Yes, another Nick-ism. I have no idea where he gets this stuff.

We had some family time in the hot tub the other night. It was the first time we’d gotten into the hot tub in awhile seeing as it was either negative 12 degrees or pouring rain. We spent the time chatting and playing a few rounds of 20 questions. It was Mike’s turn to secretly pick a person, place, or thing. He thought about it for a bit and then the questions began. It always cracks me up when the kids start with very specific things rather than trying to narrow it down. Instead of “is it a boy?” or “is this person related to us?” they immediately go to “is it Grandpa?” or “is it Walt Disney?”

But the other night Nick threw out a zinger of a question. About 4 questions into the guessing, Nick asks “is it the cowboy that is dating mom?”

WHAT? Of course, three other heads spin in Nick’s direction. HUH? What did he just say? Apparently I have a new cowboy boyfriend. This was news to Mike. And, by golly, it was news to me! We have no idea why Nick said this. Nick has no idea why he said it. He just thought it’d be funny. And it was. Well, it’s funny because it isn’t true. If it was true, I don’t think it’d be so funny!

Anyway, I’ve always maintained if women had enough time to have an affair, they’d get another load of laundry done instead.

So fast-forward a couple of days. There has been a heap of empty boxes in our basement just waiting to be filled with ebay goodies and shipped out of here. But that time hasn’t come and is likely not to come for quite awhile. Our cat has found it amusing to knock over the heap of boxes, hide behind them, and ambush us as we come down the stairs to the basement. It’s gotten annoying to trip over boxes and get an ankle clawed up trying to get a Popsicle out of the freezer.

So yesterday I was determined to take care of the heap. I smashed boxes and cut apart boxes and folded boxes one into another. It took about 45 minutes, but the job was done. The area was cleared. The cat has lost his “box fort.”

When Mike came home from work, I purposely sent him to the basement to get something from the freezer. He was shocked at how good the basement looked and gave me a pat on the back. I told him I had help. I told him that my cowboy friend had come over and helped me clean up the basement. He raised one eyebrow and said, “Hey, if you’re going to have a boyfriend that helps get some things done around here, I’m all for it.”

Hmmmmmmm………

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Podcast Haiku

KidsWifeWorkLife Rocks!
A Portland couple’s podcast
Family stories

Why the haiku you ask? Besides being a wife, mother, home schooler, and blogger, I am an admitted podcast addict. KidsWifeWorkLife is one of my favorite podcasts out there. They have issued a challenge in celebration of National Reading Month. Listeners create haiku poems on the topic of reading and then email them to KWWL. The grand prize is a package of several children’s books and a Left-Right-Center game. I’ve sent in my submissions. I encourage you to give their podcast a listen–you can listen right from their site, listen through iTunes, or download an episode into your iPod. Then try your hand at writing a haiku. It’s really pretty fun.

**All comments to this blog entry should be written in haiku form. Three lines. First line having 5 syllables. Second line having 7 syllables. Third line having 5 syllables.

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I thought I’d share a Nick-ism with you since I mentioned them in a previous post.

This happened approximately 3 years ago. My kids were spending a few days with Grandma and Grandpa in Northern Ohio. The conversation went like this:

KT: In three years, I’ll be 13 years old.

Nick: In three years, I’ll be 10.

Grandpa: In three years, I’ll be 73.

Nick: …or dead.

No missed beat. No pause to think about it. Just perfect comedic timing. He meant nothing disrespectful by it. Just stating the fact that Grandpa was much older than he was.

Of course, this conversation has been brought up many times these last few years. It has been my father’s goal to outlive Nick’s prediction. He has approximately 2 months to go to prove Nick wrong. He’d better make it too. Think of the emotional trauma to Nick if Grandpa doesn’t make it to the ripe ol’ age of 73! Then we’ll be back to the therapy question.

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My grandma has a saying: “Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems.”

She’s a wise lady.

I don’t have any big kids yet, but I’m qualified to compare little kids to medium sized kids. I guess I’d edit my grandma’s wise words to “Little kids, little problems. Medium kids, medium problems.” Ugh. I don’t like the sounds of that. That means the problems I have today aren’t even the worst of it!

Of course, when I had little kids, I thought those were big problems. Trying to get my infant to sleep on her own or attempting to convince a toddler a green vegetable wouldn’t kill him or having to answer the endless “Why?” question from my preschoolers. Wow, at the time those were all tiring tasks that seemed so huge and sometimes insurmountable (especially the sleeping thing!).

Now I have medium sized kids. Now I have to deal with girlfriend cliques and the hurt feelings they cause, reading problems and ADD, and having to explain puberty to kids who seem too young to be facing such changes.

I look at moms out with their little babies and wish for the days when things were so simple. For those days when the biggest problems were sleep deprivation and making sure I had enough formula and diapers for our outing. I had no idea at the time those were the easy days. Sure, my grandma said it, but it’s been so long since she has had little kids. She obviously forgets what it’s like. She obviously forgets how difficult it is to raise a baby. Or a toddler. Or a preschooler. After all, by the time I was born, my grandma didn’t have any “little kids.”

When my “babies” are 16 and 18, will I see moms out with their tweens and long for the days when life was so simple? Will I wish for those days when all I had to deal with was girlfriend cliques, reading problems, and talks about puberty?

Probably.

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I was reminded recently of an encounter I had with one of my nursing instructors. She didn’t like me very well. Because she held the key to me passing my intensive care rotation, I had to play the system and TRY to be nice to her. I’d like to think that she felt intimidated by me, that she was jealous of my nursing abilities. There may be a slight truth to that based on something that happened with one of my patients.

There was an elderly patient in the ICU who was under my care. She had been celebrating Thanksgiving at her daughter’s house when she fell down a flight of stairs. I cannot remember if she had a stroke that caused the fall, or if she fell and sustained a head injury because of it. The bottom line was she was unconscious. She was being closely monitored for any signs of responsiveness.

Before I was even allowed to touch the patient, I had to know her chart inside-out. Vital signs–check. Current medications–check. Past surgical history–check. Current neurological status…..hey, what’s this? Every hour she was undergoing neurological checks. Nurses would check her response to pain, check to see if there were any voluntary movements, and check her pupils. For several days, each and every time she was assessed her pupils were charted as: PERRL. What that means is “both pupils are equal, round, and reactive to light.” If you shine a flashlight into someone’s eyes who has an intact nervous system, their pupils get smaller. That is exactly what every single doctor and nurse had charted from the time this patient was admitted until I did my chart review.

The case became interesting when I found a form in the very back of the chart. This form contained about 1000 little check boxes where someone could mark off information about the patient. Anything out of the ordinary could be jotted next to the check box it pertained to. On this one sheet was a summary of not only this patient’s past medical history, but also the initial exam results. What didn’t match up was the check box indicating that on admission her pupil check said PERRL, but yet in the past “eye history” section there was a jotted note that said “patient has a glass eye.”

I know technology has come a long way, but I have yet to see a glass eye with a pupil that can react to light.

I took this new bit of information to my nursing instructor. I thought it was important to point out that the neurological checks being done for several days were not accurate. A glass eye would not have a pupil that responds to light. Apparently she thought I was criticizing the entire ICU for missing something this vital.

My end-of-the-rotation-review occurred shortly after this incident. My instructor made two thing very clear to me that day. First, she told me in no uncertain terms that I would not get an A for my work in the ICU. In fact, she let me know that I was to get a B+. I missed the A- by ONE POINT. One lousy point. Considering that her assessment of my performance was totally subjective, I found it to be quite amusing to miss a grade by ONE point.

And the second thing she told me was probably meant to put me in my place. She told me that I would NEVER, EVER make it as an ICU nurse and I shouldn’t even attempt it. Wow.

I proved her wrong. I worked in a surgical ICU at Children’s Hospital for 3 years. A patient never died because of something I did wrong. I was never fired. And to the best of my knowledge, an incident report was never submitted about the care I gave. The worst thing about my tenure in the ICU was that I did my best to avoid caring for the burn patients in our unit. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do it, I just did not like to do it.

So take that, Mrs. Johnson lady. Your crystal ball was wrong. Your prediction that I would fail as an ICU nurse was off base. I’m glad I didn’t take your words to heart. I encourage all of you to not take your critics words to heart.

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