Ugh. The snowbirds are back.

I need to preface this post with this: Emma is a *good* kid. She'll run her mouth off occasionally and it takes AGES to get her to pick up even a sock off the floor, and she did display a bit (ok, a LOT) of poorly disguised glee when she discovered that her school had asked me for an address to write to Chad in Iraq and it turned out that her STEPSISTER'S CLASS would be writing to HER stepdad, but who doesn't have moments like that? I know that *I* can appreciate the irony in the stepsister thing. The donor and the stepmom are going to LOVE that one!

But of course I'm being nothing but an adult about the whole thing.

*snicker*

Ahem.

But as I was saying, my little spawn is usually a *good* kid. We are enjoying being back in a civilized town, with things like libraries, neighbors that aren't running drug businesses out of their garages, parks and paved roads with more than one lane. Last night we made our way over to a neighborhood park we've been wanting to check out for a while. It's some kind of bird reserve but it seems that a bunch of idiots have released their unwanted cats into the place. Let's think about it. A bird reserve. Add a bunch of feral, starving cats. Yeeeeeah. At this point, it's basically a cat reserve with only the really BIG birds left over. The nature trails are cool, though, so we put Sadie and Winston in the car and headed over.

We're walking through the place when we come across a gaggle of geese. BIG geese. Honky geese. Curious geese who waddle closer to see what we are about. I'm no dummy. I have seen my share of America's Funniest Home Videos and know that big geese like this can have a bit of a 'tude so we just stayed back a few feet and waited for them to cross the path. Sadie is all ears and eyes, and suddenly goes BERSERK, barking and lunging. (Yes, yes, Sadie, you are very intimidating, in all your fifteen-pound glory.) My perfectly well-behaved, dainty little princess of a daughter howls a war whoop, "GET 'EM SADIE!" and goes galloping toward the army of geese, who have now decided to cross the path a little more quickly, and in the opposite direction. I throw a half-hearted "don't chase the geese, Emma" toward their retreating figures but in the throes of battle these things can get ignored. And I'm tired and know that they're not going to catch the birds anyway. We round the little bend in the path and what do we come across? An old guy. With no teeth. An old, ugly fat guy with no top teeth who is FEEDING THE CATS. Who decides that he is full of infinite wisdom for the horrible woman who doesn't discipline her child.

"I don't know if that's a bad way to train your dog, or a bad way to train your kid." he drawls.

Oh really?

I give him a sweet smile and sidle up to him, dragging poor Winston along.

"You feeding the poor little cats?"

He changes his tune and smiles, probably figuring that his words have gone straight to my sweet little feminine heart and that I am trying to rid myself of guilt by being nice. "Yep, if I feed them they won't try and eat the birds anymore."

"Um, are you sure the cats read that memo?"

A look of surprise crosses his face. "Wow, not used to a woman being a smartass." (Really? What age is he living in? He wasn't even being sarcastic! He was genuinely surprised! Well BEHOLD CORINNE. My husband just landed in a war zone today so you may have picked the wrong person to try to share your child-rearing advice with.)

"Yeah, well, it seems a little irresponsible to me, encouraging the cat population out here. Of course, I'm just a woman who lets her kid and dog chase geese, so what do I know?"

I walk away with my trained goose-dog and my rebellious, hellion child in tow and leave the guy standing there holding his cat treats with his mouth hanging open.

Hey, stupid meddling man. I don't need your helpful little hints about kids or dogs. Especially since you probably live in a trailer with your five million cats and have never actually raised a kid yourself. So shut your wrinkly pie-hole and stop trying to tell me how to raise my kid. You decide to be snotty? I'm going to give it right back.

DON'T MESS WITH ARMY WIFE.

Bendy.

Her beautifully executed springboard pike dive would have been judged a ten. Until she got to the landing......

A story about the child who is currently making monster noises in her room instead of doing her homework.

