Football

My humblest apologies to everyone, especially my dear sister, for emerging from months of blog-slumber to post on so unimportant a topic. I would like to remind this dear sister, though, that there are lots of pictures of my adorable children on Facebook to enjoy.
Although this may seem like an unimportant topic, it gives an important glimpse into the Minnesotan culture in which we now find ourselves.

I saw the above linked article on the FRONT PAGE of our local newspaper this morning. (I just began subscribing so I could finally cut coupons again). Yes, folks, this was the COVER STORY, on HALLOWEEN. Not included in the internet version is this following sidebar.

If you want to watch

The game:Minnesota Vikings vs Green Bay Packers at Green Bay's Lambeau Field
Game Time: 3:15 pm Sunday
What channel: Fox (cable channel 8 in Rochester and Austin)
Why it is important: Duh. It's Packers-Vikings with Farve sprinkled on top. Need we say more?
If you've lived in a cave until now: The Vikings and Packers are longtime rivals. Brett Favre built a Hall of Fame career with the Packers for 16 years and led them to one Super Bowl win. He retired two years ago, only to sign on with the New York Jets in 2008 and with the Vikings this year.

Well people, I guess I've lived in a cave until now. LOL. Actually not...prior to this article I had figured out that bit about Brett Farve and the Vikings/Packers fanaticism that infects this town. But certainly, prior to moving here I hadn't the darndest single clue about football. At all. I still don't understand how the game is played...but I digress.

It is madness. The last time the Vikings and Packers played each other, it was impossible to ignore, even without a newspaper. I took the girls to the mall that day and more than half the children there sported purple jerseys (for the Vikings). Maybe 2 or 3 sported green jerseys (for the Packers). And these are just the children!! All the retailers--Walmart, Target, Hy-Vee (local grocery store) have an aisle (Walmart's is the biggest) devoted to Vikings stuff--jerseys, bedding, hats, who knows what else. Walmart also has a smaller section devoted to the Packers.

It's at church too. Our pastor grew up in Wisconsin and is thus a die-hard Packers fan. A majority of the congregation, being Minnesotans, are die-hard Vikings fans. And somehow this gets worked into every sermon. A little jab here or a little comment there. Example: when preaching on trusting Christ through difficult circumstances he said something like this, with a straight face: "It's rough people. You could deal with wayward children, or your wife gets diagnosed with cancer, or your favorite quarterback could get traded to the rival team...". Once he put a powerpoint up of Brett Favre dressed in all these sissy outfits. Hmmmm, yeah.

In California, we had one pastor who was a football fan. On the rare occasion that he preached, he would sometimes throw in a football reference, then apologize to the 50% of us who didn't care about football. Maybe it's hard to care about football in SoCal this much because we don't have our own team? Who knows. I know that many people, Californians included, care about football way more than I do. It's just that in California you can peacefully "live in a cave" whereas here you cannot :).

Oh yeah, here's the kicker. I almost took a part time job babysitting a little girl after school. It didn't end up working out, but the initial meeting with her parents kept getting rearranged because of football. Inside I was horrified that she was placing a football game on TV above meeting the person who was to care for her child. But I'm sure that deep down she was horrified that I would even suggest meeting during a football game (like I had any clue there was a football game.) Ahh...culture shock :).

Now, I suppose, if I am to fit in here, I'd better figure out which team I root for. I am open to suggestions.

Minnesota Life

Well folks, I haven't been much of a blogger these last months. Life has been crazy with packing, moving, etc. Also, Facebook has turned out to be an easier way to post quick updates so I've been on there a little more often than here.
My sweet Hubby has blogged about our adventure driving across the country. You can read about it here:
Day 1 and 2
Day 3 and 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9

We've now been here for 2 weeks. We're sufficiently unpacked, but still lacking in organization. Here's how all of us are faring:

Dan: has had 2 days of orientation for residency. Pretty intense. Will only get more intense when he actually starts seeing patients. His first rotation is oncology, and he'll have call. Starting out with a bang. And...he's already found a violinist and cellist to play chamber music with :).

