The Lisle Weekend Update

I guess it's time again for our bi-weekly update.  The big news, of course, is that Dad came out last weekend for a conference in DC.  He was at the conference most of the time, but we got to spend a lot of time with him over the weekend.  I had lunch with him Friday on campus at Georgetown, he stayed with us on Wednesday and Saturday and got to spend most of Sunday with us before we took him to the airport.  He took us all out to Macaroni Grill on Saturday and fixed my ingrown toe-nail in an impromptu surgical theater in the breakfast room.  That's what dads are for, right?  It was very fun to see him and fun, as always, to show off Juliette.  Here are some pictures:

So that was the big exciting event of last weekend.  I took a test last Monday that didn't go as well as I had hoped, so I'm trying to make sure I can cram in more study time for this next one. Actually, I didn't do all that badly on the test itself, if you just look at raw score.  It's just that the averages are so high that it's hard to come out ahead.  Every mistake counts.  That's the problem with grading on the curve: it's not enough to do well . . . you have to do better than everyone else, especially when the curve is as tight as this one.  Oh well.  This is something I have to learn to do.  For the record, in case you were worried, I'm not in any danger of failing out medical school, just of not doing as well as I want to.  Medical school is hard.  Who knew?

Brittany has also been working hard, keeping up on her work with CPE, cramming in her work time while Juliette naps, and still making dinner every night.  Yeah . . . She's pretty much amazing.  We miss having the free time in the evenings that we used to, but in some ways our free time is more fun because its harder to come by.  My dad always used to say, when picking me up from friends' houses, that it's better to leave wanting more than to leave having had too much.  That doesn't really apply to Britt and I since we've spent significant quantities of time together without time apart (like our unfortunate unemployed summer months) and we don't get tired of each other, but the principle is still true: you value time more when you don't have enough of it.  

Juliette is perfect.  She now has four distinct flavors in her current gustatory repertoire: formula, rice cereal, applesauce, and bananas.  Applesauce took a little getting used to, but she loves it now, and bananas were an instant hit, though she gets tired of them (me too Jules).  It's fun trying new foods with her, expanding her horizons.  This may be because Britt and I love food so much, and are just itching to give her things like chocolate so she can fully experience the joys of eating.  Umm . . . we're ALSO going to teach her to love to eat a balanced diet and to exercise so as not to contribute to the rising obesity epidemic.  If only I could learn to love to exercise . . .   

Anyway, life is good, and we have very few real complaints which we typically keep to ourselves anyway.  Seriously, we are so blessed (and not like that fake blog).  In closing, Juliette would like show you her foot.

P.S. I'm sorry, I don't know why our photos don't blow up to a larger size.  I'm working on getting that figured out.  I think it might be the browser (Safari).  If someone who knows blogger/Safari better than I has any advice, it's more than welcome.

Rice Cereal, Jobs and Surviving the First Module

Brittany and I were discussing this morning how this blog is really about Juliette, but I suppose we should update the world as to our doings as well.  Not that I'm pretending to be reluctant to write about myself.  Anyone who has spent any significant amount of time with me surely knows that I'm more than willing to talk about myself and my family to anyone who will listen.  It's one of my few failings.  So I'm going to start by talking about Brittany, lest anyone suspect me of narcissism.  

Brittany just got a job, which is fantastic.  Brittany enjoys taking care of Juliette, but I think she found herself somewhat at a loss during Juliette's long afternoon and morning naps.  She took to reading the "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants" books and watched the entire mini-series of Christy on DVD (you know, the one from the early '90s starring Kellie Martin of Life Goes On and ER fame).  It's pretty typical Saturday evening faire: schmaltzy, but somehow endearing in its idealistic innocence.  I admit I watched the last several episodes with her and was just as shocked as her when the series finale ended with Christy torn between two men she loved, at the crossroads of a decision that would change her life.  Seriously, that's how the series ended.  I guess the producers of the show thought there would be another season, but the show's financial backers didn't agree.  Anyway, Brittany was bitterly disappointed and decided she would go get a job so she didn't have to spend her free time watching stupid TV shows that left her hanging.

Actually, being the mover and shaker that she is, Brittany has been wanting to work for a while, and she found the perfect job.  She now works for a company that she worked summers for when she was in college.  She's working on a research project, looking at pension records from the 1800s and collecting important information from them and inputting it into a database.  The great thing about her job is that she is working for someone she knows and likes, she works part-time, gets paid decently, and *drum-roll please* she works from home.  So she squeezes in her work while Juliette is sleeping during the day and in the evenings when I'm studying.  We really couldn't have asked for anything better, and we both feel very blessed to be getting this extra unexpected income.  The Lord is looking out for us.  

I just finished my first "module" in medical school.  On Friday I took the last test for our Molecular and Cellular Physiology module and have had a free weekend before we start into Metabolism and Signal-Transduction on Monday.  The schedule is pretty hectic, cramming what seems to me a semester's worth of material into four weeks.  But what did I expect?  I'm grateful for a supportive wife to come home to, who doesn't get mad at me for reading my histology textbook in bed while she's trying to fall asleep.  I'm pretty lucky that way.  Anyway, as I said, we had a free weekend between modules, so we spent our entertainment budget on candy, 7-layer bean dip and smoothie makings, and spent the weekend watching movies.  Ok, we only actually watched two movies, but we intended to watch movies all weekend and that's almost as good.  It was a perfect weekend for sitting at home and eating junk food, as the tail-end of tropical storm Hanna popped over Northern Virginia yesterday and dumped 6 inches of rain and 40 mph winds.  It was fun.  

Anyway, on to Juliette, the real rock star in the family.  She is as cute as ever and the little light of our lives.  She is very tall (99th percentile!) but not too skinny (95th for weight).  Basically what that means is that we've had to bust out the 6 month clothes a month and a half early.  She loves to stand up on her sumo wrestler legs (with help, of course) and she grabs/scratches at anything within reach, which drives her grandmother nuts when we're sitting at the metal table on the porch (it's the "fingernails on the chalkboard" effect).  The big news is that she started solid foods this week!  Admittedly, Britt and I were more excited than she was to start, but she's taken very well to it and opens her mouth and kicks her legs in anticipation when the rice-cereal-laden spoon approaches.  We tried to start her off with hamburgers:

             

But we decided that maybe rice cereal was a better choice for first-timers:

(For the record, the mini-hamburger was a joke . . . really).  We think she's teething because she gnaws on anything she can get a hold of, drools copiously and she's been waking up crying several times a night for the past few nights.  On the whole, however, she's a bright, cheerful little ball of sunshine.  Oh, also she's started trying to rock herself out of her carseat by arching her back when she's not strapped in.  It's very funny, especially because she gets to a point where she's squished down in the bottom of the carseat but can't go any further.  If she rocked her weight hard enough she'd probably be able to pitch the seat forward and slide out, but she hasn't figured that out yet, thank goodness.  I've included a picture for your entertainment.  Also, she sleeps with her hands behind her head, which is very cute.  Again, reference the picture below.  So to all our family and friends, we love you and hope everyone is well.  We're busy, but we love to hear from you all.  Does saying that make this post sound like a Christmas card?  Oh well.  Bye!