This layout is extra special to me. It is special because "skin-to-skin" was something they really pushed for post-birth at Loma Linda. For those that don't know, it's basically having baby skin-to-skin with you. It's also called Kangaroo Mother Care, and both are for the promotion of bonding with a newborn. Basically the mother or father tucks baby under my blanket and baby and parent just snuggling. I know the picture isn't me doing skin-to-skin, but watching the husband doing skin-to-skin was so heartwarming to me.
Anyway, Miss Zoey and her bottle feeding. Well, let's just say, she does a 4 hour strike of feeding. She won't bottle feed for a whole meal. She basically starves herself until I come home and then she's attached to me like a leech. She will do that the whole day and into the evening. I don't know if I'll be able to withhold solids from her when 6 months comes around. I really wanted to exclusively breastfeed until 12 months, and not give her anything until her first birthday, but I don't know....
I love that she loves me... I just wish there was a way I could balance my work and family life. I am still very blessed to be picking up James from his 1/2 day of Kindergarten, and coming home before noon....
Anyway, my sleep issue. My Dear Zoey doesn't sleep through the night anymore. She in fact, wakes up every 1-2 hours after midnight. It's exhausting. She was sleeping through the night before I went back to work, and as soon as I started up, she quit. I think it's her way of saying Mom don't go to work...
Well, lately the husband and I have been on this topic of adoption. It's something we really want to do later, when our kids are all grown up. I know we are fully capable of procreating, but we would really like to help a child that would otherwise be without a family. I don't know if we'd do it locally or we'd go overseas, but it's definitely something we want to do. Man, at this rate, we'll be like his cousin, who is a Family Medicine doctor in Kona, he has 6 kids. I think the biggest age gap is like 2 years at max. But he's totally able to support them and his wife is a SAHM and he runs his own private, non-insurance clinic. I hope someday the husband can achieve that, but we shall see.
Ahh, yes, another topic in the Matsukawa Household is the topic of whether or not he should apply for Chief Resident of Riverside County Regional Hospital in 2009 for the 2010-2011 year. With him being a Chief Resident, he'd be employed by Riverside county and not Loma Linda University and would receive county benefits and the pay is excellent. He'd be making a salary equal to an Attending and on top of his salary he'd be getting paid for every procedure performed on his patients, whether of not he is the one physically doing it, so if his resident does it, he still gets paid for it. It's almost too hard to pass up.
On top of all of this he also wants to do a Geriatric Fellowship through JABSOM, but that in itself is still in the air, because as an Internal Med M.D. you deal with Geri patients, and the only difference with the fellowship is that you are more specialized in palliative care and placement/social issues. If he is going to do a fellowship, he needs to apply now, so that he does his interviewing by the end of this year and would find out whether or not he got the fellowship next year. Seriously, at the end of the day, I think the husband just wants to be a lifelong student.
When we talk about all of this, it's amazing how if we do one thing, over doing another, it makes a drastic change in where we go. It's either staying her for another 2 years, 11 months, or going home in 1 year, 11 months. It also means, that if we plan to go home, we need to start figuring out our finances for the house. We are intending on doubling or doubling and a half my parents house. We were thinking about buying a house, but after talking to my parents the best thing would be to take over my parents house and drastically increasing it's size; with that, we would need to start looking for an architect and construction company prior to moving home soon.
I am getting excited the end of residency is near. I feel like I've been on the road for this whole time, never knowing where we would be next. It's nice to know that finally the husband's education and hard work is finally paying off.... Also, I am finally happy that he is the breadwinner and it's not all on me.
This layout is extra special to me. It is special because "skin-to-skin" was something they really pushed for post-birth at Loma Linda. For those that don't know, it's basically having baby skin-to-skin with you. It's also called Kangaroo Mother Care, and both are for the promotion of bonding with a newborn. Basically the mother or father tucks baby under my blanket and baby and parent just snuggling. I know the picture isn't me doing skin-to-skin, but watching the husband doing skin-to-skin was so heartwarming to me.
I can't believe it, what happened to my little baby??? She's starting to really fill out! The other week, she went into the doctor for her reflux, and she weighed a whopping, 11 lbs. 7 oz., I was blown of my feet!
My little munchkin is growing up so quickly! I went out and bought her some seat belt straps since the ones that came with the seat are so scruffy.
This beautiful daughter of ours is 2 months old. I can't believe two months have went by since we welcomed her into our lives. Today is her very first 4th of July, I wish we could go to U of R, but it's expected to be in the 100's and I don't want to burn her. Besides, she has very bad eczema when it gets too hot, so I would like to keep her skin as cool as possible.
James officially started Kindergarten on July 2nd. He is doing well to going daily and said he has made new friends! He has a really short school day and it was only extended so that the kids had a lunch break, which ends their school day. It's weird. Any way, he brought home his first homework assignment which is to write his name. The teacher sent the homework with a letter stating that some of the children didn't know how to write their name so this is supposed to help them. I find it odd because back in my day, we learned to write the alphabets when we got into Kindergarten. Luckily, we worked with James and his writing so he knows how to write his letters and his name. Yay!
So after this weekend I feel completely exhausted. We spent the weekend at the Hilton in San Gabriel. Friends of ours got married on June 1st and we were there since the husband was performing and our friend that did her flowers needed help. It was fun for the first few hours, then it just got overwhelmingly exhausting. Basically, Zoey and I still haven't recovered completely. Monday night Zoey woke up every hour on the hour because of severe gas. I have since then took her into the doctor.
Anyway, James was the ring bearer in the wedding and he did a wonderful job. We got compliments on how cute he was. At the end of the aisle he ran up to the Best Man and gave him the rings. I don't know why he got so excited, but he did. We were very proud of James, and it only showed us how much he has grown up. Now he has done of 2 ring bearing jobs: our wedding and our friends wedding; at least this time he could walk without getting distracted and smiled doing it.