October

This has been a busy month. Jake and I went to my sister's house for balloon fiesta. It was his first long trip and we were alone. Thank goodness for the dvd player!!! I was very grateful to have a new vehicle to drive too. It was great. I had a terrible time holding down the speed though.

We still have a ton going on at work. The one doctor that does the single most surgeries is off two weeks because his wife had a baby. It has been a nice break but we know we will be paying for it starting next week. That is good, sort of. I mean it keeps us working but we are short of course. One person is off for having had surgery and that makes a big impact for the rest. We have also had trouble with the H1N1 starting. It is hard to be down two nurses at once. Our fear is that it will be more than that. Mandatory 7 days off is very painful to a unit. But they are sick and the rest of us don't want it. We also got good news??? The charge nurse's pet is quiting!!!! She is returning to another department. It surprises us that they will let her back. We are all excited. This is the review I was dreading so much for retaliation from the charge. It has been surprisingly okay. The charge is upset because she is leaving but no one else is, literally. We all have to pick up her slack and it is easier to do it if she is just gone. She has been with us for three and a half years but has managed to have three extended leaves (a month or more) and was being "allowed" to have surgery and be off for the holidays. I think that is was finally got her to leave. Everyone was so pissed. Yesterday though, another person announced she was moving far away. It wasn't a surprise. We knew her husband has been looking for a different job for a long time. But, he is one of those people that is always looking for the greener grass. It just puts a lot on the rest of us. That puts us down three full time RNs. That is not something we can all cover. It takes at least 6 months to train a new nurse to the job. If someone has a lot of OR experience it might be more like three months, but those people aren't just laying around. We will figure it out.

This month was to be the month. This month we had decided to start trying for another baby. That didn't work out. I have finally gotten off the meds for my face. It isn't going that well, but I will do what it takes. I had a skin lesion taken off my nose and it was benign so that was good. However, I have been having this horrible pain in my ankle. I have been trying to exercise because I need to so badly and now I am in pain. I mean I can't always put my weight on it. So I talked it over with our only longstanding ortho. (we have new ones, but I'm not comfortable with them yet). Anyway, I had a stress fracture in my ankle five and a half years ago and this is how it hurt. I figured out this pain isn't going away and he told me I had to come in. So I did. I saw his PA last week and got an xray. A calcification showed up on that picture that wasn't there in the picture I had taken years ago. If that is the problem, I need to have it surgically removed. THAT ISN'T AN option. I am closely protecting my time off so I can take twelve weeks off with a baby. Tomorrow I have a bone scan. That means I get radioactive dye injected and then they scan and see where it concentrates. That is the only way to know if it is another stress fracture or if it is this calcification. A stress fracture hopefully means just immobilization. If it means crutches this time, I can't work. I have a walking immobilizer boot right now and it is helping. Last time it was a different boot and there was too much wiggle room. That meant too much pain and I ended up in a cast. If the calcification is the issue than hopefully a steroid pack will calm the inflammation and then we will be done - for awhile. Any which way, it meant the egg I just popped out went to waste and that has us both sad.

Another note. Mike keeps hearing there are going to be cuts again at work. That means him. He has heard November, December, or February. He says it can't last long because they really won't be able to run the trains. It will be kind of like my department, the rest just can't make up that much. Plus there are a ton of federal regulations limiting their work so that helps them need more people. Who knows. Next month I'll get pregnant, be off work on crutches, and my husband will be without a job. Now that would be an opener for the holiday season!

I skipped a whole month again. I think sitting here and writing means facing myself and that is hard. Work is getting worse again. Hours suck. Increased workload, decreased staff, too much management. FUN. Had to get a new car. I hate spending money but I must say I love it. Jake and I got to say to hell with it all and are at my sister's house. One of the worst things about going on vacation is knowing that when it is over there is nothing to look forward to. Hopefully I can get some pictures up here in the next few days as we should be having some fun.

I survived

She is gone. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it through last week. I still have my doubts about the future as far as pissing the charge nurse off. The charge nurse was back today after being off most of the summer. I wish there had been a little more space between her pet's eval and her coming back. But I've made it this far. I even got my reimbursement check today for my certification test I took in December.

I also survived the birthdays. My baby is two. My baby! Jake is so funny. He is such a charmer. He has so many people wrapped around his little finger. I just can't believe he is two! I didn't even get to take pictures during the birthday. We gave Jake another cupcake yesterday just so we could take a picture and to see if he would eat it. He didn't. He loves candles. He tried and tried to blow them out with Mike on the big cake and we let him blow them out several times on his cupcake. Of course someone was standing beside him helping him. He didn't notice.

He has been a stinker when he knows you are trying to take his picture. He won't give you a nice smile like this one. I don't remember why there is a tear. We have pictures coming up in a couple of weeks and I hope he cooperates!

I made a cake to practice for his birthday. I should have made practice cupcakes because that didn't work so well with his allergy modifications. The cake tastes good and Jake got his first beater.

A good friend's sister has a little boy that is a few weeks younger than Jake. Jake loves to play with him. We went to the splash pad at the zoo and the boys sat to have a snack. It was so cute. Jake started handing K some of his puffs with out being told. He would only hand them out one at a time however and sometimes he gave them a lick first. They were so cute.!

This is the little boy who sees the camera! Our baby sitter came over to say goodbye before heading off to college. He wouldn't cooperate for a picture at all. He still asks about her.

My struggles are a bit different right now. I have been so busy I haven't been able to dwell on how crappy I feel. A friend of mine saw a different doctor today about her thyroid and got a different medication. I am very interested to see how it works for her. My thyroid levels aren't real low but they sit on the line. I may make an appointment with the doctor she saw if it really helps her.

Anyway, that isn't the problem. One day years ago, like seven or eight, I agreed to work with the plastic surgeon that was coming to our hospital. I agreed to be the person primarily in his room so he could have some consistency when he started. I believe my boss said that way he didn't have reinvent the wheel each week. I was still pretty new. It had to be at least eight years ago. Anyway, I quickly discovered I didn't really care for it that much. I didn't like the doctor much and plastic surgery ranges from gross to really horrible. One day in a staff meeting, my boss announced that we had a new position and she was looking for people to apply. She said that she wanted to have coordinators for each specialty and they would be doing things similarly as to what I was doing. She announced to everyone that I was the service coordinator for Plastics. What the hell? This was the first I had heard about this title. I was not very happy. If given the opportunity I would have picked a different specialty. Ortho was my favorite and I wanted to do that. I told her. She told me I couldn't do both. I said that was fine, I just wanted to do ortho. Nope, not going to happen. It all worked out. I would have really gone crazy in that position when a particular doctor started. I would of quit.

