Text updates

Here is a text I just received from A. (Door = finally a door for the baby's room!)

Boson was in car while I tied door on roof.  While buckling him in we had this conversation:

Boson:  (crunch crunch)
Papa:  what are you eating?
B: cookie. 
P: really?  Where did you get a cookie?
B: ( crunch)
P: is that a cookie or a rock?
B: rock
P: can you give it to papa?
B: (spits out pebble. )

Checking in

Evaluation at the feeding clinic this morning, which went as expected. He ate a little better while observed than he has been at home (naturally), but showed enough resistance for the therapist to get an idea of what we're facing. A leaned to the pessimistic while I leaned to the optimistic/defensive when describing where B's norm lies and what he is capable of. Pretty standard for us. Evaluations always leave me feeling a little sad and a lot tired, even when they go well. B, however, was delighted to have a new friend to impress and named all the things for her, snuck up behind her to 'surprise' her, and generally spent the two hour appointment in constant motion. With underweight / failure to thrive babies they're always looking for signs of malnutrition, especially low energy. "So lethargy is not a problem here, huh?" the therapist said, as B sent Guy around and around in the office chair, yelling SPIN! SPIN! WHEE, Guy!!

No, lethargy is definitely not a problem we have.

I wasted four hours last night sitting through a useless Secured Transactions lecture, while the professor on screen did little more than just read through 42 pages of dense definition, the language barely changed from the UCC. Being the location administrator has a serious downside at times like that, but I made the most of it by writing up my notecards in class.

I have a short video of B ruckusing the car, a 68 second snapshot into life with B. I suspect it may only be interesting to me and B's grandparents, but it is notable that while he never really slows down in the video, he never slows down ever. My kid doesn't do idle.

A few weeks ago, A set up a playdate with some old Peace Corps friends who recently adopted. It was good to hear their experience, especially given that they went with an open domestic adoption here in state so it's pretty much the road we're likely to take. B was crazy for their five month old and has been asking for him by name ever since. I have down days (*cough* bar prep *cough*) but I think that adoption is looking like a very real possibility for us. Crazy that we could start the process this calendar year and, between the statistics and being open to any race, possibly have a new addition to the family by this time in 2013. Wild.

4 more weeks to the Bar. Mom arrives tomorrow for the duration, for which A and I are incredibly grateful. Our neighbor is putting her up in their guest bedroom for a nominal fee, for which I am even more grateful. 4 weeks of co-habitating with Mom, baby, A, and Barbri in a 600 sq/foot house wouldn't have been good for anyone.

Back at it.

Way better than the Bar

B and I went to the zoo today and it was awesome. He was crazy for all the fish exhibits, though the Canada geese, people, and rocks often stole the show.

(fish video)

The tigers were lying in a recessed area, so B could only see them if I stood on a concrete curb and held him up. He would watch for a few minutes and then tell the tigers bye-bye, but as soon as I walked away a few steps he'd kick me in the thigh and demand another tiger fix.

Also, did you know the seals have BALLS to play with? And they weren't even making good use of them! B was appalled that a perfectly good ball could go ignored. In water, no less.

An excellent selection of rocks. 

"Monkey!"

He managed to direct almost the entire four hour trip from the Baby Bjorn by digging his heels into my thighs and leaning toward his goal. We revisited the tigers, monkeys, and bears a number of times. He  regularly demanded Down! to go befriend the Canada geese (again some more) or commune with the gorillas. He chased a few other kids around and generally wandered off when it suited him. It was a really, really nice day.

Home

 Oh, what's that, you ask?  Just my kid enthusiastically eating a bagel AND pasta sauce AND milk AND a pouch of fruit. In one meal. No big deal. 

Guy was also famished, apparently. 

I have absolutely no explanation for how or why this happened, but how great is that? He demanded bagels after we got home from the hospital and kept it right up through bedtime. Go figure.

