Preschool for Gwen

I have been so on the fence about sending Gwen to preschool for the last year. Well, last week in spin class I'm sitting there and I start thinking about Gwen and preschool. I think it finally really hit me that she's going to be in kindergarten NEXT YEAR. She's going to be 4 when she starts school because her birthday is 2 days before the cut-off of September 1st. That means that unless there's another little kid with a birthday on the 29th or 30th of August she'll be the youngest kid in her class. There will be kids in there an entire year older than her with birthdays in September. So, I realized that she's already going to be at an age disadvantage and that most of the kids that start school have been in preschool for at least a year if not more.



I started to look into preschools and they're expensive - very expensive in some cases. Then my working mommy guilt kicked in full blown and I started to feel really bad that I'm not around to home school her like I would like and I don't make enough money to send her to a good preschool. Well, I gave myself a little kick in the pants and talked with some folks about preschool and decided that it was very important to me to have Gwen not at a disadvantage in school and we'd just have to make the money part of it work out. Plus, it would greatly ease my guilt if I knew that someone was teaching Gwen something everyday since I can't be there myself to do it. We applied to Granite school district and I got a call yesterday saying that she's going to start school next Monday at Frost Elementary in the afternoons 4 days a week. Also, we were approved for discounted tuition so yay for being poor, I guess.

Deja vu

So, it would seem that Jonathan and I are just not very creative people. This year for our 5th wedding anniversary we did the EXACT same thing that we did last year. Well, I had something bigger planned but then life happened and although it turns out that we both had the night off, we didn't really have the funds to do anything near what I had been thinking. Our first plan for the evening was to sit at home with the girls and then watch a movie together after they went to bed. This is not entirely different from any other evening this last month. Then we got in the mail some anonymous money (from the people at my ex-work I'm sure) and suddenly we had a little bit of money to be able to have a fun evening out.

Like I said, we're just not that creative, so we went to the State Fair like last year. It was so much fun though. Since I knew it was the only fun thing that we were going to do for our big 5 year anniversary I felt more willing to spend a little bit of money - thank you whoever at InstaCare sent it. We ate deep fried snickers and oreos - it's not as bad as it sounds think doughnut with candy inside. We saw all the animals and Emily would not stop petting them and kissing them, I'm surprised she didn't get sick from all the germs she must have picked up from them. We even stayed for the rodeo which the girls loved. The girls had a blast doing the little helping hands part where they pretend to be farmers. It was the first time Emily was big enough to do something like that and she loved it. She watched big sister Gwen do all the steps and then put her own little Emily flare on it.

I love that Gwen has to dress up everywhere we go. She has to be a princess even when we're going to the fair. She now picks out her outfit to match whoever she's going to be that day. This outfit was supposed to be Princess Tiana from Princess and the Frog and she wanted me to put her hair in a bun. Well, I tried to twist it into a bun and it fell out making it a ponytail and she had a fit. I need someone to give me princess hair classes.

Emily loves being a big kid. She's starting to "talk" more and more. Usually she just copies the tones and inflections of the words we use. She mostly babbles still but it sounds like sentences or phrases. She learned to say sticker and baa and neigh at the fair. Sure, she can say sticker but not please. I think she's just fooling us.

Gwen wanted to plant a tomato this year because she felt they were they best out of all the veggies to choose from. Emily would not plant anything other than a tomato because she wanted to be just like Gwen.

This is Emily saying "cheese" for the camera. She'd never done that before. I love this picture because it does look "cheesy".

