On Tuesday, May 29th, Jeff headed off to San Francisco for just under a week. He was headed out for part 2 of his national boards. In Ophthalmology, you take Part 1 (written) of your boards one year after you get done with residency. This is the most difficult part- they automatically fail 33% or 1/3 regardless of score. Jeff was so grateful to pass that part the first time. After you pass the written section, then you have to take Part 2- the oral exam. It ends up being about a year after the written section. While it's not quite as bad as the written portion- they don't automatically fail 1/3- it's still a very difficult test and you have to pass in order to be board certified. Plus, both of these tests are very expensive-Jeff had to pay over $4000 for everything for the oral exam- you certainly don't want to have to take it twice! Jeff has spent countless hours studying for both the written and the oral exams. So once again, for the past 3-4 months, Jeff has been very dedicated to his studies. He's put in quite a few hours during the week, and even more on the weekends. It seemed like every time we went anywhere, Jeff had a book in hand. While I wasn't looking forward to Jeff being gone a week in San Francisco, I was soooo ready for him to be done with the boards! It was always in the back of his mind and definitely stressful. I was ready to have my husband back! So from that perspective, I was really looking forward to his trip.
While Jeff was gone for the week, the kids and I kept busy with different things- keeping busy helps the time go by quickly. I don't love being a single parent, but I do think I'm better organized with time, planning, and activities because I know everything depends on me. I'm also much better getting kids to bed early and getting to bed early myself. We missed our daddy and were so excited to have him back home, but we did have a fun week together.
One day the kids told me about a baby ground squirrel they found in a neighbor's window well. I told them to just leave it alone- they could watch, but not touch. The following evening it started to rain really hard outside. I started feeling guilty about a baby animal being drenched outside so I told Jacob to put on a glove, put it in a box, and bring it over. When he got back, the little squirrel was completely soaked and not moving. I thought the poor thing was dead and was just going to throw it out but I decided to just let it stay inside for a bit. The kids were so excited. I heated up an old dish towel and tried to get some milk in it's mouth. I couldn't believe it, but after a couple hours of repeating, the little thing started moving around. Jacob and Caleb were so excited and begged to help with everything. Finally after a couple days, the squirrel looked like it was doing well and I was not about to adopt an animal so I had the boys take it back outside. We didn't see it again, so I'm assuming it was ok. Just don't tell the neighbors we rescued their 'gopher' and returned it to their yard! :)
I guess the boys were in animal rescue mode, because just a day after releasing the ground squirrel back to the outdoors, they came home with a pet frog. This one was fine and only stayed for a day. I talked with Jeff on the phone that night and joked with him that he better come home soon before we ended up with an entire zoo of pets!
We took advantage of the great summer weather and spend a lot of time outdoors. We played in the sprinklers with neighbors, went to the park, and one afternoon I made some sidewalk chalk paint. It was really simple and the kids had a blast with it. I was impressed with how well it actually worked and I loved that it was easy clean-up. Our driveway was one beautiful painted mural.
We kept busy enough that we didn't watch any movies (we don't have tv/cable) during the week. On Friday night though-it being our only break night from baseball- we decided to make some homemade pizza and picked up a movie from Redbox. It was our 'datenight' activity, and we had a lot of fun. I think everyone really just loved having a night to be home too.
Of course the week was filled with baseball games. We had four games- Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday morning. We had fun watching the games, and also spent a lot of time playing at the park during the games. Caleb, Matthew and Emily found a big cool tree to play in at one of Jacob's games.
On Saturday we had an early baseball game then came home to finish chores and lawn mowing. I told the kids that if they were really good at getting all their jobs done, and coming with me to the gym that we would do something fun. (I don't normally hit the gym on Saturday, but my treadmill decided to die on me the very day Jeff left, so we stopped at the gym so I could get in a quick workout.) They kids were great and earned a trip to Chuck-E-Cheese. We only go about once a year and they love it. Fortunately, people must have been busy with other things so we practically had the place to ourselves. Between the baseball games, the park, the gym, and Chuck E Cheese, they were all good and ready for bed that night! And I enjoyed a chick-flick night.
3 comments:
You are seriously the BEST mom ever!! I hope Jeff passes too :)
I bet you ARE glad to have those exams done! Good luck!! Sounds like you had a fun week, but I'm sure you and the kids were glad to have Jeff back.
The side walk paint looked like a really fun thing to do. How did you make the paint? I would love to know how.
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