A Trifecta!

Three things that I enjoy:

• A day with no appointments
• Having the house all to myself
• Rain.

Today I got all three. I've gotten so much done, and I've managed to have some time to just enjoy my day at the same time. The task list isn't clear, but it's a little smaller than it was this morning, and I'm satisfied with that.

Elizabeth is job shadowing at the hospital today. She started last Friday job shadowing the Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists, and Speech Therapists. So far, her favorite has been Occupational Therapy in Rehab. It seems that helping people with ADL (Activities of Daily Living) appeals to her. Yesterday she helped patients bake bread, cut up apples, eat, and take a shower. She's been so excited every day coming home that I think she may be on to something! I told her if she was interested, I'd see if we could get her into Woman's so that she could see how PT's and OT's work with babies.

I remember having a PT and an RT there the first time I fed Elizabeth. I was feeding her breastmilk out of a bottle, and there were two or three nurses, the aforementioned PT and RT, a nutritionist, and about 297 other people standing around monitoring as I gave her a bottle. One of them remarked about how well I was doing for a first time mother, so I told them she was the first one I had given birth to, but she certainly wasn't the first one I'd fed. I'd been feeding babies since Connie was born when I was not-quite-3.

So back to today ... I've still got about two hours before Joe and Elizabeth get home, so I'm going to take a shower and read. Doesn't that sound wonderful?

NICU Reunion

One of my many hats is that of Board Member for the NICU Family Support Network of Baton Rouge. It's a group of parents of NICU graduates who have come together to offer support to current NICU parents and to advise Woman's Hospital when they need parent input. Sunday was the annual NICU Reunion, and several of the network members and our babies ("babies" being, of course, a somewhat inaccurate term in our case) gathered for a photo.

It's so cool to see all the babies thriving and doing well.

Silly Girls

Elizabeth's "friends" birthday party was tonight, and here's a picture of the silliness.

Lots and lots of silliness. This picture was taken on the floor because one of the girls was hiding under the counter. So I chased her until I got the picture I wanted.

Am I a Grownup?

I spent yesterday in the ER with my dad. He and Mom were driving in from Alabama for Elizabeth's birthday and he started having some lower right quadrant pain about 8:30. By the time he got into town, it was to the point that he couldn't wait for a regular clinic visit, so off to the hospital we went. I was thinking appendix, but it turned out to be kidney stones. He's had them before, but the pain was in a different place this time, so he didn't recognize what was going on.

Mom was shaken up (as I would have been had it been my husband and us both away from our regular healthcare resources) so I was trying to take the adult role, monitoring what was going on and advocating for him as well as I could, and it occurred to me that I'm a grownup.

I'm not sure when this happened. I don't feel particularly grown up. I don't feel much different than I did at 25. I have a husband, a kid, a house, a mortgage, a car payment, and a stack of bills to pay every month, so I have all the trappings of grownup-hood, but there's no grownup inside. I'm just as scared today as I was when I left for college. (Well, maybe not THAT scared, but close.) I even have some grownup things that aren't just grownup things: they're middle-aged-grownup things, like blood pressure medicine, acid reflux, fiber supplements, and reading glasses. I'm also going to turn 50 this year. And I have high school classmates who are now raising their grandchildren.

So why did I have to keep reminding myself that I was a grownup yesterday?

It means so much to me that Elizabeth is excited about her friends coming to our house. I remember when she was in day care and I'd hide behind the door to watch her without her knowing I was there, just to see what she was like when I wasn't around. I still get to do that ... by being the mom who drives them places, I hear all the conversations about who's dating whom, who wishes she was dating whom, which teachers are cool (Mr. Haywood, definitely) and which are not at all cool (no, I'm not going to name any names).

I keep thinking that one day she'll decide she doesn't want me around anymore, and I won't get to hide behind the door (or the steering wheel) and find out what her life is like when I'm not there. Until then, I'm just enjoying the time I have with her.