Happy Birthday Sweetpea!

Here's my girl!

These are copies of prints that I made with my digital camera so the quality isn't great. Back when she was born digital was a poor substitute for film! Above: I think this is the day we came home from the hospital so she's about 24-30 hours old. And sleeping in MY bed!!!!! Honestly, I don't think that child slept again until she was 6 months old!



Baby's first Sunday at church! So she was probably about 10 days old. I look so young! Who is that woman??????
First day of school 2007! You've come a long way, baby! I love you!

Buy Local

So today is my middle daughter's 8th birthday. She's 8. I can't believe it. It only seems like yesterdayI heard my midwife saying, "Come on Magan, push your baby out!" and I realized in that moment that I was the only one that was going to get her out, not my encouraging husband, not my doulas, not my midwife. Just me. I pushed so hard the blood vessels in my eyes hemorraged and I had little red spots in the sclera (the white part). But that push got her under the pelvic bone and I realized a few minutes later I was really going to have a VBAC.

Anyway, that isn't event he point of this post. The point is that I am going to have lunch with the above mentioned baby at school and wanted to bring her flowers just for fun. So I was debating about whether to go to a local florist I've never set foot in or run to Kroger. Went to the local florist but my fear was they would be way more $$$ than I wanted to spend and I'd have to walk out empty handed and embarrassed. On the way in i noticed a computer repair shop next door so I popped in there to ask about the click buttons on my laptop. The guy said he could fix it but it would be around $150 and the easiest thing to do would be to just get an external mouse for about $10 at Wal-Mart. Big DUH! moment for me. That's an obvious fix! But how nice of him to tell me that! So I go into the florist tell her I what I want and shy (chepa premade bouquet or even a single rose for 8 yo b-day.) She's low on flowers because her shipment comes in this afternoon but says she can do a red rose for me. Puts it in a tube of water, wraps it in tissue, adds a bow and says, "You're all set, there's no charge!" WOW! I hope I can give both of these businesses some paying business sometime soon!

Ramblings....

Ramble #1: I don't watch Dancing with the Stars on a regular basis but have heard about Marie Osmond fainting after her Samba or Lambada or whatever she was doing. then I saw her interviewed on GMA this morning. She claimed that she fainted because of her allergies and the smoke in the air from the fires in S. Cal. I know I'm not a nurse yet but I have NEVER heard of anyone fainting because of allergies. She is sooooooooo clearly dealing with a health issue she doesn't want to talk about. Which is fine. She should be able to keep her health issues private but who told her to say it was her allergies? Even "I was so nervous about tonight that I didn't eat and my blood sugar got low" is more believable than my allergies made me do it.

Ramble #2: I get to observe in the OR tomorrow for my clinical day. I'm looking forward to it. The OR is very cool! But the best part is that I don't have to do any of the pre-clinical paperwork today. That is way cool!

Ramble #3: We have a German Shepard named Emma. She is almost 9 years old and we adore her! Occasionally she gets to run around the neighborhood when the gate gets left open accidentally. She always comes back when called pretty promptly. Well last night she got out and, with today being trash day, she came back with a little product of her scavenging. Guess what my brilliant dog brought home..... A STEAK! Yes, she found a steak in someone's trash and brought it home. Cracked me up! No, she didn't get to eat it. Table food makes her barf. But because she is a brilliant dog she dropped it as soon as I said, "Drop it, Em!" Love that dog!

Ramble #4: My laptop click buttons (I'm sure they have a proper name don't know what it is) don't work very well and it is getting very annoying. You click and sometimes it doesn't work. Sometimes you click once and it clicks three or four times. Need to get that fixed. Hope it isn't expensive.

Ramble #5: California Wildfires. Very very sad and scary for those folks. Reminds me of all the evacuation related to Katrina.

Ramble #6: Houston weather right now is absolutely gorgeous. Finally a real break from the heat and humidity. Highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s. Wearing long sleeves and long pants to run in the morning. LOVE IT! By mid October the Houston heat starts to get really really really annoying and it makes me CRANKY!

Things that I find shocking!

1. I recomended a book to a nursing school friend last week, Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler. I assured her it is up to date and the "Bible" of natural family planning/ fertility awareness. Than I got to thinking...the child that we charted and took basal body temperatures to conceive is going to be 8 years old on Friday, which means my copy of that book is about 9 years old. That is SHOCKING!
2. My Mini-van has 120,000 miles on it. It still runs great and I still actually like it as a vehicle but 120,000 miles! Really!?!?! That is SHOCKING!
3. It has been two years since I have seen my friend Teri. I hate that and find it SHOCKING!
4. When I look back at my posting as I started this semester I wonder who is that terrified person who was so freaked out by nursing school? Things are certainly busy and I have to get my work done but this is definitely doable, at least so far.... The fact that i was so off on my assessement of how hard this would be is SHOCKING!
5. That a little boy could get suspended from school for drawing a stick figure with a gun, I find SHOCKING! (And incredibly stupid! Boys have been drawing pictures with gun for a long long time.)
6. The number of people who hit my blog because they are googling stuff about nemas is really quite SHOCKING! (And a little disturing!)

I'm sure there's more but it is time to go off to class, Pharmacology here I come!

pumpkin patch day from a mom of 11 years

I read "Diary of a Mad Housewife" this morning and laughed at the idea that once you've gotten over a few "firsts" of motherhood you stop taking yourself so seriously...

