Project 52 Week 4: Self Portrait

This week’s challenge is :Self Portrait.  Wow. I hate them.  But they are necessary. I’m supposed to be behind the camera you know? But how else to document my growing loc journey?

self portrait week 4

 

project 52 p52 weekly photo challenge my3boybarians.com

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As Seen In My Life

Pookah Pookah.

I know we’re not supposed to let our lives revolve around our children, but it’s so hard!

I do have other interests in life of course ( my job, my photography, the blog, twitta…)

But I find that all the things I do are somehow connected to my boy.

I continue to work in the nuthouse circus establishment where I work because it gives me more flexibility in terms of Pookah.

I started a blog. About other stuff, but mainly Pookah.

I take photos. Of Pookah. ( other things too, but lets be real here.)

I tweet. To try to talk about something other than my child! LOL

A few years ago I would have been appalled! OMG!

But now, it’s my new normal.

I love my child. I love talking about him. I love taking photos of him. I suffer 36 hours a week at night so that I can be there if he needs me in a pinch during the day.

This is my life. This is my balance. This is the way things are. For now.

And I kind of like it that way.

 

Posted in As Seen in My Life | 13 Comments

Random Tuesday: Work Edition

It’s random Tuesday folks and today’s topic: Why I hate being in charge.

  • 723 pm: The shift seems to be starting off normal.  I have enough staff, no problems seem to be on the rise…..dare I say it will be a good night?
  • 845pm: 16 year old patient delivers.  She and her equally young and dumb 16 year old boyfriend get into it because she let her best friend hold the baby before she gave it to him….She demands we call security. 16 year old Baby daddy escorted off the property kicking and screaming.
  • 915pm: Surgery in the OR with a uber : don’t touch my baby, don’t give him any meds, don’t cut the cord until it stops pulsating, I want to breastfeed on the OR table. Oh and my husband will take photos of it all with my Canon 5D Mark II.  SMH. All while I’m hemorrhaging on the table and can barely get a word out. It was a fiasco. And the man couldn’t even focus correctly on that big bad camera to get a photo of her uterus outside her body.  Because that’s where it went when she had a hysterectomy after bleeding so bad. And while his wife is halfway dead, he still keeps saying, but she needs to breastfeed now! AND TAKING PICTURES!!!!FOOL!!! Your wife is bleeding to death! Put down the damn camera!!!!
  • 1025pm: 16 year old baby daddy sneaks back in because 16 year old baby mama LOVES him and didn’t mean it.  Security finds out and re-escorts him back off the property. SMH.
  • 1130pm: Calm…….I try to relieve folks for lunch.
  • 1215 am: Older Dr who needs to retire is going to delivery a baby with forceps.  The baby is obviously too big for her pelvis.  BUT she wants a vaginal delivery NO MATTER WHAT! Well. The 10 pound 5 oz baby does come out of her vagina.  But from the looks of it, she looks like Humpty Dumpty: Can she be put back together again? And even worse? Baby comes out not breathing, traumatized from having his head pulled on for so long and so hard.  SMH. Now I’ve got a traumatized Mommy, Traumatized baby and extra paperwork to fill out as I write this up.
  • 115am: All hell breaks loose.  3 patients deliver at the same time. Every one is pitching in. I ask a nurse to go to one of the deliveries and she refuses. Says she is busy with her patients. Both of whom are sleep.  OK. I got cha. I refrain from cursing her out….
  • 300 am: I’m still thinking about cursing her out, but now that I’m sitting down for a moment, I compose a loooooooong write up on her lack of teamwork, laziness and funky attitude.
  • 330 am: My most ghetto nurse( I’m serious, her theme song should be “I’m so Hood”) and lazy nurse get into it.  SMH.  I swear I hesitated when she swung on her just because….I’d been wanting to do it all night.  But must be professional…security and supervisor called…
  • 415am: Let the call outs for the next shift begin! I get four call outs in 15 minutes. WTH? The rush begins to find staff for day shift.
  • 530am: Two people found to replace four. But that’s nursing. SMH.  And a patient rolls in form EMS screaming her head off.
  • 0600am: She’s one centimeter.  Back to the house. By cab.
  • 659 am: Is it time to go yet??????The day shift charge nurse came early. I give report and stay behind for an hour more charting on patients I watched, babies I did stuff on, more paper work due to the forceps delivery, the hemorrhage, the baby daddy……..
  • 915am I am home. Where’s the bed???

