I'm Back....maybe or maybe not better than ever.

Back in 2014 I had this momentum of blog posts based on my three sons.  Not the show, the three mystical creatures that I live with.  It has been over two and a half years since my last blog post primarily due to the most arduous challenge of my life, aka my third child.  Reflecting on my last few posts I was mainly in a stage of life that consisted of constantly picking up couch cushions, ducking while things were flying through the air, playing marble runs, stopping Benjamin from rewiring some socket, playing endless battles of war games with Jonathan and cuddling my sweet Andrew.  Yep I had this down.  I had successful gotten my Benjamin to kindergarten and was in a good routine.  Yep I knew what I was doing with kids, with life,  and with boys.  I have always been transparent in life and really if I tried to even emit that pretense of having it all together (what is that anyway) it would quickly be unmasked by someone doing something somewhere, so why pretend? I love my boys.  I honestly love their shenanigans.  In my line of work it is a joy when kids get to be kids and they are never boring.  Kids can say just what they want without pretense, with full honesty and passion.  That is why I love working with kids.

Life shifted from the carefree days of play and mischief in late 2014.  I had noticed that Andrew wasn't meeting his milestones and with a visit to the pediatrician and an evaluation from the regional center his deficits were confirmed.  We had a host of well wishers assuring us not to worry.  I did.

If there was a certification for being a klutz it belonged to Andrew.  I have to say the apple didn't fall from the tree but that is another post.  The physical therapist evaluated him and stated "he is a klutz and  huge".  Through many more evaluations, pediatrician visits, a hospitalization we eventually found ourselves in 7 hours of  many types of therapy a week.  I felt guilty. I was very angry with God. I didn't know how to fix this.  I lost all my confidence.  I became a helicopter parent. I am a top notch certified pediatric nurse that couldn't help my child.  I found that I am stubborn and a control freak (I thought I was the relaxed type...yes maybe self reflection would have been a good thing).  I felt guilty again because I know what  really sick children look like and it wasn't THAT bad. I withdrew from all of my friends.  I was assured it was nothing yet blamed for not noticing the "obvious" all at the same time. I stopped blogging and sharing my life with people.

Fast forward to 2017 and I am still picking up couch cushions, dodging things flying through the air, playing soldiers, playing marble runs, stopping Benjamin from rewiring some socket, cuddling my sweet yet tenacious Andrew (when he lets me), going to speech and occupational therapy sessions and am getting ready for some biopsies for Andrew next week. Really it seems like nothing has changed, but yet everything has. I am out of the baby stage at last although my son did announce at Easter "isn't it amazing that my mom looks pregnant, but she isn't".

Poop volume 1!

I say volume one because I think I could write an entire book on poop related stories  There are two constants in motherhood from that moment that child is born....  pooping and feeding.  Sleep is not a constant, but the obsession of did he poop yet, how many times, what did it look like is overwhelming.  See poop can make a wonderful afternoon out with an adorable outfit go bad very quickly.  It can take out multiple outfits (both mommy and baby).   I hate poop. As a nurse you are eager to help your fellow nurses until you hear those dreaded words....Code brown.  You could have the most stable patient on the unit but if he pooping constantly and they are large and bed bound it is the worst of times.  I have in fact vomited in two different patient's rooms right on the floor because it was so terrible making my poor patients feel terrible.
One day when I have the chance to ask God all of my questions one will be "why poop"? Why can't we excrete flowers.  Could you imagine those newborn days when you feel terrible and every diaper change was a tulip. You would have a bouquet of flowers every day.  You would have several bouquets from your husband everyday.
Early on in motherhood we went out to eat with our friends Robin and Paul.  They had no children at the time and our child was 2-3 months old.  We went to a cute little restaurant in Pasadena to catch up and brought our quiet little newborn along.  It was before the meal and we were sitting him up and holding him above the table and all of the sudden we heard something.  That something streamed out down his legs all over the white table cloth in the middle of the restaurant.  I was mortified, terrified, and petrified.  This was not in the baby book.  My husband and I looked at each other and he said "You take him to the bathroom and I will handle the table".  My friend Robin and I took the baby dripping to the restroom where we just didn't even know where to start.  Fortunately it was my first baby and I had 3 extra outfits and plenty of wipes.  She helped me get the onsie off where it just spread even more.  She took the onsie and I started wiping.  Of course it spread everywhere.  We cleaned the baby, bagged the clothes, cleaned the changing table, myself and the floor.  I then went out of the stall and said "Thank you Robin".  At that moment I heard a voice in the other stall saying "You are welcome".  Apparently the lady in the other stall was also named Robin and thought I was talking to her the entire time.  We walked out to where they were finishing up cleaning the table.  I can't even remember if we ate there or left, but for a long time after he was known in their house at "the table pooper".

Just trying to get to work.

