• This is Avelyn’s last week of daycare.  Keeping her home will save us thousands, I mean THOUSANDS, of dollars a year.  It will be hard and I will be dog tired sometimes but I will try hard to keep the end goal (and maybe some $$$ signs?) in sight.
• Work is still going well.  I am blessed to enjoy my job and my only regret is that I wasted years and owe tens of thousands of dollars on a worthless degree that brought nothing but grief. Moving on…
• No bun in the proverbial oven yet so thanks for not asking.  The only thing worse than being unsure if you really want to do this again is being asked about it.  If it happens, great, if not, I’m cool with the one I’ve got.
• Valentine’s is a holiday I’ve never been into.  At least Kevin remembered to get me a card.  As far as I’m concerned the only good part about Valentine’s day is the build up, especially with little girls as it involves wearing lots of pink and red and making your meals extra cutesy.

• Apparently it does not also involve taking pictures of the actual Valentine’s day.  Or any day for that matter.  My overzealous picture taking days ended when one almost-two-year old starting acting like an almost-two-year old, i.e. CRAZY AND WON’T HOLD STILL.
• At least when I do get around to snapping the old camera I have a really cute subject to point my lens at.

• I’m scheduled to take some sewing classes that came free with my new machine I got for Christmas.  I’m really looking forward to it.  Although a big part of me is going numb imagining the chaos that is bound to ensue.  If only you could have seen the destruction from the last time I tried loading the bobbin (is that even proper terminology?) and threading a needle.  OY. VEY.
• Planning Avelyn’s 2nd birthday is both really fun (The ideas! The colors! The endless possible options for themes!) and infuriating.  The invitations are so grand looking in my head, and then I try to make them.  They just look so MEH.  The obvious answer is to seek help but really, does that sound like me?  No.  No it doesn’t.  Why do I have to be so OCD sometimes?
• We are going to Oklahoma this weekend to spend a few days with my best friend and take Avelyn to an event I hope she will enjoy.  I’m really looking forward to getting away for some quality Katie time.  I needs me some belly laughs.
• Last week I bought a membership to the Children’s Museum and we had a grand first visit.  My only complaint is for all of the inconsiderate parents out there who don’t observe the rules of the three and under section.  It very clearly states this section is only for 0-36 months AND that it is an area FREE OF SHOES.  That means your EIGHT year old rambunctious son is NOT supposed to be in there regardless of the fact that your three year old daughter is.  Especially with his dirty ass shoes on.  I mean come on!

Well that’s it I guess.  Run out of steam.  Consider this my lame attempt to delve back into writing.  Baby steps, people.  Baby steps.

I can’t believe how much more I love this child everyday.  I didn’t think it was possible and then, poof!  She grows a little taller, pops a brand new word out of her mouth, busts a move and I sigh and think how on earth did I get so lucky to have this kid? She’s utterly amazing.  And growing up so fast.  Do you know what happened last week?  DO YOU!?  In case you missed the World News Report here it is – I broke down and HAD HER HAIR CUT.  Her FIRST haircut.  LIKE ONE WHOLE INCH, PEOPLE!!!!

Before.  After.  Totally different, right?  I’m torn between thinking it’s not that much hair and she looks exactly the same (in which case WHY did I do it) and screaming OH. EM. GEE. It’s like I shaved her head or something because her hair!  Look at my baby’s hair!!  It’s gooooooone!  Or maybe it just feels that way.  Tough call.

On the fertilization front, I grow more and more convinced everyday that adding to our family is the right decision for us.  I look at my Hobo growing up and can’t help but get excited about what another one might be like.  Avelyn tends to agree, showing what a great big sister she might one day make by taking such good care of her baby…

Of course she also throws the baby on the ground, into the crib, out of the stroller…  Hurling is pretty much her mode of transportation for “bay-bee”.  (She’s yet to figure out this “name your baby” thing).  Kevin continually wonders aloud how a new little person might survive with our Amazonian first born running amok.  I’ve begun to wonder that myself given how much she enjoys “workin’ out” with her dad these days.

