Going ons...

Just takin' a study break (cuz I my head is always in a book now, I only take breaks when the dishes start to pile up in the sink and my kitchen floor has more footprints than clean spots on it!) It's a dang good thing I am not trying to work right now...I would have flunked out! Seriously though, school is going really good. I haven't gotten less than 90% on anything so far (praise God!), so I am in good shape to take a break and blog for a sec! And because I was getting a little frustrated because no one would leave me alone to study. It's Sat., so everyone is home.

Taylor loves to be in the office because she can "work" on her scrapbook and sticker books. My desk is right next to hers, mainly because she still loves to just be in the same room with me, and about every 29 seconds she starts talking. Sometimes it's to me, sometimes to herself, sometimes she starts singing, but OMG! When I am trying to read a pharmacology book and memorize the 132 different types of drugs to treat the common cold, it's enough to make me crazy! It's kind of cute when I'm not trying to concentrate, but jeez...do we really need to hear our own voices that often???

Then there is Dylan and he loves to be in the same room with me too. He has found an affinity for playing games on the internet (you know the ones that correspond to his favorite cartoons), so he sits at the desk on the other side of Taylor (yes, we have 3 desks in our office), and all I can hear is the theme music to "The Backyardigans" and him going, "Oh mannnn!" or "Moommmmmeeeeeee...I can't get him to jump (climb, race, whatever)!" so I have to stop (because if I don't, then I have to deal with an eruption, which takes even longer) and help him for the next 28 seconds. This morning though, he discovered my ipod and wanted to listen to it. My ears are a bit bigger than his, so the headphones wouldn't stay in, so he kept getting mad, I would have to adjust them, he'd get mad, more adjustments, more getting mad, etc...etc...etc! Heaven forbid he use his own headphones with it....that would just be unacceptable!

Then my husband, sweet, loving Bradley, who tries so hard to help, but, bless his heart, doesn't understand that at this point ANY interruption is an interruption. He keeps coming in the office, opening the door ever so quietly, tip-toeing in, waiting for me to acknowledge is presence (even though secretly I always hope somehow I became invisible), and he whispers something at me. Like whispering is going to help!!! Does he really think that if he whispers, maybe I can keep concentrating on one thing and respond to him at the same time?!?! Oh yeah, and even if he is quiet and it's just me and him in the office, he bangs on the keyboard on the computer when he types. I never realized he had this habit before! I'm amazed that I have not had to replace the keyboard yet. It's the funniest thing (sometimes)...as he types, he doesn't just push the keys, he plunks on them, ALL! It sounds like it's hailing behind me!

So, I love my family, but I have to go to the library on the weekends if I want to study! O-well. I must say though, after getting frustrated and barking this morning, "Can I just have an hour to read?!" Brad took the kids to play at McDonalds. Ahhhh, peace and quiet!

I have learned alot since I started...like I can now administer oxygen correctly via nose tube, mask, or through a tracheostomy. I can insert a Foley and straight catheter, I know how to maintain sterile environments to work in, take vitals, listen to breath sounds for lower respiratory problems and I can assess the head, nose, and throat for upper respiratory problems. Some of those things I was doing as an athletic trainer...but as I know now...I wasn't doing all of them correctly! Oooops! We start clinicals in early April so that will be exciting.

Taylor is going to start playing Soccer this month. She is really excited and Dylan is really jealous. He's not quite old enough yet though. I'm thinking about letting her play t-ball as well, but we'll see how much time soccer takes up...since I have so little extra time these days.

Brad is getting anxious (as am I) to get the boat out of winterization and start going to the lake. Not sure how much time this summer I will have to do that, but hopefully we will get to go a couple times a month or so.

Here are some recent pics of the kids...Taylor's winter clothes lasted her the winter, but she is starting to already grow out of some of the pants...that girl has long legs! Dylan, my little shortie, can still wear some of his 24 month pants (he is 3 1/2)!

Taylor and I at the Museum of Natural History for her last field trip. That is a replica of a mammoth behind us.

This is Taylor with one of her

Pre-K teachers, Ms. Leslie

And of course, my two guitar heros!

Toot My Own Horn...

I took my first test last week...you know the one that I thought I was going to have a small myocardial infarction over...the first test of the semester is always the hardest because you don't know whether the teacher is going to ask questions that are out of the small print of the appendix of the book (which no one ever reads, of course), or if she's going to ask what color your shoes are and why you picked them. Anyway, the questions were very relevant to the readings (thank God!) and I ended up getting a 95% on it! Nice way to start the program! I took another test this last Wednesday and haven't gotten the grade yet, so keep your fingers crossed.

