The Great Escape

Well, it finally happened. The moment I've been dreading for 2.5 years. I'm actually watching it unfold for the millionth time over the baby monitor as I type this.

He learned to climb out of his crib.

It just happened out of the blue one morning. I woke up around 8 (Liam usually wakes up between 8 and 8:30) and went out to the living room. His bedroom door was closed like it always is when he sleeps, so I didn't think a thing of it. I entered the living room and had a cross between a heart attack and a reflex to kick some arse, because some man was sitting on our couch.

Except that man was 37 inches tall, wearing firetruck pajamas, and playing some cop game on the iPad, totally ignoring me.

With no prior practice or warning, he had climbed out of his bed, shut the door behind him and gone out to play games by himself. That afternoon he climbed out of his crib 4 times and after the fourth time of me saying "No. Go to sleep." he finally gave in and took a nap. That was a month or so ago and he didn't try to climb out again after that till Saturday. Saturday he was napping as usual and a couple came by to buy a stroller I had listed on Craigslist. Liam came walking out of his room like it was no big deal, handed the guy his sock, and climbed up in the kitchen chair demanding a snack. From that day on, it has been a battle of the wills. Last night he climbed out of his crib twice at bedtime, the first time catching me eating cake and freaking out that I had kept it a secret and waited till he was in his cage to eat it. This morning I woke up in bed, opened my eyes, and noticed that I had his pillow, Elmo, and 7 cloth diapers piled on my back. Apparently the Escape Artist Fairy had visited me in my sleep before heading to the living room to catch bad guys on the iPad.

As I write this he is standing in his crib, one leg flung over the side, yelling "I WILL get out Mama! I WILL!!".

I know the solution is to buy him a big boy bed. Which we are, in a few weeks when our tax return comes through. He's getting the Kura bed from Ikea so I'm hoping the cool factor will help him stay in it. But basically my heart sinks because I know a bed is just going to increase our battles. His crib has been my haven for 2 years. A place I can put him where he can't get me. He is the most demanding, loud, intense child I have ever met, and the idea of no longer having a place where he lays down quietly and goes to sleep frightens me. Yes, I could put a gate in his doorway but he will just scream on the other side of it and that doesn't grant me any breaks. It just fries my nerves.

So to the next milestone we go. Bye Bye Crib, Hello Big Boy Bed. Transitions. It's all about transitions. This whole thing reminds me of car seats. You know the whole, "Each step forward is a step back in safety"? For us it's, "Each transition forward is a step back in my sanity."

He's not mine, I swear.

You know how when your kids get older, they want you to stay away from them in public so you don't embarrass them? I distinctly remember wanting my mom to park at the VERY end of the pick up line when I was a freshman in high school because she was always singing and dancing in the car while waiting and I was paranoid someone would see. Because obviously your life is ruined if you mom sings Hootie and the Blowfish, right? Well the more experience I have with raising a kid, the more gung ho I am about making your kids deal with your embarrassing habits and suck it up, because guess what? It is sweet sweet revenge. Revenge for the millions of times they embarrassed you in public when they were younger. Unfortunately you don't have the option of telling your two year old to go to the opposite end of the check out line so no one will know he is yours. Therefore, when he turns 16, he can't pretend you are not his.

In the last month alone I can count three times I wanted to do a combination of melting into an invisible puddle and laughing hysterically. Two instances happened today. The first was a few months ago. We were strolling through the mall and an older lady was walking towards us dressed head to toe in yellow. I'm talking BRIGHT yellow. A complete pants suit. With yellow heels and a yellow hat. She was also very, uh, sturdy, and easily towered over me. For one reason or another, she decided to say hi to Liam. Liam is usually very outgoing and will immediately put his hand on his chest and say, "Me Liam", caveman style. This time he started screaming, clinging to my leg and yelling, "Wook! Help mama! Big bad banana!!!". People were staring, because he was screaming like someone was pinching him. The Bad Banana Lady gave us the dirtiest look I've seen in awhile and stormed past us. Liam, relieved, let go of my leg and said, "Whew, all gone."

