I’m taking this communications class and I have to write a paper of course, actually it’s more of a presentation. Part one is the written part and Part two I need to video myself giving said presentation. Part one is all well and good except for me citing my references. I’m ready to scream to be honest. I’ve quoted, I’ve cited, I’ve listed my references…still wrong. I’ve tried a couple of websites; I’ve copied and pasted their version of how my references are to be written…there’s still something wrong. Ever get the feeling you’re beating your head against a dead end wall?

The style of paper is APA. Common enough and definitely frustrating enough. Ok so I took a brake and found yet another website citation generator, I have to pay to get the good stuff but it seems worth it. I understand the purpose of citing references and that plagiarism is very serious. But why all the different styles?? There should be one way to do references and that’s it! My words and vent for the day.

A few weeks ago Tommy and I cleared out these closets in our basement. It was mostly papers, bank statements, Thomas’ old evaluations and IEP’s. Some tax returns from1994! Omg, back when we were first married and I paid the bills I didn’t know what to save, what to throw out so I kept everything… It was great to do the clean out and shred papers we have no use for anymore. Thomas’ old papers were the most satisfying to say good bye to, since those years were so tough to get through.

Yesterday I was down the basement and noticed a piece of furniture that was my inlaw’s. It’s a dry sink that my husband’s grandmother bought for my mother in law oh so many years ago. I’m staring at this piece and I had a great idea. Put it in the front of my living room where I currently have a small table holding all my indoor plants! I measured the space and the dry sink and all was a go. Tommy and I moved it yesterday and it looks perfect there.

There was a catch though, there was “stuff” in the cabinet part of the dry sink…more cleaning out. But it wasn’t too bad thank God. I did find some really cute artwork from when Alyssa was in 2nd grade. I’m so glad I kept certain things during my “keeping everything” period of time. When we cleared out the basement closets we found a lot of pictures. Tommy and I when we were on our honeymoon, the kids when they were so young. These pics were from back in the day when you had film developed and God forbid you didn’t order double copies because someone always wanted a couple of your pictures. Just when you think you’re finished clearing out and rearranging something else comes up.

This past summer I spent a lot of time taking lessons to learn to ride a motorcycle. I took private lessons as well as a 2 day class where at the end of the 2 days you take a road test. If you pass the road test the teaching company gives you a waiver to present to the DMV and you receive your motorcycle license; an “M” on your drivers license that stands for motorcycle. I was so, so excited to pass the road test and get my motorcycle license. It was a long road for me to get there. I had a favorite instructor named Rick who was just awesome, very patient and he wouldn’t let me get frustrated with myself. He had a style of teaching that just got through to me. I was so happy when I found out Rick would be teaching me when the road test came about.

It’s not as easy to ride as I originally thought it would be. I figured I’d just learn real quick, take the road test and be on my merry way. Not so fast…for me anyway. I’m glad I did it though. I don’t have a bucket list per se, but getting my motorcycle license was a definite must do/bucket list check off for me.

My next challenge is completing my bachelor’s degree in nursing. I’ve written that years ago I pretty much sworn off being a nurse. I started my career in a hospital, hated it and honestly thought there wasn’t much else to do work wise. I had Thomas and the girls and life just went the way it did. At one point I worked for as an office nurse for a physician who was a pediatric pulmonologist/allergist. My primary function was to give allergy shots, perform allergy skin testing and perform pulmonary function testing. It was a nice enough job but I was terribly underpaid (office nurses most times make horrible money) and I knew it wasn’t something I wanted to do for more than the 3 years I was there.

When I was hired by the Dept of Ed and began working at my school I truly discovered my calling in nursing. I love my job. I enjoy the students I’m entrusted to provide care for and I enjoy my co workers. Hungerford has the best teachers, paras and therapists ever! I could go on and on but I won’t…but seriously the staff I work with are trustworthy and will always let me know if a student isn’t acting like themselves and/or will recognize and time a seizure so quickly which only enhances me doing my job.

So me loving my job only makes me want to further my knowledge of nursing hence being enrolled in a bachelors program. My end goal is to complete my masters degree. After that I have no idea. The more education you have the more doors open up and more opportunities arise. I have no desire to leave my school or to leave school nursing. When I’m asked what degree I’m studying for the first thing the person who asked assumes is that I’m looking to leave my job. Not so, not at all. I want to be able to be better at my job. To learn advanced skills and assessments and continue to serve my students. I’m off to work at my last class of the semester. It’s a communications class and should be interesting.

