Re-connecting

Throughout my adult life, I've been blessed to work with some amazing women.  One of those jobs was with the Family Development Center at GSU.  As a new grad with a Masters Degree in Early Childhood under my belt, I was asked to take a position as an Infant/Toddler specialist.  Mind you, this was before I had any children of my own, so I was granted the title simply based on coursework and research.  I loved the job, doing home visits, working with teen moms, leading library lapsits and playgroups, teaching art to toddlers, teaching infant massage.  So much fun!  One of the hardest parts of the job for me was planning and presenting parent education topics to groups of new moms and dads.  I can recall Mark laughing at me and saying it was kind of like us having to get marital advice from a priest before getting married.  What did he know about the reality of marriage*?  Probably just as much as I knew about the reality of parenting!

These days I can sit back and laugh about the idea of "childless me" telling parents how to best get their children to sleep through the night, potty train, feed nutritious meals, instill values and discipline techniques.  I'm forever grateful for the parents I worked with not laughing in my face or telling me where to stick my advice : )  I'm also forever grateful for the talented group of women that I worked with at that time in my life.  We were all so inspired about the possibilities that the job presented to not only us, but the communities we were serving.  We worked hard, laughed a lot, learned a lot, and formed some friendships that last until this day. 

We've all gone a lot of places in our lives in the almost 10 years since we started our jobs together.  Some I've lost touch with, others I connect with on Facebook and via email.  Some I get together with about once a year, some I haven't seen since my last day of work there.  On a recent Sunday afternoon, a few of us got together for lunch and had a great time catching up and reconnecting.  Hopefully that will be our first annual reunion, with many more to come!

*funny sidenote:  the priest that married us is no longer an actual priest.  He left the priesthood after allegedly having an affair with a married parishoner.  Ironic, huh?