The next two were today at Costco. We were walking to get eggs when a woman on one of those motorized scooter things whizzed by us. Liam yelled very loudly, "Wook! It's the big sick lady on Wall-E!". Apparently she very much resembled one of the boneless meal drinking people on the hovercraft things on Wall-E. He would NOT stop talking about it and of course she happened to be on every aisle we needed to go down. I was very relieved when we finally got to the check out line. Liam likes to push the cart onto one side of the register while I stand on the other to pay. The woman boxing things up was talking to him and he was chattering away. Suddenly, I hear him go "Wook! HAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" in his crazy little laugh. My heart sank because I know that laugh. That is the laugh of his latest and greatest joke he's picked up since potty training. I've been doing my best to ignore it in hopes he would stop and never do it in public but obviously that didn't work. I meekly peered over the register to find my son standing with his hands on his hips, front of his waistband pulled down and tucked so he was dangling out for all to see. "Wook! Peeking!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!". I silently vowed to kill Shaun for laughing the first time he ever did that, because if he hadn't, maybe this public display of two year old glory wouldn't be happening. I don't think I've ever moved around a register so fast, but I'm pretty sure he was only exposed to air for maybe 5 seconds before I grabbed him. Fortunately the bagger had two boys of her own and didn't seem too traumatized, but I'd be lying if I'm not considering making my kid wear diapers again.

Wish me luck because when he wakes up, we have to go to Target. Sigh.

Sorry ma'am, they're just trying to have you die more slowly.

So, surprisingly, the worst thing about nursing is not the stress, smells, torture, early mornings, late nights, no lunches, thrown out backs, ruined bladders, and continuous stress ulcers.

No, the worst thing about nursing is the denial. The denial that life ends. We all know it, and we all seem to accept it…until we walk through hospital doors apparently.

It's amazing the number of people I care for who are being kept alive with no dignity, no comfort, and no respect. Every day I have elderly people in bed, basically unresponsive, with tube feedings going because they can't eat, catheters in their bladder and butt because they are incontinent, central lines because they are an impossible stick for a peripheral IV, high flow oxygen because their lungs are weak or full of fluid, skin breaking down because despite our frequent turning and repositioning, it's super fragile and just can't take the constant pressure and friction, and ten thousand medications to crush and force into their body because everything is breaking down and by god, we will make it work with these pills!

Only it's not breaking down. It's naturally declining because guess what? WE ARE NOT IMMORTAL. Sure, there are things we can do to slow down the process, or make it happen a bit more gracefully and comfortably. And that's fine. But I really don't think tubes from every orifice of your body, constant needles, and complete loss of dignity are within the realm of comfort and grace.

You can say all you want, "Oh well, my family knows that if I get to that point, they need to let me go". In response, I will laugh in your face because I guarantee you 90% of the patients on my floor once said the same thing and now guess what? They have not been let go. And when they code, I am smashing them to smithereens while doing chest compressions, then replaying the gruesome scene over and over and over in my nightmares when I get home.

Only I got lucky last week and I had Mrs. O. Mrs. O was a few short years from being 100. I walked in the room and this little lady had a massive toothless grin for me that made my morning grump melt away. Her wild and wispy white hair was a perfect accessory to her laugh lines and wrinkles around her bright blue eyes. Every time I walked in the room, she had that smile. Sometimes she knew where she was, sometimes she didn't. But every time she would grab my hand and squeeze it, and more than once she cupped my face and told me she wanted to take me home. Um, no Mrs. O, I want to take YOU home! Her family showed me a picture of her from the week prior, standing in the kitchen holding her great grandbaby. Apparently the confusion and frailty was sudden, and surely she would bounce back and be her same self after a few days of IV antibiotics.

Yesterday I came back to work after the weekend. I was happy to see Mrs. O on my assignment list, but surprised she hadn't gone home. When I walked in, I saw why. This wispy, bubbly lady had become a gaunt, sleepy shell. She wouldn't swallow water, and would no longer squeeze my hand. The only indication that she was the same lady was the random smile she would flash in her sleep, her personality clearly showing through the veil of fading life. Yet her daughter continued to talk and walk about the room as if nothing had changed. She left for work like every other day, telling me she would be back that evening.

Mrs. O's breathing got more and more labored, and she became less and less responsive. I wheeled her outside in her bed to see the sun set for the last time at the family's request. Her family put flowers in her hair and sat out for a long time while I went back upstairs to take care of my other patients. When they came back up, the environment in the room became more peaceful, more accepting. And Mrs. O continued to sleep.

When I left for the evening, the daughter hugged me crying and said she'd see me Thursday when I come back for my next shift. I know that isn't true, and I won't see her on Thursday. I just nod, squeeze Mrs. O's hand, touch her crazy white wispies, and walk out the door.

Everyone deserves to be Mrs. O. Everyone deserves that love, that dignity, and that respect. That acceptance. That trust that Life knows what it's doing, and we truly do not have control. And every nurse deserves to experience what I did…because we all know it's few and far between outside of hospice. We deserve to be able to actually put to use the one thing that made us become nurses in the first place: celebrate life- beginning, middle, and end.

The fallen Viking.

Usually I don't most too much about every day stuff like haircuts…mostly because I lack the talent to make them sound truly interesting. But I figure this deserves it's own post.

The Viking helmet, aka Liam's hair, is (was) pretty long. There are tons of reasons we've never cut it, but mostly it's because he's active so I knew he'd hate to sit and have it done and around here we have to pick our battles. Long hair doesn't hurt anyone, so if it's one less thing I have to battle him on then whatever. Another reason is because he likes his hair and every time we'd ask him if we could cut it like Daddy's hair, he'd say no. It's his hair, so I left it alone. Lastly, I'm a stickler for gender stereotypes. It pisses me off when people tell their boys they can't play with dolls or play dress up or have long hair. Liam frequently dresses like a duck and rocks his "baby" (yeah, it's a firetruck with a pacifier taped to it but hey, whatever he wants his baby to be is fine with me). He would be dressed in total "boy" attire (blue shirt with trucks, jeans, blue sandals) and people would still refer to him as a girl. I remember standing in line at the store and the check out lady was going on and on about how adorable "she" is. The guy behind us was a tall dude with a pony tail. As we left, she said, "Hi sir, how are you today?". Um, why can he have long hair and be masculine but Liam has to be an adorable little girl? Gets on my nerves. Not the fact that people think he looks girly, but the fact that toddlers have to have labels and look a certain way. They're toddlers! Jeez.

Anyway, now it's to a point that it is getting wrapped around his teething necklace and ripping and hurting him. He hates having his hair washed and making sure it all gets scrubbed was cumbersome. Finally the other day I asked him if he wanted to go to a place with trains and airplanes and get his hair trimmed. He said yes, so today we went.

I kind of thought he'd look older with shorter hair…but to be honest I think he still looks his age and slightly more girly than when it was actually long! And I'm not gonna lie, I had a minor heart attack when she was blow drying it because I thought it was a Bieber haircut. Fortunately once the hair fell into place, it's just a plain boys haircut.

He didn't really care much, and pitched a fit when we left because the train table had to stay behind. It's nice to have the front of his hair not choppy and butchered like when I trim it. And everything is even, so it can grow back out without being a baby fine mullet.

So there he is. My little Peter Pan who doesn't age.

Before. They actually cut off 6" but it's hard to tell it was that long because of the curl.

Hang on, I gotta take this call guys.

The things that never were.

I've never really been one to believe in fate. I do think there's such a thing as something "right" happening, but I think there are a lot of rights in life. But sometimes I also feel like there's some great power out there that is controlling something, and things are going too well to be just a coincidence…like they are meant to be.

But then the aforementioned power sees something shiny and gets distracted and shit changes.

Then you're left wondering. Wondering if it was supposed to happen like that, or if there was a glitch in the system and if you hadn't gotten a wild hair and let yourself freeflow wherever, if things would have turned out differently.

I never wanted to be a nurse actually. I wanted to be a veterinarian. But I'm too much of a softy and knew I couldn't handle it. I actually don't even remember when I decided to go to nursing school; somehow it just happened. I had a pre-med focus at ASU and at some point I just changed it. Everyone else has these "meant to be" stories about how they've wanted to be a nurse since they were a child, and wanted to take care of people and be there for them in their time of need. Then there's me, and apparently I just pulled a nursing degree out of my ass and here I am.

