I can't go to work today.. my zombies are ready!!

Or something equally important...

fairy tales

I remember those public service videos in grade school. They were black and white and usually frighteningly futuristic. Designed to scare us into learning some valuable moral lesson that somehow our parents had sadly neglected to teach us. There was the one about the robots, robots cleaning our house, robots working in the yard, robot teachers, robot janitors. It ended with some ridiculous propaganda about running out of water that made absolutely no sense and left me thinking about robots in space with the whole world's water supply. There was the one called Lottery, where the world's population had become so overwhelming that resources were used up and there was not enough food to go around. People were living in some sort of dark age with dirt floors. Filthy children wandered the streets begging and looking generally frightened and feral. It ended in a gruesome scene where the lottery was drawn and the winners were stoned in the streets to conserve resources.

Another one was a planet that was sick, the air was toxic and there was no food or water. People had built communities underground and had forgotten what the sun looked like..... rather grim.

The one that affected me most was the one about the crazy old lady next door, everyone was afraid of her and called her witch. The meaner the neighborhood kids got the crankier the lady became. One day a little girl lost her ball in the yard and after finally getting the courage to go into the yard and get it found out that the lady was wonderful, sad and sweet. Her children and husband were all dead and she was only mean because the children teased her. The little girl started finding reasons to visit the old lady and did random chores just to hear her amazing stories about her past. The little girl's mother was proud and praised her for having such a caring spirit and spending time with the old woman. Eventually word got out to the little girl's friends that she was spending time with the neighborhood witch and they began to tease her. For the old woman's birthday, the two of them had planned a wonderful dinner party for just the two of them. The woman joyfully cooked all day, decorated and cleaned her house for the first time in years. Meanwhile the girl's friends teased her about her strange relationship with the old woman.... she began to feel bad and then decided to skip the party even though she was as excited as the old woman. The thing I remember most about these stories is there was no happy ending. The movie ended with the girl feeling like an ass and the old woman sobbing over her hard work lost. I remember making a happy ending in my mind just to cope with the sadness that was usually hidden from children's eyes and minds. I began to grasp that sometimes life was like that. Not everyone gets their happy ending... sometimes we end the story alone and sobbing over a cold meal that no one will eat. Sometimes the dog is euthanized in the pound, sometimes Maude doesn't wake from the coma. I still see the old woman.... I see her loneliness and her desperation for human touch.

I am easy on my children . I try to protect them from hurt. I replace things that are broken from carelessness sometimes. I try to stall the realization that the fairy tale may never happen to them.... I stall it and listen to them laugh for just a little longer.

Yes folks... I am still here

Although decidedly less outspoken. Once again it is summertime and while last year I was overwhelmed with the things I had to do and the huge amount of work left to me by the other... this year I feel I have a hold on at least half of it. I am loving this summer and now with a million less people living here I am feeling like it is finally not too much for one person to handle. Last year I was ambivalent. There seemed to be a huge outcry from the house and the yard and the kids and the job. Everyone wanted my attention all at once. I was attempting the dating scene... and hating it. It was just another thing crying for my attention. I let the lawn die and the weeds grow. When questioned about it I simply stated... I want my house to be seen from space. A big white spot on the satellite view of Idaho. AND also sometimes I said SUCK IT!

I have come to grips with the fact that I am to be perpetually single. I like it that way, I like doing things in my own time, when I want and how I want. I like to use both dressers in my room and I like the kids in my bed in the evenings watching ghost whisperer. I like the chickens in the backyard and I like working in the garden at 9pm.

All in all... this life is good.

Things I love

I LOVE

watching a mom see her child for the very first time.

telling parents tiny individual details I have discovered about their child that makes them unique and precious.



Knowing that these tiny details secure me as a safe person to trust with their most treasured person and that even though I take care of babies all the time, this one is special.



watching parents fall in love with their baby and knowing that this little person is amazing



the tears that sting my eyes when I watch a mother learn to breastfeed a child that I admitted intubated only 2 days prior.



When all the doctors leave the room and the parents look at me as if to say, "now what is really going on?"



The feeling that I know what is really going on, and the ability to take time to explain it in a way that they will understand.



Knowing that the amazing people I work with will take care of this baby when I go home, and I can sleep soundly because he is as safe with them as he was with me



That even when the outcome isn't favorable, I have given at least one moment of comfort and human contact on my shift



Really truly caring about the outcome of my work

Ageism

You know you are getting old when your date matches on Eharmony list "staying active" as what they like to do in leisure time.

Kids is weird

My four year old Ava is sometimes very needy, especially when she knows I am going to work that night. Every work night it is the same conversation:

Ava: mom, I don't want you to go to work, chelsie isn't happy at me.
Mom: I have to go to work Ava
Ava: why? Cause you gots to feed us?
Mom: yes, and pay for power and a place to live and clean water
Ava: why do those babies has to get sick? Are they alone with the doctors right now?
Mom: the babies are sick because they were born too little. I have to take care of them because it's my turn, the other nurses want to go home to their little girls
Ava: I'm gonna be a nurf when I grow up, I don't want you to go to work.

Tonight the kids got to call their dad in Arizona. Olivia talked about school, Ava talked about her new necklace and ruby yelled g'night in the phone and said hi you daddy. When it was Kayla's turn to talk she declined. "come talk to your dad!" I said through clenched teeth. "but mom, this is an important moment in science!! I am watching the first ever autopsy of a colossal squid on Netflix!!!! They haven't ever gotten to dissect one before!!!!". Then she says " ok I'll come talk.... But I'm pausing this thing!!!". Interesting to me that this important moment in science can wait while you are on the phone.

Ava: mommy, mommy, mommy
Mom: who are you??? Where did you even come from????
Ava: I come from inside your computer!

Quinn: waaaaaa waaaaaaa dodoodododododododod dodododododo
Emo: hey annoying... Go play on your room!
Quinn: I'm not annoying, I'm batman!!!

Mom: Ruby, I love you
Ruby: YOU, go nite night!!!!!!

Kayla: I don't know what I was thinking when I ate that caterpillar ... I mean... Why didn't I just use my finger in the fun dip???

Ava: mom, Quinn hit me on my circle head

Quinn: mom, say you love me
Chelsie: I love you
Quinn: I love you too captain

Poison

Poison In My Veins
Artist(Band):Bayside

The night sky's black, and I'm awake, lying on the ground
The grass beneath my feet is hard and cold just like I've come to be
The stars are gone behind the clouds, and I can't see a thing
So I'll just let my eyes stay closed just like me
I can't open up

Cuz I'm all wrong, and I don't see a chance to fix this head
So just give up
Write me off, pretend I don't exist

There's something in an empty bed that makes it hard to close your eyes
It can eat at you 'til they both turn black and blue
And all you want is a reason you should live or a way for you to die
A way for you to die

Cuz I'm all wrong, and I don't see a chance to fix this head
So just give up
Write me off, pretend I don't exist

The ground's opening up
I'm falling down below
An endless fall into a place that I don't think a child should know
I'm screaming out a name that could never pass my lips
The poison in my veins that got me through her kiss

Cuz I'm wrong, and I don't see a chance to fix this head
So just give up
Write me off, pretend I don't exist

The ground's opening up
I'm falling down below
An endless fall into a place that I don't think a child should know
I'm screaming out a name that could never pass my lips
The poison in my veins that got me through her kiss

Now I'm too hung up on that to have anything with you
The poison in my veins
The poison in my veins
The poison in my veins that got me through.