RN!

I did it!  I finally got my RN license!  This has been an extremely long road.  It started 15 years ago when I was at UVSC (now UVU) and decided to change my major from Elementary Education to something else.  What that was, I wasn't sure.  I needed a science class for my Associate's Degree anyway, and the Anatomy class looked interesting.  I've always found medicine fascinating, and I actually wanted to go to medical school to become a Pediatrician.  But I also knew that was a very long process and probably not too realistic with also being a mom.  So I put it in the back of my brain and focused on something else with kids.  I found along the way that I didn't want to be a teacher.  The lesson plans were too tedious, and I realized teaching was more than playing with the kids.  I took the Anatomy class just to see if I would like it.  I wasn't planning on anything after that, I was just taking it one step at a time.  I was also engaged to be married that semester, with the wedding and honeymoon in the middle of it.  I was gone for 2 weeks at midterm, and still managed to squeak out a C.  But I was fascinated.  We worked on cadavers, and after the initial grossout, I was amazed.  The body was an amazing thing.  It all worked so perfectly together, in healthy people, of course. 

Some of the people in the class were taking it for nursing prerequisites.  I looked into the program more, and thought that would be a great way to still be in medicine, but not as intense and long as the doctor route.  Little did I know.  I moved on with Physiology, and did pretty well.  I graduated that summer with my AS degree, and we moved to Washington DC so that Chris could go to law school.  I put my school on hold and got a job at a law firm as a receptionist.  It didn't pay really well, but it definitely helped with the bills, and we were able to take out less in student loans.  I worked for the next few years, until Megan was born right in between Chris's finals and graduation.  We moved to New York City that fall for Chris's job and I stayed home with Megan.  I knew I didn't want to start school until we were settled somewhere more permanently, so that I wouldn't have to worry about transferring and possibly losing credits.  So I waited.  Then we had Alisha, and we moved to California 3 weeks later for another job.  After we moved, we found we loved it and wanted to stay.  So after a year to establish residency in California, I registered for my first official nursing class.  It was a slow process, only being able to take one class at a time, since the girls were little, and Chris was working so much.  I relied on friends, mostly Diane Keller (the best wife ever),  to take care of the girls while I was at school.  I did well, getting A's in all of my classes.  It took 2 years to finish the prerequisites, and I put in my application, thinking I would get in right away.  Riiiiight. 

There was a lottery process to get in to the program.  They took 24 students each quarter.  Once I was accepted into the program, everyone was weighted the same.  At the lottery, I would sign in, get a raffle ticket, and wait to see which numbers were chosen from a big box.  The more lotteries you attended, the more tickets you got, slightly increasing your chances of getting in.  But I didn't get in time after time, and it was maddening.  I felt like I couldn't plan anything, since I MAY be starting school in 3 months, or I might not.  After I attended 6 depressing lotteries, they decided to change the system to a waiting list.  So after one more quarter, which was 2 years of just waiting, I was officially starting nursing school.  The rest they say is history, or at least blog history. 

Nursing school was tough, to put it mildly.  I found that I loved it and that I was good at it.  I loved talking with the patients, and being able to help, even if it was something small.  I loved feeling like I could make a difference and help people at their most difficult times.  I felt joy as I saw the patients going home, especially when I was in the NICU.  I also felt scared and helpless with the sickest patients.  I loved the wide range of everything I saw.  The hardest part for me was juggling going to school, studying, and taking care of the girls and everything else.  But I managed, mainly again with the help of my awesome friend Diane.  She picked up the girls from school, and watched them until I could get home from school or from my clinical rotations.  My sister Jenn and Chris also helped out when they weren't at work.  And now, 2 years later, I am done, I took the dreaded NCLEX, which is the licensing exam, and found out that I passed while we were at Disney World.  I think it actually IS the happiest place on earth!  We came home and found my official license in the mail.

I think I am still in shock that I made it this far.  The day I passed my last final of nursing school, I was walking with Alisha, and I realized that I had waited for *that* day for 15 years, and it brought me to tears.  I am grateful for all of my friends and family that have been so supportive over the years.  I know a lot didn't agree with my decision to go to school, but supported me anyway.  Thanks everyone!!