It's not that I don't want to help people, or that I don't care. I do. I just have moral issues with a lot of goings on in hospitals, and I lose passion for it daily. Don't get me wrong, there are tons of patients that I have that I will never ever forget, and that totally make my job worth it most of the time. But that's getting rarer and rarer.

But if I hadn't have gone to nursing school, I wouldn't have made certain friends or had certain relationships. I wouldn't have stayed in Phoenix and I wouldn't have my son. But what did I miss out on? What would I be doing if I decided to do something else? I don't know.

But this is it. This is all I have and all I will ever be given. Am I making the most of it? I'd like to think that I am, but I know that I probably am not. I guess it's like that with everything though…we all have a tendency to take for granted what we have when we are busy wondering about the what ifs. I love my life. And I'm fortunate to be where I am. I'll continue to moan and groan when I get up in the morning, knowing I'm headed toward the weird smelling place full of fluorescent lights, pain, addicts checking in hoping for their next fix, death, psych patients screaming at me, rotting flesh, the smell of shit wafting through the air, laughter, reassurance, love. Life. And try to remember that I see a side of life nobody else does. Something pure and raw and real. I see more things in 12 hours that some people will ever see in a lifetime, both physically and emotionally. I am continually reminded on a daily basis that life is all we have and it can be done in an instant. Our bodies are freaking amazing, intricate, mind blowing. But they will just stop. And then all that's left is your shell, laying alone in a room, waiting for me to come in with the white bag that smells like shower curtains and haul you off in a metal cart. A new patient will come to the room and you are just gone. Forever. I zip the bag closed over your face and know that's the last time your face will ever be seen.

And I guess I'll just have to keep telling myself that even though sometimes I look back and wonder how the hell I got here, life is a lot like placing a urinary catheter in a morbidly obese person. You hold your breath (because it stinks) and just keep stabbing in the dark. Eventually you'll get it in, and no matter how you got it there it'll work out ok, because there's only one way in and one way out.

In the end, we're all just searching for that hidden urethra.

Sigh. Another year.

I think I just might cry.

The ghostly roommates go paparazzi.

So my mom and I got silly and decided to get our old point and shoots and take pics late at night in my house to see if we could catch anything. We took a bunch of pictures in all the rooms, but what I expected to see was something weird in Liam's room, since all the weird crap happens at the end of our hallway by the bedrooms and mainly in his room.

well, we went through all the pictures and there was nothing in Liam's room. Zilch. However, apparently the kitchen was rockin' that night because we have at least 20 pictures with these round light orbs floating around. I don't think they are dust or light particles because when I flip through the 100+ pictures in sequence on the computer, the movement of the light balls is really erratic, and they are just a weird color/brightness. I dunno. Plus they moved really fast and left light trails...not all slow and lollygagging like a floating particle of dust. Again, I don't really know...up until a few weeks ago I didn't even believe in this stuff so, yeah.

I've got tons of pics of the same things, but here are a few that basically sum up what we saw. My disclaimer is to ignore my trashed kitchen because I was preparing for Liam's bday party today and also ignore the ugly paint and decor...it's a rental folks. ;)

First, the creepy ass face on the kitchen wall. This is just some horrible paint touch up job that you can't see with the naked eye, only with a camera flash, so nothing paranormal. But it's probably the creepiest thing you'll find in my kitchen. It's like a freaky devil monkey face. Ew. Look right above the phone jack.

Here's some random streak in the living room. We had a moth in the house though so this could have been him flying.

This one was dashing around the kitchen all crazy. I caught several pictures of the streak, along with a bright ball of light near it.

One little light ball thing.

It seemed like the later it got, the more we caught. We took a few pictures at like 10, and got absolutely nothing. Got maybe a few at around 11. By midnight every single picture had something.

So I'm not sure how I feel about all this. But the fact that I didn't see a black figure with fangs, flipping me off with a giant blood dripping dagger is probably a good thing.

But there's still a damn devil monkey on my kitchen wall. :/