So, there have been changes over the years. That surgeon left and I have completely set up two following plastic surgeons. I also was a coordinator for a retinal surgeon for the brief time he was here (I put so much work into that). After someone else quit, I was actually asked to take on gynecology also. The surgeon in that practice that I didn't like had just left so I said that would be just fine. I liked it a lot more. I still do. Anyway, back to the present. Some how this position means I can do my coworkers evaluations. I don't know why it does but that is what has happened. I want to blame on the temp director but I can't because my old boss made me do three last year. This year is different, however. I was initially assigned four. Two of the other service coordinators were also assigned four. One of them did the evals like I did last year and the other didn't. We didn't get any sort of training, just some papers and a shove last year. However, the people assigned to us were very carefully picked. The director did the problem ones, as well as ours and the charge nurse did a lot of the rest of the staff. Well, the charge nurse has been off for about two months now sick. She has been really sick. In and out of the hospital. Two hospitals actually. Tomorrow is the temps last day. She wanted all of the evals done by then. So that meant we had to split up the people assigned to the charge nurse and do those also. I took four initially and accepted a fifth one today.

Of the first four I got, the director told me she was sorry because she gave me two of the three hardest ones in the department. I was upset about one. I'm not sure who she thought the second one would was because the others weren't bad at all. She did give me my best friend, but we are good enough friends that we can tell each other what we need to do and it isn't a big deal. She did have a few issues but one of the other evals on my list is the most strong-willed nurse in the department. But the one I was dreading was the worst nurse in the department. The laziest person we have who is the charge nurse's pet. Wahoo!!! I have been sick about it. I worked on it for hours last night and then went to the director and went over it again today. I went to her to help me find some positive and she just kept adding more negative. I very frankly discussed my concerns about giving an honest evaluation to the charge nurse's pet. Our new director doesn't even know the charge nurse because she has been gone. (she was back for partial days for about a week about a month ago. She was still too sick). The inter um voiced my concerns to our new director or so she told me. She never saw it so she doesn't know what I am talking about. She didn't see the favoritism and hasn't seen the retaliation.

The inter um did the eval with me today. I'm glad but she was a lot harsher than I was. The coworker did okay, but I could see that by the end she was starting to think, to devise. You can see it in her eyes. She is a plotter. I am scared. There is nothing wrong with her appealing the eval. The director did it with me. I had specific supporting information that had been presented by peers. Peers too afraid to give their own names, but some obvious to her (that one would be my best friend that the charge calls a tattle tail all the time). But the nurse was still doing things she shouldn't. She actually has some firable infractions. I am still worried. I was sick all morning. However, I the last eval I picked up has me more concerned. It is someone that oriented me. She has been a nurse forever. She is a friend. But she is having some significant problems. I have done six evals so far and three of the people have voiced concerns about her. The same concerns I have. Something is wrong with her and I don't know what it is. I wonder if she is sick and not telling us. Her job performance has gone to crap. She used to be a bit dingy but a good nurse, now she is just bad. You pretty much have to tell her exactly what to do or she doesn't. She can't identify what needs to happen on her own. She will just stand there until you tell her to go do this or do that. We have been worried but we didn't know what to do. She has to have hand surgery but that isn't root of the problem. This one I think will be harder. I went over her self evaluation and I was just shocked. She could not have rated herself any higher. Not at all. She gave examples but they aren't enough. She obviously doesn't see how bad she is doing. It is going to hard. There will be crying. I believe this was the third evaluation of the top three. So I get to do them all. I am not worried about what she will do to me. She might be mad, but it is out of concern for her welfare, not to mention everyone she takes care of, that I have to be honest. This one might have to be brutally honest for her to see.

Why do I have to do these? What gives me the authority to do annual evaluations?? Peer evaluations yes, but the actual big one? I am so ready to be done with it!!!

Whew!!!

I was brave and got my evaluation over with today. It took more than two HOURS to do. Almost two and a half hours actually. She is a story teller. She has literally seen me at the desk as charge nurse and said "oh dear, where is Mary?" Now how does that make you feel? Today she said I do a very good job of running the desk. Huh??? My charge nurse - really called a unit manager but she seems to want to do mostly the charge nurse stuff. Anyway, she has been really sick. Really, really sick. She was in ICU for more than a week. She has been off for 6 weeks? maybe a little more. She hasn't had a lot of opportunity to do more of the unit manager tasks. Anyway, there is a second in charge running the board most of the time, but occasionally I have been too. This director seems to think the sun rises and sets with Mary so I was surprised when she said that. The whole thing was a pleasant surprise actually.

We did talk quite a bit about one of the evaluations that I have to do. It has me in a difficult position and she helped me. She didn't tell me anything I didn't know but she offered to sit in on the evaluation and that was a relief. I want a witness. If she doesn't I am going to ask the acting charge to sit with me. It isn't going to be pretty. I think one of the reasons she assigned me this nurse was because she know that I have to be honest. I call her on her crap all the time right? The issue is that this is a bad nurse and a bad employee. She is incredibly lazy. She thinks she is so much better than the rest of us and that she doesn't have to pull her own weight. But she can tell everyone else what to do. She happens to be the unit manager's pet. I don't get it. I kind of do, but I don't. I mean she is really bad. It took her a lot of work to find someone to fill out her peer evaluation, because everyone can't stand her. She wanders around with this sense of entitlement. She is also afternoon charge sometimes and she is terrible. She is so freaking lazy. I can not express this enough. Well, if I am honest her eval is going to suck. I can be honest without letting my personal dislike get in the way. If her eval sucks the unit manager is going to be nasty to me. So I at least want a witness so she can't say I was just mean. I have bitched and moaned plenty on the past about how nasty the charge can be when you piss her off. GREAT!! The director told me that she doesn't see how this person is still here. She obviously doesn't care about being and OR nurse. Well, I finally agree with something this woman says.

I can tell the director thinks I remind her of herself. I was surprised. She really wants me to get a master's degree. She said that like 20 times and she had many many suggestions for different jobs and experiences for me. I was surprised. But she also told me that she wants ME to become the unit manager when our current unit manager isn't any more. That was a surprise. It is always best to promote from with in and it would be the worst first year of my life but that I was the stand out in the department for that position. What about Mary??? Mary is working on her BSN but doesn't have it yet. It was very surprising to me. She said I was a wealth of untapped knowledge. Weird! It was weird. I literally could not have had a better evaluation. I could not have scored any higher. There wasn't anything I needed to work on just goals for the up coming year. Weird!!!

The crappy thing is those of us doing evals are going to have to do more because we don't know when the unit manager will be back. I did some last year right, but this director has really made a big deal out of the service coordinators. She has elevated our positions without more pay and kind of ticked off the "others." That makes it more fun right? At least one thing I have been dreading is done.

