A medical resident . . .

Sigh . . . pictured above is a day in the life of a 1st year medical resident doing his OB rotation- on the off hours!

Jon is doing his OB rotation for his residency program and he just completed the first week. I added up the hours and it was somewhere in the vicinity of 95!! I am just so glad that not every month is like this- just here and there will he have a bad month like this. At least he is doing something interesting like delivering babies. What makes the hours so high is that 3 times a week he worked from 7am to noon the next day (28 ish hours in a row), maybe catching a couple of broken up hours of sleep at the hospital between births. He comes home and CRASHES (see picture above)- and I do everything in my power to keep my children quiet- which is quite impossible - - sorry Jon! Luckily- he can sleep ANYWHERE and through ANYTHING! The weekdays he wasn't doing this, he worked 12 hour days. I just got called to help in the Cub Scouts- and I feel bad that I have to take the kids with me most weeks. Oh well . . .

Today was especially rough- Sundays are hard enough even with both of us. My hat goes off to any single parents, or parents who have inactive or non member spouses - - what you do every week coming to church is AMAZING! We had an especially long church day in addition because of the dedication of our church building. I groaned when I walked in and found out the time had changed without us knowing and that church started at 11:30 instead of 11:00, and went until 3:00. Don't get me wrong, I am glad to be there for the dedication- I just groaned to think of how we were going to survive that long of church. I actually left after the sacrament during sacrament meeting to get some food from home for my vocally "starving" children (boy Cynthia can whine), then returned for the rest of church. I felt kind of bad getting up to leave, but I was NOT in a very good mood and was frustrated with my bickering and complaining children. After eating, listening to primary songs in the car and saying a family prayer in the car- I felt much better about church, and the rest went fairly well. I need to look on all this with a sense of humor, though- Marcus was yelling at me all the way to church the first time because I had chewed him out for punching Cynthia. He angrily yelled "Mom, I wish you were Chocolate so I could eat you!!" OOOOO- I wish I were chocolate too. It was so funny that I felt my tension ease and even though Marcus was still being a problem, I was a little more at ease.

With all this complaining done- I want to say that I am extremely proud of my husband and his ability to handle this kind of work. He is pretty good about not being grumpy from lack of sleep (most of the time), and seems to handle the stress well. He is loving and amazingly still works on home improvement projects (I think this is his outlet). He even will still watch the kids so I can go to the store (though that is really hard, because I would rather be with him than go to the store, because he isn't home often!) And again, I am so grateful for my life- even though sometimes Jon's career choice is difficult- it is a hard path to take- I NEVER regret the choices we have made. Jon is fufilling his dream. Having a husband who is satisfied and happy with his career is a HUGE blessing. So- it is all worth it. I want with all my heart to be supportive and help him do well. I have been expecting his residency to be harder than medical school (when it comes to hours worked)- so I was prepared for this- - - it still doesn't mean it is easy to handle. Last year Jon had to do some away rotations- and that was hard- - so I felt like I would be prepared to do things on my own again. Maybe because all the kids are still off from school, or maybe because I get a "taste" of him, I seem to miss him more when he is working so much. What has helped me survive is some of the new friends I have made here- I think I am going to really like this ward. We went out on a double date with a couple in our ward about our age and had a BLAST!! I also paid for a babysitter (VERY worth it) so I could go to book club on Thursday night and actually have REAL conversations with other women. Ahhhh- for me, talking with other women is like balm to my soul. And extremely energizing! Any of you that know me- I am a huge TALKER- that is where I get my emotional (and sometimes physical) energy. Things like book club are essential to my well being!

With that said- does anyone have some advice for me on several things? First- how to be supportive to a husband who has to work LONG weary hours (during the night especially), second- how to have a good attitude about it, third- how to best handle church and Sundays as a single parent, and anything else pertinent. I know I am not the only one who has ever had to go through this- so would love your comments!