Life as the Charge Nurse

Sunday I had the honor of being the charge nurse for my Intensive Care Unit. This is a job that is usually very undesired. This is because of the added duties that one has to perform above their routine role as an RN. You still have the same patient assignment as you would any other day as a staff nurse but you have the multiple added duties that come along with the title of "Charge Nurse". Most of these duties are dealing with problems. Be it trying to get staff to work together as a team, getting staff extra help, disciplinary issues, and dealing with family and staff complaints. I found it to be quite eye opening to see that from my last shift I was a "staff RN" but now with the name of "Charge" people flocked to me, mostly to complain. I thought to myself, I am no different than I was the last shift and I haven't gained any magical power to solve these problems, but now I am the one dealing with every one's issues. To see the role of charge nurse, through the charge nurses eyes was quite eye opening. I never go to the head nurse with daily issues, rather deal with them myself and approach her only to get advice on large issues. But most people I see come with you about everything. I must admit it was an interesting day with the staff nurse fighting with the nurse practitioner, the young 30-something patient who was dying, the overwhelmed nurse unable to get work completed, the teenager suicide patient, the sitter who feel asleep at the bedside, the nurse who doesn't like to transfer her patients because she doesn't want an admission. And this was a Sunday, usually weekends are quieter. As my unit clerk said to me at the end of the day -"What a day to be in charge! It was a crazy day!". I think that sums it up. In the end, I was told of only one complaint that would be voiced to my manager and I was told that in that complaint I would be praised for my attempt to re mediate the problem. This day left me wondering if it is really worth the extra pennies you get on your pay check to wear the name "Charge Nurse" on your lapel. The only good thing is that I do know I can deal with this role, and won't be so nervous when it happens again.

Lyla at 6 months

Where has the time gone. 6 months has flown right by and Lyla is no longer a newborn rather an infant. She visited the doctor for her 6 month check up and so far so good. I was nervous about the whole vaccination deal as we had such a bad result last time, but she has done fine this time. Maybe it was due to the fact that her doctor decided to give her only half of her shots now and the other half will be done in a month. Lyla is growing great. She is 16 pound 2 ounces, and 26 inches in length.

On Monday November 10th, when I got home from work, I could feel Lyla's 1st tooth. The next day, on her 6 month birthday, I could see her bottom right front tooth. I am glad that she got a tooth because she was having problems sleeping this past week, and I said to Ryan, by the end of the week she is going to have a tooth, and sure enough here is a tooth. Now it appears like the left front tooth is coming through as well. I am glad that they are coming in at the same time. The top teeth don't look like they are coming in right now.

She continues to babble away the day. Mum-ma has continued to be spoken. It seems she does know that is me as she will say it when she wants to nurse and be cuddled by me. She will also say it if she wants me to pick her up, say out of her playpen. I am working with her now to get her Dada back, as she doesn't say that as much as she use to.

She is enjoying her jolly jumper, her activity center and her latest toy the Fisher Price cookie jar. She has learned how to take things out of the this "cookie jar" and put things back in. Very cute.. and very smart if I do say so myself....

She continues to add to her diet. We are trying to eat at least 2 times a day, trying to add another in to get her to eat three times a day. She has tried sweet potatoes, peas, carrots, apples and bananas, and is continued on her oatmeal cereal. Tonight at dinner, I was feeding her and eating my dinner at the same time, and she had her eye on my chicken burger. So I put the burger up to her mouth and sure enough she opened her mouth right up for the burger. I guess she would like to advance her diet. ... We are going to try Cheerios and cookies as soon as I buy some.

Ryan is continuing to struggle with her eating when I am at work. She detests anything in the bottle form. Ryan has tried different bottles, sippy cups, different holds, positions, distractions - everything, and Lyla continues to be determined that she does not like bottles. She continues to nurse really well and the doctor says that the 2 days that I work in which she has poor oral intact isn't hurting her growth so he isn't too concerned. It is definitely a blessing that I got the part time position as it is best for Lyla to not have me away for longer than is necessary.

We have enjoyed fall so much. Lyla loves to look out the window and see what is going on outside. She loves to look at her "red tree" outside the window...

