I’m not sure what was so tasty in our last bag of trash, but we have found ourselves today with quite the gnat problem. They were horrible impediments to my studying – I don’t know how the farm animals deal with such distractions all day, every day, and I’m pretty sure those can be biting flies, too, not just these tickly rascals. I’m not proud of our infestation, but I know it happens.

I did a little research and decided that their life span and reproductive potential meant they must be killed. A quick Google search yielded a straight-forward YouTube video. I had heard something like this before, but never tried it. Buddhist philosophy checked at the door of my annoyance, and reminding myself these aren’t mammals so I personally won’t lose sleep over their early demise, I got out my kitchen stool* and went to work. I’m impressed (and also bored with studying) enough to share:

Put a few tablespoons of apple cider vinegar into a small bowl. Add two drops of liquid dish soap (not dishwasher detergent, but the kind by the sink). The flies flock to the homemade trap and are drowned. (Sorry, SPCA.) I put one trap per room and after one hour, I already have 100 kills.

So let’s clarify that old adage, shall we? You GET more flies with honey. But you KILL them with vinegar. And soap.

Anyway, thanks, lady – you really helped me out!

*Full disclosure: my apple cider vinegar was farther back than my red wine vinegar. So I used red wine vinegar first and only got a few kills. I decided not to be so damn lazy, got out the stool, re-started with apple cider vinegar, and saw vast improvements.

First, Happy Mother’s Day to all the awesome Mamas everywhere! Mine is the bomb dizzle, of course. Raising the munchkins is quite a job, and I’m grateful to the Moms in my life for who they are and what they mean to me, and I’m so glad to be Zoe’s Mom. Full disclosure: she’s been a bit of a punk on this actual day, but 99% of the time she is the sweetest, most wonderful child and always (100% of the time) way more amazing than I ever could have imagined.

So. Wow. What a month! April 15 began a marathon stretch of block 4 exams and finals. We had one every other day until this last Friday. It has been thrilling to be a human for the past 36 hours. Even better than being done with exams is that I PASSED. Comfortably. There are two grades left to be revealed, but I have no concerns – I am proceeding into the clinical years of medical school. I’m so excited. For me, this has been a long time coming, fraught with obstacles, most of them of my own making, which has been well-documented here and on twitter. I’m SO my own worst enemy it’s ridiculous. I’ve learned a lot (science, clinical skills) that will carry me into this next chapter of my education, but perhaps the most important long term is to quit giving myself such a hard time and focus on what’s important. I’ve heard that from my loved ones my whole life. I’ll probably have to relearn it about a hundred more times. But any energy I spend not encouraging myself is wasteful. And I’m forever grateful to the people who manage to cheer loudly enough to drown out all the deconstructive l noise. What else helped: taking care of myself, getting as much sleep as reasonably possible, and not to sound like a kook, but vitamins. Brain vitamins.

And so we continue. As mentioned previously, I’ll be studying for the USMLE Step 1 exam from today until June 9. Related: my school is awesome. Many of our finals were national board exams, and for the most part I feel like our classes were good preparation for them. I have a ton of work to do before the step exam, but the basic sciences curriculum has given us all a good foundation going into it. And schedule-wise, the second year was WORLDS better than first year.

Zoe really maintained patience with me during the repeated Mommy-has-to-study-nows and the just-a-little-bit-longers. Only one more month now. June 10 will be a glorious, glorious day. Zoe and I are heading to New York to visit Aunt Ft, who will be fresh off a giant exam as well.

Rotations start at the end of June, and I got one of my top choices of schedules. I probably don’t even know what I’m getting into, kind of like before I started first year, but I can hardly wait.

On the way home from school today, Zoe and I were talking about many things, among which is Chief’s upcoming check-up at the vet. I said, “Chief is going to visit his doctor on Tuesday – do you want to come with me?” She said she did and went on to talk all about how important it is to go to the doctor and stay healthy. She asked who his doctor is, and I gave his name and said that he was a veterinarian who takes care of all kinds of animals.