I’ll be damned if that’s not the cutest push up I’ve ever seen.  Also, does anyone else notice the high waters?  He he he.

Anyway.  We paint.  We play.  We build houses for homeless-people.  We read.  We are sweet.  We are crazy.  We know how to rock.  But above all, we know how to dance.

*The title that seemed most appropriate after reading this post.

Now, while we’re on the topic of what NOT to bring them to the EMERGENCY room for let’s talk about a few things TO bring them in for.

• If your kid is wheezing all damn day and breathing 50 breaths per minute and says to you, “I can’t breathe good”, BRING THEM TO THE ER.  Don’t wait until the middle of the night and then ask for a work excuse for the next day.
• If your kid has fallen off their bike and can’t move an appendage because A BONE is sticking out, don’t wait for your cousin’s best friend’s step brother’s niece to come pick you up and bring you to the hospital.  Call an ambulance to BRING THEM TO THE ER.
• If your baby falls off the bed/trunk of the car/out of your arms/from a spaceship and hits the ground in any fashion, specifically if it involves a bump that appears on the head, BRING THEM TO THE ER.

Well, that took a direction I hadn’t intended.  I think I might touch back on this topic later… but back to the subject at hand.  It’s mid-September, the sun is barely peeking through at 7am and swiftly falling beyond the horizon at 8pm.  Summer is going bye bye.

Unfortunately I live in Texas, and summer going bye-bye does not necessarily mean fall is right around the corner.  As a matter of fact it means nothing.  Most of my memories of Thanksgiving and Christmas involve shorts, flip flops, trips to the park and threats of death if we screaming kids dared to come indoors before the football game was over.

Today was unbelievably beautiful though, a day so perfect in temperature that I opened all the windows in the house while I cleaned and the air conditioner still never kicked on.  When we came home after dinner the house smelled… clean, fresh, spectacular.  It made me miss Chicago.  Luckily I have pictures like this: to remind me that no matter how beautiful fall is, winter always follows.  And I don’t miss Chicago in the winter.

So I bid you adieu, Summer 2009.  You were so very good to us, and filled our days with:

dancing
singing
Guitar Hero
learning to run
running
reading
dancing
eating
hiding
kissing
hugging
sleeping
dancing
not sleeping
traveling
and, did I mention the dancing?

I hope I can safely assume that our fall/winter season summer-with-slightly-cooler-temperatures-and-sometimes-rain season won’t look too different.  Because honestly, who could ever get enough of this:

*This is not medical advice.  Clearly if you think your child needs medical attention please seek it.  If it turns out your kid just has a cold and you feel stupid for coming to the ER don’t worry about it.  It happens.  And just so you know we will never, ever laugh at you in front of your face.  We always wait for you to leave.  Joking.  Mostly.

when I leave work and pick up my girl,
when we come home and whine and cry until there is food in our bellies,
when we run around the living room playing, giggling, tickling, laughing,
when we are soaked to the bone, me in my clothes and her in her birthday suit after the bath,
when we roll around on the bedroom floor just the two of us,
and we rock in the chair in the corner and read stories as we fall asleep…

Well, after all that I am just pooped.  All of the sudden the amazingly humorous, incredibly witty banter just disappears, and I have nothing left to write about.  All those great one liners that were going to knock your freakin’ socks off just poof! disappeared.

I keep meaning to get back to carrying a pocket notebook with me wherever I go.  If nothing else it would help me keep track of my never ending to-do list which grows exponentially by the hour and never gets done because I keep losing the tiny scraps of paper I write  it down on.  Not very surprisingly, pocket notebooks are continually at the top of the to-do shopping list scrap of paper I keep losing.  Ah, the irony of it all.

Oh – Kevin came home tonight   He’s been here for approximately 25 minutes and all I’ve done is show him all of Avelyn’s new toys, and all of Avelyn’s drawings from school and regale tales of Avelyn’s funny new behaviors that have me falling head over heels in love with her more each day, something I didn’t think was possible.  Now I’m going to do something I’ve waited weeks to do — lay in bed WITH MY HUSBAND and WATCH TV.  And also demand he rub my left thigh and maybe my left butt cheek because damn I am old, and all that rolling around on the floor with that super cute girl made me pull a muscle.