As 6 months has flown by, I look back and think of our life without Lyla as a distant memory. Don't get me wrong, that was a great time of my life. But this time as a new family is much better. Seeing Ryan playing with Lyla, the two of them giggling together makes me realize how much more complete we are with Lyla in our lives. We once thought that no matter what - we would be going somewhere exotic this January for our 5 year anniversary, and now we both can't imagine leaving our little girl behind, as she is as much a part of us as we are to each other. I am sure a time will come when we do venture away without Lyla, but right now we are so much in love with being the 3 of us, and we realize that this time will soon be gone away and we will be looking at Lyla as a big girl rather than our baby girl. It is nice to have some family time. Speaking of family time, tomorrow is Ryan's 29th birthday. I have Saturday off so we can celebrate his birthday football style with Ryan.

Anyways, I am off to bed... Hope you are all well....

Mum-ma

She said it, and my heart soared! Tonight after Lyla had been put down to sleep. She was upstairs farting around and I was downstairs on the phone with my sister, and I heard it. She started with the "Muh-..... Muh".. Then with all my teaching and coaxing she put it together. Mum-ma! Then she kept saying it over and over until her Mum-ma went to her and there she gave me the biggest smile when I walked in. Like she knew she had accomplished what we had been working on.

In retrospect she seems to say her first words alone. When she sad da-da, she was alone up in her crib just waking up from her nap. Ryan says that her Da-da is too spaced apart and sounds more like babbling and he says her first word is Mum-ma because it was more compact and definite. We will have to see how she works her vocab now that she has these 2 words in her repertoire.

On another note, she loved Halloween. She is such a people person, and especially a little people person. I mean a kid person. We sat with her at the front door and opened up both doors. Ryan sat with her on the steps and then we put her activity center at the door so she could see all the kids as they came to the door. She would huff and puff excitedly and more her legs excitedly when people would come. It was very cute.

Trick of Treat

In true Kelly fashion, I took 150 pictures this afternoon of Lyla's first Halloween...Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween, Happy Trick or Treating!

Updates on Miss Lyla

Time is flying past - way to quickly. I can't believe that we are on the eve of November and today is Halloween. October, as all of the months since Lyla was born, flew right by without a chance for me to update the blog.

This month has had a couple of milestones in Lyla's life. After we got home from Lyla's baptism we started her on cereal, on Monday October 13th. She started with oatmeal cereal. The doctor suggested oatmeal first rather than rice, because rice is more constipating. She really grasped the whole concept of eating cereal very well. She was definitely ready, grabbing for the spoon and helping guide it into her mouth. That and the fact that she could use the spoon as a chew toy. We started her on sweet potatoes yesterday and she thought that was so yummy! She quickly gobbled that up.

She is babbling very well. It sounds like she is saying "Lyla and Dada". Not sure if these are true words or just babbles. But she definitely has gotten these babbles from listening to us talk. When I say "Lyla, Dada and Mama" she zones in on my mouth and stares at it intently as if studying it. She started to say Lyla on October 22nd and Dada followed on the 23rd.

Yesterday I had Lyla sitting on our bed and she sat for a few minutes unassisted. She has been trying to sit up for a while and has been doing so sitting on our knees or on in a groove, but yesterday she sat on an flat surface without anything keeping her up, then she tumbled over.

She has become quite the giggler. She laughs at everything and everything and sometimes absolutely nothing. She is enjoying the games of peekaboo and has no fear. I can jump out and startle her so she just about jumps out of her skin and she just laughs about it.

On Monday October 27th, we put Lyla in her jumperoo for her first time. She just kinda lounged in the jolly jumper at first, then we added some socks to her feet and we showed her what to do, and now she is a jumping queen. She looks so cute bouncing around in it.

So, as you can see we have been really busy in the Hewlett household. We haven't had a weekend together in a couple of months since I have been working weekends. Starting on Monday, Ryan is starting a family leave where he will be caring for Lyla the days that I am at work. We are all looking forward to this change, as Ryan will get to spend some more time with Lyla, and maybe we will get to have some more family time for the 3 of us. I have definitely been missing that aspect, but more so I am grateful that Lyla has not had to go to daycare. Thanks to our parents for helping out with looking after Lyla, we appreciate at it very much. But we are now looking forward to getting back to our normal life, it is straining on everyone to have constant visitors in your house for 7 weeks. This is the first week that I haven't had anyone here and I feel like I am just waiting for someone to arrive.

We have been getting ready for the cold weather, and Lyla has been wearing this cool hat that I bought on clearance before we knew what we were having. Even thought it is a boy-ish hat it looks pretty good on her.

