mommy moments and mean face

My boys provide me with many random moments that I just want to suck in and remember forever. Tonight my Ben gave me one of those moments. Ben is two and has really been talking since august. This week he got a whole lot better at. Tonight I tucked him into his bed. He didn't want to go, and probably could have handled being up longer but his brother needed to go to sleep. I put him in bed and I was just outside his door and I hear him talking to himself...:

"will go sleep, dada go sleep...ben go sleep? NOOO! baba (his bottle) go sleep? NOOOO!"

When Will was a baby, he managed to get one color down-yellow-only he said yehyo. Soon after he decided that if a color was yehyo, than to color was to yehyo. For about a year when he wanted to color he asked to yehyo, and we loved it.

We are the kind of family that doesn't correct kids when they come up with their own expressions for things, because we figure-they will learn it sooner or later, enjoy it while it lasts.

Another Ben favorite of mine is when he wants me to go with him somewhere, he walks up to me and says "come-on-a-mommy-a" or "come-on-a-mama" everyone who hears this laughs and
says he's Italian? yup my little white redheaded half french part English, Portuguese, and Canadian french kid-big Italian accent!

Will used to tell us he had "gups in my mouf" when he had hiccups. And his first obsession? CAR-CAR! said just like that.

For the last two months Ben has been killing us with his mean face-it started when I was sitting next to him watching him arrange his facial features, furrow his brow, pout his lips, thinking very intently about what he was doing. I asked, are you making a mean face? Mean face was born. When he does it, his dad and I go "Ohhhhhhhhhh!! " In a growly voice. I managed to get a picture of it, and I joked with Dave 20 years from now we will see that picture and the two of us will growl-and our boys will think we are crazy. Want to see it?

love letter to my internet.

ok nablopomo---you're kicking my ass. I just worked the weekend, my feet are tired and I really just want to crawl into my king sized bed with the fresh sheets next to my snoring husband...I will admit this-I have been resonably happy with what I have been able to post so far...but yeah nothing tonight, tough noogies. (is that how you spell nuggies? screw it it stays)

twitter-I love you..since my laptop has been broken I have spent far more time tweeting on my blackberry, and you have become the thing that gets me through the day-I'm not addicted, I can stop anytime I want. hey! those are the funniest people I know (or rather dont know at all) but I'm happy and entertained and that HAS to count for something. Right? Don't look at me like that. Oohhh wait, twitter, where are you going, baby..come back here. I need you. Just one tweet? A mention? You want me to make a list-I will not list-you can not make me..ok just one, for you..

blackberry-you have been elevated beyond laptop status-which is pretty damn high. You fall somewhere just below my children as you allow me to have my texts, and emails, and facebook, and twitter, with me where ever I go. I have to thank my friend shannon-who does not read my blog, for giving you to me...and changing my internet world.

HOSPITAL-the movie!

Today at work would have made for a great action movie. It had it all, action, drama, romance, aggressive people, laughing with coworkers over silly things in the hallway...why has noone made this movie yet?

Scene one-dawdle in report because I would rather be talking to my coworkers than dealing with what I just read in report.

Scene two-go deal with the angry patient and wife- neither speak english

Scene three-attempt to pass meds, get stopped by a doctor who wants to talk to me on the phone...but not tell me what he wants to talk about.

Scene four-attempt to pass meds find out a long term patient lost a tooth-as in spit it out whole, attempt to get ahold of doctor to request dental care, get blown off (will get blown off about four more times by same doctor about same issue over course of shift)

Scene five-put a man on a stretcher for a test-and he refuses to go, meanly. Tell doctor. Put a lady on a stretcher for a test. She goes, nicely. Try to go back to passing meds.

Scene six-Get stopped by formerly angry man who still doesn't speak english for a cardiac issue, do bedside testing, call md, call interpretor. moniter and attempt to medicate- just then get pulled away by an intern insisting I have to come now, even after I explain what I'm doing with the patient whose room I'm in.
Walk to a patients room (who can roll himself,) so I can roll him so two doctors can look at his back, so let me get this straight, you need me to stop taking care of a patient with a cardiac issue so the four foot, eleven and half inch nurse can roll a patient for you, cause two men are not strong enough to do this themselves....

cutting way ahead to scene 12
discharge an elderly woman who while I watch gives her husband the sweetest most in love look I have ever seen. He gives it right back. I ask how long they have been married and she tells me 60 years. I ask how they have been married that long and still look at each other like that.
He laughs and says they have driven each other crazy plenty of times, she chimes in that they just try to remember to take a step back and usually it isnt a big deal. I want their marriage. More specifically I want my marriage to look like theirs 50 years from now.

scene 15
go check on a patient whose heart rate on the moniter has spiked.
He had walked to bathroom-with help, while waiting to help him back to bed, three doctors come running into the room, when I look at then like they are crazy they yell 230!!! That number is so high I start to puzzle about what the heck it means until I realize they mean heart rate! commence this guy could code on us at any time situation. In the end, he was fine. but that is a nifty little peice of knowledge we learned about him. For the record-highest heart rate I have ever seen in a patient.

scene 17
find out I am not doing a double, a half hour till the end of shift. Almost dance out of the hospital Im so happy, that first 12 hours was enough!

