The Match

Since the Match has been a large part of our lives the last few weeks, I thought I would write a little about it. The Match is a process whereby medical students (applicants) and residency programs rank their preferences and then match their preferences accordingly. It sounds complicated. Basically, instead of each applicant being offered several spots, each applicant ranks where they want to go, as does each program rank which students they want, and then each applicant is assigned to a program based on their coinciding rank lists.

Anyway, Match day is a big deal for medical students, and also one that causes a lot of stress. At many schools, there is a Match day ceremony, where each student finds out individually where they matched. At SLU, we each are called up randomly where we get an envelope with where we matched. At that point we can open the envelope in front of everyone or wait and go open it on our own. Match day this year is March 18th, at 11:00 AM. That's only 10 days away!

My top two choices are in St. Louis, followed by Baylor in Houston, and OHSU in Portland. We will see where I end up!

The Old Spaghetti Factory

Tonight we went to The Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown St. Louis with Katee and her fiance, Matt. I think this might have been the first time just the 5 of us have gone out together. So, we went to an old northwest favorite! The original OSF was in Portland and we used to go there on special occasions growing up. I believe my parents took me there for my first birthday. It's one of those restaurants that my sister and I love especially because it reminds us of home.

Anyway, on to the pictures!

Isidora loved her spaghetti and meat sauce. I'm not sure when she learned how to slurp up noodles, but she is pretty darn good at it.

Katee decided to teach her how to make a duck face tonight.

There was a man making balloon animals and Isidora got a green horse. She loved it very much...until it popped on the way to the car. And then she was very sad.

Walking back to the car with Auntie Katee and Uncle Matt.

We had a really great time! Hopefully we will get to do something like this again soon!

Saint Louis Zoo

Lately, it has been warming up quite nicely in St. Louis. Yesterday, it actually got up into the 50s! As such, we decided to go to the Saint Louis Zoo. One really nice thing about the zoo in St. Louis is that it is free! Another nice thing is that we live 5 minutes away from the zoo, as it is located in Forest Park. Isidora has already been there 4 or 5 times, and with all my upcoming time off, I'm pretty sure we will be going there a lot in the coming months - at least until it gets too hot to go.

Growing up in Oregon, I have pretty high expectations for zoos, as ours was really neat and had lots of enclosures that were more "modern," I guess - i.e. fewer cage-looking things, and a lot more open areas that simulate natural environments. The Oregon zoo is also pretty spread out and has a neat variety of animals, including a section on Northwest animals, with cougars, eagles, black bears, elk and wolves. Unfortunately, they closed my favorite exhibit, the Alaskan Tundra (where they had musk oxen, caribou, owls and wolves) to open a new exhibit called Predators of the Serengeti. At least they will have lions there again.

Little did I know, the St. Louis zoo is larger (90 acres vs 64 acres), has more animals (22,805 vs 2200), and more variety (810 species vs 260 species) than the Oregon Zoo. And, I must say, I really like the St. Louis Zoo. Not to mention (again), it is free! My favorite thing at the St. Louis zoo is the penguin enclosure, where you can practically reach out and touch the penguins - much better than the one in Oregon, which is all behind glass.

These are from October, when Katee and I took Isidora to the zoo. Here you can see how close the penguins are, that thing on the bottom right corner is the glass at the edge of the enclosure.

Here is Katee pointing out the penguins through the glass to Isidora. It really is amazing how close you get!

So, enough of the explanation, and back to our visit yesterday! Here are some pictures!

Isidora really liked watching the orangutans. They were jumping around a lot and were really fun to watch.

Outside of the ape exhibit there is this giant gorilla - aka obligatory photo stop for all passers-by.

Izzie liked looking at the fish in the hippo enclosure, but wasn't too interested in this hippos that swim by right up against the glass. Oh well.

We had a great time!

Daddy bit my finger

Isidora has had the same bathtime routine for several months now. After dinner, she takes a bath in her little bathtub (it takes too long to fill the regular bath), where she plays with her letters and her bathtime book. Here we also give her vitamins and brush her teeth! During the week, sometimes we Skype with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Brian back in Oregon (which Izzie loves).

Usually during her bath, Isidora calls for her Daddy to come visit her. Actually she yells, "dad-dy!" pretty loudly throughout the apartment until Matt comes to see her.

