Second installment of the Word Diary

If you remember the first word journal post I did, it was meant to help record Cyrus' silly and cute words for things as a baby, much like my mom did for us. As he has now had a word explosion (using Gabriel's phrase from earlier tonight), I wanted to do another installment, since I will forget otherwise. I can tell you that things get so much easier when the channel of communication is opened. I'm not saying that he is easy, because that is surely not so, but he is a lot easier to keep happy when I know what he wants!

Pardon any repeats. I'm not sure all I included last time.

-Shirin

Real words........................Cyrus' version

Balloon........................................Boon

Bear.............................................Bee

Bird..............................................Bur

Quack.........................................Wahk wahk

Rain.............................................Wa wa (wa = water)

Up................................................Ah ah

Throw..........................................Drow

Bread...........................................Ba ba

Again............................................Da

Apple............................................Buh puh

One more.....................................Uh or

Car................................................Doe

Hi..................................................Hiiiii

Belly.............................................Beby

Monkey........................................Mamie

Blanket.........................................Ne ne

Telephone....................................Ra ra

Leaf...............................................Wee

Baby..............................................Be be

Shoe...............................................Di

Socks..............................................Di

Yummy.........................................Mmmmm

Mouth............................................Mow

Eye.................................................Aiiii

Nose...............................................Na

Hair................................................He

Cheek.............................................Teek

Juice...............................................Joo

Pee pee..........................................Bee bee

My new life

From this:

To this:

With all the complaining I've done recently about my horrific schedule in the barn, I owe it to my readers to let them know that the nightmare is over. I made it through a cool, but very tough, rotation. I was even on-call the very last night (Sunday) of the rotation and got called in from midnight to 4 AM and then had to be back again at 6:30 AM to do the morning treatments before handing over my patients to the next group. I tell you, doing those last treatments felt equivalent to just having finished that last final exam of your college career; I felt that relieved to be done. Gabriel asked me later that day if I had a choice of doing 3 rotations in the barn (9 weeks total) or a whole year of vet school over again, which I would choose. It was a hard decision. That's how bad those 9 weeks would be.

Anyway, barring me failing this rotation (which I'd better not, hopefully), I never have to do another rotation in the barn again and can just go in there now and then to enjoy the animals. I did learn a lot about cows, horses, alpacas, crias (baby alpacas), goats, and sheep over the last 3 weeks....hopefully enough to help me pass the boards.

My current rotation is called the Clinical Pathology Clerkship. I will already get some training in Clin Path when I take my Diagnostic Pathology rotation, which is required, but this is an extra 2 weeks with the clinical pathology resident, reading slides and learning about cytology. (Essentially, clinicians from the hospital will send us samples from their living patients and we have to interpret them in a clinically relevant format and help them diagnose their patients); we get a lot of blood, bone marrow, tumor, and lymph node aspirates). I am also responsible for writing a review paper on a specific pathologic topic, which I get to work on at my leisure in the mornings. Today, here's how my schedule went:

7 AM: Get up, shower, eat; get Cyrus dressed and fed

9:00 AM: Drop Cyrus off with the babysitter

9:30 AM: Walk from school to a cafe for coffee and research topics

11:30 AM: Walk back to school to study for boards and eat lunch (with Beth)

1:30 PM: Go to Clin Path to read slides

5:15 PM: Go get Cyrus from the babysitter

5:30 PM: Play at the park with Cyrus and Gabriel

6:30 PM: Go home and play soccer in the front yard with Cyrus and Gabriel

8:00 PM: Give Cyrus a bath and put him to bed

What a wonderful day. I got to learn vet med stuff AND have time for my family. I can't wait to do it again tomorrow.

-Shirin

Happiest mood ever

This Sunday, Cyrus was in a terrific mood all day. I got to be home from the barn for several hours to appreciate the happy boy. Here are a few videos from that afternoon.

-Shirin

Playing outside in the cooler weather.