Kevin flew to Chicago on Friday so he wasn’t in attendance.  I made sure he was “there” by lending Jacob Kevin’s tux from our wedding and forcing him to talk on my pink iPhone while Kevin gave marriage advice before the ceremony.  He said, “Don’ do it dummy!”  Joking, of course. 

I’ve mentioned before that I regret not having danced with my brother at my own wedding all the way, way back in 2002.  I made peace with myself when Avelyn danced with him at his.  It kills me it’s so sweet. 

After the wedding we all drove over to an old historic house and they had pictures taken.  Avelyn was fit to be tied after driving nearly 300 miles just the day before and revving up to drive the same distance back.  She passed out on the way to the house, woke up crabby and screaming about 10 minutes later and screamed in most of my pictures.  We’ll see how their photos come out.  She looked so pretty with the bride anyway, and in the flower garden of course.  Love those OMG Texas is too freaking hot summer nights.

I started my FIRST day at my FIRST real job on Monday.  So far it has been hooooouuuurrrrrs of borientation.  I sit there all day long, nodding off and dreaming about all the things I need to learn how to do so I don’t kill someone.  Then I think to myself, Holy crap!  I’m getting paid a buttload of money to sit here and be bored.  WaHOOOOOOO!  Then, normally I go back to having the poop scared out of me because hello!  I’m a new nurse and I. Know. NOTHING.

It is now 9:57pm.  I am drop dead tired and missing Kevin like crazy.  He is in Chicago until August 2nd.  Have I talked about that yet?  I have been so busy and blog neglectful I’m not sure if I have.  He goes every year and runs a film camp for high school kids.  I miss him insanely and so does Avelyn.  We bought a webcam for my computer before he left and tried it out on Father’s Day.  You can see her unfiltered joy when she talks to her Daddy “on the screen” at the end of the Father’s Day “movie” I made him.  I just roll with amusement every time I hear that excited laugh.  I wonder if I would look younger if I laughed like that everyday. 

“I afear we may be fightin’ the pink eye”.

Avelyn has been transitioning from the infant room to the 1-2’s (orange) room this week and came home with diarrhea yesterday.  Not that they’re necessarily related but I always like to have another dirty kid to blame for all her ailments.  I’m not talking about “Oh she had a messy diaper or two”, I’m talking poop explosion.  So much poop they had her [disgusting] clothes in a baggy and she was dressed in an old onesie with her little white shoes still on.  She also decided to THROW her sippy cup of milk across the room when they tried to give it to her during lunch.  THROW IT.  She is surrounded by infants!  They could have been killed!  Oy. 

I kept her home with me today and she had the runs all day.  Really gross runs too.  In case you are the type of individual who needs details, it was the consistency of watery curdled butter with a slight orange and yellow tint.  It was N-A-S-T-Y.  It just so happens that today is the first day in almost two weeks I could breathe so it was so great to have diarrhea poop smell be the first smell my nose got a taste of. 

She seems to feel fine, has no fever, isn’t overly whiny, eats normally.  Her appetite has been down lately but her diet is changing.  She is slowly eating more table foods and we are trying to transition her from formula to milk.  I had given her milk in a cup day before last so I am wondering if the milk has anything to do with her loose bowels.  She didn’t drink any after the shot put cup throwing incident and didn’t have any today so we’ll see. 

Poor thing looked so sad when I picked her up in the new room.  She has only been visiting the orange room a few hours in the afternoons this week so this was the first time I picked her up there.  She was sitting all alone on the mat while the other kids played around the room.  The afternoon helper was standing by her and helped her stand up to walk to me.  She said Avelyn startles easily and gets frightened when the kids run up to her or around her but that she is very sweet, and very funny and likes to play with the toys.  She is bigger or as big as most of the kids in the room but they can all walk and run so much faster.  I know she’ll be on even ground soon.  She starts in that room full time on Monday.  I am sure I will cry all over again with the new switch, until she adjusts and doesn’t cry when I drop her off.  Is there anything worse than seeing your baby feel sad, be left out or scared?  NO!  This mom thing is heart breaking!