My favorite part of the Fair was the rodeo that night. I used to work the rodeos in Draper and Riverton when I was an EMT and I loved them. I guess a part of me likes the violence and the danger of it. Gwen loved the rodeo queen and all the cowboys were wearing pink to support breast cancer awareness. The first event we watched was bareback broncos. I told Gwen that it was a contest between the cowboys and the horses. We loved cheering for whoever won, the horses or the cowboys, and she loved that the cowboys had to hold on so tight with only one hand. We then watched the rest and she was glued to each event. They even had mutton bustin' which is where parents put their little kids on a sheep and see how long they can hold on before falling off. Gwen was so sad when I explained to her that she couldn't have a chance to ride the sheep. She thought it looked like so much fun. You have to enter a lottery and be there each night for your chance to ride because I guess there's a lot of parents wanting to torture their children. Next year she'll probably weigh too much, so I guess we're out of luck. I promised her that she could ride a sheep if we ever get one as a pet. That's not going to happen but it made her feel better.

A New Look and A New Start

Since I feel like I'm starting over again, I felt like my blog needed a new look. I also noticed while looking at my camera today that I have a few pictures from the last couple months that needed to be posted. In the whole mess of everything I never got around to posting about all the fun things that we got to do the last half of this summer.

In July we always go to the Pioneer Days Parade Preview with my sisters and their kiddos. This is definitely the way to do the biggest Utah parade. By late July my kids were parade experts. We loved watching parades and scrambling for candy. Gwen even got to be in a parade this year - the Children's parade. She thought that was pretty neat. Daddy walked with her and they got to wear matching shirts.

At the parade preview our favorite part is always the face painting and the balloon creations. This year Gwen and Kim had princess crowns and Emily had a butterfly on her arm that she could see. Noah had a Batman mask and Mason had a scary spider. Andrew got a bug on his arm and Max got a tiger on his hand.

At the beginning of August, as our last "hurrah" of such a wonderful summer, my parents planned a trip for everyone to the Grand Tetons. It was so much fun. It was a good way for me to try to forget about all the drama in my life at the moment - I was just barely put on suspension right before the trip and was in agony about it. It was my little family's first ever camping trip. Gwen was so good at hiking. We ended up on a surprise 3 mile hike and she was the best little trooper. I swear it's a struggle getting her to walk through the grocery store, but out in the woods she had a blast riding her pretend horsey "Hallo". She'd gallop ahead of everyone and the pause and wait for us to catch up. Some of her little cousins even got into her pretending spirit and would gallop along with her. Imagine her surprise when we ran into a group of real horseback riders at the end of the hike.

Gwen's little imagination is amazing to me. She has a favorite little cousin, Noah, who is just like her in this regard. They see an item and immediately it becomes something else to them. In Noah's case it's usually a sword or a gun or a super hero gadget. In Gwen's case it's usually a wand or a magical princess item. One day she put her underwear on her head and became "Super Girl". She still pretends to be Super Girl but I have talked her into only wearing her "mask" at home. Her super powers are the ability to make a swooshing sound while holding her hand out and it makes people stop and go. It doesn't always work for very long though.

Gwen turned 4 years old on August 28th. We had a swimming party - entirely her own idea but not really a big surprise since except for her 2nd birthday we've always had a swimming party. It was really, really windy that day and it wasn't as fun as we had hoped. The kids froze once the stepped out of the water and the wind tried to blow away all the gifts and guests. That evening, I asked Gwen what she wanted to do and she chose to go to Lagoon with just me while Daddy and Emily stayed home. We rode a couple rides that we hadn't yet like the Dinosaur Drop which she'd been terrified of because it makes this loud stomping noise. I had to hold her and pretty much stick her on the ride while she was screaming but as soon as it started she liked it. I told her she was braver and bigger now that she was four and could handle scary rides. She liked that idea and then made me measure her while waiting in line before each ride that night to see if she had gotten bigger. Her cake was also her own idea. She wanted her favorite little princesses to have a swimming party too. See how relaxed they are in their pool?

This morning I had to go start my paperwork at my new job (yay!) and when I got home the girls were dancing around to the soundtracks for High School Musical 1, 2, and 3. They were using our ice cream scoop and mixer as microphones. Even little Emily loves to put on a show. Last night Gwen was watching a Dora the Explorer about different jobs and at the end Dora asks "What kind of job do you want when you're grown up?" Gwen answered that she wanted to be a show dancer. When I'm exercising to videos at home in the morning Gwen loves to come and do it too saying that she's doing dancer stretches.

