The Jones Ohana: Working Momma

I am going back to work. Woa. I've actually have already been to work, but haven't started the actual job. I spent all of last week in general orientation, which was actually very well managed and organized. I feel like having been through four hospital orientations now I am a bit experienced in general orientation. Anyway, a forty hour work week is something that I haven't done in goodness knows how long, and I've never done it with a kid, so my biggest challenge last week was getting childcare for Grace. Thankfully, Clara (Webster) Yu, who lives in San Francisco and is a GOD SEND accepted my plea and came down for four days to watch Grace for us. They had a fantastic time together! They played, went to the aquarium, went shopping, and jumped on the bed a LOT. I think Grace had the best time, and it made me feel good knowing that she was with Clara, who I trust and love and is like family to me. For someone who hasn't had family around in a very, very long time, having Clara and Kyle so close is so incredible it almost makes me teary. :)

I start my shift work next week, nights. I'm really excited to be back in the nursery and hopefully I'll be able to bring some new knowledge to the group. I have to share one amazing thing though that happened this week. On Sunday I was pretty down because I was stressed about getting childcare covered for Grace, and I was reflecting on the fact that we haven't found a group yet here in Monterey to hang out with. Namely, for me I was thinking women to hang out with and specifically PWOC women. A group that wasn't just based around kids. So, I said a prayer that God might bring someone into my life and that I would find that friendship that I had gotten from women like Bev, Melissa, Delena, Casey, Joyce, Titti, etc. (I know it's a high, demanding list, but hey, God can do anything!). I was still disheartened though and Daniel didn't necessarily understand what I was trying to say when I explained it to him. Fast forward to Tuesday; I've been in orientation a day so far, and I've met the other girl who is starting on the unit with me. Her name is Emily and she's going to be doing the day shift per diem job, whereas I will be on the night shift. We are getting to know each other and they have just learned over the weekend that a birth mom has picked them as parents, so they are going to be adopting a baby girl... in two weeks! Most of our conversations are revolving around that, but somehow we get on the topic of churches, we share that we are both attending Shoreline Community Church, which leads to her talking about Officer Christian Fellowship (something that we have wanted to try, but Grace goes to bed before it starts); and THEN she says, "have you heard of PWOC?" I about fall out of my chair!! I had looked for PWOC when we first arrived and actually asked the Chaplains at an open house event, but never got any information. So, I was more than surprised when Emily said that there was one... and actually it was a pretty big group of women! It just happens to be at Fort Ord, which is an Army base, not Navy. So, here is this girl, who I was so happy to meet but assumed was going to be a work friend, and she is God's answered prayer for me. In a way, I am an answer for her too, because she and I got to talk about a lot of baby things, and she was able to tell me about PWOC. I am just floored sometimes how God works. Emily won't be starting work right away because she's going to go get her baby girl :), but I have a feeling we'll be seeing each other a bit more.

I'll leave with a couple pictures of Grace and Grandma/Grandpa Spinweber when they were here. We had a great time being tourists for Monterey, Carmel, and Pebble Beach.

Ciao Tutti!

Grace Eliana