Aiming Low, aims high and throws an amazing party!

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to attend the Aiming Low party in Boston. I'm still trying to figure out how I paid nothing for drinks, lobster ravioli-among other awesome food, and great company but shhhhh!! Don't tell them ok?


I was prepared to drive to Boston myself, but invited my friend Kim to come with me. Kim is not part of the blogging world, so had no idea what I was dragging her to. I promised her a party and night out, and sweetened the deal by arranging to meet up with an old coworker we are both friends with after for a drink.


It was a d*mn good thing I brought her as I got lost and her phone had a gps, highlight of trip is when we see the huge lit up glowing sign in the skyline and yell " We CAN get there from here!!"


We arrived at the party, ate our weight in lobster ravioli, attempted to have a drink-but those babies where strong, and I'm not a drinker!! I mean-well, I drink, but I'm not really a strong drink girl. mudslide anyone? Then moved to another room with all sorts of fun machines lining the walls.


We got to see some amazingly cute video's of each of the Aiming Low woman explaining how they aim low. That was it, I had found my people...how did I not know about them for so long?!

Lots of socializing, cool swag literally all over the place, lots and lots of office supplies on tables, and my favorite thing-the usb drives in the swag bags. I had dragged my laptop to boston as I could not locate my one and only usb.


Sadly I did not get to play with the printers, because although I had brought my laptop, literally moments before I left the house I had been using it to get directions. My 2 year old climbed up on my island and sprayed it with windex. I mean a lot, it was dripping, right into the keyboard. Once I was ready to print pictures, my laptop was not. It is still broken, but fixable and it will only cost 30.00, until then blogging from my husbands laptop.


I loved the touch computer screens-they looked like televisons, but had amazing touch screens-to be honest I have no idea what I would need that for, or how to use it, but it was fun to play with. Also fell in love with the hp mini's. I so want one!


Some photo's to prove I was there!

the fancy room:
my girlfriend kim

Katie from motherbumper:

anissa from freeanissa-speaking!

We had an amazing time, and my friend Kim loved meeting all these people, and won a 250.00 gift certificate to staples!

A side note, there were Aiming Low stickers on the tables and I placed one on my laptop. My husband is baffled why I would want a sticker that says Aiming Low. I explained that that is the name of the group who threw the party-he said-wouldn't they want to Aim High? I stopped trying to explain it, some people are just not going see life our way!

you never see it coming..

I'm making an effort to not post just anything for nablopomo. I'd like to dive into tougher stuff than I usually do, or at least be amusing. I'm exhausted tonight, so I'll just go for the funny.

When you work in a hospital crazy things happen, things you could not have predicted when you walked into work that day, here are a few that stand out to me!

The time I had ants in patients room, many many ants and the nursing office refused to move the patient to a clean room next door to his as it was booked, and no place else to move him so hung up on me. Then wanted him to sit in the hallway for a few hours while they de-anted his room. (I sat him in the empty room to watch tv anyway)

The time a drunk woman was admitted but wanted to leave against medical advice. I was trying to keep her from disturbing other patients and keep her in room until md arrived to sign paperwork to let her leave. She was ranting in the hallway and said she was thirsty she wanted a drink. I offered her tea, coffee, gingerale, juice, milk or water. She sneered at me and said "I want a f*cking beer!!" To which I lost my patients and said. We don't have any fucking beer this is a hospital! (to this day I maintain hey-she went there first.)

The time a confused man was really really angry with me for remodeling his house without his permission, when I tried to reorient him I pointed out the city view out of the window. He was then really really angry I had not only remodeled, but moved his house as well.

The time a confused lady had me staring at the ceiling with her while she insisted there were dishes up there.

The time I watched a man slap my friend and coworker-a fellow nurse across the face, he was confused and when he had cleared up the next day he apologized to her. She was bent over his bed adjusting something and he knocked her glasses off her face. Listen I felt bad, and it was not appropriate, but how do you not laugh-at least once you are out of the room together.

The lady who insisted she was not a patient, she had come to visit a patient and now we were confused and keeping her, the argument that she was wearing a johnny, a hospital bracelet and sitting in a hospital bed, did not convince her.

and yesterday...when something that looked a whole lot like poop-although I was told by the plumber it was not, came up out of the drains of two sinks and splashed on the walls. In my job, you never really know what you are going to get!

