Today was Halloween. May was a dog, and Ben was a frog. Jill took the kids to downtown Collingswood for trick-or-treating which was too busy and crowded. I took the kids down the block for trick-or-treating.

May and I had a fight about who would carry the pumpkin bucket that we filled with candy. May wanted to carry it, so that she could stop, unwrap some candy, and then eat it. This really slowed us down, particularly because May is not good at unwrapping candy. We had a fight, and I won. She said, "Dad, you're a monster!" Naturally, after dinner we gorged on chocolates and we got along a lot better after that.

We ate so much candy that I was too sick to do yoga.

I've very tired today. Ben had another eye surgery earlier in the week and between that and Halloween, I've had to stay up late to keep up on things. Right now, as I type, I'm reviewing the recording of a lecture I missed, reviewing some notes I made on this, and blogging.

The lecture I'm reviewing is talking about the cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee back in '93.

On Saturday, Jill and the kids went to the apple farm while I stayed at home and studied. The got some delicious apples, and some pumpkins, and some other things - particularly apple cider donuts. May got to eat an apple cider donut for breakfast yesterday. I talked with her yesterday morning about it.

"What did you have for breakfast today, May?"

"Oatmeal squares," she said. She likes this kind of cereal.

I said, "Did you have anything else?"

Her eyes light up, "Apple-Cider-Donut!"

"And how was that?" I asked.

"It was awesome!" she replied with absolutely no self consciousness.

Today at dinner, Benjamin was pretty wild and pretty hungry. When he saw me cooking the chicken, he would point at the pan and scream. Usually we figure out what he wants and give it to him, but he had to wait. Jill was able to get him to watch a little bit of Elmo, but Ben is not yet "good" at watching TV. In other words, TV doesn't grab hold of his mind and crush his desire to do things, as it does with so many of the rest of us. Watching TV with Ben is highly interactive and to keep him interested you have to give a constant play by play of what Elmo is doing in the show.

We sat down for dinner and Ben immediately grabbed all the chicken on his plate, crammed it in his mouth, and swallowed. Then he began to bang his plate on the table until more meat was put on his plate and he could cram it down his gullet. He also ate a few noodles.

Earlier today, Ben and Jill walked by the neighbor's house and Ben said (or so I am told) the neighbor girl's name clear as a bell, "Parsley." (That's not her real name, but I'm trying to be more sensitive about protecting other people's identity in my blog.)

Dr. Buesher, the professor who runs our bacteriology lab, had a bad day in the lab today. A lot of people kept screwing up the simple diagnostic tests we had to run to determine the various strains of bacteria we were assigned. He kept swearing up and down that we all had the same samples, then he would catch people doing the tests wrong and explain, patiently and professionally, how to do the tests correctly. We got out of the lab on time, but just barely. I think Dr. Buescher likes to see us all get out of lab early.

I have an exam on Friday.

I've been interested in creating polls in Facebook lately, go ahead and fill this one out.

Tonight for bed, May wanted to read her 'Jimmy Neutron' book. She said, "I really like this Jimmy Neutron show. It's on Nickelodeon."

I asked her, "What do you like about Jimmy Neutron?"

"I don't know," she replied honestly.

Benjamin took some very poor naps this afternoon. He slept for about 30 minutes this afternoon and insisted on no morning nap. This is not enough sleep for a 16 month old baby to be getting. Jill told me this morning that he spends all day either getting into trouble and making mischief, or having painful accidents falling down, tripping, or leaping off of things he shouldn't. I did manage to see him playing in the sandbox this afternoon without being naughty or getting hurt. He spent about 10 minutes trying to shovel sand into a bucket.

When I got home from dinner, I noticed that Jill was in the process of forgetting about and throughly burning the beans I had asked her to boil briefly this afternoon. I think her plan was to burn the beans and then force me to eat chicken. I foiled her scheme by opening a can of beans and beginning the meal from scratch again. My only regret: canned beans, though still inexpensive, are slightly more expensive that dried beans.

We visited my grandma last weekend and really enjoyed ourselves. It was very relaxing and the kids were very well behaved. They got to spend most of Sunday playing with my cousin's son, Ariel, and they loved it. Grandma was in good spirits, and my aunt and uncle were able to visit for lunch before running back to the office to work on Sunday. We drove back late Sunday and I studied until midnight. I've been feeling a little behind all week.

I'm pround to announce that my tofu polunga recipe won second place in the vegetarian category of the American Medical Students Association recipe contest. To check it out, or perhaps try the recipe yourself, see http://www.amsa.org/tnp/2007RecipeContest.pdf - I always thought it was a good recipe and am proud to see the medical students around the country agree.

Earlier this week, I had more of a mixed bag of culinary achievements. I went to the an Iftar celebration of the muslim student union on campus to support muslim students. Jill normally disallows any sort of evening activity, but because I had to volunteer the same night in Philadelphia, and because Jill is a strong believer in promoting religious and cultural tolerance, I was allowed to go the Iftar breaking of the fast. Unfortunately, many other students arrived before me and, though not many people had been fasting, many feasted on the the food for the fasting before I arrived. I got some pita bread and some hummus, which was really good. My friend, Katina, was so upset that the food was gone that she invited me to come to an AMWA (women in medicine group) lunch the next day. I agreed and then went to get a slice of pizza with Alithea and Curtis to fill up. We went to NYPD Pizza, which has very good pizza, and I got a slice of 'Brooklyn style' which had too much stuff on it. Next time, I'll just get the cheese.

Anyway, we went to the back of the pizza parlor and sat down to eat. The back door of the pizza parlor was open, and an enormous pitbull was restrained behind a flimsy tension gate. This dog's head was about as big around as my chest. The owner and some workers were teasing the dog, by pretending to beat up a kid (presumably the dog's owner or friend). I was trying to eat my slice while Cujo thundered and rattled against the toothpick gate. Finally, the owner must have felt sorry for us and put the dog away.

Before I talk about the next two free lunch events I attended, I should say that there are a plethora of free food giveaways (usually cheap pizza) to convince you to come and hear someone talk about medicine or to try and convince you to volunteer. Many of the clubs on campus that give the free lunches have 'leadership positions' open in which you work with a team of bright, overachieving students to organize the delivery and consumption of the free pizza. I am the secretary of the emergency medicine club, which means I print and distribute fliers about free pizza lunches.

The next day I went to the organizing meeting for the Women in Medicine group. They had wonderful Malaysian food from the Banana Leaf restaurant. The Pad Thai was possibly the best I've ever had. The women were a little suspicious of me, as I was the only man at the meeting, but I had two cover lines that I used to blend in with the crowd.

1. Actually, many of the issues that we talk about as 'women's issues' are really 'family issues.' When there are discussions about work/life balance, only women attend, but work/life balance affects everyone in the family, dad included. Affordable childcare, also sometimes called a woman's issue is really a family issue as well.
2. I support women in medicine (just as I support muslims on campus) and women in general. Women can do anything they want to, often women like to tell me what to do, and I do it. I like working with women and talking with women. I like the way women smell. Men usually don't smell as good and are not as sensitive. Additionally, women can have babies, are smarter than men, and wear a bra.
   

Wednesday was my last free lunch event of the week. I went to a talk on the latino community in Philadelphia (75% peurto rican, BTW) and public health concerns. I had a pickle, half a turkey sandwich, and half a roast beef sandwich. Then I went to a meeting where two faculty members and a small group of other students watched my terrible standardized patient interview. I showed them the best part of the interview and they thought I was pretty good.

News of the kids.

Yesterday, Ben, May, and Jill did their toenails. Benjamin loves to get his nails painted with the girls and practices on his own with toy makeups and real makeups. He also does his own chapstick and can put the cap back on the chapstick by himself.

May and Jill had a fight about what shoes Jill was going to wear the other day. May didn't like the shoes Jill was going to wear and got very upset because they were 'too old.' They went back and forth about the shoes until May earned herself a timeout. Jill got to wear her old shoes.

Yesterday was a really hard day for us. I had to stay in Philly until 10:30 PM, so Jill had to do dinner and bedtime with the May and El Destructo by herself. Whenever I miss the witching hours with the kids, I try to get Jill a chance to get out of the house by herself and do something she enjoys, for example, walking around the town and listening to MP3s of NPR.

Yesterday morning, I was watching the kids while Jill went for a walk. While I was using the toilet, Ben (aka El Destructo) tried to go down the stairs holding the railing and fell. He got a tremendous goose egg (worse than his fall in his grandparents RV) on his forehead. Later that day, El Destructo was struggling with his sister over the position of the cabinet doors of the television armoire. El Destructo lost that battle in a very dramatic manner when his sister smashed the armoire door into his head to give him a matching goose-egg on the other side of his forehead.

