Medical Marriages

This morning I did something that I am certain I have never done before - I left my puking kids at my house with a friend and went out for breakfast with my husband. I have been looking forward to this day for a while because today was Imagine RIT which sounded so neat and the Medical Community Christian Fellowship spring breakfast on medical marriages that we had been invited to by our friend Brian. This morning we were woken at 4:45 up by the sound of a splat on the floor in the kids' room. We ran in to see Abigail standing in the middle of the room throwing up. After a quick clean up (boy, am I glad I spend several hours cleaning the kids room on Thursday after Caleb threw up in fear of the fact that his sisters may do it sometime in the middle of the night too!!) I figured that all my plans for today were cancelled. I sent a quick email to my friend who was planning on hanging out with our kids and told her that Abs was sick and she probably wouldn't want to come over. Jenn called me and told me that she was still willing to watch them even with the puking - and Glenn "made me" let her. You know, I would do that for a friend but I was surprised someone else would do it for me! So she came over and watched the kids while Glenn & I went to the breakfast. I am so glad that I went. There was a panel of 3 couples - in the first couple the wife is the doctor and the husband is an engineer, in the second couple the husband is the doctor and the wife stays home with the kids, in the third couple both of them are doctors. It was so neat to hear from each of them and the struggles that they have had and how they overcame them. All three of the couples had kids while they were in their time of training and it was so interesting how they each did things differently and how they worked through the challenges that they had. I appreciated that they were very open and honest, especially the non-medical wife, with things that they had struggled with and continue to. I know that it isn't easy but I think that we got some helpful hints and tips to help us along the way. The things that stick out the most for me from this morning:

1. When telling one of the doctors about our journey he told us that farmers put the most manure on the plants that they have the biggest plans for. (or something like that). It was encouraging to hear because I know that God has plans for us and He is preparing us for them.

2. The importance of setting priorities and making choices based on them. They talked about time with God, your spouse, and kids. One area that I know that Glenn & I struggle with is making each other a priority. The couple that were both doctors said that they had Friday night date night and had a get away once a quarter or every 4 months. We have very infrequent dates and we have never had a night away from all of our kids. We have had nights here or there with one or more of them gone but I don't think that we have ever had a night with all of them gone. Oh, no, there was that one time when we were moving out of the mini-mart and AmyJo took our kids home with her so we could finish up packing and we went to her house the next day. At that point I was pregnant with Lydia so it was a while ago.... There may have been once or twice that some or all of our kids spent the night there when we lived in Waterloo because they fell asleep after Friday night pizza but I really can't remember. Anyway, enough of my tangent, that is not the point. The point is we need to make "us" a priority because we never have.

We got home and Lydia was groaning and she subsequently threw up all over the chair. Glenn took Caleb and Hannah to Imagine RIT and had fun exploring with them while I stayed home with the sickies and did LOTS of laundry. All in all it was a pretty good day. I had a date with Glenn and got to meet some neat people and got to hear the answers to a lot of questions I hadn't even thought of asking yet and to hear from people who have been there and are there and be encouraged. I got lots of laundry done and got to snuggle with sickies. God is good, all the time.