Mama's home!

I just finished 8 weeks of call every fourth night and I'm so excited to be home with Erin again. It was a long stretch without enough time at home, but I really enjoyed my month at Minneapolis Children's and got the news that I was selected as one of the pediatric chief residents to start in 2010. That means that I'll be chief when we move over to the new University Children's hospital and when we have our accreditation visit. It will be a busy year, but I'm very excited about it.

Erin seems more grown up every day. She has thrived during her time with Matt, Laura and Jan and Dean. She learned how to clap about 2 weeks ago and now loves to clap her hands together. She even makes a clapping sound every once in a while. She has started to vocalize more and her favorite new noise is a growl. I think that she must have picked it up from the dogs, because neither Matt or I have voices that low.

I'm convinced that Erin is never going to crawl and I'm ok with it. She screams bloody murder every time I put her on her tummy and refuses to do anything but cry even if you leave her there for a few minutes. I figure she'll start scooting around on her bottom one of these days and then skip straight to cruising. She's learning how to pull herself up on the couch and chairs and loves to be standing. She's really taken to the Johnny Jump-up and will entertain herself for a long time. She also enjoys jumping when we're holding her so she's always a good arm work out.


Erin's remained mostly happy, but has started to develop more of a sense of what she wants. She's also getting harder to distract. She's picked 3-4 favorite books and we read them endlessly. She wants everything that is just out of reach, she loves to hold the spoon and help out while she's eating and has started fussing during diaper changes because she doesn't like to be lying down. She continues to be a good eater and we haven't found anything that she won't eat when mixed with rice cereal. In fact she often fusses while we're feeding her because we don't shovel fast enough. She has tolerated the cold well and is patient while we bundle her up and stick her in the carseat. Erin's favorite "toys" these days are spatulas, tins to bang on and paper. I hope that no one is contemplating any fancy gifts for her this Christmas, because this girl is enthralled by the simple things in life. What a kid.


We're still having good luck with Erin's sleep and she is usually sleeps about 12 hours at night and wakes only once. She's been going to sleep without too much fuss. She's somewhere in the transition between 2 and 3 naps. She won't take 3 good naps, but 2 is not really enough, so we've had some cranky late afternoons. I'm ashamed to admit that we still swaddle her for sleeping. It works so well and it's now such an integral part of her sleep routine. We've half-heartedly tried a few times to have her sleep without the swaddle with poor results. It's also been really hard motivate ourselves to rock the boat, especially when we were so desperate for sleep lately. However, now that I've got some time home and sleep at night is so much less important for me, we'll be going cold turkey with the swaddle when we come home from Portland. And please hold me to that.


We had Erin's 6 month well baby exam about 10 days ago. Yes, she was 7 months at the time, but time just got away from us. I'm happy that now she's had a few rounds of routine vaccinations and her flu shot heading into the winter. I've seen enough sickie kids in the hospital and am so happy with every week that passes that she's older and stronger. She has yet to be sick and I'm hoping to prolong that as long as possible. Her pediatrician was charmed by Erin's personality and happy with her growth. She was over 18 lbs at her visit and remains around the 75% for height and weight. We've been watching her language development carefully as she seems a little behind in that area. I think that we are more concerned that our doctor (she has the benefit of many more years of experience), but we're planning on having Erin's hearing tested and having a speech/language eval if things don't pick up.

Erin attended her first Prekker Christmas cookie baking day. We spent all day today over at Jan and Dean's and made 3 batches each of 5 different kinds of cookies. As always, we listened to the Peter, Paul and Mary Christmas special. I snitched cookie dough, Jan burned herself, and Laura chopped the nuts and tried to figure out exactly what size each of the cookies is supposed to be. The phrase, "I dunno, what did we do last year?" was uttered dozens of time and we had tons of fun. Erin presided over the whole thing and even donned an apron. She made us promise that next year she'll get to help more.

Erin and I are heading out to Portland this week to see everyone and have some pre-Christmas family time. Unfortunately Matt can't come with us, so he'll stay home and keep the house in order, hang out with the dogs and water the Christmas tree... oh and work and work and work. Matt's making the switch back to the ER so he'll be working shifts for the next 3 months.