Life. Mostly, breastfeeding.

Time is flying as we are right smack-dab in the midst of school and work for Tim, work for me, applications for me, and oh yeah, that Lactation class I signed up for in September thinking I'd have time to do it. And oh yeah, it's due in like a week and a half. Good thing I'm mostly done, and I have lots of time at work when I'm in American Fork because no one needs help with breastfeeding in North Utah County. I'm learning so much though... if I thought I knew about breastfeeding before, wow, do I know a lot now. It's the class you take to become an IBCLC, so it's really thorough, and some of the assignments and tests are fairly challenging. The lectures are phenomenal. The professor is hilarious, and having worked in the field for decades, has so many great breastfeeding stories. I'm in the section on jaundice right now, and holy cow, do we get SO much misinformation on jaundice in the hospital from the doctors and nurses! Geez. I have moms come in ALL the time in tears because they are having trouble getting their babies to nurse because of getting bottles in the hospital because of "jaundice" and needing to supplement. Or wait, also there are like a bazillion reasons doctors and mother-baby nurses push supplementing in the hospital... and most of them are completely bogus. But, you probably don't care, so moving on to the next item of business.

Theodore: holy cow, he is growing up like crazy these days. He is starting to talk up a storm, though we are still worried about his hearing because he pronounces things crazy and most everything sounds the same, though we know what he means. His favorite words are: iPad, Pooh, Elmo (mel-mo), off/on, dad, apple, banana (nan-a), snow, owl, and of course, ball. He can identify every letter in the alphabet, and knows the sounds for well over half. He's even starting to sound out words when he watches Super Why, which is pretty impressive in my book. I think he may be reading before he talks in sentences. He is sleeping really well at night as long as one of us is with him, which we don't mind. And he still nurses 1-2 times a day, which I'm contributing to the fact that he has not had a single cold yet to date this season! Such an improvement over last year....

As for me, my applications are almost completely done and submitted. I've applied to five schools, and am wondering if should apply to more to be on the safe side, but I'm so burned out and running out of time that I don't know if I'll end up doing any more. Thusfar, Yale, Michigan, Wisconsin and Rutgers are done and submitted, and Urbana-Champaign is still in the works. I'm ready for it to be over with, all the application fees to be paid so I don't have to worry about it anymore, and at least one acceptance to be in the mail :) But.... only time shall tell. Hopefully the admissions committees don't hate mothers and babies because I wrote about having a kid in my personal statement. I was told it could either hurt or help the application, depending on who reads it. But, do I really want to go to a school that discriminates against mothers?

Doing a puzzle over Thanksgiving with Tim's dad and sister

Helping mom clean while wearing dad's hat and glove

Day after Thanksgiving was spent at the Dinosaur Park in Ogden