Which brings us to the hospital... it wasn't so bad. He was in and out of the OR within an hour and it was essentially as easy as could be, though walking in to help put him under is always a bummer for us. He didn't need any dilation this time so we were home again with a drunk baby five hours after leaving. His airway is still too small - he's breathing through a space that is only 60% of the diameter he ought to have - so we'll be heading back again in 6 months... and then 6 months after that... and so on. Oh my god I was so hoping we'd actually be done with this issue. 60% is borderline, any narrower and the flags go up. That means we also still face the risk of a scary-ass surgery if things don't go well. For right now, though, we're good.

We ran into a couple of B's specialists in the surgical waiting room. How to say this... they tend to seem frustrated with us. Just as I got a persistent feeling last year that the doctors thought I was some crazy hippie mom forcing B to exclusively breastfeed (despite tearful pleas for help with his feeding issues during appointments because, you know, my kid/boobs were holding me hostage), I still get the same weird impression from them. Like we're ignoring their instructions or skipping appointments or something. Which we don't, ever. Any order they've given, we've followed. We may ask for explanations and alternatives, but we've always gone with their recommendations in the end. It is possible that we've 'missed' appointments, since their scheduler (worst. ever.) has scheduled us for major diagnostics in the past without ever calling us to let us know. Probably doesn't help that when A gets stressed he comes off as combative (all in the tone), but whatever. Getting that pushback from the docs gives me a pain in the ass. If we are offered multiple options, with multiple specialists giving us different recommendations, it's unreasonable to act as if we're irresponsible for not following some (often unspoken) advice. If you want us in every three months, make a date. If you want us in your clinic, say so. If you want B to get a g-tube, make the argument. We're not unreasonable but we've been around the block enough times to need a real conversation before signing him up to get cut. For pete's sake.

Phew. Ok. I also really need to post some video of B. His new favorite word is Envelope. (Enbelow-puh!) At all hours, envelope! And wheelbarrow (wee-roo roo!), eagle, and penguin and monkey. We're going to the zoo this weekend in the big city. I think he's going to love it.

Break

Long, long week. I have learned my lesson - breaks are good. Breaks are necessary. Working 6 to 12 hours a day for a week, without seeing B, is a bad thing. This weekend I'll do some review but that only when the babe is asleep.

Mom arrives on the 2nd for a month long stay and we are so grateful. We even found a room for her at a neighbor's house! I think A's life will get a lot better after that. OH! And B has been discharged from therapy. No more physical or occupational therapy - consensus is that he's all caught up to kids born full term. Which is just... awesome.

We still have a couple of other issues. Feeding, naturally, and we've got an appointment at a Children's Feeding Clinic. B's airway issues need a checkup. We're bringing him in to the Children's Hospital tomorrow for a repeat bronchoscopy. This will be his... 8th bronch? 10th? So many that I honestly can't remember how many times he's gone under for a scope or dilation. Usually he wakes up disoriented and mad, sometimes we need to spend the night at the hospital, and his feeding is usually off for at least a few days after. Last year they told us that it looked bad and he might need a laryngotracheoplasty and I lost it. Then we had repeat bronchs every three to four weeks, and a few months later things turned out ok and he didn't need the terrifying surgery. We know it will probably be fine tomorrow (of course, we thought that once before) but he's overdue for a tune-up on his subglottic stenosis. Bottom line, we need one more clean check up before we can check that problem off our list of things to watch for.

In sum, probably everything will be fine. But hospital days make me jittery.

Bar review is going better. I'm climbing up the percentiles, my last mini test almost gives me hope that I might pass this sucker. Almost, maybe.

Pretty much that's my whole life now. B. Bar. B. Sleep.

Should I go to Law School?

ProtoAttorney over at AttyWorkProduct put out a general call for reponses to that eternal question, 'Should I go to Law School?' (or, as I've more often seen it, 'I'm going to law school, don't let your facts get in my way.')

My answer is probably the most common and least popular one - Maybe. Probably not.

Like Proto, I was also not a green kid wandering into law school. I was 28, had been developing a career in non-profits for about ten years. Between undergrad and law school I managed a political campaign, worked in a rehab facility, did grassroots organizing, worked for a national non-profit agency (*cough*) and an international environmental organization (*cough cough*). I was also usually working at least two jobs at any given time to make ends meet, so I had many concurrent jobs as a baker, barrista, and substitute teacher.

