So sweeeeeeeeet!

Mary is blessing me today. She did so well with her NON sedation (just IV pain meds, no sedative at all), then we pulled out her NG tube because it was clogging so badly last night. Now she is eating like almost normal eating! She's had almost 2 pieces of sausage, some tator tots and some orange sections! With chocolate mik and ketchup. Her grafts are doing great. The surgeon resident was so pleased with what I had been doing on her face and thinks I'm doing fine and her chest is mostly ready just for this special cream-no more special film dressings. Most of all she's just back to talking, playing, smiling etc....

Visits

Today has been the first day of multiple visits here. Hollie came as well as my parents, and we finally let Robert in to see her today. He was concerned about her NG tube but otherwise was fine with her. They played catch-she would drop a ball and he'd pick it up. Unfortunately once he pushed it into her chest and she cried a minute but otherwise it was a nice sibling interaction. They also took a ride together in the wagon went well and shared some nuggets and soda that my co-worked Andrea brought. I am in awe over the outpourings of generosity, prayers, cash/gift cards, offers of , stickers and letters from friends, co-workers, family and even people we don't know! May God bless each of you!

Mary ate some today for breakfast-some sausage and all her juice. She really didn't eat lunch though. So we're going to work on moving her feedings to evenings/nights and see if her appetite returns during the day. They are still trying to get 1200 calories a day into her. She'll get 2/3 of that by tube and then hopefully the remainder she'll eat on her own. The occupational therapy/burn nurse was in today during her sedation and said that she will probably need a compression shirt for the next year to help with scaring. She also taught us some exercises to keep her arms loose and her wrist and what to look for that would indicate an issue.

I asked to see the plastic surgery person today (and the dietitian!) and saw a resident I had not seen before. He was very non-committal about how long she would need to be here-he thinks probably through the weekend at least. It really depends on how the dressing changes go. So we are taking it one day at a time. I'm glad to see the progress-especially in her laughing and generally acting more like herself. She wanted Wesley to tickle her feet today and laughed and laughed and then she and Hollie were playing peek-a-boo through the door and then she and Robert playing drop the ball :) It made me so happy! She's also had fun at least playing with her food-instead of being so adverse to the thought of it.

Her pain seems to be a little worse today. They had reduced the amount yesterday from 2 mg to 1 mg but it doesn't seem to hold her quite as well. I think I'll ask the nurse to do the motrin around the clock and see if that helps if not I guess we'll need to try 1.5 mg or something. I imagine that as she is moving more the skin is stretching some and hurts more. At the same time with the decrease in medication she has been more awake which has been nice!

Upward swing

I feel better every day. Today I actually blow dried my hair and put in my lost but now found contacts! And Mary did great during her sedation and we're seeing lots of healthy granulating tissue on her forehead and neck. I did get the OK from the surgeon to soak and work on her face as it creates more gunk-I can soak it and get rid of it. I've already been working out the scabs in her hair and she's doing fine with that.So it looks like we're getting closer to being able to take her home and have me do them at home. We had been looking at one issue but the surgeon was very reassuring and everything looks great. We no longer have to keep her still/keep her from rolling around. They have all taken root and are doing great. In fact they are encouraging us to let her move as much as possible to keep her from having contractures (tightening) from the healing burns on her shoulders. Physical therapy has looked at her yesterday and today while she was under sedation and everything looks good there.

Skin Grafts look awesome!

Well we had the great reveal and the skin grafts look awesome. I am so relieved. Actually that is an understatement. Her forehead still has some healing to do-it still gets gunky before she has her daily scrubbing but the rest of her looks really good. I was expecting the rest of her to look like her face-except with 5 days of gunk built up but with the new skin there it looks fabulous! There is one area that I'd like to ask the surgeon about when I see him (hopefully tonight or tomorrow) but otherwise we are so pleased. We did get moved to a private room last night after asking the nurse when the baby next door wouldn't stop crying and it is fabulous in here! So nice to be just us. Wesley is off to fix a work issue so it's just us girlies hanging out. And Mary is sleeping in her crib. Aah. I should prob take a nap too!

Move out!

So moving out is not all it's cracked up to be. We're now
a) squished into a tiny space
b) sharing a room with a fussy infant who had open heart surgery
c) downgraded to a recliner. There's not even room for a rocking chair in here

sigh. If we're here for ANOTHER 7-10 days I am going to go crazy. The baby should be discharged tomorrow but who knows what we'll get next

On the plus side Mary has had a pretty good day, she's been more alert and ate about 1/2 a popsicle. Her NG tube is still in. Tomorrow is the big reveal. I'm nervous and hoping for good news from the surgeon

Another day here

Mary had her sedation first thing again today. It looks like we are on for 10 am tomorrow with the sedation team so we might be moving out today if they have a room. I sent a ton of stuff home with Wesley yesterday-after seeing how small the floor rooms are I knew we had WAY too much stuff. Mary is still ultra fussy. We did get her pain meds increased today so hopefully that will help. As she is more alert and feels better I think she is more cognizant of how bad she feels. Her IV came out of her foot yesterday so I tried to get her to stand up-and she was so shaky she could hardly stand. I think it really hit me then how long this is going to take to get her back to normal. I definitely think that getting full feedings through her NG tube is helping a lot-she is perkier and awake more now that she has enough calories. She's getting about 1200 calories/day which is great. But she has totally lost the desire to eat/drink by mouth. In reality she is back to newborn status. We had a great night last night-a 3.5 hour stretch which is the longest stretch I've slept in a week. Which is really sad! She has gone back to wanting to be held, it was really sad yesterday when she didn't even want me to hold her. I think she was just so miserable.

The visits yesterday went OK. I hadn't slept well at all the night before-I think we were up every 2 hours at least and she was fussy and I was just out of it. I've spent so much time just sitting with Mary in the last week, mostly here just by myself, although Wesley has been here a fair amount. It was so strange to see people and to be with Robert and out of the hospital and not fully centered on Mary and what she needs. We both took a nap afterwards and that helped a lot!

The resident said today that we might be doing this for another week/10 days. I guess we'll see what the plastic surgeon says tomorrow. I'm definitely staying for it tomorrow! The last 2 days I've left for the procedure since it's my only chance to eat breakfast.

Slow Progress

Mary is making progress, slowly but surely. She is more awake every day, her face and other burns appear to be healing a little more every day, she is talking more and interacting more. But she still isn't eating well at all. So we made the decision to put the NG (feeding tube) back in again. So far it has stayed in (which is a first-the other 2 lasted an hour each!). She's getting pretty high powered feedings -1.5 calories per ml (so like 7.5 calories per tsp!) at 1.5 oz an hour (45 ml/hr). In addition they are still providing regular food for her but I no longer am force feeding her which is a relief. Since I wasn't forcing her she actually fed herself 1/2 a pudding last night! Instead of cramming food in her we play with her new toys, read books, color, snuggle and watch cartoons. Except (shh) I change the channel when she falls asleep.

The nurses here have been wonderful. Each and every one. The one we had the last 2 nights took Mary out on a field trip last night-to see a bunny and fish tanks, a bigger tree (and she got to pick another present out from under it!) then painted her nails and put a bow on the NG tube holder that we invented that looks like a headband over her head. And her dog-dog got a Christmas bow. It was a blessed day. And Santa came in the morning with the news crew so she was on TV and got 2 more presents. So far she's gotten 5 just from santa/UVA yesterday-she also got like 7 from UVA a couple days ago-a plastic garbage bag full of really nice stuff-a lot of it from Shinanagans. So yeah, she's racking in the presents! We're still in the PICU although not PICU status-she would have to come back every day for the sedation during the holidays/weekend so it was easier for them to just keep her here then move her back and forth. I've really gotten to know all the nurses her so I'm just as happy to stay here too. Plus there's a couch here and just a recliner in the regular floor so that's a plus too!

Today family is coming for a visit and I think I'm going to get out of here for a little bit. I've not been away from her for a week except for 10-15 min to eat/shower (except when she was in OR) and I think it's time to spend some time with Robert and to let the grandparents and daddy spend some time with her! I'm letting her rest now hoping that she'll be bright eyed and cute when they come! She didn't sleep super great last night-her arms are in splints when I'm not holding her to keep her from pulling out her NG tube and every time she woke up she was all mad about it. Poor pumpkin. Well, she's staring to cry so I'll go. Thanks to everyone for you love and prayers. Please continue to pray for the adhesion of the grafts, no infection and for her to want to eat. The doctors are a little worried about her continued fevers-102ish last night even with tylenol every 4 hours but so far her cultures are negative and she doesn't appear to have pneumonia based on the x ray they did yesterday (to make sure the NG tube was in the right place).

Christmas Eve

I can't believe it's almost Christmas. Well I guess it isn't for us-we're postponing for a healthier time. Wes and I have talked and talked about it and I think with the ages of our kids it is better for us to all be home and have the big Christmas feeling of family and of course presents! Wesley still won't tell me what he got for me for Christmas-even during Mary's surgery! That guy!

