I am awake at 2:00 am. I was just bragging yesterday about how easy it is for me to go right back to sleep after I'm awakened at night. It's a special skill, earned in the trenches of mommyhood.  However, get me completely awake, to the point that my brain turns on and starts reprocessing the events of the day, and I might toss and turn for a couple of hours while riding my little mental carousel. So this morning, when Paul came to bed, complained loudly that Ari's water leaked onto his sheets, moved the boy, and asked me to retrieve the cell phone charger from my purse, my brain got switched to full on.

I don't talk a lot about work, because ya know, no one wants to get Dooced. The fact is, I am not just an overweight, financially impaired mom of four.  To earn my paycheck, I work as a software trainer for a large medical group. My employer has over two hundred physicians on staff, in around seventy locations. We are engaged in a staggered but aggressive implementation of electronic medical records software. None of these offices have used anything but paper charts up until now, so there's a lot of stress involved. The software is good, but I get the impression that it is tailored more for smaller practices. Any customization done affects the entire enterprise, and it seems that the programmers have a pretty healthy sense of humor. We just discovered this week that clicking "normal" on a review of systems for a male child yields a value of "negative for vaginal discharge". While this finding might be technically correct, it is quite inappropriate. Less amusing, and more alarming, is the default value of "anterior fontanel closed", which prints to the document as "anterior fontanel normal for age", for an infant! We find these little things every week, and are amazed that no one has mentioned them before. This is not brand spanking new software, and we ourselves are a year into the implementation, and have already brought up four other pediatric offices. It blows the mind. Of course, many of these issues have been reported. Our analysts are between a rock and a hard place. There are only two of them, and they are busy fixing emergent issues, developing solutions for future installs, and negotiating with the vendor. The vendor always has a very vendor like answer, such as "that's an interface problem" or "that will be fixed in the next upgrade or patch". But neither the analysts, the vendor, or the very humorous programmers must stand next to a nervous, disgruntled physician and explain that "Oh, that feature is glitched. Here's your workaround." It's just frustrating, and very often (as in the examples above) embarrassing. We might finally have a solution to growth charts that don't plot correctly and growth percentiles that are even worse. Fingers crossed.

In addition, something important broke this week, and we don't know the extent of the damage.  There are some fierce communication challenges, just to identify the problem. There are toes not to be stepped on, egos not to be bruised, feelings not to be hurt, and patients that musn't fall through the cracks. I tend to think the latter trumps all of the former, but I also really need to stay employed. My mouth has gotten me into hot water on more than one occasion, and curiosity isn't necessarily a valuable asset in this environment.  It's a lot different from nursing, where initiative, curiosity, and problem solving are all vital, in large doses, preferably.  It is difficult to water oneself down. So I'm awake.

Last night, when Ari appeared at my bedside at 3:30 a.m. demanding his water bottle and puppy, and in the course of finding the water bottle Paul also requested a drink (which later offended him when he awoke with no recollection of the conversation), and I checked on Libby and checked on the laundry, and found the water bottle and puppy and staggered back to bed, I was annoyed but fell right back to sleep. Those were good times.

Yesterday, my little girl travelled to the airport, boarded a plane to Dallas, and then to Minneapolis, and I wasn't there! Her grandmother accompanied her. Have you ever tried to focus on work when your offspring is in an unknown location in another part of the country? It's difficult. I didn't even know if she made it safely to her first flight until she was boarding her second one.  They cut it way closer getting to the airport than would make me comfortable.

Reagan is having an exciting summer adventure, spending the month with her aunt.  I'm excited for her, but I feel like someone cut off part of my foot. I'm completely unstable and unhinged. This might lead you to believe that I'm an overprotective mother and a clinger. I just point out my emotions at a time like this to further point out that I'm acting in direct opposition to them. And sometimes you have to act in direct opposition to your emotions to be a good mother. Sometimes you have to work in opposition to your emotions to be a good person, so it's not a big jump, logically. 

I am not, however, acting in opposition to my instincts. I know this will be good for her, I know she'll have a wonderful time, and I know she might even miss me a little bit. It's good for her to know that we miss her a LOT. Being a middle child, who was the youngest for seven years and is now placed in the role of the oldest, I know that she sometimes feels overlooked or unimportant. I know she probably doesn't get as much one on one attention as she deserves. I noticed this when the last postpartum fog began to break and have been trying to counteract it as much as possible.

However, she can sleep soundly in the knowledge that we are all walking around saying, "Reagan's gone! I miss Reagan!", and it's not even because the trash needs to be taken out.

