Hospital love

If Ben would let me get away with it, I would name my baby Gritman.

Today was a capstone on my incredible experience as an employee at Gritman Medical Center. In the more than four years I have worked at Gritman, I have been spoiled rotten there – spoiled by the job training and experiences I’ve had, spoiled by the friendships I’ve developed, and spoiled by the perks of working in such a family-friendly environment.

Today I was spoiled by a surprise baby shower.


It started out as an executive committee meeting, and a productive one at that. And then, to my absolute shock, the president of the hospital board barged into the boardroom with all the administrative staff and hordes of other employees with cake, presents and flowers … all for me.

I could rave for pages about how wonderful Gritman has been to our family. But today it’s enough to say I am so grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to work there and looking forward to a long future associated with such a wonderful hospital.

BOOGIES

Editor’s note: This is Ben’s debut post on our family blog. Feel free to give him lots of shout-outs to inspire him to contribute more regularly. ;-)

As some of you already know, few things make me gag. Growing up with hospital horror stories from my nurse parents has given me (and I imagine all of my siblings) a pretty strong stomach. However, there is one thing that will get my stomach to churn every time. If you haven’t already guessed what that one thing is, refer to the title of this post. That’s right, I can take blood, guts, vomit and BMs, but boogers make me sick to my stomach. My own boogies don’t bother me so much, but anyone else’s better not get anywhere near me.


Now that you have a brief background, here is the real story. A couple of nights ago I took Tonnelle to a Primary pioneer activity at our church. The night was filled with games, songs and crafts for the kids. Nelly had a blast. At the end of the night I was holding Nelly while talking with some friends from our ward. Nelly doesn’t like to be left out of conversations so often she will jabber loudly while her mother and I talk to get our attention. Well that’s what she was doing while I was talking with these friends from church and I noticed she was pointing at me as she spoke. It is not uncommon for her to say she has an ouchy and ask me to kiss it, so that’s what I thought she was doing. Like any good father would I leaned over and kissed the tip of her finger, then continued my conversation.

I could tell my friend’s expression had changed a bit; something on my face had caught his eye. His expression and the sensation of something on my lower lip registered all at once. Nelly wasn’t indicating an ouchy on her finger; she was telling me that she had found a boogie. I had kissed that boogie right off her finger and it was now stuck to my lip. I very calmly removed the booger from my lip and wiped it on the grass. It wasn’t until I got into my car that I started to gag.

I hate boogers.

The grown up

I don’t think Nelly understands that she’s the 2-year-old.

Last Sunday Ben returned earlier than expected from three-day leadership retreat out of town. Since we were still at church, he headed straight there and pulled Nelly out of nursery to surprise her (and me).

Nelly was of course thrilled to see her daddy after three days. She threw her arms around him, gave him kisses, jabbered at him for a few minutes about who knows what, and then smiled sweetly at him and said, “Hold on.” She then walked across the room to Brother Reed, one of the nursery leaders, tapped him on the shoulder, and told him, “I go home.” Then she returned to her daddy, grabbed his hand and led him out the door.

What a goose.

Today during Sacrament meeting, Nelly saw Camille and Jay sitting in the back. She normally scopes out the place for them, and often ends up sitting with them for a decent chunk of the meeting. Today we were sharing a pew with some friends, and when she decided it was time to go see Cami she was stopped by Brian. She patted his leg reassuringly and told him, “It’s OK. It’s OK,” and then blew right past him.

Meanwhile her father has to ask permission to use the potty and her mother occasionally wets the bed (again, playing the pregnancy card). Where on earth is she learning this mature behavior?

Fries and cupcakes

Nothing makes a birthday brighter than good food. We took this happy child out for fries and nuggets at Wendy's for her birthday lunch. Then we had cupcakes after dinner.



Gosh, 2 is a fun age.

One year older and cuter, too

Remember this from last year?

I can't explain how, but this little girl managed to get even cuter in the last 12 months. See for yourself.