Dylan is, however, still not doing well. He is completely out of sorts about this whole daycare thing. He completed his first week at the new place and ended up with an incident report written up today for hitting his teacher. Do I have a demon child, or what?!?! When we ask him, "Why did you do that?" all he says is "I don't know!" The teachers report is that she was trying to wipe his face off as the majority of his snack was smeared across it. She said she thought it was an accident, but he was yelling at her pretty loudly. What the heck am I going to do if he gets kicked out?!?! He's a good kid, he just lacks the whole concept of respect...for anyone! It's really quite bizarre.

Are You Still There????

My goodness...it's been forever since I last blogged. Are you all still around?!?! Sorry I haven’t updated this lately…seems to be a recurrent theme lately. For the last 3 weeks, I have been eating, sleeping, and dreaming about nursing school. Literally…the other night I dreamt that I walked into my classroom for an exam that was just finishing…with no retake available! I used to have dreams like this in undergrad all the time…my God, now they are haunting me again! You know those kind, where you wake up frantic and breathing hard trying to focus on the clock to see if you are late or not? When I finally realized that I was dreaming, I laid back down and began rehearsing—again—what was going to be on the test I was going to take the next day. I’m too old for this!

Maybe its because if I don’t get at least 75%, I risk having to retake the whole course and delaying graduation. Yeah, that’s what I need…let’s make this program even longer than 16 months! That sounds fun!

Really, we haven’t done a whole lot in school—other than read, read, and read some more. The amount of reading we have to do is insane. Of course it might help if I didn’t read at a snails pace…a snail who has no short term memory, forcing me to read the same paragraph 6 times! O-well.

Other updates…let’s see…Taylor has adapted remarkably to this whole daycare thing. She doesn’t seem to mind at all and really likes her new friends that she has made. She even got moved up to the 5 year old class because she was doing so well. She’s the easy kid! Now, Dylan, as we all know, is a completely different story. He cries at the mention of “school”. He screams like someone is torturing him every day when I drop him off. Then when I go pick him up, he is excited to show me what he did that day and tell me all about how much fun he had! Weird kid! Needless to say, I am still overly protective of him and switched him to the same daycare that Taylor is in (they were in different ones because his was supposed to be so interactive and good for those kids who may not be ready to go to Preschool right away). I wasn't getting a really good vibe from his childcare and was doing too much worrying about him, so hopefully, he will start enjoying it more.

So anyway, if the posts are few and far between, I will try to do better (really, that's the breaks, but, errrrr, I didn't say that!) School, right now, is taking up all my spare time—literally! The time that I do have, I try to play with the kids or actually talk to my husband. Don’t worry though, when I start working with blood and guts, I will be sure to post!

OH YEAH…I almost forgot…the mascot of Oklahoma City University is the Stars. Yep, that’s right, I truly am the “star” I always knew I was! Can you say “SUPERSTAAAAAAAR”!!!

What a stupid mascot! You’re telling me that they couldn’t dream up anything better than the Stars? Since we live in Oklahoma, something along the lines of the “Tornados”, or “Cattle Prodders”, or “Tumbleweeds” would have been more appropriate, don’t-cha think?! Any other suggestions?!?!

Started the New Routine

So, yesterday I started classes with that little butterfly in my stomach flapping wildly. Who knows why...it's not like it's my first class, ever! I only had 2 yesterday--professional nursing and pharmacology. Professional nursing isn't going to be too bad, but after sitting in Pharmacology for the first 30 min, I knew right away I was going to be in for it. The little "bible" of drugs is like 3 inches thick and we have to be able to talk about the drug, dosage calculation, administration, side effects, adverse effects (I thought these were the same thing for crying out loud), and of course conditions that the drugs treat. Not to mention the weekly, busy work assignments, mounds of reading, and studying a whole book just dedicated to the math behind dosage calculation. Uggg...here we go!

So, I can memorize pretty much anything...I think the butterfly's come from the thought of actually applying and being able to spit back out the material when it really counts--with patients. It's a good thing clinicals don't start for a couple months.

Dylan and Taylor both started their daycare's yesterday. They both were picked up with good reports. Dylan, I think, likes his, but doesn't like the idea of not being with Mommy. He cried hard when he saw me when I came to get him...almost like, "Oh, I'm so happy that you came back for me" type of cry. Like, did he really think I wouldn't?! Then, this morning he cried getting dressed and kept saying, "I no need to go back to school anymore!" I'm sure that will get better.

Taylor got a kick out of riding the bus to her daycare. They pick her up after school in a "short bus" and take her back to the daycare. She said that was her favorite part! Unfortunately, she gets there right at lunchtime, so she doesn't have a chance to explore her classroom. Right after lunch, they lay down for a nap, then they got up, ate a snack, and went outside to play. She said that the nap was the worst part and she "cried a little because she missed me". She hasn't had to lay down at nap time for months, so she is not the least bit happy about that situation! She didn't sleep but her teacher let her read books which was nice. Today, I sent her favorite blanket and one of her stuffed animals to keep her company. I also taught her how to count sheep in her head to help her try to fall asleep--she thought that was pretty funny!