Despite some fairly warm weather still, Athens has definitely cooled down lately, especially with the help of the rains all last week. Cyrus had to wear pants for the first time since last winter and has learned the word "leaf," as he sees so many right now. Fall has become my favorite season...I love the cool weather (yet not freezing), breezy days, and all the beautiful trees. It's the season of my birthday, Thanksgiving, and LEAF (music festival in Asheville).

Since it's been cool and windy outside, Cyrus and I have spent a lot of time in the front yard looking at puddles, leaves, cars, cats, and neighbors. Here are some pictures of him exploring.

-Shirin

Sportin' some pants and real shoes for the first time in a while. It's getting chilly!

Up and down these steps are a favorite activity. He likes to hold my hand while he goes down, though.

A fallen branch from a tree in front of our door attracts his attention.

Pick me up, Mommy!

Pointing at cars and saying his new word for them "doe."

A pro at going up and down stairs unassisted now.

Checking out the neighbors.

My sweet little bubsy saying "beebee," which means baby.

Throwing his ball is another favorite game.

Back inside to read a book with Daddy.

No longer a baby.

I'm sure everyone else already knows it, but Cyrus is no longer a baby. He's a little boy and he is growing so fast. Here are some videos of us today, enjoying the cooler, damper weather that fall has finally brought to us.
-Shirin

Our future pro soccer player:



Lately, it's come to my attention that Cyrus doesn't like his hands being dirty. My mom taught him several months ago to brush his hands off and he's never forgotten how to do that.



Exploring the outdoors, as well as ways to drink from my big water bottle. If you listen closely, you might hear his say "leaf," which sounds like "wee."



This last one is a longer video of playing in the front with the ball and him imitating me squatting and standing up.

Sick and then better

This weekend, Cyrus was the sickest we've ever seen him. It's been great to have had a very rarely sick baby, but the downside is now we don't have a lot of experience in what to do for him when he's under the weather. When he was younger, I mostly just rocked and nursed him a lot. Now that I can't do that anymore, I've been treating him like one of my animal patients and try my best to diagnose him.

Anyway, he was really pitiful, and we almost took him to the ER for breathing problems. We decided it could wait after talking to the doctor on call and Gabriel took him in on Monday to see his pediatrician. Cyrus is thankfully doing a lot better today; we think it was just the regular old flu that is going around. His good 'ol daddy has been staying out of work to be with him, but he's going back tomorrow, since the little bubsy is all better now.

-Shirin

One sick puppy...

A happier sort of dancing baby...

Last week in the barn

I have less than 7 days left and I'm counting down. While I've actually really enjoyed the animals and learning a different way to practice vet medicine, I have gotten quite tired of my 80 hour work weeks. Enough is enough! Last night I was on call and got called in from 8 PM (right when I was putting Cyrus to bed) until 1:30 AM in the morning. At least I got to actually come home and sleep for a few hours this time. Last time I just worked until the following evening after work. Getting about 4 hours of sleep is definitely better than none at all. I'm on call two more nights this week (I'm praying for no more sick horses), but then I'm off to Clinical Pathology, where I look at slides all day and don't have to take care of a single patient. I have to admit that I will really enjoy not having any patients for a little while. I also really love Clin Path and have even considered specializing in it at some point. This will be a good test for me to see how much I like it full-time.
I plan to spend a lot of time with my boys, cook, clean, and SLEEP!
-Shirin

So you think you can dance.