And I’m in charge tonight ya’ll! Pray for me!!!

Posted in Random Tuesday:Work Edition | 10 Comments

Monday Morning Thoughts and Weekend Wrap Up

Happy Monday!

My weekend was… peaceful. It’s nice to spend time with the boys even if we had no choice….

It rained ALL weekend long.

We spent all day Saturday cuddled up on the couch watching cartoons and entertaining Pookah.  He did, however, almost break my nose with a head butt! I felt and heard a crack, but it isn’t broken. It was just so PAINFUL!!  I had to go to work Saturday night, but only stayed four hours.  My patient delivered( 9 pounds 5 oz!) and then I went home.  It was NICE. I’ll regret it come check time, but hey.
Inspiration...
Random photo of playtime….

Sunday was another lazy day of football, games with Pookah and not cooking. We had Popeye’s chicken. Even though Pookah LOVES Popeye’s, I usually just peel off the skin( the wheat allergy) and give him the meat.  Somehow, he got into a piece of skin and the results was a rash around his mouth. But it appeared about an hour later. Hmmmmmm. It used to be that no matter how little the amount of wheat was, it showed up immediately. AND the rash/hives was all over his body.  This reminds me of when he was a baby and I had just started noticing the allergy. Maybe it IS getting better? Who knows. I’m still going to keep on like we have. In fact, I’m going to stop half assing it and just completely convert the house over to wheat/gluten free.  Right now it’s about 75% free.  This is going to be hard….

In blog land, doing a 365 AND a 52 week project AND maintaining two blogs is getting to be a bit much around here. Soooo. I think I’m going to  slim down. I’m going to keep the two blogs for now,but stop posting as much over there. The 365 is a daily picture, but I can wait and write a post with all of the photos from the week in one or two posts.  That will help a LOT. :-) .  And I’m bringing one of the features “The Newbie Chronicles: A Newbie with a camera” over here. It will be a weekly or monthly feature about what I’ve learned about photography. Hopefully, it will  help someone out who wants a little advice etc.   You might also see a few photography challenges over here.  Some weeks, this blog may look like a photography blog and some weeks, it may look normal.  But hey, that’s My Life!

On the weight loss front: there is no weight loss. LOL. Still the same. BUT! I’ve finally gotten over my cold, I actually went to the gym on Friday AND completed day one of couch to 5K! And I plan on going today before work! I’ve got a plan and I’m sticking to it!  I’ve weighed myself and we’ll see how it goes.

That’s all over here. Hope you guys had a fabulous weekend.  What did you do?

Posted in Monday Morning Thoughts | 5 Comments

SOC Sunday: I think it’s too much

Did you know that I have two blogs? This one, and another one devoted completely to photography?  I just started it late last year, but for someone who has decided to limit her online/blogging/social media time, this is becoming a bit much…..

 

#SOCsunday
I think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. I’ve got two blogs now. This one, and one that is totally devoted to photography. And I’m going a project 52( take one photo a week for 52 weeks) and a 366 project ( take one photo everyday of the year). AND i’m still writing posts for this blog. I feel like it’s taking over here. Now I really love doing the 366 project and the 52 project, but I feel like I bit off more than I can chew by starting a whole NEW blog to do it. But I did it because I like to write. AND I  like to take pictures. And I didn’t want the photos to take over this blog. Even though I feel like it already does sometimes when I get lazy. But anyway, my question is what to do? I love doing the photo challenges and stuff, but it’s becoming a bit much!!!! I really just want to go back to one blog, but that seems like such a waste of the time I’ve already put in and of the blog designers time( not to mention my money. ) But I’ve got to find somehwere to put all of those photos I take! LOL.  I though about just having a portfolio like blog and just post JUST photos. No commentary or nothing else. But part of the fun of blogging is having someone read and comment.  And It seems like so much work to build a new readership etc on a whole new blog.  I don’t have the time or energy.  I think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, but don’t know what to do about that.

