I should have gone running

Poor neglected blog. Oh well, I have something fun for you today.

I've been going to the community center gym since we moved here. I'm not usually an exercise class kind of girl; I'm just not peppy enough. But I've really been enjoying some spin classes as well a power yoga class. This morning I went, dropped Peter off in the play care area (Yay for a mini-break!), and headed to the yoga room. Here's a play-by-play. Enjoy!

9:15- regular power yoga class start time. Room is abandoned. I sit and stretch, wondering if it was canceled

9:20- in wanders my friend's mom (probably 60ish) who is visiting from out of town. She states she hasn't done yoga in years. I try to gently prepare grandma for the painful reality of power yoga, help her find a mat, etc. Still no teacher. I start putting my shoes back on to go check at the front desk.

9:25- A cute pregnant girl rushes in, states she is filling in for regular teacher. Proceeds to state that this is the first class she has ever taught, and apologizes for being late.

9:30- (by this time in a regular class we're on about our 4th cycle, and I'm starting to shake and sweat.) New girl is apologizing profusely and trying to figure out the sound equipment.

9:35- New girl finally gives up on music, class commences with me, grandma, and the new girl. We stretch. And stretch. And do more prenatal-ish stretches. New girl asks how intense we want class to be. I simply state that it is, after all, a power yoga class. She nods, but her eyes are blank.

9:40- beginning to wonder if new girl has ever actually attended a yoga class, much less a power yoga class.

9:45- enter the regular yoga class picky lady. (She's frequently making request, complaining about room temp, reprimanding people for cell phone alerts, etc.) She loudly joins for a few minutes, blows her nose, then asks about music. New girl tells her it's her first time teaching, and that she couldn't figure out the equipment. Apologizes profusely. Picky lady huffs, rolls her mat, and makes a big show of packing up her things and leaving. New girl continues to apologize profusely. I try to reassure her that picky lady is always like that (kinda) and that she's doing a fine job teaching. Grandma misheard me, replys with an awkward thanks. New girl and I smile awkwardly at each other until her baby belly pulls her off balance and she stumbles out of tree pose.

9:50- we continue a disjointed series of random balance and stretching poses. Grandma is clearly feeling out of her element as she attempts warrior three, which new girl is struggling to correctly demonstrate or describe.

9:55- I have shamelessly begun doing variations on poses in order to feel something, anything! besides the growing awkwardness. Little do I know the best is yet to come.

10:00- new girls waddles across room to turn off fan. States now we can hear her better. Silence is deafening. She goes over to help grandma correct her down dog, and kicks grandma's glasses across the room. She apologizes. Grandma says it's fine. Her face says otherwise. From between my legs I can clearly see that grandma's frames are bent, and that a lens popped out. I feel really bad for grandma, but the hilarity and awkwardness of the situation is becoming too much. I fake cough all the way through my chaturanga to hide the giggles that threaten to take control. Silence and fake coughing are deafening.

10:05- I desperately want to follow picky lady, but feel too guilty leaving new girl and grandma alone together.

10:10- new girl is clearly out of ideas. After a long string of random stretches and counter stretches (which are completely unnecessary because we haven't really worked anything) she begins final relaxation.

10:30- "Namaste and sorry for everything". I think new girl must have really needed a nap, I hope she was able to doze off during the PAINFULLY SILENT 20 minute relaxation time. I spent the time wondering how much a membership to a REAL yoga studio costs, and if there are any in the area with childcare. I wonder what grandma was thinking about.

10:35- I pick up Peter from play care, and drive home to go for a run.
Wish I'd just gone running to begin with!

Here's what I learned: In the future, I will ALWAYS hover outside the room until the regular teacher shows up. But, the good news is I'm going to be giggling about it all day! Hope it made you smile too.

Felt board

One of the fun activities we've been doing on hot afternoons when we feel stuck inside is playing with Peter's new felt board. It was a very cheap, simple project to make and it's a good sensory and learning activity for his pudgy little fingers!

I just started with a large foam board; the kind you would make a poster presentation out of. First I tried stapling my piece of background felt to it. That didn't work well, as the staples didn't anchor in the foam, and slipped back out. So I whipped out my favorite crafting tool of all time: my trusty old hot glue gun. I just glued the felt directly to the foam all around the margins, and it worked perfectly.