Anyway, I am going to the gym now (finally, I have time to do that!) Maybe I can keep my butt from getting any larger having to sit and read all the time!

Show Me the Money!

God works in mysterious ways...

This morning, I got email notification that I was approved for a loan to cover the entire cost of the 16 months that I will be in school. Good news. Now, all I have to do is e-sign the document and it will go through and be sent off to my school. Easy.

I decided that I better print a copy of the file before I hit 'send', just so that I have a copy for my file. Crud, my wireless printer is on the fritz so I have to change computers. I get all logged on to the site on the other computer, hit the "view and sign document" button and I get a pop-up blocked message. No big deal...I can fix that. Try again...another pop up. Now you can imagine that signing financial documents--especially for this much money--electronically, is a sensitive matter for the bank. So, after 2 pop-ups, I am locked out of the system and no longer even able to e-sign! CRAP! Now it's going to take like a week to get my money transferred to my school. I will be that student that goes to class without paying...is that like stealing, I wonder?

So, after thinking that I fixed the problem for good, I call the bank and ask them to please re-send the document so that I can try again. "Sorry Mrs. Garcia, but that's not possible." Of course it's not...I should have known! Silly me for thinking the bank had control over it's own documents! He said that I have to print it, sign it, and send it in. OH FINE!!!

So I go to print the pdf file...it's secured, read only, and non-printable! I proceeded to spend the next 2 hours on the phone with a computer guy from the bank trying to figure out how to make this document appear on my screen, without triggering the pop-up blocker (which was still turned off, mind you) and with a print option. Sooooooo frustrating! It was 5 min. to 11 am--I had to pick up Taylor from school in 10 min. and I still had not taken a shower, Dylan was not dressed, and I had no document. Arrrrgggg!!! So, I of course, picked up the phone and barked at Brad to enlighten me as to how many pop-up blockers he actually had on this computer and why he had his security setting so high. "There's 2...I think." MY GOD!!!

At that, I turned both computers off, got DJ dressed and left to get Taylor. When we got home, the kids ate lunch while I showered, I took them to a sitter, and I went to my orientation meeting at school. When we got home this afternoon, I was preparing to tackle the computer problem, now that I was calmer, but decided to check the mail first. Guess what I found?!?!

FINANCIAL AID PAPERS FOR THE FULL AMOUNT FOR THIS FIRST SEMESTER!!! After being told to get a loan in order, because I probably would not receive financial aid, and going through the frantic mess this morning to get my school paid for, all I really needed to do was relax and trust that God would make it happen! Weird huh? I ended up receiving two federal loans--one that I don't have any interest accruing till after graduation, and one that I will pay just the interest while in school. We felt a big weight being lifted this evening as we calculated how much we would save in interest payments alone! Shew!

So I guess I learned today to just relax a little, and trust that things will work out in the end. There is always a plan--I just wish sometimes the plan would fall into place a little quicker! Everything happens for a reason!

The closed lip smile

A while back, Taylor was getting ready in the morning to go to school to get her school pictures taken for the very first time. She was really excited and was letting me fix her hair pretty when I said, "How are you going to smile in your picture?"

Big mistake....huge!

She grinned at me and all I saw were her gums, every tooth in her mouth, her chest was stuck out and her eyes were like little slits! Ohhhhh nooooo! So, what did I do? I walked her out in the kitchen to show daddy how she was going to smile. She did the same thing for him. He looked at me, back at her, then at me as if to say, "Ummmm, how do we tell our daughter she looks terrible when she smiles like that?"

So, we tried to explain to her that she doesn't have to smile quite so big. So she smiled normal but her eyes were still slits. Then we tried the 'open your eyes when you smile' so then she had a silly grin with bug eyes. Oh lord, why did I ask in the first place?!?! Finally, we said, "Honey, just smile normal and you will be fine."

Here's what came home the other day--really not so bad--could've been much worse...

When she got them, she said, "See Mommy, my eyes were open!" I said, "That's great, but why didn't you show your teeth?" "Because in order to keep my eyes open, I couldn't smile big!" Like DUH MOM!!!

So what do you think...keep them, or retakes?

Name Calling

Taylor was so excited to go to school today to show all her friends her new outfit and was in such a good mood. When I went to pick her up this afternoon, she was crying. Apparently, a couple of the kids were "calling her names". Come to find out, they were rhyming her name, not calling her names. They were saying, "Taylor, Baylor". Now, who knows, for a 4 year old, this can actually be a name with a negative meaning--Taylor sure thought so. I got my first dose of kids being cruel and hurting her feelings. I know it will get much worse, but it sure isn't fun.