Math-a-thon Climax, Mixed Blessings

It has been an interesting few days. Today, Friday, is the official conclusion of the math-a-thon. My kids have faithfully mathed themselves through 60 pages of math work of various difficulty. On Wednesday they both realized they were short their goals, and they put on a last-ditch burst of speed that was really quite impressive. Boyness learned all about greater than/less than/equal signs, Girliness learned how to add and subtract fractions that already shared common denominators. I am very proud of them for not just running around writing down simple problems to get their page count up.

On Thurs I went to clinic, and Marie (itandme) watched the kids. Her kids, like mine, were math-a-thoning their way to our Friday movie.

As I conducted prenatal appointments and my preceptor buzzed in and out to check on me and do various things herself, a semi-drama unfolded outside my purview. I'll not unpack it so much, since the internets aren't exactly private (and it seems like a violation of her privacy to share almost any details at all) but one of our clients needed to be induced. Neither of the hospitals my preceptor works with would take her. When my preceptor called to communicate this, the client and her family were standing around their house, bags packed, entirely ready to go. They had even tucked their daughter in to bed, telling her they would see her tomorrow with a baby. And then, in so many words, "oh, no, sorry..." The plan was to call around in the morning and see where she could go.

On the way home from clinic I called all my math-a-thon participant families and made contingency plans. I hedged my bets, telling my children that there would probably be a baby the next day and that if I was at a birth, we would surely still go to a movie, just maybe not right on time. The kids were upset about this possibility, understandably. They'd worked hard for this, and it wasn't just the MOVIE, it was the whole THING that was important.

So, the mixed blessings:

Our client went into labor late Thursday night. So they got screwed around, but she got into labor naturally. Yay!

I got an hour of sleep before I got called to that labor/birth. She had her baby in time for me to get home as Fran was getting ready to leave for work, with half an hour to turn around and leave to get to our math-a-movie done on time. So I only got an hour of sleep last night, but I got to take the kids to their math-a-thon movie, which (relatively speaking) went really well. Yay!

I'm feeling tired, but really, I don't think there was any better way this could have played out. I really thought this would be the first big let-down for my kids.

Outdoors Today

It was a glorious day today.

So glorious that, well, to hell with it...forget those damn assignments. We loaded up the bikes and headed off to Lake Sammamish State Park. Boyness very recently learned how to ride his bike sans training wheels, and the two big kids donned helmets and went zooming off into the semi-distance. BittyPrincess and I camped out on the playground, and I spent time sitting on a blanket and reading a book (yes, for school!) or pushing BittyPrincess on a tire swing. Or "yelling" at BittyPrincess to keep her tricycle close enough that I could get to her somewhat quickly. It was a glorious 5 hours of sun and I finished an entire book - and a lovely sandwich and a soda - in that time.

We came home sunned and dusty, have showered, and the kids are applying themselves to their math work while dinner cooks and I settle down to start the assignments I should have spent all day working on. Somehow, I'm not sorry that I didn't.

Building Pressure

It has been over a week since the last birth I went to. As women get more overdue, and more women move into the window, I can't help but feel like there is a big bad busy week in my future.

In the meantime, I've more than a handful of school work to do (none of it actually OVERdue for once, thankfully).

And I'm checking my phone like a goddamned maniac every 10 minutes or after any time I leave the house to switch laundry/get something from the car/yell at a child out the door. I started leaving my phone under my pillow when I first went on call, which works for me, but now I've been checking the silly thing any time I get up to pee or am disturbed from sleep, which amounts to 3-4 times a night.

My head HURTS for lack of caffeine.

I have yet to be to a birth that was all that long. My preceptor calls this good luck. I think that the universe balances these things out and I'm waiting for that hammer to fall, too.

Presentations, senior paper introductions, everyday assignments, books and articles to read. Clinic. Births building up. Goddamned headache from hell. The perfect storm may just be gathering for me, here.

But hey, at least I successfully made Kefir! ~L~, by the next batch I will definitely have enough to share some crystals (or whatever you call them) with you! It turns out they really like the spot behind the couch, and the balmy 75 degrees (!) that my heater accidentally got the house to while we were out today. Humangous heating bill, here we come! Why can't that heater just behave predictably?!

It's All Her (Nutrition Instructor) Fault

As if I wasn't weird enough...

My nutrition instructor, who has a certain infectious but nonannoying enthusiasm about her, managed (in about 5 minutes of class time) to get me hooked on the idea of making my own kombucha and kefir.

The idea, damnit, has grown rather than fading after onsite (so many ideas just kind of fizzle out after onsite...).

So I went to that great internet emporium of all things...um, of all things. Ebay. And bought BACTERIA and YEAST. Yum! The little critters arrived today. Kombucha, Milk Kefir, and Water Kefir, wrapped neatly in double ziploc bags, padded in brown paper, and shipped for half what I paid for shipping.

Not content with simply staring at my brand new symbiotic colonies of bacteria and yeast, I set about sterilizing appropriately sized jars and lids (yes, they are bacteria and yeast, but you can't just add random stuff to the mix and expect not to get sick) and collecting ingredients. The milk and water kefir are happily resting in their required media, hopefully thriving and getting more, um, bacteria-and-yeast-y by the moment. The gallon of tea I brewed for the kombucha starter is sitting neatly upon my counter, cooling to room temperature veeeeerrrrrrryyyy sloooowwwwwwlllllyyyyyy. Which works, because the cloth I'll be covering it with only just now made it into the dryer.

I still can't quite beleive that by Tuesday, we'll be willingly injesting bacteria and yeast.

If we get sick and die, it is so my nutrition instructor's fault.