Sunday, February 23, 2014

February 16 - February 22

Sunday, February 16: Sacrament was interesting today. Tyler read his kids’ anatomy book during sacrament, unaware that he was holding it up and everyone behind us could see him perusing the page about menstruation. Just lovely. The doctor sitting in the pew behind us was dying laughing. Also, I was finally sustained as an advisor in the Young Women’s program. I was extended the calling nearly five months ago, and I was sure they had forgotten. After sacrament, it was my first day in the program, and I (very emotionally) told the girls how intimidated I am by this calling; it’s a crazy huge responsibility, and I am incredibly honored/terrified to be working with them during such an important time in their lives. After church, we had a family dinner at Kevin and Cindy’s to celebrate their 35th anniversary. We brought a red velvet cake made from a box mix, and I was so disappointed. I had to douse it in cream cheese frosting to fix it! Tyler and Jamie gave Kevin his birthday present, a cute little comic style book Darth Vader and Son. It was very hard for the kids to let it go; they’ve grown very fond of it J Later in the night I correctly guessed which medication Patrick is on, based on his symptoms and what type of drug it was. It was such a moment for me, but since I’m committed to obeying HIPAA, you’ll just have to imagine my brilliance J



Monday, February 17: Because this was a holiday for Tyler and Jamie, I got to spend all morning at home with them (but only after a gross and epic bug battle in Tyler’s room). I had a short class in the afternoon where we taped on each other’s shirts the landmarks of the lungs.
It was fun to not just sit and listen for a change. Jamie’s school thankfully had a drop in service for all the school age kids who had the day off for school, so Tyler went to “the blue school” with Jamie. My dad flew into town this week, and he came over for dinner on Tuesday night. He played baseball with Tyler and Jamie in our backyard until it was too dark to see. We ordered Papa John’s, watched for the “pizza taxi”, and then watched Mouse Hunt. After my dad left and the kids were down, I watched a Season 2 episode of House of Cards on my laptop and studied, while McKay watched an episode of Season 1 on the Apple TV. I tried and failed to wait for McKay to finish the first season so we could watch together, but since the second season just came out, I can’t help it. Most unfortunately, my time is not my own and binge watching is not possible right now. I am being able to watch one episode about every other day, and I am slowly dying because of it.

Tuesday, February 18: Jamie was so sad when I left for school in the morning. She said in this little resigned voice, “I’m going to miss you, Mom.” I have to give myself a pep talk each time I leave her unhappy: we will all be better for this! Already, Jamie and McKay have a much stronger relationship from spending all their Tuesdays together, having adventures while I am in school all the live long day. They went to Costco together and restocked our bare cupboards. I had a super long day of classes, and went to an SGA (student government) meeting. I found out they are raising our tuition next semester. In our Concepts class we are learning how to consolidate and relate data from our assessments and interviews with patients. In writing a care plan, it involves drawing lines from pieces of data to a nursing diagnosis. There are so many lines going all over the page, and it makes the whole page a giant mess. You could feel and actually hear the dismay from every Type A, neat freak nursing student in the room.

Thursday Feb 20: I love Thursdays when I get to spend all day with Jamie and smother her with love and attention. After I picked up my name badge from UT Southwest for my clinical, Jamie and I went to the Dallas Zoo with some friends from church. We had such a fun time with our friends looking at all the animals, but Jamie’s favorite part was the carousal near the exit. Even though we hadn’t been there for months, she remembered exactly where the elephant was that she wanted to ride. She spent the whole ride laughing and smiling and yelling “Giddy up, Elephant!” J









Tyler had running club after school, which he is doing so well in. His stamina is improving, he ran six laps (the first week, he couldn’t finish one). My dad came to visit since it was his last night in Dallas. I wanted to show him downtown, and let the kids had fun too. We met McKay at Uptown Station, and we rode the Mckinney Trolley down to Klyde Warren Park over I-35. We had yummy hamburgers in the park from Relish, and ate as the sun went down in the middle of all the city lights and skyscrapers. It was a really fun night, and I think Tyler and Jamie are pretty smitten with their grandpa :)









Friday Feb 21: My first clinical day was so awesome, and I can’t say a darn thing about it because of HIPAA. My patients were great, and so was my PTC that I followed for the day. I am so excited about the rest of the semester, and about my career.   