Yesterday she was scheduled for surgery at 2:15 and then the called at 9:45 and said she was going *now*. Of course I had sent Wesley home for the night to get some laundry done and pick up more clothes (we originally thought she had mostly 2nd deg stuff and would be home for Christmas. ha.) Anyways she made it through, needing 4 areas of grafts-both shoulders, chest, lt wrist. After surgery when they took out the breathing tube it was full of gunk and she was needing oxygen after surgery so they sent her back to PICU. We'll hopefully move (back) out today. We had moved to the floor about midnight the night before :)

Mary had a good night last night. She slept the best she has slept since the accident and her temperature didn't start going up until this morning and wasn't as high as it has been. The doctors are saying that it is still looking like burn fever not infection although they did do a blood culture and a urine culture yesterday just to check (as well as a chest x ray). Her white blood cell count is way better than it was and that too is a good sign. Her oxygen level was good through the night and she is coughing more-and you can tell her throat hurts from the ventilator tube she had yesterday during surgery-she grimaces when she coughs. Poor girl. We're still keeping her loaded up on medicines-tylenol around the clock, hydrocodeine and morphine. Little druggie! It's been a fine line between keeping her comfortable and keeping her awake enough to cough, breathe well and eat but I think we're doing pretty well with it. At night I opt to just keep her comfortable and sleeping so we do more morphine then. During the day we do morphine as needed and the hydrocodeine.

Just found out that her face debridement is scheduled for 11 today and then we'll move out after that if there is a bed. Regardless I'm hoping for "floor orders" which will get rid of most of the wires. She's hard to hold between the bandages and all those cords!

Well Merry Christmas all!

Mary Update

We're having a quiet day here. She is officially a "floor" patient (so not really PICU status) now so we have fewer alarms and stuff going on. She is also needing less morphine so she's awake more although still comfortable with hydrocodone and tylenol (by mouth now!) and the morphine if she needs it. She isn't eating and drinking like they want but so much better every day. We still have to push her to drink, she's eating more though: today she ate all her applesauce and some scrambled eggs! Considering her first meal since snack on Sat was last night and all she ate then was a bite or 3 of pudding that's pretty good! She is still getting daily wound care with their magic solution (baby shampoo!) and then dressings of more sophisticated stuff. We should know this afternoon if they are thinking she'll need skin grafting soon. I really hope not. Oh how I hope not!
If she does end up needing a graft she'll be here "longer". No one has even attempted to tell us how long we'll be here, the best they'll say is we'll be here for Christmas. She wants to be held a lot so Wesley and I are taking turns holding her in the recliner. She's awake for a while and then drifts back off. Thankfully she slept pretty well in the crib last night, pretty much only needing the oral meds and one dose of morphine. The previous night she had needed morphine every 1.5 hours! She runs fevers on and off which they are still thinking is her normal body response to the burns. The tylenol is scheduled to keep on top of that. She's talking a little, last night I was feeding her some juice and about 1/2 way through she pushed it out of her mouth. I said "are you all done" and she looked at me and said "esh" just like she always does! I could have cried, it was so sweet to hear that!

PICU

How fast life can change. In the blink of an eye we went from the perfect snow day to the ED and now (about 24 hours later) to the PICU. I can still see it in slow motion, I was dropping a bullion cube into boiling water to make broth to add to the soup I was making and she came rushing in and grabbed it. I reached for it but I was too late. Splash, scream, running to the bathroom to put her under cold water, watching her skin start to peel off. I knew we were in trouble then... Til we got her to the ED (which wasn't long thanks to Roger having snow blown earlier) she was shaking and shocky. They got an IV in and morphine in so fast and had her up to the floor where we started the long difficult process of getting the dead skin off and everything dressed.

And so here we are, the first people moved out of RMH after the snowstorm, in the PICU. Thankfully they broke protocol and allowed me to ride with her, and her transporters were truly fabulous. The roads were so bumpy and that really didn't feel good to her at all so they kept her medicated and held on to her and talked to her the whole time. And they talked with me and cheered me up a little. From where I was sitting all I could see was her fuzzy head and she looked so normal from that view that it was a relief for a while to not be staring at her peeling face and body. Because truly she is a mess. She looks a little better this morning after her debridement last night and her new dressing works so much better. They used net wrapping and made her a long sleeve shirt, sewing the arms on using mask ties. I offered my embroidery floss (I'm still working on Mary's stocking) but the ties are working well. With this set up I can hold her if she wants (which she did briefly after the procedure but you could tell she was tired and uncomfortable so the nurse gave her some more morphine and I tucked her into her crib). I did hold her for about 45 min before the procedure and it was perfect. She seemed so happy snuggled up with me and well, I was so happy too.


Her biggest hurdles now:
eating or another NG tube. They put one down while she was asleep but we can't get it taped right since so much of her face is peeled. All of her face should heal great they say BTW. It was making her miserable and we weren't sure that it had stayed in position after the x ray so they decided to take it out. So today she really needs to eat. I tried to get her to drink pediasure last night but she wouldn't do it. Her lips are a little sore but not too bad and her mouth is OK

4ish areas of 3rd degree burns that will either heal on their own or have to have grafting. They will probably have a better idea which way it will go in 3-4 days but wouldn't do any grafting for a week if things were looking like they weren't healing.

The news from lake wobegon

It's been a not so quiet week here. The kids are all ramped up for Christmas. I didn't have to work much but Mary was sick part of the week and so that put a damper on us. But the house is decorated, cookies made and exchanged, 2 holiday parties (and the only2 this year I think unless Wesley's work does one) gone to-complete with gift exchanges. Whew! Suffice to say that the kids are both excited-although Robert the most so-for Christmas. And I frankly CAN'T WAIT. More for their sake than mine. Although I'm excited too!

We've been trying to do Christmas things each day and talk about the Christmas story. We just started the "what God wants for Christmas" set that Wes' aunt and uncle got us for Robert's first Christmas where you open a box each time you do it (there are 7) and each time its another figurine for the Christmas story.

Speaking of the creche we have the "new" Zairian creche up this year (the one we bought at the Sunnyside sale last year!) since it doesn't tip over as easily-and it is surrounded by every barn animal I can get Robert to part with. Every now and then he asks for a few more so we swap some out. lol. Not that he really ever played with the animals BEFORE I put them up!










And the other indication that we have small children is that our maticulously decorated (sic) gingerbread house is missing a large number of candies due to a little almost 4 year old who can push the chair over and snack. hmm.











And finally for the cost of shipping we have 2 adorable kids fully packaged and ready to mail to anyone who needs some chaos. Cookies included!

some pics!

Advent

I wish I had pulled the pics off the camera-but we went to the gym instead. But the kids and I had a great time today making cookies (martha stewart's sugar cookie recipe is GOOD) and decorating and eating them. I'd like to try to focus on the season this year. The last 2 years I've barely just survived days and Christmas has come and gone in a flurry of shopping, wrapping and wrangling kids away from the tree. Now I feel like we're thriving. I immagine though that by the end of the week (I'm working 36 hours this week) I'll be just surviving!

Wesley decorated outside this past weekend so that is done, now we just need to get the tree up-but I think we're going to wait until next weekend. Mary is already wrecking havoc on the candles-I think we'll hold off a little!

I just can't believe how they are growing up each day. Every day Mary talks more, is more nurturing (if I can't find her in kids klub I just find the smallest baby-she's there taking care of it). It's so bad that the person in kids klub today asked me if we were having another baby "for Mary". um. Not planning on it. I feel bad because I would have loved a baby brother or sister-but at age 8+ not at 2-3. I do think I will do my best to give her baby oportunities as she grows-let her be a mother's helper, babysit with her, do nursery etc. We had to take 2 baby dolls with us to the gym today (we left them in the car seat though). I love seeing her with the babies. Yesterday I went to get them up and she was sitting in her crib feeding a baby. I asked her if she was ready to get up and she said "no I feeding baby". She finished feeding the baby and then was ready to get up! lol. I would love to buy her the entire bitty baby set from American girl. I just looked at them again. But where to start and end?

http://store.americangirl.com/agshop/html/thumbnail.jsf/title/Bitty+Baby+Dolls/saleGroupId/129/uniqueId/95/nodeId/11/webMenuId/5/LeftMenu/TRUE/hiddNodeId/TRUE
Ohy.

Robert played playdough by himself (using the playdough scissors!) for probably 30 min today-it was crazy. Mary was helping with the cookies (Robert was interested at the begining and then decided that playdough was more fun) she loved rolling and cutting out! It was amazing to watch both of them. They are getting so big. Mary is still super excited about the pop up nativity book. She loves finding baby Jesus. She'll bring it to me "baby de-sus, baby de-sus, read baby de-sus". I'm so glad that they are interested in the real reason. I want to create magical Christmases full of wonder but I don't want to loose the real reason for the season. So it's cool.