Tonight as I was trying to get ready to go to work there was a knock at the door.  It was a jogger.  She was nervous and apologized for the intrusion, but was scared to death because she felt like a man in a car was slowing down and stocking her. After talking with her for a little bit she  left right as I was supposed to be leaving.  I quickly got ready went to the car and got the car seats out when my car door slammed on my head causing a headache, dizziness and a bump on my head.  Not having time to get medicine I started to drive when it started sprinkling (which it hardly does in July in Los Angeles) and as I turned my windshield wipers one my wiper blades on the driver's side flew off of my car.  At that point I took a deep breath to calm myself down as to not irritate my headache anymore when from the side of the road a car decided to start driving pulling out and heading right into me as I swerved to the other side of the road.  At that point I decided it was appropriate to use my horn so he wouldn't hit me and I wouldn't have a head on collision.  It was one of those near misses that left you shaking at the end.

You see working at night has a unique commute and circumstances that many people don't necessarily relate to.  I was explaining to someone that a horrific accident happened right in front of me on the way to work(finding later there were deaths due to a drunk driver) and the response was "why were they drunk so early in the morning".  Well it was at night because that is when I work.  I generally put the kids to bed and then head to work completely envious of everyone who actually get to sleep in bed in the dark with their significant other while I am consuming large amounts of caffeine judging how bad or good the night will be based on the size of the moon.  Full moon you had better watch out!   All those mommy blog posts about "having a great morning routine" and "get up an hour before your kids to start the day right" and especially "get at least 8 hours of sleep at the same time each night" makes me want to throw things at the computer as I briefly ponder about if it is ok to have a beer at 8 am even though it is the end of my day and I am about ready to go to bed after a  rough shift.

One of the biggest differences from day shift to night shift (as I have worked both and taken sick calls for both) is that generally illness and car trouble tend to be the absent related day shift issues where other things have made me late for night duty. One time my mother was at our house I was walking out to go to work with her and a rat ran across the path.  I turned around in fear to run and accidentally punched her in the nose. Another time I was out getting food before work and I was looking at the pretty Christmas lights and crashed into a parked car that had a bumper sticker that read "You touch, you die".   There was the time I was on the freeway and a helicopter landed in front of me and took the patient to my work on my unit.  I helped admit the patient and recognized the family from the side of the road.  I should have just gotten into the helicopter and hitched a ride.  I have called in sick because in the middle of the day as I was trying to sleep two of my neighbors pit bulls broke into our house through the dog door, attacked my dogs and woke me up on my bed and I could not sleep after that for the life of me.  I have had full on conversations with people that I don't remember  in the middle of the day while I am sleeping to which I think "they probably think I am on drugs" and have to call them back because I have no idea what I said. At the end of the day however I am a night shifter at heart and love what I do as long as I can get there on time and intact!

Easter week

Easter has never been the most fun holiday in our house. When I was little my grandfather went in for a routine operation was allergic to the anesthesia, went comatose and died on Easter Sunday.  It was fitting for him because he was a minister.  When I was fifteen my best friend died of a brain aneurysm in her sleep Easter week. I was supposed to spend the night at her house the night she died, but my grandmother was having surgery in the same hospital where my grandpa died  in the same week.  I went to see her instead.  God completely spared me from waking up to a dead girl.  It was the first dead body I had ever seen and I had nightmares for months and had to sleep with my brother. I got most of her stuff on top of that. Three years ago we were going to have Easter at our house.  I went up to give Steve the nursery pager in church so I could go home to finish prepping and I felt a gush of fluid. I was 14 weeks pregnant with Benjamin and was hemorrhaging.I ran to the bathroom at church screaming for people to get out of the stall because I thought there was something I could do.  No church bathroom is more crowded than on Easter Sunday. We rushed to the hospital where the sound of that heartbeat was the best sound I have ever heard in my life. We found out it was a boy that day and I entered into the next trimester on pelvic rest. We went home from the hospital where I wasn't suppose to move and had an earthquake. Two years ago Easter week I was on a board of directors at the school both of my parents worked at, and I had to make the decision along with others to close the school basically firing both my parents.  That was so hard. On  good Friday my husband had an emergency appendectomy. This week my dog almost died and just heard some rough things friends were going through and deal with the utter inability to help them. Tonight as I was sending my hubby off to work I hugged him laid my hand on him and prayed for safety as I always am on edge when he leaves for work. The point is not to focus and dwell on every bad thing that has happened.  Not everybody lived but Benjamin is certainly an active boy, my husband is fine and so is Max.  God allowed hurt and pain to ensue as he does to all of us, but there was also healing and redemption in that.  So as much as I do secretly dread Easter every year I know this is certain. The week is bad, but Sunday is indeed coming.