Tonight I noticed a tiny clump of opaque green stuff in the corner of her eye and the rim of her left eye looked a little red.  I would not be surprised if Mr. Pink Eye made his debut given all the poop exploding around here.  Ugh.  I’m holding out hope, for her sake, because pink eye is NO FUN.  I’m also holding out hope for our sakes because pink eye is soooooo contagious.  Please, please, please Mr. Pink Eye!  STAY AWAY!!

Avelyn’s hair is almost long enough and thick enough to make a pony tail.  I don’t want to cut it yet but her hair is getting in her eyes.  She refuses to wear bows anymore and yanks them out of her hair faster than I can get them in.  We’re still negotiating the whole pony tail thing but I was able to get a super cute top side pony tail on Tuesday.  Try getting a good photo on your phone with a squirmy 12 month old.  You can kind of see it here.  Oh the joys of having a little girl…

1. I turned 28, an age nine year old Me was certain was a very grown up and sophisticated age to be. 
2. I FINISHED clinicals.  No more Jennifer Welch, UTSN (student nurse).  Soon it will be Jennifer Welch, RN.  How freaking cool!
3. Our lease officially began.  We have the keys and enough furniture to fill up one room in this place.   Sounds like a challenge to me.
4. I finished finalizing my group Community Health Paper.  I’ve worked way too much on this.  Officially emailed it to everyone at 11:59 pm but hey, it’s done.
5. No one died while under my care today.  Given the CRAZINESS that appeared to take over Houston as evidenced by everyone who walked into the hospital, this is a great accomplishment and a nice way to end my student nurse career.

Since Avelyn was born three days after my birthday and three days before Kevin’s birthday, we sort of glossed over our birthday’s last year.  It’s taken me a whole 12 months to not say I’m 26 when asked how old I am.  Last year we celebrated with a joint cake on Kevin’s birthday and we looked like [OMG-I-can’t-believe-I’m-showing-this-hideous-picture-but-at-least-it’s-not-the-worst-I-looked-that-week] this.  Yeah that’s right, we look like two hollow eyed, dead on their feet, walking zombie new parents.  I won’t even tell you how long it took me to walk down the stairs to pose for this picture and eat two bites of that damn cheese cake.  What is behind those hollow zombie eyes you ask?  Pain.  Pain is behind them.  And pure hatred for whoever is taking this photograph.

No big celebrations were had today but hey, at least I didn’t have my cervix checked this year.  A birthday without a hand up your hoo-hoo is a birthday celebrated right.

Here’s to a great 28th year of life.

Sweet dreams, folks.

So that’s the first piece of good news.  The second is I PASSED THE HESI!  I didn’t blow it out of the water but I scored above what I needed to score to pass and am now eligible to graduate.  Whew!  What a load off.  Of course there are still papers to write, exams to pass, clinicals to finish, asses to kiss…  Also the fact that I never ordered my graduation “regalia” (who comes up with these words!?) because a) I forgot and then b) I didn’t want to on principle.  Why should I pay that much money for something I will wear for 2 hours?  Why don’t you have a rental plan???  Sigh.  I’m thisclose to purchasing another one online and hoping it won’t stand out to much.  Although even if it does I’m toying with the idea of waltzing across the stage, grabbing my diploma and then doing the Michael Jackson crotch pull while yelling at the top of my lungs “Suck it SON!  I bought this here regalia for a third of what you paid.  Shut yo’ FACE!”  Still haven’t decided, too much maybe?

