The Grand Canyon

So it's been awhile since I've blogged. We had H1N1 in our house along with pink eye, strep throat, stomach flu, and colds, all in the last month or so. Nobody has felt like doing anything.

I'm trying to wean Jordan off the pacifier. It's not going so well. I'm open to any and all suggestions please!

Sean had a birthday a few weeks ago. We went and saw "The Invention of Lying." It was hilarious. Go see it.

And I've been thinking about where our family should go on vacation to next year. We had some good vacations when I was a kid. Disney World, Daytona Beach, St. Louis for a week. We had great times. Except for the Grand Canyon. Don't take your kids there. It's really boring and there is nothing to do. Nothing. You just look at the Grand Canyon, which I will admit is beautiful. However after you've seen it for a few minutes, you're done. Granted the first time I went I was 14 and everything is lame at 14. But I went back at 18 with my dad, my brother, and my boyfriend, and it was still boring. The best part of the trip was my dad and my brother arguing over the Double Whopper from Burger King on the way home. Which actually was really funny, but that's another story.

So really I'm thinking it's not a great vacation spot with kids. Our kids like the beach. We'll probably end up somewhere like that again. And to be honest, I can't think of any better vacation than a beach.

An open letter to my daughters

Dear Kayla and Jordan,

Sweethearts, I understand it's really fun to play with telephones. I, too, enjoy pretending to talk to you on the phone. It's a fun activity! However, would it be too much to ask that you stick with the multiple toy telephones we have in the house and not the real phones? Please stop calling 911 and having the police come to our house. I think the first couple of times they were ok with it, but really now I think it's not so funny anymore. Eventually Mommy and Daddy are going to get into trouble. And just how do your little fingers manage to dial the "9-1-1" as soon as you turn the phone on anyway? I'm amazed by that. Please stop playing with the phones and I'll buy you some M&M's.

Love, Mommy

A shocking discovery

The Savoy Wal-mart got new carts, and is remodeling the store to look all fancy and upscale. Well, whatever, it's still Wal-mart, but I appreciate the effort so maybe I don't feel so cheap when I shop there. Anyhoo, so they got rid of all of the old carts and got new ones. I'd say yay to that because the old ones were all worn out and you couldn't hardly find one with a seat that wasn't cracked or with an intact seatbelt for your child to sit in. But the new carts, I don't know what's up with them. Every time I touch them, they shock me. And I can't even like ground myself out by touching something else metal before I touch one, it doesn't work. Yesterday I was walking around the store and I never let go of the handle and it was continually shocking me every few minutes, like it was electrical or something. It kind of hurt my hands after awhile. I'm not a big fan of the new carts.

I'm a bad blogger

So I've really been a bad blogger lately. I guess it's been a busy summer. Work. Call. Working on call. Vacation in Florida for 2 weeks which was amazing! I so badly needed to get away from here for awhile! The weather was great, we got some sun, it was fabulous. And I am pretty sure I ate my weight in fresh seafood. Ok, not that much, but I do love fresh grouper. It's my favorite fish and you can't get it around here anywhere I'm sorry to say. It's expensive, but so tasty!! If you're ever in Florida or somewhere you can get it, I highly recommend it.

Anyway so Kayla started pre-school this week. She likes it, which is good! I was surprised we had no trouble getting her on the bus. And it was kind of nice today going to Walmart with only 1 child. I hardly knew what to do with myself! Now that school is back in I am hoping I might get a little more sleep occasionally! But I don't think I can count on that too much.

I love to hate McDonald's

So I have 3 kids, and obviously we visit McDonald's on a regular basis. I have to admit, the food is pretty tasty. I'm sure it's the addictive chemicals. Whatever the reason, who can resist the fries, right?

But seriously, folks, why oh why can't the service be any better? I mean, I get it. People are working for 8 bucks an hour and you can't live on it. But why can't I ever get what I ordered? Or napkins even? When you order 3 Happy Meals, wouldn't it stand to reason you might have kids?