After the tornado

I'm sitting here, after a day of sleeping in, reading a book with absolutely no intellectual value, and playing a Lego XBox game with my girls, and wondering if this can really be my life right now.  So much has happened in the last few months, that it feels like a tornado has come and gone, and left me dazed to make sense of it all.

I just finished my last quarter of nursing school.  It was great to discard the much-hated dorky blue vest in favor of regular scrub tops.  I was able to precept in the NICU at a local hospital for 8 weeks.  I took care of some very tiny preemies, and some other sick newborns.  I was able to attend several births, including C-sections, and was able to "catch" the baby from the surgeon delivering it, take it to the warmer, dry and suction, and stimulate it to breathe.  It was exciting watching the babies breathe and get pinker, and see the joy in their parents' eyes.  It was so great to be a part of such a happy day.  It was also great to see very tiny babies grow and develop, and "graduate" to be able to go home with their mommies.  The nurses were awesome to work with, and I had a great experience.

My sister Jenn that has been living with me for the past year and a half got married.  My family all drove in from Utah for the weekend, and it was great spending time with them, despite it being such a short visit.  My sister moved out, and I was able to move the girls into their own rooms again, which has made everyone happier with a little more space.  It was fun painting their rooms to reflect their maturing tastes.  Alisha chose a Kermit green walls with peace signs on the wall, and Megan chose a turquoise blue walls with a beachy theme.  We found flip flop vinyl decals and put them on the wall.  They really love their new rooms and most vitally their own space where they can kick each other out when they want space and quiet.

I finished up with nursing school officially, and had a great time celebrating with the friends I have made there over the last two years.  We all became very close, from very early on.  Our personal space shrank considerably, as we practiced moving each other in bed, transferring each other to chairs, and put each other on bedpans.  We practiced finding sites for injections, looking at each other's veins, and even practiced flu shots on unwitting students on campus.  We bonded over our drill sergeant instructor, waking up in the wee hours of the morning, our fear, our mistakes, and eventually our successes.  We cried together, laughed together, and hugged each other through everything.  So many dropped out along the way, and we mourned together.  I'm going to miss seeing their faces in class and at the hospital.  It was so nice to just make eye contact, and have someone immediately understand exactly what I was feeling.  It was bittersweet ending nursing school, because I know I will probably never see some of them again.  But I have made great memories and great friends that I will always treasure.

Christmas came and went, and it has been so nice not having to study, and being able to spend time with the girls.  I have been able to actually clean and organize things around the house, and catching up on mommy duties.  Chris is a great dad, but not very good at being both dad and mom.  He has been pretty busy with work, too, and a lot has fallen through the cracks.  So I'm trying to pick up the pieces of where I've been slacking, and giving him less to worry about.

Now I am onto taking a Kaplan prep class to prepare for the licensing exam (NCLEX).  I will take the NCLEX sometime in January and move onto finding a job.  The job market is pretty tough for new graduates, so hopefully something will open up soon.  I really want to work in pediatrics, but will take any job I can get.  We'll have to see what pans out.

So now I am back to "real" life, and making a new one in the process.  It's exciting and scary to think I have absolutely no idea how this next year is going to go.  Stay tuned...

Summertime bliss

Ahhhh, summer, how do I love thee, let me count the ways:
Sleeping in
No homework, neither for me nor the girls
No real schedule
It stays light out really late
Warm summer nights

In the last 3 weeks, I have accomplished (AKA stuff I never get to do):
30% more sleep on average every night
Found my bedroom floor
Found my desk
Cleaned my house near spotlessly
Had 40 people over for a BBQ
Drove an hour each way and got 40 lbs. of berries
Stayed up late with my husband and got to talk to him on SEVERAL occasions
Played with my girls
Started new Lego Pirates game on Xbox, and got 100% of game finished
Helped with middle schoolers' late night party
Gone to all of the girls' swim meets
Watched all of my shows on my DVR
Went to Chuck E. Cheese for a birthday party
Took the girls to the mall for some back to school shopping
Watched my friend's kids
Gone to Target, Costco, and grocery shopping several times
Ran on the treadmill a few times
Walked my dog a few times
Napped a few times each week
Watched movies with my husband
Lots of lazy days

I'm LOVING summer!  This may be the last real summer vacation I get for a while, since I will be graduating this December, taking the state board exam in February, and hopefully getting a job shortly thereafter.  I'm going to soak up every single bit I can get.

