A good week

It's Monday and school is delayed for two hours because of snow (blech), so while my boys watch TV/play Legos and the yet to be used bottle of bubble bath I bought a month ago when I was really depressed sits shattered on my bathroom floor, purple soap oozing across the tiles, I thought, "What better time to blog?", since these days will be fewer when I START WORKING THIS WEEK!

First you probably are dying to know how the bullying situation turned out: Gabe whipped all their butts.

Ok, I'm kidding. Actually Terry went to the bus stop and made Gabe face this little brat. Some background first though: When Terry came home from Iraq, Gabe's teacher asked if Terry would like to come and speak for Veteran's Day, which he did. Of course the kids had lots of questions for him about Iraq (he premised his talk with "I won't answer any questions about killing people"). One kid who we now know as "the bully" had lots of questions for Terry. Fast forward to last week.

Terry asked the kid if he remembered Terry. The Bully said, "yes." Terry asked him where he lived and the Bully actually told him! So Terry spoke to the kid's mother and she was very upset that her son was doing these things to Gabe. When Terry told her one of the things her son was doing was making fun of Gabe because he was slapped in the face and cried about it, she said, "He got a lot of nerve! That kid cries at everything. And you tell Gabe that." It was sweet. So, then we called the school and talked to Gabe's teacher who gave each kid a special "no bullying" talk, and the principal who reassured us that we did the right thing, which we hate, because sometimes she is a bit condescending to us young parents. Anyhoo, it seems to be worked out, but I'm definitely keeping my eye on things.

The last week has been just crazy, actually this whole month has been busy. I feel great about the job I chose. I went with a group of four other ladies from my new place of employment, to be on a panel of spouses/parents of deployed service members. In front of about 20 psych students, for three hours, we talked and talked about our experiences. It was surprising that the other four women had worked together for years, some during their kids'/husbands' deployments, but never shared this much. Amazing isn't it? I held back a little out of respect for my husband, but it was so cathartic to tell an audience, "This is what it was like for me, and this is what you can do to help others in my situation."

I chose a daycare for Asher, but I'm only about 85% on it. It's definitely temp until I can find a place with an opening, or I may love it and I'll keep him there, we'll see. Meanwhile I'm hiring a friend with hopes this nasty flu thing will pass and Asher won't drag it home with him the first day of daycare.

I'm also taking on another project for another NP that has helped me through the years. I must have, "I love to volunteer" written on my forehead :) So, I'm going to be crazy busy in February.
Also, I'm so proud that I met my goal to write an article a week. One article, done, ready to ship off to an editor who will say, "You are amazing. Will you join our staff? We've never had a mom write about parenting before." Yes, you can laugh at me.

Lastly, we booked our trip to Disneyworld!!!!! It's real! We saved for it during the deployment and kept delaying it, but we've finally dried our tears from sticker shock, and are ready to go. It's not for a few months but it feels good to have the flight and hotel reservations on the corkboard.

At this rate, who knows, we may actually get lucky enough to buy a house this year.