33 days and then some

That's what the counter on my iGoogle says. 33 days and then some hours and minutes and seconds attached. It's counting down until I am done with this crazy busy nursing program that thinks we can do 60 credits in nursing in one year. One year. I have 8 credits right now. 8 final credits to do in five weeks. And then I wait six weeks after August 15th, and I take the boards. And then I'm an RN?

If it doesn't get scarier than that, I will also be doing my transition to professional nursing rotation in the ER, by choice. Toward the end of this clinical, which is I remind you, in four weeks, I will be working somewhat independently. Who's scared? Definitely me. I can remember vividly in October trying to draw blood from a fellow student. I could feel the room spin and the dizzy feeling set in. Not from the site of blood, but the fact that I was sticking a needle into the vein of someone I liked. Now I'm going someplace where they are going to expect me to be able to do this.

Breathing deeply.

The best thing I think though is that in four weeks I may actually have time to blog again.

Things I Don't Blog About

I like to think I am remarkably honest on this blog. After all my reproductive and sexual histories are largely public information. I have had no problem detailing or showing hints of intimate details that went into the making of our Cricket. I have cried and laughed in a very real way regarding all the aspects of this singular part of my life. And I've added some other honest portraits in the life of Katie as well, but there are secrets. I suspect that if I wrote about them honestly, I might stop grinding my teeth at night. I'm not ready to start writing about the secrets at this moment since I have test tomorrow. (I am definitively procrastinating by blogging right now, and I still need to review anti psychotic medications, so blogging meaningfully about secrets is just not going to happen. Yet.) However, I do have a wee bit of time to list five of the secrets I am reluctant to blog about:

1. Money & Finances, or lack thereof.
2. The current ownership of our house which is on its third summer on the dreadful Michigan market.
3. Excitment and terror about thinking of moving into at least 2,000 square feet less than we have right now, or "how will I live in a house that is as big as my master bedroom is right now?"
4. My apathy about my impending nursing degree
5. My changed post-Cricket relationship with Partner
6. Reverting to 20 year old status by signing up for Facebook

What I want to know: what do you not blog about? Why? What should I be blogging about, and why?

Should Write More But Have Ungodly Amounts of Reading to Do.

So I will post pictures of Cricket instead.

Here we are readying him for his life of education. I had my "fake" graduation a few weekends ago. Fake because I still have 20 credits to go. Every credit more takes a little bit more of soul, so I guess it was good to pseudo-celebrate while I still own part of my soul before the nursing school takes it all. The Cricket was very good at a full day's worth of festivities, therefore he got to wear the hat. Cricket: Pre-leg break, shopping for bread with me on a cool Saturday morning. I almost can't even remember these Halcyon days of walking. By himself.

Cricket's cast is off. Which I'd say should be a resounding "THANK GOD" but he's still not walking on it. He is holding his leg up, but crawling everywhere. He will pull himself up to standing, but will not stand on the leg. After three set of x-rays from his very own grandfather and nary a fracture to be seen, I'm flummoxed. There was one spot where there was maybe a fracture. The grandfather doctor says to not push it. Maybe there's a break that we can't see (?!?!?) and he's protecting it. I just want walking/running Cricket back. Here is the kid moments before his leg broke:
I post this pic for Chris especially. Another reason I'd like my kid to start walking again is that he was so into the Swiffer. I need the help around the house. It's time for him to start earning his bread (or cheese as the case may be) again.

Finally, Cricket says goodnight. He and I both hope that I will find time to blog again in earnest soon. I have so many things to say, my head hurts with the sheer multitude of things I'd like to be blogging about it. Keep fingers crossed that the Cricket returns to walking soon.

Attempting to Drown Out the "Snap"

A meme, cribbed from Frog.

TECHNOLOGY
Q. What is your wallpaper on your computer?
On the home computer, Cricket. On the laptop, aka "Big Bertha," Ireland.

Q. How many televisions you have in your house?
Two

BIOLOGY
Q. Are you right-handed or left-handed?
Right

Q. Have you ever had anything removed from your body?
Cricket and some patella bone fragments and floating cartilage. (Hey, Cricket is not the only one who can break bones around here!)

Q. What is the last heavy item you lifted?
Cricket and his heavy ass cast.

Q. Have you ever been knocked out?
For my knee surgery, and two endoscopies, my wisdom teeth-- but these are medical. I have not been knocked out physically.

BULLSHITOLOGY

Q. If it were possible, would you want to know the day you were going to die?
Good Lord. So I could worry about until it happened? Absolutely not.