When my friend Jamie and I were in junior high we were famous for doing anything we could to avoid actually *doing* anything in P.E. class. I recall one famous hour spent screaming the song "Three Chartreuse Buzzards" across the Hendrix Junior High tennis courts, much to the obvious auditory pain of our instructor. The day's lesson plan included actually *playing* tennis but we, of course, weren't following directions. (I think we swatted a few balls around but were we learning anything? Doubt it. I still know nothing about tennis.) There were multiple times that she and I were lucky to get our mile "run" (we actually ran as little of that as we could) done in under fifteen minutes. Of course, now Jamie is a marathon whiz and I am cursing my Power family cankles (although KUDOS TO ME I've lost ten pounds in the last month! Hooray deployment stress!), so it would appear that she and I took very different paths on this later in life. (Jamie, YOU ROCK.)

Given this history and my hatred of any kind of physical exertion that doesn't involve a donut on the end of a string, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that the Spawn of My Loins, my mini-me, Corinne version 2.0, had this to say to my mom on the 1.5 mile Walk to Cure Diabetes this past weekend:

"I sure hope they come up with a cure for this disease in the next year. I do NOT want to walk this far again NEXT YEAR."

Again, a testament to my superior parenting skills. And the strength of Power family genes.

Hello long-lost bloggers.

Well now that Emma's away on her own blog, it's back to updates from Corinne!

Chad is currently freezing his arse off on the East Coast but should be making his way to the Middle East sometime this month. I have my good days and my bad days but so far we've done ok on our own. I "single-mommed" it for almost four years before he showed up so I thought it would be just like slipping back into that. WRONG-O! I didn't realize how dependent I'd become on someone else plugging my cell phone into its charger. (So if you try to call me and it immediately goes to voicemail, leave a message and I'll call you back once I 1.) find my phone 2.) plug it in and 3.) remember to check the voicemail feature after it's charged. Please allow 3-5 business days for a return call.) You don't even want to know who was in charge of taking out the garbage before he left and who will now walk to a room on the complete opposite side of the house to throw something away just because all of the garbage cans are full. Dragging it out to that big black plastic thing in the garage? Is that an option? (As if I even KNOW what day garbage day is! HA!)

(Hi honey! I miss you!)

Here are a few things Emma and I have done to keep ourselves busy:

Horseback riding. I started it. I passed out. Guess it's too soon after surgery to bend over and pick a horse's feet out. Emma was in charge of the photos and the camera was misbehaving for her so really all we got was a movie of my backside. (It was later discovered that the camera was on movie mode. I have no idea how to upload that to here. Need I bring up the phone and the garbage?) Not my most flattering side, but neither is my front, depending on my most recent Ho-Ho consumption. Chewy the Haflinger was most patient with me.

Grew some crystals. Mad Scientist Emma was most thrilled.




































(Thanks Afton, for the kit!) These are not the Crystal Meth kind. But since we're on that topic here's a fun photo for you: (You'll have to click on this one.)

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=2722398&l=bc3fdadffd&id=624267667

I've said it before and here it is again: I'm the best parent ever. (Might this explain why Karma wouldn't let our in-vitro work last year?)

(It's root beer, for all of you violently nodding your heads "yes" in response to that. A pox on your households.)

Oh yeah, and we moved. We're closer in to town. (And dairy farm stink.) It stressed me out. It's still stressing me out, since this house is bigger than our old one and I feel like I need to fill it up with furniture. We're renting while Chad is away and we sold our other house. (I miss my roses. But I'll have MORE roses in the next house dammit.) The plan is to buy one closer to civilization when he gets back. I desperately needed to be closer to friends, family and work while he's gone and now that I live back in my old hood I remember how much I loved it. I'm not leaving again.

Emma and I also went to the zoo today:

(Spot the otter!)

Goats can be such jerks.

One more thing: I'm finding that my reserve of patience for whiners is relatively thin. I'm trying hard to take deep breaths but my rude side is coming out more often and I'm much more blunt in the wake of this deployment. And that's not because *I'm* whining less - quite the contrary! I'm a little (translation: HUGE) pain and I know it. I'd apologize but if we're being all honest and crap I'll admit that I don't really feel sad about it because I feel entitled to some negative right now. And I'll have my whine with a big dollop of whipped cream and a cherry on top so that I can truly savor it. In a year I won't have much of an excuse so if you'll just agree with everything I say and pat me on the head I would appreciate your indulgence.

Me!

