Small Town Life

Happy Monday! This past weekend Eli and I accompanied Marc to Lakin, KS so he could work in their ER for the weekend. Lakin is about 3 1/2 hours west of us and not too far from the Colorado border. It is a town of about 2,000 people. There is a Subway, two or three local restaurants, an ice cream shop, a few gas stations, and a small grocery. The hospital is actually new and very nice for such a small community. This was Marc's third time working in Lakin, but the first time we were able to go with him. The hospital fortunately had some housing available this time so we decided to try it out to see how easy/difficult it would be caring for Eli out of his environment. It was a little bit hard not having access to things from home but I think Marc REALLY enjoyed the company so we will definitely try it again.

The county hospital in Lakin has a nursing home and an assisted living center attached to it so we stayed in a studio apartment in the assisted living part. There are probably ten or so residents currently living there. Eli's tantrums and night time awakenings were probably a little too much for them. :) I am sure they were ready for us to leave so they could have their peace and quiet back! However, when Eli was being sweet he brought a few smiles to their faces. I can now feel that his molars on the bottom have cut through so I hope he starts sleeping through the night again soon. I think we are going to do some sleep training this week if things aren't much better (aka lettting him cry it out!) because I think he is getting used to us coming in and soothing him back to sleep every time he cries. It will probably mean two or three very sleepless night for all of us but usually that is all it takes to get him back into his routine. We'll see how that goes!

We don't have a portable high chair so Eli ate all of his meals on the floor in the apartment (on a plate of course). I am not sure what I was thinking the afternoon I served him ravioli for lunch! His bib kept it off of him but he got it all over the floor, furniture, and me. :) Not a good idea! He did pretty well with his cheerios and milk though.

Marc had very few patients all weekend. He saw two people on Friday night when we arrived, had clinic until noon on Saturday and saw about 10, and then saw a few on Sunday afternoon. Overall, it was a really easy weekend for him. Because Marc had so much free time we took Eli to the community pool on Saturday and to a school park on Sunday. We were planning on going back to the pool on Sunday (you can't beat $1 admission!) but Marc had a few sick patients come in that required a lot of his time. Once he was free, he took Eli to swim in the indoor PT pool at the hospital where he tried out swimmies for the first time and bobbed under water with Marc. He loved going under water! Here are some pictures from the pools and park.

We left at 6:30 on Sunday evening and were home shortly after 10pm. It was a great weekend! Since I didn't get my shopping done yesterday I ran to Walgreens over lunch today and to the grocery store tonight. I am going to put an update up later this week on The Grocery Game. You won't believe all the FREE things I have gotten on my shopping trips so I will take a picture to prove it. :) I think I am officially addicted to coupons!