This summer has been bad. With me at least. I am struggling. It makes me very sad that I am not enjoying my son as I should be, as he deserves me to be. Work is soooo stressful. Our interim director should only be here nine more days. Thank GOD. Only we have to have all our evaluations done in that time. She personally has to do mine. Not good. We don't get along. She tells us all these things we do wrong and I argue with her. She doesn't see how we do anything. She is locked (literally) in an office half way across the hospital. Even when her office was in our department she still didn't see. She was off at even more meetings than our old director.

Good news is that we have a permanent new director. She seems much more on page with us. Hopefully it will work well. We have just had two directors for more than a month now and it sucks. It also means we are getting assignments from both of them. Assignments that have to be done out side of our actual duties of taking care of patients. Managers some how seem to forget that we still do that. Hello! Someone still has to take care of the people. They get so far removed. I have pointed that out to the interim director that her assignment will have to wait because I have a job more important to do first. She didn't like that.

Mike's job has been insane. He still has one, thank God, but he is hardly ever home. He is only about twelve hours between trips. Then he is gone for at least 36 hours. He is awfully tired too. Not much that needs to get done around here can get done.

I have an appointment this week with the doctor about the medication for my face. I have been taking medication now since what, Jake was 5 or 6 months old. I have very little never pain now which is obviously great. I still have a lot of twitching and tugging and spasming that is muscular and they can't fix. Some of it could be helped with botox injections but the worst of it is around my mouth so that isn't really an option. Of course, what I am being told is that I just need to reduce my stress levels and that will get better. Anyway, the point of the appointment is to stop taking the medication. It is not something that I can take while pregnant. It effects my nerve transmissions and could prevent a baby's from forming properly. I believe it is a category X medication so we want off that. But that leaves me afraid. Will I have that horrible pain again? I have visited with a couple of the providers at my OB office and they have researched the recurrence of Bell's Palsy during pregnancy. There isn't much out there. My odds are higher but they don't know if there is anything I can do to try and prevent it. They give pregnant women with herpes antivirals during pregnancy and I wanted to know if that would help me. They just don't know.

I have officially gone off the pill as of like a couple of days. However, I feel like something is wrong with me physically. I went to the doctor and they told me it was just stress. My symptoms cover many things including stress. Fatigue. I am so tired I can't do anything. I could take a nap every day when I actually get home. I have been stuck late at work almost every day. Loss of appetite but weight gain. I completely forget to eat because I am not hungry. But I have gained weight which makes me feel like crap. Headaches, nausea, difficulty sleeping even though I feel like I could always take a nap. Depression? Thyroid? Tell me I am fine. Something is out of balance but I don't know what it is. I am hoping maybe this doctor will draw more blood this week and maybe they can tell me. He wouldn't treat anything because he is just a pain specialist and he is only here for less than a month because he is moving. That has me a little worried. What happens if I have problems again? Who do I go to? Hopefully he can tell me. He has a very busy practice so there are a lot of people that are going to need a different doctor.

I just feel like I need to be doing more for my sweet little demon child than I am. I feel like I'm not being a good enough mommy right now and oh, we need to hurry up and try to have another child because the clock is ticking. That doesn't help. I need to figure out what it up with me before I get pregnant. But now my husband that is never home is really pressuring me to have the second baby I do want. He just wants it now. I can't figure that one out.

Anyway, I'm just struggling a bit right now...

hangning in

Life is still stressful. I sat in a meeting this afternoon for an additional hour after my shift ended. All I could think about was getting and walking out, forever. What the hell am I doing?? I am ready to strangle my "temporary" boss. We have a new one starting soon and I hope, I pray that they kick this lady to the curb. Is that going to happen? No, she has a contract for some crazy amount of money until the end of August and then will be a consultant until 6 major projects are completed. Or so she says. I don't know if the hospital will go for that. I'm sure it is a TON of money. Besides, we are hoping the new boss disagrees with some of things she is pushing. Anyway, she has made my life very difficult. Much more so than before. She keeps piling on the work. Every Monday she gives us more and more. The charge nurse doesn't give us any time to work on these minor projects. ha! I am sorely irritated that I am doing all this extra work for $80 a pay period. I would love to say I am done, but that won't happen. They won't let me quit this extra work without leaving the whole job. I am so tempted. Oh wait, I have to have a different job to do that! Anyway, she chewed me out for not questioning whether a doctor was credentialed to do a surgery or not. I never in a million years would have questioned this. It was just a small portion of the surgery she is yelling at me about. It is all about paperwork and not the doctor's abilities. I was just livid. LIVID. I checked into it and the person that can help is injured. Great. So I went to the medical director over surgical services and told him. He was shocked. Nurses being told to question doctors? So I hope I won't be getting my head chopped off tomorrow.

Speaking of chopping off - Jake took off the end of his thumb Saturday. He was playing in the storage container cupboard. We have a safety catch on the outside of the doors and then on the inside as well. He can get them open in less than 1o seconds. The main reason those doors are latched is because he makes such a big mess. Well, in the midst of his mess he cut his little thumb on the edge of a zi.p.loc storage container. Are they sharp? They aren't supposed to be. I was cooking dinner just feet away from him and he screamed for me and there was blood all over. OMG was there blood. I thought he cut his hand off. I was shocked. I had to struggle to see where the blood was actually coming from because it was all over him. I still don't know how he did it but the container is obviously gone. I held pressure on his little thumb for fifteen minutes and it didn't help. I didn't want to take him to the ER and have them tell me I was an idiot for bringing him there so I took him across the street to the neighbors. My neighbor and his dad were outside. They are both paramedics and flight nurses. My neighbor is actual now a nurse practitioner and been a nurse in two wars now being deployed multiple times. So anyway, I thought he could at least tell me if I was being silly or I really should go to the hospital. He looked at it and said it was pretty serious since there was no way to actually close the wound. This I know. But I don't know how they treat it when it is like this. I know what to do when it is worse, but this is in a grey area for me. He put a huge band aid on it and wrapped it with something I wasn't familiar with and then put a bunch of tape over it to try to keep it on. I know little kids. Half of them have their dressings off by the time we get them to the recovery room. Thank God Jake left it on. The goal was for it to fall off in the bath Sunday night, but I was presented the dressing and the thumb when I was trying to sleep Sunday morning. It looked like hell! It looked so painful. But thank you, Jesus, it wasn't bleeding. I got a couple of band aids on it and I wrapped it with some coban. That stayed on until after his bath and we put on another that is still on now. I was just sure it would fall off at daycare and start bleeding again. Hopefully we are past the bleeding now. If we had gone to the ER they would have had to cauterized it. That is so painful. I would have been crying too. So we are still good and he still wants to play in that cupboard.

