Mama joy

I’ve been a little down recently, missing two of our three darlings. (Point of clarification: The third one I adore, too, but I don’t have to miss her because she still lives at home.) I have no idea when I’ll get to see Oldest again. She’s got two major trips planned in the next few months, and can’t take much more time off. The Boy is so busy at school he won’t come home until spring break. Actually, that’s only three weeks away but still…I’m longing to spend time with him.

And so, texts from the two of them in the last few hours have been especially happily received. We do text back and forth pretty much every day, but today both of them had awesome news to share:

The head of the bio lab at Johns Hopkins in which Oldest is doing her doctoral work, just received a $1,000,000 (yes, that’s million, folks) grant from the National Institute of Health. This grant boosts the lab’s prestige, helps her lab P.I. get tenure, and ensures in advance our daughter’s paycheck through the completion of her degree. Wow!

The Boy, who interviewed for a dorm Resident Assistant position last Saturday, was just informed that he was given the exact position he wanted. He’ll be an RA in the nice, new dorm he moved into this year – the one that costs extra $$, which his full-ride scholarship didn’t cover. RA positions are paid through free housing. So for the next couple of years he doesn’t have to come up with an extra $1500 a year on his own OR dip into the limited loan money he’s been accepting just in case of emergency.

I’m celebrating with these two long-distance. Not as good as a hug, but I’ll take it.

Advertisement