Cyrus is actually sick right now, but you wouldn't know it by watching these videos. I noticed that Cyrus liked to dance to the Mexican music my neighbors were loudly playing outside earlier today. So, I told Gabriel to turn on some Latino music and this is what happened (see videos below).
-Shirin

Middle-of-the-night-call

In the barn, sometimes there's an emergency rotation. On that rotation, students come in at night to receive emergencies and transfer them to the other services in the morning. When that rotation is not offered, the Medicine and Surgery students rotate taking calls at night in addition to their normal 13 hour days. There is a primary on-call student, who is first to take emergencies in, and a secondary on-call student, who is called l if they have extra emergencies. As the secondary student, you feel like there's some buffer between you and a middle of the night call, but that didn't seem to help me tonight. I was sound asleep at 11:45 PM when they called me. I didn't even wake up for my phone, but, luckily, Gabriel did and handed me the phone. So, here I am...at the barn...at midnight...waiting for two sick horses. Sigh...
-Shirin

A little bit of fun

I write about how I have no time for anything else, but that is not completely true. Somehow, even with my 13 hour days, I am still able to squeeze in a little bit of fun here and there. For one thing, Beth and Brendan still come over for all the Big Brother shows, so we get a few nights of at least 1 hour of fun with them. They are two of my favorite people and I love getting to see them regularly. I also bump into Beth in the hallways at school, but that's just not the same thing. Oh, and Cyrus loves them both too!
Also, we had a free babysitter last weekend (long story), so Gabriel and I went out bowling with Brendan and one of his new friends from Athens. We had won the bowling tickets at Casino Night last spring and needed to use them. Plus, it was a cool dark bowling alley with lit up alleys and pins, etc. We had a lot of fun. Brendan got two strikes and beat the pants off of the rest of us (I think).
Doing fun things have a price, however. While I'm always glad I did the fun thing, I'm always regretful in the morning when I haven't gotten enough sleep. Guess there's no such thing as something for free in this world. Soon, though, I won't have to be at the barn by 6 AM and fun at night won't have such a high price.
-Shirin

Brendan with the magic purple ball. We all seriously waited for this ball to come out so we could use it. I think it's because it was the lightest one.

A sheepish Gabriel walking away from a less than stellar bowl. It's not his fault...we never bowl.

I made Bren and his friend Anna Joy pose for this picture. She was a cool chick and we all had a lot of fun.

Auntie Beth reading to Cyrus about animals before the show started on Thursday night.

Do you think Cyrus is telling her, "doggie?"

I had made a huge pan of sesame tofu and broccoli lo mein the night before and we all had dinner waiting for us when we got home...yum. That's why Bren's mouth looks so full. :)

These boys are always so silly when they get together. What a nice picture anyway.

Cyrus can meow and use a spoon...what talents!

YOU TUBE IS UNDERGOING MAINTENANCE. SOME VIDEOS ARE NOT UPLOADED YET. COME BACK TOMORROW FOR THE COMPLETE COLLECTION.


A cat lover like me can think of nothing cuter than her little baby boy meowing like a kitty cat. He still calls them doggies, but he sure sounds like a kitty. The funny thing about it is that he learned it from a real cat when I brought him into the hospital with me two weekends ago. How adorable...a little calico kitty meowing and the little boy I love meowing back.



We spend a lot of time looking a pictures of animals, talking about their names, and making their sounds these days. It's funny that it seems to be what all kids his age are learning, but I guess they are a big part of this world (especially mine) and kids just seem to love them anyway. Here I am making a bunch of sounds that Cyrus doesn't make back to me. Notice that every animal he points to is a "doggie."




Cyrus can now feed himself with a spoon, albeit somewhat messily. Here are two videos of this. The first shows him doing it well with cereal the other morning. The second shows him doing it earlier when my parents were here and he gets the yogurt in but makes quite a mess.

Never home

Sorry for the lack of blogs. I'm never home enough time to blog. I have another patient now, a horse, and have had to do treatments over the weekend that lasted all day (13 hrs + on Saturday and a little less on Sunday).
Anyway, having zero weekends and a 7 day work week leads to be doing nothing extra. I even ended up folding a load of much-needed laundry this morning at 5:30 AM before leaving for the hospital. Gabriel has been very much a single parent right now and has also been making the money and doing the housework. I really owe him big.
I will blog again soon...whenever all the large animals in the area get well and go home.
-Shirin

The barn!

