Rad skillz.

(I'm good, don't hate)

Laundry: A Haiku

Perfect piles of clothes

Kid cannonballs in middle

Motherfucking shit

Glitter hell. I'm in glitter hell.

You know it's gonna be a good morning when you are sweetly awakened by the soft words of, "I tried to make a snowglobe downstairs and I used all the glitter and the glue and some other stuff I found...but it didn't work."

I feel betrayed by every parent out there. And by the Target cashier. I figured if the kids made a mess I'd just vacuum it up. WHY DID NO ONE EVER TELL ME GLITTER IS VACUUM RESISTANT?????????

I'll carry you.

I feel like I should change my name to Atlas. Lately it seems like I'm always carrying something. Guilt, remorse, anger, excitement. Holding stuff up.

There is literally always a monkey on my back.

Along with that, I feel like I'm a puppeteer, going along with the story, making it up as I go but never letting on to other people that I have absolutely no clue what the fuck I'm doing.

When I finally get to go to sleep at night I mostly lay there and think of all the things I did or said that day and wonder if anyone has caught on yet. If my kids are starting to get scared that they've been strung along this whole time. My filter between my brain and my mouth is starting to get clogged with time and good intentions and not work so well. Saying what I mean and having it come out right is starting to get harder and harder.

The only thing that seems to work right is the filter between my brain and my fingers. It works more like a sieve, filtering things into individual pieces so I can sort them in the proper order. It's pretty pixelated; almost like a shittier version of Minecraft (is that possible?), but it works.

The good thing about being the proverbial Atlas is that he will never cease to exist or stop doing his job. He's just out there floating in the universe, unreachable.

Ten seconds.

There is zero reason for silly putty to exist. NONE.

The things they don't teach you...

With Liam turning 5 in July, I've been paying attention to things I've never had to before, such as school. It never really occurred to me that things have changed at all since I've been in elementary/middle school, but apparently they have. Some people argue that it's for the better, and others argue that it's all going straight down in the metaphorical handbasket.

Personally, I don't think I have enough experience with school age kids just yet to be able to voice my opinion on what works and what doesn't, but I do know that one thing seems to be blatantly and obviously missing:

Life skills.

I'm not talking about skills such as interacting with others, sharing, whatever. I mean like, "adulting". Apparently these things started disappearing when I was in school because I was fairly clueless on a lot upon graduating, but now they are all but extinct. I'm talking things like how to balance a check book, how to budget appropriately, how to perform basic maintenance work on your car, cooking/shopping/nutrition, building things, how certain tools work, gardening, etc etc. I'm sure there are programs at schools out there that exist but it's definitely not the norm. I do agree that these are things that could definitely be taught at home by parents...but when is that going to happen? School lasts longer and longer these days, then kids come home with hours of homework. Combine that with parents who work full time and when is this teaching going to happen? No, it's not the job of schools to teach your kids how to change the oil in their cars but really, aren't basic life skills just as important as knowing how to solve an equation or edit a sentence? All the mathematical knowledge in the world isn't going to save you when you burn your spam because you're broke from not budgeting and getting ripped off from paying someone to do something you could have easily done yourself.

I don't want this to be a touchy subject because heck, not all of us have time to instill this vast HOW TO BE AN ADULT knowledge upon our kids. I barely do and to be honest, I can't do it anyway because no one taught me. But because I know what it's like to feel an inch tall when buying a house or going to Home Depot, it's important to me that my kids don't. I want them to excel in academics, yes, but I also want them to be able to take care of themselves and not rely on others. I feel like as a society, we are becoming so technology dependent that we are forgetting how to manually do things for ourselves.

Surely I'm not the only one that's thought of this, and I definitely don't have a plan other than just involving my kids in every daily activity instead of sending them off to watch TV when I'm changing the oil in my car. How do we raise capable kids? Is there a secret?

So here I go. At least for one year. I'm gonna try to school my kid. Pray for me.

Yeehaw.

People around here are all bent out of shape that others are decorating their trucks with confederate flag stuff in retaliation to everything that's been going on. I don't get the big deal. If you want to advertise to the world that you sleep with your cousin and you have the IQ of a goat, knock yourself out.

The contradiction of having a 4 year old

I feel like having a spirited 4 year old is truly something another person will never understand unless they've been down in the trenches with you. Deep, mucky trenches filled with laughter, screaming, elation, anger, mismatched clothing, chocolate milk and questions. Never ending questions.

Sometimes I feel like having a preschooler is basically living one big contradiction. Wait, sometimes? I mean all the time.

Please don't ever stop talking because the things that come from your awesome brain and out of your little mouth are hilarious and amazing. But please, for the love of everything, stop talking! The droning of questions from that little voice is infiltrating my every thought and driving me to the brink of a major bedtime chocolate binge.

Please don't ever stop dancing. I love how you don't care what you look like, and I marvel how every joint and muscle in your body was knit together inside my own and now serves to bring you joy and life...including launching yourself off the couch into the wall (thank you nature, for flexible childhood cartilage). But please, stop dancing, jumping, and squirming! The constant movement! It exhausts me and gosh I miss your naptimes.

Please don't ever stop being persistent. Your determination is a marvel and I can't wait to see the places it takes you. You could out-argue the best lawyer in the world and your confidence and stubbornness in getting what you need surpasses my own. But please, stop persisting you have your millionth cracker of the day. Ask me again and I will fill your bed with crackers and make you take my sorely missed naps on it.

Please don't ever stop being you. Ever. But please, bedtime, hurry up!

With love from the trenches,

Alicia

Winning the Race

We all know the supposed "mommy wars". Breastfeeding vs formula feeding. Co-sleeping vs crib sleeping. Working vs staying at home. Every mother has her own opinion, and unfortunately it usually differs from the one next door. Of course each one thinks her way is best, they butt heads, and the mommy wars begin.

The last few weeks I've been noticing a new trend. On Facebook and through emails, there have been numerous links shared to different blogs centered around spending time with your children. Great right? Nothing bad can come of that. I enjoyed reading them, and they were a good reminder to me on tough day to quit texting or cleaning and get down on the floor and PLAY. To enjoy my kids for who they are in this exact moment, for I will never get the moment back again. I was part of this revolution...the revolution to put away the phone and be a good mom.

I began turning off the radio in the car to talk to Liam about things. I began pointing out things in the store and giving him lists and taking advantage of educational moments. I turned my phone off for hours at a time. This is good, I thought. This is what I'm supposed to be doing so I don't miss anything. I can't miss anything.

But then it began to consume me. My few moments to enjoy music that wasn't the beginning of the Cat in the Hat was gone and replaced with chatter about if bugs poop or why I'm turning left and not right. I was stuck inside Target with a kid having a melt down because I wanted to leave before he was done finding "something red" (horrible color choice for eye spy in Target. Horrible. Every freaking thing is red in that place). I had no adult contact, no inside jokes to laugh at on the side while playing Monster Jam on the living room floor.

Because this is how it's supposed to be, right? Right.

Except I feel like it's not. I am me. I am an individual person outside of who's mother I am. Sometimes I don't want to be climbed on, I don't want to see how big your booger is, and I'd rather be locked in the bathroom than watch you smash my carefully built play-doh rabbit for the upteenth time. The immense guilt I feel is overwhelming. Yes the years fly by but oh how long some days can be. Days when I can't wait till they are peacefully asleep in their beds and I can sit on the couch and do nothing. Except I am doing something...I'm feeling like I must be the worst mom ever and stressing out over what I can do with them tomorrow to make up for my inattentiveness today. That surely when I was scrubbing the kitchen floor, my 3 year old mastered long division and I missed it forever. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will ask him to show me. Always tomorrow. Oh wait...I'm not supposed to think that. Today. I only have today. Don't put it off. It doesn't matter that I'm exhausted to the point of tears. Do it today. Now.

The latest mommy war: who can spend more time with their kids? Who is more tolerant? If you wish for an hour of having your body and mind back, you lose. You don't need that. You can have that when they are grown. Enjoy it now. Soak up every moment. If you aren't sufficiently soaking, you are failing and will cry with regret on your death bed. You better be a fat dripping sponge of "now" moments.

While you are sitting there being that giant wet sponge, make sure you glare at the mommy at the park who is looking at her phone. Who cares if she spent every moment up till now on the floor playing with her kids and now she's taken them to the park to play so she can maintain contact with her friends without feeling guilty? She should be climbing the slides alongside her kids. Running. Putting those yoga pants to use.

Come on. Seriously. Stop. Embrace each other. Embrace all of us on this journey. Embrace the fact that to give ourselves to our kids, we have to have something left to give in the first place. Stop the mommy war of guilt. Take care of yourselves, and offer help when you have extra to give. Because behind that internet cover up of moms out there who devote every second of themselves around the clock are moms like us who lock themselves in the bathroom for 5 minutes with a cup of coffee and a magazine that hasn't been ripped up. Moms who try to take a deep breath and relax but instead notice the Hotwheels in the toilet and the tiny fingers reaching under the door. Because the years are short but the days are long and guess what? You're doing a good job. We all are. So raise that chipped coffee cup and take a drink before you have to reach into the toilet. Cheers!

On becoming 4.

So you'd think this would be easy. The whole adding another human thing. Considering I've done it once, you'd think I'd know what I was doing. That I paved the road the first time. Set myself a path; maybe tramping down the grass as I walked the journey the first time so I could follow it with a little less struggle the second time. Makes sense right?

But there's a catch. The catch is the whole stereotypical saying that no two journeys are the same. In this instance, it sucks because it's totally dead on. That trampled down path in the grass that I laid out the first time might as well be in the freaking African savanna because I sure as heck am now wading through a bug infested rainforest on a completely different continent.

Yet there are some similarities. I do know that a journey is a journey no matter where it occurs. I learned from the African savanna that I should be more flexible, that there is always going to be an animal out there that's going to attempt to eat you, and that you can never have too much sleep and chocolate. These things can all be applied to the rainforest, and maybe help me to casually swing amongst the trees instead of dragging through the bog.

So what do you do with two? How do you love them separately? I know I do. But I can't describe how. I have this recurring nightmare where a disaster occurs and I can't save both of them, I have to pick one. I wake up sweating and crying because what the heck? How would I do that? I couldn't. Could I choose both and just not be saved myself? Is that an option? Am I crazy for even asking a dream questions? Yes.

I'm observing, always observing. Watching siblings who are adults and very close. What did their parents do to make them that way? How can I do that? What makes some siblings become lifelong friends and others drift apart once they reach adulthood? I want that security, that anchor of home.

Becoming 4 was easy, yet blows my mind on a daily basis. Hello savanna. Hello rainforest. Goodbye map. I'll find my way around these parts because I have a feeling what I need to find is not within any clear cut boundaries.

Here we go again!

The difference between Liam's birth and Declan's birth is like night and day. Don't get me wrong, Liam's birth was textbook perfect as far as a birth goes, and I was able to deliver him completely drug free like I wanted. But something was missing. I had a midwife instead of an OB, but the midwife was within an OB practice and a bit more medically focused than I would like for a process that, to me, is perfectly normal and doesn't require medical intervention in most cases. I wanted a home birth or at least to deliver in a birth center, but all the birth centers in AZ had been shut down due to politics, and our insurance at the time ruled out a homebirth. So hospital it was, and I put all my faith into my midwife to let me have the birth I wanted to have.

She let me down. Liam was healthy and the whole process went seamlessly, so I am grateful for that. But I still felt like an experience had been stolen from me, and that I had failed in some way because I ended up being held down on a bed while pushing for over an hour, despite me telling them in advance I didn't want to deliver on my back (hello, who wants to fight gravity??). My body felt broken afterwards. I was exhausted. I was bullied 24/7 by the nurses after I delivered, trying to convince me to give Liam formula because it was "easier". Trying to convince me to let the pediatrician circumcise him even though we had chosen not to. Making me feel like everything I *knew* was so right, was actually so wrong. I left that hospital feeling defeated and tired instead of pumped and elated. When we decided it was time to add another hellion to the family back in December, I was determined things would be different as soon as I got those two pink lines on the stick.

I found a birth center just across the border in SC, and immediately fell in love with my midwife. The entire pregnancy was perfect aside from some of the standard puking the first few months. We didn't find out the gender purposely; we decided it would be more fun to wonder and to have that surprise to look forward to. 2 weeks before my due date I got a phone call from my midwife. The birth center was temporarily shut down and I was not going to be able to deliver there. So here I was, about to give birth at any time and completely back at square one.

After feeling sorry for myself for a few days, I thought to myself, screw this shit. I'm going balls to the wall and doing what I wanted to do this whole time. This kid is being born at home. No more drama, no more fighting for something that should happen naturally. I'm a healthy low risk woman with a healthy baby. We're gonna do this.

I worked Thursday and Friday and damn, I worked. Our floor had been getting increasingly nutty by the week and two straight days of running around, not sitting, and doing heavy lifting wore me out. Saturday morning, September 14th, I woke up feeling kind of crampy. I chalked it up to working the last two days and maybe overdoing it. My due date was still 2 weeks away. I got up, got breakfast and sat around. The random crampiness didn't go away. In fact, it was getting more noticeable. It didn't really hurt, and I can't really describe it other than weird. I know that sounds stupid since I'd been through the labor process before, but with Liam I had no signs of anything and my water sporadically busted on the couch, followed by Mack truck contractions that didn't stop till he came out. This was nothing like that, so I thought nothing of it. I decide to take Liam to the park. We hung out for a few hours and the tightening/cramping continued. I had a couple people ask me when I was due and I was tempted to be like, "well maybe right now but I'm not sure". I texted my mom, who was with my dad camping about an hour away. I didn't want them to come back for nothing and me feel bad, but I kind of wanted to give her a heads up. On the drive home, they started getting closer together. I put Liam down for a nap around 1:30. Ate lunch, paid some bills. Liam woke up around 4 and the cramping was actually getting to a point where I had to stop what I was doing and shut my eyes. I texted the midwife:

4:45pm: "I'm having a lot of cramping, but it's sporadic so I don't know..probably false labor…"

5:22pm: "Nevermind, this shit is real"

She arrived and they were pretty intense...Liam was laughing and copying me as I moaned and swayed back and forth while leaning over whatever was near me as I paced upstairs (washer, banister, bed). Shaun texted my mom to tell her they better pack up. I told him to tell them not to rush, I figured I had at least another 5-6 hours. We joked around and played with Liam in the playroom, then when I had a contraction I would bury my face in the futon and she would quietly take notes in the corner. Every once and awhile she would check the baby's heart rate with the Doppler. Two other midwives arrived around then, and Liam was in heaven having all these people playing trains with him. Shaun went downstairs and cleaned the kitchen...guess he figured with the amount of work I was doing at the moment the least he could do was the dishes. Haha. After awhile they asked if I wanted to get in the tub. For some reason it hadn't even occurred to me even though my plan the whole pregnancy was to have a waterbirth. Into the tub I went. Liam at this point had apparently breezed through med school and had taken upon himself to be the resident OB. He stripped off his shirt and sang Spiderman songs to me while pouring water on my back during contractions. He did the Doppler (correctly!) for the midwives. He made fun of my quiet moans. The whole thing wasn't scary to him at all...I had prepared for one of the midwives and Shaun to keep him downstairs but apparently that was all for nothing.

Within about 10 minutes I was getting way too hot and both my and the baby's heart rate were jumping up. I got out and tried to cool down. I sat on the big yoga ball next to my bed and watched Liam do gymnastics on the mattress. I remember thinking to myself during a contraction that I had hours more of this so I hoped I could keep my current calm state of mind and sense of humor. Right about then I decided I had to go to the bathroom. I said it out loud and started to get up to walk to the toilet. The midwife said, "No. Come over here and grip the footboard and pop a squat for me on the floor". I looked at her like she was nuts. Um, no, I am not pooping on the floor in front of people. I said as much, and I got the look of death, lol. She convinced me to just try to attempt the position for her and she promised I wouldn't go to the bathroom on the floor. I was annoyed but did as she said.

