Author: Doris

Look who is in town!  Sue!  I’m sure when we were 16, we talked about cute boys.  Now we talk about kids, child care, real estate and aging parents.  I got to hold a baby today.  Sometimes babies like it when I hold them, but often they don’t like it (hmmm, maybe this doesn’t bode well for the peds nurse idea).  Bradley didn’t like it very much when I held him.  I showed him the most exciting part of Rockville – the kid section at the main library.  Sue hadn’t yet been to the new library, we both remember the old library where we spent time going through the immense card catalog to do school papers.

I forgot that it was the first night of Hanukkah, I had to rummage around to find our menorah buried under all the Christmas stuff.  We have a silver one which Bob and Katherine gave us many, many years ago.  I gave it a quick polish and we lit the candles and said the blessing, but dinner was already made – BLTs.  Oh well, I tried.

Winter concert tonight.  Vince is in the 8th grade class because he’s taking Chinese which I guess is the same time as the 7th grade orchestra class.

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Edda enjoying the concert in her way too small wheelchair.  The repair people still haven’t answered our emails.  Maybe Edda’ll be using this old wheelchair when she’s 17.

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Edda fell asleep to the choral rendition of Maroon 5’s Maps.

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After the concert, Vince worked the school store and sold Jeremy a Santa hat.

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Post concert celebration at the local bubble tea place.  And we are studying Chinese!  A week and a half of study has pulled Vince’s grade from a C to B.  Which is more than I can say for my Adult Health final which I got a C on!  I don’t think I *ever* got a C on a final in college.  (Grad school, another issue – I remember getting a 17 on a test.  The math was getting really hard. So hard.) Nursing school is killing me.  I know I have a ton of other stuff I’m doing, but really, I could have studied another week and not done much better.  This is an example of a question:  You have a patient with a stroke who is unconscious and unresponsive.  He also has acid reflux.  What do you assess frequently? I know all the things to do for a stroke patient.  I know all the things you do for an acid reflux patient (you do too: Tums, don’t lie down after a meal and don’t eat spicy foods).  But what the heck do you do for a patient with acid reflux AND stroke.  I figured you’d ignore the acid reflux because you have a crap ton of other things to worry about.   Ha, ha.  No matter.  This term is done!  I’m done with going to school full-time and working full-time.  I was really lucky to have pulled this term off – the stars aligned.  Let the holidays begin.

Edda: she’s the healthiest of us all.  Well, as long as you overlook the Rett Syndrome, which granted, is something large to overlook, but I do it all the time.  I mean if you count the Rett Syndrome, then she’s the sickest all the time which just seems unfair for a little girl with abs of steel and an immune system that kicks ass.  (OK, I’ve totally jinxed myself now.  She’s going down with something soon.)

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Vince: Missed school on Friday due to stomach issues.  Maybe due to the indordinate amount of candy he ate while making the gingerbread house.  Slept until 11am that day.  Missed the weekend campout.  Spent the weekend chillaxing.

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Jeremy: Stomach issues too.  We’ll leave it at that.  Not terrible.  A little queasy.

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Doris:  I’ve devolved into a flare-up of mouth sores (which I’ve had for my whole life on/off) which prevent me from eating happily.  I’ve noticed that for the past few years, whenever these flare-ups happen – it’s usually because I’m stressed and then it is painful and completely wipes me out.  So I’ve been sleeping a lot.  I have my big, last exam tomorrow.  I’m trying to study, but I keep closing my eyes.  I’m trying not to worry about it.  I hate being underprepared, but it is what it is.  It’s not the end of the world.

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Ruby:  I really thought she was on death’s door last week.  So much poop.  She didn’t want to get up.  She didn’t want to wag her tail.  But then we got a batch of prescription food and some antibiotics for her and it cleared right up.  She’s back to her old self.  I hate wet food.  It makes me nauseous.  In order for me to spend the least amout of time with the wet food, I served Ruby’s food to her like this:

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Maxi:  She had the same thing Ruby had, but it cleared up on its own.  She was jealous that Ruby got wet food and she got only kibble.

I want to be a person who loves December. I don’t love December – even when I tell myself it’s all about hope, joy and love which I’m perfectly capable of successfully reminding myself the other 11 months of the year (mostly). I’m trying all the things: eating carbs/not eating carbs, exercising/not exercising, napping/not napping, working more/working less, more social/less social (which means curling up under the covers). Gah. The shortening of the days and the forced holiday joyfulness makes me moody and melancholy.

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But!  Holiday cheerfulness still abounds in the house.  Sam and Hannah were over today making gingerbread houses.  Note:  I did not coordinate this fun.  It was all Vince and Nat’s idea and Sam and Hannah just happened to stumble by because they accidentally locked themselves out of their house.

There was even a youtube fireplace going on in the background.

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Here’s Donald having some fun at his work holiday party.  It’s a proven fact that people have more fun in California.  Jeremy’s work party is next week.  I’m pretty sure we won’t be having this much fun.

Thai food tonight with mom.  So far we’ve also tried Indian and Moroccan.   Ethiopian and Korean next.  Yum.

Finals!  Almost done.  This was a doozy of a term.  Loved it, but NEVER again am I taking on this much work.  It seemed like I worked every waking moment.  I want my weekends back.