She took that in and after a break in the conversation, she asked, “Is Chief’s doctor a person, or a dog?”

GUFFAW.

“He’s a person.”
“Oh. Well I thought he might be a dog.”

Daddy-O is at a meeting tonight, so Zoe and I have had a very fun girls’ night in. We made dinner, played games, drew pictures, scrubbed the kitchen floor and tidied the apartment, ate strawberries and greek yogurt, and discussed what we will be when we grow up (Zoe will be a ballerina; I will be a doctor). Next up is a warm bath and snuggling in bed. She is so much fun. I just wanted to remember.

We have a new niece, and she is gorgeous. I got to hold her, and I suppose it’s safe from 271 miles away to admit that anyone other than family would have to fight me with a weapon to surrender her because holding newborns is definitely in my top three activities. Not sure what the other two are. Oh hell. It’s my favorite thing to do. Okay.

I’ve been thinking a lot about babies in general, new Moms, and our own little Zoe and how it seems like yesterday she was just joining us, yet she’s always been a part of me. Then I think about what babies go through to get here. It’s freaking amazing. I’m really glad I had Zoe before medical school because I worried PLENTY without all that extra information.

So that’s on my mind, plus I’m learning about cancer chemotherapeutic agents at the moment, so I’m taking a trip down memory lane to my first real consideration of my reproductive potential. I also feel the need to say that I am not – repeat: am NOT – considering producing another child at this time. Nor do I, or would I ever, steal children.

I had this conversation with my oncologist over the phone while standing in the hallway of the place where we had just moved my Granddad so he could receive the proper care after heart surgery and rehab. (I guess this part sticks in my mind because I have thought many times how odd it was to take that call about my newish problem during a visit to someone in a very different stage of illness.)

Among a series of much less personal questions one must ask when planning a surgery (do you have any drug allergies, have you had other surgeries), he asked, “In the event that we get in there [during surgery] and find the other ovary significantly affected, do you want us to be as conservative as possible to preserve fertility? Or should we take it out?”
I was quiet, just for a moment. I hadn’t thought about that. “Well, I’m not going to have a lot of kids if I’m dead. So yeah. Take it, if you must.”

About two weeks earlier, a family doctor I barely knew stared at my growing belly and said, “Oh yeah. You’re pregnant. About five months.” I knew I wasn’t. (But I don’t blame her. I did look pregnant sometimes. However, on the night before my surgery, my belly was flat, the tumor inside completely undetectable.) She took some blood to confirm and scheduled an ultrasound for the following Monday. (The Friday before that ultrasound is when I got scared and had back pain enough to visit the emergency room instead of waiting for the ultrasound, which would have been the thing to do, had I been more patient or less scared.)

I thought I didn’t want kids for a good portion of my young-adult life. Surely, I figured, if I were to change my mind, I’d adopt, since there are so many children who need a home. The longer Joel and I dated, the more I thought I did want kids, specifically with him. Cut to being a newlywed with a giant belly; we were not ready to be parents, but had more than come around to the idea. To hear that the blood test was negative was not a surprise. Nor was it welcome, given the alternative.
Instead of “boy or girl?”, apparently the big surprise after my surgery was whether or not I still had an ovary. (One of my favorite google image results for immature teratoma is a girl in the hospital pretending to hold her tumor in a baby blanket – hilarious. Because the ovary holds thousands of little potential babies.)

So we know the rest: half of Zoe was in the healthy one, and she’s perfection (not a monster – the word teratoma is from classical Greek for “monstrous tumor” – which most Moms fear at some point during their pregnancy; perhaps my fear was greater than some). I’m of the mind that when a baby makes it through all the harrowing obstacles inherent to the process and arrives outside the womb, in whatever condition, he or she is a fighter with much cause and purpose to be here. This may be hard to argue in the peaceful silence and stillness of the sleeping, adorable lump who seems to do little else.

