The letter I've been waiting for!

Well… The letter I've been waiting for from TCC today. I was not accepted. Point blank. I was a little nervous that I wouldn't get accepted based on the points I lacked even though I had a 4.0. The councilor I had talked to prior to even enrolling into the program told me I would be accepted as long as I got A's in the three classes last semester; so my hopes got really high. Because she had told me that, I was retarded and didn't apply to any other schools. Therefore I screwed myself.

I'm very very frustrated. BUT I need to just keep going. I'm not sure what my next step is going to be so I will keep everyone updated. We shall see what happens. Obviously, it was not meant to be; I just need to keep my head held hi! Thank you Brandon for being my shoulder! I love you!

Graysen's First ER trip

Just a quick update on Graysen! She IS doing okay!

Last night before I put her down I took her temperature. It was 103.2 but that is with the thermometer that rolls across the forehead; which I’ve been told is not the most accurate. But it gives you what you need to know, fever or not. So I gave her some Tylenol and put her down. That day she had been warm but I didn’t think much of it.. she’s been chewing on her fingers and drooling more than usual so my first instinct is teeth. Also she wasn’t eating much yesterday, and ate hardly anything for dinner (and it was even French fries and chicken!!) At midnight she woke up crying, it had been four hours so I went ahead and gave her more Tylenol, I didn’t give her Motrin because she has to take it with milk and she wasn’t drinking anything so I didn’t even try. She woke up again at three and didn’t even want me to touch her, she kept saying “owe, owe, me hot momma”. Sure enough she felt even hotter, but it hadn’t been four hours yet so I didn’t want to give her more medicine. I took her temperature and I had her at 104.4. So of course me… I wake Brandon up and tell him I’m going to take her to the ER.. I’d rather be safe than sorry and if her fever is STILL going UP while taking Tylenol then there could be something wrong, and I don’t like to chance anything.

First of all I wanted to smack the receptionist. He says “well her fever obviously went up because the Tylenol wore off, you just give her more..” FIRST OFF SIR…. I’m not going to CHANCE OD’ing my child because I THINK the reason for the increase of the fever is that the Tylenol wore off, when it’s still an hour away from giving her another dose according to the least amount of hours between doses. Don’t make me feel stupid for bringing in my child just to MAKE SURE everything is okay. Grrr.. (okay vented, thanks!)

Anyway they took a rectal temperature and she was at 104.1 there, so obviously mine at home isn’t THAT far off! They tried to give her more Tylenol but she threw up most of it. After a chest X-ray and a urine sample from a catheter, she does not have pneumonia (that was an obvious no) or a UTI. Therefore they suggest that she has a virus. Something has been going around this area with kids so they said to just watch her and try to keep the fever down as much as I can. I asked about teeth and they said it could be a factor but not for all of it. Therefore we just need to sit around and hope it doesn’t get worse!

When we left the hospital her fever had dropped to 101.4 which is much better, the fever is going the right way, DOWN! We are home now and she seems to be doing fine! I’m going to try and get more medicine in her in a little bit and see if she will lay down for an early nap, but otherwise it was a long night in the ER, just to make sure she was okay!

Life is all about DECISIONS!

It’s mid-June, I can’t believe it! This makes it time for some decision making. Maybe if I explain them I can get some open input *hint*!

Basically I’m not sure if I will get into the nursing program or not. Therefore I have to have a few plans in order on what I’m going to do. If I do get into the Nursing program it will start January 2012 and I will be pretty much full time during the day because they do not do night classes. I have looked into day care here and it’s pretty pricey. I looked into a school La Petite Academy although they are just as pricey she would be getting a school environment and education with “day care”.  They honestly aren’t much more than just putting her in someone’s home day care but a lot less lenient on schedules.

My dilemma begins here: For the fall I was thinking about going to school full time. That way I can get some pre-reqs done that will go toward my bachelors. The nursing program is an Associate program but there are hardly any places accepting just associate degrees so I already KNOW I need to get my bachelors. Therefore the sooner I work on those classes the sooner I could get into the transfer program from an ASN to a BSN and get a good job. Some people keep telling me that I should have JUST gone for my BSN instead of hassling with the ASN… BUT my reason for doing it this way is because any school will take my ASN and I can do their transfer program, because we are military and we can always get moved I could be close to a bachelors but then chance another school not taking my credits, and have to start over. If I have that stepping stone, the ASN then like I said anyone will take that because it’s already a degree. If I go full time in the fall then I would only have to take one additional pre-req during my nursing school semesters to be able to finish the associate program with only one or two classes left before being able to apply to the transfer program. So kicking my butt this fall would really benefit me.