It’s the middle of May and we’re still in quarantine. I’m not entirely sure what the plan is for us in the NYC area as I don’t watch the news all that often. My mom, my girls and Tommy usually keep me updated on current events and the governor’s and mayor’s latest stance. I also, as embarrassing as this sounds get a lot of news information from Facebook and social media when friends post news articles and/or links to broadcasts. It works for me.

This past Sunday was Mother’s Day and my family was awesome! I didn’t cook. We had my mom and family over, we ate outside; the weather was gorgeous and we were able to maintain social distance. It was a great Mother’s Day. My kids gave me the sweetest, most heartfelt cards. I feel very fortunate and blessed. Later in the day we called Thomas so we could come over and see him. Of course we brought Wendy’s cheeseburgers and he was happy.

I’m at the very end of my health assessment class towards my bachelor’s degree. I have to perform a head to toe assessment on an adult age 18 and over on video and submit it to my professor. I completed one video and was told to do over certain parts. I was so bummed man. Thankfully my “patient,” Alyssa is very patient and doesn’t mind doing it again. My mistakes weren’t horrendous thank God. I spoke to the instructor and she clarified things so I feel I’m on the right track. After the Assessment class I am taking a Communications class. I’m looking forward to something different. When all is said and done at the end of this semester; June 30, I’ll have completed 12 credits. I hope beyond hope to be completed with the bachelor’s next year. I plan on continuing for my Master’s.

I used to think a Master’s degree was out of my reach academically. But the more I thought about not the more I realized I was talking myself out of it. I don’t know what I plan on doing once I have the Master’s. It seems so far in the future. I really enjoy my job as a school nurse for special education and medically fragile students. I can’t wait to get back to school. I call my parents on the phone to check up on them and the student, it’s great to talk to them and for the most part everyone is doing well thank God. I miss work, I miss the kids I take care of and I miss the staff like crazy!

Hopefully the quarantine will be over soon.

This weekend we will celebrate Mother’s Day. In the midst of this quarantine and time of social distancing. It will be different than celebrations and get togethers of past, but it’s still Mother’s Day.

I’m fortunate that I have my mother in my life. We are close, we’ve always been close and I’m thankful for that. We haven’t always seen eye to eye and nothing is perfect but we always seem to overcome our differences and maintain our close relationship. I’m very thankful for my mom.

Most everyone knows I have 4 children. Thomas our oldest who is special needs and three younger girls; Alyssa, Lelly, (Daniella) and Samantha. I like my kids; I mean I love them of course but I also like them. I enjoy spending time with them. Recently my girls have been asking me if I was unhappy or “miserable” when they were all younger and life was more chaotic and did I complain about them?

I answered that yes when everyone was younger life was a bit crazy. We had no idea what was going on with Thomas. I was trying to raise him; a boy with special needs without much needed help from the “professionals” we were consulting with, while trying my best to raise neuro-typical girls in the same environment. Life was not easy. I remember being very frustrated as Thomas’ mother and as the girls’ mother being very grateful that that were typical girls.

I don’t remember complaining about my kids when they were younger or maybe I don’t want to think I did? Was it fun back then? Sometimes, it was not a terrible time of my life. Did I yell a lot? Absolutely, yes I was a yeller and so were many of my friends and neighbors much to my relief at the time. Was I miserable as my kids ask me now? No, I don’t think I was miserable.

Thanks to a very recent conversation with my best friend who was my sounding board when our kids were young; Jenn doesn’t remember me complaining about my children when they were younger. She does remember me being very overwhelmed with Thomas and his issues. Jenn also said something interesting, ” Menay, they won’t understand you until *they* have kids…it wasn’t until I had my girls did I truly understand my own mother.” Jenn is right. Motherhood isn’t something you can describe to someone without sounding dramatic, or overzealous, or even miserable. Like most life experiences you have to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes to really get what they are going through. I know what it’s like to be a mom to a special needs child and I know what it’s like to raise typical children. Both experience are no walk in the park and one is not easier than the other. They’re different.

If given the chance would I change anything from my mothering of the past? I think I would have liked to have had more patience and time to smell the proverbial roses with Alyssa and Lelly. I look at old pictures, snapshots caught in time where I felt my mind was all over the place. And I wish I had had the presence to grab onto those moments a little harder. But I suppose most mothers could say the same thing.

Happy Mother’s Day to all my friends and family!!

I’ve had short hair now for about 5-6 years I think. Ive has it super short; like sides shaved with a buzzer short; to an undercut (sides shaved under a longer area of hair). When the quarantine began I had the undercut. And I like having short hair, I’m told I have a small face so I can pull it off. Ok sounds good. Most people believe having short hair is easy, it’s not. If you’re having a bad hair day there is no fixing it by putting it up in a pony tail or bun. You’re kind of stuck with that bad hair situation all day long. And when it rains…don’t get me started. My hair tends to just go very flat when it’s rainy or very humid out. Again, there is no escape or option of fixing this hair issue. You deal with it for the rest of the day.