Things my kids have done in the last week.

Will, my four year old, hid his bathing suit on friday instead of putting it on. He did not want to swim because the life guards tell him what to do, and he doesnt like being told what to do. Then he told me he didn't remember where he hid it. I sent him to time out until he remembered. He finally "remembered" that he threw it down the basement stairs I sent him to get it. He came up with a toy "for ben" that we had put down there because it was loud and obnoxious. Later he tells me the bathing suit was under the stove..so the little side trip to the basement was a con...awesome.


Ben has pushed a stool from the island up to the counter, and is shoving his little hand into the sugar bowl and sucking his fingers. When I take him off the stool he says "moa suga peese!" I tell him no more sugar, he gets more insistant, "MOA SUGA PEESE!!" repeat until Ben is in time out as he won't stop pushing the stool up to the counter.



I find Ben in the upstairs bathroom all drawers/doors in cabinet open, screwdrivers he got out of cabinet lined up sticking out of baseboard heater. The tub is blasting cold water and he has a little cup tub toy and is flinging water all over the floor.



Ben again-yup going for the sugar, but instead finds the clorox clean up I put on top of the counter in the corner to get it away from him. Sitting and spraying it all over his clothes and floor. yeah he ruined those clothes.



and yes..Ben again, this time I hear splashing from the downstairs bathroom. I find him using my toilet brush "cleaning" the toilet. I tell him he needs to get out of the bathroom he says "no thank you! and goes right back to splashing.

What I did last summer.

I officiallly have been married 9 years as of last august. My husband and I have known each other forever, you see he started as my brothers best friend. They were 12 and in boyscouts, and Andy (my brother) and Dave (my husband) became fast friends. There were years and years of sleep overs, and hanging out at our house. Dave has been in our family so long that I don"t remember meeting him, he was always just there. My point is? we have HISTORY. He was always just part of the family.


When we fell in love there were no questions. This was just it. I could not possibly see my life without him in it. I still can't. We fit, in a way I can't explain. He is my rock. He always has my back. He loves me for me, and really isn't interested in me trying to look good, dress nice or wear makeup-which come to find out is a good thing, since I spend my days home with the kids with my hair in a ponytail most days.


You slowly add things like careers, mortgages, more people, car payments, bills, pets. Then those kids get older and need more things, like clothes every season, preschool, lord knows what comes after 4 1/2. Life becomes about the kids and what they need. Everything else gets pushed to the side, including spending any time together, both parties are tired and slowly get frustrated with their role.


Nothing bad happens, over time you just turn your attention away from each other.

Go to work, come home, eat dinner put kids to bed, fall asleep right after they do-for him. For me up all day with the boys, run them around, do errands, make food, clean up food, clean up house, do laundry pay bills., play dates, make more food, clean up food, clean up house, stay up way to late at night because finally noone is asking me for anything. Except on the days I work. Then I am gone for the entire day...and he picks them up on his way home from work to do bedtime on his own-his mom always feeds them.

You get into this pattern of busy, if I get overtime I'm out of the house from 6 am to 12:30am. He often works late and picks up side work for his company so will work after work and on weekends. Right now we are in a one of those runs. When it is over he will have worked 21 days straight. He gets tired he gets cranky, more falls on me since he is not here, I get cranky. When he is cranky he is snippy, but not just average snippy, mean snippy. Then we fight. The boys notice he is gone and start to crave him, he comes in and they climb all over him, DADDY!! DADDY!!

The fact is that this man is doing every possible thing he can for this family. He works through back pain, he works days and days with no days off. It's hard to hold together a marriage, a relationship, hell, a friendship when no one has time to talk. When everyone gets resentful and feels under appreciated. When you are staring at days stretched ahead of you until when? When does this routine change? When do we have time for us to be us?

Things got strained, there was talking and crying and more talking. When your wife is sitting you down and telling you that I will be your wife I'm not going anywhere, but I want to be friends again, and if he could not be my friend than ok, I can make friends, but it was up to him. I married him because we were friends. We needed nothing more than each other to be entertained, we are more than happy to sit together in our house and hang out, watch tv, play with the kids. We live very simply.

For a while there was wondering, what if this doesnt turn around? What do I want to do? My answer surprised me, but I knew it was the right one. Even if things didn't get better, I cannot imagine my life without him. Good, bad or come what may, I need this man in my life.

Fortunately things came around, he heard me, I'm trying to correct the one thing that is super important to him, he is more present, back to the guy I married. What is amazing to me though is how quietly it all built up, how bad it got, and how talking to each other brought us right back to being us, together. I think this has put us back on the right path, but I'm paying attention to make sure.