Thursday, April 1, 2010

A happenin' week

Laundry is piled on my couch. The dryer is about to buzz again, and the bathrooms REALLY need cleaning. The kitchen's clean though! And in spite of all that, here I sit...blogging. :-D It's been a really good week in a lot of ways, and weird in others, and I just had a hankering to type.

We'll start with weird, cuz it's not that long of a story. I finished my orientation at work last week (yay!) so now I'm part-time (YAY!). The trade-off (aka, downside) is that I have to work 10a-6:30p. Kinda nice to go in so late, but really weird staying so late. I'm the only one working those hours right now, so about 4:30 most folks are heading out, then by 5:30 EVERYONE is gone. And I still have an hour left! It's one thing to be home by yourself, but totally another to be alone in a big department, when there's normally about 30 people there. The other strangeness of the week is, well...we'll just suffice it to say that others are having trouble remembering my new strange hours, so my caseload has been a little off this week. But it'll all get worked out soon, I'm sure.

Blaine's weird week is actually a weird month, that started today. He's on night float, meaning he works a whole month of night shifts. Sun-Thurs 8p-8a to be exact. But he has off all weekends, which is a blessing. It's just odd and off-putting, to quote a dear friend, to work when you should be sleeping, and to come home when your wife is leaving for work. We're so thankful though, that I'm only working 3 days a week. If I were full time right now, we'd basically only see each other about 30 mins in the evening, and then weekends.

Audrey has a had a GREAT week! She's really just growing up too fast. She's at the stage where she's hitting a lot of milestones all at once, and I feel so proud and sad at the same time. I know, I know...blink a few times, then wait till she's [insert your child's current life milestone]. But our A is just so precious, and we could BUST from being so proud. She really did have a lot of new things this week...prepare to be amazed: 2, count 'em, 2 teeth! Her 1st and 2nd at the same time...cute little bottom pearly whites. They make her look so grown! haha! She also started clapping...talk about melt my heart. A big wide grin that screams "you're my world!" with tiny little white teeth and chubby clapping hands. Too much. I don't think she really understands how to properly "use" clapping yet, but it's adorable nonetheless. It's kinda funny too, she mostly holds her left hand in midline, then brings the right one in and out, BUT STILL! It's clapping. :) And last, but not least....drumroll...she's pulling up! I know, my child is such a prodigy, so advanced and brilliant! haha, but seriously...she just started pulling up to kneel and stand on our legs, laps, the recliner, the coffee table today (Daddy got pics. :)) and even occasionally in her bed. Uh, guess it's time to move that mattress down one more level! I can't believe she's almost 8 months old, and she's getting more fun all the time. My fav thing is now that she's crawling pretty well, she's able to greet me when I come in from work. Today, she got to stay home w/ Dada, and when I got home she was in the living room playing. I greeted her from the doorway, and she laughed and squealed, then crawled over to me, almost drunk w/ glee. Warms my heart, can you tell? After I picked her up, she starts giving me "kisses"...really! She puts her sweet, slobbery mouth on my face and says "muaaaaaaahhhhhhh", then looks at me all adoringly. Can ya tell I love being a momma???

So that's the life of the Broussards for now. We're so thankful for this Easter season, when we can reflect on Christ's sacrifice for us, and his miraculous return to life from death. What great sinners we all are, and what a great love our great God has to die for us, so that we could have a personal relationship with Him! We're also thankful for his daily provision and presence, that he has answered our needs before we even voice them.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

New pics

For those of my readers who aren't on FB, here's a couple news pics of the sweet baby!

6 months old w/ Blair Bear!

Snow day in LR w/ Momma!

I blinked...

Oh my, can you tell how fast time is flying for me right now??? Where did February go? And are we really already halfway through March? Sheesh...this is probably the main reason I'm not so fond of working full time. The days go too fast, the weeks faster, and then I blink and another month is gone. On the plus side, I'm almost done with orientation at work! 2 more weeks then I get to cut back to 3 days a week! Wahoo! Don't get me wrong, I love the work I'm doing, but if I have the choice to work a little and stay home w/ my sweet Audrey a little more...well, easy choice. :)

So I still feel in need of a little encouragement, thus the following episode...I had my first bad day at work this week. I had a patient with, let's just a say, a difficult mother. She was frustrated with being in the hospital w/ her child, and they had been through a difficult injury, she felt like she wasn't being heard, and I think she was, um, high drama on top of it all. Anyway, I go in to evaluate the girl, and the mother was unhappy already, so I tried to help the situation by taking the time to listen to her. Unfortunately, I think I just opened a can of worms. For some reason, so chose me to take the brunt of her frustrations, and after listening to her for about 20 mins, she called in the patient-family rep, who then called my boss, and my boss and mentor had to go resolve the situation. I think I handled the situation appropriately, but I reallllllllllllllly hate having people upset at me, even if it's illogical. It really shook my confidence. Here I was near the end of my rotation, and I suddenly felt lost. I found myself second-guessing everything I was doing and saying. The yucky feeling kind of hung on the next day too, as hard as I tried to shake it, and as hard as I prayed that God would help me to start the day fresh. I guess I just really wanted someone to come alongside me to say, you're ok. You didn't screw up, and you're still a good PT. It happens to all of us, so just press on! But, I'm not a student any more, so I don't get to have anyone hold my hand these days. Oh well...the week has been ok since then...ready to leave it behind. Glad I have tomorrow off to enjoy my sweet girl!!

