M.I.A.

We've been crazy BUSY lately.
Starting with back to school:  Bayli loves her new school and new teachers.  She is super excited about learning French and riding the bus. 
I wasn't so excited because my baby is gone all day, her school was a bit hectic that first week, and the first day of school I was called in for jury duty.  So, I missed all the firsts.  Thank goodness Jed took a bazillion pictures.

Speaking of jury duty, that was interestingly lame.  And yes I was picked as a juror.  4/25 really, what are the odds?  Kind of one of those situations where you know without a doubt your number is going to be called, as much as you fight against it.

Jed realized how crazy my day can be while I was M.I.A. with the justice league.

Get everyone fed.  Dressed.  Send Bayli off on the bus (for the first time).  Get Chase to preschool.  What do we do with Lily?  Send her to Grandma's (big thanks).  Who picks up Chase?  After school play-date with Macey (thanks wonderful friend).  Who will see Bayli get off the bus?  (have her walk home with the neighbors-thankfully court didn't last all day so I got to help with this one.)  Off to swim lessons (I know Jed was most grateful that he didn't have to deal with this on his own). Oh crap,  we forgot Bayli's swim gear.  Leave a tearful 6 year old with a loving Grandma that surprised her with a swim lesson visit.  Head back home for swim gear.  Whoops, shut Chase's fingers in the door, the sacrifices everyone must bare. Grandma topped it off with providing dinner, much appreciated.
Thank goodness we have such wonderful friends and family!!!

Lily has been working on her super hero moves.  She is blessed with speed, fearlessness, and her mommas tongue.  If she isn't running around, you can bet she is either scrounging off the floor with her mighty tongue, investigating for criminals-typically in everyone's shoes, or practicing her dismount from the couch.  Seriously we have determined that she will bare the first broken bone. We have yet to come up with her super hero title.   

Chase has been busy with his love/hate relationship with school.  He secretly loves it, he just doesn't like to do what others tell him to.  So I have to threaten that I am going to school instead, works like a charm (at least for now).
He has also been busy practicing for  trucking 101 complete with sound effects.  He cracks us up with his broken stroller trailer.  He can pile his "trailer" pretty high.  And you better look out when he is on the road, no toes are spared.  And shoot, chair in the way?  Well he'll just plow on through it.

Don't get me wrong, it hasn't been all fun and games around these parts.  We have been up to serious business.  Our garden is crazy mad.  We have had a constant influx of tomatos, corn, zucchini, carrots, peppers, and squash.

Also we have been trying to identify who our mysterious ghost is.  Yeah, that dust print is legit.  Poor lil feller, plum flew inna ar winder.  We are pretty sure it was a dove.  As evidenced by, dusty print (they do hang out on the ground quite a bit), too big to be one of the sparrows (they frequent the window enough that we would know), oh and biggest sign, we found a carcass under the tree.

I have been busy working on my run.  Rather, overcoming injuries that I keep accruing while working up to this:

 That in it's self, deserves it's own post. 

thoughts on being a nurse

Being that it is Nurses Appreciation Week, and I am a Nurse, I wanted to write out some of my fondest memories of carrying that title.

1) I get to see some of the best visits from the Hair Fairy (not on my daughter or myself).
2) I have to challenge myself with new sites and smells. Some I never want to experience again.
3) I thrive yet despise a good adrenaline rush. Especially at 3 am.
4) I feel my blood pressure reach the boiling point when I get to deal with baby docs. Also when veteran docs are useless.
5) For 12 hour increments, I have an immense responsibility of caring for someones loved one. Someones mother, father, brother, sister, wife, husband, son, daughter, grandparent, etc.
6) I get told genuine thank-yous. Yet, I also sometimes get cursed at.
7) I get to challenge myself with being a great advocate for those who can not or do not know how to speak for themselves.
8) I get to share some of the most tragic and some of the most memorable moments with strangers. Often those strangers and I form an extension of friendship that I have never experienced anywhere else in my life.
9) I see the closeness of family and get to share the loss of another with them. I am always surprised how a family desires to embrace a stranger.
10) Most of all, I get to spend time with some of the most courageous souls I have ever met. They have no idea how much they bless me. Often I get more out of the relationship than they would ever know.

Almost 6 years ago I had the privilege of caring for one of the funniest, pleasant, loving, courageous, and appreciative cancer patients. He wrote this poem while on an extended visit. It is quirky and cute, definitely amateur, but I love it.

Guy in My Room

My dear Neldon haste to stand back at this time pace...
Another named George has taken his place.
He stands by my side...
Tall and stately is he
But as skinny, skinny as can be.
With a blue belly tied to his middle
He works all the time
Except when he's empty, kinked or unplugged.
Then he makes a squawk-that makes me bugged.
But glad to have a partner to take
me for walks...
and to the bathroom way to much.
Hold my IVs, blood, meds, and antibiotic.
I hope he don't think I'm neurotic.
As long as he's standing there
I know I'm safe.
Till I am able to get out of this place!

I love my job. It is an extension of me that could never be replaced. Sure there are days, weeks, months that I would rather be somewhere else. But I know that there would be an emptiness in me that could only be filled with sharing my time and talent with others.