Today I ran through the drive thru, sort of, for breakfast. I got off work at 7:30 and met Sean and the kids. Normally we would go home for breakfast, but Ryan has a camp at 9 AM all week so by the time we get home he doesn't have time to eat and tyurn around and go back to town. So we're doing Dunkin' Donuts and stuff all week when I'm working. Today we decided on McDonald's. Ryan loves the Bacon, Egg, and Cheese biscuits and the girls love hash browns.

So I pull into the stupid double drive thru, where no matter what, I always pick the wrong lane. I get to the speaker and they say "Hello, hold on a moment" and I said "Ok."

So I sat there, while they took the orders for 5 cars in the other lane. 5!!!! WTF?? So I started calling "Hello? Hello???" and the lady said "I'm sorry for your wait, hold on just a moment please."

Geez!!!

2 more cars order in the other lane so I just pulled out of line and went inside. I didn't want to because I had the kids in the car, but I figured at that rate it would be February before we got breakfast.

So I ordered our food. I order Kayla and Jordan a child size orange drink to share and they gave me a small. They figure right now the drinks are all 89 cents, so they always do that to me. Problem is the cup is too big. I just wanted to get out of there so I didn't try to exchange it.

Went out to my van, gave Ryan and Kayla their drinks, started to hand out hash browns when Kayla dropped her cup and I had 16oz of Hi-C flowing down the center aisle of my van. I grabbed the stack of napkins I got, which I probably wouldn't have had driving thru to clean it up. I sent Ryan in with her cup to refill it halfway, secretly hoping someone would come outside and tell me it wasn't allowed since I got it to go. I cleaned up all the ice and orange drink with the napkins and threw the dirty napkins in the parking lot. I doubt it's the manager or drive thru person who will have to clean it up but I was still mad.

My latest labor & delivery triage call

...went something like this:

Me: "Labor and delivery, this is Kelli."

Caller: "Hi this is Kim*, a patient advisory nurse. I have a patient on the phone who is 23 weeks pregnant and she has a question."

Me: "Ok. I can help you."

Kim: "She stepped on a rusty nail today and now her foot is swelling up."

This is the part where I really wanted to say "Does she have a 23-week fetus coming out of her foot? Because that's what I do. Triaging medical calls is what YOU do. But I thought I'd be polite.

Me: "Is she having any problems pregnancy wise right now?"

Kim: "No, just the swollen foot."

Me: "Ok, then that's an emergency room type of call. She probably needs a tetanus shot. We don't treat that kind of thing up here."

Kim: "Ok, I'll just talk to her then!"

Maybe I should be a little nicer in my head even, but I keep getting stupid calls from patients.

"Hi, I just had sex with my boyfriend. Do you think I could be pregnant?"

"Did you use any form of birth control?"

"No."

"Then yes. But you won't know for a couple of weeks."

That girls sounded like she was about 14.


"Hi, I'm 25 weeks pregnant and I have a pain in my shoulder, like a pulled muscle kind of, but I was wondering if it could possibly be pre-term labor?"

"Do you have any pains in your belly or in your back, or do you have any vaginal bleeding or fluid leaking?"

"No, just my right shoulder, like I said, kind of like I pulled a muscle."

"Ok, you probably pulled a muscle then. Take some Tylenol and put a warm pack on it."

Really, not every injury or illness is related to pregnancy, even if you are actually pregnant. Could you have stepped on a rusty nail not pregnant? Of course! Are you going to visit the labor and delivery unit for treatment? Of course not, you'd go to the ER! So why would you call me now???

All moved!

Well, it's been awhile since an update. We closed on our house june 18 after a very stressful week of not knowing whether we were going to be approved for sure or not. Evidently everyone is jumping on the low interest rates and $8000 tax credit (cha-ching!) like we did and the underwriting department of the mortgage company isn't able to review applications until the day before closing. Ugh. But we finally got it all approved and moved.

Well maybe not all moved in.

We have a 3 car garage and one whole section is filled with boxes. All of the necessities are in the house though, which makes me wonder what I actually NEED out there. We've been living in here just fine. Perhaps I should just get a dumpster and pitch everything. Actually all of our DVD's and books are still out there. I know I am going to want those. And my Cowboys paraphernalia which Sean doesn't know yet but is going to be our bedroom decor. I'm not getting rid of it.

So come on over, see my new house!