13 months


14 months


15 months


16 months


17 months


18 months


19 months


20 months


21 months


22 months


23 months (Yes, we know there's no child in this picture ... what can I say, sometimes beautiful models don't show up for their photo shoots.)


TWO YEARS OLD!

Tender moments

Since Nelly was a newborn, I've had a little song I sing to her at nights when she's falling asleep or at times when she's upset. It's not the most clever song in the world -- I just sing over and over, "You are my baby, my baby, my baby." But it's our special song that I made up just for her and it always seems to work.

Last night she just didn't want to go to bed -- too much excitement going on in the living room (Wii Party USA will do that) and the excess sugar in her system from the birthday cupcake. So I held her and rocked her and sang her the song.

I was surprised when she stopped me for a bit and broke into her own song. While rocking herself back and forth, she started singing, "My mommy, my mommy, my mommy."

Now tell me, how does someone (female or not, pregnant or not) NOT cry at something like that?

Look who's turning 2

I have made two ridiculously cute things in my life. One of them currently looks like this:


The other one currently looks like this:


When I get them in the same room tomorrow ... well, only one of my adorable creations will survive. And I'm OK with that. For one thing, I have a whole tray of backups.


We have some equally adorable (but much less messy) lions to give her in the morning as well.


Is it wrong that I want to wake her up right now and start celebrating her birthday?

It never ceases ...

This morning I had a fantastic prenatal massage right before work. Aaaaaaah. Fabulous.

Just now, two hours into my shift at work, I looked down and realized when I got dressed after the massage I put on my shirt inside out.

And my skirt.

And my underwear. Yes, all of it.

The universe is out to get me.

That's just swell

Just this morning, as I was rocking back and forth trying to gain the momentum to roll myself out of bed, I was thinking, “Gosh, this pregnancy has been nice. Sure, I’m a whale, and sure I can’t sleep. But things have been going rather smoothly.”

Note to self: If you want to keep a good thing going, don’t acknowledge that good thing. It quickly goes away.

When I got to work this morning I kicked my shoes off under the desk as I usually do. Two hours later I needed to grab something down the hall so I went to put them back on … and couldn’t. They didn’t fit.

They were loose this morning. In fact, they’re my largest pair of shoes – the product of wearing three pairs of socks with them when I used to walk to work on blustery winter mornings.

Within those two hours my poor feet had swollen so much that a highly trained surgeon (or a really crappy surgeon, for that matter) couldn’t have squeezed those puppies into these normally too-large shoes.

Then again, why would a surgeon be better fit than someone else to put shoes on? We’ll say a well-trained shoe salesman couldn’t have done the job. ‘Cause he couldn’t. Those shoes just weren’t fitting.

My knight in white satin (aka Ben … and don’t tell him I told you about his white satin outfit) jogged over to my office to deliver some tennis shoes I can (hopefully) wear untied just to get myself to the car. Then I’m headed straight home and into an ice cold bath in the hopes that today’s swelling was just a weird, warm-day fluke.

It’s not. It’s a sign of the times. The end is coming. The swelling has begun. There is no turning back now.

Four more weeks …

Why not?

I'm at work with a little more than two hours left on the clock. I've got two pretty high profile meetings during those two hours and absolutely no time to slip home for any type of emergency such as, say, a wardrobe malfunction.

Which is why it's great that I just discovered a 2-inch hole in the crotch of my pants. My black pants. Which nicely off-set the knee-length white undergarment I have beneath.

And did I mention these are the same black pants I wore during my bra-less romp through my 10-year high school reunion? Considering I've only worn these pants on these two occasions -- today and the reunion -- I'd say it's safe to assume the tear was present at the reunion as well.

Maybe this was why my horoscope recommended I don't leave the house ever in 2009.

Other good times

The movies aren't the only bit of extravagance we've had going on lately. Our trip to see my family (and go to the high school reunion) was fantastic. Nelly played with cousins she never gets to see.


Not a great shot, but you try getting all these squirrels to hold still for an entire two seconds. Buddy, X and Belle are movers -- only during eating time do they slow down enough to even be caught on camera.