Katie: I've managed to meet a good number of people--our neighbors, people at church and a group called Side By Side (for wives of medical students/trainees/attendings). Funny thing: the homeschool co-op is already after me, since I "randomly" met the "right people" at the right time. They need a science teacher for next year. So I will go for it! Why not, right? It's the perfect job. One day a week for less than half the year with free childcare. And in this co-op I'd have zero grading to do. As much as I loved my last co-op I'd have to say that grading was the most annoying part. Even this last year when I had an awesome grading-helper, there were still report cards, tests, etc. This time, it would just be doing cool demos.

Rachel: Is having a tough time transitioning, and it's coming out in her behavior. She's pretty volatile, though I'm sure it could be much worse. She is, however, making progress with potty training. Before we left, she refused to ever sit on the potty. Since I'd already promised her no more diapers, we've been in "perpetual pull-ups" for about 4 months. Now that we're here, every night before bed, she wants to go on the potty. And she actually pees there!! Hooray! The downside is, she sees it as the perfect excuse to stall bed time, and it takes about 3 hours to put her down. Not sure how to deal with this one, since I don't want to discourage her from potty training. Last night, after coming out of her room for the 5th time to go potty, I told her that this is the LAST time and that if she comes out again she wouldn't watch any movies today. That seemed to do the trick. Perhaps tonight I'll limit it to 3 potty trips.

Rebekah: Majorly teething. She cut her top two teeth during our cross country drive (no wonder she was so cranky!), and now it looks like there are two more upper teeth working their way out. Rebekah is pretty sleep-challenged. She will only go to sleep nursing, but will wake up if you transfer her. In California, this was pretty problematic, since I couldn't leave her on the bed (she'd just fall off). Here, Rebekah actually has her own room, and we bought a twin mattress that's on the floor. That's where I nurse her to sleep--and then leave her. What kind of a funny child is this, who never sleeps in a crib? Graduating directly from parents bed to a quasi-big girl bed at 10 months? Sigh. She still doesn't sleep through the night...but she's going 2-3 hours at a time now, which is vastly superior to waking up every 30 minutes-hour (her norm in California).

I guess that's all for now! Aside from these challenges and missing our friends and family in California, I love being here. Our house in fantastic, and everyone we've met has been super friendly. There are excellent parks, and our new church looks really great as well. Our neighborhood is green and beautiful, trees everywhere. There's a school just 3 houses away from us, with a playground. There have also been reports that I'm picking up a Minnesoota accent ;-). It makes sense...I'm 75% Minnesotan. (3 out of 4 grandparents grew up here).

Match Day

Drumroll please....
Our M state is Minnesota!!!! Hubby matched to his first choice--the Clinical Investigator program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. It will be 3 years of internal medicine residency, 2 years of research and then 3 years of hematology/oncology fellowship. Yes, that is 8 more years of training. Would you expect anything less from a perpetual student?

I am muy excited for the following reasons:
1) Rochester is a great place to live
2) Minnesota is my ancestral homeland. 3 out of 4 grandparents grew up there. I still have two relatives living there.
3) I'll be within 5 hours of Ellie, and the halfway meeting point is Wisconsin.
4) I'll be about 1.5 hours from Amy.
5) I'm hoping to have many future friends as part of this organization.
6) The fabulous cost of living!!

I'm sad because (but this hasn't quite hit me yet):
1) I'll be moving away from our families and friends here.
2) It will be cold in MN

For today, Dan has the day off and we will be celebrating! Woohoo!!

Black Monday

We matched!!!!! That is all. I'll be back Thursday, March 19th with more details, as they are available.

Happy Birthday Hubby!

In honor of my Hubby's 31st birthday today, I hijacked his blog to post his birthday present. Since he blogs about all his favorite composers on their birthdays, I decided to post about MY favorite composer on his birthday. You can read (and listen) all about it here.

a long-awaited update

It's taking me forever to update these days. Going through the match, and all that goes along with it, is taking over my life. And I'm not the one going through the match. Here's an update: Hubby has finished all his interviews. Last week he found out he got a guaranteed spot at one of his top choices (a physician-scientist track position), so that means he won't match anywhere below that school on his rank list. So now we know that in 4 months we will be moving to a state in the central time zone that begins with the letter "M". On March 19th we'll find out which one. I'd better start collecting warm clothes and an ice scraper for the car :). (Keep in mind that it's February, and in the past week I've used the air conditioner several times and worn flip-flops most days. I'm such a weather wimp).