Oy.  The bad part about graduation is it’s elevated level of importance.  I don’t like the attention a graduation ceremony entails.  I am not an attention whore. I  don’t get turned on or revved up by people fawning over me or my accomplishments, droning on and on, asking question after question, giving me gifts I didn’t want or ask for… I don’t need any of that.  I need Kevin and Avelyn to be there.  That’s pretty much it although I would like for our parents and my grandparents and my brother or sister if they wanted to come.  (That’s right Stephanie, because I have been too busy to call or write but since I know you read this blog even though you NEVER COMMENT YOU BAD BLOG READER! You should know you are invited to come if you want to.)  We’re planning on early dinner, graduation and HOME since Hobo needs her beauty rest.

And that’s it, just those people mentioned above.  Nobody else.  Nobody.  I wonder if that’s too subtle.  And no I will not remove this statement because if you will recall an earlier post from a mere two weeks ago (just two weeks!?) this is my blog and I can say whatever I want on my blog.  Even though out of respect for my husband and THE REST OF MY MARRIED LIFE I usually don’t.  See, I’m not even saying it now.  Anyway, if you will recall:

“…My therapist and friendapist both said the same thing – I should quit feeling guilty about my FEELINGS.  They’re MY feelings and it’s how I FEEL so I am allowed to FEEL this way dammit.”

Well, my FEELINGS are feeling like they don’t want anyone else to ruin MY day.  So I get to set the rules.  (Please stay tuned for the post-graduation post where I will proceed to angrily relive the inevitable breaking of these rules in order to keep family peace.  Because clearly my feelings do not matter much of the time.)

A very dramatic ANYWAY… Tonight I sit here thinking how freaking scared I am to graduate from nursing school with the implication I somehow know what to do to take care of people.  I mean I just spent two years in nursing school, shouldn’t I know more about how to nurse?!  (Hmm, note to Self: Look into whether being unable to successfully nurse your first born child is related to being unable to be a good nurse.  Kidding, Self.  Get a sense of humor already.)  Out of the 160 questions on the HESI I must have stared dumbfounded at 155 of them wondering in what universe I was supposed to have been taught this.  Whaaaaaa?  H-E-A-R-T?  What is a heart?  Do I have it?  Am I coming down with ‘heart’? IS THERE A CURE?  AAAAGGGGHHHHHH!!!!  Oh wait, that heart?

I am leaving for San Antonio first thing after Community Hellth clinical tomorrow.  We are getting Avelyn’s first birthday pictures and our first family pictures on Saturday.  We’re just going to the cruddy ol’ portrait studio for now because we don’t have the money to get the kind of pictures I want but we will do it sometime this year.  Hopefully we will have good weather and can get out of the house and have a family day at the park or something.  That reminds me, I can’t wait for April 15th when our lease starts and we can start the slow move in.  Do you understand the significance of this move?  Do you?  It means a house, not an apartment that shares walls with noisy neighbors.  It means living together, just the three of us for the FIRST time in twenty one months.  It means walking around in our underwear if we want to, just because.  It means freedom, independence, the ability to raise my daughter without being questioned and lectured about every cough, sneeze, out of place hair follicle, no matter how well meaning it may be.  It means not having to watch Fox News, heck not having the TV on 56 hours a day, being able to wake up at 7:30am with my baby and spend time alone with her, just me and her.  Above all it means all the mistakes, decisions, sacrifices and prayers have been worth it and we can start being the family I want us to be.

Eating her favorite, a leaf, and her 11 months old sign.

I bought her birthday dress on Etsy tonight.  It is so, so, so, so cute and I can’t wait to see it.  You, unfortunately will have to.  I also ordered her one and two little DIY dresses that my grandma and I are going to sew.  Those I’ll show you because I’m dying trying to keep this whole party a secret.  Hmm, maybe I’ll give in and spill the beans… not tonight.  The blue/green is from me and the brown/purple is from my grandma.  I can’t wait to get them.

I work Friday/Saturday/Sunday 7a-7p, have Monday “off” and a test on Tuesday.  Please ESP me whatever energy you can spare.  I really, really, really need to do well on this test.  I’ll just say I did VERY poorly on the last test and leave it at that.  This class really blows.  On a higher note my group made a 92 on our Autism/Asperger’s paper I was editing the last few days.  Way to go group!