Mrs Medman: Keeping it All Together

We’ve made it through another semester!  Finals are over and we’re enjoying Christmas break before the next semester starts after the first of the year.  Medman and I still like each other and he ended the semester with grades he’s happy with.  Can’t complain, right?

Date night has been pretty regular…not glamorous, just regular.  Most of the time it was just us sitting in the office discussing the week, watching a movie together, or listening to my lungs.  Always with the physics book closed.  Key point.  One thing I’ve  learned is that med students never think they have studied enough.

It is important to me to be involved in his new career path.  Getting left behind isn’t my idea of fun.  (No, I’m not sitting around reading his physics and chemistry book, believe me.)  We’ve always made it a point to do things together and I don’t want medicine to be any different.  While I understand the importance of maintaining my personal identity, I enjoy being able to talk with my man about things that interest him and are an important part of his life.

Medical blogs have been big help – especially blogs by doctors’ wives or med student wives.  I read plenty of med student and premed student blogs too so that I can understand as much as I can about the entire process and what I can expect our life to be like during the next decade (that sounds like a very long time but I’m trying to get used to the idea!)

Instead of going completely pinterest crazy this Christmas, I’ve tried to keep things pretty mild.  Not hosting multiple parties was a good starting point for me!  Plus, MedMan was in the middle of tests and finals for the first part of December and I didn’t feel like spending long hours alone cooking, cleaning, and decorating with two children (am I a bad mother or what?)  Along the same lines, shopping has been something I’ve managed to also avoid since before Thanksgiving  (since again, young children completely suck the joy out of shopping and MedMan isn’t available for watching them in the evenings anymore.)

It seems to have paid off since now that he’s done with finals we can just relax and spend time as a family.  Our December calendar isn’t packed with ‘have-to’s.  I may just have to make this a new tradition.

I feel like this semester was a success for our family.  I spent quiet (late) evenings by Medman’s side as he studied after class so I didn’t feel like I was sacrificing time (fortunately for me he prefers to study at home in the office rather than at the library).  I adjusted the kids’ bedtime schedule so they could still see their daddy every night just like “normal.”

The only real area where I felt like we made sacrifices was in the social life.  We rarely had friends over for dinner and didn’t participate in any outside activities.  But on the other hand, the semester went by so fast, we hardly realized what we were missing (spoken by someone who wasn’t actually studying like my career depended on it!)

Looking forward to the next few weeks we have together before it’s time to catch my breath again and head into the spring semester!

Merry Christmas to all our faithful readers!