Work Besties

When I started working at Primary Children's Hospital I was given a desk in a little office with three other Child Life Specialists, Ashley, Becca and Carly. I am very fond of each of these women and have developed what feels like real friendships with them, and I hope those friendships continue to grow and strengthen. It's been so interesting to develop work friendships with my coworkers, both in my office and outside of it, who are all quite a bit younger than myself. I feel like all of the CLSs at the hospital are either in their 20s or in their 50s. That's not entirely true but really there are some really young people - like early 20s. The same as my kids. But we are on a team together, eat together, even celebrate together. My office mates are slightly older but not a lot. Late 20's and mid 30's. And I'm such the momma of the office!

I'd say my closest friend has been Carly, who is married and has a two-year-old daughter, and let me know shortly after I started working that she was expecting her 2nd. I really love being around Carly. We have bonded a lot over our various challenges and stories about our kids and families. And of course she was going to be leaving shortly before her baby was due. I'm happy for her but also really sad she's gone - she was only working 2 days a week anyway, and I don't think she'll be coming back, at least not to her former position.

On our last day together we had an office lunch. I have become known as the salad lady - I do generally bring a salad for lunch and my office mates have asked me to make salads for them in the past. See? I'm the momma. I made one of my favorites, with roasted sweet potatoes and goat cheese and this yummy honey dressing, and we enjoyed lunch together. That's one thing that is really different now than my life as a Child Life Specialist 20+ years ago - we used to have a small team of maybe 12 people, and we ate lunch together almost every day. Now there are more than 30 of us, and lunch happens alone in our offices. It's sad. And speaking of sad, we took some office-group pictures together and then Carly and Becca and I walked to our cars together when the day was over. Tears were shed! Especially by Becca, who has worked with Carly for a lot of years and is a lot closer to her. So cute and sweet and I'm just bummed that Carly isn't there now. 

Yay for Marco Polo. We have actually stayed in touch, hurrah. 

The Desk Buffet

Also hurrah for cute new babies and new big sisters: