New Cyrus videos

Here are some videos, mostly from tonight. The first one was from a few nights ago. I hate to even mention it, since it might draw more attention to the mess in my house, but I want to apologize for the condition of my house. I clean every weekend and any night I have time; sadly, I am but one woman and the destructive male forces in my house are much stronger and greater than I. You'd never believe that last weekend, the house was tidied, swept, mopped, and vacuumed. Sigh...

-Shirin

Playing on the bed before bedtime. He's learned how to use a light switch (only in the up position going down). He also has learned that daddy means playtime. Watch his reaction when Gabriel comes in halfway through.



Cyrus is getting good at sitting in big people chairs. Here he is reading a book in one.



This video is to represent reality. Cyrus is in the phase where he can communicate some, but not really well. Consequently, he gets very frustrated when we don't understand him and cries. Also, he's become VERY bossy, and he gets mad even when we understand him but just tell him "no." You can also see in this video why married couples start arguing when kids get involved. We both have our opinions about things and we are constantly challenged to agree with one another about every little detail about the kid.



One of Gabriel's employees gave us a book bag leash to borrow for Cyrus. We want him to learn to like it so we can use it in public with no fussing. He's pretty intent on watching his tail trail behind him.



It's hard to be short, but Cyrus makes do.



Playing piano and kissing the monkey.



Reading a book and then waking up daddy to say "ho ho ho." It's something Gabriel taught him...to act like Santa Claus, I guess.



Gabriel reading to him.

Up all night

I am literally going to be up almost the entire night writing my SOAPs for my three patients tonight. I was at the hospital for 12 hours today seeing patients, getting their diagnostics tests done, and doing their treatments. Now I'm home writing up all their cases for tomorrow. I don't want to go into all it involves, since I'm too busy for that, but just take my word for it that it would be hard reading for anyone but a doctor or veterinarian (all possible causes of their problems and necessary diagnostics tests and treatments for each). It's brutal to have to do this all night when I was grilled by my clinicians all day on the same things, but I guess this is the only way to learn all this complicated medical stuff. All of my patients have huge problems lists and I have to write a work-up for all of them, so I don't plan on going to bed before 2 AM.
Since I have 3 patients in the hospital, I have to finish their morning treatments before I meet my clinicians for rounds at 8 AM tomorrow morning. Since one is in the ICU, I have to go in around 5:45 to be sure I can finish all the treatments on time. Any of you who know me know that I don't do well on little sleep, but I knew that was how this rotation was going to be. One of my classmates was falling asleep in rounds this afternoon because he was up so late.
Next time you feel like your vet bill is too high, just think of me and all my suffering before you complain. :)
-Shirin

Isa-booties: eco-friendly, animal-free shoes

For those of you who will be having children soon, I'd like to promote these great shoes that Cyrus' Pap Pap found for him. I just checked them out online at isabooties.com and they are animal product-free, comfortable, fair-labor shoes that come in a recylced-materials box. Cyrus also really likes to wear them, and they are so much easier for him to walk in than other shoes that are more conventional. Maybe I'll just remember them and get them for all your kids whenever they are born and about to start walking.

-Shirin

Playtime extremo

Gabriel is taking another class this summer (he takes one every semester for free since he works for UGA) for a degree in Computer Science. Thus, he has a huge project due twice a week and, since next week is his last week, he has a big project due this weekend. So, in a complete reversal from before, he has to leave the house for a vast part of the day to do school work in a coffee house while I'm home with Cyrus (I don't have tests to study for anymore).
So, what do we do when Cyrus is in charge of the day? Run, read, play, sleep...repeat! Of course, I sneak in all my cleaning and cooking somewhere in between, but that's not nearly as interesting. Here are some photos (of the fun stuff).
-Shirin

Using the drum as his seat and reading one of his favorite books, "Peek-a-boo Jungle."

Staring at me from amongst all his millions of toys.

Something must've been funny.

Ooops, he fell. Luckily, he falls so often that he just picks himself back up and doesn't shed tears too often.

How nice when your baby can hold his own cup. He's been doing it for a while, but every now and then I try to remind myself of when I had to do everything for him.

Up on the couch, in his favorite reading spot.

Books, books, books. Picking out his favorites.

He just couldn't get the view of his books he needed, so he plowed forward and upward.

Right in the middle of things.

Handing me books to read. This is a really cute one called "Click, clack, moo. Cows that type."

Settling down with a really big book of fairy tales.

Cyrus' favorite place to be these days is outside. Here he is enjoying the water and sunny weather.

I hate to waste water, so I didn't let this go on too long, but I have such good memories of playing in the hose as a kid. I just couldn't resist.

Watering the plants, sort of.

Update on my rotations and vet stuff

I just finished Block 4 of my senior year. There are 17 blocks total of the senior clinic rotations, although we do 3 blocks beforehand as juniors, so it's more like 20 three-week blocks. So, I'm done with 7 of them, I think. Let's see, I've done Exotics, Nutrition, Radiology, Orthopedic Surgery, Oncology, and 2 externships so far. I have Internal Medicine next, then Soft Tissue Surgery, Large Animal Internal Medicine, Clinical & Diagnostic Pathology, Parasitology, Neurology, Community Practice, Ophthalmology, Dermatology, Behavior, Cardiology, and Anesthesia to go. I'm probably forgetting a few and I also plan to do a Shelter Medicine externship in FL next year.

Clinics have really challenged me to think and assimilate all the information and facts I've learned from the last 3 years into a useable form. It's also required me to communicate with clients, an essential part of being a doctor (probably, the most important non-medical thing I can learn). I really loved my last rotation, Oncology. You'd think cancer patients would all be sad, but most of them were still happy dogs and cats with great owners, willing to bring them in for weekly chemotherapy to improve their lives. It was very rewarding. I got some positive feed-back fromtwo of my clients recently. Both of them (from Oncology) told me they wanted me to come work at their vet's office when I got done, which made me feel good. I told them I was trying to stick around in the Athens area and would consider it. I think part of the enjoyment I've always gotten out of working in a vet's office is the interaction with the owners/people. I like to help them help their pets...it really makes me happy to do so. I hope I feel that way after several years working as a vet.

Next I go onto Internal Medicine, which I've heard is a very important rotation that teaches us a lot of very common diseases we will have to diagnose and treat as vets. It's also notorious for making students write 20 page SOAPs (S= subjective, O= objective, A= assessment, P= plan), which is what we call our medical notes we keep up with every time we have a patient. The patients that are referred to Internal Medicine are typically very complicated, sick animals with a load of problems. And, the notes we write have to be copious, as we analytically break down each problem, how it relates to the animals condition, and how it should be further worked up. It will be a great brain exercise, but I've heard I will be sitting in the hospital til midnight, reading up on the diseases and writing "novels" about it for my clinicians. I hope I can manage it.

I also just found out that I was accepted by the GA licensing board to register for my national board exam, which I will take in November or December. I haven't started studying yet, but I will soon. It's been hard for me to come home from a day of clinics and then study for my boards. The boards are about all types of vet medicine, so I will have to especially study about the avian and food animal species. I've heard some people who took it last year say that they get a lot of pig and turkey questions (species we don't talk too much about in our classes). There are also sheep, goats, ferrets, rabbits, guinea pigs, cows, horses, llamas, alpacas, chickens, parrots, fish, cats, and dogs to learn about, and they all have their own specific diseases and conditions. Yikes.

Nevertheless, I've got my eye on the prize--May 1st, 2010, I will officially have made it all the way through vet school and become Dr Modaresi (finally!). It seems a long way away, but I know it'll fly by. I'll also have a 2 year old to be proud of as well.
Once, my dad told me that your outside appearance keeps changing through the years until one day you look in the mirror and you look like an old person, but that inside you are still just the same young person you've always been. That's how I feel when I think about being both a mother and doctor next year. I don't feel any different than I ever really have...but clearly I am older now. Such is life, I suppose.

-Shirin

A few quick Cyrus videos for the fam

Cyrus has learned that anywhere worth going to is worth running to.



He has also learned that closing and opening doors is a fun game.



The busy bee closing more doors in my face.



Feeding the bubsy yogurt. He has stopped wanting to eat because of his desire to run around and play constantly, so I find myself feeding him whenever and wherever I can.

Cyrus videos

Here are a few videos of Cyrus' first real interest in stuffed animals. He especially likes the duck that giggles when his toes are pinched. I've always felt that Cyrus has inherently liked "boyish" toys, even without our prompting, so maybe he's finally learning that androgynous toys are fun too. If you only have time to watch one video, watch the last one, because it's the one where Gabriel makes the monkey do stuff so that Cyrus will giggle.
-Shirin

Figuring out what these stuffed animals are all about.



Learning how to make the duckie giggle.



