Fa la la la la

Merry Christmas from the Bonn family! After sprinting from store to store earlier this week to start and finish my Christmas shopping (and having my credit card frozen twice for suspect activity – once at the liquor store), I am breathing easier. I went to make our Christmas card and didn’t have a single family picture ALL year. Wow. We spent time together but don’t have any documentation. Our friend was gracious enough to snap a few photos but Snapfish just isn’t moving fast enough. So the greetings here…family photo later.

One thing I have noticed this year that while I have received cards I have only 1 letter. With Facebook, Twitter, Snap Chat and the dozen other mediums that I don’t know about (but my son probably does), do we not having anything left to say or do we know everything anyway? I am working on being more adaptable and I guess fewer words is the trend. Instead of a regular letter, everyone will get their own 140-character tweet summing up their year.

Audrey, aka Tall Tree, fourth grade.  Kind, compassionate and DRAMATIC when it comes to fashion. Geez. Strumming her little hippie soul out on guitar and running track.  Perfect Duck one day.

Mason, sixth grade, middle school, ACK. Tweens=awkward. Energetic, fun and curious. Every discussion feels like an Aesop’s fable with a moral lesson. Soccer, basketball, track and GOLF.

Michael, designing passive housing project in Hillsboro – teaching me passive doesn’t mean building itself. Wood-working, sabbatical this summer. New furniture in my future?

Me, nurse in Newberg. Switched before I killed someone dozing on my long commute. Day shift in January! Coffee, sleep-deprived, jogger (loper, really), sometimes writer. Feeling blessed.

I can’t even effectively tweet. I couldn’t get anyone’s year into 140 characters. Oh well. May you be surrounded by love, peace and grace this holiday season.

The Elves Among Us

I live with a Christmas Elf. While this might sound exciting, it can be exhausting. Paper snowflakes already adorn my walls, Christmas lists have been made, and a countdown has been done and colored. When my elf started to make a Christmas morning schedule, I had to put my foot down…turkey, stuffing and thankfulness first. 

Mason lives with great intensity but nothing gets him going more than the approach of Christmas. As he has gotten older, the focus has shifted – albeit ever so slightly – from the receiving part of Christmas to enjoying the other aspects of Christmas. Last year was a huge breakthrough as he decided to take on the role of the Christmas elf, “schnoddle” and buy some gifts for the younger neighbors. It wasn’t quite as impactful when he then told people what he had done but hey, it’s a start.

My strategy for several years has been trying to quench his enthusiasm and intensity at least until after Thanksgiving. But, as he spends less time focusing on his own gifts and as I get more tired and unable to effectively put him off, I am trying to change this strategy. When I think about it, if he is finding joy, excitement (INTENSE excitement) in Christmas, why fight it? Christmas is full of giving, beauty and grace. I just have to figure out how to channel his energy for good and not have him try to will away the month from now until the magical day. I have to figure this out fast and I am looking for ideas. Otherwise, I will have 10 gingerbread houses and hundreds of paper snowflakes by next Friday.

Mason is not my first elf. My dad was one of the original elves I think. As an only child of older parents, he LOVED celebrating Christmas once he had a family. He wouldn’t sleep much the night before. One Christmas we awakened in the wee hours of the morning to hear a train whistle in our living room. I think he was doing a trial run of the new train that he had bought to go around the tree. Mason seems to have caught the bug from him. I am sure if he was still here he would be working in his garage building a sleigh for Mason and him and trying to find some reindeer.

If you have ideas for all this energy, send them. Heck, if you need your own paper snowflakes, let me know. We are already decking the halls, listening to Christmas music and drinking peppermint mochas. If you can beat them, join them.

Is Your Mama a Llama?

Mine’s not but I do like the book. She would get heat rash in the desert. I don’t think she has the same kind of water storage system either. But, not unlike the Llama, she is interesting, friendly and can carry a lot at one time. 

As I cried “underappreciated” and “on strike” to my family the other night, I heard echoes from mothers’ everywhere – including my own. I am sure I got the “you never appreciate all the things I do for you” speech many a time. I will admit…I didn’t appreciate all the lunches, the rides, the vegetables and the tissues. My mom got a bad rap. She was making sure we drank our milk, went to bed on time and making friends that she was actually willing to invite to our house. My dad had a big, loud, fun personality. If I hadn’t eaten a vegetable in my 18 years at home, I don’t think he would have cared.

Now, as a mom, I totally appreciate her efforts and recognize what a cool lady I have in my life. Not only did she make sure I made it in one piece to adulthood, as an English teacher, she made sure I also knew never to end a sentence with a preposition. Since I was very small I knew that a lot was two words. The heartache she saved me.

She has had kind of a rough go of it lately. Not everything in her life is running as smoothly as I would wish for her. On top of some other issues, her dear friend died on Saturday. She had the chance to be with her as she lost her battle with cancer. I know what she experienced with her the final few days was hard and painful but what a blessing for both of them that she was by her side. If she wasn’t my mom, I would want her to be my friend too.