10 on Tuesday

This week's topic is
10 things you want but wouldn't buy for yourself

from
http://www.yanowhatimean.com/tuesday/?p=284

Is this really a "santa baby" list? And no, these are not hints!

1. Really nice pots and pans (cephalon maybe?)
2. Really nice and expensive knives (chicago cutlery or similar)
3. Shark steam mop
4. Roomba
5. Le cruset baking dishes
6. Kitchen aid 6 qt professional mixer
(is it just me or is it pathetic that these are all house/kitchen items?)
7. Shopping spree for clothes
8. Compost bin
9. The complete american girl set for Kirstin
10. Gas stove with a grill section

Robert

This is evidently my catch up blog day. And frankly I forgot Mary's stocking and there really isn't much going on yet and all the other stuff is done so I thought I'd catch up!

I really don't have as much to say about Robert. Except that this week has been really great. He says he doesn't want to do x-y-z but will do them. 1-2-3 has been working well for him-I almost never get to 3. I've given him more freedom and he's listening pretty well so it feels pretty good there. He's still not really napping any more-I actually didn't even send him for rest time today-he was being great and helpful and we just worked on the house together. He helped put his toys away, put clothes in the laundry basket and shoes on the rack. He is really doing well counting-he'll look a a parking lot and say "look mommy-3 buses". Um, yeah. Today we counted that he had 5 grapes! It's really neat to see him growing and changing every day. Especially when I very clearly remember him at Mary's age and how he was pretty much the same. Except he was shyer. Mary will go up to a perfect stranger and start a conversation. Robert, not so much! He's certainly warmed up to social situations; he'll talk with people he knows, he'll shake hands at church, he'll tell the people at kids klub hi and bye. But he is still my seperation adverse child. Mary doesn't really care but Robert holds on to my leg at every parting. He's fine when I leave but he doesn't like it.

One of the things that was so funny today was that he was pooping this evening and I looked in and he was "reading" Reader's digest on the potty. I thought I would die laughing. It was too funny. He loves magazines (mostly catalogs) and carries them around endlessly. I don't know how many times we've read the target catalog. And yes he's making a list and checking it twice.

I've got to get this kid into preschool. I really think he'll blossom. I wish I had more gumption to do more pre-K stuff with him-more consistant coloring, writing, puzzles etc. But I think I'm going to have to accept that while I love teaching adults I'm just not good at getting my kids motivated to do stuff. And really I guess if I had wanted to teach pre-K I wouldn't have been a nurse!

Robert, you are such a cool little boy. I love you absolutely to pieces. You are growing up every day and I know you can't wait until you can ride the bus and go to school. In some ways I think it will be great when the kids go to school-I'll have more down time, less child care issues. But in another way it's scary! Oh so scary!

Mary Elizabeth!

What can I say about my little girl? I mean the little one with pigtails (when I can torture her into staying still long enough to put them in), the one that is talking like a blue streak. And singing! The one that threw an absolute fit over doll bottles friday (she wanted 3 we bought 1!). The one that is a total "bez" (pez) addict. This girl is a nut. All the time into everything. Lets see here are some of the recent ones and the explanation to why we spend so much time calling her "Mary Elizabeth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Gone is the fuzzy, Mary Bug, here is Mary Elizabeth!

-she dipped a cabbage patch doll in the toilet
-she then went and played in the other toilet while we were cleaning up the first mess-so 2 shirt changes in 2 minutes. And yes the doll had a bath.
-always in the trash can-she seems to be able to sense if I have thrown away something chocolate related-like a pudding cup top...
-opens and shuts the CD ROM drive on my computer
-re-boots Wesley's computer
-climbs up on the table
-reaches things on the counter that I don't think she can reach
-pulls DVDs off the rack
-pulls coins and all sorts of stuff off of Wesley's desk


But really she is the cutest thing. I mean really. If I could just keep up with the baby cyclone... she says "tank do mommy" when I give her anything. Yesterday she got Wesley's dog tape dispenser off of his desk and brought it to me and said "look mommy, dog, I LIKE THIS". I like this? Where did she pick this up from? She loves her "buppies" (puppies) and babies. And her me-maw and bampa (she can say grandma and grandpa for my parents-and loves them too but has clearly renamed Roger and Peggy and me-maw and bampa). I guess she told them.

She runs for me, snuggles, hugs and loves to read books. Especially lift the flap books. Her favorite (besides the 2 dog books) is "where's baby's belly button" she bring it to me "beyey button, beye button". She loves to look at pictures. And she's really good at finding the dog in all the pictures of Robert's Thomas book. "There's puppy, there's puppy!!!!!!! See, there he is". She loves the pugs and even mimics how R+P call them "Sam! and Ru-ey" She's learned how to block Sam.

But really my saving grace is that she still naps and naps well despite whatever else is going on in the house. Thank heavens.

How I adore you my (not so) baby girl! I can't wait to see you develop over the next years. I think naming you for Granny was meant to be-you certainly are spunky and I hope you face any adversity in your life with the same fortitude as I gather Granny did based on the stories I heard. God bless you sweetie-I really do love you soooooooo much!

10 things I'm thankful for

1) Salvation-I mean duh!
2) My Sweet Wesley. Thanks for putting up with me!
3) My sweet and crazy kids.
4) My friends and family at FWC and elswhere
5) Great family! Can't wait to see you guys soon!
6) A great babysitter
7) Gym with babysitting and food network (= bliss!)
8) Chocolate
9) A job that grows, changes and evolves. I love working here in all my various capacities. And I love being able to work with so many great people!
10) Being done with PALS, ACLS, tele class AND my portfolio! I feel so free!

Not me Monday

I did certainly not ignore yesterday that while we were standing in line at Arby's Robert dumped his cup of goldfish, then put them all back in and then proceed to eat a few more and share a few with his sister. Nope, not me

I did not sit enjoying my roast beef gyro and watch Robert wiggle all over the bench seat of the table pretending to take a nap instead of eating his food. Nope, not me

And I certainly didn't then sit next to him and call him a baby bird and get him to eat worm bites of sandwich and then cricket french fries until I knew he had enough food in him not to be a complete meltdown later. Nope, not me!

And I certainly did not sit in my office last night in the last hour at work and put a few minutes into working on my portfolio instead of dragging myself around the hospital again to round-even though I had only made one full set of rounds. Nope, not me!

And I certainly did not tear an old lady's skin while taking off a tourniquet-TWICE. Nope, not me. Because between that and getting supplies and filling out the incident form and the skin care form it took a full 1/2 hour just to draw a lab. Hence why I only had an hour left to round.... nope not me

morning bliss

I just had to post about how much I'm loving mornings recently. Even though the kids have been getting up earlier now that it's light outside (err) they wake up and make their way into our bed (Wesley lets them out!) with books and toys. And generally we spend 30 min or so together just chilling out, reading, playing, talking, singing, tickling. It is so much fun! It gives me a chance to just hang out and wake up slowly before getting breakfast made, getting us all dressed (and usually dragging us all to the gym!) It's just fabulous! And it seems to start the day off on a much better note-the kids are awake and ready to eat when it's over (no forcing Robert to leave his toys!), they've had some mommy time. I'm actually awake-because I work evenings so I'm not normally ready to go get 'em at 7:30-I don't get to bed until at least midnight several days a week.

Today after we got home from the gym Robert decided that we should take our PB+J lunch outside for a picnic. He's so smart. So we did. And then he decided he needed to poop so we went in and got ready for nap. I was able to get some cleaning up done and worked on laundry. And did devotions.

I'm actually working until 3 am tonight for a sick coworker which is really funny because we have 1 patient on peds (I'm a peds nurse tonight-my first love). We did have 2 treatment center patients that I had for a while. Other than that I've been hitting refresh on McMamma's (mycharmingkids) blog while waiting to hear if Stellan survived his surgery (yeah he did and it was a complete success!) and making a ton of discharge phone calls-2 solid hours of calling! Then I caught up on inservices and e-mails, and now really need to study for ACLS.

But I'm tired. I did 4 miles at the gym today :) I feel fabulous-strong and healthy-between running and 30 day shred. The last pounds are comming off steadily and I feel good. On friday I did manage the 5K straight running-30 min at 6 mph of running! Sat and Sun I did the shred. Today I did intervals of walking and then running 6.5 mph (I can do 10 min of that) and 2 min intervals of 7.2 mph. Lets just say that my heart rate goes to 178 at 7.2 mph. I think I'll need to work up to that! I'm going to alternate the shred and running and see how that goes. I've actually exercised every day since last sun!