Gabriel making Cyrus squeal in delight.

This weekend

We did a lot of playing and exploring this weekend. Here are some pictures.

-Shirin

Running around outside (check out my big basil plant that I've managed to keep alive). I bought it almost 2 months ago that the Farmer's Market.

Splish splash in the duckie.

Climbing up into the chair to watch his favorite Indian Bollywood singer.

Crying after he almost tipped the chair backwards while standing on it. How scary!

A happier boy standing in his chair.

So happy with himself for climbing into the chair himself.

"May I help you?"

Playing in the sink with the water drizzling.

Yay...water.

Drinking from the faucet.

Oops! The water got too hot...Mommy, help me!

Eating cherries while Daddy stays glued to the live-feeds of BB.

Having a father-son chat.

"Honking" Daddy's nose.

Hanging out on the piano bench. It's something Cyrus can finally do whenever he wants, now that he is able to climb up onto everything.

Making some music.

Happy with his song.

Using his train as a seat and...

...a stepping stool.

So pleased to be taller than normal.

Push, push, push. It just never gets old to a toddler.

Pushing his train into me.

Sorting through his wagon of toys...what a lucky kid. Actually, more often than not, he takes out some of them to make room for himself and then climbs in.

In his favorite seat on the couch, preparing to read some books.

So many to choose from.

A lovely morning

I am proud to say that we have witnessed our very own Athens Farmer's Market grow substantially in the past year. We showed up today after going to yard sales and were astonished at the number of people shopping there. It was extremely crowded, which meant we had to fight a little for what we wanted to get (like the fact that I didn't get to buy kale, like I normally do), but it was generally still a very peaceful and enjoyable market experience. Cyrus was kind of sleepy, so we mostly just got to snuggle him as we walked around and shopped. I plan to make foccacia sandwiches with grilled eggplant, zucchini, and yellow squash and basil mayonaise for lunch plus a cucumber, tomato, onion salad on the side (all from the food I got today at the market).

I'm so glad we're getting better at shopping locally. It really feels like we're reducing our carbon footprint when we know we haven't paid for an 18-wheeler to drive across the country to bring us lettuce. We also buy the free-range eggs the farmers have. I buy those in the store too, but I'm not very sure how free-range those hens really are. These local farmers have pictures of their hens, hanging out in their fields in nearby GA. I wish they had dairy products from their happy cows too, but so far they don't. I tried to take some pictures of today, but I got caught up in picking out produce and only got two, right when we arrived.

-Shirin

A bustling market on a cool, breezy summer morning in Athens, GA.

A sleepy bubsy with his big, warm daddy. We had such a good morning together as a family: we woke up early, fed Cyrus breakfast, and went around town to yard sales and the market. How fun!

Some videos from the last few days

Cyrus is more fun than ever these days and is still all about the books. He's learned how to climb onto objects, so we now walk into the livingroom to find him sitting on the couch, reading books all by himself. He also climbs up onto the piano bench to play some music without our assistance now. Speaking of music, he learned the other night that squeezing his daddy's nose makes a honking sound (see video below).

Enjoy!

-Shirin

Honking Daddy's nose:



Playing piano by himself:



Playing piano with me...sort of. Mostly, he just wanted me to stop playing so he could play:



Here's one of Cyrus' favorite games; he hands us a book to read, and we start to read it. Then, halfway through, he hands us a new book, and so on. We can make it through his whole (growing) book collection in one sitting, sometimes.

Our family celebrity

We are very proud of our brother (in-law), Casey, who is doing awesomelyl on a CBS reality show. I don't want to use any names, since people could then search for him and find this blog and ruin our semi-anonimity. If you want to know more about it, you can e-mail me directly or just watch CBS on Thursday and Sunday nights at 8 PM and Tuesdays at 9 PM.

We're so excited and proud of him!

-Shirin

Our new camera

Our new digital camera has a cool feature on it called "smile detection." Gabriel was experimenting on Cyrus with it when he found him sitting in his duck in the living room, reading a book about dinosaurs.

-Shirin

Oops, that wasn't the right setting.

Well, that's the right setting, but that's not really a smile...more of a grimace.

There we go: just right!

And this was me experimenting on Gabriel!

Walking after work

Now that I actually get home at a decent hour this block, I have been spending some quality time with my family. Tonight we went walking around the neighborhood with little bubsy in his wagon. I'll miss these times when I'm staying late again on my next block, Internal Medicine.

-Shirin