Now on a daily basis we are talking about baby number two. Mike wants to start trying now. Mike is the one that gets to sleep. Although Jake is doing much better, but he still doesn't sleep all night in his bed every night. But it is better. He gets up very early and stays up way too late for me. I think it was about 845 when he fell asleep in the chair. He still screams until he barfs if you put him in his crib to go to sleep. I just don't know what to do about that. I am just tired of cleaning up vomit. Anyway, it is still a little earlier than I want to have a second baby. Mike keeps reminding me that I am thinking in the world where I get pregnant the first time we try and I need to wake up. Nice huh? He is right, but what if? Maybe... Then he reminds me that maybe Jake was our one on a million and it will take more than just a year of trying on our own this time and some hormones. Nothing like another slap in the face! But he is right, but what if... I want them to be two years apart in school so that would mean Jake needs to be three since his birthday is at the end of August. I guess there is still a chance we won't hold him back but I doubt. He is doing really well, but he is a boy and I am already sick thinking about how we are going to handle daycare then. I have been planning on stay on bcp's until the end of October. That has been my mindset and then we will have to figure it out.

The good news is that Mike's work situation has kind of leveled out a little. The railroad has hired back a few people. That puts him higher up the list. I am no longer worried on a daily basis if he will have a job and where it will be. But, we never dreamed they would cut so many people to begin with. It is still touchy. Mike says we will figure it out and we won't let it stop us having another baby. We have to feed it and diaper it. But we will work it out.

I went in to work today in a good mood because today is my tenth anniversary at my job. Too bad my boss had to poop on it.

Wait, we are still here!

Wow, not even one little post in May, not even a whine about my birthday. I survived. It feels like that is what we do - survive. We both still have jobs. Our hours haven't been affected too much lately. We have had a lot of surgeries. My temporary boss has greatly expanded my job duties as a service coordinator. I don't mind, but it is hard to get done what I need to do while I am still doing the rest of my job. I am slightly irritated that I only have the potential to make $80 more a pay period for doing this than coworkers that do as little as possible. I have a lot of responsibilities. However, I know that I would be laughed at if I asked for more compensation since we are still being told to be thankful for the hours we have.

Mike is still home!!!! We really didn't think he would make it past the middle of May, but he is still here. The railroad did a whole bunch of track work near us and that meant more jobs temporarily in the area. Mike heard this week that they set up 25 more trains. That is great news, sort of. Last I knew, he didn't know how many people were getting their jobs back. Rumor was that it was only going to be about six people. That just means the people that still have jobs just have to work more. I suppose that is okay. It keeps us with a paycheck, right? I was hoping it would be more people would get their jobs back and that would put just a little more space between Mike and the bottom of the list. The most important thing about 25 more trains is that it means they need more coal. That means things are maybe, just maybe, starting to turn around. It gives us hope that there just might be another 10, 15, 25 or more trains in the future. We are not relaxing with this by any means but we have a glimmer of hope.

Of course the most important thing in our lives is our sweet little monster. Is he that bad? No, but it sure feels like the terrible twos are hovering near. There are frequent fits and lots of NO mama's and even worse are the no daddy's. Daddy has a harder time understanding that this is just part of the age. There are time-outs for that and hitting fairly often. I definitely feel a battle of the wills coming in our near future. I mean big battles. We get frustrated at such a willful little boy, but I keep asking Mike what he thought we were going to get! I think it has helped Mike see that he isn't our little baby anymore. That has been something Mike has been refusing to see.

Jake talks about none stop. Again, I'm not sure where he got that. He says lots of sentences now. I mean real sentences with verbs and everything. We (he and I) still get frustrated trying to communicate what he wants sometimes. I just don't know what "this" is sometimes. He signs "more" and says "this" and gets very frustrated that I don't what he wants.

Jake is still a terrible, terrible eater. I am so frustrated. He will not give up baby food. There are days that is the only thing he will eat. The most difficult thing is that there is only one kind of food that he wants now. Over time he has stopped eating the other flavors and will only eat this one. He will literally eat it for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. It could be worse right? I mean it is a dinner so it has veggies and meat. He could only be eating applesauce or something. I hate it. I am so ready to be done with this crap. I keep exhausting the town's supply of this variety. I have asked stores to order it for me and they won't. That really surprised me. I am willing to pay up front. We haven't been able to find it online either. Last weekend I went to six stores and only came up with 11 jars. That is a big problem. I went to one today and they had nothing again. He will just not eat and have milk or juice if you don't have his "ninner." Just recently he has started asking for beans. I can't figure out what he means for beans. I have given him everything I can think of and I asked at daycare and they don't know either what beans mean.

I wish I could say Jake's sleeping has improved but I can't. It has from eight months ago I suppose. He generally sleeps through the night 2 maybe 3 nights a week. He let me sleep in just a little one day this week. He still throws up if you leave him in his crib to cry. Actually, Mike needs to clean the carpet right now from two nights ago. This is something that causes a lot of stress for us. Mike puts him in bed and says I can't get him. He finally caves and then I have to clean up the whole damn mess. I have had to give Jake a bath after 10 because he has gotten so sick. This makes me very angry with Mike.

Potty training? Not exactly. I still try to put Jake on the potty chair before his bath if he is willing. He asks to sit on it several times a day but he rarely actually goes in the chair. He seems to understand though. He asks when you go to change his diaper. (I just love to hear him say diaper. It seems to have syllables).

Here is my beautiful iris. I planted a ton of them last year and a few did bloom this year. This is the first. It has had a total of seven blossoms on that stalk. I didn't realize they could have that many. I do so love iris.
I am going to have to try harder. It is therapeutic to write so I should do it more right? Sometimes you just don't want to actually but the words down because that makes them real. You don't want to admit to yourself the situation.

And so it goes

I keep trying to sit down and write a post but I just can't seem to do it. I would love to just carry on about Jake because he is doing so well, but that isn't what is consuming my mind these days. I am horribly stressed with work, both mine and Mike's. It seems as though we are circling the the drain and there isn't much we can do.

Mike is now five people from having to go to Wyoming to work. That would be horrible, scratch that, that WILL be horrible. What it means is that he will have to go to the next leg of their trip instead of his normal one. It is the final or initial step for the trains. It is taking the trains to and from the mine. He actually does that a lot now but then he brings the train home. He would have to live up there. His plan is to get a topper for his truck and when he can't drive home he will sleep in his truck. He can't find a reasonable topper anywhere near us. It isn't like he has set hours or days so we can plan on him being gone so long and home so long. It is going to be awful. Five more people get laid off and he goes. What is worse is that once he leaves, it is only the ticking of the clock before he gets laid off. He has been there more than five years! When the layoffs started he kept telling me not to worry because there were so many people behind him on his local board. Well they have laid off about 200 people that were behind him on the board. There are less than fifty left behind him... Companies are needing the coal. They are using their reserves. It can't go on forever, but will we survive the cut? Probably not. He has our health insurance. He has an outstanding retirement that will be gone. Gone.