Saturday Feb 22: I made Tyler and Jamie clean up the house, which was looking pretty gross after nearly half a semester of neglect. It was such a nice day that we threw the windows open all around the house and let the fresh air roll in. I love the weather we've had this week, but I'm worried that summer is coming early this year. I'm not ready for the Texas heat yet! After lunch, we went to Buy Buy Baby to grab a gift for Jamila and Tyler Hokansen's baby shower.



Funny Things:

  • Jamie developed an 80 year old person’s vocabulary while we were at the zoo. While she was playing in the splash pad, yelling out very articulately, “Ya-hoo!’ and “Woo Hoo!”, and when I asked her if this is a fun place, she said, “It SURE is!”
  • Jamie has been really into making everyone else laugh lately. She will make funny faces and say “Look at me Mom! Look at me!” over and over, and no can help laughing. She is such a sweet girl, and we love having her in our family.
  • Tyler was so exhausted after running club. He heaved himself into the car when I picked him up, and said, “I’m so tired, Mom. I ran SIX miles!” (He meant laps J )

  • My Concepts teacher told us that in our clinicals, we may have a boring day if we get assigned a “Walkie-Talkie patient”, which is a healthy, functioning patient who can walk and talk, and take care of themselves. I thought it was pretty funny.
  • Tyler wrote a book on "How to Be A Nurse":
    "How to be a Nurse" 

    "First you need to go to nursing school..."

    "...once a day. When a kid is 8, she is done with school."

    "Nurse Time!"
  • He also wrote another:
    "By Mister Tyler: Dollars."

    "A dollar can be for Hockey."

    "A dollar can be for a house."

    "George Washington is on a dollar."

February 9 - February 15

Sunday, February 9: Jamie was the spotlight in church today! She wasn’t very interested in being in the front of the room until she heard the Primary counselor reading off all the things describing Jamie. She perked up and smiled when Sister Blanche told everyone that Jamie likes to talk like the Minions. The rest of the day was full of study, study, study. Tyler and Jamie watched Charlie Chaplin on Netflix, and loved it. They spent the afternoon laughing and laughing about “the guy who walks funny and falls down the stairs.”
Silly shy Jamie

Happy girl with her Spotlight loot!
Silly bunch of people.
Monday, February 10: I finally had my Assessment test, and I was just happy it was over.

Tuesday, February 11:  It threatened snow on Monday night and all the schools were canceled due to weather, but it never did snow. With the whole day free, we trooped over to Legoland. We hadn’t been in a while, and the kids had a great time. I brought my pharmacology notes and I studied most of the time we were there, letting McKay take the lead. Tyler spent a good 45 minutes writing a review about Legoland on a small iPad they have near the exit, just for the kids to tell about their experience. He labored over it and wrote a whole paragraph! I am so proud of all he is learning, he is such a smart and sweet boy. I’m biased, but I think he’s the best son a mother could ask for J As for Jamie, she is almost tall enough to go into the playplace in the middle of Legoland. Just a few more inches!

Wednesday, February 12: I learned about Head/Neck assessment during lab. It got out a few hours early, just in time to dash to Heights Prep for the Literary Luncheon. Cindy drove down from Plano to fill in for me (what a great Grandma!), and Tyler was so pleased to have both of us there. Afterwards, Tyler and I had lunch with Cindy at Uncle Julio’s. Tyler loved having one on one time with me and Grandma, and I did too. I don’t get much of that these days. I tend to focus spending my free one on one time with Jamie because she is so much younger and (I’ll say it) needier than Tyler, but I really love spending time with Tyler as well. He’s growing up into such a fun little person! He says the funniest things, and his questions remind me how little he knows of the world, and I love seeing him enjoy learning about the world. After school, I am embarrassed to admit I got pulled over for speeding across the bridge. Thankfully, the cop let me off with a warning. Oh, the magic of a clear driving record! Since then, Tyler has been policing me from the backseat ever since. “MOM! The policeman said SLOW DOWN! So you have to slow down!” He will say this whenever we cross that bridge again, regardless of how fast I am going. Even if we are in bumper to bumper traffic, 7 mph: ”GO SLOW!!”