Sleep = Sanity

I love sleep.  I would marry sleep if I could.  I love sleep more than everyone, no offense to anyone reading this.  So naturally, anything that lets me sleep gets my entire love and devotion.  Right now it's my wonderful husband and girls.  Megan had a swim meet this weekend a couple hours away, so Chris took the girls to a hotel on Friday afternoon, and left me all by my lonesome until Sunday afternoon.  It was so glorious to sleep.  I napped for a couple of hours right after they left, and got 9 hours of sleep that night and the next night.  I may have caught up on sleep, at least for this week anyway, now I just gotta catch up on the last 5 months.  I feel much more sane now with more sleep.  I only have 3 more weeks to hang in there until my summer vacation starts, so my sleep average is going to go down again, but this may have given me enough steam to finish up.

Night and day

I am realizing how different my childhood was from my kids'.  Megan is almost 11.  By the time I was her age, I had already been to 10 different elementary schools and moved at least a dozen times.  She has moved 6 times in her life (only once that she sort of remembers), and has been at the same elementary school for grades K-5.  Alisha doesn't ever remember moving, went to one preschool and one elementary school.  We have been in the same ward for the past 7 years, so it's the only one Alisha has gone to.  I grew up with 3 brothers and 3 sisters, and it was quite noisy and chaotic all the time. We just have our 2 girls, and although they like to wrestle and tackle each other and scream, for the most part, things stay relatively quiet around here.

Maybe all the chaos made me more adaptable to changes.  We just got used to it, because that is just what happened all the time.  We even got bored if something wasn't new or changing.  When we stayed in a house for more than 6 months, we'd get trunky and switch rooms with each other or rearrange our furniture.  I was always the new kid, always struggling to make new friends, and always moving on.  So it just baffles me when my girls struggle so much with anything new.  When the school was being built on to make new classrooms for their school, Megan worried about going to the "new" school the next year, even though it was still the same school and 10 steps from the "old" part.  Anytime a new class or activity is starting, both girls are really nervous about not knowing what to expect.  Megan is getting better as she gets older, but they don't realize how lucky they are for the stability they have had. 

Another difference is I never flew on an airplane until I was 15.  I've lost count of how many times the girls have been on planes as we have flown back and forth to Utah for various weddings and trips to see our families.  I had never been East of Utah (aside from being born in Italy and living there for a year after that) before I got married at 19.  The next year, we moved to DC, was there for 3 years, and where Megan was born, and then in New York City for 4 years where Alisha was born.  They both want to take a trip to the East Coast and see where they were born.  I really want to start traveling a lot with them, especially now that they are older and are more interested in other places.

Another difference is their activities.  I never took swim lessons as a kid, so I never learned how to swim.   I took a couple of classes as an adult, and I can proudly say that I can now tread water and do the backstroke.  But even Alisha is going to pass me up, probably this summer.  She graciously offered to show me side breathing so I don't try to breathe in so much pool, but it's a little embarrassing to be shown up by my 7-year old.  They are both in a swim club for the summer, and Megan also does a year-round swim club.  There are swim meets every Saturday for the summer, and once or twice a month for the year-round club.  Over the years they have done ballet, soccer, Girl Scouts, band, and now swimming.  They've also expressed an interest in Tae Kwon Do, but I can't take on any more activities until I am done with nursing school.

Probably the biggest difference is I grew up around a lot of cousins and other extended family too, and we always had family functions together of some sort.  We don't have any family around now, so my kids don't really know their cousins very well.  It's getting better as they get older, and they can remember visiting our families and the fun they have had together.  I am sad that they don't know our families like Chris and I do.  I'm sad they don't get to grow up around their extended family.  I'm sad our families don't love and adore our kids more because they don't know them.  But I'm grateful for adopted families who are there for me and my girls and bring back memories of the chaos when the kids are running around crazy together and making up games in the backyard.  My girls have it pretty good, I have to say.