The weekend was a much needed break. We just vegged. Had family for supper Friday but otherwise we just were. Sat I took Mary for her (H1N1) flu shot and then we ate out and got groceries. Sunday I had women's meeting after church and left it excited and hopeful for the future of this church-I think we'll make it :) Both of my nursery people showed up and Mary wore a dress and tights that was absolutely adorable. Oh so cute. And she wouldn't let me take it off! Little princess! Her incisors are in and she seems less cranky. Robert has flu mist (H1N1) scheduled for this sat so then they'll both have had at least one dose. I've had the H1NI shot but not the seasonal shot-now RMH isn't sure they'll get them at all. oops. The kids and Wesley have both had theirs. Wesley hasn't had the H1N1 shot though. So I guess if someone gets sick we at least won't pass it around as bad?

Robert has been trying to correct me recently "no mommy you don't talk to Robert like that" little stinker. Mary talks and sings and plays "tappe" non stop. She seems to think that it's a grandma game and tries to play it with Peggy too-poor Peggy! So I've been working on teaching it to her. They are starting to play together. Mary's new thing is books. Morning, noon and night. Books. And she's really learning the names of animals and trucks. She's something. She even knows zebra "zee-ba, see zee-ba".

circles

Do you ever feel like you just go around in circles? Each day the same, each week the same, each moment the same, just an endless rotation of sameness? That's how this week has felt. Endless picking up, endless loading/unloading dishwasher, endless meals, endless work, endless kid wrangling. Every day is the same with slight variations. I pick up the mess. The kids re-create the mess. I pick up the mess. I unload the dishwasher, it fills back up. I change the diaper, Mary poops, I change another diaper. I fix a meal, I clean it up, I fix another meal. I buy more groceries, I fix another meal, I clean it up. I do laundry and put it away, we create more laundry, the dog pukes, Robert wets through the bed, I track poop in-more laundry. I go to work, I come home, I go back to work in between fixing meals, washing clothes, picking up. Reading, holding, disciplining, listening to whining. It just never ends. Usually this doesn't bother me but for some reason this week I am so freaking TIRED of it all. Of the non stop work. Of never actually accomplishing anything lasting. I guess that is the real issue. Nothing lasts more than 5 min-even laundry which I really only do once a week-on weeks like this I started Sun afternoon doing laundry and I still have a load in the washing machine (the 6th maybe? or 7th? somewhere between snoopy puking and Robert's bed-how did he pee on his pillow? I'm still puzzled on that one).

The kids seem better but Robert has been SO emotional today. He cries at ANYTHING. I swear you look at him and he falls appart. And Mary is in a testing phase-she's hitting and trying all sort of stuff, and snoopy has been eating food off her tray so has to spend all meals outside barking her fool head off. And has been peeing on the floor by the fridge. I have no idea what is going on.

I took the kids to costco today. Wesley went with some coworkers to an oyster dinner and didn't think he would get to costco since he was comming home early so we could vote before work/nanny night so since we were out of milk (1/2 gallon of skim-no whole) we had to go-so it was just the kids and me. So I became that mother. You know the one that starts out, "Robert you need to sit down. Robert that's 1-2-3. Get back in your seat. (spank). Robert 1-2-3..." By the time we had survived lunch (of course they were more interested in my salad than the pizza and hotdog I had gotten for them and they both managed to spill their cups of soda even in straw cups), made it through to get milk, salad, oranges and I had bought some mini european chocolates (trust me I NEEDED chocolate must be that time of the month) and made it through the line. Robert was trying to stand up in the cart so I asked him nicely twice to sit on his bottom and finally pulled the ticked mom tight hard voice-you know the only voice that gets ANY response. "Robert SIT DOWN NOW!" the cashier and the bagging assistant exchanged glances but you know--he sat.

They did nap but Robert woke up in a mood. The rest of the afternoon was similar. Just add folding 4 loads of clothes to the mix. Highly pleasant.

Robert "I want to watch XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. NOOOOOOOOOOOO I want YYYYYYYYYYYY. wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." 30 sec later he's enthralled with x. Until x is over and x is on and he wants y. argh. Then Mary hits him with HIS dump truck. waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah Can you gather I wasn't too sad to go to work? The first part was busy but the rest has been OK so far. I got my inbox cleared out and dealt with some procedure questions that I've been putting off and now and attempting to study for ACLS. Ohy.

I'm looking forward to sleeping tomorrow :) And cleaning and it staying that way for 10 min. Didn't sleep well mon night what with working 3-11 and getting to bed around 12:30 and snoopy puking at 2:30 and the kids up at 7:30. No wonder I'm cranky.

The weekend was busy too, with apple butter and trick or treating on Sat (the kids make really cute pirates!) and then sick kids and working extra Sun. I'm looking forward to this weekend. We were thinking about camping but it's going to be cold and I just can't do it. I can't keep up with the house so I really can't add a camping trip to it. And I need to be able to go to church. Oh how I missed being able to be there Sun!

A day off finally!

Which is hilarious considering I just answered the phone and they wanted me to work-for double pay from 7-11 pm and I turned them down flat. I think I'm going to be working 36 hours this week so no thanks!

sun 16 hour
mon "off" sleeping!
tues off
wed 8 hour
thurs 4 hours + an hour or so to take my rhythm test-ugh
fri 8 hour
yes =36 hours. No thanks! And yes 4 of the hours I did sun were double pay night shift coordiator. Sweet! I don't think it will be a problem to get my hours in this winter!

Mary has been talking full sentences all week-it's crazy. Today she looked at me and said "stop it mommy". Um nice sentence but you don't say that to mommy! She told Keelia (baby sitter's daughter) yesterday to buckle in the baby doll... it's non stop. She loves to sit and read with me-I was going to pack up the kids this morning and go to the gym and then to walmart after lunch and nap but they ambushed me and forced me to snuggle with them and read and what could I do? So I guess we'll do both after nap. I have Wesley going to costco for me so that will help some! The weekend went fine but both nights were BUSY. Like never sit down for a minute busy. And this week is busy too. In addition to work I need to finish Robert's halloween costume (we're ALL going as pirates!), make chex mix and wash some canning jars for apple butter time and must study rhythms some more. Sat is apple butter and then halloween so it's going to be a long and busy day too.

On a more personal front I've lost another lb and just have 3 more to go to get back to the before Robert weight! Sweeeeeeeeeeet. My goal was by Thanksgiving and I think I'll make it! I've lost a lb each week the last 2...

a fun day and a busy weekend ahead!

While I'm waiting for Mary to settle down for her nap (she fell asleep in the car) I'll blog quick-then I really need to get her stocking out and start working on it again! We had a really great playdate today at Mary Beth's and I'm looking forward to a fun afternoon/evening although feeling a little guilty about leaving the kids tonight to hang out with Heather since I'll be working Sat and Sun eve and maybe mon too. BTW which is worse: 3p-3a Sat then 3p-7a Sun or 3p-3a Sat, 3p-3a Sun and then 3p-7p Mon? I can't decide. They both sound bad. But maybe with enough caffeine the first will be better? Speaking of caffeine I've discovered starbucks canned double shot drink-140 calories 100+ mg of caffeine = I can do anything all night! Even then go home shower, remember that I could have gotten a swine flu shot, take the kids to the babysitter, get a flu shot and go back home. So, pretty potent stuff. Well I just got Mary out-she had a stinky diaper-and changed her and now she's back in the pack n play screaming. Ohy. Nap time disaster! An evening away from the kids is sounding better every second. Except they'll be so tired they'll go to bed at 7:30, lol.

Wesley brought the kids home a box to play with last night and turned it into a house. It's super cute and they are loving it! I drew some flowers/trees on it and they've been coloring it with crayons.

my goodness

what a few weeks! It's been over 2 weeks since I blogged? Yikes. Well between Wesley being sick and mom rescuing us and then camping and then getting ready for dad's party it's been crazy around here and I've been cleaning instead of blogging. Oh and studying for PALS which is thankfully OVER. Now I get to study for my rhythm test (next week) and for ACLS (Nov 17&18) and finish Mary's stocking and get my portfolio done for clinical ladders... yes still trying to find some balance in this crazy life. My house is clean and I've got work stuff done and I don't get to the gym. I get to the gym and the house falls apart. I guess I still need to learn moderation!

Well, we had a GREAT time at the beach. It was really fun. The kids were able to play in the sand, water and climbing trees. They ate crap and stayed dirty. There was a great pirate ship playset which Robert loved and lots of doggies which made Mary happy. We stayed at first landing park in VA beach and it was so much fun. Great campsites, clean bathrooms etc. I was able to get most of my studying done for PALS (pediatric advanced life support) done there. We got home Monday at 2:10 and I left with the kids at 2:15 to be at work at 3-and then was a CA on one floor for 4 hours and then another for 4 hours. I was SO tired that night. Tuesday I did 8 loads of laundry and then worked all night (and it was a great night-I even finished my PALS studying). Wed I slept and then folded the 8 loads of clothes organized all our clothes. Then Thursday I stayed home (and sent the kids to the babysitters) and cleaned house for 9 straight hours (ugh). Friday was PALS and then Sat was dad's party and then Caleb's party. Today we went to church then had leftovers, put the kids down for naps and then Dad took Mary to visit his mom and Mom Wesley, Robert and I went to Schewels and Grand to look at couch/loveseat combos. I think we've figured out what we want (reclining sofa from lazy boy) but want to see what Town and Country have/what their prices are. We have mom and dad's hand off furniture that we got from them 8+ years ago (and they had gotten it from someone else). I would guess they are about 15 years old. So I'm excited about getting something new (thanks to some prodding from mom!) :)

another Robert

I forgot the best one. Robert was awake when Mary woke up from a nap and we went to get her from the pack n play in our room. He went right to her, gave her a hug and said "good morning little sister, I love you".