Yes, I have finally arrived at the dreaded large animal rotation that I am required to take at UGA. I am on the Large Animal Internal Medicine rotation and am now 3 days into it. I can say that my first day was pretty rough since I knew NOTHING about how the large animal hospital worked or where anything was, but I now feel much more comfortable there and have a handle on the processes I have to follow to function there. I also have realized that, while I don't know a ton about horses, cows, sheep, goats, llamas, pigs, and donkeys, I do know a lot about mammals in general and a lot of information can be extrapolated to practice interspecies medicine. I also have some wonderful, talented, and nice clinicians helping and supervising me. Also, it seems that I have also picked up a lot of things during my three years in classess about some general principles about horses and ruminants. Bottom line is that I am going to survive this for sure.

My current patient is the PERFECT transition animal from the small animal to the large animal hospital. He is a miniature donkey. Yes, that's right folks, a minature Sicilian donkey. And, he weighs less than a large Bull Mastiff. I sure do love him. He's a very sweet boy and is very tolerant of me and the clinical treatments I have to do to him. He needs lots of TLC, which, lucky for him, is easy because he's the cutest little guy in the whole place and everyone knows about him and comes by to check on him. We thought for a little while that his breed might be an Iranian donkey, about which I was very excited, but apparently he's actually a Sicilian donkey. We know this because he has a dark fur mark on his back in the shape of a cross. So, supposedly, he's the breed that Jesus rode on all those years ago. Anyway, I'm liking taking care of him and I like seeing the sheep, cows, and horses that are also in the hospital.

One downside to the barn is that I have to work weekends no matter what and have to be on-call for emergencies, since the Large Animal Emergency rotation isn't always offered. Lucky me that I'm on one of the rotations when there are no emergency students on call. Bummer. This Saturday is one of my days that I have to stay for treatments all day Saturday. Some weekend days I'll only have to go in from 7 AM-12 noon and then again at 6 PM, which still stinks, but isn't as bad as being there all day.

OK, folks. I gotta get up early to arrive at school before 7 AM to get my treatments done. It's hard if I don't go to bed early.

-Shirin

Recent stuff

I have some pictures from last week (or the week before, I can't remember), that I never put up. I also have some pic from this weekend below.

-Shirin

Beth is still coming over for Big Brother shows, whenever she has time. Why do she and Gabriel look so awed?

Because of the big new TV on our wall! (We bought it with money we made at our yard sale and that Gabriel made selling stuff on Ebay). We also bought it for cheap on Ebay, and it's a very nice TV (37 inches, I think).

Bren also comes by now and then to visit. He's helping Gabriel build his computer here.

This weekend, I got stuck in Athens because of my patients and scheduled treatments I had to do for clinics. So...my parents came to me! We went to a nice salad place called Jason's Deli. Cyrus sat in a booster chair instead of a high chair for the first time.

What a big boy, sitting in the booth feeding himself his dinner.

At the clinic with me this morning. He loves to imitate me when I squat to take a picture.

We got Cyrus some new shoes this weekend. He chose them himself, namely because Pooh Bear was on them. Wearing them made him stomp around everywhere.

Stompin'.

The universal pick-me-up sign.

Cyrus and I also went to play with Solan yesterday.

Checking each other out (and Cyrus checking out Solan's toys).

Raiding Kim's cupboards and eating a snack together.

Two cutsies together.

