I have a new assistant.

Alyssa is back to work.

That's the best news of the week in my opinion. I've missed having her there.

I have a very sweet assistant who's been with me since March of last year who was anxious to cut her hours a bit. She asked to stop working mornings in September, naming an October 10th date as her 'final' morning shift.
She's a full time college student and needed more time to devote to homework as well as the fact that she drives about a mile further than I do each way. I don't mind the 8 miles to and from, twice a day. Haha... it's why I make the big bucks. (that last was sarcasm, by the way... the people who do the actual work don't make much in the way of hourly wages. My real compensation is the insurance. Good thing, since after it's been taken out of my wages, there isn't much left.)
Due to a crazy hiring process with our company, Lyssa's application took more than a month to go through. I've heard that before. Instead of making the process more streamlined, they've further complicated it until it's truly amazing that anyone still wants to work there by the time they actually get hired. If I were desperate for a job, I certainly wouldn't wait until they managed to process my app.

I have had a series of assistants out there at my school. All of them have been nice people, most of them a lot younger than I am. I have not had one who wasn't good. They have been good with the kids, punctual and reliable. Helpful. I've been fortunate, some of the horror stories I've heard from other site directors has made me appreciative.

But none of my other assistants have been as good with the kids as Lyssa is. She just has the knack. She can see what's going on in a situation, knows when to intervene and what to say. Sometimes a situation escalates quickly, and you sort of have to get a feel for what might happen. It's easier to act than to REact, if that makes sense. Stop it before it really gets started. She's good at it, which makes my job easier.

And the kids have missed her so much. Many assistants have come and gone, and sometimes they express regret over one moving on, but with Lyssa, they have never forgotten her. They ask about her constantly, and have said so many times how much they miss her. She understands them so well and is so approachable for them. The kids who hadn't met her were filled in by the ones who had, and several of them expressed the wish that they'd been in my program when Lyssa was still there.

She wanted to surprise them by returning to work, so I didn't tell them she was home. She started the application process while she was still in North Carolina. At the beginning of the week this week, she was still 'somewhere' in the process.

And Tuesday afternoon, literally 20 minutes before I was ready to leave for work, our manager called and asked if she could come in. She hadn't eaten, there were some other issues going on and she didn't really feel up to it, but she said yes.

It was so much fun to see the looks on their faces. She got a lot of hugs.

The next morning, the morning kids were just as happy to see her. Jennifer was particularly pleased. But she reacted in a funny way. She saw Lyssa and blushed. And then she was so flummoxed she didn't even go talk to her at first. It was very cute.

Of course she's back to her usual bossy self now, telling Lyssa that her dog weighs 450 lbs and arguing over the fact that the game is called Chess, not Chest. "It sounds the same, so it is."

But I'm so pleased to have her back.

If she wanted to pursue a career working with children, she'd be pretty good at it, that's for sure.

Meanwhile, I am lucky to have her there.

OK. Shower and groceries and baking and cleaning on tap this weekend. Laundry. Drawing some pictures. Trying to finish so I can set up my art area in the back bedroom.

Domestic stuff.

During this next week, there is no school. A prospect which pleases me greatly.
I am off work completely on Monday, and work some short hours on Tuesday and Wednesday. Matt and Amy will be here for dinner on Thursday. That means I need to do a lot of cooking between now and then, doesn't it?

Good thing I like it.