3 a.m.

I am awake at 3 a.m. for the sixth morning in a row. The previous five mornings I was at work, but I have no excuse today. I have been awake since 2:15 and there is no sign that I will be going back to bed any time soon. I've folded laundry, browsed the internet for new biscotti recipes, and read three chapters of my current book.

After almost three months on third shift, this is the first time I haven't been able to snap out of the work-at-night-sleep-during-the-day pattern with relative ease. I guess working five nights caught up with me this time.

Let's hope Harry takes it easy on me tomorrow, because I think I'm going to be pretty tired...

Friday Quickie

I have exactly 10 minutes before I need to leave for work - ah, the beginning of five nights in a row - and decided that this is just enough time for a quickie blog post.

We had our first snow of the season yesterday, along with some truly ridiculous hail. Harry, who is sick with a cold, slept through the hail, but when he woke up he said he wanted to catch snowflakes on his tongue. I went back and forth on the issue for a few minutes, weighing the absolute pleasure he would get from going outside against his runny nose and froggy voice. In the end, obviously, I decided to bundle him thoroughly and go outside for 10 minutes.

I'm glad I did, too, because while his cold is no worse, Harry thinks I'm fun and I got to see this smile in person. And when I'm starting five nights in a row of work, and will spend most of the next five days sleeping instead of playing with him, I need that smile to hang on to.

It's a Really Big Deal

Well, my excuse for not blogging in almost two months is thus: potty training.

It has been a l-o-n-g time coming at our house, but in the last few months Harry started going potty at school, then slowly working on it at home, and now we are at the point where we are running errands with underwear instead of Pull-Ups. It's scary for me, mostly because of the time Harry peed buckets in the shoe section of Kohls, but Harry is always really excited to be wearing underwear, and we've been away from the house for almost two hours sometimes without an accident. He's not scared to go to the bathroom away from home, which I had been really worried about, and he has this awesome habit of commenting loudly on how clean/stinky/noisy/busy said restroom is.

And we have a whole new subject for hilarity in our family:

• One of the cars in his train set is the "potty train."
• He yells "It's an emergency!" when we have to hurry from one end of the grocery store to the other for a potty break.
• Harry wiggles his hips back and forth after he pees, and wants to wash his hands before pulling his pants back up.
• every time he poops, he looks at it and says, "What did I eat?" and when he has Superman ice cream, he tells everyone, "This makes my poop green."

It's so amazing to me that Harry really just had to decide he was ready, and we just had to be patient and not force it.

And I'm saving about thirty bucks a month on Pull-Ups, y'all. Big win.

Been a Long Time

Are you still here?

Well, busy is the name of the game. Working full time has some perks. Okay, one perk: the paycheck. And if I didn't have medical insurance through Kevin, work would have a second perk. Actually, I really like my job, but I haven't moved off of training and on to third shift yet, so check back with me in about a month and I'll let you know how that's working out.

The hardest thing about working full time, particularly after working from home for so long, is time. Getting up at 5:15 is ridiculous, pure and simple, but getting out of work at 3:00 or 3:30 is a joy, especially when I can pick up Harry at daycare by 4:00 and watch him run to me for a hug. I'm always happy to see him, of course, but after working nine hours sometimes a girl just wants to go home, swap the scrubs for pajamas, and read a book.

We're also testing the real estate waters, seeing if we can sell our house and upgrade/upsize a little, so keeping the house in a state of perpetual cleanliness, decluttered and curb appealed, is no mean feat. I feel like I spend half of my time making dinner and the other half of my time cleaning the kitchen and sweeping the dining room floor.

But if I can have a two-car garage and a master bathroom, it will all be worth it.

Welcome to the Working Week

If you weren't already aware, I was offered (and obviously accepted) a job at the hospital where I finished my internship in May. It's PRN, or basically part time without the guarantee of 20 hours a week, but I'm optimistic that I can become full time within six months to a year. I also have many, many years of working the night shift to look forward to.

After a nice four-week break, I went back to the hospital on Monday and Tuesday for orientation. Since a lot of it was customer service, and patient lifting, and working as part of a team with patients and their families, I was kind of bored. There is the distinct possibility that I will never see another patient, unless I eventually get to work first shift and start doing bone marrows.

And honestly, that's not too high on my list. I observed two bone marrows, one adult and one pediatric, during my internship. It's an invasive procedure, and while the patient is completely doped up, knowing how uncomfortable he or she is going to be later is tough. And getting a bone marrow is usually not a good sign. Also, I'm still getting the hang of making blood smears and do not believe for one second that I could make a halfway decent bone marrow slide. But I digress. . .

I'm employed, in my field, for a decent wage, at a hospital where I've already learned most of the instruments and enjoy (most of) the people. Not too bad. In fact, maybe the best I could expect.

I'm Still Here

Sorry if my last post left you hanging, worried that perhaps I had not survived a minor league hockey game and a day at the amusement park with Harry. All is well, life goes on, and this sums up how we spent our day today:

Ninety flipping degrees today, after two days of rain, so I will let you estimate the relative humidity yourself, Dear Reader. My adorable niece and nephew are in town this week, and we spent all today with them and Grandma and Grandpa, feeding the fish at the fish hatchery, eating McNuggets, and playing in our backyard. It was too hot to be outside, but it was too nice to be inside.

3

Harry woke up at 5:50 this morning, which is nothing new. What was a little out of the ordinary was the fact that Kevin popped right out of bed when he heard Harry and me moving around in the living room. He did not want to miss the moment when Harry saw his birthday present.

Kevin picked out this gift more than two months ago, kept it hidden in the basement, and brought it upstairs last night after Harry went to bed. As Kevin went to the dining room to get it, Harry said, "Where's Daddy going?"

"He's getting a birthday surprise for you!" I said.

"Really big cake?" Harry asked, his eyes hopeful.

"No, your birthday present."

Kevin returned with the present.

Harry said, "It's not a cake."

Harry, warming up to his present. Ten minutes later, it was officially a hit.

Harry was, of course, pretty excited to see his cake after lunch. And this was the first year that Harry blew out the candles all by himself, and on the first try. More birthday festivies are on tap, including a minor league hockey game tonight and a trip to an amusement park tomorrow. If I survive, believe that I will be blogging about it.