At the start of December, I thought I was bopping my way through things pretty well.

My agency has continued to grow — big enough that I had to ask my wife, Martie, to come in and help me in the mornings.

She’s been great at it, but we knew she was going to have to quit when our third son was born.

I hired Misty to be a telemarketer while Martie was still in the office. Misty was going to work on getting her licenses and move to a full-time role in the office once Martie transitioned back to a full-time mom.

Since our son wasn’t scheduled to arrive until Feb. 5, we thought we had some time to get everything in place.

He had other plans, arriving almost two months early.

So I had several things happening through the month of December:

1. The woman I relied on to help me in the office suddenly had other things to do — namely spend time with our son in the NICU as well as our other kids.
2. I suddenly had other things to do — see above.
3. My telemarketer hadn’t gotten any training or licenses yet, so she wasn’t ready to be the help I needed.
4. Christmas shopping — because what kind of a maniac has Christmas shopping for their kids done by Dec. 6?

We had a lot of help during that month, but we finally got Gabe out of the hospital less than two weeks ago and now we’re slowly settling back into a routine.

It was a good surprise — an amazing gift — but it has definitely changed our lives.

My job as an insurance agent is to help people prepare for the life-changing events that don’t always have a happy ending.

Home insurance, auto insurance, life insurance, business insurance, they’re all just ways to help insulate you from car accidents, tornadoes, the death of a loved one.

So that you can bounce back when life sneaks up on you and hits you with something that changes everything.