My job is sucking ass. The environment is hell. Everyone is miserable. Our new boss doesn't give a shit about people. That isn't her job. Her job is to shape things up and trim the fat. I was off yesterday (without pay) because we didn't have enough work. I needed a mental health day though. It is scary. Everyone has the claws out. My charge nurse was gone for about the first two and a half weeks the new director was here. I had to be the charge nurse for three of the days she was gone. I hated it. HATED IT. Someone almost got fired for an error while I was on duty and I had to defend the person. It was the charge nurse's pet. I don't like her personally, but more importantly I am not comfortable with her work. But there was no way in hell I was going to be the one in charge when she got the boot. My life would have been HELL!!!! For the current volumes we are doing, we probably four too many nurses. So... Right now we are all having to go home early or stay home. Summers are always worse because doctors take vacations and will be gone a week here and a week there. Thankfully, nurses take vacations too so that will help a little.

Anyway, I'm not sleeping well. I'm worrying constantly. I have to watch my back every single move I make. Our jobs won't be based on seniority like Mike's. Ours will be the first, the second, etc to screw up. So all the worrying doesn't help one's performance. I mean you get paranoid and shaky. You question yourself and that isn't good. We need to just be able to do. But no, now it is "did I dot that i, did I cross that t?" I mean everything is important but you should have to triple guess yourself.

The worst part of this personally is that we have been talking about starting to try for another baby sooner rather than later. At the moment, we aren't sure it about holding Jake back a year to start school. That is a long way off but he is doing better developmentally than lots of the kids in his room that are six months older. He is doing well socially as well. But we still don't know how he will be when it actually comes to the time to make that decision. We can't have another baby now. We won't be able to get the hospital insurance until November. But that aside, we won't be able to afford another child on just my income. We may have to move. Who knows what we will find for work. I have been glancing around and everyone is tightened down right now. The job market is horrendous around here for Mike. I mean, 200 people have been laid off a head of him. They are all looking for jobs! Nothing will pay as well of have the benefits. Hopefully something else would have better hours, but... Anyway, we may have to put off another baby. We may not be able to have another baby. This is upsetting me very much right now. I mean, if I can't get pregnant that is one thing, but if it is because of the damn economy I am going to be mad my entire life.

Hopefully I can get a happier post with pictures of Jake out in a few days.

Things aren't going all that well right now, but it makes world feel a lot less crappy when your baby looks up at you and says "Mama, I love you."

Fun in the sun

A good friend and coworker of mine brought over an Easter basket for Jake today. He loved it. It had some jello eggs, a huge bubble wand, chalk, a turtle shaped water gun, and more good stuff. We took him outside to play and he just loved it. He just adores this friend of mine. He asks for her every day. This morning when he woke me up by jumping on my head at 3:40 he was asking for her. I thought about taking him to her at that moment! He just loves to play with her. Her only daughter graduates from high school this year and babysits for us from time to time. My friend is really looking forward to having Jacob to play with once her baby is gone.

Anyway, we played and played and played. He was so cute. I didn't grab a single picture either. Every time he puts something in your hand or takes something from you he says thank you. That is great right? Well when you are holding the bubble bottle and he dips the wand in he says it. We had to have heard thank at least 150 times while we were there. It was fun. I got sunburned though and I'm afraid his cheeks might be pink. I need to get some new sun screen I guess. I was looking at Jake's little legs the other day and thank goodness I think he is going to get a bit of his daddy's coloring. His legs were not anywhere near as pale as mine. I have the skin so white it is lavender on my legs. I still feel bad if I burned my baby

So the new boss was there today. First thing she had maintenance come put a big deadbolt on her office door. The bosses door has never been locked before. There were tons of things in there we needed - instrument books, reference materials, orientation videos that cost a fortune, pay stubs for people who weren't there on payday, emergency OR light bulbs and fuses, back laser keys for when someone misplaces the regular set, emergency chocolate and antacids. I didn't see her much. But almost everyone who was working around her said that she didn't speak to them. She didn't start conversations, she didn't introduce herself or anything. We have a very short meeting every morning and she didn't come to that either. I sure hope she does in tomorrow. I walked up to introduce myself and she turned around and walked away. I didn't mention that the charge nurse is still MIA either did I? Great. Well, let's see how it goes for the rest of the week. I have some major things I need to get handled but I'm not sure how to go about it.

The beginning? The end?

I hardly slept last night. I had a ticket to a high school musical that had been rescheduled from Saturday night. We had a blizzard so they changed it. That made it hard because it didn't get over until a little after 10 and I had to be up at 5. I'm old and don't cope with that very well. The musical was great and a much needed distraction. I had very fitful sleep filled with bad dreams. You see, today our interim director started and my boss told us she thought it was her last day. It is nice to start the day with us all crying.

I can't even tell you the new person's name. I know her resume is longer than my arm. What does that mean to me? She doesn't do one thing for very long, and I'm not talking about interim positions. My charge nurse didn't work today at least in our unit. She had to spend some time some where with administration going over things with this new person. She did tell one of my coworkers that she told this person that "we" weren't going to be very receptive because we are going to be very loyal to our old boss and that "we" don't trust the two doctors that are now in charge of everything. Well, that is kind of true. We are not happy with the two doctors. I don't trust a word that comes out of either of their mouths - one I never have and the other I stop trusting more recently. They flat out lie to us. Nice huh? We are loyal to the boss that has been with the hospital for forty years and she is still in her fifties. But I think we are afraid. We don't know what is happening again. Again, our future is uncertain. Again there are doctors behaving badly and getting their way. We have been told we can't progress because of the leadership we had, but what the hell do we have now???

Wait and see. Go to work and do my job. That is all I can do. I have to keep my mouth shut. I have to just do it. I am scared. There are things that need to be done. There are things that I need done to help the doctors I work with that I haven't been able to get done. Maybe there will be changes now. I don't know. Every doctor thinks their needs are more important than any other doctor and they should have the newest most expensive equipment. I just don't know. I just have to keep going I guess. I just want to cry. A lot. I only hope maybe there are some things we can do better.

Wait and see

Road trip for photos

Friday we took off after I got off work. I had to pick up Jake, feed him a snack and clean myself up before we could leave. I had been hoping to get out a little early from work but it didn't happen. Jake was about as uncooperative as he could be. Every thing seemed to be moving in slow motion except the clock. I got ready and I stood in the living room and had to decided if we were going to try to make it out or not. I decided that I just really really needed to get the heck out of Dodge even if for just a few hours.

So we hopped in the car and drove to our favorite photographer. She was having a fundraiser. It was "Free Fb Friday." You got your picture taken for a donation to the American Cancer Society. Now that is a cause I support. So we drove 75 miles for a few pictures. She is the best. She always takes more and does more than she says she is going to. She is just such a sweetheart. It was cute because Jake was bashful this trip. He has suddenly taken on this role. He now hugs Mommy's legs and hides. I did that forever when I was a kid. I just think it is funny because Jake has been so outgoing thus far. He knows and loves these women so it was pretty funny.