We haven’t always seen eye to eye on everything. When Michael asked for my hand in marriage, she thought I was too young and wouldn’t give him my ring size. You will be happy to know, they have since made up. She still is trying to get me to wear make-up and maybe brush my hair more often. I had to tell her to stop telling me I look tired because at this juncture, it is my permanent state and she can just compliment me when I look rested. In the scheme of things, our differences our minor. She loves me, adores my kids and is there for me when I ask. She has taught me that strength and courage come in many forms. Sometimes you just have to have patience and faith that everything will work out. Thanks, Mama and I’m glad you aren’t a Llama. That would just be awkward.

Is Honesty Always the Best Policy?

I had a friend tell me the other day she was so glad to hear that I was so happy in my new job. I found it funny since I hadn’t told her that I liked my new job. I had said I loved the commute but that was about it. I still don’t know if I love my new job. I hope I know soon, but right now, verdict is still out. 

We always teach kids that honesty is the best policy and I still buy it. It is best to be honest but not saying too much can be okay too. People can’t always handle too much honesty. Sometimes I am that person. Some of you may know that my son has a habit of saying EVERYTHING that comes to his mind. Last year, getting off the bus was usually followed by an immediate confessional of all the things he had done wrong that day. This usually preceded a “hi, mom.” I found the information dump a bit overwhelming but he always felt better after and I tried to remind myself that it was better that he shared too much than not at all.

I consider myself an honest person. I also try to be a good listener. I try not to ask people how they are if I am not prepared for an answer that goes beyond “fine.” If I ask you, I really want to know. I try to do the same but I also try to read the person to see if they are asking as a greeting or if they really want to know. I am savvy enough to know that the checker at Target is being friendly and doesn’t want my five minute response on how I feel in limbo. She may call security if I really tell her how I am exasperated with my daughter because she can’t get dressed in the morning and we may never survive the next 9 years.

I read somewhere that there is a study out that links a rise in depression to social media. I get it. People on Facebook are posting their vacations, successes and kids’ accomplishments which can lead to people who aren’t having similar experiences feeling blue. Nobody is saying “hey, that was a really crappy Monday. I pretty much suck as a parent and by the end of the day, everyone was in tears.” I guess that’s not as interesting to read.

So, here it is. Things are kind of tough around here lately. I do love my commute. I am blessed that my kids are healthy and I have a job. I totally believe that. But, the new job is more of a transition than I anticipated. I see a much greater variety of illnesses and have learned a lot. The nurses and staff are really nice but the unit is in more transition than I realized. The acuity also tends to be less which means more patients and sometimes less time to spend with each one. There are times when I really miss my neuro patients. I go between feeling like I am getting the hang of it to feeling totally incompetent. The hospital itself is beautiful and I really think I will like it but right now, I am just a bit more unsure than I expected.

I am also finding this parenting of tweens thing a bit frazzling. We have high highs and low lows. I didn’t really expect this for a few more years. Mornings are ROUGH right now. Sometimes nights are too. I am hoping/praying we all fall into a routine soon that feels a bit smoother. 

That’s it. The sometimes messy truth we are living around the Bonn house at the moment. Hope it wasn’t too much.

Chill Out, Things Gonna Change

Terrible grammar aside - my current motto and actually the title of a song. Who knew? Just when I finally stopped feeling nervous about my job every night, I decided to take a new one. I might be crazy. It is still night shift but it is at Providence Newberg instead of Portland – meaning I just shaved 50 minutes each way off my commute time. I need to get my sorry sleepy self off the road before I hurt myself or someone else. The move should definitely help. 

I am not a big one on change. I like routine and the known which is why you will never find me working in the ER. I am not an adrenaline junkie. I thought I would be at my neurology job for a long time but when the opportunity came along to gain back a chunk of time each shift and allow me to stop eating my meals in the car on the way to work,. I had to take it.

Part of what makes leaving my current job so difficult is leaving the amazing nurses and CNA's I have worked with for two years. I LOVE the night team at Providence Portland. They have basically taught me how to be a nurse. They are funny, kind, compassionate and smart. They totally have my back. It is amazing the experiences you share with your coworkers as a nurse. Together we have seen the craziness of brains on drugs, seen people regain mobility after a stroke, taken care of dying patients and their families and tried to convince our confused patients to go back to bed for the 100^th time. I would, without hesitation, recommend the 8^th floor to my friends or family members who might themselves need neurology care. The nurses on the 8^th floor can take care of me any time. 

I hope this new journey is a good one. The hospital I am going to is much smaller. The old junior high fears start to creep up again – will the staff like me? Am I 100 years older than the rest of the nurses? Am I smart enough? Are my scrubs cute?  Aw…chill out, things gonna change. Here we go…