Two Months Later

I'm not sure how long this post will be, but I finally decided to sit down and write. Even if it's only a few sentences. I miss this little space for hashing out my thoughts and sharing our family's goings on. My problem is that I keep waiting for the right amount of time to take a break and blog. But, as y'all know, that break hasn't happened. I can't believe that it's been two months since my last post. Good thing I'm not counting on this blog for income! ;-)

I'm officially finished with my first two months of work which means I'll be working 4 days a week instead of 5. Hallelujah! In the thick of it, we did really well with the two full time adult schedule and for a split second I thought, "Maybe I should stick to working full-time..." Then, that moment passed. I know many families have both parents working full time, and you are amazing. Seriously. Amazing.

At any moment I may have to publish this post (polished or not) because I have a little guy who is sick today and napping on and off. If I waited for another moment to blog, I have no idea when that would come. He was stirring but seems to have drifted back to sleep.

I was off of work yesterday and today. Tuesday will be my regular day off, but when I work the weekends (every 4th weekend) I will have 2 weekdays off. So today is my Sunday, and then I'll be working for 5 days.

When I envisioned my first luxurious day off by myself in who knows how long, I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do. Laundry, maybe a walk...I hadn't gotten much farther with my big plans which is good because my job today is taking care of my little man. Mr. C woke up yesterday with rosy cheeks and a solid fever. He was moaning on and off in the morning and then took an early nap. I gave him some ibuprofen with lunch, and he took another nap. When he woke up, he was back to being his amazingly happy little self. This morning, the fever and moaning were back. He's definitely working on some teeth, so that may be the cause. I'm just thankful that I had today off to be home with him, right where I'm supposed to be.

Miss S is at preschool, which she loves. She was quite excited to show off her wiener dog sparkly shirt and pink corduroy pants with stars, two cold weather clothing finds at a local second hand kids store. (Can I tell you how much I love second hand stores?) Yes, winter is coming soon. We already had a sneak peak on Halloween, trick-or-treating at 28 degrees. We weren't out there long, and Miss S was pretty easily convinced to head home for some hot chocolate, her new favorite.

I am loving my job as a home care nurse. Right now I have a caseload of 5 patients which will eventually grow to 20-25 patients (at least). Baby steps. It's been awesome to learn new skills (or become more confident in skills I used infrequently or not at all in the hospital setting.) Since we don't have lab techs in the field, I draw blood samples for labs - prior to orientation for this position, I hadn't drawn blood (except from a PICC line) since practicing on a plastic arm in nursing school. I also have to admit that taking manual blood pressures used to make me nervous because we would rarely do it in the hospital setting (automatic blood pressure machines). I admitted my anxiety to the other nurses in my orientation, and they all said that after a few weeks of home care I'd be over that. It's so nice to feel proficient (and not nervous) about that skill. I know, it's a basic one, but I always tried to comfort myself by saying it was probably not uncommon for nurses of my generation (or younger) to be uncomfortable with a skill that we do so infrequently. Not that anyone would want to admit it...

Karl's loving his job. His coworkers and managers are so appreciative of him which always makes going to work easier. Especially with a 40 minute commute. Which will soon become closer to a 30 minute commute because...

We are almost officially home owners!!!

The plan is to close in mid November, and we are so excited (and that's an understatement!) We are so happy with the house and that it will be closer to work for both of us but still not far from Karl's family. I can't wait to show pictures once we get settled.

I think I'm calling this post good for today. Wow, it's been nice to be back here!! What have y'all been up to the last two months?