Fall Pictures

I've been dying to get outside and snap some fall pictures of Levi before all these beautiful leaves turn brown and today it stopped raining long enough for me to get my chance! Levi was super grouchy all day today but you would never guess it from these pictures. He loved to get outside and crawl all around in these leaves and try to eat them! It was so fun to capture a few of these moments with my expressive little man! And his super blue eyes just melt my heart :)

Love this mischievous little face!

Caught in the act!

May the Force be with you

So my mom recently came up for another visit last week. We are so lucky that she lives (relatively) close and is free to come see us so often! Levi adores her and gets so excited when he sees her. I love that they are developing a close relationship.

Unfortunately, the day that my mom came up, Levi came down with croup. We actually ended up having to take him to the hospital on Wednesday night because he was having a hard time breathing. Thankfully his oxygen saturation was still pretty good so they were able to just give him some oral steroids and send him back home with us. It was a long night, but by morning, the steroids and Tylenol were helping and over the next few days he got slowly better. He still has a bit of a runny nose and cough but not the scary croupy cough anymore.

While my mom was here she volunteered to watch Levi so Eric and I could go out and celebrate my new job! We went to Ruth's Chris and it was absolutely fabulous. Of course the food was amazing: good steak, lobster mac n cheese, harvest salad and cheesecake: can you say yum?! And I just love eating at nice restaurants where the servers always refill your water as soon as it starts to get a little low and yet they don't bother you with always popping over and asking questions. They let you take your time and I just love that leisurely pace of eating, especially since our mealtimes now include a go-go-go little man who LOVES food but wants you to give it to him NOW and can't quite handle a spoon on his own yet. We've started finger foods with him, but he's still getting most of his solids in puree form which means one of us has to feed him. Which is fine, but doesn't exactly make for a relaxing dinner environment! So going out and spoiling ourselves was wonderful.

On Saturday was our ward Halloween party! Our family dressed up as Star Wars characters, inspired by the amazing Holly's perfect gift of little Yoda ears for Levi. I was Rey from The Force Awakens and Eric was Luke from the Degoba scenes carrying the cutest little Yoda ever on his back. Our ward was very enthusiastic and I was super impressed at the percentage of people dressed up! Almost everyone including the adults was in costume! So fun!

He was so happy to be Yoda!

Mom found a cape at Goodwill that she loved and had to get to be a magician. Levi thought her hat was pretty cool too. 

I painted my bedside table (finally- we've only had it unfinished for almost four years!) so you can see Levi playing with the drawer of it here in this picture. 

In other news, I'm kind of getting used to working. Things are still pretty stressful as I am trying to learn the ropes of the facility still, in particular how to work well with the CNAs. We've had some communication issues, disagreements about how certain patients should be transferred and I've been stuck doing some things that shouldn't be part of my job which is frustrating. You wouldn't believe how long it takes to track down a commode that actually has a back or a wheelchair AND leg rests that match it AND a cushion that will fit it when they are all stored in different areas of the facility and none of it is organized! Drives me a little crazy and I haven't even worked a full three weeks yet! But we just got a new Director of Rehab so hopefully she can work with the nursing home staff to get some of these issues taken care of. And I'm sure things will go more smoothly as I learn better where everything is and who to ask about what issues. I feel like it will all work out eventually but the growing pains are uncomfortable! 

Levi regularly crawls under our kitchen chairs and then gets stuck which is very frustrating to him. I have to say, this is how I feel sometimes at the end of a particularly difficult day at work! 

Some good news about work though is that I am finding it easier to meet my productivity standards as I figure things out. And I did have a patient get discharged yesterday who came to the gym before he left to especially thank me and the OT for helping him. That is always so nice, and makes me feel like I'm doing my job right. Also, Eric and I hired a nanny! Yay! so now we don't have to search any more and I feel like she will be a really good fit for our family. So life is good and I am just so grateful for my sweet little family and all the blessings that we have been given.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to work I go!

So I started back at work last week and I've already got some good stories to tell! I'm working in an interesting setting: a skilled nursing facility that unfortunately is one of those places people end up in when nobody knows what else to do with them. I have a lot of patients who were homeless prior to their hospitalization so many of my patients have a... complicated history. Years of mental illness, alcohol and drug abuse and traumatic brain injuries lead to a distinct lack of filters and honestly just some really interesting conversations. It's fun, you never know what they are going to say! Here's a couple gems from the week:

While checking a patient's heart rate and oxygen saturation:

Patient: "Well, you know, my heart always beats faster around you!"

Me: "....... ok." 

One of my Spanish speaking patients had a broken nail and so he asked me to cut it with some scissors. I told him no, but that I would let the nurse know about it so she could help him. Unfortunately my Spanish is out of practice and for some reason the word that came out of my mouth for "nurse" was actually the word for "priest!" So in essence I told my patient that I would let the priest know about his broken nail! And the worst part was that I didn't even realize my error until the next day! No wonder the patient looked so confused! Face palm. 

Anyway, getting back to work has been good. Challenging but good. It's stressful being in a new facility and trying to meet the productivity standards and learn the new documentation system and learn where everything is, and who everyone is and just how the system works there. But I think once I get more settled it will turn out to be a good place for me and the commute is easy and the hours are just right. 

We are still nanny hunting so Eric has been taking care of Levi on the days that I work. This means I get some really awesome father-son pics sent to my phone occasionally throughout the day. Like this one:

With the caption: "I didn't choose the thug life, the thug life chose me" Hahahahaha

When I'm not at work, I am trying to make the most of my time with Levi. Today, we went to the zoo with some of my girl friends and their kiddos. It is so much fun because there are two girls in my ward with babies almost exactly the same age as Levi. It is just so fun to watch the babies interact and see how they are similar and different. And us ladies get along great too so that's just the best. I am really grateful they moved into the ward so we could be friends. 

Levi maybe had more fun watching the people than the animals but that's fine with me since it means I got lots of these cute smiles!

The whole group together. The babies were pretty done by this point and ready to go home for naps!

Also, Eric and I took Levi to Portland's Apple Festival on Saturday and that was a lot of fun! We tried a bazillion different types of apples, learned some random facts about apples (apparently in ancient Greece if a man tossed an apple to a lady it was considered a proposal of marriage and if she caught it it meant she accepted! True? We may never know haha!), and got to meet some cool, very Portland-y vendors selling things like cold-pressed, unpasteurized juices. Also I got to take this very awesome picture: 

Cutest farmer and rooster ever!

I can hardly wait till Levi is old enough to do all of the other fun kids activities they have at places like the apple festival: painting pumpkins, playing with hula hoops, jumping off of hay bales, etc. I know it will come so fast though and I am treasuring this time that my sweet baby is still so little. 

A preview of Levi's Halloween costume! Cutest yoda ever!!!

He has gotten pretty speedy at his army crawling. He loves to go all over the house, tug on any cords he can reach, make "music" by banging on the vents, and coming up to me or Eric and sucking on/blowing raspberries on our feet! 

 

Levi and I love to go to the park together and hang out: sunny day, fall leaves, a good book and my sweet baby make for a perfect afternoon. 

I'm pretty sure he is just the cutest thing that has ever happened. Love my little man!