Sorry, it's been so long!

This is Zack's eleven month old picture!  The big birthday bash is being planned.  We're very excited.

This pic is from the day we went down to Mom's to give her some support after she got some very bad news.  She lost her job.

Ironically (and yes, I think I'm using that word correctly), it has been my brother's job that we have all been the most worried about, as he will become part of Microsoft's first round of layoffs ever on June 1st.  The politics involved in his job loss were vicious and ugly and unfair, but Pete rallied and worked his ass off, and he just got his dream job in Florida, right in the nick of time!  He is so happy and I am so relieved for him and for my three nephews!

And then Mom's company up and decided to move operations to Ohio.  The two bits of news happened within one day of each other.  Unlike Pete, Mom is in no shape for a cross country move.  She was offered a job in the new Ohio location, but she took the severance package instead.  Several nervous breakdowns, a few pain med imbalances that made her sound truly high and crazy, and one hospital stay later, she is finally sounding optimistic about finding another job.  She has never been able to remember Dr. Sterling's name.  It has gone from "Silver" to "Spurling" to "The one we like" to occasionally, "Meh Bleh."  But the meds seem to be in order now, and she is sounding much more lucid.  (Phew.  Major phew!)

It's been a tough month.  Mom got a social worker from the Counsel on Aging in to talk to the family, and it looks like they are getting Meals on Wheels, which is a significant relief to me.  I had been trying to cook big meals and bring them down there.  I succeeded in doing this exactly twice.  Grandma seems to be softening to the idea of a nursing home.  I have my fingers crossed.  The social worker was a great first step.  Very smart to have a neutral, expert person in to evaluate the situation.

With the grim news aside, we have video and pics to share, and Zack is really being great lately.  He's been teething and having a hard time with that, but otherwise, he is walking like a champ and his sense of humor and games and just his personality in general are developing so much every day.  He's cracking us up.  He looks more and more like I did as a baby, but there's no doubt that his personality is straight up Jeff!  Example:  he will push away anything he does not like.  Books, food, whatever.  He just pushes it away from him.  And if you stop playing hide and seek, he pushes you to play some more and makes a lot of noise about it.  Okay, maybe any baby does this, but to me this refusal to deal with anything boring and uninteresting, and the insistence on non-stop fun:  Jeff, people.  It's Jeff.

Or maybe Jeff is just a big kid.  Uh...maybe definitely.

And our fears that we would have a complete jock boy might be materializing.  Zack is so incredibly coordinated and loves to play ball.  I think we have a future red-headed Laker on our hands.  I don't know from babies, but it really seems like he's very, very good with a ball.  We've actually seen him just about dribble the thing.  It's impressive, seriously impressive.