On the other hand if I do get into the nursing program next spring, we are going to be stressed out with trying to keep Graysen in day care. I do not want to have to dig out of savings to get her through day care. So my other option this fall is to take my minimum classes, I do only need one for the nursing program, and I could take one more to just hold my financial aid, and then get a job. That money can be put toward at least one semester of day care to help out.

 Either way both choices are going to kick my butt. Being full time in school, or going to school and have a job, along with Graysen all day. But what one is worth doing. Job would create less stress, but full time in school would move my school along a little faster!

I basically need to figure it out within the next two weeks. Hopefully I’ll find out about the nursing program by July, but I have to sign up for classes July 5^th. Of course I can always drop classes if I decide not to do the full time thing, but I’d like to figure it out and stick with it! Any suggestions?

NOT a healthy little girl....

Well, for some of you that have read my updates on Facebook I’ve mentioned more than enough times on how Graysen has been, is, or is getting sick! Since we moved to VA it’s been one thing after another. Because of the cold weather here we got more flu-like colds during the winter time, and now we are dealing with the worst! I haven’t had the greatest luck with Doctors, but that just seems to be my luck when it comes to Tricare!

Graysen’s Primary care doctor is not…. Very nice! She is an older Asian lady and is just flat out rude, and not only to me but to Graysen. Graysen screams and cries the second the lady comes into the room, and all she does is try to shove something in to hands (to entertain her like she’s 6 months) and tell me, Uhg… she’s crying AGAIN! So as you can tell, I just haven’t been happy with her from the beginning.

At the beginning of March Graysen had been sick for the 2^nd time with this really nasty cough, hack, runny nose equaling to be no sleep and little eat. Since she got it within weeks after the first time I went ahead and took her to the doctor. This lady basically laid it down like this: She has allergies you waste your time coming; it the pollen in the air, make her sick (Remember.. Asian.. English isn’t the greatest)… Here some medicine she take that. And that was it! So we took the meds and left.. they haven’t worked.

Since that doctor appointment Graysen has been sick like that three times and then now. Each time takes her about 6-7 days to get over, and we noticed she’ll really get sick when we travel to new places. That is about 6 times of getting sick within 3 months! So I decided to get her into the doctor again to see if I could get more answers, and at least feel like I’m doing all I can to help her.

Today we got a Nurse Practitioner who was really really nice, and wonderful with Graysen. Sometimes I like them better then Doctors, they have less of the attitude of I “know it all”. Well most anyway. She did confirm that it was allergy related, although you can really test for allergies until they are over the age of 2.. and really why would you want to do that to her! They can narrow it down to dust mites, pollen, dogs… everything but like she said we can’t keep her in a bubble. Now if it were the dog I’d like to know then we can get rid of the dog (I wouldn’t mind either), but I doubt it’s the dog since we did get the dog at the end of summer last year and she’s been just fine with her all Winter. I let her know that the meds they gave us last time didn’t work so I started her on Allegra the yesterday morning and last night was the first night in 4 days that she actually slept, and she was feeling much better today, therefore it seemed to be working. Although I wasn’t too sure how she’d act since Allegra isn’t intended for 2 and under, but she’s almost there, I had just cut the dose down! J she didn’t seem to mind.

I’ve also heard a few parents say that they keep their children on allergy meds from March til’ September. Straight, they don’t stop. To me that just doesn’t sound good for a baby. What are you doing for their immune system by babying it THAT much. So that was another question we brought up. She said we could do it as much as we chose but really should just give to her as soon as we see the runny nose or a cough appear. So that’s what we’ll do!