Since then, I've just been sitting every few evenings and cutting out a new set of shapes for him to play with! I did a set with grass, trees, the sun and moon, clouds, and a few toadstools. I plan on adding a few gnomes to play with that set. I also did a set of shapes and colors; and one with a little person for him to dress. I'm currently working on a Very Hungry Caterpillar set. 

It's been fun to use my imagination as I cut out new things for him to play with!

I think I've spent about $20 total on the project, and currently have a huge bag of felt to continue to cut out new sets for him to play with, and learn from. Definitely a worth while project!

catch-up

Two months. I REALLY thought I'd do better this time. Sigh,....

In my defense Jess had the computer with him up in Jackson, MS for a month of that so I didn't have computer access. But STILL. Oh well. No use crying over spilled milk. (Which always makes me think of the time I spilled a full 10 ozs of freshly pumped breastmilk. THAT's worth crying over.)

Life has been totally nuts since I last checked in. As afore mentioned Jess was gone for a month. A looooooooong month. But we made it to the other side in one piece. (Lola, our 2 year old Brittany Spaniel/Golden Retriever mix, barely made it in one piece,... she was so naughty the whole month, she's lucky she wasn't re-homed!)

The weather has been so hot, that we spend far more time indoors than I would like. Peter, the two dogs, and I all start to ping off the walls and each other on these hot days! But October is coming, and everyone says it's starts to cool off in October. Can't wait! My MIL up in South Dakota sent me pictures of the 6 inches of snow she got last week and I'm not even joking, I just wanted to crawl through the picture and roll around in all the cold, fresh, beautiful snow! All the time inside forces me to be more creative with finding activities. We've done some fun things that I'll post about later.

Then Peter had a minor surgery on his eye this week. It was a small thing, but they do it under general anesthesia. It was not fun,... and now it's looking like they're going to have to repeat it and do a more invasive version of the procedure because it's not correcting the problem yet. :-/ It's one of those situations where being a doctor and a nurse makes it harder in some ways. We know the statistics. We know how minuscule the risk is, but as parents we also know we've been the one in a million before. It just makes us nervous. Just as it would an other parent. Though I guess as health-care professionals we feel like we're not supposed to let it get to us. But it does.

Our little man handled it like a champ though! He barely cried when they took him back, and though they warned us that most kids are super upset/inconsolable for a while when they wake up he did awesome. I just nursed him as soon as he started waking up and it made it a nice smooth transition. Another point for extended breastfeeding!

So that's the brief low-down on all the things I haven't been blogging about that I should have!

Kisses from daddy while we were waiting for his procedure. Trusty bun-bun never left his side!

cookie date

So we've been here about a month, and the loneliness of living in a new place has really started to set in. I am intensely introverted, so moving and starting all new relationships is very anxiety inducing for me. Add that to the fact that Jess starts his intern year tomorrow (ie: he's going to be insanely busy and might as well move into his office at the hospital.) and we've all had a rough week. I'm struggling (as usual) to just place that anxiety into the Almighty's hands. We spent some time yesterday talking about it, and praying together, and today has been a much better day.

I know I'm going to have to be really proactive about filling Peter and I's days with positive and educational activities to help keep the lonelies at bay until we've settled in more. The challenge is doing that while working around his nap schedule and our budget!

Anyway, this afternoon I realized that though he LOVES my Kitchenaid mixer, and I let him stand on the stool and watch when I use it, I don't involve him as much as he's capable of now at 16 months. So today we made cookies! He took his role very seriously and watched and followed instructions really well! I don't think it's ever taken me that long to make a batch of cookies before, but it was fun for both of us.

We followed this basic recipe for Chewy Coconut Cookies, but I added about 3/4 cup chopped pecans, and toasted the pecans and coconut before hand. they turned out really yummy!

Every time the mixer catches his eye he starts mimicking the sound of the motor. And gets SO excited any time I use it! 

Lickin' his first cookie spoon!

Add caption

watching them bake

Lola is right in the middle of things, as usual!

Peter approves!