Dear readers,

Hey, I am actually writing on the blog for once.Emma.Yeah, I know that I never write on here.So I am going to make my share of the blog.Fourth grade is so hard!I am so bored right now because I have to wait for about two hours just to make horse cookies.Today I am sad because Dad has left.Blue is my favorite color.We still have three dogs, two fish,three birds, and a turtle.I love to ride horses and my wish is to have one.Well,I am only nine so this much writing is making my fingers hurt.So I will be back............dun dun dun.......

From,
Emma

How to be a model nurse.

Another essay by Corinne. (I'm on a roll, what can I say?)

Worked a twelve last night in the ICU part of the NICU. Critical kids all night long. I'm exhausted. BUT. Emma spent the night at her dad's house last night, and today is picture day at school. I'm not really going to take my chances that her hair and everything else will be completely ignored. SO. I made a deal with Dad that he would drop the Memma off at my house on his way to work so that I could get her ready for school pictures. She'd be late but hey guess what? Today we are working on the premise that beauty is more important that grades. Because not only am I the best nurse ever, I am also the world's best mother.

So I throw the kid in the tub, blowdry her hair (The kid has the prettiest hair!), put her in a DRESS (Cue lots of whining from Emma about having to wear a dress. I pull the "when I was a kid I had to wear a dress to church every Sunday for FOUR HOURS SOMETIMES MORE SO SHUT IT LUCKY CHILD" card. She doesn't care. Whining continues.) and get the kid in the car.

We're finally on the road. I've been up for nineteen hours now. I'm tired and any caffeine I ingested earlier in the morning has completely worn off. I'm a little grumpy over the fact that when dad dropped her off at my house he hadn't signed the homework that he watched her do yesterday or even packed her a lunch. I'm driving, singing along with Michael Jackson with Emma but secretly plotting a way to get him audited by the IRS. (Just kidding. Mostly.)

Driving, driving, driving. (We've moved so it's a bit of a haul to Emma's school now.) Look, a Haflinger! Look, cows! Oh look, a car crashed into a pole with a few guys standing around it.

Crap.

I have driven past accidents before. Yeah, yeah, I'm medically trained. I should stop to see if everyone is alright. I have a moral obligation to society to make sure that there's not someone bleeding out. But realistically, I have shit to DO peoples. I can't be everyones Superman, er....woman. And let's face it, unless you weigh less than twelve pounds there's a good chance I won't know what to do with you.

So I roll down the window at the red light.

"I'm a nurse. Everyone ok?"

Gawking Construction Worker Number One explains that there is a woman in the car who seems to have had a seizure and hit a few cars but that's she ok. She's sitting in the driver's seat looking confused but not bleeding. They can't find the cars that she hit. (What the....?) I appropriately grimace.

The light turns green.

There's a semi gunning his engine behind me.

So what do I do?

I do what any Nurse with compassion would do. A nurse who has been trained to always put the needs of others above her own. I do what a nurse who is now running on physical and emotional fumes would do with a nine year-old complaining about her tights in the backseat.

I yell "Good Luck!" out the window and drive away.

And THAT, my friends, is how to live up to all of your nursing instructors' expectations of you and leave a very confused Gawking Construction Worker in the dust.

A short essay in torture. (Or for those googling, WHAT TO EXPECT AFTER SINUS SURGERY.)

By Corinne.

Last week I had sinus surgery. It was a run-of-the-mill sinus surgery, according to my ENT (who, despite all of my ranting here, is really an AMAZING doctor and a very nice man). Lots of people have fungal tumors and chunks of staph infection in their noses, who knew? (Yes yes, EEW. YOU try living with it!) We drove to Scottsdale at 4:00 in the morning. I changed into the paper gown and some hawt purple footies, donned a set of those inflatable anti-embolism pump calf-warmers, was versed-ed, whisked off to the OR and my sinuses chopped up and sucked out under general anesthesia. I liked not being awake for the 90 minute procedure. It was nice. I do sort of recall trying to push the gas mask off my face at the beginning and tell the doctor something which I thought was of great importance, but they promptly placed it back on my face. I don't remember what exactly I was trying to convey but I have a suspicion that it probably wasn't as vital as I thought it was at the time.