My brother Peter is awesome. He started a blog recently, and then he programmed a cool flower gadget that "dies" as you neglect to post on your blog. Note that I won't be putting this flower on my blog any time soon, because I'd just be inviting a dead flower. I'm going too insane to post every 5 days. However, when I've settled in the fine state of M_______, I may just put that flower on my blog, as the blog will become a more important means of communication.

I actually have some pictures and a video to post, but Rebekah is demanding my attention, so I'll sign off for now, and put those in a separate post. Happy friday!

True stories

As I sit on the couch, baby on lap, Rachel is very very busy in her play kitchen. Working very hard. When I ask, "What are you cooking, Baby?", she exuberantly replies, "Cheerios!!", holding up her little box of play Cheerios (the only of her "name brand" play food that she recognizes). She proceeds to "feed" me some of her Cheerios. Next, she decides that it's my birthday and she's going throw me a party with all the fixin's. She puts a piece of play lettuce on a plate and brings it to me. "The salad is too hot. I will blow it. Okay, Mommy! It's your birthday! I will sing." And then she proceeds to sing me the birthday song, almost on key.
"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, Happy birthday, Mommy's salad, Happy birthday to you!" She then blows out the imaginary candle on the piece of lettuce, and then adds some milk. "Here you go, Mommy!"
"Mmmmm," I reply, "That's the yummiest birthday food I've ever had!!"

How lucky am I, to have a spontaneous birthday party in January? (My birthday is in August :)). What a cute girl :).

Belated Pictures

Lots has been going on, so I've been negligent in posting to my blog!

First, Rachel got a big girl bed. Her transition was a very smooth one...all in one day! (Now, if only potty training were so simple...)



Next, we had a fun Thanksgiving with both families...one on Wednesday, one on Thursday. Here are the annual family pictures.




Finally, here are some random cute pictures of the girls:

more snippets

• Rachel has a fever. This is the first time either of my children has ever had one. I didn't know what a warm forehead felt like until today
• Rebekah has GERD (GastroEsophogeal Reflux Disease). This is a chronic thing, and she's been on medication for it for 2 months now. The doctor is hopeful she'll grow out of it. I hope so too, because it sure is a pain (I'm sure it is more painful for her than it is for me). The symptoms include her frequent spitting up (projectile vomiting is more like it), and pained cries as the acid burns her esphogus. I give her two different medications throughout the day. One of them needs to be given 30 minutes before she eats. This is very tricky to time when you are nursing on demand. I find that strict compliance is crucial for her to not have a flare-up. She also is supposed to be elevated (not on her back) at all times. This is also tricky. She vastly prefers to nurse lying down--and I prefer this too. Co-sleeping allows me to roll over and nurse her at night, and then she stays asleep after I nurse her. Now, however, I'm trying very hard to transfer her to her carseat and nurse sitting up. As I've tried to put her to bed tonight, I think she's woken up 5 times upon transfer. So, sleepy Mommy.
• Goals for the near future: move Rachel to a big girl bed, potty train Rachel, move Rebekah out of our room, and then into Rachel's room (in that order). Goal #1 may happen tomorrow. The rest will probably take several months, but hopefully before we move in June.
• Dan just finished his Preventative Medicine rotation. He is all inspired to eat more healthily, and thus I am too. We're trying to make healthy snacks more easily accessible. I've just been munching on: apple slices w/ peanut butter, raspberries, blueberries, raisins and mixed nuts. Yum :).
  

Rachel singing

This video has been sitting around for a couple months now...Today I was able to get my hands on the laptop so I could upload it.
Featured in this video is the Thankful Heart Song from Veggie Tales (Madame Blueberry). Enjoy!