Nolan's New Job!

Ok, it’s not really new anymore but during my blogging absence Nolan got the School Resource Officer position at Box Elder High School. We’d known for a few months that the position was going to open up and we’d talked about it and decided that we wanted to apply. They finally announced that they would be accepting application letters a few days before I ended up in the hospital. Spending a week in the hospital and having a NICU baby pushed writing an application letter to the back burner. After my week in the hospital Nolan finally found time to write up his letter and after having me read over it he sent it in right before the deadline.

The next step was to interview with the higher-ups in the department and the school board as well. Nolan has always had a great rapport with the high school kids so he already had a decent reputation with a few of the school board members. He knocked the interview out of the park and they ended up offering him the job.

The training for this position is a two-week course that is usually out of state but Nolan didn’t get offered the job until two weeks before school was scheduled to start. Since there wasn’t time to send him to his training he was sent to a two-day course that really didn’t help him at all and then sent off to his new job. As the School Resource Officer (SRO) he also has to teach a Law Enforcement class. If it weren’t for the fact that Nolan has had experience with serious public speaking (thank you High School debate!) and a few training courses since he started working for the department he’d have been in way over his head. As it was he spent the first month frantically trying to figure out how to organize his lesson plans, learn the layout of the new school, round up his own teaching materials, figure out school policy regarding students, and learn the ins and outs of the laws dealing with juveniles.

Even though there have been some really rough days Nolan has LOVED this position! Nolan has always worked very well with the teenagers in Brigham and when he was going to school up at USU he was working towards becoming a high school teacher so this is a position that combines the two things that he’s wanted to do career wise. He’s really been enjoying teaching the class and he’s learning and adjusting every trimester so that he can help the kids understand and retain more.

It’s been a little crazy hearing some of the things that he has to deal with. It makes me feel old to say this but it’s crazy how many problems cell-phones have brought into the schools. We didn’t have cell phones when I was in high school!! Now Nolan has to deal with kids sending dirty pictures and messages to each other and they don’t realize that since they are under 18 that what they are doing is distributing child pornography! To make it worse, when 18-year-old boyfriend sends or receives pictures with 17-year-old girlfriend he can end up being listed as a sex offender for the rest of his life! It’s not just the high school that has these problems either. Nolan also spends time in the 8-9 grade center and sees the exact same problems. CRAZY stuff!

It’s definitely not all bad experiences though. Nolan’s gotten to work with a lot of kids and help them get back on the right track towards graduation and college. He’s gotten to work the home games for both football and basketball. Both teams made it to the playoffs. We took Rodney to the last football game and also to one of the playoff basketball games and he did great! It was REALLY weird to be cheering for Box Elder but it’s really cool to see the students get excited to see Nolan there and to see how invested he is in them after only a few months.

Baby Rodney and I at the football game

Once school is out Nolan will spend the summer working and learning in the detective’s office and going to different training courses so that when the next school year rolls around he’ll actually know what he’s supposed to be doing!

Bringing Rodney Home & Surgery

It’s taken a while to get this post up but I’m pretty sure that every other mother will back me up in saying that it takes a lot of effort to adjust to having a newborn at home, especially when the baby is such a preemie! On September 13^th after 52 days in the NICU we finally got to bring Rodney home! When we left the hospital he weighed 3 lbs 14 ounces. He was doing great but they still sent him home with an apnea monitor because he still had an occasional weird breathing spell, usually when he was eating.

Nolan and Rodney catching up on sleep

The first night we had him home we tried to have him sleep in the bassinet beside our bed. That only lasted about 2 hours before the monitor started blaring. Rodney was fine but one of the monitor leads had come loose. We put it back on and went back to sleep but it kept happening. Around 4 in the morning I grabbed the baby and the monitor and headed downstairs. Because of the stupid monitor and Nolan’s obligation to make an income the couch is where Rodney and I stayed for the next month except for the weekends. All I can say is thank goodness for bouncy chairs. Rodney loved his and slept great in it. I was so glad that we finally got to return the monitor but Rodney and I still stayed downstairs for another week or so while he needed fed every 3 hours.

Cute little man with his GIANT binkie!

Since then he’s had his doctor’s appointment where he had his first vaccinations. So sad! He did pretty well though. The doctor decided to have us add a little bit of powdered formula to his bottles because he wasn’t gaining weight very fast. Two weeks after that we went in for his circumcision which went well but the doctor was concerned about some swelling in Rodney’s pelvis that might be a hernia so he set us up with a consultation down at Primary Children’s.

First pic of him WIDE awake

After a quick visit with the surgeon he decided that Rodney did indeed need surgery. As if being born 10 weeks early wasn’t enough, my 5-½ pound baby now needed to be put under anesthesia for surgery. As scary as this was the doctor reassured us that this is one of the most common procedures they do.

It was going to take about 3 weeks before they could fit us in so in the mean time (and as horrible as it was to think of, just in case the surgery didn’t go as planned) I had a friend come and shoot some newborn photos. They turned out SO good! Thanks Samantha Jane!

On Nov. 3 we drove down to Primary Children’s for the surgery. Having to hand my baby over to a surgeon and watch him walk away was horrible!

Waiting before surgery

They told us that we would probably be waiting 45 minutes to an hour. We waited in a big room with other parents where we watched as their surgeons would come in, give them good news and they would leave to see their child. I know that there were other families there for more serious surgeries but I was a wreck. Two and a half hours later our surgeon came in with another doctor and asked us to come into a private consultation room. At this point I was silently freaking out because it had been so long and apparently Nolan was thinking, “Crap, whenever we go on a death notice we never go alone!” It turned out that everything was fine and the other doctor was shadowing our surgeon. A few minutes later I got to go into recovery where Rodney was just waking up and hold him. They moved us into another room where we would spend the night. Normally it’s an out patient procedure but since Rodney was so small they wanted to monitor him to make sure he came out of the anesthesia alright.

The rest of the day was pretty tough on Rodney, and therefore us. He slept most of the time but when he was awake he would scream whenever Nolan held him. It was kinda sweet seeing that he needed his mommy but still heartbreaking knowing he didn’t feel good.

Sleeping off the anesthesia

Oh, he looks so pathetic. :-(

He did just fine overnight and we went home early the next morning. He mostly slept for the next few days but all he ever needed for the pain from 3 incisions was half a dropper of Tylenol!

The day after surgery and already perking up.

Rodney recovered from the surgery just fine and now you can barely see the little incisions. That’s all for this post!

Catch Up

So I'm WAY behind on posts! Normally I could understand not even trying to catch up but since this blog is also the only way that I journal that's what I'm going to do. Over the next few days (or weeks) I'm going to be posting A LOT so bear with me. Here's a taste of the adorableness to come!