Pregnancy Shopping List

What do all of these things have in common?

Garlic Stuffed Olives
Heath Klondike Bars
Wasabi Peas
Conversation Hearts
Frozen Egg Rolls
Hummus

They all came home from the grocery store with me yesterday. And yes, I had a list.

I Can't Remember

For the past year and a half I have worked full time. Since then my wonderful husband Joel has taken over the household duties in addition to starting our hops farm. At times in the summer he is as busy if not more so than I am but in the winter things have died down. Today as I considered going grocery shopping I realized that there are several household chores that I haven't done in ages.

For example, I can't remember the last time I:

-made a dinner from scratch
-did a full weekly meal planning and grocery shopping
-cleaned a toilet (or a sink or a shower)
-paid a bill
-collected chicken eggs
-bought toilet paper
-shoveled or blew snow (believe it or not I did this on a semi-regular basis when we lived in Cleveland)
-did dishes (not including starting the dishwasher)
-filled up my own gas tank, or got my oil changed, or my snow tires switched out
-cleaned kitty litter
-mopped a floor


As I look at the list above I can't help feel a little guilty and even a tad bit useless. I used to have a pretty good grasp of what was going on around the house. Now I don't even know where the new kitty litter is kept or what our last electric bill looked like. I can't tell you if we have any pasta sauce in the freezer or where the vacuum is.
I still do some laundry and run errands with Adeline on my days off. I love to stuff cloth diapers and water the plants but I'm otherwise incredibly disconnected from the house. As a woman raised by a feminist I really shouldn't feel any guilt about all of this but I do.
Why? And does my guilt mean I should be doing more?

Maternity Clothes

Well I'm 18 weeks along and I've got a little boy due on May 15th. A few weeks ago I broke down and pulled out all my maternity clothes. I am now moving quickly past the awkward stage where you need maternity pants but maternity shirts look ridiculous.
I am lucky enough to have a lot of maternity clothes from my pregnancy with Adeline as well as a few bags full from my sister in law. I got a lot of cute tops from her but she is shorter than me making her pants not usable.
So I went to a few places to look for a few additional pieces, namely cute pants. And I noticed a disturbing trend. At Kohls, JC Penny and Target, the maternity sections all are composed of no more than 4 racks of clothes. All four of these racks are crammed into a 10 square foot area in the back of the store. I (5'5" 123 pounds at 18 weeks pregnant) could not fit around the racks. Forget about looking at their less than stellar selection of black pants and floral print shirts. AKK!
What makes them think that they are going to sell anything that way?
Ho-hum. I guess it's Old Navy online for me.

Really kid?

Patient number 21 for the day today was a 14 year old with a cold....and an attitude.
So as I'm examining this snot filled snot, my stethoscope on his chest, he opens up and coughs phlegm all over my face. Not bothering at all to cover his cough or turn his head, just coughs all over me.
Now, I'm kind of used to this behavior from children under the age of, oh, say four but a 14 year old???? Come on.
His mother scolds him. "Patient 21*, don't cough all over her." *Name changed to save my my husband tracking him down and throttling him.
Patient 21 replies, "If she didn't want to be coughed on all the time she wouldn't have been a doctor."
Now back in the day I might have kicked this kid in the nuts (No, I don't regret that at all, creepy guy at Aerosmith concert if you are out there), or maybe I'd have made a comment about his pizza face acne resembling leprosy (OK, so I'm a little sorry about that one, kid from Chilean night club the night Pisco Sours were free for the ladies)
But I didn't I just moved around him and listened to his lungs, checked his ears and prescribed him something for his nasty sinusitis.
Why didn't I say anything? Because he's kind of right. I knew what I was signing up for when I went into pediatrics. It's why I don't mind wresting a kid to the floor to look in his ears, I don't flinch when someone else's two month old vomits on my sweater first thing in the morning. It's why I love to talk about poop and snot and even acne.
And lets face it, that kid ain't got nothin' my immune system hasn't seen ten times before.

Football According to...

Football According to my 2 year old daughter:

Daughter: "Mommy let's play football in the basement."
Me: "Sure sweetie let's play."
Daughter: "I'm the quarterback, I throw you the ball and then you run."
Me: "And then what?"
Daughter: "And then I tackle you. No touch-touch."
Me: "You mean no touchdown?"
Daughter "Yes."

Football According to my husband:

Husband: "Who are the Lions losing too this week."
Me: "Shut it and go knit something."

10 Things I Wish My Patients (and their parents) Knew.

Warning: the following is not meant to diagnose or treat any ailment, nor has it been approved for sale within the United States.





10. Corn is not a vegetable. Neither are V8 Splashes.



9. Baby Einstein will rot your child's brain just as fast as sponge bob, it just starts at an earlier age. Don't fool yourself.



8. Chicken nuggets can be "all natural" and "100% white meat" but they are still chicken nuggets.



7. Yes your child can get 8 colds in a year. No green snot does not equal sinus infection.



6. When you come 20 minutes late to your 15 minute appointment you are being seen out of the goodness of somebodies heart.



5. The problems you are having getting your medication filled are the fault of your insurance company. It's not as if they tell us what they cover (even when they say they do).



4. Adolescent depression does exist and it is very serious. Don't take it personally if your kid is depressed. It's not your fault (most of the time) and it's not theirs.



3. I'm serious when I say that your 15 month old doesn't need that 4am bottle of formula.



2. If you don't buy it and bring it into your home, your child will not eat it. If they don't have a TV in their room they won't watch it.

1. I'm not here to break the news to your 8 year old that there is no Santa. Don't bring him in for that.

ADDICT

My husband regularly accuses me of being an addict. Sometimes it has to do with not being able to get off the treadmill but more often (especially these days) it has to do with books.

I
Love
Books

I love the smell of them, the feel of them, the way a spine cracks when you open it for the first time. I blame my parents. They always had a ton of books. The walls in the office, the loft and several bedrooms in their house were lined with shelves. Those shelves were lined with books. they've gotten rid of quite a few of the books and shelves but they still have a lot.

I see myself heading in the same direction. Yes I know there are libraries. TC has a very nice one with about any book you would want to read but it's not the same. For the same reason I don't see myself giving into the ebook revolution though I do support the idea of ebooks with great enthusiasm. It's also not the same.

As a consequence the UPS guy regularly drops an amazon box at our doorstep. Joel shakes his head and I add another book to my "too read" pile. The nice shelves Joel built in the basement for me are full and I'm starting to eye other potential shelf locations.

If that wasn't bad enough I've pulled my innocent daughter into the fray. I can't take her downtown without a trip into Horizons Books or a swing past the book department at Meijers.
At a garage sale recently I bought 12 books for her for a mere buck! It's not as if she insists on getting a book, but it really gets her excited and she LOVES, LOVES, LOVES, to read. Yesterday we read for about 3 hours total, not including her usual 4 bedtime books.


So here's what I'm reading now:





And here is Dela's current favorite: