A quick blog for a quick trip

I don't blog much because I find facebook so much faster and much better with the instant gratification. Also, not much is happening. I finished clinicals and going into my last session in a few weeks. Next? The job search. The girls started school, which is something big, I guess. Last week was so crazy I just didn't have time to process it much less blog about it.

Short version... Penny is at the fancy-shmancy university school run by ISU. She's in preschool, which we pay for, but she's guaranteed a spot in the regular school, which is free. It's very fancy, which swimming lessons during school and lots of activities.

Carolyn is still at her ghetto school, which I sort of love. I LOVE her teacher and everything seems to be going along great this year. She's joining the Daisy's (an arm of girl scouts) this year and she's really good at math.

So, I'm blogging to post some pictures to our quick trip to Chicago. Well, not really Chicago, but a consumer version of it. We went to the suburbs to go to Ikea, the fancy mall, the Lego museum and the Cheesecake Factory. And yes... of course I'm embarrassed by the nature of this buy, buy, buy trip, but I also had a great time at Ikea, so that made me feel a little better.

Here's the pics before I dig my hole a little deeper.

First memories

One of my first memories is pulling the chair out from underneath my mother while she was hanging out with her friends. It was a last second decision that I instantly regretted and I began to cry almost before her butt hit the floor.

For Steve, it was a time he took a candy bar from the grocery store aisle and ate it while his busy mother focused on the groceries. He was halfway done with the candy before his crime was discovered, a crime he would pay for in spankings.

I believe Penny had her first memory yesterday. She picked up a rock and threw it right at a lifeguard, hitting her!!!! The girls are always picking up rocks and throwing them, and I'm always telling them to not to pick up rocks and throw them. I honestly believe she didn't mean to hit the lifeguard, but that's what happened.

In true "this is my child" fashion, she started to cry almost immediately after the rock hit the ground. I saw the entire thing, so it was made slightly worse by my very, very angry tone of voice. For almost 15 minutes we had to deal with heavy sobbing as we worked through this problem. And... in the end... it is my strong belief that her rock-throwing days are behind her.

Miracles

This session is a total and complete nightmare... sort of. My group, as a whole (definitely with exceptions) is not very much fun. There's tons of homework. I hate, hate, hate one of my clinicals and I hate the instructor even more. I work nights, blah, blah, blah and more of the same.

But....

I got to watch a real, live birth yesterday. Not only that, I got to do all the baby care and assessments in the first hour of the baby's life. It was AMAZING!!!! I felt overwhelmed and excited and incompetent and exhilarated all at once. It was, by far, the most amazing day of this semester.

And part of the session has actually been great. We've been at a children's hospital the two and a half weeks. I thought that experience was also amazing, but with fewer caps. I thought I would be really annoyed by the parents, or lack thereof. But really, that hasn't been too big a deal for me. I just love caring for children. There's something intuitive about caring for children. Although, like my instructor pointed out, a child's death is something that some nurses just don't want to do. And I get that. But I will say, little kid poop is SO much better than old man poop.

And not that I'm counting or anything, but 30 weeks down, 18 to go. Woot-woot, as the good people on Facebook would say.