To Be A Nurse

I think that so many people take for granted the nurses that go into work at all hours of the day and night.  It seems like an easy job, because well, so many people do it.  The hours aren't your typical 9-5 and it's rewarding to boot.  Well, I just want to explain a little what being a nurse and a mom means, because I'm just tired of people saying how lucky I am to have such a flexible schedule when they don't truly understand what that "flexible" schedule means. 

Being a pediatric nurse (or any healthcare worker) and a mom means.....

• Feeding a baby while thinking about how someone else is providing the meals for your own child.
• Crawling into bed after a long shift- alone, because you're going to bed too early or going to bed after everyone else has woken up.
• Sleeping with light blocking curtains covering your windows.
• Having to take Vitamin D supplements because you don't see the light of day enough.
• Singing the ABCs to a patient meanwhile thinking of how another person is teaching your child their ABCs.
• Knowing that cancer is in your future because working nights is a known carcinogen and praying that God will give you "enough" time with your family.
• Not being able to join anything because you have never have a regular schedule, no exercise classes, no story time, etc.
• Your child cries out at night for Daddy because Mommy isn't home enough to be reliable for nightmare comfort.
• When you say "Do you know what time it is" your child hangs their head and says in a sad tone "time for Mommy to go to work" even if it's not a day you have to work.
• Your child spends more time with another person than they do with you so that you can spend time "cuddling" with another child.
• You understand that schedules are an essential comfort to children, but just can't physically provide a normal schedule for your child.
• You literally don't remember the last time that you weren't exhausted, or that you actually got a reasonable amount of sleep for a week.
• With each patient you care for you send up a prayer of thanks for your own child, who isn't in the hospital.
• Wondering what it would be like to eat normal meals.
• Falling asleep in the middle of something when you have things to do and laying in bed awake for hours when you really want to sleep.
• Answering that last call bell to comfort a stressed out parent when what you really want to do is run away to be with your family.
• Changing another child's diaper and wondering what excuse will work for you to get out of diaper duty at home.
• Leaving your home before anyone is awake in the morning, and arriving home in just enough time to say goodnight.

•  Watching your daughter write the first letter of her name and realizing that someone saw her do this first.

• Not truly understanding what TGIF means because quite a few Fridays are the start of a stretch of shifts to work.
• Understanding that you don't have to leave your child every day of the week, but also knowing that your days off are recovering and preparing for your next day on.
• Trying to potty train your child while wishing that you were able to empty your own bladder on a regular schedule.
• You tell your active child that they better stop jumping on the bed because Mommy will not be going into work on her day off.
• You miss every other holiday with your family and pretend that it's just as exciting on another day. Or you take a quick nap and drink a lot of coffee so you can be a part of the holiday, wearing scrubs.
• Your child asks every day if you will be able to come to their birthday, because they know you can't make it to most fun things they do.

That's Some Stellar Parenting

I have felt like a stellar mother this week (insert dripping sarcasm here).  I am in no way a morning person and thankfully this job has eased me into the early morning thing with each morning of work being an hour earlier.  However, it kills me that I live a ten to fifteen minute drive from the hospital and yet, it takes me over an hour to get to work using the public transportation system.  The other morning I woke up at the still-night-hour of 5:45 to get ready to be at work by 8am. Munchkie's Daddy had his first presentation of the school year and was a nervous wreck.  I noticed that he wasn't in bed with me and when I went into the living room he was just lying down on the couch.  I told him to go to bed.  What good would he be at a presentation if he got next to no sleep, and the hour or so that he got was on the couch?  After sending him to bed, I rushed around trying to get ready.  As I was trying to get out of the door, a little face was smiling at me over a baby gate.  That sweet little face says to me, "Look Mama!  I wake up!"  Oh no!  Why?!?  Why did she have to wake up so early?!?!  I whispered to her, "Mama has to go to work, play in your room for a little while so Daddy can sleep."  Next thing I knew there was crying, no she didn't want to do that.  She wanted to be with Mama.  Naturally.  So I did what every good mother running out the door does.  I poured a bowl of cereal, filled a sippy cup with milk and turned PBS on, leaving the door to Munchkie's Daddy opened and raced out the door.  I was slightly late to work, but so were other new people, so I didn't feel so bad about that.  However, all morning I was a complete mess about running out the door like that.  Besides the fact that I don't really like that I am leaving my daughter most days with what feels like a stranger who's name I know, mornings like this make it extremely difficult to walk through the door and away from her. 

