Busy Spring!

I've been just swamped at work this spring. Good because things are sailing along well, but bad because we are overloaded and have gotten behind. Orders came in from the Gift Show in New York in abundance - that was Beginning of Feb. We've had some great custom work as well. Between the two we're starting to need to reassess our need for hired help. So things should get interesting. I'm usually reluctant to hand over my work to someone else, but I also need to realize I can't do it all! That's been a tough one.

My mom has been a great help. She is working in the store and takes Laurel a lot of mornings for me. It's nice to have the extra time to get things done in the morning so that I can really appreciate my time with Laurel in the afternoon. Laurel is always a good sport and loves spending time with everyone. The attachment she had as a baby is long gone and she really enjoys other people now. She loves being at Grandma's apartment and she's lucky that my mom has sent up a fun environment for her there. Laurel loves to feed the fish and the hamster and tends to the dog a lot. Molly is very patient with her now, at first being afraid of a tiny person! Laurel is very loving and gives her kisses. Grandma has tons of puzzles and books and keeps a cupboard stocked with creative games and toys. A lot of the time I have no plans to leave her at Grandma's, but Laurel will request to go there.

Laurel is doing really well at school and her teachers have even commented on her progress. She is talkative, follows directions, very active in her gym time and is all around happy with fun to be around. I was told she is "awesome to have in class", by one of her teachers. Makes me so proud she is doing so well, but it also means she is growing up so fast! She has no trouble expressing herself to us. The sentence structure sometimes misses "and", "in", "on", and other conjunctions, but she knows more than enough words to completely express herself. We are working on saying "no, thank you" when refusing something instead of getting upset. Her regular please and thank you is coming without prompting, so she's turning into such a polite little girl!:)