Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Congratulations, Kristen DPT!

Kristen visited last weekend in celebration of her upcoming graduation from Northwestern (I am travel restricted and cannot attend the graduation, so we had a little pre-graduation party instead). I am so proud of her, and excited to see which of the "real world" jobs that she is interviewing for will turn into her first physical therapy position.

No celebration is complete without a giant cupcake! We felt it was best to take a picture of this while it still looked like a cupcake (after this photo was taken, we continued to coat it with sugary icing and it began to look more like an igloo).

I got Kristen a pinata for her graduation present. After my own ups and downs at Penn, I believe that the piece of paper that confirms the end of all the frustrating things that come along with graduate school (otherwise known as the diploma) isn't necessarily the answer for achieving maximal closure and satisfaction as a new graduate. Instead, the pieces of paper that really matter are all of the little pieces of paper on the ground...after the destruction of a symbolic paper donkey. Everyone's donkey represents a different challenge they overcame in order to graduate - for some people it is dealing with difficult people, for others it might be a difficult class or experiment - in Kristen's case, her donkey was named Lois.

Kristen looks quite ready for her battle with the pinata.

It turns out that pinatas bought at Target do not go down without a fight, which is fitting, because I don't think the real Lois would ever go down without a fight. The head of the pinata severed quite quickly, but it took several rounds of bat swinging for the entire thing to erupt.

Success! Congratulations, Dr. Kristen! (Keep a patient slot open for me at the end of the summer - I think my lower back might need some physical therapy by then...)

Little bits of news and spring

The weather is changing rapidly from one day to the next (it was 84 and sunny on Monday but today's high is 20 degrees colder than that, for example), and that seems to fit the state of our lives lately. My bump is growing at a crazy pace that can only mean these two little boys of ours are going to make an appearance a lot sooner than three months away feels like!

We have begun to prepare for our nursery. Thanks to all of our very generous friends and family that attended our baby shower over Easter weekend, we finally have many items to put in our nursery! We have also moved our furniture around so that the room is ready for cribs and a dresser (and Pooh decorations!) that we will pick out on Monday after my 24 week check-up in Syracuse. I will post pictures when it is all put together. As my body keeps changing, I am beginning to feel incredibly anxious and unprepared for my impending motherhood status; I am hoping that putting together the nursery will provide the organization/preparation I usually require (as a type A person) to feel ready for change.

David is also preparing for another year of farming at The Danger Zone. My role this year will be limited to documenting our garden's progress and eating all of the yummy vegetables that David grows (not a bad role to have), but I am very excited for another year "on the farm." David is still finalizing his master list of vegetables that we will grow, but I anticipate that this list will include lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, and peppers. Please feel free to comment on this post if you feel strongly about us growing pumpkins this year. David is not so convinced we should take the space since Linus and Lucy were so small last year...but I am convinced that growing more pumpkins is always great idea. Though lately I have been able to outnumber David in disagreements by simply reminding him that technically I count for 3 votes and he only counts for 1, I feel confident that other people outside of my womb also love pumpkins as much as I do (or at least, almost as much as I do), and so I leave this decision in the hands of the limited readership of this blog...