An earthling has landed.

I was up at 4am to meet Jeanette at the hospital at 5. She got there, was given pitocin, and had her water broken. She had an epidural around 10, and we slept for awhile. The whole labor was pretty uneventful until the baby started having variable decelerations in her heart rate. At that time Jeanette was dilated to 8, and they turned down the pitocin and turned her on her side. The heart rate kept dropping, but by the time they checked her again she was at a ten and ready to push.


She pushed twice and they decided to use the vacuum to get the baby out since her heart rate was still kinda crazy. It was still relatively calm, and Jeanette started pushing while the vacuum was applied. All of a sudden there was a piercing sound from the machine, and the baby's heart rate just stopped. The doctor started screaming that the baby was stuck, to push harder, and for someone to call a code. 6 people came running in and a woman junped on top of Jeanette and started pushing down HARD on her stomach. Everyone was yelling, Jeanette was screaming and crying, and the doctor was standing up and PULLING, trying to get Mariah out. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, she popped out (without needing to break her collarbone). She was the darkest shade of blue I've ever seen. Fortunately her heart came back on it's own and she started screaming a few moments later. She's been fine ever since.

It was terrifying for sure. At the time, I wasn't panicking, just helping pull her legs back and push on her stomach. But afterwards it was like a truck hit me and I couldn't stop crying.

Anyway, here she is in all her glory, after giving the world hell without even being completely born yet.
(and yes, that star was edited in on the computer...something about putting naked babies on the internet seems weird).

Poops Ahoy!

I had Thing One and Thing Two (trust me, after this story you will understand why Dean and Ava deserve these names) in the tub the other night and I shut the curtain so they could splash and not get water everywhere. I walked into the other room to get Thing Two's jammies, and was listening through the wall so, you know, I would know if they drowned or whatever. I hear Thing One start screaming, "Aweesha! Aweesha!" and I run in there, thinking Thing Two had smacked his massive melon head on something. I fling open the curtain and Thing One yells "Dean pooped in the bath!". I look, and sure enough, there are tons of little presents floating around in the water, Thing Two sitting there chewing on a rubber duck and grinning like nothing happened. Thing One tells me she'd been playing in there for awhile, thinking the poop was pieces of her bathtub crayons (wow this kid eats WAY too much broccoli if his poop looks like green crayon). So I got paid to clean up poop. And guess what? I'm graduating in 4 months so I can get paid to clean up more poop! Along with other gross things.

Today was my first day back, and we were supposed to have our nursing "forum", which is just an hour long thing in the auditorium with the entire nursing school listening to the administration blab about how wonderful our school is despite the fact that we'll be in debt the rest of our lives from the insane tuition. We did, and it was boring. Now I don't have to go back till Thursday, which is weird because we're supposed to have Mondays and Fridays off for homework, then clinicals Tuesdays and class all day Wednesdays and Thursdays. But hey, I'm not complaining. I was only at school an hour and I'm already tired.

Maliha's mom is being induced tomorrow morning at 5 am! So I get to get up at 3:30 in the morning, drop Maliha off at daycare, and head to the hospital. Baby Mariah should be here sometime tomorrow, and it'll be exciting to actually help deliver a baby of someone I know! I'm pretty excited. I'll update in a day or two with pictures and a (hopefully) awesome birth story.

It's gone.

It turned 2008. And then, like that, it's over.

In 2008, I....

-Moved. Again.
-Started my second year of nursing school.
-Was robbed.
-Was broke.
-Was scared.
-Was brave.
-Made promises.
-Broke promises.
-Kept promises.
-Realized who my real friends are.
-Watched people die.
-Watched people be born.
-Had my 23rd birthday.
-Watched Ava step fearlessly out in the world to start preschool.
-Helped Dean maneuver through the first hard year of being on this Earth.
-Hugged my dog about a million times.
-Visited my grandma.
-Cried because I can't visit more.
-Re-fell in love with my family.
-Re-fell in love with "my kiddos"
-Re-fell in love with my life.

One for each night, they spread a sweet light, to remind us....

...that anything is awesome if fire is involved.

So we did the first night of Hanukkah the other night because Ava is learning about other cultures. Well, we did a lot of things actually. We ate dinner, read the Hanukkah story, made chocolate chip cookies, make cookies for the dogs, put a Christmas record on the record player and took a bath while listening and played dreidel in the tub. I'll be darned if this kid isn't multi-cultured.

This year she could light the candles all by herself, so she was very proud. I know only one candle should be lit but hey, we figured we'd take her candle lighting skills and run with it and light all 8 for kicks.










And of course, my favorite. The look of sheer terror. Maybe at the thought of a big fat guy in a red suit sneaking into the house at night?

I am definitely in the wrong industry.

Ava: "Okay Aweesha, we're going to play that I'm the mommy and you're the kid and I'm going to tell you I'm going to work and you're going to ask me if you can come. "

Me: "Sounds good, Ava."

Ava: "Okayyy...I'm going to work now, kid..."

Me: "Can I come, mommy?"

Ava: "Sure!"

Me: "What do you do at work mommy?"

Ava: "I go to where the jellybeans are, to look at them and make sure the jellybeans are all okay."

Me: "That's what you do for work?"

Ava: "Yes!"

Me: "You are a jellybean caretaker?"

Ava: "Yes! And you can come. And I put them all in a box and then there is paper and I take the paper off and I am very careful and then I put them back and then I make sure they are okay and then I can eat them. And then we jump! Jump, jump!"

Me: "And that's what you do at work?"

Ava: "That's what I do at work."

The party's over
A record skipping
It's the same song repeating
Grows more grating with each passing second...
And the walls contain a resonation, laughter, and conversation.
It was fun while it lasted, but now we should be going.
I hope everybody had a real good time
The hospitality's partaken, my head is flying, my heart's racing to keep up.


I start realizing
all this living is just dying
and if these are my friends, if this is my home,
if this is how I spend my nights, how I communicate, and demonstrate a love of life.
My eyes roll into the back of my head to sleep, if these are the last words that I ever said
I love my friends.