Q. If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
My name is pretty much me.

Q. What color do you think looks best on you?
Black?

Q. Have you ever swallowed a non-food item?
Well, that is stupid. Who hasn't?

DAREOLOGY
Q. Would you kiss a member of the same sex for $100?
Let me think about it.... Sure!

Q. Would you allow one of your little fingers to be cut off for $200,000?
Nope, and that's saying something because we could really use the money.

Q. Would you never blog again for $50,000?
Maybe. But I like to blog even though I don't do it much. Does this mean not commenting on blogs too?

Q. Would you pose naked in a magazine for $250,000?
Not on your nelly

Q. Would you drink an entire bottle of hot sauce for $1000?
Uhhg. The heartburn.

Q. Would you, without fear of punishment, take a human life for $1,000,000?
No!

DUMBOLOGY
Q: What is in your left pocket?
My hospital/school ID, credit card, and picture of Cricket.

Q: Is Napoleon Dynamite actually a good movie?
I haven't seen it. But a friend just loaned it to me.

Q: Do you have hardwood or carpet in your house?
Hardwood downstairs, carpet upstairs.

Q: Do you sit or stand in the shower?
Stand.

Q: How many pairs of flip flops do you own?
My favorites just broke. So none.

LASTOLOGY
Q: Last person who texted you?
Lynne.

Q: Last person who called you?
My mom

Q: Person you hugged?
Cricket

FAVORITOLOGY
Q: Number?
I don't know that I have a favorite number.

Q: Season?
Hot Hot Hot Summer Summer Summer!

Q: Color?
Green.

CURRENTOLOGY
Q: Missing someone?
My boobah. And Partner.

Q: Mood?
Lazy.

Q: Listening to?
Olu Dara, birds singing outside, and a dog barking someplace.

Q: Watching?
The sunshine.

Q: Worrying about?
Cricket's leg. Cricket's asthma. Money, bills. My grades. Next semester's classes. Who's going to cut the grass? My heart. I'll stop now because my litany of worries could be really boring.

Q: Wearing?
Bare feet, jeans, and a Detroit Rugby Football Club tee shirt.

RANDOMOLOGY
Q: First place you went this morning?
Cricket's school.

Q: What can you not wait to do?
Go to the zoo with Cricket.

Q: Do you smile often?
Show off the pearly whites! Or not so pearly with the amount of tea I drink...

Q: Are you a friendly person?
Mostly.

Bright Blue: Why Mommy Can't Sleep

The story, in third person.

Mommy's classes ended on Thursday and since that time she had really been enjoying time with her son, Cricket. They went to the park Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Cricket was pretty impressive with his mobility. Running everywhere, up and down hills, mastering the slide, impressing total strangers with his climbing ability. So Sunday when he was at his grandparents, Mommy hurried everyone along. "I think it's going to rain soon! Let's get moving!"

At the park, Cricket did all the park things and totally ignored the astro turf hill, the one kids slide down on cardboard boxes, or just their pants. Mommy knew she and Cricket had gone down the hill before, so when he headed toward the hill, she let him climb to the peak of the hill. Previously they only went down half the hill. Mommy remembers the sun glinting off the hair of a little girl, trying to go up the hill one more time, but instead this girl was nabbed by grandmother. The little girl said, "Sweet niblets!" and everyone laughed, the nabbing grandmother, the little girl, the Mommy, her parents and even the Cricket because everyone else was laughing. Mommy will always remember this little girl saying sweet niblets.

Once Mommy and Cricket reached the top of the hill, she watched the little girl and grandmother walk away, she scanned the bottom of the hill to make sure it was safe, she swooped her child up into her arms and kissed his bonny face. "Do you want to go down the hill?" she asked him. She smiled at her own parents at the bottom of the hill and put Cricket between her legs. They pushed off.

She still doesn't know what she heard first: the snap of her child's bone or her father yelling "Stop!" but she stopped. Instantly. Picked up her child and ran down the hill, hugging him to her chest and he cried, cried. "Did you hear a snap?" Mommy's own mother asked her. Mommy said I don't know, even though she knew she heard a snap. The child continued to wail. Mommy's father, the one who yelled stop, was an orthopedic surgeon. "Is it broken? Is it broken?" she asked over and over again.

"I don't know. I don't have x-ray eyes. It feels okay," he said.