"Eleven years ago, I don't think I would have given a dollar to my DD for a tooth that wasn't even real. The "FIRST TOOTH" would have been too monumental a moment to mess around with and I would have told DD that the tooth fairy knew it wasn't a real tooth.I don't take myself that seriously anymore. I can't. There are too many monumental moments out there waiting for us to mess with them."

So today after a soccer game, I took the girls to a local pumpkin patch and grabbed my camera on the way out the door. I DID NOT coordinate their outfits to go with each other and highlight the gorgeous oranges of the pumpkins. I DID NOT bring a brush with me to make sure every hair was in place for photos, heck, I didn't even make them brush their hair before we left. I DID NOT scope out the best spot for pictures fully framed with grass, blue sky and pumpkins. And I DID NOT get any fabulous pictures. I also DID NOT get freaked out about it. Actually it was kind of funny to see some of the moms of toddlers trying to cajole their little ones into perfect smiles and perfect poses. So here are my little pumpkins!

Made it through my first clinical day...

I stayed very very busy and I got to do some cool stuff. Basic stuff but nonetheless cool. I gave two subq injections, passed oral meds, cultured a wound, saline irrigated the wound and made a hospital bed. See, told you it was basic! I never really expected that I would be totally into med/surg nursing and despite having a good day, I'm still not. It's really hard to see people who are that sick, that might get better from whatever made them sick, but then they'll still have to deal with all their other health issues. For someone who wants to fix things, it just feels a little pointless! Next week we'll try again! In the meantime, lots and lots to do. Paperwork from my clinical day, two tests next week. Soccer game today. Hubby out of town. I'm stressed but should probably be even more stressed!

Going to the Hospital

It's 5 a.m. and I am at least awake, not sure about ready to go, for my first clinical day with patient care. Met my pt yesterday then did an enormous amount of paperwork. Then slept a little. A very little. I kept waking up afraid I had overslept. Now if I weren't used to getting up at 5 a.m. that might not be surprising. But the thing is that I get up between 5 and 5:30 every day!

Gotta go shower. Wish me luck!

Party party party!

Wedding: Check! Wonderful ceremony (of course it was done by MY hubby!) Bride and groom are in their 30s, thrilled to be finally getting married, and there's a bit of a tragic backstory (heart condition, life expectancy under 10 years, getting married anyway and going to make the most of the time they have together. Pray someone in the Texas medical center makes some stunning new cardiac advances very soon,) that made the "sickness and health, as long as we both shall live" leave everyone sniffling. But it was really really nice. My girls loved seeing the bride and all the flowers. Youngest dropped her dinner plate and shattered it into a million glass pieces. But there were so many other children there no one seemed to be too horrified just concerned that she not hurt herself. (She had two tiny little scartes on the top of her foot that were bleeding a bit, I tried to pass them off as spots of cranberry sauce off her plate but hubby blew my cover with, "That's not cranberry sauce." "I know that!" I said, "But cranberry sauce isn't scary!") She was upset until one of the waitstaff dropped a plate and two glasses about 5 minutes later!

Birthday party: That went off very well. Hubby thought the money was WELL worth not having the kids at our house even though out of 20 in the kindergarten class only 4 showed up! I invited 30 when the package price included 25 and was stressing that we might go over. HA! With other friends and cousins we had 12 kids total. Which is fine. I can't stand the mountain of presents that accompanies huge birthdays. So we have spent the morning getting Barbies out of the bondage of their packaging. Anyone with girls knows what I am talking about!

It's been over a week!

Since I posted anything here. Sorry 'bout that my devoted readers...All three of you...Ha!

So I had my first hospital day. It was all orientation. The closest I got to a patient was seeing a guy pushing an I.V. in the cafeteria. I still really like Flo. She's a trip and a half. Turns out her daughter has been a counselor at the camp my kids go to. My kids didn't have her but it is a small little church camp so the chances of that connection are pretty small. Next week, the fun begins. Bed baths, complete health history and vital signs. I really am more excited than nervous. i think the idea of interactingwith the staff makes me more nervous than anything else. Everyone talks about how busy the nurses are on the unit and being polite but assertive if you have questions and don't take a curt answer personally it is only because they are all so busy. That makes me nervous! After my clinical day I have pathophysiology until 9 p.m. I was soooooooo tired on Thursday and I spent a good part of orientation sitting at a computer! I was also the only person in patho in wearing scrubs so unless there were some people skipping I am the only one the nursing school saw fit to schedule a day that starts at 6:30 a.m. and ends at 9 p.m. Who did I piss off to get that assignment?!?!?!?

Other news....
Today we are going to a wedding (hubby is officiating) and then we are having Natalie's b-day party. (Yes, those of you in the know, know that her birthday was Sept. 2, I just couldn't get starting school, and b-day planned in the same month, so sue me). We are having it a a bounce house party place. I have never had a b-day party at a remote location before. We've always done them at the house. When I planned the party life was so overwhleming I didn't care how much it cost I was just thrillled to have it somewhere else! I am thrilled to have it somewhere else still but feeling a little lazy not having it here and spending so much money! But when I really think about it, I would have spent close to the same amount on food, decorations, etc. And now I can enjoy the wedding without stressing about the party that I have to put on afterward. The girls are very excited about the wedding and the party. They don't know the people getting married but just the idea of being invited was pretty cool to them!

Off to shower and get lovely for the wedding!