So now with the quarantine, I missed my appointment by one day. I was supposed to get my hair cut and colored on a Thursday; the salon called me that Wednesday afternoon to tell me they had to close. Well what can you do? I can color my hair at home no problem thank God. I’ve learned plenty in my many years of coloring and experimenting on my own hair. However there’s no way in hell I would cut my own hair or allow anyone who isn’t licensed to do so.

So I’ve noticed my hair has grown out into a very short bob. And I like it. It’s so different that what it was before and it gives me inspiration to keep growing it out. For those of you who have grown out short hair you know how utterly painful that is. You seriously get to the point where you feel your only option is to just cut it all off all over again so you don’t have to deal with the frustration of trying to “fix” or style this hair that won’t do anything remotely attractive.

Alyssa was excited when I said I would keep growing it into a bob. She’s funny, she has a picture of what she wants my hair to look like and that’s sweet. My kids have never said boo to any of my wild haircuts. Come to think of it neither has my husband. I guess they feel the way I do that it’s only hair. It does grow back…eventually. So here’s to new hair: complements of the Covid quarantine!

My Alyssa texted me this morning, she was so worried. She has a low grade fever and sore throat. Of course everyone’s mind goes to thoughts of COVID. She is in the city with her boyfriend Sam, she left here yesterday evening. So she took herself to urgent care, found out her COVID antibody test she had blood taken for a couple of days ago is negative, however the strep test is positive. I’m glad it’s strep and not the corona virus. If she did have the corona virus it would be totally ironic as Alyssa is taking the quarantine totally seriously. She rarely goes out, and if she does it’s only grocery shopping, always wears a mask when going out and then only person she sees outside of us is her boyfriend and I know he’s working from home and taking the quarantine seriously.

Alyssa has discovered gardening and the love of houseplants while in quarantine. I have this pretty big sized Christmas cactus that I grew from and off shoot of my mom’s plant about 20 years ago. This plant has survived and at times thrived through times of attention and nurturing and through times of neglect and crazy life situations. I had been giving it attention and so had Alyssa and the plant is thriving once more. It even grew new off shoots and bloomed a flower, go figure. Alyssa also grew two small plants from lemon seeds. Ordinary old lemon seeds from a lemon, from Shoprite. It’s totally cool! I’m looking forward to them becoming bigger plants and then small trees. Alyssa read up on this and it seems the plant won’t grow actual lemons for 3 years. But that’s ok; three years will pass whether she grows the plant or not. So all is well.

I totally miss work. I miss my routine and the students I take care of. I’ve called the parents last week and I was so glad that they haven’t been sick with the corona virus. There are a few students who are quite medically fragile so I was really relieved to get that news. As for me as a nurse right now; I’m waiting for the city to figure out what to do with many of us. Last week I was told to report to East Harlem, spent 2 days there to be told the facility didn’t have assignments for us (about 7 DOE nurses). I’m not complaining about working from home and calling parents and taking care of my own family, but the anxiety of not knowing where you will be told to report to next can be overwhelming. On the upside, in going to East Harlem, I became friendly with 2 nurses and I’m so glad we struck up a friendship. We’re in a group text and we share any information we learn from other nurses concerning our situation.

I realize school has been closed until at least September, but the area I work at; district 75 which is special education is a 12 month program. From what I understand the summer program hasn’t been decided yet. I want to go back to work at my school, but I want it to be safe for everyone. I feel like that is a tightrope our elected officials are walking on and there is no easy answer.

We bought this house 19 years ago. I know this time for certain because I was literally nine months, hugely pregnant with Lelly when we moved in. Thomas was not quite 5 years old and Alyssa not yet 3 years old. It was a very busy, busy time. When we purchased this house we did so at the price the buyer wanted and “as is” condition. Meaning there were no negotiations. The house needed a roof, windows, new furnace, siding, new front stairs and a whole host of updating and cosmetic work inside, including a new kitchen and main bathroom.

It was so worth it though. I love my ‘hood, I have the best neighbors ever and after our major interior renovation 2 years ago I love the inside. It wasn’t easy having all that work done. Tommy did a lot himself and that saved us a large amount of money but some jobs such as the roof being torn off with new shingles; or vinyl siding, we had to pay someone else to do those jobs.