Mommy sat on a park bench and prayed "OmyGod" over and over again, kissing her child's head. He stopped crying, and she believed his bone couldn't be broken if he stopped crying. They tried to see if he would stand. But he wouldn't. He started crying again. His leg was shaking. So everyone decided it would be best to get x-rays. And they did. But x-rays weren't conclusive, and Mommy laughed and laughed. But still Cricket would not stand, and Mommy's dad, the bone doctor, said it was best to treat the child, not the x-ray. And sometimes fractures don't always show up immediately, and maybe he did see something on the fibula. And so that's how Cricket ended up in a bright blue cast, from his toes to his hip.

And that's how it ended up that Mommy can't sleep at night for hearing the snap of her child's bone as he sat between her legs.

How You Know

There are not subtle cues that one needs a longer vacation outside of the home and Michigan when several things happen:

• When you are gone from the house for a little over 24 hours and it feels like a lifetime: This means you have been the house for entirely too long and need a longer vacation asap. Preferably some place where your toes will finally be warm. Without wool socks on.
• You talk about how balmy your walk in the woods is. The problem with this is that it is Michigan, in March, with about 8 inches of snow on the ground, and it's probably only 37 degrees.
• The highlight of your Saturday is running sap, metals pails, and spiles.
• You are inordinately excited about the hotel bed. You have never slept in anything so wonderful. You ponder how to strap it to the roof of your car to take home.
• You cry when you return to your beautiful custom built (by you and your partner) home and realize you'd rather be back in the 565 sq ft hotel room.
• Your tears intensify when you further realize you could live in said hotel room every day of the month for less than your current home costs you per month.
• And finally you know you better stop crying because a new class starts tomorrow and it's going to be an intense five weeks taking a six credit class dealing with acutely ill people, so you better try and get a small blog post in quick to let people know you are still alive (for now), your kid is still charming you, and your albatross of a house is still for sale.

Empty. Empty. Empty.

So, the wine bottle is officially empty.

My weekend of bliss roaringly ended Tuesday morning when Cricket woke up at 5:00. Partner was already going with her day since she has to report to work at 6:30. That left me to "snuggle" with a baby who has discovered the gleeful joy of rolling all over the bed while pretending to be alseep. I'd look down at him in the hazy light of a snow covered morning and he'd be smiling, with his eyes closed. Cute, yes. Annoying also, when one considers I didn't go to sleep until 1:00 am the night before. Studying for a test. I stayed up a little later consoling myself with the thought that I'd sleep in until about 6:15. Which is wrong on so many many levels. Sleep in until 6:15? This is what my life has come to.

Alas, I was up with the babe. Eventually he had enough and fell back asleep, but in our bed, and not fully enough that I could pick him back up and place him into his own bed, the one with high sides that ensures he will not fall out. So I had no shower. I don't know about you, but a shower really does wake me up in the morning more than coffee or tea or any other caffienated elixer.

We got to school where I did my best Tenzing Norgay imitation by carrying in Cricket, my backpack complete with nursing tomes, his lunch, and the Britax carseat. Through the snow too. Went to class and got back a test in my research class with the worst grade I have gotten on a test since 1993. The day was going really well.

Then I met with my people I have to a group project with and explained why I hate lunch time meetings when yet another one was proposed. (And why do I hate these meetings? Because it's the only time I have all freaking day to sit down and not think-- until about 9:00 at night that is. And quite silly of me, I thought if I explained this slowly and surely, the others would empathize, as I expected we are wont to do as nurses. As you may have already expected from your own personal run ins with nurses, empathy is not a prerequiste. The response I got from a fellow childless student who is young young young: "We all have responsibilities." Hm.) Lunch time meeting scheduled despite my best efforts to compromise. (I have so much to say about this, but whatever, this is about the wine bottle being emptied.)

I then lost it in the stairwell of the School of Nursing, conveniently located above my child's school, so that all the teachers coming in from outside could hear me babbling away about school, stress, and kids. (Try doing 60 credits in one year-- it's not as easy as it sounds!) I don't know about you, but I like my breakdowns to be in private, like a bathroom stall, a parked car in an empty lot-- I'm just like that.

I got to peek at Cricket for two minutes. I don't let him see me on Tuesdays since he goes home with the babysitter and not a mom. This did more to further break my heart open into four seperate chambers.

Studied more for test I was woefully underprepared for. (But report 100% success on, thank God.)

Went home and emptied end of the wine bottle started on my blissful pseudo-single weekend.

All the entreaties I had to enjoy the weekend are so not lost on me now. Is it too soon to open another bottle?