I was frustrated, though, because I rarely felt like I was accomplishing anything significant in my non-profits. It always seemed like it was either too little or too late by the time the issue landed on my desk. I wanted to live in the sticks, I wanted enough income to only need one job (a rarity in my community), and I wanted to maintain some work-life balance. I know this will sound absurd to any other lawyer, but in my small town in Alaska my only friends who had the trifecta were lawyers. I also knew that social workers and librarians, my other ideas, tended to get laid off at the first budget cuts - I knew this because I was once at the grant-giving end of the system and that's always what happened when we had to reduce funding. If I was going to invest in another degree I at least wanted the option of a broader field or more income, if I were to get laid off.

So law school. Even once the idea took hold, though, I wanted to be sure. First point: BE SURE. If you don't know what lawyers do, if you don't know what their day looks like, do not go to law school. Seriously. Would you buy a house or an insanely expensive car without ever seeing or test-driving it? No, not unless you were a complete idiot.

So, not wanting to buy a few decades of debt for a profession I'd hate, I got a job in the courts. I highly recommend this. If you're serious about law school it is well worth the time as a paralegal or clerk or a volunteer for CASA. Talk to a lot of lawyers and listen to what they say about their jobs. There's something about the law school applicant that blinds us/them to any negative information. If an attorney tells you there are no jobs, listen.

The remainder of my story. I worked for a year as a clerk in a district court with a criminal (felony) / civil docket. I had a great judge, and I learned a lot. I knew that I wanted to be a trial lawyer and got to see a lot of trial lawyers in action. I learned from watching their unique styles what worked and what didn't, and because my job was to manage juries I heard after the verdict was returned how the jurors viewed each approach. I also knew in advance how public interest lawyers like me were viewed by the court staff, jurors, and the public. I knew that my side doesn't get to win often, that the pace was brutal, and few clients were grateful regardless of the outcome. But I also learned that the job was never boring, that it worked with people at a critical moment in their lives, and the type of person drawn to the field was my type of person. There's a lot to be said for working with people who share your values.

Because I knew I wanted to work in public interest law, I prioritized price and scholarships in the schools I applied to. I will say - look carefully at the terms those schools attach to their scholarship. Do you need to stay in the top 10% to keep it? Be suspicious. Assume you will lose that scholarship and do the math accordingly. Do they have a healthy LRAP program? Do they send students into your field, and maintain contact for mentoring? The job market still sucks, so keep these things in mind. OCI, at least in my area, is pretty much dead. You'll need to work your connections. Also, tuition at my law school went from $6,000 a year in-state in 2002, to $17,000 a year in 2008, to $31,000 this year.  And that's in-state. This is not an isolated phenomenon.

So, I did my homework, knew the sub-speciality I wanted to work in, developed a backup plan and connections in another sub-speciality just in case, applied for scholarships, found loan repayment and forgiveness programs, and worked my connections like my life depended on it. And in the end I got my job offer in my field, over hundreds and hundreds of applicants for one of a handful of positions. (Another note: don't assume that public interest can be your fall-back. The competition can be just as intense and many PI employers value a showing of commitment - interning in 2L and 3L - over grades, rank, or your law school pedigree.)

My advice - if you know what a law job looks like, have dipped your toe in to see if it suits you, have looked into the legal market, have really given serious thought to the debt and repayment, and have talked to lawyers and been open to negative information they might give you - if you do all that and still think law school is for you, go for it.

But if you're thinking of law school because you don't know what else to do, because your uncle/dad/neighbor told you you should go, because you want to wait out the down job market, because someone told you law degrees are portable outside the legal field, because you think a law degree confers prestige or comes with a huge income - DON'T GO. Seriously.

Go to law school because you want to be a lawyer, based on real facts with a real plan for the debt. It is, and ought to be, that simple.

So you say you have a skinny baby...

3rd percentile here we come!

(Preemies get adjusted charts -- X's showing his actual age and the * tracked back to his age had he been born on his due date.)