Today, I was scheduled to work for twelve hours, the shift that I will be working.  Somehow we got very lucky and they decided to cut our training a little short today, so I was home shortly after seven.  Normally I will be getting home around 8:30.  This means that I will be gone from before 6:00am until around 8:30am.  If I work two days in a row, I will not see Munchkie for those two days.  At all.  Oh, this is a very difficult realization.  While life in a city has so many advantages at times, being able to walk down to a market, having a huge aquarium or park nearby and having access to a very reliable public transportation system, it also means that it takes a while to get anywhere.  I just don't know how I will be able to handle this.  I love my family and my family comes first in everything.  Not being able to see Munchkie, hear about her day, talk to her or even get a hug is going to be extremely difficult.  I guess that it will be a learning experience for all of us. 

We will have to learn how to make the time we do have together incredible.  This makes it very difficult to want to do necessary things around the house.  I feel like even reading the mail is taking time away from spending time with Munchkie.  Right now I am writing this quickly, since she just went to bed and I need to do the same.  I cannot bring myself to set my alarm clock for any earlier than 5am, so I have one alarm set for 5am and another "no really, wake up now" alarm set for 5:15am.  Hopefully by the time I come home tomorrow, I will still be functioning enough to make Saturday a wonderful together time day.  Each day home has to count, has to make up for those days that the time spent together is only moments, if any. 

These few and far between times together, along with racing out the door leaving a crying child behind and not being able to provide more than a bowl of cold, dry cereal, does not make me feel like a good mother at all.  I don't know how other mothers do it.  I just don't.

A Day in the Life

I wrote most of this in the car on the way to my inlaws for Easter. I thought I would share a day in the life of Munchkie's Mama. And then I wonder why I'm tired.....

4:45am Alarm goes off, press snooze
4:47am Feel guilty for pressing snooze, so put glasses on.
4:50am Get out of bed and go downstairs
4:55am Take preassembled French toast casserole out of fridge, mush up defrosted fruit and put on top and sprinkle crumb topping over. Put in the oven.
5:05am Go back upstairs to Munchkie’s room and administer nebulizer treatment.
5:15am Put on exercise clothes and get DVD ready to go.
5:17am Put scrubs in dryer on wrinkle release setting because they were wadded up in the bottom of a laundry basket.
5:20am Begin torture aka Jillian’s 30 day shred.
5:35am Pull casserole from oven, resume work out.
5:55am Dripping in sweat, grab apple and quickly eat while getting ready for shower.
6:05am Take shower, dry hair, get ready.
6:32am Finish packing suitcase for Munchkie and I.
6:3 5am Run upstairs, flip lights on to wake Munchkie’s Daddy up and yell, “I’m late I’m really late get up get up get up!”
6:37am Come back downstairs, grab lunch, put on scrubs, sweep bathroom and kitchen for anything missed or left behind.
6:39am Put shoes and jacket on.
6:41am Dash out door with casserole, work bag, and tote with change of clothes.
6:58am Arrive to work and make it upstairs as fast as I can.
7:01am Swipe into work one minute late.
8:32am Have already realized that I forgot something, call Munchkie’s Daddy.
12:45pm Sit to eat a salad.
2:10pm Call Munchkie’s Daddy to see how things are going.
6:23pm Realize that I told Munchkie’s Daddy to bring the eggs, but not the egg decorating kit. He says he’s already got it.
7:33pm Get out of work, change clothes and walk out.
7:38pm Do some slight rearranging of car to fit self and more stuff into the car that already has two adults, two dogs, one toddler, two suitcases, three Easter baskets, Easter basket contents, medical supplies for the wheezing toddler, and several storage tubs to store at inlaws.
7:39pm Insert “Elmo’s Potty Time” into DVD player.
7:40pm Ask Munchkie’s Daddy about everything you can think of that might have been missed.
7:49pm Resort to fast food for dinner because there aren’t many options.
8:35pm Give Munchkie blanket, doll and Elmo and say it’s night night time.
8:53pm Realize that the Easter dress your mother in law made is hanging on the back of Munchkie’s bedroom door.
8:57pm Call work to laugh about it, because what else can you do.
9:01pm Tell Munchkie she’s not funny and that it’s night night time.
9:03pm Explain to Munchkie that we can’t go home yet to go night night because we have to go see Nana and Grandpa.
9:04pm Explain to Munchkie that her Uncle is away at college and will not be there.
9:10pm Tell Munchkie it’s night night time.
9:13pm Put pillow inbetween driver and passenger seat to form a wall.
9:15pm Tell Munchkie to go night night.
9:17pm Realize that Munchkie is dripping in sweat in her fleece pjs.
9:18pm Turn on cold air and start shivering.
9:20pm Begin to ignore Munchkie.
9:45pm Search gps for area stores.
10:08pm Arrive at Walmart.
10:16pm Try to hold back tears when there are no dresses to be found.
10:17pm Find dress on way out of store and figure out which is the lesser of the evils while envisioning the beautiful pink and white checked dress hand made with love.
10:18pm Join what seems to be one of many never ending lines.
10:34 Listen as the cashier states “You would think people didn’t realize that stores were open tomorrow” and reply “Well my excuse is that 2 hours into our trip to my inlaws we realized that my daughter’s Easter dress my mother in law made is sitting at home” then have cashier say “What is your problem mom can’t get things together?” Tell cashier “My problem is that I woke up before 5am, worked all day until 7:30pm and then started on the road” Cashier replies ”Ok, well you probably should have gotten it ready for your husband ahead of time.”
10:36pm Finally get out of Walmart feeling like the worst mom ever and resume travels.
11:25pm Soothe a crying Munchkie back to sleep.
11:55pm Soothe a crying Munchkie back to sleep.
12:24am Soothe a coughing, crying Munchkie back to sleep.
12:49am Tell Munchkie that it’s ok, we’re almost there the neb treatment is coming soon.
12:58am Arrive to inlaws. Run inside, set up neb machine.
1:03am Administer neb to a very cranky and sleepy Munchkie.
1:17am Literally fall into bed.
6:15am Alarm goes off, wake up and shower.
Happy Easter

