Laughter and Loss

After unloading the dishwasher, I demanded he clean his room and locate my missing bowls. The boy lives in a trashcan.

Saturday Ty asked if he could go grocery shopping with me. Flattered he would even want to, I quickly agreed. Lest anyone believe he had chivalrous motives, as soon as we walked into Aldi, he declared he was in charge of the snacks. Apparently this is not my area of expertise. 

Kate's latest art project using white lead on black paper. I'm so glad her schedule once again allowed an art class. 

During that same shopping trip, Kate text asking me to pick up toothpaste and her observant brother asked if she ever got her braces off. Five days had passed since she had them removed and he hadn't noticed, despite several conversations and meals shared across the table from one another. Dear future daughter-in-law, please don't hate me. I tried. I really did. 

The dog literally ate my homework. I walked away for less than a minute. Sigh. 

She was supposed to be celebrating her first anniversary this weekend but has instead filed for divorce. Her life is not what she expected and we are all still processing the sudden changes in Noah after four years of what we believed was a healthy relationship. He was someone we all loved. We are saddened by the choices he made and the way he expressed his brokenness. The specifics are theirs to share but the severed marriage has a ripple effect we are continuing to navigate. Our girl will come through this storm stronger for it. We just wish we could have sheltered her from the intensity of the pain. 

Piper, Ty's hamster died suddenly Wednesday. He was heartbroken. We had a small funeral for her away from Diesel's digging paws that evening. These little guys leave big holes in the hearts of those who love them. 

But in far more fun news, Erin is celebrating the final decision to include her in a study abroad program in Africa this Christmas. She is excited about the stamp in her passport and the big step toward her global health care career. And whereas we are excited for her, it's not without a bit of trepidation. Africa? This seems extreme. Never the less, we are pretty proud of our goal driven daughter. 

At work, I run a variety of phonics based drills and one of them uses cards at random to produce nonsense words following a consonant-vowel-consonant pattern. I was running through the drill as quickly as the students could call out the word until one yelled the answer to f-u-c. This, ladies and gentlemen is how I will lose my job. That poor kid was as shocked as I was. There simply is never a dull moment in elementary school.