Dear Robbie, at 2 years 9 months

Dear Budders,

Yes, I realize it's been like a year since the last time I wrote one of these letters, and I sincerely apologize for neglecting my chronicling of your every cute habit. With hard work, I'm sure your future therapist can help you learn to forgive me for this slight. But I'm writing now because a friend recently wrote something about hugging her grandsons, and I felt the sudden need to tell you that, buddy, you give the very best hugs.

Up until several weeks ago, when someone asked for a hug you'd just kind of lean your head into them for a second and let them do the actual hugging. I guess Grandma got tired of your affectionate head butts, because one day she decided to teach you how to give a "squeeze hug."  Now if I'm holding you and I ask for a squeeze hug, you lean back slightly, throw your arms wide and hug me with your whole body. I can tell you honestly that if I've had a bad day and want nothing more than to lie in bed with the covers pulled over my head, one of those hugs goes a long way toward bringing me back around.

Obviously you've been through a lot of developmental changes since your last letter, so I'll just try to hit the highlights. You are so fun and silly and adorable that sometimes I just sit still and watch you play, amazed at how far you’ve come.  You pretend our car is a train and I’m the conductor, and you correct me when I accidentally break character and call it a car.  You say, “Bust my buffers!” when your toy trains wind up in a head-on collision with each other or Lightning McQueen.  You have a wonderful smile.

A couple of weeks ago we took you to Golden to see Thomas the Tank Engine himself, during an annual “Day Out With Thomas” event at the Railway Museum.  I knew you would enjoy it, but I had no idea the intensity with which you would approach this adventure.  When we arrived and you caught your first glimpse of the life-sized Thomas, your grin was enormous.  But that was one of the last smiles we saw on your face that day.  Not because you weren’t enjoying yourself, but because you were so intensely focused on making sure you didn’t miss anything.  As soon as one thing was over, it was crucial to your survival that we see the next cool thing.  And if that cool thing happened to be a fire truck or a petting zoo, your reaction was a strong NO THANK YOU WE MUST GET BACK TO THE TRAINS.  Except without the “thank you” part.  I saw so much of myself in you that day.  I vividly recall trips to amusement parks where I only reluctantly allowed your dad a moment of rest before making him move on to the next ride, because there are so few hours in the day that it’s important to maximize the fun when you have the chance.  And what if I missed a cool roller coaster?  What if you missed a cool train?

We adopted a cat, and odds are good that you’ll never remember a time in your life that we didn’t have Sully.  Unless, of course, you accidentally kill him.  You love that kitten as intensely as any two-year-old can love a pet, but you don’t understand that he’s just a tiny thing with tiny bones and a tiny windpipe that maybe can’t withstand the vigorous hugs of a toddler.  Fortunately, the cat has developed some defense mechanisms, like running the hell away when he sees you coming.  If you catch him, he simply goes limp, figuring he’s less likely to get hurt if he turns into a ragdoll.  We tell you over and over to be gentle with the kitty, but who can remember those kinds of instructions when a bundle of cute is on your lap and suddenly it bites you and you really, really need to chuck it across the room?  I understand, buddy.  I really do.  Just, please try.

I could go on and on about how much I love being your mother, but I think you get the point.  You are awesome.

I love you,

Mommy

The first rule of Kitten Fight Club

We have a fairly frantic morning routine around these here parts, mostly because both Rob and I cherish every single moment of sleep we can get, every single morning.  So if the alarm goes off at 6:15, I know I can stay in bed until about 6:32 before I start an avalanche that makes everyone in the house late for their respective school/job.  I'm telling you this so you'll understand that it takes an Event to bring the morning rush to a standstill, because we don't leave ourselves a moment to spare.

This morning I was helping Rob get Robbie to the car when Rob stopped suddenly and stared at the open bag of dog food on the garage floor.  He looked at me, eyes wide.  Then he looked at the dog food.  Then he looked at me.

"What is it?" I asked, impatient to get the easily distractable toddler into the car.

He looked at the dog food again, saying nothing, then looked back at me.  Obviously there was something going on that I should have seen and/or heard by now, but I just wasn't getting it.

"WHAT?" I demanded.

"There's a m-o-u-s-e in the dog food bag, jumping to get out," Rob said.

Ooooohhhh.  My goal was suddenly to see the mouse without letting Robbie know it was in there, because he would most likely want to cuddle it and name it Thomas.

Rob guided Robbie to the car, while I had visions of mouse poop and hantavirus and wondered about the best way to get that thing out of my garage without touching any part of a rodent.  Then I peeked inside and learned there were actually four mice in the bag, alternating between snacking on Ol' Roy Healthy Mix and trying to leap to their freedom.