Robert funnies!

Robert has been so cute recently (not really his behavior but his talking). Today we were outside playing and he went over to see "my ladybugs" and said "hello little ladybugs, how are you today? I'm really glad to see you!". I thought I was going to die laughing. It was so cute. He is also trying to figure out knock knock jokes. We've gotten the tubba toothpaste one right once or twice otherwise he just makes them up as he goes along and laughs and laughs. He knows he's funny! This evening I had to take them both to a meeting at work and he was getting antsy and hit his bottom as he was jumping up at the table and looked back at his butt and said loudly "I hurt my but, I hurt my but". Everyone laughed.

what a week!

I know it's only Thursday but since Wesley has been home every day except Monday it seems much longer. I am so not used to him being home during the week-especially when I have to keep the kids away from him. In other words its been a long and frustrating week. I had 2 3-11 shifts back to back as orientation on 5E which were fine but its still a learning curve. I feel like a brand new nurse with lots of experience if that makes any sense. I know a lot but in other ways I know nothing. So having Wesley home sick (and he won't go upstairs and be sick, he has to be in the middle of everything here or in our room) and my routine messed up AND new learning is ackkkkkk. And I'm grumpy cause I'm not getting enough sleep and Robert isn't napping and I'm dieting. So there. Poor Wesley. The gym has been my saving grace. We went this morning simply to get away and so I would get a break from keeping the kids away from Wesley. I ran 1/5 mile and then just walked the treadmill for the rest of the hour while watching Emerill do a show on kid favorites. Which has to be my favorite Emerill show now. Not that there was much competition. Yesterday I ran 1.5 miles straight and did weights so I really didn't want to run a ton more today so it was nice just to chill out.

Denee actually ended up keeping the kids til 7:30 last night and then Roger picked them up and helped put them to bed (he had watched them Tues night for Wes). God bless both of them! I have a staff meeting at 6 tonight and I don't know if Wesley is going to be able to watch them or if I'm going to have to take them with me. I do hope he's better enough to watch them tomorrow while I go to a scrapbook crop. Fingers crossed!

Sibling interaction

I think what has struck me the most about the kids recently is how much they are interacting all of a sudden. Not playing together per se although that is certainly happening more (they were both in their room for 10 min today playing-it was strange but nice) but just talking and being and well interacting! Robert keeps telling Mary in the car that she can't talk (I guess it interupts his discussion of every.single.car/truck/van/ambulance/construction vehicle that he sees) :) But he will hand her stuff and I THINK that I have gotten him to stop hurting her on purpose in the car to get attention. He would bend her hand backwards. Where do kids get these ideas?

Speaking of Robert talking I have to post a couple of his Robert-isms to keep them for future record
-sheet = sheep. He can say sheet and if you correct him he'll say sheeeeeeeeeet which doesn't really sound right. But if he is just saying it it is always a sheep :)
-person = purse. (R)Mommy's person. (me) No, mommy's purse. (R)OK, purse. Mommy take her person to the store. (me)I don't take persons to the store unless I have to but I always take my purse :)

Mary is starting with some putting words together. "Want _____" I think was what she said today. Her vocabulary of words like pez, chips, etc is quite detailed. She loves her junk food! And strangely enough eats yellow tomatoes like they might be going out of style but doesn't generally like red ones. She even picked them out of her turkey wrap at costco twice! She almost has Wesley convinced to try a yellow one :) I bought her new shoes this weekend at walmart and she is quite enthralled with them-2 pairs, a pair of pooh sneakers and a pair of brown slip on shoes with pink sparklies. She likes the sparklies better :) Which means I can only ever find one. Ugh when will it end? And it doesn't work to put things up anymore. She just climbs or stretches to get stuff. Robert has mastered the pull the chair over but Mary isn't there yet. I think he's working on showing her how to climb out of her crib though. sigh. Robert got new undies-he had pretty much outgrown his and was unhappy when they pinched his parts so he is very happy with his new undies. I sent Wesley with him to pick them out while I took Mary to look at shoes :) I figured if Wesley would prefer to go shopping with the kids then stay home with them while I went he could do some of the work too!

This weekend was good but busy. Friday I cut Robert's hair and then we went to a friend (Sib)'s house for supper and then I canned salsa while Wesley worked his way through more of the coins from his grandparent's house. Yum. Home canned salsa rocks! Sat I made meals and froze them, played with the kids etc while Wes finished up with the camper (which is now sitting out for sale-yeah!) and brought over the canning jar shelves (of the cement brick and board variety) to set up in the crawl space for my empty jars and then we went to grandma R's for supper. She taught Robert hide and seek and the kids had a blast with that, ring around the rosey etc while Wesley worked on her computer. Sunday was church, and then during nap I baked (to freeze) and Wesley mowed and then we all went to walmart then it was time for supper, baths etc. Mary decided to put Robert's new rescue hellicopter-that makes noise etc (that he got for finishing the 2nd (and last) poop chart) in the water when she was done with bath/dressed and I left her a second to find a comb. It seems to be doing OK which is a relief!

I work 36 hours this week so I am doubly glad for some time this weekend to make some meals ahead and I was able to start laundry on Sun so I was able to finish it Monday after teaching all day. yeah! So today we just kinda hung out. We played outside some, had lunch/nap (I wasn't able to sleep-I tried but just couldn't), hung out some, went to the gym and then dropped my trooper off to see what is going on with it-it just is missing some umph. I'm off tomorrow and then work 3-11 thurs and fri. Thurs am Mary has her 18(!) month appointment and both kids will get their regular flu vaccines and Friday I have a haircut! It's time for my shorter winter haircut-I like it long in the summer so I can put it up and shorter in the winter so it dries faster, lol. So far tonight is going OK. There are like 3 people hospitalwide that are potentially going to die tonight so we'll see what happens. That's the news from B'water... :)

Robert

Saturday

Oh my big boy! He is getting so big. It's been a crazy week with lots of time at the doctor (Robert had pneumonia Wed and then they both had rechecks on Friday and Mary still had hear ear infection from last week so she's on a new abx).

Robert totally cracks me up. He's starting to say "sure". If I ask him to go potty, help me with x y z he pipes up with "sure!" or "ohhhhh kay". Today he helped me move a ton of canning jars from the trooper to the lawn and then from the lawn to the crawl space and helped Wesley wash the old camper. "I put the camper in the bath". lol. I wonder how big of a bathtub it would take to wash a camper.

Sunday
Robert did well picking up toys and listening-for the most part. I hear he didn't nap (I sure did-I slept great!). We're still working on whining and he melts down pretty easily especially if he is hungry or tired.

The weekend at work was really good. And then today I got groceries, slept a few hours, went to the dentist and came home and worked on laundry and housework

Mary-isms

Mary... oh crazy baby Mary

Loves all things nursing related (thermometers, stethoscope, my shoes...
Talks like a blue streak. Hell-copper anyone?
Eats almost anything
Loves, loves, loves anything having to do with dogs, especially pugs. And the Dog book. Oh how many times a day are we reading the dog book?
Sleeps with 2 stuffed puppies
Loves her doll babies
Takes her doggies for walks in the stroller
Sings constantly-recently the theme song for baby signing time complete with the sign for baby
Destroys train tracks like no ones business
Loves to get into trash cans.
She's my crazy baby girl! I can't believe she's almost 18 months old!

canning

just a few pics of my recent canning escapades. Dunno why I'm canning but I will say it makes me happy :)

what doesn't make me happy? Sick kids. I am REALLY tired of sick kids.... my own that is....

my vintage canner



the roasted tomato and garlic spaghetti sauce



the green beans from my friend Crystal- like 13 lbs of green beans... it took me about 24 hours just to snap them all (intermittently with small child care of course!)



and after canning (there are also 2 bags of beans in the freezer-3 batches in the canner was all I could manage in a night-it took me from 7:4pm to 1 am to manage that!

Martha and Me Mondays (yes I know it's Tuesday and a week late)

I did last week's project on time but didn't get around to uploading pics until tonight. The project was to make pom poms

http://www.marthastewartweddings.com/article/pom-poms-and-luminarias?&rsc=cf_link&comments_page=1&&showComments=true&#conversation-container

Mine didn't turn out like Martha's but they are cute and the kids love them. I hung small wood decorations from Michaels from them and they add to the beach theme.

another night and a stack of tissues

I'm sitting at my desk in the coordinator's office with a pile of snotty tissues all around me and my nose red from being blown (ugh, I hate colds!) listening to spirit fm on the computer and well enjoying the quiet. And drinking hot tea and cold water. The ED is humming and I've placed several admissions and started an IV but am in a lull at the moment.