Sometimes they play peak-a-boo.

Found you, Daddy!

Here, have some bath water!

Unfortunately, while they were playing, there was a little accident reminiscent of this little boy.

I think she still loves him though.

Afternoon in the park

So, what do we do when we're both home, lunch is over, and the weather is awesome?
Why, we go to the park of course. Forest Park that is. For those who aren't from St. Louis, Forest Park is awesome. It was opened in 1876, which is kind of a long time ago. It was also the site of the 1904 World's Fair, which was kind of a big deal. At 1,293 acres it is one of the largest urban parks in the nation, and over 50% larger than Central Park in New York*. There are some much bigger "urban parks" in the country to be sure, but Forest Park is actually right in the middle of the city itself, which is quite small. Now that you're tired of my Wikipedia impersonation, let's see some pictures. Actually, a video and then some pictures. Whatever.

A couple interesting things here: Izzie is definitely saying "Daddy" in the video, which is nice. Also, there are people playing handball and racquetball nearby, so that explains the weird shouting in the background. Furthermore, just because she is swinging doesn't mean she can't hold on to her little cup which still has a couple raisins in it. Lastly, she has not lost a mitten, she merely preferred to wear both of them on one hand at the time. What can you say. Kids are strange.

Izzie can't drive 55.

Unorthodox sliding technique.

I'm not sure what you call this thing, but it is cool.

Looking relaxed on a big people swing.

More unorthodox sliding techniques.

At this point we started to think maybe she was getting tired.

Awwww.

Okay, that's all for now.

*I've decided that one of the themes of St. Louis is that we are awesome and big well-known cities like New York are overrated, at least when it comes to living there. This is basically the whole point of Meet Me In St. Louis, after all. Also, the Mets are pond scum.

15-month check up

Today, Isidora had her 15-month check up with her pediatrician. Usually, getting to Isidora's appointments is a bit of a challenge for me as I am usually at school during them, but since I am currently in the middle of capstone, it is a lot easier for me to make it to her appointment! Capstone is a course that all fourth year medical students are required to take during which we hear lectures about random topics that we haven't learned about up to that point in medical school - i.e. how to run a practice, medical malpractice, medical fraud, residents as teachers, business of medicine, etc.

So today I got to be the Mommy at the office rather than the med student! Isidora did pretty great today - I was pretty suprised. I am always worried about her getting impatient and being loud and fussy, but today she waited very nicely in the waiting room and in the exam room for her doctor to arrive. And to top it off, she barely put up any fuss at all when she got her two shots! (Which was much better than the 6 she got last time.)

Today she weighed in at 23 lbs 4 oz (about 50th percentile) and was 30 inches long (just below 50th percentile). She sure is getting bigger!

Since her visit 3 months ago she has started walking, started using spoons and forks on her own, and is started to get better at climbing. She is also scribbling with crayons and pens (watch out!) and points to things she wants.

Our doctor was also impressed by all the words she can say. Here are some: moo (for cow), quack, duck, neigh, baa, eye (which she says for eye, ear and light), hi, bye, mama, daddy, papa, nanny, nana (banana), apple, knee, bath, nigh nigh (night night or sleep), more, Katee, mine, no (the worst of all), wow wow (for a movie the she likes called In Search of the Wow Wow Wibble Wobble Wazzie Woodle Woo), uh-oh and baby.

She is also starting to say shoe and please (she already signs for this), and we are working on thank you. Still, I am amazed at how many other words she knows but doesn't say. It's so much fun to watch her learn new things!

She certainly is growing up fast!

Isidora's loveys

Since Isidora was born, she has been very attached to a collection of cloth diapers/burp cloths that were embroidered by my aunt Dawn and another set that were embroidered by my aunt Elaine (though this set was mine when I was a baby).


We used them to clean spit up and to keep her from getting a milk rash when she was nursing when she was a baby baby (aka an infant). As she got older, we noticed that she really liked to grab them and rub them against her face. Now, they are her loveys, and she is very protective of them:

Actually, she usually only gets one at a time and they are used for naps or if she wants to carry one around the house. On this occasion, she got into the little basket where they are kept and decided to get all of them out.

She is pretty funny.