Forgiveness, Surprise Puppies, and Bring your Kids to Work Day

I need to work on tidying up my titles.  :)

Yesterday was an eventful day for me, and something that will stand out in my memory for a long time.  I needed to ask a friend, face-to-face, for forgiveness for something I did nearly a year ago.  The whole drive there, I kept picturing our confrontation and how nerve-wracking it would be.  But once we were together and finally brave enough to dive into deep discussion, I realized that she has a capacity for forgiveness that far-exceeded my wildest expectations.  Our lunch together turned out to be an indescribably wonderful experience.  The part that stands out the most is when she reached across the table, took my hands, and said "Jodi, I forgive you.  We're friends."  As if it were the most simple decision in the world to make. 

I was also able to meet her four-month-old baby boy for the first time, and he is so utterly adorable that he was making me ache for more babies of my own.  Every time I held him, he just gazed right into my face with these big, beautiful eyes, and this little smile playing across his face.  He has so much personality, and in the five hours or so that we chatted, he never once got fussy.  That kid is lethal to hold if you're trying to NOT have anymore kids.

The drive home last night was a happy blur.  But I didn't come close to getting enough sleep last night, so this morning I kept making silly mistakes.  The biggest one was I accidentally took the kids to work with me.  Their school starts after mine, so every morning I load their sleepy little bodies into the car and drop them off at Teri's house.  But this morning, my mind must've been on auto-pilot.  I pulled up into my work's parking lot, ready to start my day, when suddenly I hear Trin's sleepy little voice in the back of the car saying, "Um, Mom, what are we doing?"  I gasped and said "Oh crap!  You two are still here?"  They both started cracking up, and I had to turn around and drive them to Teri's house, which landed me with a lousy parking spot once I finally got back to work.  But it was a lot better than having an eleven- and seven-year-old stuck in my classroom all day wearing jammies and slippers.

In other news, my dog Cricket had six puppies.  This is only exciting for me because I didn't know she was pregnant until Friday (long story).  Teri was the one who finally noticed the fact that the dog was stuffed to the brim with puppies, and I actually had to go back to a previous post to see when Cricket was due.  Based on my calculations, she was due this Monday, which gave me three whole days to prepare.  Lo and behold, she actually delivered them right on her due date, while I was busy at the "edge of the ocean" trying to start over again.  I have never in my adult life dealt with newborn puppies before, so I'm a little nervous about them.  They're pure-bred Pembroke Welsh Corgis (damn that sounds pretentious), so Clint's already doing a great job taking care of them since they're his little money-makers.