Today was a pretty good day-the house is still a wreck-it's hard to want to clean the kitchen when there is a huge box with a crib in it in the middle of the floor. But I'm getting ahead of myself. So sat/sun we picked up the rest of the stuff from Granny's that we're taking (we paid for some of it but wow-a steal!) a bed, dresser, dressing table and china cupboard plus other misc stuff. To make room for all this stuff I finally got around to returning Robert's crib that had been recalled. So, got that returned just fine (they gave me back full price!) and bought Mary a new crib (her crib and Robert's were identical except for the finish and have BOTH been recalled). Sigh. I bought this one and I LOVE IT

http://www.amazon.com/Stork-Craft-Tuscany-Stages-Espresso/dp/B002A9IZ0Q/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1251865889&sr=8-3

and no, I didn't pay that much! Walmart had them for $150 (on sale, normally $190!). This crib is solid. Amazingly sturdy. No drop side-just solid wood. Love it! So does Robert "I love Mary's crib". So yes, Wesley and I put it together before I went to work this evening. Complete with 2 whiny kids and a drippy nose. It was a blast. So now we need to take apart her old crib and return it. It will feel SO good to have this done. And to get our money back is just crazy-I've used a crib for 3+ years and you're giving me all the money back? So Rob, instead of hauling a crib to you whenever you get to that point we'll just send you a nice gift card to some store you actually have. Next we need to get the upstairs together before I have to work a weekend or mom and dad come. Cause they're ain't no way anyone could get near a bed right now!

Yesterday evening I started roasting some tomatoes-some fresh, some that I had frozen, skinned and thawed. I let them go most of the night using the time bake feature on the stove and wow-fabulous. Today I pureed them using a stick blender and heated them up and canned 4 quarts. It is so yummy. Thick and rich and wow. It's going to taste fantastic this winter! I was able to can them while the kids ate (after doing devotions with them again-today was Noah and the flood) and played and it went well. They processed while we played outside. I felt pretty good until lunchtime and then felt horrible-chills, achy during naptime and rested most of the afternoon. Now I'm just sniffling! and sneezing, and blowing my nose and sniffling.... when the people that you're starting IV's on start reccomending cold meds to you you know it's getting bad!

Wow, I wrote most of that around midnight and it's now 6 am and I'm just now settling back in. I've earned my keep tonight (and hopefully the box of tissues I've used!). The ED was hopping and then there was a death and a bunch of IV starts....

Mary has turned into quite the daddy's girl-mainly when it comes to her love of pez. She says/signs "please, daddy's peh". Or just signs please and says "that's daddy's". The kids know I don't dispense pez-that's a daddy thing. The other day Wesley refilled ALL (like 6!) pez dispensers so they should have a lot of bonding. Of course Robert is the origional pez addict. He just comes and sit's on Wesley's lap and starts asking for them and then wants to "hold them" ie eat the whole canister. I can't figure out how they stand them but whatever! Give me chocolate any day (and not the chocolate pez-double yuck!). It's also funny to hear Mary mimic Wesley. She'll go around and point to stuff and say "noooooo that's daddy's". Apparently EVERYTHING is a "no that's daddy's". It's hilarious because really everything is really a NO (at least everything Mary wants to be into). I'm trying to think of what is going on with Robert. I've been working some with him on leters/writing/coloring and he is definitely improving. Still no attention span but oh well. And I don't think Mary will ever stop eating crayons. It makes it really hard to work with both of them! Well, almost time for the next nursing coordinator to come in. I'm all set :) Can't wait to get home and to bed. It should be nice and cool and quiet today.

Continuing my search for balance

This week's lesson-spending some time for me while balancing what the kids need. Mary seems pretty happy go lucky, happy to snuggle, happy to play. Robert on the other hand at bedtime turns into Mr "Mommy I want to snuggle" which I am starting to think is a diversion tactic closely related to "I need to go potty" and "I need to find x-y-z toy. But regardless I've been trying to spend extra time with them while still spending a couple hours yesterday watching Julie and Julia. It was so awesome. I really enjoyed it!

work, work, work....

It seems that all I do these days is work! I did end up working 12:45-3 last night but had gone to bed at 9:30 (they called me at 12:30) and was able to leave right at 3 am and was in bed by 3:25 so I decided not to send the kids to the babysitter. They're going thurs and fri all day so I really hated to send them today. Mary is actually still asleep so I know she appreciates not being woken up to go to Denee's! And Wesley HAD to be at work at 8 this morning so that would have been hard to get the kids up, ready, to Denee's etc. I basically got called in for a new admission so all I had to do was all the admission stuff-IV, labs, questions, assessments, chart etc for him so that went pretty well and I was able to help the other nurses a little with some small stuff until the 3 am nurses came in.

It was SO nice to be able to be home with the kids yesterday. We played outside, snuggled, watched a little TV, they took naps (but at different times so I didn't), bathed snoopy, bathed them, went to nanny night, and they went to bed without a whimper! We didn't even go to they gym-I really felt that they needed ME to be with them and I think it was the right decision. The house is completely wrecked but oh well. I'll get it later :)

Today I'm hoping to hit the gym either this morning or this afternoon. I lost 2 lbs last week (whoot!) so I only have 6 to go to be back at my goal weight. I'm really psyched about that.

Tomorrow I have telemetry class from 7-3 and I'm thinking that I might try to see Julie and Julia afterwards. There's a 3:45-5:45 showing and I think I might just be crazy enough to go and scramble to make supper afterwards! I think my last movie theater movie was ice age 2. I think-maybe? It's been a LONG time!

Friday I'm supposed to work 3p-7p on Peds. The kids are scheduled at Denee's all day so I can maybe try to get the upstairs worked on so we can get the furniture from Granny's house moved in. Her house is under contract pending inspections. The house inspection (by the prospective buyer's dad) was last eve, they still have a well inspection, septic inspection and termite inspection to go.

Full Time Sucks

First, a couple pics from camping this past weekend-if uploading pics were faster I'd do more but this took 10+ min

Full time really does just suck-or rather full time with 2 kids does! Especially when combined with a camping trip in the middle! I've been trying to catch up-did finally get the laundry all done and put away-except the load that needs to go to the camper-it was pouring down rain so I decided that getting it all wet wouldn't help much! Wesley called me at 2 to tell me that our babysitter had called him and needed to take her husband to UVA for an eye apt-they have been on a waiting list forever and they called today with a cancellation. So I got up and picked them up around 3. So really didn't get much done this afternoon-finished putting away laundry and put away a ton of dishes left over from making and canning pizza sauce (YUM) a few nights ago. This evening I made supper and then cut Robert's hair and then tried to get the kids to help pick up toys but they were pulling out faster than they were putting away so I finally gave up. Days like today I feel like I'm counting down the days until they are both in school-how sad is that!?!

Tomorrow Peggy and I are going to take the kids to the farmer's market. Robert is one sticker away from getting the prize and I'm pretty sure he'll poop in the morning to be able to go. Technically he pooped at Denee's today so regardless I'll take him :) He's doing great-he's been wet some in the mornings but otherwise no accidents!

Work is going pretty well-last night was busy with 26 admissions and a 4 hour computer downtime but otherwise no real excitement. I'm still really enjoying getting to know the nurses that work there and all the challenges and questions that come out of it.

I've been hitting the gym pretty hard the last couple days, I've got 8 or 9 lbs I'd love to loose to get back to my pre-Robert weight and I'm hoping that 10 weeks of dieting and exercise will take care of them-and then I'll just need to keep them off. I got a heart rate monitor which was pretty cool-it syncs with the treadmills even! And of course the real attraction at the gym is the food network although the best time to go in the morning based on the kids schedule is 10 but from 10-11 is emeril and I'm usually kinda eh about his cooking. A few too many crawfish ettoufe po'boys for my taste, lol. Of course the best shows are during nap time/no childcare time. I'm going to try for after nap tomorrow and see how that goes. The childcare opens back up at 4 pm.

pics

I can't remember if I ever e-mailed people that these pics were up. Wesley uploaded them a while back. Enjoy!

http://www.megley.com/photos/kids/jun09/

Ready-set-go!

This has been a travelling summer! And if Robert had his way he'd be back on the road to Philly. Poor kid. He asks every day to go back to the museum in Philla-elphia to see the boats, and the big trains. I think Philla-elphia made a big impression on him! This weekend we're headed to outside of Galax VA for my cousin Jessica's wedding! I'm so excited. We're camping and so are Rob and Kavitha and my cousin Eric, so it should be loads of fun even if we'll only be there a few days. And then on Sunday we're headed to 5th Ave (Dad's old church) where dad will be preaching. I haven't been to our church in so long-we were gone, I worked and then this past week Robert was sick so I was home with him, then we'll be gone, I'll work... and if anyone is sick Wesley can stay home!