Parties, pinatas,and parents

On the way to a birthday party today I asked the boys what the rules were for birthday parties.  One of them replied "Don't punch the birthday girl in the face"! OK yes that is a great rule, but not really along the lines of what I was thinking. I wished I had known more of birthday party etiquette growing up or at least applied it.  Most of my friends growing up were of another culture and you basically brought a present, ate until you threw up and went home.  My first American party ( I mean in terms of present, games, cake, candles and singing) that I remember we played a game where you tried to drop a clothes pin in a jar from a chair.  I didn't get it.  I thought the clothes pin went on your nose.  I didn't win that one. Granted I think I was three years old at the time. Fast forward about 18 years and I was "friends" with a guy my senior year of college. He invited me to his 21st birthday party and so I went. They had a tradition in their family that no matter how old you were you got a pinata.  It was my turn to hit the pinata so they blindfolded me and I went at it.  I hit that thing so hard over and over.  As I was finishing my turn I heard everyone yelling "stop".  Well during my turn they had yelled stop a lot sooner and I had failed to hear them.  His mom came in to tap my shoulder to tell me to stop and it turns out I was hitting her over and over again.  If there was ever a hole I wanted to climb in it was at that moment in time. She had welts all over her arms. That entire family was so sweet and assured me that is was all right, but I felt horrible. It didn't help that the next day she had bruises all over her arms. I didn't end up with that guy in the end, but the guy I did end up with gave me three sons that I adore. So when my son responded "don't punch the birthday girl in the face" he is years ahead of me!

Dead dogs

Growing up I was not a dog lover.  No one in my family had dogs, partially because my dad was allergic and when I was little I was chased by a German Shepherd .My dad lifted me up and he bit my dad.  I really thought the only good dog was a dead dog, but if anyone has been to my house I have obviously gotten over that fear! I married a dog lover.  In fact not too long ago his parents had 7 huge dogs, I mean one was 180 pounds.  I told him if I had met him when they had all those dogs I would have never gone back. When we bought our house my husband wanted a dog. All right honey.  We went to the rescue and got two dogs. One went back because of a dog fight in which my husband's leg was a casualty, but we kept our senior citizen Jojo.  We later did get another dog from a military family that had to move. Her name was Baby. She was blind and had the most annoying bark, but stayed with me all the time. I grew to love these dogs deeply and sobbed when they died. In fact when one of them was dying Ben was a baby and both him and Jonathan were extra needy that night and I was so irritated at them for interrupting the last moments I had with her.  Somehow we intended to bury the ashes but did not.  Last month we found the ashes again and decided to bury them together under the tree they sat side by side every day.  Since Jonathan remembered the dog Baby so we had a little memorial.  We dumped the ashes somberly and all of the sudden like a cannonball Ben jumped into the air and landed in the hole full of ashes sending most of the ashes flying and Ben covered in our dead dog's ashes.  We too got ash on us.  We just stood there mortified looking at each other. Hence to say that funeral was finished.

My in-laws have also lost many dogs over the years and, most recently, every time the boys would visit.  The first time we went up for fourth a July and one died.  The second one died over the winter and Jonathan happen to be the one to find the body  He knew somehow he was dead and went downstairs and said very matter-of-fact, "Reggie's dead". This week as we were visiting we hadn't seen one of the dogs in a while and Jonathan asked, "Where's Machka? Is she dead?"  I think we may have caused some permanent damage to that one.

Keep your pants on!

There comes a time generally in my conversations with people that it reaches a TMI point.   I am a nurse and people tell me and show me all sorts of things, so very little bothers me.  I sometimes forget that it does bother others. However I am going to go ahead and just rip that band aid off right now.

We were taking care of our friend's place while they were on vacation. We would stop by and feed the cats and water their plants.  My middle son, who was almost two at the time, and I stopped by to take care of things after we had been swimming at a nearby friend's house.  We were still in our bathing suits and needed to change there before picking my other son up.  We got to the house and our shorts were pretty wet from our suits underneath.  I took off the bottom half of my suit and shorts along with Ben's suit and threw them into the dryer. I had gone to the bathroom and got a little surprise from mother nature at that exact moment.   I grabbed  a sanitary napkin and unwrapped it so that it would be ready when the clothes were dry. With that still in hand I turned the corner and their cat came charging at us, hissing with his claw up like we were his prey.  I quickly grabbed Ben, dropped the sanitary napkin on the kitchen counter and ran into the nearest room and shut the door.  We had barely made it and the cat was attacking the door hissing and scratching. There we were in the office safe with no pants on, and this cat hissing and stalking the door.  I didn't quite know what to do.  I thought about the window but, again, I had no pants on.  The window didn't open anyway. I looked around the room and there wasn't one thing I could cover up  with.  I saw on the desk there was a phone and a church directory.  I called up a friend that had a cat and explained we were trapped in the office, with the cat at the door and we had no pants.  There was silence on the other end of the line for a period and then laughter.  As I was talking to her I realized the vacuum was in the room and asked "cats are afraid of vacuums right? , Great"  I plugged the vacuum in turned it on rolled the vacuum in the cats direction grabbed our pants quickly put them on and got out of the house as fast as I could..  (Ben didn't get his pants on until we were outside).  It did cross my mind that I had left the sanitary napkin on the kitchen counter and the vacuum spread out in the hallway. I didn't care.  I was so relieved we had gotten out of there with some of our dignity intact.  So when our friends got home they were welcomed with their vacuum in the hallway a sanitary napkin on the kitchen counter.

All I can say from this experience is when taking care of a friend's house always keep your pants on.