On that note, much warmer, happier thoughts! Oh Audrey...I marvel every day at how in love with her we are. She's our world. We spend our evenings playing on the floor with her and being overly impressed with how skilled she is. She's surely the most advanced baby in the world, right??? Haha! I do have to brag a little though...she's quite the commando crawler these days, and sitting up so well. She even weight shifts in sitting, and has transitioned from sitting to quadruped several times! She loves to rock back and forth on her hands and knees, and has made a few reciprocal crawls in quadruped. Creeping any day now! Just this week, she started pulling to stand when you put your hands in front of her...she grabs 2 fingers and up she goes! (You must excuse my therapist developmental language...I don't even know if I'm speaking common words any more! I think it's mostly jargon, but Blaine and I can't help it...it's what we do all day! I just wonder if it's weird that we pray for her "growth and development" each day. Hmm.) It seems impossible that our sweet baby is growing up so fast...7 mos tomorrow. Wow. Audrey's still doing great at Marcy's house. She just grins when I drop her off. Usually Mark and Seth are watching cartoons or playing around on the couch, and she loves those boys! They make her laugh. Seth finally said "hi Audrey" in front of me the other day. Marcy says as soon as I walk out the door, her starts talking up a storm to/about her. Mark also told Blaine the other day "I love Audrey." and one afternoon when she and I were leaving he fussed, "I don't want Audrey to leave!" Too sweet. The funniest part to me is that Mark (the 4 yr old) calls her "Ardrey", and that he's trying to teach Seth (the 2 yr old) to say her name! Haha..."Ardrey's" 2 little boyfriends. What a blessing the Kennedy's have been to us...too bad they're moving to VA in June. :( So I'm still on the lookout for alternate childcare.

Ok, so obviously I need to blog more so I don't get to backlogged and wordy. :) Life will be a bit slower in a few weeks. Maybe by then, I'll have figured out how to slow time down juuuuust a bit!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Here me are!

(That's how our 2-yr-old niece used to announce herself when she entered the room...) :)


Yeah, so I haven't posted since early December. Oops. But I'm still here alive and kicking! Well, ya know, Christmas came and we were on the road for 9 days visiting all the fam. It was lovely! We had a great time and it was sooo hard to come home. Then Blaine had a full week of work and it was my last week b/f starting the new job.


The new job: it's going well overall. I can't tell you how hard it's been leaving my sweet Audrey. All the working mommas out there can certainly relate, but gosh it still hurts my heart! She's doing well at her friend, Mrs. Marcy's house. She's very much intrigued by 4 yr old Mark and 2 yr old Seth (Marcy's boys). And it does indeed melt my heart when I pick her up and she smiles a big ole gummy grin b/c she's so happy to see me. :) I've got 3 weeks of work down though! After 12 weeks total, I'll be done w/ full-time orientation and will get to go to my 3-day-a-week schedule which will be wonderful! I'm really enjoying pediatrics much more than I ever expected. It feels like playtime much of the time. There are certainly hard things (as in all jobs, I'm sure), like working w/ kiddos on the burn unit. But I do enjoy the kids, and the crew I'm working with is great! ACH is a great place to work so far.

It's been a tough transition for me and Blaine too. I never thought I'd miss keeping house so much! haha! Life is simpler just keeping house, grocery shopping, laundry, mothering, etc. But add a 40 hr work week, plus all that, and phew! My feet hurt. :) Not to be a complainer...I know a lot of you are doing the same thing, it just takes a while to get used to it all. Blaine's schedule this month has been pretty good. He's doing cardio consults at UAMS, which is pretty much 8-4 M-F. It DOES exist in medicine! Shocker! But not for long. Feb is gonna be another one of those yucky intern months, where he'll work long days every day, and overnight call about every 4 days. At least it's a short month! Blaine has been awesome during the transition! He's been a huge help w/ laundry and helping around the house. He even had a vacation week last week, and "got to" stay home to be a househusband. He did great! Audrey really loved being w/ Dada all week and it was a little easier to leave for work knowing she was home w/ him.

In the midst of the new job transition, Audrey is growing up way too fast! She has started cereal and veggies the past couple weeks and has turned into quite the little eater. She's rolling all over the place...she pretty much can get whatever she wants by rolling there, and has even started scooting a little bit on her belly. Still no teeth, but it still seems like any day now! She's a drool machine and constantly chowing down on her hands. Audrey is still our happy, happy girl, and loves to talk and sing with us! Blaine and I are still trying to figure out how in the world we could get paid to stay home and just adore her. :)

All that to say we're doing well. I sure do miss having all that free time I used to have...and I miss keeping up w/ my friends! But there's a season in life for everything, and this is my season to work. :) I take comfort in knowing the Lord has orchestrated this job and all the details in this time of life!