Robert seems to be feeling better-no fever since Mon but has a really congested occasional productive cough. He's not eating perfect either but he is doing great with pottying :) He had wet the bed one nap when he got sick and his pullup was wet that night but otherwise he's been dry 24/7! And pooping willingly! We're well over 1/2 way through the sticker chart on the bathroom wall which at the end will get him a Mommy-Robert trip to the farmer's market for lunch and ice cream and a new train or tractor. He is super duper excited. He also gets a smaller prize for every 4-5 poops (there are 24 spaces I think on the chart). I think he only has 10 spaces left-and we just started this last week sometime!

Mary is still a bundle of sunshine mixed with energy. I'm starting to be able to channel it a little bit. She follows Robert's lead well so I have her putting her dirty clothes in the basket when Robert does his. Otherwise she spends her time trying to get the phone, climbing on stuff, moving shoes around. She has a bump on her forehead from falling off the couch yesterday and then today she faceplanted at Denee's and has a matching spot on her chin and bit her tongue and has a spot on her knee. Yikes!

But really the kids have been super duper cool recently, Robert seems to be a lot less challenging now that he's almost 3.5 and Mary well she's so darn cute. She says all sorts of stuff (helcoper!) and then at Nanny's on Tuesday she was sitting in the rocking chair rocking a baby doll. So adorable. Robert is really talking a ton too-he talks all the way home every day just on and on about stuff he's read or seen or that we're passing. It's amazing. They're growing up so fast. I'm toying with the idea of putting them both in a preschool daycare program next fall instead of home daycare. There is a church in Mt Crawford that does 2.5-5 years and Mary will be 2.5 next fall. That's just hard to believe. But I guess I have a while to think about all this. I'm definitely planning on putting Robert in preschool next year and I really think it needs to be his daycare option-I just can't see having him go to part time preschool some days and home daycare some days. So if I can do mon-wed-fri full days for both kids maybe I'll just do that. I've been doing some painting with the kids this week and it's been hilarious. Mary paints her body more than the paper but both kids really enjoy it. They are so cute. I need to get Wes to come out and take pics of them while they paint.

Martha and Me Mondays (yes I know it's Tuesday)

OK I've joined a with Martha and Me to try this week's project (for more go to

http://marthaandme.wordpress.com/2009/08/11/martha-mondays-grilled-vanilla-peaches/


This week was grilled peaches. Which worked really well-we did grilled squash and zucchini (bukini according to Robert), grilled chicken and grilled peaches. With pasta roni that I got cheap at sharp shopper too. It was 102 deg I wasn't turning on the stove so I did them in the microwave. The peaches came off at the same time as the rest of the food so they were able to cool a little while we ate which meant they didn't melt the ice cream. The basic idea is you cut peaches, add lemon juice and oil (I did not use fresh lemmons I used my handy bottle of lemon juice) and then brush them with a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon, a pinch of salt and a little water to make a paste and then grill them for 20-30 min in a foil packet. They turned out OK. Really cinnomony like apple pie sorta (which I don't really like) and tasted OK with the vanilla ice cream (mmm costco brand vanilla rocks). The kids liked them but I'm not sure I'll do them again-at least not with that much cinnamon. I wonder if you were to grill them with some sort of a raspberry syrup?

cut peaches (also from costco)


ready to grill
the finished product-couldn't find the ice cream scoop and was rushing to eat before going to work.

Much better!

Well since my last post I have regained my equilibrium or something and feel much better. Robert is-dare I say-potty trained? He's even been dry at night for the last 2 nights (despite drinking milk at bedtime one night and tons of milk at supper the other). The gym has added food network to its line up of TV stations (SWEEEET) so I have a renewed enthusiasm for going. The house is clean-ish, the kids are good-ish and so cute and I should probably be napping but I thought I would blog quick! I even got the spices re-organized today with Mary's help. We have just stayed home so far today-it's been a nice quiet morning. And now Robert is napping (or attempting) on the sofa and Mary in her crib-after finding a diaper and lying down on the changing pad when I asked her if she was ready for a nap! So onwards to nap since I work night shift tonight.

Ballance

Ballance. I just don't know how to make it work. Is there a way to achieve good ballance when you work and have small kids and only 24 hours in a day? If you know, let me know! I feel like I'm walking on a ballance beam. If I were at home instead of sitting here doing nothing much at work (I did just place an admission but that was the first productive thing I've done in an hour or so) I would be cleaning the kitchen.

[oh well I just got called to restart an IV.
OK I'm back now.
It's amazing how some patients are so hateful when all you are doing is trying to help them... "this arm only, no fishing around, you have one shot at this... " but I digress!]

Or actually I guess I would be sleeping or close to it. Or I would be picking up toys. Or figuring out why the bar of soap in the bathroom suddenly turned green (green?) or putting away the plethera of stuff that we got from Wesley's grandma's house (I got a pressure canner! and a hot water bath canner! and a roaster! and a food mill! now where to put them...) or trying to figure out where the shoe matches are. I'm not exactly sure what Mary's facination with single shoes is. She grabs one and wanders off with it. Or 2 from different sets...

I keep looking at my should-do list:
spend time with the kids/Wesley
more frequent devotions
clean
laundry
exercise
cook
work
grocery shop/costco
and then the cleaning and the picking up are never ending as are cooking, dishes, the garden (and I think I am going to be snowed over in tomatoes soon-they are really ripening fast).


OK so this is my PLANNED week next week
monday-sleep, frantically clean house before Wesley brings the kids home
tues-playdate at 10. Need to figure out what to have for lunch, need to have the house clean. should try to get to the gym. Need to make supper since there isn't nanny night
Wed-work 3-11 ideally gym in the morning. If we're not at home maybe the house will stay clean??? I'm leaving Wesley to do frozen pizza for supper. I give up.
Thurs-work 11p-7a. So have to nap when the kids nap. Otherwise gym and costco for groceries and lunch? Then NAPS. Have to figure out how to keep Robert from falling asleep in the car. Make supper. Wash dishes, rinse, repeat.

[all this is dependent on the person that I covered for this past week not being sick next week. If she is I might end up 7A on Wed instead. Did I mention that I've worked 30 hours this past week? ALL as nursing coordinator. And that doesn't include today (Sunday 7AM starts the new week). I'm scheduled 28 this week so it's not much better...]

Friday-sleep, clean, depending if I'm drowning in tomatoes I may have to figure out how to make and can salsa. (I got 2 canning books for my b-day-I'm so excited!) I'd also love to make dill pickles. I'm off the weekend so that will help. I also need a wedding present for my cousin (which I will prob do on line or pick up a gift card). I think what I'm really stressing about is getting the house cleaned back up-I just can't seem to keep up with it right now. What with being gone and the kids sick and the kids destroying it... and working with garden produce. I've blanched and frozen 8 cups of yellow squash (post blanching-it was a ton prior to blanching) and 21 cups of shredded zucchini (not blanched, just frozen-in extra straw cups that I've lost the straws to). So I guess it has just been a bad week. Too much of everything and I just need to let it go....

I guss I should back up to the kids being sick. Robert is back to complaining about his ear. He finished his abx on Friday. Then he also went from Mon to Friday without pooping so we've been dealing with that. He's pooping again :) and I dare say we are VERY close to being completely daytime trained. Then Mary was up all night Tues crying and sure enough she had a double ear infection so she's on abx and she's cutting molars-one bottom one in, one top one partly in and 2 in progress. Yuck. Can we say fussy? And kids not sleeping between stomach in turmoil from a mega load of miralax, teeth and ears? So I guess we'll see what Robert says about his ear again tomorrow. He's just mentioned it once a day so far yesterday and today so who knows. And he's been super clingy with me "I want mama to hold you". So if I'm holding him Mary is crying cause SHE wants me too. Sigh-would someone please latch onto Daddy? I guess Snoopy likes Wesley pretty well. Although 45 min after I went upstairs to sleep she realized that I was home and upstairs and she wasn't. So I had to let her up and then back down when Wesley got home with the kids. Far be it from her to miss lunch with the kids. Sundays are hard-cause I have to sleep upstairs so the kids leave me alone-but I can't go up until they leave or they'll figure out where I am... :) I think I'll leave them ignorant of that peice of info.

