recently

Well, as of Friday at 2pm, I am officially on maternity leave…if a full-time, paying student can be on maternity leave.  The last three weeks on the Os have been nothing short of blissful, but I’m happy for the break from all clinical responsibilities for the time being.

Every parent has been reminding me to “sleep while you can.”  I’ve been trying, really.  As in, I’ve been giving myself like 9-10 hours a night devoted to the act of sleep, a luxury I swear I know I’m very lucky to have.  And yet I still fell asleep repeatedly during lectures last week and would find myself exhausted at the end of an 8-hour clinic day.  This morning John filled me in: apparently I now whimper and have leg spasms in my sleep, which seem to correlate with when our darling daughter adjusts her positioning.  I don’t remember a damn thing, but I kind of feel bad for the kid…it just can’t be comfortable in there!

What am I doing with my free time?  Besides napping and taking more hot showers and baths–which, by the way, have never felt so good in my life–I’m working on some projects that I’ve been putting off (certainly not for lack of interest, but just time and energy), John and I are checking things off our philly-area to-do list, and I’ve been both trying to rekindle friendships I’ve been neglecting while fostering a few new ones.

This past weekend was a fabulous melange of all three.  It was kicked off with another classic table 6 vegetarian, gluten-free feast, this time autumn harvest themed.  On Saturday, John and I met up with a fellow mother med student, her husband, and six-week-old son at Longwood Gardens (below are a few pictures of one the orchid rooms that made me think of my dad, the only one in our family with a green thumb).  Then this crazy couple and I created another memorable meal of ginger-soy salmon, cabbage salad with pickled onions, and brussel sprouts with shallots and bacon–needless to say, I have not been eating poorly lately, not one bit.  Sunday I didn’t change out of my pajamas.  I read and I slept and I watched Felix Baumgartner break the sound barrier.  Oh, and John bought a cord of cherry wood for this winter…that’s a lot of wood!