This morning sucked. It wasn’t that much different than any other morning, particularly a Tuesday or Thursday morning, but today was extra distressing – first world problem sorts of things. Thursdays Zoe has dance class around 9:30 AM, and Joel has class at 10 AM. It probably doesn’t need saying that we are always late – anyone who knows us knows this. And I hate that. But yes. We are always late. Everywhere. To everything. It sucks. The last time I took Zoe in late to dance, there was a horrible show down, we were that awful disruptive kid and mom, and I ended up returning her to her regular class, missing dance. I vowed never to take her late to dance again. But we’re not quitting. So with the recital coming up, we have to get her there so she doesn’t miss out (let alone all the other reasons why getting somewhere on time is important). I told myself to grab my thatchers and get our act together – this cannot happen again.

Well today there was a series of not-so-comical events impeding our timeliness: the usual lateness, in which we have gotten out of bed at the last possible second yet taken the same amount of time to get ready as when we have nowhere to be; being unable to locate Zoe’s dance bag, deciding after searching that it must be in the car (it wasn’t) or at school (nope); me leaving the car keys on the hook in the apartment; then trying to decide, while en route, whether or not it was even worth trying to make it to dance, painfully coming to the conclusion that it’s worse to be late than not to show up, and instead taking Joel, who actually had a chance to make it on time, to class. Sale on commas today.

All of this and no one ate breakfast, the dog rode with us (no time to take him out before we left), Zoe did miss dance, and I have to take her stick horse (that we forgot) to school for the rodeo parade today (for which we will pick her up early). It’s my spring break, which means I’m splitting my time between attempting to relax and also study really hard for the mock STEP exam next week so I don’t get called in to explain myself if I fail it, so the extra half hour round trip (plus the time it takes to blog) is not in my schedule. WAHWAHWAH.

I realize it’s ridiculous. People are starving and countries are at war. Poor little white girl can’t get somewhere on time with a stick horse.

Dad sent a forward last night about pencils. One of the points (har har) was that “in life, you will undergo painful sharpenings, which will only make you better”. [And yes I'm inconsistent with my quotation marks and punctuation - it's intentional every time, and I'm struggling between what's accepted in the U.S. and what I believe to be the more correct usage.] I feel like this is one of those times. I can’t rationalize that it’s hard with a toddler – what is she now? preschooler? pre-K-er? fancy pants mini adult? – or that we’re busy or tired or that we just walk to the beat of our own drum. Especially not with a child we’re trying to raise to be a responsible member of society. I’m thrilled that we have the flexibility in our lives such that we don’t have to get Zoe to her school at 6 AM when it opens. But circle time is at 9:15, and shame on us that we have trouble making that. We were once a military family, for crying out loud. Early is on time, and on time is late. Et cetera.

Anyway. Sharpening. We need to change. What do I want? Pack for the next day the night before. Earlier bedtime. Earlier rise time. A reasonably predictable morning routine. Arrival at school before circle time.

Sound familiar? It’s because I’m a damn broken record.

By the end of the week, we’re usually so embarrassed and frustrated that every Thursday we decide to change to make these things happen. And definitely Friday – definitely no more of this, we say. And every Monday we’re the same as the week before. You’d think we would get tired. And you’d be right. We are exhausted by it. We’ve tried different ways of doing things, and we always fall back into our old ways. I have all the sympathy – empathy, even – for addicts of all kinds. And I feel the same disappointment looking at us the way people feel when they see their loved ones in the grips of something horrible.

Do we every really change? Will I be writing another one of these posts in a few more months when I’ve “had it” again? Are we just doomed to need reawakening at regular intervals?

Habits are hard to break. I think they happen when we stop being present and forget that we’re making decisions. I truly believe that any commitment means making that same decision every day, sometimes every hour. You don’t get married once – you choose that person every day. You choose whether or not to work out every day. You make the decision to have a healthy meal (or not) every feeding time.