So a drive gives you time to think. So do pictures that are very nice but not really. I mean the photographer did a really good job it was her subject that was the issue. Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about cancer. Biology taught us that normal cells mutate and have abnormal growth and replication. It all starts with one tiny cell. One little cell can suddenly (maybe not suddenly) turn our world upside down. I would say that I see cancer at least three times a week. I mean I literally see this horrible disease at least three days a week. I might even see it three times in the same day, depending on what surgeon I am working with. A surgeon will remove a cancerous tumor and hand it to me to pass along to the pathologist. I will hold in my hand the nasty disease that is taking over some one's body. That can be a little depressing. I mean you can also say that we have cut that nasty cancer out, but it isn't that simple. Removing a cancer is usually just the very beginning of a long battle. It is a battle. Some people we are able to help as in cure. Some people we can only help make their remaining days less painful. This is something that some how weighs on me. I mean, it is like everyday routine work for us. I look around and I wonder if some of these people right here and there think about what this actually means to this person.

Surgery is a bit de-humanizing. Is that a word? I mean, most of the people actually in the OR don't get to meet the patient until they have sedation. Even if you meet them in pre-op before the sedation is given you are not meeting them in normal circumstances. They aren't themselves. They are nervous, scared, worried. They may be in a great deal of pain. We are meeting people at their most vulnerable. Within ten minutes of being taken into the OR the person is asleep or much more heavily sedated. We get them positioned. We expose the area that is that is having surgery and the rest of the person is covered up for warmth. OR's are very cold and thermoregulation is impaired. The surgical site is prepped and then everything but that one area is covered up. You kind of lose the person then. In some ways that is okay. I mean we have to be able to do one thing and then move on and do the next all day. If we let one patient impact us too much it makes it hard to take care of the next. It just feels a bit callus some times. Particularly when you are finding horrible new diagnosis such as cancer. I don't know how oncologists and oncology nurses do it day in and day out.

So anyway, I got my picture taken for a donation and permission to put it where ever you want. Obviously she has her name on it but that is fine. She deserves credit. But seeing my face makes me realize I need to get back to the lifestyle changes I kind of fell out of practice with. I did manage to lose 15 pounds but I have had the worst hormone issues. That isn't a good excuse, but I seem to have significant troubles at certain times of the month. Like the whole months work is undone in that time. I need to find a way to deal with that. I'm not sure what that is yet, but I have to work on it. Some time or another I seem to have lost the sides of my face. It bothers me to have my picture taken because I can see that my face isn't normal. Smiling always makes it more noticeable to me. I can feel that my left eye doesn't open as much as it should and I worry that my smile will be crooked. I know it could be a lot worse but it just reminds me that my face didn't recover as well as most people's do. I guess I don't have the nerve pain so I am thankful for that. I am just worried that it will come back. There is a high likelihood of that.

So then when we were done (I wasn't expecting to get pictures with Jake) I took a picture of Jake with Kelly. Jake has been visiting her since he was brand new and I just wanted a picture from the other side of the camera. Jake was being silly. He was more interested, for the first time, with the equipment than the pretty girls. But I did get a few of the photographer, her assistant, and Jake.

Craziness

Life has been crazy around here. Jake is growing up way too fast. I am struggling to keep myself going. I am definitely back to trying to keep my head above water all week just to make it to the weekends. I hate living like that. I want to be able to find something better about the weekdays to go upon.

Jake is a crazy man. He just goes and goes and goes. He is not a sleeper. Everyday I pray for strength and sleep - mostly for Jake, but if he sleeps... My peanut, well, he has gotten to be just a bit of a thing. I think that is a common thing for "sickly" little kids. What he doesn't have in size he makes up for with will, plus noise. At his 18 month check up he was 24.2lbs coming in at 25th percentile. He was 31.75 inches tall - 50th % and his head is but a mere 18.5 inches - 25th %. The head surprised me. It still looks large compared to the other kids and it takes a lot of work to get shirts over that melon. He has been sick forever. We just finished an antibiotic and there is still green stuff. It is the cough that is so bad. Never ending breathing treatments. Fun!

Jake is into everything. He is still pretty laid back about climbing though. He gets up on the furniture by himself now. He likes to stand on one of his step stools to reach higher. He is super helpful. He wants to help with just about everything. I'm not one to pass that up even if it means a task takes me three or more times longer to complete. I am glad he wants to help. It won't last long. He wants to be outside all the time. He loves it. Snot running down his face and just a going and going outside. It used to be when we pulled into the garage he would ask for a snack, but now the first thing he says is "outside" about two dozen times in a panic. If nothing else we walk down the driveway and across the street to the mailbox and back. We might go for a walk or ride around on his little big wheel thing. I have been trying to work on some of the landscaping since the weather has been better and he has been helping me with that too.

Jake just talks up a storm. "No" is still his favorite word and sure likes "mine" more than I like. But he loves to toss out the "peedis." Yes, that would be how he says pen.is. He will be running along and stop and point and identify. As soon as the diaper comes off, he tells you. When you try to wipe him he grabs it and says MY peedis. That worries me a little bit. Why does he do that? Has anyone else encountered this? It just worries me a little bit.

He is still a horrible eater. He will hardly eat anything besides baby food and he has stopped eating the chicken and veggies. I get so frustrated. He even wants it for breakfast and snack. I always offer him something else. He plays with the food - pushes it around, picks it up and puts it down. When it starts going over the edge I take it away and he tells me he is hungry and I give him baby food. I don't know what else to do. He ate two full jars and a couple of bites out of a third for lunch today! He is hungry. I don't know. I have been making bread and he loves that. I just don't know what to do. I've been told he will eat food when he is ready. Great.

I went to my physiatrist about a month ago. I've been seeing him for my face pain. He had me ween off one of the medications I was taking because I was on a very small dose. (I had trouble taking it in the morning and I seemed to be fine so I just once a day instead of twice). I was still on another medication he put me on and the pain seemed to be controlled. So anyway, he had me stop this medicine. I had two weeks of hell! I had the worst headaches I have ever had in my entire life. I was absolutely miserable. Migraines and horrible horrible headaches. I called the doctor's office and his bitch of a nurse left me a message suggesting I try some ibuprofen. I was so mad. I wanted to know it this was normal and how long to expect it to last. I was to the point were I can understand accidental overdoses because you are in such horrible pain you literally can't see straight and you take something. Then you take more, then you take something else and more. But then one day they stopped. THANK GOD.