Nelly had her first experience at the zoo. She enjoyed the lion at the gift shop a bit more than the real deal.



Perhaps her (and our) favorite part of the trip was the chance to hit the tennis courts with Grandma and Grandpa. That's some serious fun that we've all be missing since we've been back.


Whenever we visit my family we wonder why we don't go there more often. The drive home quickly reminds us and compels us to cancel all plans for a quick return. But we're grateful for the few chances we get to visit family in Idaho Falls.

Day at the movies

Remember that part of "Annie" where the little orphan girl goes to the movies for the first time and it's full of singing and dancing and new dresses and front row seats? Well, it wasn't quite like that. But taking our little red head to the movies for the first time was still a pretty exciting splurge for our little family.



Does this look like a happy girl or what? Nelly did great. She sat on her daddy's lap the entire time, scarfing down almost as much popcorn as her mommy (which is no small feat).

Thanks Kelly for the hook up.

A different kind of support

In all my life, I have never felt so supported as I did this weekend at my 10-year high school reunion. Felt supported. Only to find out I actually had no support whatsoever …

Planning the reunion was a big job; naturally I procrastinated, making it even more stressful than it needed to be. But through it all I had my class officers to lean on and classmates constantly offering help. Support.

We spent the week of the big event staying with my parents in Idaho Falls. They assumed full parenting duties for my little girl, giving me the time I needed to do all the last minute running around. Support.

My husband sacrificed countless hours doing the same throughout the year, giving me time to plan and coordinate. He listened to every idea I had, every concern, every stressed out ranting and worst case scenario paranoia I could dish out. And he did it without complaint. Support.

Finally the blessed/dreaded event came. And it was fantastic. People came. They were happy. They were gracious. They were appreciative. No one seemed to nitpick about the color of the napkins or lack of fancy centerpieces. They all seemed genuinely glad to be there. I honestly felt like everyone I spoke with was a long-lost best friend, even if we weren’t that close 10 years ago. Support.

That evening, as I dragged my tired, 8-month-pregnant body to my parents’ guest bedroom and prepared to finally go to sleep, I reflected on all the support of the past day and year. As I started to undress, I let out a sigh of relief and gratitude … and then a gasp of horror. I looked down and saw it … no support.

Somehow, in my haste to get ready for the evening program, I had neglected to put on a bra.

Did I mention that I emceed the event? As in I climbed up and down a tall platform about 100 times in front of 150 people for a good 45 minutes? Did I mention all the hugs? Lots and lots of hugs? Did I mention the 8-months pregnant and therefore the larger than life growth I’ve got going on in ALL regions of my body?

All with no support.

And so, to the Bonneville High School Class of 1999 – if I looked a little, um, saggy, Friday night, please know that your love and support was so strong I didn’t even notice how much I was dragging. So thank you very much.

And trust me, next time I’ll bring my own support.

My diverse little disease

We spent the last week in Idaho Falls for the big reunion. While there, among many other things that we did, Ben and I were introduced to the television show “House.” Let’s just say that the sarcasm spoke to me and the medical terminology was quite appealing to my dear husband, who just finished his pathophysiology course. We’ve been hunting down episodes to watch ever since.

For those unfamiliar, “House” is about a team of doctors (headed up by Dr. House himself) who try to diagnose patients that no one else has been able to diagnose. It’s kind of like a “Matlock” meets “ER” series if you ask me – the case is always wrapped up by the end of the hour, but not before at least one dramatic moment of cardiac arrest.

In the handful of episodes we’ve seen, we’ve noticed one other ever-present element – the temporary diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. In every episode we’ve seen there’s been one point when House and his team determine that the patient might have MS.

Of course the patient never actually does – MS isn’t dramatic or strange enough. And yet it’s dramatic and strange enough to fit absolutely any set of perplexing symptoms that the writers of the show can come up with.

It’s not right to say I’m proud of my little disease. But it does make my heart swell with … something … to have Hollywood validate just how diverse and all-encompassing MS and its symptoms can be.

Party like it's 1999

Today is my 10-year high school reunion.

This is then:


Stay tuned for now.