I have to have an overriding sense that we will be on time, and then I have to identify and choose the actions that will make that happen. My problem most days is being detached from the decisions I’m making. Mom and I recently discussed my Mammaw’s ability to plan meals and other things well in advance of their actual occurrence; she took a little well-meaning flack for it, but now I feel there is no greater relief than having a plan. If you know what’s coming up, you can be prepared. Zoe’s dance bag should be something we think about Wednesday night, and that stick horse needed to be by the door enough for me to trip over it. Present Blake needs to start helping out Future Blake a little more, and that probably means that Lazy Blake gets her ass kicked.

Friday was my last test of four block exams. Really it’s two tests combined into one. Anyway our block tests were at 9 AM this time (and they have been at 1 PM the rest of the year), so my friends and I were getting to school at 6 AM. Coupled with staying up late to study, I really got much less sleep this week than I typically do, and it was nice to sleep in this morning.

Thursday night we had Zoe’s friend over while her parents went to a concert. I decided pizza was a safe bet for the evening, given that I still needed to study a little bit. We determined that Zoe’s friend and Zoe preferred cheese pizza. They began eating a red bell pepper appetizer while playing a computer game, and continued playing during pizza. This was the other little girl’s second dinner, and she’s thin as are many six-year-old girls, and I figured she wouldn’t eat much. I was wrong. Each time she requested another slice, Zoe exclaimed, “Me, too!” Glasses of milk were poured. About the third slice, Zoe had slowed, and eventually her friend ran out of steam on her fifth. (For reference, they’re small pizzas, but all four adults in the house stopped after 2 or 3 slices.) Zoe had a half glass of orange juice. The two played a little more, and after awhile we got into pajamas and read a story in the princess tent. It was a good night, and when the other parents returned, goodbyes were said. I noticed Zoe’s face was red, but I thought it might have been the running around. All in all, it was an uneventful night.

Until about 15 minutes later. We were in bed, playing Plants vs. Zombies per usual, and an uneasy tense feeling came over me. The girl was going to vomit. Within 10 seconds, she coughed and covered my top half in chunks of pizza and red bell pepper. We made it to the bathroom, where she finished the job on my bottom half with two more enormous, projectile vomits from 3 feet away. She was largely unfazed. We bathed, redressed, tossed a blanket on the bed, and got situated again.

Joel had come to bed at this point. He was expressing his concern, consoling her in a way, and gave her a kiss or a head tousle, which disgruntled her enough to say she didn’t like him. I told her he loves her and is good to her, that it’s not nice to say such things and at least to give him a chance.

“But I don’t love him.”
Oh, Zoe. You do somewhere in there.

As if to counterpoint, she coughed again and covered him and his pillow. Again to the bathroom, and again two more vomits; the first was epic, and she stood there in her tiny Hello Kitty briefs staring, almost in awe, followed by a small tribute vomit. Another bath (with Dad this time), and another scavenger hunt for something to put on the bed. A tarp was considered. Fortunately she must have gotten it out of her system, because, after a discussion of the physiology of emesis, we slept soundly . At least until my alarm blared at 5. (I am officially too old for such short nights.)

Nana did so much laundry that night. When I left for school, she was passed out on the couch and blankets were drying. (Thank you.) Zoe milked the previous night’s “illness” for a day at home but had no further vomit. I really thought kids were better than adults at stopping when they’re full. In retrospect that was a LOT of salt for a tiny body, and I should have been more aware. Live and learn.

Our little Zoe is four years old!

Stats from her four-year-old checkup today:

42 inches (106.68 cm) tall!!! (90th%)
34.8 pounds (17.42 kg) in weight! (75th%)
great blood pressure, great teeth, perfect hearing, perfect vision

We are so lucky.

She told the doctor that when she grows up, she would like to be a princess. She got a nasal flu vaccine and three shots, completing all the major childhood immunizations she’ll need until she’s 12 (!!!). Little brave soul that she is said only a simple, “Ow.” during the shots. I really like that office, too – they’re pros. For her troubles, she picked out Tinkerbell and Hello Kitty stickers.

She is truly amazing. Singing, dancing, spelling, writing, counting, imagining, joking, loving her way through the days – way too quickly. Joel and I agree that in the past year she has developed even more of her personality. Four just seems so… grown up. Close to going to school. And she really is this little mini agent with thoughts and hopes and dreams ALL her own.

This weekend we started celebrating by going to the local Y for a swim on a gorgeous day. Then she helped me make her birthday cake. For the past couple of months, we have been formulating the cake plan. “Hello Kitty Princess” was her request. I envisioned a Hello Kitty playing the part of a princess and had a strategy. We made fondant. We made a Hello Kitty Princess. I presented it to Zoe after the finishing touches.

“Where’s Aurora?”
A sinking feeling came over me. How could I not have seen this coming? I had budgeted time only for the HK. Now I might have to make a Sleeping Beauty out of fondant. Please, God, no – this would take forever and more patience than I have. I cheerfully explained that Hello Kitty IS a princess.
“Yes, but we also need Aurora. The pink princess. Hello Kitty, and a princess.”

And so we made an Aurora of fondant. And a classic white cake turned pink, with pink mousse, pink white chocolate buttercream and pink swirly marshmallow fondant. It was a glorious celebration of all of her pinkness. In the end I’m really glad she challenged me. I think she liked it.

Monday she attended a Valentine’s Day party at her school AND was the recipient of Happy Birthday singing, cards, and gifts from many admirers. She gracefully accepted most of it. We picked her up early from school and went shopping for helium balloons and pink roses from her Dad. She had requested that we fill the whole house with balloons – we got about half of the living room, which we all enjoyed. The family from down the hall came over for cake. Soon it was time for singing in the bathtub and getting cozy with her princess game before bed. She opened most of her gifts today since we ran out of steam last night! So far she reports liking age four.

Pictures on Flickr soonish… I’m a little behind on that. She’s so cute that it’s hard to keep up with all the pictures we can’t resist snapping!

I’m so proud of her and love her more every.single.day.

One of the many perqs of studying at home is that study breaks are very productive. I can spend 20 minutes cleaning up and go right back to studying, energized by productivity in another area (specifically having my environment noticeably neater contributes a great deal). Today, I decided, one of my breaks would be to vacuum. I may have mentioned previously that I enjoy vacuuming, especially with the Dyson. It’s intrinsically rewarding to me, and I love the way clean floors look. It’s very calming. (By the by, I do not enjoy mopping in the same way. I… don’t mop.)

So halfway through our flat, the brush stopped spinning. I excitedly gathered the appropriate tools to investigate (including a special screwdriver I was THRILLED to find among our possessions, from a tool kit given to us as a wedding gift – that thing has rescued us more times that I can count); sure enough, the belt had snapped, and shortly I was on the phone with Dyson for a replacement part. Their customer service is awesome, a rarity these days. During the call I had the opportunity to clean the brush and was unable to stop debridement until I could no longer take apart the machine. I look forward to seeing if my love of this kind of work carries over into medicine like I think it might.

Fortunately the vacuum is still under warranty, and a new belt is on its way. In 7 to 10 business days. HOMER SHRIEK. I may have reassembled the vacuum and dragged the non-brushing, for-hard-floors version over the carpet to give myself the impression of vacuum lines. This wait will not be a problem. I’m fine. < freezing cold sweat >

When I grow up, I will live in a moderate space. It will be mostly empty. When I walk through the house, I will glide blissfully unhindered by stuff threatening to injure my toes. My kitchen will be enormous with a dozen or so cabinets where all my dishes, pots, pans, and tupperware will reside comfortably. They will have room to breathe. When I look for tupperware, I will not swear and thrash about. The only items to live on the counter will have earned their place by everyday use. I will have an actual pantry in which I will put healthy food. The laundry room will have an efficient set of machines, stacked, and there will be a folding table with hangers awaiting the clothes fresh out of the dryer. No corners will jut to impale my temples when transferring the clothes. There will be space for the drying rack. My couches will be only for sitting. Bathtubs will be for bathing. I will have burned whatever this trinkety crap is that sits around occupying my space. Actually that’s going to happen in about five minutes. Is Zoe’s scooter ACTUALLY on the loveseat?