I am having a lot of trouble though. I am so tired all the time. Jake won't let me sleep. I have had the crud and am afraid I am getting it back. I know I am depressed. Things are still not going well at work. My boss isn't finished until April 15th but she has been gone more and more. Well, she had at least six weeks of vacation to use up. But I know she is also trying to leave us alone more and more since we will have to stand on our own two feet soon. The charge nurse is getting more and more stressed and has acted very inappropriately. I mean the things she has always done that weren't appropriate are way worse. I am not looking forward to this never ending transition. I mean we have been transitioning, literally, for the last three years. It just keeps getting worse instead of better. Yippee

Mike is a bit stressed as well. The railroad is laying people off every week. My friend that just recently got the PCOS diagnosis, her husband got laid off on Friday. This doesn't not help them on their IF journey. He is still pretty far from losing his job but as they lay people off it means more work for the people still there. They aren't decreasing the number of trains they are running just the number of people running them. It also means he went from holding a pretty good position to have a much crappier one. We are all stressed by that.

Yesterday I hurt my back. Jake and I were outside. I was cleaning out some rock and Jake went running toward the street. There were neighbors out across the street saying how cute he was and he went toward them. He didn't even make it to the sidewalk before I caught up to him but I scooped him up and was swinging him and tickling and I felt an explosion of pain in my back. I don't think that is good. The pain was horrible. I am wondering how people live with this all the time. I haven't been having any muscle spasms. I'm pretty sure that actually isn't a good thing. I think that means disk then. I am much better than I was yesterday, but it isn't good. I have trouble with certain movements. Right now it doesn't hurt at all but if I go to stand up I can hardly do it. Not good. I am going to talk to a doctor tomorrow. I don't know if there is anything I should do like a course of steroids or something. I am do not want to get an MRI and have any further evaluation at this time. I can not have back surgery! Hopefully I don't need it though.

I know I have more to say but I think that is enough for now. I know I don't come here very often any more and I don't think many other people do either. I do still like it because I can speak openly and freely about whatever and whomever I want. I don't have to have a polite filter than I might on FB or whatever.

Pix

Some day I will post. I'm behind. I'm just having a hard time but here are a few pictures. I thought I had uploaded more but I guess they are still on the camera. Another time...

Well...

I had a meeting tonight. A big work meeting where lots of bs got shoveled. We have had so much going on or not going on at work. Everything has been so uncertain. THEY ONLY MADE IT WORSE!!!!!!!!! My boss has stepped down from her position and it will be effective April 15. We all could read between the lines. They pushed her out. I know I have my issues with her but over all she is a good boss. She knows everything. She can do things that no one else in the whole damn hospital can do. Crap. They are going to hire an MBA to now be our boss and the boss over the surgery center across the street. That damn place broke everything! I don't want an MBA telling me how to be a nurse!

The crappier part. I have spoken of my charge nurse before. She is going to be our actual boss. She is going to be the one that tells us what to do and when to do it. She is going to be the one with even more power. She is more than just a charge nurse she was given the title of unit manager five or more years ago. She does go to tons of meetings and stuff. But this is going to be horrible. This is the woman that you can't piss off or you pay for a very long time. When she stopped being mad at me after nine months I got off easy. She is still holding things against people from at least 20 years ago! This is not good ! At least we had a boss above her to go to. Who knows how many years it will take to get that MBA in and they aren't going to be here to deal with personnel issues! We are going to have to go to the vice president that is over us!!!! This sucks mega super huge time! I can't even begin to express the world of hurt we are going to be in for! There are a few things that I hope to see get better quickly but overall things are going to get worse before they get better...

Luck ran out

Well, I have been fighting it, but I am sick. I am miserable with the usual crap. Sore throat, congested, swollen nodes in my neck, cough, aches, lethargy. Ya know, same as everyone else. It took a lot longer than it usually does for me to get sick so I can't whine too much. Poor Jakey is still sick. It was two weeks ago yesterday that I took him in. He is better, sort of. His cough is still bad. He is still coughing, getting junk up and gagging and then the vomiting. So much fun!!! One night I had to clean up his bed twice! Poor guy. We go to the doctor again Wednesday. It is supposed to be for his 18 month check up. Wow, where his the time gone???

Aside from us both feeling a bit crummy today, we had a good day. I really love spending time with him, even if it is trudging through the super center early in the morning to beat the crowds. Jake slept all night last for the first time in awhile. We had a bad week for sleep, which is why I think I finally got sick. We had three nights in a row where mommy got about four hours of interrupted sleep. Not good for trying to work. But anyway, we had a good day. We played and cuddled and took a snooze in the chair. I just love being his mommy. Too bad it didn't pay better, then it would be perfect. I know I would still be pulling my hair out but it would be different.

Jake loves his new room in daycare. I go to get him and he doesn't want to leave. If I get there a little later than normal I catch them playing. They run and run and run around the basement chapel. It is basically a small gym. The room is empty except for a few things for the kids to play on. What I mean is that there aren't any pews or chairs or anything. He just loves to chase around with the kids. I see him and he is the littlest but he doesn't know that. They do a lot more structured activities than his last room of course. The teacher told me she can't believe how well he is doing. They do flash cards and he will repeat every word she says and pays attention to the cards. I have really noticed how much better his attention span and concentration are. I told her he repeats almost any word he hears or at least he tries. She said he does better than several of the kids that have been in there all year and are six months older. Well, maybe they are bored and it is new to him, I don't know. But I do know that his communication is getting better. He still gets frustrated trying to tell you something, bit it is a lot better.

I suppose I need to go to bed. I don't know what the night will bring!!!

Daycare Drama

Last Friday I got a call at work from Jake's daycare. The assistant director asked if Jake could be moved up to the toddler room from the waddler room. (Waddlers are not the little babies but too young to move to the toddler room at the time they change). That is fine by me. Jake plays with the toddlers all the time. He likes to go to their room. They have chapel (which is like gym time) together. He doesn't notice that he is the smallest of all these children. He is every bit as rough and tumble as the bigger, older boys. No big deal. They are "restructuring" some of the rooms. When I went to pick up Jake on Friday I spent about half an hour talking to the head "teacher" of that room. We talked about Jake's eating and allergies. I left feeling good.

He was to start Monday but I was off so he went yesterday for the first time. I didn't get home from work until close to ten last night and he was asleep. Grandma picked him up and no big deal. I dropped him off this morning and the person there that is over the baby room told me there had been some problems yesterday. Really, problems? The people in the toddler room didn't want to feed Jake. They didn't want to mess with baby food. I don't either but he isn't ready to move on yet as hard as I might try. I was told they said they didn't have anything thing to feed him, but all of his food went to that room when he was moved. What? I was told that Jake got brought back to the baby room to be fed because they were too busy. I was not happy. I didn't ask for him to be moved. WTF! They want to feed him the "provided" lunch. We went over the menu. There were three days this month that there was a possibility he MIGHT be able to eat their lunch, IF he was willing to eat that food. No, not going to work.