Woke up in a puddle. Told the nurse I thought I had wet the bed. Apparently I had 2 liters of fluid during the procedure and my traitorous bladder decided it was going to throw in the towel. (The nurse says I sneezed.) Oh well, I was still pretty groggy and didn't really care. I'm sure it happens all the time, right? (RIGHT?!) Was driven home by Chad.

The post-op instructions: Don't make any life-altering decisions. Don't drive. Take pain meds. Drink fluids. Don't touch your stitches. (Which would have been difficult considering I didn't have any to begin with.) Start sinus washes on Monday. Monday rolled around. As I am still liberally enjoying my Percocet and am unable to drive, Chad picks up something benignly labeled a Neti Pot at the local Walgreen's. Developed by physician Diane Heatley! The Sinus Expert! Safe and Immediate Sinus Relief! Patent Pending!

Diane Heatley is the DEVIL.

Whoever thought it would be a good idea to slather SURGICAL WOUNDS WITH SALT WATER WAS SMOKING CRACK. Medical board people are you listening? Please take away this woman's license. And you patent people? Don't even THINK about approving that one.

So there's THAT.

My doctor called a few days later to see how I was doing (I told you he was a good guy - wait, you didn't read that. I'm still mad at him.) and I explained that I am really dizzy and in quite a bit of pain still. He was surprised, since I should be feeling better by this point. Maybe I have a clot. Come in Thursday and he'll "take care of it".

Yesterday morning I went to the ER for dizziness and pain. It took those morons TEN STICKS to get a freakin' IV in my arm. After the third stick I was demanding that a NICU nurse be snagged from upstairs but they wouldn't listen. Ended up in tears on the CT scanner with two people hovering over me trying to get a needle in for contrast to be injected. Once they GOT the IV my nurse nearly air-embolused me when she forgot to clear the line, hooked me up to it and let it rip. Had a freakin' anxiety attack over my really STUPID near-death experience as I snagged the IV and disconnected it quickly. At least after all of this I got some morphine. (I probably didn't need anything as strong as morphine but if I'm GOING TO BE STUCK TEN TIMES AND THEN NEARLY DIE I MIGHT AS WELL GET SOMETHING GOOD OUT OF IT DAMMIT.) CT came back with some inflammation, perhaps some infection. Bloodwork had high white blood cells and my blood sugar was sky-high, but I'm also on prednisone so who knows what's really going on. (Note: On this drug you will have an insatiable appetite for Ho-Hos but your pancreas doesn't have a good working relationship with prednisone. This will make you want to eat MORE Ho-Hos. You will feel WONDERFUL as your blood sugar climbs to mountainous levels. I'm being sarcastic.) My ENT was called and since I had heavy staph growth on one of my post-op cultures some IV antibiotics were infused into the tenth hole in my arm. After all of this the nurse who took out my IV (and incidentally the one who actually got the thing IN in the first place) decided to joke not to drink too much water or it would all come out of the needle punctures in my body.

Everybody's a comedian.

So TODAY! Today I'm feeling a THOUSAND times better. And here I'm really not being sarcastic. I think the antibiotics did the trick. Aaaaand the morphine couldn't have hurt. Dr. Hurley wanted to see me again in his office for a debridement. Oh. Uh-huh. All you medical people reading this? You know what that means. All you non-medical people, this is the definition of debridement: the doctor is going to SCRUB OFF THE LAYER OF HEALED CELLS YOUR BODY HAS WORKED SO HARD TO MAKE THE LAST WEEK TO REVEAL A FRESH, RAW LAYER OF CELLS UNDERNEATH. Oh and when you have sinus surgery? He's going to do that with forceps and a suction catheter UP YOUR SCHNOZZ after spraying lidocaine up your nose with a pressure hose. (Lidocaine tastes like POO by the way.) With a freakin' camera. He's going to VIOLATE YOUR NASAL PASSAGES WITH A CAMERA AND SCRUB THE HELL OUT OF YOUR SURGICAL SITE.

And then afterward you don't even get a sticker.

And that is why I am mad at my ENT right now.

Even though he really IS a good doctor.

Nurses really do make the worst patients.

And now if you'll excuse me I have a post-debridement Friday night date with two Percocets.