As far as her throwing her milk up when she’s sick she had mentioned something that I’ve always known but was told I was WRONG by a doctor in Hawaii. Remember when we were little and we were sick our parents wouldn’t let us drink milk because it would upset your tummy..? Well mine did that.. and I carried that on with Graysen. When she was younger 6 months I think she had gotten really sick and anytime she drank milk she’d just throw it up, and so I had slowed her down on the milk for a little while since she was already eating plenty of Gerber food at that time, so instead of milk I was giving her yogert, well the doctor in Hawaii basically told me I was stupid, she STRIVES for her milk, and that milk doesn’t do anything to a child when they are sick and it doesn’t induce throwing up it’s just a Myth… SO I’ve never taken her off milk just because she was sick, EVEN though she’d throw it up all over me! Well the lady today did say that milk DOES thicken the flim in your throat which WILL cause a child or even adult to throw up! WHY do doctors INSIST on making everyone believe they are right, when they probably don’t even know.. or haven’t even researched that thing before just determining whatever he/she thinks is RIGHT! GRR

That’s my rant! Sometimes I don’t even know WHY I want to be a nurse when I can’t even stand half the Doctors I’ve come into contact with in my entire life! Well… Enough said Graysen is feeling better today. We are going to just keep up with the medicine and see where it goes from here!

As far as little miss herself she is doing great! I had updated a bit already but a few others things she has been doing is practicing her “attitude” in the mirror. Yes, you read that right! She will Yell NO to herself in the mirror and cross her arms and turn to the side.. and she will practice this over and over, along with kissing herself multiple times. Driving to the Doctor today Graysen tells me everything she sees; Momma Dog! Momma Trees! Momma Water! Then when I tell her things like all that water is called a Lake, she says.. Lake.. Water.. Lake.. Water… Momma Water! Haha She has names for all of her cartoons, and she can sing to almost every song, even if it’s mumbling it (she has the tune right!). She loves listening to country music, she tries to sing with it and she laughs at the lyrics. It is fun having little conversations with her!

As far as the house goes we picked a very good company! They were supposed to start on the roof today but they ended up starting yesterday and finishing today because it’s supposed to rain this weekend. They also got our front porch done. So there are just a few things we have to get done. I also opt out of paying anyone to do the painting and such so I need to get my butt in gear. I will have to paint Graysen’ s Ceiling because of the water stains and now I have to a paint the porch, and well probably all of the exterior or the house now. Slowly but surely we are getting it put together!!!

That’s all for now!!!

Finally!! June Post

Here I am! As I’ve been told or reminded, by a few people I am slacking on the blog J!!

As most know our landscaping was going great. We finally got the flower beds done, the hanging baskets up and our new fence put in place. Then we had a nice little storm. The top of our neighbor’s tree landed in our front yard on top of everything and taking out part of our front porch! Five tree limbs went through the roof and two little limbs came through our ceiling. Graysen and I were perfectly fine, a little freaked out but it could have been way worse! Our neighbors around us have been so wonderful and some have helped us get things back in order. Other than our deck, roof and a few flower everything looks fine.

Graysen is getting bigger and bigger every day (no duh right!). She’s starting to speak 3-4 words in a sentence. “Momma play night night please” She loves to act like she is tucking us in and reading us a book! “No dog bite me” The dog and her sure do love each other! She will sit and watch an entire movie, she LOVES Bambi and Curious George right now. Therefore I’m going to try and take her to the movies here soon. She still loves going to Gymboree, and we’ve gotten really close to Johnny. His mom and I get along great and it’s nice to FINALLY have a friend here. She is throwing a bit more fits, but is starting to calm down a little easier when I can get her to actually speak what she wants rather than cry. She LOVES helping around the house, trying to sweet, vacuum, carry in groceries, pick up her toys, do laundry, do dishes and even scrub the toilets!  She doesn’t seem to love the swimming pool but she can’t get enough of the sprinkler and tries to “help” water plants every chance she gets! Her bed is now a toddler bed, no more crib, and her bed time has been set back an hour… Not sure I can take much more change!

School is going great as far as summer goes. I just have two classes and ended up taking one on-line. Although the on-line class is requiring a service learning project which means I need to volunteer 15 hours. A friend of ours works for Planned Parenthood and has helped me out by letting me Volunteer over there. So a few of my summer Saturdays are going to be spent doing that. I still should find out about the Nursing program in July, I really can’t wait and want this month to speed by!! Wish me luck everyone!

I have booked a ticket to MO and CO in August. I’m really excited. I plan on seeing my Grams and cousin Jayson and I haven’t seen either of them in a VERY long time. Excited for them to meet both Brandon and Graysen. Then hopefully we will get to see a few people in Colorado. That’s always a hard one. We have so many people to see and never enough time! We shall see how it goes!

I could write a TON more, but I don’t want to keep it going to be too long. Hopefully I can get on here and write more often!!! Happy SUMMER!