Back to the Grind

We are currently driving down to my parents for Easter. This will be Abby’s first ride back where I do not expect her to nap the whole time. We shall see how it goes. It is back to being busy, busy, busy. In the past 2 weeks I have been to D.C., started school, and started clinical; and that was just in the last week.  The week prior was spent healing from that awful disease: Hand, Foot, Mouth, which has completely resolved, thankfully. That was horrible. Abby has been doing good, she is still doing baby things: shoving food in her mouth, playing by spreading her toys across the whole living room, napping, and pooping (more pooping than I would like).

Our St. Patrick’s day was good and low key. Andrew’s family was originally supposed to come out to visit, but with our house being contaminated, decided they had best visit another time. I had fun dressing Abby up in her green and shamrock pigtails. I know that I am biased but I thought that she looked ridiculously cute with her pigtails. I also got the 4 St. Paddy’s day cupcakes from Nadia Cupcakes in Maple Grove. I have a hard time avoiding that store every time I run errands in Maple Grove, and it does not help that they post pictures of their amazing cupcakes on Facebook, which ends up on my news-feed.  There was no way I was going to miss the stout beer cupcake or the Baileys Irish Cream cupcake. They did not disappoint, even Andrew liked them, and he doesn't have a sweet tooth. If you have never been to Nadia’s; I suggest you make a special trip to Maple Grove just for it.

Well, I survived my first airport/airplane trip ALL ON MY OWN. If any of you know me, you know how nervous I was about this. You know, I had to go to the counter, check my bags, go through security, and find the gate all on my own….I know, this is hard stuff. I was even more thrown off when Andrew told me that I had to look at the departure schedule as the gate can randomly change….seriously, this was nerve racking. What if I got stopped at security for the random search or what if I missed my plane. I would be a crying mess all by myself and people would look at me funny. But it all went well, my gate did not change, at least on the first flight, and I made it to my destination. D.C. was fun, I got to see some awesome fellow Nurse Practitioner peeps! I also learned how to suture and take off toenails. Hopefully I will get to use these mad skills at my clinical site. Actually, I hope I never have to take a nail off, that is seriously so gross.  I also passed my standardized patient test, so I guess they think I am competent enough to continue on.  My flight back was less nerve racking, but I did almost miss my plane because I spent a little too much time at the bar….airport bars are fun. I was happy to get home and see my little family! I got a big smile from Abby in the morning. She was along with Andrew when he picked me up from the Airport at 11pm, but I think she was in a delusional sleep and had no clue what was going on. She did not even wake up when moving her from the car seat to her crib. She must have had a busy weekend with her dad and Grandparents.

My one complaint about airplanes….RECLINING SEATS. I understand that people want to sleep on a plane. Fine. It’s a 2 hour plane ride to D.C., you can sleep with your seat up. We are all cramped in coach. I do not appreciate people reclining their seat back and taking up 5 precious inches of my 7 in foot room. All I wanted to do was jam my knees into the back of their seat. But being the passive aggressive person I am, I just had an angry conversation about this in my head. This happened on both plane rides, as soon as it was allowed the seat in front of me came flying back to take my precious foot space. I hate reclining seats.

So as I said Abby has been doing good. She is a poopy mess though. She finished her course of antibiotics, and I’m pretty sure that the antibiotics wiped out her good gut bacteria. So we are in the process of trying to replace it, through yogurt. Its getting better. We also have been avoiding food that begins with “P.” My preceptor pediatrician taught me that foods that being with P=poop. So poor, poopy Abby has not been getting her favorite peaches. She’ll survive. Hopefully her blowouts subside soon, they  are gross, I miss her solid poos. Besides the poop issues, she is happy as ever. Here are some pictures from St. Paddy's day for proof.

She loves to play in her car seat and figured out she can crawl into it. She has only done it once.

 She had trouble remembering how to get back under that handle.

And... the face plant. The reason she has probably not crawled back into it.

Well Abby is still sleeping…its only been an hour, I do not expect this to last. We have a ways to go. I should probably get some homework done. HAPPY EASTER!!!