El Destructo knows a new word now. He can say, "Out-side." Or if that's not clear enough for you, he points at the door and says "OUT! OUT!" when he wants to go outside to play.

May is really into The Jungle Book lately. She found a stuffed teddy bear that she's called Baloo and a stuffed jaguar that she calls Bagheera. Bagheera and Baloo live a perilous existence at our house and are constantly plagued by diarrheal viruses, tonsilar problems, and scraped elbows. In between these dramatic problems, they have the more mundane trips to the potty and bedtime rituals.

My friend Mike visited this weekend. It was great to see him. We went to a bar and ate chicken wings and watched some of the Phillies game 3 loss to the Rockies. I was really glad to see him, but after he left I felt very sad and lonely.

This afternoon I got the score back on my immunology and virology exam and was pleased with my performance.

When I got home, Jill was very determined to bury some rocks in the back yard. She took apart a small pile of broken asphalt, and for each piece, dug a hole with an edging spade. After burying each piece of broken asphalt, she raked the dirt over the burial ground, and explained her plan to rearrange the kids' outside toys. She seemed pleased with the burial.

This week was a tough week for everyone. I had an exam on Friday and was very busy studying. The kids were very sick, and Jill scratched her cornea.

Early in the week Ben was still taking an anti-biotic for his ear infection, then he started getting the runs. We assumed it was from the anti-biotic, but read on dear reader, read on. After taking his anti-biotic for about four days, he broke out in hives. I was worried that he had developed an allergy to the anti-biotic. The doctor seemed to think that Ben was allergic to shrimp, which we had with some pasta 24 hours earlier. Ben didn't eat any shrimp, but Jill did, and she's still nursing him.

Then, May started coming down with something, we thought it was a sinus infection, and so did the doctor. The next day, however, May started throwing up and having diarrhea. We took her off the anti-biotic and she had the runs for a few more days before she broke out in hives. It took her a day or two to recover her strength, and she'll be going back to school at the next available opportunity.

Jill and I both came up with a diagnosis of rotavirus.

Anyway, on Wednesday Jill scratched her eye, so I cut my study afternoon short and came home to help her figure out how to get herself to the doctor. I looked in her eye and couldn't find anything and then we decided that she had to go see her doctor or go to the ER. Her doctor was out, so a neighbor drove her to the ER down the street.

After that, I drove Jill and the kids around to get some medicine and Jill called a bunch of people and talked about what was happening. She would call them and say, "I know that everything is going to be OK, yeah, I'm trying to take it easy." Then she would get off the phone and cry for a while before calling someone else she could be brave with.

So, there are not a lot of dentists that take our health insurance. We managed to find one dentist in a nearby, rundown neighborhood, called Camden. Camden is a predominantly African American neighborhood with few economic and real estate opportunities. Consequently, people call it a "bad" neighborhood, or, my favorite epithet, "America's most dangerous city." While it's true that a few bystanders were victims of a crossfire in a shooting a few weeks ago, it seems there is a chance of being shot anywhere in the Philadelphia area: a crazy nut opened fire on a bus driver and his passengers last week.

Our new dentist is a fascinating man. He's in the army reserve and has a masters degree in public health. I wasn't aware that dentists ever got MPH degrees as dental schools don't put much emphasis on social justice or public service. Our dentist, who could open an office anywhere, is obviously a guy who is trying to do his part to improve Camden. I think his practice is just starting as he sometimes has to answer the phone himself.

Anyway, Jill took May to the dentist in Camden last week. May is always used to being cute and getting whatever she wants. She threw a toy and hit an older African American woman in the hair. Jill asked her not to do that, but May persisted with various antics. May continued to struggle to get attention, and began lifting her shirt up. Jill asked her again to stop. Finally, an older African American woman stepped in and told May sternly, "You put your shirt down NOW!" Naturally, May obeyed.

Jill and May had to wait a long time to see the dentist. While they were waiting, a pair of older gentlemen spent some time de-constructing The Martha Stewart Show, which was playing on the office TV.

One of them said, "This is a crazy show. What's going on with this?"

"I don't know. She has this show that tells you how to do things you already know how to do. I've seen one show where she shows you how to fold laundry and another where she shows you how to set the table. Crazy show. It must be for stupid people." The other gentleman replied.

Neither gentleman commented on Martha's fake-new-england accent, nor on her empire built on selling hand towels to white folks.