Two weeks ago, I took a ride on a bus with a bunch of twelve year olds.  I'd had three and half hours sleep, following my son's graduation party.  We were scheduled to arrive at 6:15 a.m. to board the bus that would take us across the state to a sixth grade band competition and then an amusement park. Two of the four buses didn't arrive until 6:55 a.m. We stood in the predawn under cold drizzle, holding our bags, instruments and ice cold drinks. It was cold. Sometime during this twenty to thirty minute period, I remembered that I forgot my sunscreen. Standing there cold and wet with no sun in sight though, it just didn't seem pertinent. Besides, it was too late to do anything about it.

There were only three adults on this bus, other than the band teacher.  The other chickens got in their own temperature and volume controlled vehicles and followed. See the abject fear courageous look on this man's face? I understand where he's coming from. Completely. Luckily, I have the amazing ability to sleep under just about any conditions, so I napped most of the way. I only woke up when my limbs froze and started burning. The kids figured it would be more interesting to use the air conditioning in the morning when it was raining and cold, and then turn the heat on as the day got warmer. Adorable.

Reagan is a terrific photojournalist. She particularly enjoys taking pictures of her legs and feet. She's artistic like that, but this isn't an artsy fartsy post. Instead, here's a photo of her friends Adrian and Dawn. They were pretty much inseparable all day, and this did not please Adrian's girlfriend one bit. As I understand it, it was actually Reagan's fault.

We have no photographic documentation of the band competition.. I might have taken pictures if I'd had time to pull my camera out or access to any light whatsoever in the auditorium. They filed in, played two songs, and climbed back on the bus. They scored a "1", which they tell me is a "Superior" score, and the best score possible. Eardrum breaking celebration ensued, and then we sat in the parking lot for another 45 minutes. We arrived at CiCi's pizza at 10:45 am for "lunch".  While waiting in line, another parent expressed her disapproval of such a low class establishment.  I tried to relate, but I was still drooling on myself from the sleep deprivation. We finally made it to Frontier City around 12:30, and the kids got to practice the AED on me after they told us we'd be meeting back at the entrance at 7:00 p.m. These band folks are not exactly about full disclosure when they ask for your signature and money three weeks earlier.

I ended up with Reagan and five other little goofballs, and proceeded to observe pubescent courtship rituals and alpha male tactics for the next six and half hours. It was extremely educational.  I was lucky that my kids' names formed a natural mnemonic device, because my worst fear was having to yell, "Hey you! Get back here!" But we had Shae, Sean, John, Josh, and Jacob. I had them memorized by the time we hit the gate. Everytime I had to holler, I had a genuine name to shout out.

This is John, not to be confused with Sean, although they both have blond hair and think my daughter is awesome. Who could blame them, really? John won this deputy puppy and gave it to Miss Reagan.

This is the back of Jacob's head, with which I became extremely familiar, as "Where's Jacob?" became our group motto. This boy likes the games of chance. Look out Vegas. If there was a prize to be won, he completely forgot he was a member of a larger group and succumbed to a powerful gravitational pull that was frankly, a little frightening.

Here's the front of Jacob's head, along with Sean, not to be confused with John. They won those fancy neckties just by having difficult to guess weights!

Here is Josh, a real Frontier City expert. He knew where all the best rides were, or at least where they used to be, and he wanted to ride the best rides first. Unfortunately, after he'd dragged the whole group to the other side of the park, he lost all interest in the ride. I spent a lot of time with Josh one on one while the other kids took their turns on the rides.  He's a nice boy. He reminds me a little of my oldest son, and Bobby Bouchet.

Here's the rock star herself.  Although she confided in me that those boys were making her crazy with all their competing for her attention, she seems to be having a pretty good time.

See? That's John again, not to be confused with Sean.

Here's the lovely and camera shy Shae. The easiest and sweetest one of the group.  She was genuinely concerned for me when I started scratching my flesh off after fifteen minutes in the sun. She asked Reagan, "do you have sensitive skin too?" with a look on her face that said she was terrified that one of her best friends might burst into flames right in front of her. Reagan does not have sensitive skin. Apparently all of my recessive genes containing pigmentation instructions went to her.

Here I am: mid burn. I can't explain that look. If you need to understand, deprive yourself of sleep, expose yourself to large crowds and loud volumes and try to keep track of six kids in a large open area, and just go ahead and catch your skin on fire while you're at it. I need a drink.

Here's the rest of the goofballs, waiting for some ride or attraction that was never really explained.

I kept them together pretty well until after the awards assembly at five. It was then that some wanted to eat and some wanted to keep riding, and all wanted to go off on their own.  I managed to corral them back to the bus at seven though, and took the longest sigh of relief of my entire life. Seriously. They were good kids. It was a fun day. But I had to lock myself in a light and sound proof chamber for the next twenty four hours, after bathing in aloe.