Aquarium Day....... Again....

I have been reading a book that my good friend sent me "I Don't Know How She Does it" by Allison Pearson and while I can relate to a lot of what is happening in the book, it also makes me feel so much better that maybe I do hold my life together.  I have laughed quite a bit in understanding of the situations and feel like there is finally a book I can relate to while being a working mom.  The pure exhaustion, intense guilt of going to work and desire to "make up" for the time spent away from family.  The book makes me feel legitimized in my feelings and helps me know that I am not the only mother who both loves and hates her job at the same time.  I hate to go because it's so hard to leave but when I'm there I love what I do.  Still, I think of the sacrifices that could be made to stay at home,  not leaving my daughter in the care and control of someone else.

In the book the main character, Kate Reddy, talks about what an awesome responsibility parenthood is.  She says that YOU decide what to teach your kids.  It's up to YOU to help them form their beliefs, morals and ways of life.  What you say, your children believe and your life is an example to them.  She talks about how hard it is to not want your kids to drink juice, but then you aren't there every day to enforce these rules, someone else, that you are paying to grow close to your child, is the one who decides how the rules are followed through.

Now all this to say that I have been overly sensitive lately about having to go to work and leave my daughter in the care of people whom I barely know.  I am giving them my daughter and my hard earned money.  Something seems slightly wrong about this.  So in my guilt, I have been trying to do fun things with Munchkie on my days off.  We have gone to the aquarium weekly for a couple of months now because she loves it so much.  We went to get our car washed several times in the last couple months just for fun, and I let her walk along beside me in Target because I want the time we spend together to be happy memories for both of us.

This week when we were at the aquarium I noticed (and obviously was bothered by it, or I wouldn't be blogging) that the other moms were giving me this look.  We go first thing in the morning, just minutes after the aquarium opens, on a weekday when there aren't many people there.  The moms look at me and give me this look.  The only way I know how to describe it is "Aren't you just so glad that we get to stay home and do things with our kids?  We are providing so much more to them by staying home and enriching their lives with outings such as the aquarium."  I really am not imagining these looks.  At first I thought I was just crazy, but then I realized that every single mom gave me that look.  And the two dads that were there with their children had almost guilty looks on their faces.  Probably similar to what I was feeling, the "I work so much and spend so little time with my children that I take them to places like the aquarium so we can have a good time together and talk about it for several days afterword while I continue to work and not be home."  I wanted to punch these moms in the face and tell them that they have no idea.

While Munchkie and I were at the children's touch and explore tank, feeling sea stars and crabs, there were three moms, with their kids running around uncontrolled, talking.  I overheard their conversation and had to roll my eyes.  They were discussing the academies they were applying to get their kids into.  The one mom asked if they had been to visit a certain academy and the responding mom waved a hand in the direction of a crazy young boy running around saying "well I don't know if we would be able to get in because we have to work on such and such."  The boy couldn't even talk yet.  Seriously?  You spend your days discussing what you have to work on with your preverbal toddler to get them into an academy so they can be ivy league material?