"Should we carry the bag outside?" I said.  "I guess we should also throw the food away, because they probably pooped in it and stuff."

Rob took that as a suggestion to close the bag and throw the whole thing in our big plastic garbage can outside.  I imagined the poor, panicked little disease-carriers closed up in the dark, awaiting their deaths and said, "Poor mice."

"Well, if they can get out of there, more power to them.  I'm late for work," Rob said.

"Is it bad that my first thought was to go get the kitten and throw him in the bag with the mice?" I asked.

"Um, there are four mice in there, and he's a kitten," Rob said.  "That would be like sending a toddler to Fight Club."

"At least I didn't actually do it."

Oh yeah, I should probably go ahead and mention that we got a kitten last week.  Look:

That is Sullivan Butterbean McDonnell, Esq., or Sully for short.  Now, I've never been much of a cat person, but I believe Sully can only be described as "totes adorbz." For now, I suppose it's ok for him to live here without having to earn his keep.  He provides plenty of snuggles and entertainment.  But someday he's going to be significantly less cute and might start peeing on my stuff.  When that day comes, I expect him to be a fluffy, cuddly little assassin.

Watch your backs, mice.

Heather scares a celebrity. Again.

  The next time I have an opportunity to meet one of my idols, can someone please stop me?  Use whatever means are necessary – chloroform, a baseball bat, whatever.

I went to Denver last night for a reading and book signing by Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess, who I admire greatly.  She deals with depression, anxiety and sometimes-debilitating rheumatoid arthritis, and yet she’s managed to build a hilarious blog with gazillions of followers and now has a book that’s been on the New York Times bestseller list for 14 weeks.  As someone who once dropped a creative writing class because the teacher said on the first day, “I expect everyone to participate in discussions,” it means a lot to me to see a shy, anxious woman achieve so much success.

This was the second time I met Jenny Lawson, the first time being about a year ago at the BlogHer conference in San Diego.  Because of her extreme anxiety, the organizers of one of the parties built a large, fake bathroom in the corner of a ballroom so Jenny could stay in there while still being part of the party.  (Thus alleviating her need to go find an actual bathroom to hide in.)

When I met Jenny that time, I was a little tipsy and I gushed about how much I love her blog, and then asked for a photo with her.

This is about when my turn-into-an-idiot-in-front-of-people-I-admire gene kicked in.

Jenny agreed to the photo and said, “If you post this online, you have to Photoshop it to make me look skinny.”

There are so many things I could have said here.  Maybe a laugh and a Don’t be ridiculous!  You’re beautiful!  Or something self-deprecating to show that I, too, wish to be skinnier.

Instead, I got a worried look on my face and said, “I don’t have Photoshop.”

I. Don’t. Have. Photoshop.

I may as well have said, “There’s no way iPhoto is powerful enough to make you look pretty!”

I almost immediately wanted to stab myself in the brain.

Fast-forward to last night, when I had a chance to redeem myself during this book-signing event.  Jenny was lovely and hilarious and so very nice during her reading and the Q&A that followed.  Then we lined up to get our books signed, and I had a good hour to come up with something to say that would capture how much I admire her.

Here are some things that crossed my mind to say:

“Thank you for being such an inspiration to all of us anxious, depressed girls in the world.”

“I love that you’ve been able to achieve so much based mostly on your silly personality.  Keep being you, because you’re awesome.”

Or even, “What the fuck is up with Nathan Fillion?”

Instead, this is the conversation I actually had with her: 

ME: I met you once before.

HER: Oh?

ME: Last year, in San Diego.  You were hiding in the bathroom.

HER:  Oh. … Heh.  … Yeah, we bathroom buddies share a special bond …  Did you want to take a picture?

No context, nothing.  Just “you were hiding in the bathroom.”

That’s me, folks.  Making celebrities uncomfortable since 2002.  What a shitty superpower.

Break

I’m sure you all will be shocked to learn this, but I survived my summer class and so did all of my patients (to my knowledge).  And now, for the first time since January – or last August, really – I’m taking a break.  I’ve had some school breaks since last August, yes, but every one of them involved studying and/or panicking about something school related, so they don’t count because the stress level was still high.  And also you wouldn’t feel as sorry for me if I said this is my first break since May, which is technically true but still involved lots of prep work for the intense summer class.  And really, we all know that the point of most of my blog posts is to elicit sympathy from my readers.  (Ha!  Like I still have any of those…)

My last day of clinical was on a Wednesday, and we worked at the hospital for half a day and then went out for margaritas to reflect on what we learned this semester.  On the first day we met our clinical instructor, she told us about herself and happened to include the fact that she likes to do “fairy readings.”  Personally, I didn’t know what a fairy reading was, but I was pretty sure I wanted one.  Fast forward to the last day when we were all gathered around our lunch table and not at all tipsy.  The instructor was wearing her fairy hat – it helps her communicate with the fairies, duh – and pulled out a stack of cards much like Tarot cards except they don’t ever predict death or dismemberment.