Trying out cloth diapers

Some of you may remember that I toyed with the idea of getting cloth diapers for Cyrus before he was born. There are some really fantastic advances with cloth diapers that involve easy-to-remove inserts and snaps instead of pins. They also have diaper services that wash them for you and bring them back in a timely matter. There is initial cost up-front, but after that they save you tons of money. I can't even imagine how much Gabriel and I have already spent on the disposables we buy (we settled on the 7th-generation "biodegradable," non-chlorinated diapers from Earth Fare), and that's with all the grandparents buying us extra diapers every time they see us. As a breastfeeding mom, diapers were certainly the biggest expense during the first year...really, the only expense, except for doctor bills (it would've been formula otherwise, which we found out when he drank that for a month before he turned one).
Now that he's older and can say diaper, he's started to tell us when he needs his diaper changed. If he says it every time he pees, that can be once an hour, certainly much too frequently for us to afford that many disposables. However, I'd like to accommodate his wishes to have a dry diapers, since I think it facilitates potty training, whenever that happens (hopefully soon).
So, I bought some cheap, white tri-folds and plastic diapers covers to try them out. I'm only going to do it at home, because I don't think it would be very manageable out of the house, but I think it will help us save a significant amount of money and allow us to change Cyrus' diaper any time he asks. I had to order the clips, also known as Snappis, which haven't come yet, but they are supposed to make holding the diaper together very straightforward and easy. I ordered them from www.clothdiapers.com, a website sent to me by a high school friend of Gabriel's (Dana), who uses cloth diapers with all her kids. Also, she has saved a lot of money by reusing the diapers with more than one kid...something I will probably try to do as well.
The jury is still out as to whether we (specifically Gabriel) can handle the little bit of extra work that comes with managing the cloth diapers after they get dirty, but I'm really excited about the prospect of saving the landfills from even MORE diapers and our pocketbooks some money. I'll have to report back on that in the future, after we've given them more of a try.
-Shirin

Sitting in the disposable diaper section of Wal-Mart with a little girl who followed him in there as I bought his cloth diapers.

Whazzup? Check out my new diaper!

I bought the diaper-cover for 2-3 yr olds, so it's too big.

With shorts on, though, his butt looks normal again.

"Buh buh."

Cyrus word diary

When I was little, my mom recorded what words I said to mean different things and I used to looking back at it with my sister when we were older. So, I'm going to use this blog as my record and try to remember what Cyrus says for which things. Hope he gets to look back at this later in life and laugh at himself like we did.
-Shirin

Words at 16 months old:

Real words.......Cyrus' version
Bye bye ................Buh buh
Doggie ...................Doggie
Ball ........................Baw
Ducky....................Ducky
All done .................Da da
Daddy.....................Dah dee
Home......................Ho
Milk.........................Meh
Water......................Wah
Mama......................Mama
Outside....................Ya ya
Telephone...............Ra ra
Shoe.........................Ooo
Toe...........................To
Diaper......................Bipur
Boo............................Boe
Quack.......................Qua qua
Moo...........................Mooo
Uh oh........................Ah oh
Book..........................Buh
Woof woof.................Woo woo
Meow Mew...............Mow ow
Banana......................Nah na
No..............................Nah nah nah
Broom.......................Brrr

Thanks Auntie Tita

I took this picture of Cyrus with my phone for my sister to show off her onsie from San Fran that she sent him. It says "There's somebody HOO loves me in San Francisco" and he's really posing for the camera in this one. I think he's so cute (go figure; I'm his mom). :)

Thanks, Tita.

-Shirin

Why studying for boards is so pointless

Here's a great example of one of my board review questions and answers:


What is the dental formula of sheep?

2(I 3/3, C 0/1, P 4/4, M 3/3)

2(I 3/3, C 1/1, P 4/4, M 2/3)

2(I 0/4, C 0/0, P 3/3, M 3/3) [ Correct answer ]

2(I 0/3, C 1/1, P 3/2, M 1/1)

The correct answer is 2(I 0/4, C 0/0, P 3/3, M 3/3). This dental formula applies for cattle and goats also. The pig's dental formula is 2(I 3/3, C 1/1, P 4/4, M 3/3). The dog dental formula is 2(I 3/3, C 1/1, P 4/4, M 2/3). The cat dental formula is 2(I 3/3, C 1/1, P 3/2, M 1/1).

Am I really supposed to memorize all of these? I got the answer right, but it's only because I know sheep don't have any top incisors and have 4 bottom incisors and no canines. I certainly am not memorizing all these dental formulas. These questions just depress me sometimes.
-Shirin