Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Daddy Gone?

I've decided to post a little family update for those who don't live near us:

Erik is in his fourth year of medical school at Emory and is working hard this month as a sub-intern (a "pretend" resident). He submitted his residency application last month to the following schools: Cincinnati, Dallas, UAB, Vanderbilt, Charleston, Emory, and MCG. Next month will be an especially busy one as he interviews at the different schools. We're hoping to take some family road trips to the ones close by. Erik's excited to look at different programs, but we're pretty sure Emory will be our first choice. They have a good pediatrics program, and (perhaps of equal importance) both Grandma's live within half an hour's drive! "Match day" for residency is not until March, so stay tuned!

I am loving life right now. It's wonderful to be a wife and a mother to two healthy and very happy people! A summer of classes at BYU has refreshed and rejuvenated me, and I am eager and excited to continue taking online classes. I am currently enrolled in two BYU independent study classes: a family finance class and a jogging class. I'm really enjoying them both. I'm learning all the secrets to getting rich; now we just need an income! My sister Tabitha found me a steal-of-a-deal for a jogging stroller at a consignment sale, and Abigail and I have been putting it to good use! We've tried out several nearby parks, and occasionally we run at the park near my parents' house. Tabitha agreed to be my running buddy, but we've only run once together. It's hard to make the half-hour drive early in the morning, so mostly we've been running on our own....but at least we've been sticking with it! I also have started doing yoga with my sister-in-law Kris once a week, and it has been a blast! Yoga's much more difficult than I ever thought, but it feels really good when we're done!

Abigail is 18 months old now and continues to delight us with her charm and energy and amaze us with her rapid learning abilities. She learns new words every day and invents all kinds of games for us to play. Her most recent favorite is when we pretend to be dogs. The first time I did it, I started to pick up her blocks with my mouth and put them in their bucket. She thought that was hilarious, so now she frequently asks me to be a dog, and as soon as I get down on all fours, she begins shoving blocks in my mouth.

With Erik's busy schedule this month, Abigail has not been seeing much of her daddy. There have been several days, even in a row, when he leaves before she gets up (well, that's the case every day) and gets home after she's in bed. I know we're not the only family that has to go through that, but it's still hard! And the saddest part is that Abigail has started asking about Erik frequently throughout the day. A hundred little things that she sees or that we do seem to remind her of Daddy, and she'll all of a sudden look up at me with her head tilted and say, "Papa?" (I don't know how to do accent marks on the blog, but she says it with a perfect little Spanish accent!) I tell her he's at work and will come home when he's "all done," but she continues to ask for him the rest of the day. "Papa" is the first thing she says when I get her out of her crib in the morning, and she runs to our bedroom as soon as I put her down, even though I tell her he's not there. It's so sad! But it warms my heart too. And I'm just thankful that Abigail has a daddy who does come home every night.

This one's from this past summer--this was Abigail and Daddy's reunion in Provo when he finally arrived after finishing his finals back home. We were apart for two weeks.

This month so far has given us a little taste of what Erik's residency will be like. I know it's going to be hard to have him gone so much, especially as Abigail gets older. But when we do get to have Erik home with us, we try to make the most of our family time. Erik and Abby usually get some playtime in before dinner, Erik reads her a story before bed, and then we all sing a few of her favorite songs and have family prayer. It's neat to observe what a difference our family bedtime routine has on her. She is always most content when we are all together. So I think the important thing during residency will be for me to talk a lot about Daddy during the day--how much he loves us and how hard he's working and how we love to spend time with him--and make his homecoming special, something the kids look forward to. That's how it was in my home growing up. That way, I hope it won't seem like he's gone all the time--because we think about him so much during the day.

So here's to Abby's wonderful Daddy!