Suddenly the urge was so unbelievably overwhelming that I wanted desperately to run to the bathroom but I was literally frozen in place. My body began to attempt to push on it's own, and I remember yelling out loud that I was "puking in reverse". Everyone laughed but I was about ready to cry, mortified that I was going to poop in front of everyone. Then the floodgates opened and my water literally exploded all over the floor. I felt like a deflated balloon. Suddenly I felt this god awful burning and before I could register what it was, Liam leaped out of Shaun's arms yelling, "My baby!! Wook!! It's my baby!! I'm a big brother now mama!!!". Then I felt this immense sensation of pressure relief and I looked down to see a face peering up at me. The midwife was fending off Liam, who was trying to get to the baby, and Shaun was just standing there with a look of shock. Holy shit. I just had a baby. And all I had wanted to do was go to the bathroom.

His cord was short so I couldn't lift him up to my chest till the placenta came out. When it did, I began to bleed quite a bit due to the short cord getting yanked at some point and tearing the placenta away from the uterine wall, causing a bit of hemorrhage. The midwife gave me some Cytotec and the bleeding let up immediately (and caused horrible god awful contractions but they were necessary to stop the bleeding). Liam cut the cord with some help from Shaun and we finally noticed we had another boy.

I took a quick shower and parked myself in bed with new baby.

At that point my parents arrived. Sorry guys, too late. By 15 minutes! The midwife had arrived at 5:30pm, and he was out at 7:19pm. He was weighed (7lbs 5oz), measured (20 in), and examined.

Shaun won the name battle and Declan received his name. We all hung out for another 4 hours (midwives wanted to make sure I didn't bleed again), ate fish tacos Shaun and my dad whipped up, and went to bed. The next day we woke up like any other day. It was perfect and comfortable and easier than I ever could have asked for. I was so comfortable in my own space that I didn't even realize I was in labor till it was almost over. What more could you ask for?

And that's the story of Declan's journey Earthside.

Pink Rubber Home Depot Frog

Product: See title.

Manufacturer: I don't know but it might as well have been Jesus himself.

Uses: Everything.

Liam found this gem on the floor of Home Depot when I was picking up some mulch. It is a very very soft rubbery pink frog about the size of a quarter that was laying in a puddle of filthy water, just waiting for some grubby small hands to snatch it up while an adult voice echoes in the background, "Noooooo! Get out of that water!!!!".

At first glance it seems to be another piece of crap that will end up on the floor of your car, in that awkward space between the counter and the fridge, or clogging up your vacuum. But no my friends. Don't judge. This small frog will make your day about as smooth as it can be with a spirited, stubborn, and determined toddler. This frog can be rolled between fingers, causing your child to actually SIT IN A CHAIR while eating breakfast. It can be used as a bribe to get on the potty and pee before leaving the house. When dangled along the driveway, it can be used to lure the child in a *gasp* timely fashion to the car. While in the car, the sunlight shining in from the window makes sparkly reflections off it's pearlescent back and onto the vehicle seat, distracting the child from kicking on the 5 minute drive to Target. While in Target, the frog fits perfectly in the fingers of the child, and hops from pack of toilet paper to pack of toilet paper, then along the wall, all throughout the store. Being so small and rubbery, it's limbs can get caught on the metal shelving, causing a leg to rip off. Instead of tears, this causes a whole new interest of trying to do toddler "surgery" to get it back on, all while riding quietly in the cart. Once back in the car, now the body and the severed limb make not one but TWO shiny spots!! At home, it can be placed on the very top of a dresser, and used to bribe the child into a nap with the promise of burying it in the sand at the park later. It also works as a bribe to take a bath, get jammies on, and get in bed because it has magically developed the ability to speak (but isn't it weird that mama's lips are moving too?). This frog trumps every $50 toy your child will ever own.

Folks, this is a quarter sized pink rubber bribe. For free. Aside from the potential biohazard of the puddle it was originally found in, and the fact that it's conveniently the size of a child's windpipe....but hey, we all have to take risks for our sanity, right?

Next time you're at Home Depot, check all the puddles that look like sewage. And if you're not quite ready to commit but may be interested in just a pink rubber frog leg, it's somewhere in the sandbox in Mint Hill, NC.

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. :/