This reminded me that there are many positives about the life we live.  Munchkie goes to a daycare where she is surrounded by kids of many different backgrounds and ethnicities.  She is learning to work well with others, use manners, share, respect those around her and look up to children older than her. She is well loved and knows that Mommy and Daddy can relax and have fun with her. We both work and she sees that working is a necessary part of life.  Munchkie understands that household chores are shared by both Mommy and Daddy.  She knows that she does not get everything she asks for and that she needs to work to achieve her goals.

While it still kills me to go to work, I also know that we have our priorities straight.

Some days are just plain hard

Today was one of those busy days at work.  At the time I was supposed to be getting off they were short staffed and so I decided to stay an extra few hours to get a little bit of extra money.  Munchkie's Nana and Aunt are here visiting and so we didn't have to wake Munchkie to take me to work this morning or keep her awake to pick me up.  Even if I had miraculously left work on time I still wouldn't have been able to see her or spend time with her today.  If I'm not going to spend time with her, I might as well make money right?

So after 16+ hours of work I'm tired, hungry and ready for bed.  On top of all that, I also am trying to resist the urge to scoop Munchkie out of her pack and play and snuggle with her in my bed.  I know Munchkie's Daddy would not be ok with that at all!  There's an aching in my heart and I just want to hold her.  I can't wait to see her smiling face tomorrow. I can't wait to get hugs and kisses. While there are hard days, there's always something to look forward to to help you get through them.  I am going to go to bed that way I can see that smile sooner and feel those hugs and kisses sooner. 

My least favorite holiday

I hate Valentine's Day.  Hate it.  Again, I hate it.  I always have.  I know that Munchkie's Daddy doesn't understand, but 22 years of being single and alone isn't completely negated with 7 years of being with someone.  My wonderful mom would always give me Valentine's care packages and send me fun things while I was single.  And even after I was with Munchkie's Daddy.  These cookies are what I think of when I think about Valentine's Day.  My mom would send them to me every year.

Ginger Valentine's Cookies

1 cup sugar
1 cup shortening
1 cup molasses (I actually didn't have any so I used 1/2 cup dark brown sugar and 1/2 cup maple syrup)
2 eggs
4 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Raw (or coarse) sugar
Dove chocolates

1. Cream together the sugar and shortening.
2. Add molasses and unbeaten eggs.
3. Mix well.
4. Sift together the dry ingredients and stir in.
5. Roll into 1 inch balls.
6. Dip the balls in a bowl of raw sugar until coated.
7. Place balls on greased cookie sheet about 3 inches apart.
8. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes.
9. When you take out of the oven press a chocolate into cookie while still warm.
10. **Dough keeps indefinitely in the refrigerator**

And now I am going to bed because I am exhausted.

So young and naive,  if only we had an inkling of what our life would be like.

Tears Fall

Tears fall today for another precious child taken to Heaven.  Who knew that such a small body with such a short life could change hearts and lives.  Although we think this life was taken too soon, there are no more owies, no more tubes, no more wires, no more sleepless nights, and no more crying.  How wonderful to have a perfect body, pain free, and to be able to do the things you could never do.  Heaven is a better place for you, precious little baby, but earth is a much sadder place now that you're gone.

Please keep in your thoughts and prayers the parents whose children are taken from them to dance with the angels in heaven.

These are the parts of my job that I don't love.

Friends are friends forever.......

I haven't been able to do much except work, sleep, repeat the last several days.  Ugh!  However, it was for a great cause!  MY FRIENDS ARE COMING!  I get so excited when people come to visit, and these friends are forever friends.  Munty and I jokingly called each other husband and wife while in nursing school because we spent more time with each other than anybody else, including our boyfriends.  I am so excited to pick them up from the airport that I am not even tired and really need to get at least a couple hours of sleep after working last night.  Here are a few pictures from my past that I went looking for this morning and they bring up all kinds of memories!  I can't wait for a great weekend followed by a week of vacation from work!

This is Munty and I freshman year of college headed to our very first nursing clinical.

Munty and I at our nursing "capping."  Yes we had to wear actual nurses' hats.

Munty and I a few weeks ago when we went to Illinois.  Oh how our lives have changed since that first day of clinical!