Where to Start?

So, many of you have probably been wondering why I haven't updated my blog in nearly 2 months. Well, it's not from a lack of things happening in my life right now. I just didn't think that I could mentally sit and write it all down until I knew more about the ending of the story. You see, I need to be in control of things and this last month things have been so far out of my control that it has really been a trial. Well, here's the story:

During one seemingly innocent shift at the KidsCare in July, the day before my 30th birthday to be exact, I accidentally mis-entered a child's vital signs in the computer. It basically comes down to the fact that I forgot to multiply a respiratory rate by 2. The doctor noticed my error and I redid the vital signs and entered the correct info in the electronic chart. I didn't think anything about it after that. That is until a week later when my manager calls me at 9:30 during my shift and tells me I've been placed on suspension and I can't come into work. Somehow this very minor mistake, which was corrected, and resulted in no harm to anyone, came to the attention of my manager who alerted the KidsCare's lead nurse, Terry.

Well, the KidsCare and InstaCare have been heavy on nurses lately and everyone's hours have been cut and things have been very tense. So they make me wait nearly a week and won't give me any reason for the suspension and I'm physically ill from all the stress. It turns out that Terry, who for some reason doesn't like me anyway, and my manager cook up this whole story of me falsifying the child's records and accuse me of wanting him to die and not being a very good nurse or person for that matter and fire me. Just like that I am out of a job. Jonathan has had no luck finding a job for the last 3 months as well, so we're both unemployed and oh yeah, without any health insurance now. Awesome. Not only that, but I loved my job. I loved the people that I worked with and the patients. I was lost without that job. I have never felt so destroyed before.

I appeal the decision of course, I was fired for something that I didn't do but the HR department drags their feet and it's 2 weeks before I even get to meet with them. My brother-in-law and sister help me write out a great appeal and I feel really good about it. I finally get to meet with the COO - chief operating officer of the division and tell him what really happened. I think the meeting went well and they promise to let me know their decision in 4-5 days (it's been 10 now and still no word). Now, I'm feeling like it doesn't matter if I ever hear from them again. Who would want to work for a company that makes things up and fires you for them then doesn't keep their word?

Well, not me. Especially since I got a phone call today with a job offer. I have been applying to a bunch of places and had 2 interviews this week. I accepted a position with Jordan Valley Medical Center working the night shift in the ICU - for 4 bucks more an hour than what I was making at the KidsCare. Working the night shift will be hard but I feel like I'll still be able to see my girls each day, where as if I was working the day shift I'd be gone 3 entire days a week out of their lives. It will be great to get back into the ICU. I feel like that's where a good nurse can really make a difference in a person's outcome. It's an answer to so many prayers, mine and others.

One thing that I have learned from all this mess is that I am not alone. Driving home from the meeting where they fired me I felt so lost and so alone that I cried and cried. Then I prayed that Heavenly Father would be with me and that I could know that things would be okay. It took a couple days but soon I really felt that Heavenly Father was watching out for me. I knew that I needed to let go of the control and give it to Him. When I did that I could feel peace and then focus as I looked for jobs - always with a prayer that He would lead me to where I was most needed and where I could do the most good. I have felt through this whole thing that I would land on my feet. I have also learned that I can lose my job and a part of what I think is my identity and that I still have everything that's most important in this life. I have my family and no stupid lead nurse or manager can take that away from me.

I have the world's best mother who came over right away when I called her sobbing on the freeway as I drove home and helped me make plans and reassured me that life would be okay while things sorted themselves out. I have an awesome father who, despite this whole thing dragging up past dramas from his own professional life, gave me blessings and advice and really helped me with my perspective. I have 4 wonderful sisters who were so good and helping to distract me and build me back up from the broken heap that I was. I have a husband who kept telling me that things would be okay and got a job working in a factory. I have two beautiful daughters who loved having Mommy around all the time and never let me forget who I go to work for in the first place. My family is what's MOST important.