We have been to the Cider mill multiple times, and here is a photo from one of our trips.

And here Lyla is with her buddy Nolan, who is 6 weeks older than her. They were both very interested in each other.

Anyways, that is an update on our little girl. Hope everyone has a Happy Halloween. I will post some pictures of our little pumpkin later today.....

Lyla's Baptism

This past weekend, on October 12th, Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, we had Lyla's baptism. We decided to get her baptized at Granton Wesley United Church. This is the same church that Ryan and I were married in. I enjoyed planning this event, as it was like a little wedding for our little girl. We picked out a dress on line and it was very pretty on Lyla. She truly looked like the belle of the ball.

We went to my parents house on Saturday morning. The last time that we attempted to travel with Lyla it was a night travel. We thought that she would sleep through the entire trip to my parents. Instead, Lyla cried and cried and was very upset. So upset, that we turned back about 25 km into Canada. This trip which normally takes about 1.5 hours, ended up taking 5 hours just because we kept having to pull over and console her. So we decided to forgo the night travelling and go in the morning instead. She traveled very well this way. The traveling did not seem to bother her at all, which was a relief because we had to make the trip this time - no turning back

Saturday was a lot of last minute preparations and running around to get the flowers, the last minute groceries, my sister Pam picked up the cake and just general preparation for the day ahead.

On Sunday morning, she awoke for her 4 am feeding and decided that she didn't need to go back to sleep. It must have been that she was in a different environment or that she was excited about the day ahead, but she was awake until 6:30 that morning. I was worried that this would throw her off because she usually sleeps all morning, and I knew she would be tired now from not sleeping well. She awoke again at 9 am, in time for the church service at 10. But this time, she didn't really want to eat. So now I was thinking that she was tired and hungry, 2 strikes against us. However, Lyla did excellent at the church. She didn't cry when she was baptized. She didn't cry when Lloyd Mardlin walked her around the church to allow everyone to see her. She was a little trooper and we were so proud of her.




This was also a special day for Ryan. Ryan's parents never baptized him, so Ryan decided to get baptized with Lyla. It was nice to see Ryan commit his belief with his daughter.

We then arrived back at my parents house for a reception. I had arranged for a photographer to come to take some pictures and I had gotten a cater for the luncheon. I am still awaiting the pictures from the photographer and I hope that they turned out. In retrospect, it was a little chaotic with everyone trying to get Lyla to look at them for pictures, so I hope that they turned out ok.



The food was great, our caters were "Huron Shores", and I would highly recommend them. We had hot turkey on a bun, garden salad, a vegetable tray, and a pasta salad. We had a arrangement of desserts and I had a cake made that looked like a baptism dress that said "God Bless Lyla" on it. It was both white and chocolate cake. We also served tea and coffee and apple cider. In this picture, Lyla is wearing a dress of mine when I was her age. I had the photographer take a picture to replicate a picture of myself. My mom had found my baby jewelry, - yes I know, baby jewelery ! - a bracelet, and a necklace and Lyla wore those for the day.

My uncle Bill brought over my grandpa's tractor which was very nostalgic for all of us. We rode around on it and thought how gramp would have been smiling down on us from heaven.

The weather was beautiful. A sunny warm day about 75 degrees. We couldn't have asked for better weather.

All in all, it was a great weekend. I especially want to thank my parents for all their help in this day. They offered us their home to have the party at, and they put forth a lot of effort in preparing for this day. Thank you so much! It meant a lot to have the party at your home, and we appreciate everything you did in preparation for this special day.

Fall Outing

Yesterday Ryan had a day off from work, which was great because I have been working a lot of weekends so we got to have a family day. We were not sure what we should do so we decided to go over to the Yate's Cider Mill in Rochester and go for a walk, enjoy a drink of cider and have some fresh donuts. It was such a great day! The Cider mill is on the Clinton River and the Clinton River Trail that runs along beside it. So, when we first got there we went for a nice long walk in the woods. Which Lyla slept through the beginning part of it. But once she woke up she really enjoyed herself. She loves to look out the window at the trees and leaves, and loves being outside in general. So, she really enjoyed being out in nature looking at the trees and hearing the river running alongside us. She saw some ducks and a goat, but I don't think those really impressed her. We then got our apple cider and donuts and sat outside and enjoyed those treats.


When we got home we put our "Little Pumpkin" amongst our pumpkins on our front porch and took some photos.