Thursday, February 13: There was a fun Valentine’s party in the morning for Jamie with a few friends from church. She had so much fun playing with Ruby and Garrett. I had my first Pharm test that afternoon, and I did really well! Tyler had running club after school, and he is really improving his stamina. He normally couldn’t maintain a run for more than 100 yards, but he is doing loads better with his running club. For each lap they run, they get a straw from the teacher. They like to compare the number of straws after they are done running to see who got the most. Tyler is always a little peeved that his friends Jesse and Alan can get eight straws, and he has determined that he is going to catch up with them next week J

Friday Feb 14: Valentine’s Day! I started the day off grumpy for everyone because I was upset that I hadn’t prepared well for the holiday. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do much that was special for the kids because I had double labs that day, and I hadn’t done much to prepare the afternoon before (I just lounged around the previous afternoon, totally wiped out from all the tests). I didn’t even have eggs or bacon to do a somewhat nice breakfast for the kids. I did have these fun pink stuffed animal sock monkeys for Tyler and Jamie, but that was it. Poor Tyler looked at his peanut butter toast, and tentatively said, “Oh. I thought we would have a special breakfast for Valentine’s Day.” I was mad at myself for not prioritizing a fun holiday breakfast for my family, and quite illogically, I didn’t make the morning pleasant at all. Immature much?
I had Concepts lab, and we learned to give insulin shots and to reconstitute powdered medications for injection. We practiced injecting Nerf footballs and hot dogs with the medicines. It was pretty cool to finally be doing hands on things, even if it was a slab of meat. We also worked on wound care, Foley catheters, and maintaining sterile fields. Tyler had his class Valentine’s Day party at school, and Jamie had her party at her preschool. Tyler has gotten nine greens in a row so far at school. He has really matured since last semester, I am so impressed with his hard work at school with staying on task and doing his work well. I let Tyler and Jamie pick out what they wanted for dinner (macaroni and cheese!), and I made French Onion Soup for McKay and me,





Saturday Feb 15: Since the week had been so busy with school, I made the day all about Tyler and Jamie. In the morning we jogged to the park. Tyler ran right next to me the whole way, about 1.5 miles. I was really proud of him! I brought my textbooks to the park, planning to study, but it was such a gorgeous day, and the kids were so happy to be playing at the park, I couldn’t help but join in with them. On the way home, we had a great time talking about all the different seasons and holidays, and what our family does all year round. Tyler and Jamie were so excited to talk about all our family activities, and it made me so happy to hear their excitement over our lives and what we do together. I love these little people J

Funny things: Tyler’s school photo shoot. We were pretty flattered when we got a notification that Tyler was to be in the school’s promo photos. In our school, Tyler is a bit of a minority, and that bright red hair just calls to the hearts of the school administration that wants to say “Look, we have white kids here too!” So we were feeling pretty puffed up and proud until we saw the school website photos, and there was no Tyler to be found.
 I was ready to be so outraged until I was emailed the photos with Tyler:

Oh, Tyler... :) Goofy, goofy little boy with a goofy smile...

Tyler has been giving Jamie color grades for her day lately after school. Most of the time it's green, but sometimes, after Tyler gives Jamie a green, she'll go off and color a new page, giving herself an orange (which is not a good color to have).  Tyler thinks this is hilarious; I think Jamie is thumbing her nose at the system.

Dictionary.com's word of the day was "hornswoggle". This inspired a night of laughing myself silly at Chandler Bing quotes on google image search: