Thursday, January 2, 2014

A Day in the Life...

The typical "normal" for most people is to wake up go to work, come home, eat dinner, spend time with the family, sleep. Our "normal" is a little more different and will continue to get a whole lot crazier, which is ok with us.

Hubby is out the door at 445am. I do not hear him. I am in deep sleep. Thank goodness! Pat will get his workout in during the morning hours to come straight home after his last class/lab is finished. This makes me happy, because he comes home at the "bewitching" hour (all houses have them with kiddos! More on that later..) I wake up with the girls between 830-9am. We start our day with a little breakfast and play with pretty much every toy in their possession before noon. Lunch and nap commence and that will bring me to 2. Usually, if I have any errands, playdates, adventures, I will do them at this time slot as this gives me the most time flexibility. As 5pm, dinner is served! Some days are better than others, but I am improving a tad bit with my cooking and enjoying it more than I ever have. This is a good thing as hubby usually is the cook of the house, but his schedule (most days) does not allow for this. Bath at 530 and girls in bed between 645-7pm. They are good until the next morning! I usually will do any shopping, meet up with friends, watch tv, laundry, or whatever needs to be done after 7pm while Pat is upstairs studying. It works out pretty well!

At 7pm hubby is studying. He has these noise cancelling headphones where he can't hear ANYTHING. Good or bad thing? Good for studying, I guess. haha! At this point of the day, he is in, what I like to call, his study zone. Usually he has quizzes/exams, and all kinds of randomness he needs to have material covered. There were a couple weeks where he had three exams in the same week! Stress city! I am pretty sure he was lost in studyland.

To give you some background info, medical school is made up of 4 years. The first two years are didactic (classroom) learning, the last 2 years are clinical learning. Hubby will be placed at a local hospital somewhere in the Chicagoland area and dabble in different specialties to find out what interests him the most. His hours will get a little more goofier during those years. Then, he will graduate! Following medical school, he will be matched to a residency program somewhere in the country. This is where we (as a family) will rank our top choices of programs based on the actual program and location. There is a computer program that will match him to a program based on who wants him and if he wants them. There is an interview process for this as well where hubby will be interviewing all over the country. The day we find out is called "match day". It is a day of celebration and relief as it is the start of the brutal training that lies ahead as now a titled physician. It sounds complicated, but it really is not. We will choose many programs and hopefully it will be one of our top choices. Only time will tell. You would think we would have more control on this, but not really.

Here we are in MS1. Life is pretty predictable at this point. Classes/Labs Monday -Friday. There are Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Spring breaks. We are loving them because we know they will be non-existent in a few, short years.

Also, a fun thing to know about Midwestern University/CCOM. They are very family-friendly! They hold many events that the whole family are invited to and not just the actual student. It is nice the whole family gets involved. Also, it allows students to have that family aspect outside of the classroom where it is common to have children, wives, etc. The idea of family is welcomed and supported. When applying to schools, we read some schools are better at this than others. It was important that this was the case for us.





“It is our task, both in science and in society at large, to prove the conventional wisdom wrong and to make our unpredictable dreams come true”
― Freeman John Dyson

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Halfway Done with MS1!

Wow! I took a pretty long hiatus from blogging...so much has happened, but let's call a spade a spade....this momma has been busy! The twins are now 17 months old! Where did the time go?!

We are halfway done through Pat's first year of medical school! YIPPEE! I have to say it has not been all that bad. Yes, there are days that are better than others, but that is with any career. I blame the whole Pat working third shift and having newborn twins the year before school to thank, because anything and everything seems easier after that, at least on my end. hehe!  Pat is doing AMAZING as a medical student! He is humble and modest on this topic, but I can brag that my hubby is rocking it! I had no doubts to be quite honest. He has done a pretty decent job of finding a good school/family balance as well. We have our routine, just as any family does with children. Pat leaves the house at 445am and returns, most days at 5pm. We eat dinner and do baths with the girls, and by 7pm, the girls are snoozing and Pat starts studying. As for me, I usually do whatever needs to be done, laundry, shopping, whatever! (I always get the remote now after 7pm! haha) Pat is happier than I have ever seen him. We keep joking with each other that we really have it all now, but the truth is, we really do. Our dreams of having children and Pat wanting to become a doctor are in full swing. As of now, life is beautiful.

I feel that we have got a solid grasp on our new life. It's pretty crazy to think that life is kind of "still" for us right now. We had college, engagement, buying a house, wedding, babies, school (in that order), and now nothing...life can simply be enjoyed! We are loving watching our baby girls grow into little ladies. It is amazing and they make us laugh so much.

We have met a new circle of amazing friends who are also in the medical school bubble. Most have moved here from out of state. I have grown very close with a few of them and chat with them on a daily basis. It is fun to find humor in our unique, yet crazy situations. I am very lucky to be surrounded by such amazing ladies! There are engagements, weddings, babies all within our group! Always something big is happening! It is so fun! We will find any reason at all to throw a party, progressive dinner, game night, etc. Heck! We have even done grocery shopping together. It is that silly! It is a gift to know you have made some lifelong friends in just a few months. I do not know how we are all going to move away from each other in 2017. I do not even want to think about it right now...

2013 was a good year for the Davis family. It is such a lovely thought to think the best moments of our life are still ahead of us...