It's Official

Todd picked up my belt at kung fu last night and took this pic of it with his iPhone!

Hooooooray!

My baby is FIVE

Well, i can't believe it, but I have a five-year-old. Yep. Five.

We had a great time celebrating her birthday this weekend - we had a pool party at the Y. The kids swam for an hour and then stuffed themselves on cake and candy. I tried to make an octopus cake - we have a mold we used last year that worked great, but unfortunately, this time it got stuck in the pan, fell apart and then was frosted before it cooled, so it basically looked like a big pile of poo. So we got some cupcakes. Alas. It was going to be a good cake too...

I'm so proud of my little girl and who she is becoming. She is thoughtful, sweet, hilarious, sensitive and strong. I have been giving a lot of thought to that - she is really sensitive AND strong. She has the capacity to bend and change for others, she has a pulling desire to fit in and is easily hurt when she is rebuffed. She has however been able to stand strong, even to stand up to her sometimes-way-too-crotchety mama and still be open and friendly and wonderful.

We do fight sometimes and more often than in times past, I am short-tempered and preoccupied. I try not to be - I try to be fully here for her when I am here - dinner time, bedtime - but sometimes the other household things catch up with me and I find myself unable to give her a small smile of attention at her laundry basket antics when I'm frantically folding the tenth load of laundry on a Sunday night when I should really be studying for a Physiology exam that I am completely unprepared for. I answer her question with a sarcastic response and instead of being hurt and angry and going away, she is hurt and angry and says, "why do you have to talk so RUDE?"

I apologize.

We fight again getting ready for bed, but in the end, I calm down and she calms down and we have a nice time with books and stories and a good snuggle. I am proud of her. I know I can take some credit for who she is becoming. I know that my actions and words have an impact on her and I hope the loving caring mama ones surround her more than the biting tired cranky ones and that she knows how much I love her and how much what I am doing is because of her. Because I want her to know how wonderfully rewarding it is to do something so hard. I want her to know that she can be whatever she wants to be, not because I tell it to her but because she sees her mama working for it and loving it. And I want her to be proud of me.

I want her to be exactly who she is: An independent, enthusiastic, sensitive, caring, thoughtful, silly, creative person. I love you, my little Pumpkin Butt!

In other news: I am the micro master. I totally kicked ass on the microbiology exam. Not only that - everyone else seemed to really struggle with it. I am not an imposter.

I fear my day in the sun is soon to come to a close. The dreaded Physio (well, biochem, cell bio) exam is coming up on Thursday. Oy. I'll be glad to pass that one.

Halloween coming up Friday!

Todd is going to Seattle on Wednesday to celebrate Professor's 60th birthday celebration. All the Bones family Kung Fu schools will be represented - the smallest contingent coming from Ohana Kajukenbo in New Haven, CT. I used a sharpie to make an Ohana t-shirt so he can represent! I'm pretty excited about that. Also, Sifu promised me a new belt that says, "Sifu Hira". Hooray!

I had to cut down to one class per week, I'm just a little overwhelmed with school right now. But I am really happy with the turnout I'm getting and I'm so glad I'm able to continue in some capacity. Yay sifu hira!

10 days to election day: vote.

Rocks and Hard Places

Well, just a quick how-do-you-do while i take a break from Microbiology studies.

I didn't fare that well on my exam last week. I passed, but I expected to do much better and I was really quite thrown by it. I know a lot of it is because I hastily sped through and probably missed a couple just for going too quickly. But i can't blame it all on that. I was particularly down because all my friends to whom I'd explained the immune system and its workings, did much better than i did. It was a blow.

So I went home, downtrodden, but realizing I just need to study more. 4 hours a day isn't enough. And my time needs to be spent in a more organized way...

I arrived home... Lucy had been treating me poorly for a few days and we were butting heads. At one point in the evening, she suggested I go back to Seattle for another "alone" vacation so that she would be home with just daddy. She didn't say this to hurt my feelings, though at some level she knew it would. She said it because she saw how happy I was when I returned from my trip to Seattle and how good it was for me. But there was some of the other in there too.

