Weather Angst

Emily is terrified of weather lately.

Be it rain, any cloud that isn't perfectly fluffy and white, or wind of any kind.  The girl is just SURE that some kind of inclement weather is going to turn into a tornado and she is terrified. I'm doing my best just to be calm and reassuring without reacting too much to her drama.  It usually involves tears and refusal to go wherever she was supposed to be headed for the day and the need for her blankie.  At 8 years old... really?  Let's hope this is a phase.  Please. A neighbor whose son is  a year old and had similar fears told me that in 2nd grade they do a tornado drill and show them a film that describes how to identify potential funnel clouds forming and that wind is an early warning sign of tornadoes.  Apparently that scares A LOT of the kids and the timing seems right on for when this fear started.  Nice, thanks school.

We've had our fair share of storms over the past few weeks so we now have her sleeping bag stashed in my closet so that if something develops in the night we can just let her sleep in our room.  It's easier and everyone gets more rested than trying to convince her it's safe to sleep in her room alone.  This too shall pass, right?

On the home front, things are particularly pleasant right now. Jim's job is still going very well. He has 2 more weeks of orientation/precepting and then he's completely on his own.  He's been working up to a full patient load over the last few weeks and doing fine, just using his preceptor to double check a med here or there if there's a complicated dosage calculation or high risk med.  But he should be good to go.  He is so happy lately it's almost comical.  Yesterday for example he picked up Emily from summer camp, which ended at 3, and brought home her best friend who was also there so they could play and her friend was going to stay over for dinner.  They had a blast.  Jim had a dance party going for the girls in the kitchen and they were hanging off of him like little monkeys.  He was loving it!

Hoping the storms stay away from the weekend so we can break-in the new fire-pit Jim built last week in the backyard.  Time for hot-dogs and s'mores! Happy summer weekend all.

Camping Trips and Orientation

So I'm on my own for 3 days… Jim and little one headed off on a Daddy & Daughter camping trip along with my brother and his daughter Ava who is also 8.  I'm hoping this will become a nice tradition for the 4 of them.

We went on our usual "School's Out" cabin camping weekend with friends this past weekend at  local state park.  We stayed for 3 days and 2 nights.  Had gorgeous weather and a great time.  We all rated this 3rd annual trip as our best yet.  Best park, best cabin, best weather!  We got home on Sunday afternoon and then did a quick assessment of what needed to be washed and repacked to send them back out for 2 more nights.  It wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be to have the 2 outings back to back. Everything was already out and semi-packed so it actually worked out nicely.

Now… the 4 of them are in for some rain today and tomorrow morning so we'll see how chipper they are when they return!

Jim finished up his weeklong orientation at the hospital last week, and starting Thursday he's on the SIMCU for 3 shifts a week of precepting.  I think he has 9 weeks of on the floor with a preceptor (a current RN ) before they turn him loose on his own. Last week was nice as we thought about real money finally starting to roll in for the first time in 4 years, but the orientation was… well…. orientation.  Tolerable, not super exciting.  So on the floor precepting should be much more fun and challenging for him.

Once we make it through June we should have some downtime together.
But this coming weekend Jim is working 7am-7pm Saturday & Sunday
Next week I'm in Boston from Wednesday through Sunday for work
Then the following week I'm headed up to Cleveland on Wednesday to help with prep for my parents 50th anniversary part that weekend and won't be back until Monday evening of the following week.

All good stuff, but a busy month for sure!