As the instructor worked her way around the table, I listened as my classmates were told to follow their instincts, to trust in themselves and that they were living good lives and could expect to live happily ever after.  So imagine my surprise when the fairies just told me to get some exercise.

Were it an actual conversation with the fairies, I imagine it going something like this:

FAIRIES: Have confidence, young nurse! You will do great things!  And you, sir, are a good person!  You, my dear, need to trust your instincts!  And you, sweetheart … um … how do we put this delicately?  We didn’t want to be the ones to tell you this, but you’re getting a little chubby.

ME: Fuck you, fairies, I’m finishing this plate of enchiladas, AND this margarita non-alcoholic beverage.

To be fair, they may have a point.  This whole nursing school thing, with the studying and the stress and the fact that peanut butter M&Ms are a really tasty studying snack, has caused a bit of expansion in my waistline.  Let’s use the term “womanly curves” so I can feel a little more sexy and a little less squishy.

I was sort of pissed at the fairies all afternoon, and apparently my bitching wasn’t entirely in my head because my instructor eventually asked me if I wanted another reading.  Of course I did.  This time, the fairies told me to take a vacation.  Give myself a break.  Etc.  I think they mostly wanted me to stop saying “Fuck the fairies!” in the middle of downtown Manitou Springs.

A couple of my classmates are avid Facebookers and posted pictures of our very sober afternoon playing Skee-Ball and Dance Dance Revolution at Manitou’s outdoor-ish arcade, including one photo in which I look a good five months pregnant.  Now, I was packed with some tasty enchiladas at the time, but I’d think that would only equate to looking maybe three and a half months along.

And so this break, which lasts three and a half more weeks, has so far involved me taking the fairies’ advice and relaxing.  (You thought I was going to say exercising, right?  You don’t know me at all.)  But I have been thinking very hard about taking the plastic wrap off the Jillian Michaels DVDs I bought several months ago.  I even made the claim that I would start the 30-Day Shred yesterday and then somehow that didn’t happen because I was too busy practicing my relaxation skills by napping half the day.  I did, however, play “Nickelodeon Dance” on the Kinect with Kaylee last night, which is practically the same as letting Jillian Michaels show me how out of shape I am.  That Dora the Explorer can be a real slave driver.  Plus I kind of hurt my arm doing the Cabbage Patch and don’t think I should be starting an intense exercise program right now.  I should ease into this, right?

At the very least, I should wait until I recover from the crick in my neck caused by all the napping.

Brave

When we first moved Robbie to a toddler bed a couple weeks ago, he started coming out of his room by himself, shuffling out into the dark house, clutching his Thomas the Train blanket and looking for me and Rob. The second night of this new independence, I heard his door slam shut at about 5:30 a.m., and then I heard a timid voice on the landing outside our door saying, “I'm not scared. I'm not scared.”

I rescued him immediately, because this is what my boy says when he's frightened but trying to be brave.

* * *

A couple of weeks ago I also wrapped up my first semester of nursing school. Although I was taking classes last fall, they didn't have impressive-sounding names like Pathophysiology, Pharmacology and Pharmacological Math. And getting a 73 average last fall wouldn't have gotten me kicked out of school. So there's a bit more pressure, is what I'm saying.

But the semester went fine and I was never even close to the do-not-cross line of 74%.

Those of us who started nursing classes in the spring are required to take a six-credit course this summer, as well. It's called Fundamentals of Nursing, or just Fundamentals if you're hip to the jargon like I am. (Do the kids even say “hip” anymore? I have no idea.) The thing about this class is that it's only seven weeks long. Oh, and one more thing: It's the first class where we go into the hospital and care for patients.

I mean, sure, we practiced taking blood pressure and assessing problems last semester, but we did it on each other. This semester we will be doing these things on patients, where it actually matters if we fuck up. There can be no “Oopsie, I made a little error in my calculations and gave my patient 1,000 mg of this powerful drug instead of 10 mg. Can I have a do-over?” (There will be someone with experience watching our every move, but it's still a little overwhelming to think about.)

Fundamentals started today, and the professor said the first thing she wanted to do was ease our anxiety. Then she proceeded to tell us that, by the end of these seven weeks, we will each be caring for a couple patients at a time, all by ourselves.

I'm not scared.

I'm not scared.