Gnome Garden

So I've wanted to make one of these for a while. I have a couple of friends that have older kiddos that have made INCREDIBLE gnome and fairy gardens and I love the idea of encouraging your child's imagination that way! I picked up a few tiny gnomes and garden accessories at Hobby Lobby around Easter, and have had them stashed away since then. This week I found a huge selection of tiny succulent plants at Home Depot on clearance. Perfect!

I used an old pot that was already chipped, and busted out one side by kind of chiseling it with a hammer and screw driver. It felt very Michelangelo-esque. It came off in two pieces, and I added dirt and sand to make it look tiered. I planted my lovely succulents, and voila!

Never-mind the puppy butt!

Then I added some preserved moss and the little gnomes and Here you have it. They even have names.
Oswald is the one communing with the squirrel.
And Ferguson is the gardener.

Now, I know what you're thinking!

Yes. Peter is far too young to really appreciate the wonderment of our gnome garden. And he certainly didn't name the gnomes. Jess and I did that. But Peter will grow into it, and I'm woman enough to admit that I really made the garden for ME! Peter just gave me an excuse.

I LOVE IT!!!!

Jess has been laughing at me about it all week, but here's a little secret: He named Oswald. SO, he kinda likes it too.

I guess becoming a doctor doesn't mean that you have to be all mature and grown up all the time. 

That's all for now. Have a great day!

New Blog!

Welcome!

I've been blogging for years, but decided that it was time to branch out from my original blog which had become very focused on our experience with the loss of our first child, Jude, to Stillbirth. That blog can still be found at: www.jessandjennanderson.com. And I will still be blogging there occasionally.

Here I'm going to be writing about pretty much everything else! Primarily my experiences as a mom, and the wife of a military physician.

Now let's knock out some of the explaining about this whole process:

My husband is just starting his intern year (that's their first year out of medical school) in Internal Medicine. I'll do my best to explain any jargon as I use it, but feel free to comment if you have questions about anything! We just relocated to Mississippi, from Colorado (talk about a big change!) for his Air Force residency program. Residency is the phase of a physicians training that comes after med school. It varies in length dependent on their chosen specialty. Jess' residency is 3 years long; the first one being his intern year. During this phase of his training he is a doctor, but still requires some oversight by more experienced physicians (called Attendings). After residency a doctor can go right into practice, or if they want to specialize further (as Jess does) they then must do a fellowship. Again, they are doctors, but are continuing to pursue more and more specialized training. All in all, when Jess is done he will have 14+ years of education after High School. Yup, you read that right. 26 total years of formal education, and then a life of continual learning and professional development. On top of that, since the Air Force has payed Jess' way through med school, we will owe them time in service as pay back. Suffice it to say, becoming a doctor is a bit of an investment; both of time, and finances.

So, that's alot of technical talk about my husband and what he does right?

WELCOME TO MY LIFE!

There are certainly times when being married to a brilliant, kind, dynamic man like my husband feels a bit overshadowing. Ok,... more times then I like to admit. Here's the usual scenario:

We're meeting new people; they ask what we do,... Jess usually hesitates to answer because he's very humble, but after hemming and hawing and trying to avoid the question he finally says that he's an intern physician. Any interest in me and what I do instantaneously disappears. They already know what I do. DUH. I'm the doctor's wife. The conversation then generally revolves around him and his schooling or job until he humbly changes the subject. This isn't new since he graduated either. It was the same as a medical student.

This is just one of the many challenges of being a doctor's wife. I'll share more as time goes on, but you get the gist.

So in closing, today I want to make the same promise here as I made to readers on my other blog. My goal is to never use this blog to complain, and dwell on negativity. I want to be real with you and share the challenges and struggles of life, but I will ALWAYS try to find and share encouragement to go along with it. I'll use Philippians 4:8 as my guide:

"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

With that being said, know that I realized how blessed that we are. Yes, there are certainly challenges unique to our situation. But I know that they are all worth it to see how God will use my husband over the course of his career. What an incredible privilege this high calling is! Not only for Dr. Anderson, but for me as well. Mine may be a supporting role, but I will strive to fulfill that role to the best of my God given abilities.

Thanks for reading! Check back for more soon!