david lucked out this year and happened to have the day of his birth off, so we were able to celebrate in style with a day of his favorite activities. only a few weeks ago, our neighbor upstairs took in a baby panda from china. actually, she claims he's baby sheepdog from ypsilanti, but i think she's been had. in any event, we kicked off david's bday with some puppy playtime with dudley while his mom and dad were at work.
while david was obviously thrilled to have a puppy at our place for a few hours, a few residents of our household appreciated the visitor far less. we think the following video does well to sum up the cats' personalities:
after dropping dudley off at his house, we made our way north to david's favorite sushi restaurant, tank sushi, and enjoyed a feast fit for a king thanks to samina and mickey.
we arrived back home just in time to put the finishing touches on a few treats before some work and school friends joined us for a sunset pie eating extravaganza.
after a few hours of nibbling on pie and ice cream, we were tucked into bed by 9pm in order to rest up for our respective dawn shifts the next morning. doesn't sound like much, but it was a nice, restful day, and afforded us many more nights of pie, which is never a bad thing.
after six weeks of vacation and light work, david is back to the grind, working in ers all over chicago until he wraps up the first third of residency in only about two and a half months. time is really flying!
i, on the other hand, have been enjoying a very relaxing schedule, especially compared to what the previous quarter was like. i have only two classes, both of which meet on monday, and then i work a wednesday night clinical on the labor and delivery/nursery unit. with so much time to rest in between my few commitments, i continue to feel very physically comfortable in the home stretch of pregnancy.
it's also been a great experience seeing more live births but from a nurse's perspective--it's an important compliment to the birthing classes and reading we do on our own time to prepare. it's funny, because everyone thinks it must be traumatic for me to witness women laboring and giving birth and that i must be terrified, when i actually find that part to be beautiful and what actually terrifies and traumatizes me is the medical approach to labor and birth in this country.
to be honest, i don't like a lot of what i see, and feel strongly that our medical system sets women and infants up for a lot of unnecessary complications and interventions and consistently fails to act in their best interest (it's no wonder we rank 28th in the world for infant mortality...). however, at least now i have exposure not only to what i prefer, but much of what we'll actually be up against. while you can't plan your birth experience, education never hurts, and this makes it easier for us to diplomatically try and get what we prefer in a system that doesn't particularly cater to those wants.
anyhow, i've got more than enough free time on my hands to study and get my work done while also tying up some loose ends that would otherwise probably remain loose forever...i have a new passport, am selling back many old text books online, and have shifted my prep reading from labor and birth to breastfeeding, sleeping, vaccination schedules, etc. we figure it's about time to start accepting that very soon, there will be an actual baby around! oddly enough, with all my spare time, our apartment hasn't gotten much cleaner. i have no explanation for that, though if i asked my mom, she would probably try again to sell me on the whole "well, things don't clean themselves..." but i still don't believe her.
u of c's beautiful campus in bloom
so, we're just gearing up for that and enjoying our last few weeks as a twosome (about 6 weeks if you ask me, 5ish according to ultrasound, and 4 according to my doctors who, despite many years of education, do not seem to understand the basic mechanism of conception). we just had our final ultrasound on thursday...this kid is a tiny version of her dad. it's pretty funny. everything else continues to look good and normal!
olivia bonding with the bean--she is going to be the best sister!