She'd been throwing fits all over the place - sometimes like she used to when she was little. That night, after the vacation comment, she got mad at me when I told Papa about it. I sat her on my lap and told her I wasn't mad. She was visibly hurt and confused. I told her it seemed like she was pretty mad at me lately and asked her if that was true. She nodded. I asked her if she was just mad because she didn't get to spend very much time with me any more. She nodded again. I told her that I really didn't like it either, but that I was doing something very important for me. I also told her that when I do get to spend time with her, it's very special for me and I look forward to it every day. We had a nice snuggle and I put her to bed.

I feel so torn. I know I need to work harder to stay afloat in this program. I know I want to do it and honestly, I love every minute of what I'm doing. I just don't have enough time. I want to be a part, not a part, I want to be IN Lucy's life. I don't like that I'm not the one picking her up and dropping her off. I'm not the one taking her to the doctor. Not the one who gets to spend the fun vacation day with her. I have one day a week that is only about Lucy. No school. One day. It's wonderful, that day, but it's not enough.

I have dinner with her each night. And am with her until bedtime. I know we will survive this and we will be fine. It's just a really hard adjustment.

And that was the day last Thursday - simultaneously realizing that I need to spend more time studying and that my daughter is beginning to hate me because I'm not around.

That sounded bleaker than it really is. But that is how it felt that day.

I checked my phone right before going to bed that night and there was a text from one of my school friends: Enjoy your drink tonight, you deserve it. Thanks for all your help with Path.

It was exactly what I needed, just the brief thoughtfulness of a friend. I went to bed crying that night. I'm sure it won't be the last time...

However - this week I am renewed. I have a new method of studying - we'll see if it works. I'm trying to study only the material for the next 2 weeks tests on M, T, and W. Test is Th, and on Th, F and Sun I'll catch up on all the maintenance studying. We'll see how it works. Anatomy (gasp) exam on Thursday this week - lab practical and written. Oy.

On the bright side, I have NINE people on my kung fu roster. Hooray!!

FFFphplllllbbbt

So, I think that title pretty much says it all. I'm busy, exhausted, overwhelmed, and LOVING IT!

This Thursday is my first (of many) exams. From here on out, we have at least one per week. It's a bit crazed. I'm feeling pretty good about Pathology (you all saw my nerdy immunology posting), though there is still some studying to be done for the next 2 days. Meanwhile, it will be closely followed by my nemesis, Anatomy. Written and Practical. Nemesis. And then...

In any case, I am so excited to be here, I am learning so much and I am STILL feeling good about it. My dad has been here helping out a few weeks, which has made it really easy on me, so I will be sad to see him go home next week. I pretty much get up, go to class, study... then I pick up Lucy around 5, hang out with her and the family until bedtime, whereupon I retreat to my office and study until the lids droop. Usually around 10:30. Lucy has gotten as much mama as she needs, but unfortunately, I think Papa Todd is getting the raw end of this. I have school, Lucy, and that's about it.

I had to cut out my Tuesday Kung Fu class since I am feeling a bit pressed upon. Starting next month, I'll just have once a week. On the bright side of that, I have fully eight people on my roster! It will be nice when they are all there on the same day. It will feel like a real kung fu class. I have 3 teenage girls - 8th graders, which makes me very happy. They are nerdy reader girls (they all know each other from a book club) and they are having a great time at kung fu! One of them told me this evening that she has tried a lot of different classes and she never stuck with it because none ever clicked for her. Until now. I can't tell you how happy that made me.

I am making friends as well, which makes the whole thing tolerable. I have my crowd and they are a diverse and wonderful people. I find myself laughing hysterically throughout the day, which honestly makes it all worth it.

In family news, I don't know if I've mentioned our Halloween costumes this year.... but stay posted for photos. I think they will be awesome. If you don't know, I will just tell you that Lucy has been obsessed with body parts, cells, blood, and germs...

I'd better get on the stick and make the costumes already!

And with that, my friends, I am headed back to another fun-filled late night of Anatomy and Pathology.... wish me luck on Thursday.