The start of May, continues.....

I started this week's blogs backwards, I guess.  I wrote about Saturday, but we did have a few other things along the way before that.

The first big news is that Ben is to be placed on the discharge list for the Utah State Hospital and so should be back at the local inpatient unit within 30 days.  Yay!!  We and DBH have asked for an assessment to be done on his overall functioning, which they agreed to at the meeting, but since then have stepped back from it.  Not sure what exactly is happening with that, but hopefully we will get some answers next week.  We are so happy to be at the end of this part of the journey.  Overall it has been a disappointing and long process, but maybe we will discover some unexpected benefits in the future from his almost 2 year stay there.

Jena and I went to see Camelot at the Center Point Theatre with her ski instructor and her husband.  This has become an annual tradition as Jena and Terrie both love skiing and the theatre. The music, costumes, and staging was very good.

No pictures of us, but we enjoyed the play a lot. 

Of course, a major part of each of my days during the week is spent at The Children's Center.  I love the work that I do there, but it can be hard and gut wrenching as well and this was one of those weeks--for some of my clients, for me, and for my co-workers.  We have as a team been adjusting to the loss of some significant co-workers--one who left in April and another leaving at the end of May, so that is hard.  And then this past week, we have had a number of difficult cases where we have had to make reports of child abuse or other problems to different government agencies--those are always tough for all of us as we try to provide support to each other.  I decided we needed a boost so I found this meme on Pinterest and provided each of my co-workers some chocolate along with the note. 

I can't send you chocolate if you are having that kind of week, but I hope you know that if you were near (in time or space), I would....and no matter where you are, my love is always there.

Only adding to the "fun" at work, the CEO of the Utah Down Syndrome Foundation has decided to retire...not unexpected as his wife retired last year, but still means that I have to take the lead in the hiring process for a new person.  Steve has been great and I don't know if we could find someone else that could do as good of a job for some little pay.  He did get paid more per hour that I do currently, but it was only part time and no benefits.  Keeps me on my toes, for sure.  We held our quarterly Board meeting on last Thursday and formally accepted his retirement and started the process to advertise.

It was fun to  have a quick overnight stay by Jessica, Elessia, Liam and Zander.  They had something up here on Friday afternoon and then on Saturday morning, so they stayed with us.  Liam was disappointed that there was no trampoline but it will be ready for him next time.  Elessia and I stayed up talking about motherhood until 1:00 a.m......I think I am getting too old for that but will probably do it again and again until I end my life on early.  I like sleep, but apparently I like talking more!