Just to follow up on the fire alarm trauma, we did have a pretty interrupted night--lots of Elena stirrings and requests for "milks" and "the milk side". I don't really understand the milk side, but I think it stems from a puzzle she received as a gift from Aunt Gail and Uncle Ed. In true Gail and Ed form, the puzzle is ballet themed, and on one side (gray border) there are three animals posed during dress rehearsal, and the other side has them in full costume at a slightly different part of the performance (pink border). We usually do the "pink side". Anyway, she's got me all worried that I'm dried up on one side but not the other by requesting the milk side. Tangent, but still. I am not keeping up with her baby book so I figure I should record these cute things somewhere? (Where better than alongside my neuroses...?)
So, Thing #1. Back to the Casa this morning (which was fussy and whiny), where Heather told me that Elena would be spending some time in Angela's classroom. Great! A week of transitioning, followed by a week of vacation, and then on to Angela's classroom. When I picked her up, she ran over to me excitedly and started pointing out the new features of her surroundings, including a poster of puppies. "Lookit! Da doggies!" She had apparently had a great day, with only a moment of confusion as she saw Heather on the playground. One little girl gestured to me as we were leaving, worried that Elena had forgotten her sippy cup. Another new classmate (who Elena had known from early care... or not, since she was like 6 months at the time) waved happily goodbye to Elena as she was walked out by her daddy. So practice day #1 went well.
I went to collect her bag, which is always hung on the same hook outside of Heather's classroom, designated by her name tag. Her name tag had been taken off! I was so sad, or more nostalgic, really. My little girl is no longer a tiny toddler. I told Josh and he said, "Wow, that was quick. 'Get out!' Maybe she bit another kid or something." I hope not.
Thing #2. This is a quickie. I don't have to work tomorrow! I've thought all week that I was scheduled for yet another Friday afternoon, but discovered today (verified on the clinic paper schedule, amion.com, and my personal calendar!) that I am FREE!! for the whole day. What a nice surprise. My parents get here Saturday evening, so I could use the time to further decompress and prepare their room which contains The Bed of Laundry, which was formerly known as The Bed of Wires after we first moved and it was the temporary storage site of everything electronic. The Bed of Laundry is pretty laundry-ridden, and needs some attention.
One of the residents asked me today if I felt like I was one of the faculty members who was "stuck" with them the most. I said that the program director and assistant program director helped take the brunt of things, and then realized that I guess I am in clinic more than most other faculty. I find this interesting because I feel as though a huge weight taken off of my shoulders this year, and my duties/schedule have been refreshing and allowed me to recharge a bit. So I guess it's nice that residents feel like I'm always around, yet I feel like I'm not around as much as I was last year (in which I often joked about suicide, which is just not healthy). Freedom. It's pretty awesome.
Thing #3. Anabelle wrote me an e-mail this week. Anabelle is my mama Tica, my Costa Rican host mother with whom I credit the development of my Spanish language skills. I think I wrote about Anabelle in my last blog--I just tried to find it on MySpace, but MAN is that site jacked up!
Anabelle is one of the warmest, most dedicated women I've ever met. The woman is in constant motion. She was almost married three times, raised her daughter Roani as a single mom, and is helping Roani raise Marialex. It always seemed to me that Anabelle functioned as Marialex's mother, and Roani more as an older sister. Marialex is a lovely girl, and was one of my favorite parts about staying with Anabelle. I stayed with them for two months in Guadalupe, one of the suburbs of San Jose, during my fourth year of medical school. Many a night was spent sitting at the kitchen table listening to Anabelle tell a story of her youth as she bustled around the kitchen. I know Anabelle becomes close with all of her students, especially those that stay with her for a while, but I think my experience was a bit different as two of my classmates from medical school were also staying there at the same time--which was a COMPLETE surprise to me when I first arrived!
During my second year of residency, I returned to Costa Rica to do more language lessons and then catch a yoga retreat. I had booked my flights, the school, and the retreat, but nothing else. In retrospect, I don't really know what I was thinking. I went to the airport and started to panic... just a little. It felt like I had just been there, and when I left Costa Rica I felt as though I had a respectable network of friends there. But I'm terrible with maintaining communication, and that is where the panic stemmed from.
Luckily I was able to get bumped, which gave me time to buy a Lonely Planet, look up a place to stay close to Guadalupe, use the airport courtesy phone to call them and make a reservation, and get some credit towards my next flight all in the span of 20 minutes. That edition of Lonely Planet sucks, and is filled with errors, but luckily my cab driver was kind and we figured out the error in the listed address soon enough.
The next morning I got the bus schedule from the guy working the front desk, and realized that I had some major time to kill. So I went knocking on Anabelle's door. "Anabelle!" I called at 8:30 am on a weekend. Every home in San Jose has bars and gates and the like, so you always needed to knock something metal or a stone against the bars to get someone to come to the window or door. "Jessica!" she said when she saw me. My skin usually crawls when someone calls me Jessica, since it's not my name. I think I corrected Anabelle the first or second time she said it during my first stay, but it never really made a difference, and I came to not really care. We had a great visit, I showed her my little mini-book of wedding photos, and I asked if I could stay for a night or two towards the end of my visit once the retreat was over. She said she'd try and find space. But she also said that one of her current students was planning on going to a yoga retreat--could it be the same one? Wouldn't you know, it was. So Kat and I bonded over our love for yoga and Anabelle and Desiree who led the retreat.
Anyway. I'm so happy to get reconnected with Anabelle, and show off pictures of Elena. They had just gotten a computer at home when Kat was staying with them, and didn't really get e-mail. Two years later, it looks like she's figured it out and looked me up in her book of students. Anabelle. I should have known that any Juanes fan in her 60s would eventually figure out how to navigate the internet!
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