... completely like all of us ...

On January 25th, my newest roommate came to join us.


Yes, she's that perfect. Yes, I'm that in love. No, she's not keeping me up at night and YES, it will be so SO hard to leave for grad school in the fall (pending acceptance). Miss Madelyn decided to make her grand entrance four weeks early and came out in three pushes and 7 hours of labor.

She's changed dramatically in the eight weeks she's been on the outs. Her cheeks are filling out, her little fingers are pleasantly plump and her belly is developing a roundness that is impossible not to touch.

We talk about things, Miss Madelyn and I. I have to impart what I can in the next few months.

The two jobs have kept me amazingly, amazingly busy.

I have my hands full with training and supervising new staff, have had back to back termination trials and have had report after report due. {According to federal law, when children are taken into foster care, parents have one year, give or take, to successfully complete parenting services and make necessary changes. When that does not happen, for whatever reason, the district attorney, general attorney's office, prosecuting attorney's office [whomever - it changes from jurisdiction to jurisdiction] will file a petition to terminate the parents rights. No matter the situation, it is ALWAYS hard.}

And the grad school application is turned in! {Actually, it was turned in in January, and yet I won't find out until the 3rd week of April ...}

There's a few things I would have liked to have done in the past 3 months. I would have liked to have blogged more. Read more. Gone skiing. Or just slept in. Was it really just four months ago I was surfing on the North Shore?

Can I go back?