Philly continued

Friday we went to visit Dad’s office-a huge building downtown with 4 floors. It was originally a very fancy house. We brought zucchini bread for snack and were able to meet dad’s coworkers. Then we went to the Philly Zoo. It was amazing. It was sad that we missed the elephants by just a few days-they are being moved out of zoos into places with more room. Both of the kids (and all 4 adults) really enjoyed seeing all the animals. They have a ton-everything from snakes to huge turtles to giraffes and polar bears. We were able to see the penguin being fed which was hilarious-a few of them have figured out to wait on top of the rocks to catch fish like Snoopy does bones. The others were just waiting in the water and fighting Robert stood and watched and watched and watched. We had a stroller, backpack carrier and a puppy harness and were able to rotate the kids through them (well Robert wasn’t ever in the backpack!) which was helpful-plus having 4 adults! Robert was really captivated by the aviary-he just loved the birds. A lot of the big game were sleeping around-lions, tigers etc so not very interesting in his mind. We stopped at one point and had ice cream for snack which the kids ate as fast as mom and dad could shovel it into them! The zoo also had a petting zoo which was rather hilarious-especially the tractor with a climbing platform to get up into it, they also had some goats, some chickens, pony rides etc. Mary seemed to enjoy it all-especially the parts where she could get up close to animals. She was very chill the whole time. The walk from the zoo to the parking lot was long and hot (Robert’s phrase from all week “I’m HOOOT”). Mom had made supper ahead of time so we chilled out while mom finished it, ate and collapsed into bed.

Sat we got up earlyish and went to the Please Touch museum. It was fabulous. The place is huge. We started in a river room with boats, ducks, water of all types. As kids get older they can do more with them. For the littles there is baby duck pond with water that goes in a circle and little rubber ducks. Then there are streams for bigger kids where you can adjust air, and locks that you can open, or buttons to create bubbles. The café is excellent and not horribly overpriced. In addition there is a vehicle room, again with different stuff for different ages. You can drive a car, fix a car, ride in a bus or a train run in a huge hamster wheel…. There is also a craft area with paints, playdough etc that was doing vehicle crafts which included running a car though paint and then on paper. It was really cool! It was neat to see Robert and Mary painting-Mary especially. I bought some painting stuff at their gift shops. Robert did really well at the easel painting. Downstairs there is a Alice in Wonderland maze and stuff, play store, play hospital, play construction zone (you move these “bricks” to a hand propelled conveyer belt to this upper level where you can move them via wheelbarrow to the shoot to send them back down again. Robert did this for ever. In fact is was in the construction area that I found him after 10 heart stopping minutes when I couldn’t find him. I was going down the ramp after Robert when I saw Wes who mom was waiting for, stopped for just a second and when I got to the bottom of the ramp he was gone. We looked around a few minutes on our own and then alerted staff-but then I went thorugh downstairs again and saw him running like a maniac through the construction zone. And cried all over him. I now know that he doesn’t get scared when he realizes that no one is with him-and that is really freaky. So the puppy harness came back out. Mary and I had a good time in the hospital and the house area (mostly with the stroller). We also saw a puppet show about planes, cars etc which was hilarious. We got there at 9:30 and finally left at 3:30-I was hoping to make it until 5 but we were all exhausted. We did go to the park near mom and dad’s house which was really cool-spraying fountain, 2 different big playsets, merry go round etc. Mary did nap a few min in the stroller but that was it. We ordered in chinese for supper and again collapsed into bed. Robert had some trouble sleeping that night and ended up in bed with us on and off (ugh).

Sun we went to church with mom and dad at Fox Chase Pres Church It’s a small church and very nice. The kids made it through the children’s sermon and then went to the program (run by a preschool teacher and her daughter) afterwards. I don’t think there was any lesson or anything-just free play with a huge room of toys. They had a blast and never looked back when they got in the room. It was fabulous. After church there was a social hour with great snacks and some time with someones service dog (Teddy). Teddy enjoyed cleaning up after our kids! After lunch Mary napped and then we tried to go to the park but the fountains don’t run on Sundays and it was HOT so we came home to play with the hose. Trying to convince the kids that they could only be in a 3 foot radius (mom and dad’s “lawn”) was amusing when they’re used to having the run of 2ish acres! But that went well until Robert pooped in his underwear and we had to get cleaned up (YUCK!)

Mon we decided to take all the forms of transportation available and took the bus to the train to the trolley to the train station and ride some escalators on the way. This is something you only do on purpose with transportation obsessed 3 year olds. The train station was really cool and we had lunch there (and Mary threw up at the very end-she evidently found that the end of the ketchup packet she had managed to eat at some point not very digestible-yuck!). We had cheesesteaks and then nutella banana crepes (YUM). Then we went and did some of the Ben Franklin stuff which was interesting. The tour person played one of his inventions an armonica which is based on running a wet finger on a glass but on a huge scale-it was so cool to hear! By this point the kids had been going, going, going and even Robert sat quietly on my lap for a 20 min movie about Franklin! We stopped and got the kids cheese fries for snack and then went home and took the kids to the (fountained) park where we stayed for about an hour before coming home for supper (pizza from mom and dad's local pizza place).

Philly!

I've been trying to find time to blog before I forget all the cute little details... so many of them so far this trip.

We left Thursday afternoon around 3 pm. Mary slept some on the way but Robert never did. They did OK with the DVD player and toys though. We ran into an accident so detoured through Winchester on 11 and Winchester is going though major road work (sigh). We stopped at 6 for supper (Mary was crying it turns out that she was wet through) at Arby's. It was good to get out and run around. We played ring around the rosey and jump up and jump down. The rest of the trip from then until we finally got here at 10:30 was um eventful. The kids were fussy, our directions took us the wrong way and then I got here to realize I had no contact lense solution or glasses so after some googling I found a 24 hour pharmacy and mom took me-at midnight. By 12:30 we were all snuggled into our beds and asleep. Well better get ready for church-more later

Not My Child

OK, so for this weeks not me Monday it's a not my child Monday. Which is usually what my not me Mondays are about...

My child would never eat gravel, peach pits and dirt. And if my MIL were to tell me that she had been eating poop (as she washed out her mouth) I wouldn't say nonchalantly "at least all the dogs are on worm medicine".

My 3 year old would never have a game that consisted of running the dog over with a plastic dump truck. And we would never have approved of this game at the beginning.

Summer Living

It's been a busy few days trying to catch up from our trip to the beach and then work and then keep up with the yard, house, garden. We're just getting our first tomatoes from the early girl plants and I finally got all the tomato plants staked. Between my patch and the joint one with Roger and Peggy we have 20 odd tomatoes, plus a volunteer. It looks like I have a volunteer squash in my compost and there is a volunteer melon or cantaloupe on the edge of the field where R+P dump their food scraps! The zucchini and squash are really coming in. I spent yesterday cooking with them-squash casserole, zucchini cake, bread, muffins. The chocolate cake is delicious and the pumpkin zucchini raisin muffins are fabulous too!I still need to get grandma's recipe for squash casserole. It was good but not great. Peggy and I also made bread and butter pickles (and some squash/zucchini relish) with our load of cucumbers (one plant worth-we've made 3 batches and have enough for one more I think).

Well, I had typed that outside while playing with the kids and then that got derailed and I'm back oh 4 hours later :) I had really hoped for a nap today-I work 11p-7a tonight (better than the normal 7P-7A!) but the kids were not feeling the love of naps. And then Robert woke up all hyper and for the second they seem contained. Except that Mary's diaper is full. But she'll be OK for a min :) I've been trying to get the house cleaned up today-I think it's pretty well done-still want to work on the counter and above the TV area some more but the bathrooms, floors etc are done. I feel like I never get caught up-my cupboards are overflowing with stuff I jam in, my desk is a mess, there are kids clothes that need to be sorted out as to what will fit this year and what needs to be saved... but it seems to get pushed back with laundry, dishes, cooking, picking up endless toys.... I did put away 1/2 of the living room toys today-Robert refused to put them away so I told him if I put them away I was keeping them. I've also done a ton of laundry today, I've got the last load in the dryer. And I feel like I'm just not consistent-not with Robert and the never ending potty training ARGH and discipline stand stills, not in my requirement of picking up toys or on my own of picking up the rest of the stuff and keeping it put away. I told Wesley yesterday that he could either start picking up or I was going to dispose of 1/2 of the stuff in the house. We are simply drowning in STUFF. OK rant over :)

Robert has been doing more imaginative play recently. He's been making food for the stuffed puppies and it's hilarious. I am alternately completely captivated with him and ready to kill him. It depends on whether he is being cute and creative or running away from me shrieking with laughter when he is supposed to be going potty (or picking up toys, coming to supper...) or trying to run me over with the dump truck or ringing the doorbell to make Snoopy bark...

Mary is still talking like crazy and is over all still sweet. She was trying to unfold washclothes that I was folding today and I finally got her to hand me the ones to be folded instead. That was nice. Most of the time the kids helping means it takes SO much longer (case in point today while Robert helped me sweep-oh my there was more dirt when he finished than when we started I think!) but that actually helped and she stayed with it for the rest of the basket. Her main issue is eating anything she gets her hands on-dirt, gravel, crayons. It makes it very hard to spend time outside with her.... Today it was old peach pits and extra dirt. YUCK.