Tommy and I have decided to tackle one of our last frontiers. The closets that run along the front wall of the basement. There are 3 nice size closets with shelves. Great storage. Well it’s been great storage for a crap load of papers and “stuff” for the past 19 years. I found tax returns from the year we were married!

I remember when I first started paying bills when we were first married. I didn’t know what to keep or what to throw away. So I kept everything. Don’t ask. There’s also the “Thomas files.” I have a shit ton of evaluations on him since he was 2 and a half years old. He’ll be 23 years old this July. These evals and IEP’s are old news and no longer necessary. We have all the information we need about Thomas. I barely read about my Thomas as I was shredding those documents that were oh so important back in the day. Neuro-psych evaluations, IQ testing, accommodations for his IEP…there’s a lot. And I shred it all with joy. It means we made it. We came out the other side. Through all the heartache of not knowing what was wrong, what was going on in my son’s head that made him learn, act and just be the way he was. We are way past those years and for that I am so grateful. So it is with great joy that I shred! With breaks here and there to give the shredding machine a break to keep from overheating.

I talked to my son on the phone. Thomas is speech impaired but verbal, very verbal. Sometimes he’s a little difficult to understand but if you listen to him it’s not that hard. You mostly have to pay attention. For instance he mentioned that he ate dinner and I asked him what he had for dinner. Pasta, he answered and then said, “what about you?” He was asking what we had for dinner today.

I miss him. We had a nice routine before being quarantined; every Sunday I would pick him up after church, get him a haircut if needed, or go shopping for a little while and then go back to my house. We usually stopped off to get Thomas a bottle of soda before heading to my house. Thomas would stay for dinner and hang out afterwards for me to give him his 7 pm meds. After he had his meds he was ready to go back to his house and “relax.”

He’s an interesting person my Thomas. He has an amazing memory; my goodness he remembers everything, no kidding. And he’s thoughtful. Thomas was telling me how he spoke to staff at his day program and I said you must miss your program, Thomas answered, “I miss you a lot!”

It’s difficult to explain the quarantine to him. While on the phone Thomas said, “Remember when you said you’d never pick me up anymore?” I was like ooooh…Punched in the gut that he thought that. I explained that it is the “government” that says we can’t pick him up, that we will pick him up when this sickness is over. I also spoke to the house manager who said that some of the residents’ families have taken them home for the duration of the quarantine. That is not an option for us since I currently have no idea when or where I’ll be working from day to day. I don’t think Thomas would want to come here for an extended period of time as he no longer considers my house his house. He fully declares “his house” as his home. The first time he said that to me I was very taken aback and a little hurt in a way. But then I realized it is a good thing because it meant that he had adjusted to living at the group home and truly settled in. Soon we’ll have dinner again.

Easter Sunday, around early afternoon I began having minor pain in my bottom right tooth. I couldn’t tell which of the 2 bottom back teeth that was really hurting. I didn’t think much of it until later Sunday evening when I had to take a couple of Ibuprofen so I could get to sleep. Nevertheless I was woke up by the pain at 1:30am. I knew it was serious.

Monday morning I called my dentist, he wasn’t in until Tuesday and only for emergencies; this was an emergency. So 10 am yesterday morning I went in. They took an X-ray and it showed an infection under a tooth that previously had a root canal. I think the technical term is that the root canal “failed”. Of course the rally cry of the dentist is “Save the tooth!” Meanwhile all I wanted was to be out of pain and I didn’t care how that happened.

So I talked to over with my dentist and he found me a root canal specialist that I approved of and would take me that afternoon. I hadn’t been to this practice before so I was apprehensive and to be honest I was upset. It doesn’t seem fair that a tooth I already had discomfort in *and* had already endured a root canal to, should “fail” and have to be root canal-ed again.

I arrived for the appointment, the specialist’s office was only about 10 minutes from my house. I was told to Purell my hands, had my temperature taken and answered questions about my health and the health of those I live with. All was well. Then, after this guy took his own X-ray and confirmed it was indeed an infection under a previous root canal he proceeded to jab the back of my mouth and gum line multiple times with that long needle of novacaine they all seem to have. I asked if I could have sweet air (nitrous) and the guy said he doesn’t use it… I really wanted to leave, the last procedures I had done on my teeth were not without nitrous. But…the pain was too great and I wanted to get this over with.

It wasn’t a pleasant experience nor was it horrendous. However I’ve would have been much happier with the nitrous. I’m still sore and in pain. He prescribed an antibiotic and high dose ibuprofen, which works but wears off too fast. I pissed though. I mean I take care of my teeth and I still got this stupid infection and had to go through this pain and re-root canal a tooth. Not cool.