 

Posted in stream of consciousness Sunday | 6 Comments

I Dreamed a Dream..

This week’s theme of Project 52 was I Dreamed a Dream.

For years, I dreamed a dream of motherhood.  It seemed an easy dream to realize.  After all, I saw the miracle of motherhood everyday working as a Labor and Delivery nurse.  And then, it took me a year to get pregnant. And then, when I finally conceived, I had a miscarriage. I thought my dream was over. But out of the blue, I was pregnant again. And this one stuck. And on November 26, 2009, my dream was realized. I got my Pookah bear.

embraceyourcamera

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The Imperfect Child

Sooo.

Pookah is still very much allergic to wheat.

Skin test positive.

Big Big Sigh.

At first, I felt sorry for myself.

I could feel myself crashing with this overwhelming disappointment that my child wasn’t “perfect”. That something was wrong with him. That I couldn’t fix.  I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes as I watched the test turn positive on his back.

But then, I was distracted by Pookah.

He was playing.  Zooming around the room with a toy truck that he had found.

He was happy.

He was healthy.

He was the most beautiful thing in the world.

And he didn’t care that he was allergic to wheat.

His most pressing concern at that moment was

“Mommy Play!”

I felt my spirits lifting.

Who was this really about?

Me or my perfect imperfect child?

My child is imperfect and he is perfect all at the same time.

And I love him.

And that is all that matters.

15/365: My Little Ham


My Perfect Boy..

Posted in Allergies, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 9 Comments

As Seen In My Life: Painting 101

We went to the Children’s Museum here in Atlanta on Saturday morning. I even got C-Dub to go. It was sooo cold and blustery outside, but after being sick and cooped up in the house so long, I really wanted to get out of the house.

Pookah had LOADS of fun.  And of course didn’t want to leave.  He busted his lip of course while running away from C-Dub trying not to leave. The not so perfect ending to a perfect morning. SMH. I got a few photos that I liked. Here they are.
Painting
Discovery…

painting 2
He Paints!

paintinglesson4
Masterpiece!

Posted in As Seen in My Life, photography | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Weekend Recap..On a Tuesday…

Happy Tuesday everyone! Did you guys have a long weekend? I did, but not by choice.

The cold monster still had me by the horns so I have had 6 days off. WOW. If I wasn’t sick, it would have been like a vacation.

Anyhoo.

Life has been moving along. I had an awesome week last week!

First, my post: Is Social Media Taking Over was featured over at BlogHer.  THAT was exciting.

THEN, I got a raise at work. That was REALLY exciting because it was more than I expected.

AND THEN! On Saturday, I got the news that my photo pure joy had been selected as third place in the I Heart Faces Best Faces of 2011 contest!!! To say I was surprised, humbled, grateful and excited was an understatement! Be sure to check it out!

It was a damn good week!

(Insert random photo of Pookah here…..)
picnikfile_F0pDSZ

Now lets’ hope this week continues to be good. Pookah has his appointment today to check on his wheat allergy.  After his diagnosis last year we were told to completely eliminate wheat from his diet. It’s been a few issues here and there, but we have.  I’m anxious for him to be retested because his doctor did point out that most kids grow out of this kind of allergy.  I’m praying really really hard and ask everyone else to do so too. It has really taken me about a year to convert my household to a gluten/wheat free one. It’s hard to say the least, but thankfully the stores are full of gluten free stuff due to a new awareness of celiac disease and a host of gluten free diet fads.  But whatever! I really just want to be able to not worry that he’ll get into something and I’ll have to pull out my epi pen.  I don’t want that experience EVER again. SO keep your fingers crossed today guys!

Well that’s all for me! How was your long weekend?

P.S. By the way, I’m linking up the shot above for Sweet Shot Tuesday over on my photography blog My Life’s Photos.   :-) I’m addicted to photo challenges!

 

Posted in Allergies, Gluten Free, photography, photography challenges, Random thoughts, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Martin Luther King…

Happy MLK Day!

Everyone always sings the Stevie Wonder song, but if you are around my age ( thirty ummm something), you remember this one. I heard it on the radio on Friday and was jamming! Yes, I dug it up! Enjoy.

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