping 7 and 8 and sometimes 3.  It’s cute, we will often hear him counting and after he has exhausted the numbers he knows he will repeat…6, 9, 6, 9 or 1, 2, 1, 2.  He is also really into shapes. Especially circles.  Show him a circle and he gets excited! When asked he can identify a star, heart, circle, and oval.  The alphabet is also another area of enjoyment for him.  He LOVES to read alphabet books, so we have been checking out many at the library.  He can say letter names, but doesn’t usually match the name to the correct letter.  As for colors, he has no interest….everything is “geen”. Elliot still loves Mickey Mouse.  We have been to Disneyland a few times since being back and each time we go he seems a little more excited.  He even got to meet Mickey!

 

As for Baby J s/he is doing well.  I am 13 weeks along and am finally starting to feel a little better.  This pregnancy has been the opposite of Elliot.  I am just praying I continue to feel better and gain more energy because the doctor kindly informed me today that some experience sickness through the whole pregnancy.  VOMIT.   I honestly couldn’t have made it through these last 7 weeks with out Jared.  I don’t know how single mom’s do it.  Jared has really stepped up and been not only super husband to a couch ridden wife (who doesn’t handle being sick very well, cries randomly, and won’t/can’t eat certain foods {mainly everything}), but he has played the role of chef, Daddy, mommy, dog owner, interior decorator, house cleaner, chauffer, doctor, you name it, he did!  Thank you babe!  I can’t thank you enough!

At my appointment today Baby J is measuring 7.63 cm with 148 bpm.  S/he is measuring 13 weeks 5 days (Elliot was always a little larger too).   We do plan on finding out the sex, but both men in my life are predicting girl.  When asked, Elliot has consistently says he wants a sister.  We have started discussing names, well ok, I have started coming up with names.  If it was solely my decision I would tell you we have the baby’s name picked out…. BUT I haven’t sold Jared on them quit yet (still a few months to work on him).  We do have the middle name picked out for boy or girl.  Maybe I’m a little ambitious this time around. I’m more comfortable and confident and feel I know what to expect…different pregnancy, different way of looking at things.  Who knows maybe I’ll even announce the baby’s name once we decide :)

October 6, 2012

Residency- the next year of our lives

I need to preface this post by acknowledging and apologizing for my absence. We are moved and settled back in in California. Post should be resuming on a regular schedule now :)

We have some exciting news regarding our optometry future!

Jared has been pretty certain since 2nd year of school that he wanted to do a residency program. Well, he has stuck to it and now it is actually happening! A residency is an additional year of training that focuses on a specialty/specific area of optometry. Jared really wants to learn more about and become proficient in specialty/medical contact lenses. This past year Jared has done research on the different Cornea and Contact Lenses residencies that are offered throughout the US.

The system is complicated, but this should give you an idea on how things work: Research interested programs: He narrowed his search down to 3 programs from the 17 total available for what he wants to do. Apply to & interview at those programs: Jared decided to focus all his efforts on 3 programs total. The cost of attending interviews is the sole responsibility of the student. It is recommended to apply to at least five, so this move was a little risky. After the interviews…DECIDE! Jared and I discussed where we wanted to live, where he felt he would learn the most, and all the major factors you consider when deciding a major change. The student completes their rankings: From there, residency picking becomes complicated. Once we made our pick, Jared went online to a matching database and entered his rankings for the 3 residency programs….then we waited. The programs complete their rankings: The schools go into the same database and enter their first, second, third, and so on, choices of candidates. The “match” occurs: At 2pm on a Friday the matching window closes. The computer uses an algorithm to match the candidates. Jared had to rank a program the same as they ranked him. An ideal situation would be Jared ranks a program as #1 and vice versa. Then we wait…..The email: after 2 days of being on the edge of our seats (there are situations where candidates don’t match at all and are without a program), we got our matching email. Jared matched with his number 1 pick!! We will be in SoCal for at least one more year.

What does this mean? Jared will graduate in May, get his license, have the month of June off, and then at the beginning of July start a year long residency program. He will be working under his own license as Dr. J. We will also no longer be paying the school, but will be receiving a very modest income (if that’s what you would call what they are giving us :))! We are very excited. This residency program is one of the most competitive with a high number of applications. We feel very fortunate that it was Jared who got it!

This quarter has been especially nice because of the amount of time we have Jared home. Elliot sure loves him some daddy :)

One step closer to being Dr. J

Congrats to Jared!  I am late in posting this, but he has successfully completed all Optometry boards! We are extremely proud of him (: Now Jared just needs to complete his last and final rotation.  We will be heading back to California in two weeks from today.  Jared will be working at a VA in Los Angeles.