I went out to my car and cried. What am I supposed to do? This is my baby. I texted Mike a little later and said I was really upset and told him what happened. Daddy was pissed. I told him that I would have to take care of it after work and maybe we need to see what else we can do for daycare. Mike said he was going to take care of it. Oh shit! Great, am I going to have enough money to bail him out of jail? It took some time but he did take care of it. He called and talked to the assistant director. We don't even know the "new" director. She has not made a point of getting out and meeting parents. However, I have not gone and presented myself at her office either. I try to get in and out as fast as possible. So he told her what I had been told this morning. She was not very happy either. He told her that we had provided them with a big list of allergies, as that was also part of their not wanting to feed him anything. She didn't know anything about his allergies. She knew there was a child there with a lot of allergies but she didn't know how bad they are and that his diet is so restricted. She said they didn't have anything in his record about it. Hello??? When he had his testing I went in and spent a lot of time with the director then and the people taking care of him. We provided them with a video about using an epipen and an actual practice pen. No one knows anything about this now.

Thank goodness today is one of the days the allergist comes to town. Mike was able to go get another DVD and another practice pen. He ordered a special bag that hangs on the wall for the his pen and it will have all his allergy information. Mike went to take the DVD and pen up and the assistant director was looking for Jake's epipen. No where to be found. It was there last week. No where at all. She asks each person. What's an epipen? I don't know what you are talking about. EVERY time he has a "new" person we go over his allergies and his potential need for an epipen. Mommy describes what signs might be that he would be in need of such shot. Mike was mad before, but now he is livid. He and the director had a disagreement. Mike offered that he could call the state. Oh no, that isn't necessary aren't making more of this than it is. Never tell Mike to calm down. It has the opposite effect.

Mike went and talked to his dad about this. Mike's dad went and got his boss. His boss is on the board of the church. He called our minister who is the acting director of the board over the daycare. The minister had already had a call from someone that the director of the daycare was rude to a parent and that a "discussion" had occurred. The minister just didn't know which parent. The director had to come introduce herself to me and every parent. She had to apologize to me and to Mike. She had to credit us with the cost of an epipen. She had to make sure every care provider in the daycare sees the video. She has to make sure every room in the daycare had allergy information posted on Jacob. (it was in his old room!) She has to take an interpersonal skills-like class that the church offers. The minister helped search for the missing epipen. She also called Mike and apologized repeatedly. She called me at work and apologized and explained to me what was going to happen. She started to cry, I started to cry. She married us, she sat with us in the hospital when Jake had pneumonia, she held him for over an hour when we had to wait to get Jake's tubes in his ears. She goes and reads to him three times a week. She also has severe allergies herself.

What a crappy day! I trust my son with these people everyday. I trust that when I tell them something they listen. I put his life in their hands. I feel awful. I am assured that everything is in order now. I like the people there. Jake loves them. He gets so excited. He was saying the names of the people working there before he said "mama". I don't know what to do. It is my church. They have one of the best preschools in town. We don't have many options but in addition to that this was supposed to be one of the two places to get into. I still feel sick. I feel better but still.

The best ever!

For the most part our weekend sucked. Jake has been sick still and even worse than when we went to the doctor. He has had BAD diarrhea and been vomiting. He has has no appetite but has been very good about drinking his rice milk. I took him in to the doctor yesterday because he was grabbing his throat and yanking at his ears so much. She said they looked fine. I thought maybe the ear was some eczema. I was afraid the throat was his tonsils but I guess not.

The good news about this weekend is that Jake started saying "love you". It is so great!! I can't wait until it is "I love you, Mommy" but I am happy to take this! He also had his first real bubble bath this weekend. That and will come to you to give you a closed mouth kiss. I just love it. I kept thinking he was sick and I didn't care because I loved the kisses SO much!

I have today off because we only had two ORs running and I didn't want to be in either one. I'm on call tomorrow so that helped me qualify. My big boss let most of the people still come to work even though we are in a budget crisis. (we usually run five rooms and that is two nurses a room). So I went into work this morning because we had our monthly meeting and I took Jake with me. My big boss doesn't have or like kids but she wasn't too bad. Someone usually has a child or two there since we may not be scheduled to work at all or until much later that day. So anyway, the big boss left to go to a more important meeting. Jake decided to be a ham at this time and just stole the meeting. It is actually nice when the big boss leaves because we can discuss whatever bad news she just gave us and come up with a plan. Today she asked nurses to be in charge of the aides. That would be a different nurse every day. The aide that was the "charge aide" resigned and her last day is today. Okay, a nurse to do her job. Alright, so her wage was $10 an hour. Our nurses make anywhere from about $23-$34 an hour. Her reasoning is that we get our hours. That is great that the nurses get their hours but when it is busy and a nurse needs to do a nurse job than who is going to be helping with the aides because that is when they need help the most too? I don't know, I just know I don't want to do it because the aides can be very nasty when ever there is a problem. No one is ever accountable for anything! Of course I think that happens everywhere you turn... Big surprise but we also learned we know nothing about anything regarding the changes to come.

Oh and Jake slept through the night two nights in a row in his crib! He came really close last night too.

Poor me

I have a case of the weepies! AF is back and I seem to be a freaking mess. That and I am still tired from the weekend. I am worried about my job. Everyone at work is stressed out and it is causing deeper cracks in an already crumbling foundation. We keep hearing (reading) statements form "officials" that tell us how nothing is wrong and people aren't going to lose jobs but we aren't idiots. We have different volumes. We have lost doctors. It just sucks. The future is very murky.

One of my friends is having her second baby in the morning. She has been very blessed. She has bad endometriosis and she was told that she it would be very difficult for her to get pregnant, probably not possible on her own. She got pregnant without trying. She didn't even realize she was pregnant the first time until she was in the second trimester. He will be 2 in April. She got pregnant right away with number two when she thought about a second. Go figure! I am very happy for them but it stirs up my weepies. I sat and held Jake and we ate teddy.grahams together tonight and it was wonderful. I loved that moment and I thought how much it made me want another one. In the same second I was back to thinking how could I make Jake share what little time we have? I know it is silly but I just want to eat up all those minutes. I know my husband is a bit irritated with my housekeeping at the moment and it just doesn't seem important. Play with Jake or tidy over there? Read to Jake or scrub all the counter tops? My answer has been, what is wrong with your hand? Okay, those haven't been the exact words but I work as much as he does. He has more "down" time when he is home. He is home alone when he is home in the day. Don't get on my butt about it if you aren't helping. Am I wrong? I do the laundry. I do the dishes. I clean the floors once a week and I try to clean up after myself as I do whatever it is I am doing. My priority is Jake. Gee, I guess I could be cleaning right now couldn't I? But instead I will take my sorry ass to bed since Molly is ready to come in. Oh, I think Jake is allergic to Molly. His forehead was welted this morning and I don't know why. His hair was messed up and I think it was because Molly licked him. I don't know. I don't want to think about it.