A Hard Week

It’s been a hard week over here. I started working at my job 14 years ago. It’s been a great place to work, so great that once you start working there, you never keave. Our staff turnover is crazy low. As of 14 months ago, out of the 10 of us, 6 had been there longer that I had and one more had been there nearly a decade. In the last 14 months, 3 of them have retired, including the director. The process of getting a new director has been complicated and emotional, but we do now have a new one. However, there was been some staff turnover because of that and the last one just left this week. Now suddenly there are three of us that have been there forever. Suddenly I’m an old-timer. The new people are nice and it will all be fine, it’s just that my office had been one of the most stable parts of my life for my entire adulthood and it just all flipped upside down.

On Monday I found out that one of my high school kids from when I did youth group at a previous church committeed suicide. I haven’t had much contact with him in over a decade, but it’s still hard to process. I keep holding Josy and thinking that just a few short years ago, his mama was snuggling with him, with no idea what kind of pain her little baby would be in in just a few years.

On top of that, Josy has another ear infection so we may be going towards getting tubes and my car battery died while I was dropping the boys off at school yesterday (for the fourth or fifth time in a couple of weeks) so I got a new battery for Valentine’s Day.

And to make things more fun, Lucy is laying on my lap thinking I’m her actual mama because she is trying to nurse off of my stomach. It’s weirding me out.

But onto happier things... 

I asked Gabe to keep an eye on Josy so I could go brush my teeth. When I can back downstairs, Josy was in the kitchen by himself and Gabe was doing this:

Clearly I will need to take Josy with me to brush my teeth as my babysitter is not reliable...

I had to do sugery on String. He’s going to love this poor blanket to death. I fixed it while he was in bed and then I brought it up to him, thinking he was asleep. As soon as I walked in, he sat up, grabbed String and curled up in a little ball with it. Then he said “I love you.” I have no idea if he was talking to me or String...

Josy is now pulling himself up to standing, which I’m definitely not okay with. The silly child just will not stop growing up on me. He even sat in the grocery cart all by himself (although that one isn’t terrible because grocery shopping will be easier when I don’t have to fill the whole cart with a carseat...) We even pulled out the lion that Gram gave Gabe for his first birthday.

The other day I helped Gabe go to the bathroom....

M: What did you forget to do?

G points to the toilet flusher

M: Yep. Hop to.

He flushes the toilet.

M: Now what else did you forget?

G points to the toilet seat

M: Yep. Do it to it.

He puts the toilet seat down.

M: Now what else do you need to do?

G points to the sink

M: Yep. Hop to.

G: No Mommy. It’s Hop three. Hop one (points at the toilet flusher), hop two (points at the toilet seat) and hope three (points at the sink).

Also, he calls GI Joes, Cheater-Eye Joes. I have no idea why.

And this picture is too adorable not to add...