Elliot and I have been spend a lot of time outside lately because it has been beautiful! We color, play ball, or just explore the backyard.

We are headed to Kansas for the weekend!  Enjoy your week.

All OK here in OK

I realized I haven’t done a post about this new rotation site.  Seeing family & friends: We have been so busy traveling for the holidays and visiting friends, I forgot.  So….. all is well here in Lawton! Although this little big city (little for what I am used too, big because it’s 96k) doesn’t have a lot to offer, we have found a few things to keep us occupied.  Birdwatching (I’m kidding): Make note of the first two pictures.  Birds.  Lots of birds.  The unusual part about the birds is their location around Wal-mart (no Target here folks, just Wal-mart…where I am living?).  In every tree, on every telephone line, street lamp, and sign in front of Wal-mart are BIRDs. Big, nasty, black, scary birds.  And only at Wal-mart. Not one parking lot over. Not across the street. Not even the adjacent sidewalk. The second you reach Wal-mart, birds are everywhere. It is almost as if Lawton holds the key to the 1980s horror flick Attack of the Birds.  Trashy, maybe? That’s the explanation I have come up with.  Gross.  I hate birds. So, needless to say I do not do my shopping at this Wal-mart (I do it at the other one).

Lawton plays host to the smallest library EVER. Seriously. This is only the “branch” library, but it is the closest, so it is where I go.

There are SOME good things here in Lawton.  Wildlife: Our first weekend here we took an outing to the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge.  Bison were brought to this refuge 100 years ago, and now  number 500-600. There are also almost 300 wild longhorns roaming the pretty terrain.  As you can see from the pictures below, it’s all open land.  These are not tamed animals, so I was a little nervous with how close we were to these animals…especially when they looked back at us.  Food: Just outside the wildlife refuge is a little town called Meers. Everyone raves about Meers restaurant, so we had to try it.  It is a smelly, dirty, hole-in-the-wall that serves some of the best hamburgers and cobbler I have ever had.  Yes, the meat eater in me gave way to try one of their burgers. I wasn’t disappointed.  The owner of the restaurant raises his own herd of grass-fed, free range longhorns, so the vegetarian in me wasn’t disappointed either :) And the peach cobbler is D.E.L.I.C.I.O.U.S. Elliot liked it so much he dove right in!

So, there you go.  When we aren’t traveling, we are either eating a Meers burger, at Wal-mart (the bird free one), or hanging out in our ‘too small of a house’ house. Just 3 more weeks and we will be heading back to Cali!

Austin

The fam and I got to use a long weekend to visit a friend in Austin, TX.  She is one of my oldest friends (old as in length of friendship).  She is the type of friend I can go awhile without talking to but reconnect with easily.  Jess and Jerod have a 6 month old little guy named Gibson.  He has big beautiful eyes and luxuriously long eyelashes…such a cutie.  Elliot would have gentle moments where he would give Gibson toys, but there were other times when he became toy possessive (sadly we have entered that stage).  Gibson just sat quietly and observed Elliot…not sure what he thought of my crazy man.  Gibson was so good tempered (I miss that stage).  While there we did a lot of visiting.  Jess got us a babysitter one night and we went to dinner and people watching at a karaoke bar. Oh, so fun :) Jess and Jerrod, thank you so much for the fun time and letting us stay with you.  You have a beautiful family and home! We can’t go that long without seeing each other again! Love you!

Sick Boy

We have been a little under the weather around here lately.  Elliot doesn’t get sick often and when he does it amazes me at how much energy he is still able to expel.  So when cuddle moments like this happen I cherish them! He has been waking up at night which is very uncommon for him and crying screaming like he is in pain.  I would normally ignore the cries but these are awful.  And all he seems to want is to be held.  One night I gave in and he laid his head on my shoulder while I rocked in the chair for an hour. Poor guy :( 

Since being home from Christmas we haven’t done much.  Most days are spent being lazy and getting better by playing in the toy bin. On a day when it was beautiful out and Elliot seemed to be having a “good” sick day we went to the park. 

Elliot’s 18 month stats: 33 1/4 inches tall and 29.6 lbs (down from 31, probably bc of the coughing and not eating).  Elliot is saying so many more words. We are starting to understand each other! Yah! He loves pointing at objects and calling out their names or points and likes me to say the name. Because of his new found communication skills he has started having more of an opinion and telling us what he wants.  He will tell me when it’s time to eat and sure enough he sits in his chair and eats his lunch or dinner….love that. He is also learning some of the titles of his favorite books and will ask for them by name (or partial name). He has also become a wiz at puzzles and asks for more once he completes one.  He climbs on, over, and up everything! Elliot still loves mickey, cars, and his books. Love this little man and can’t wait to see what new things he is doing next week!