We Are Family

One of the reasons that JP recently changed jobs was that for the past 9 years or so, he has spent several hours each weekend, holiday and vacation day fielding phone calls from his office or from the call service, and dealing with labs, letters and radiology reports coming in on the electronic medical records.  Because of this, even when he was home, he was not able to spend quality family time with us.

It has been a bit of an adjustment for all of us getting used to his new schedule that is not at all regular.  Before, I felt like I was single parenting a lot of the time, but now JP is very involved in carting the kids around and doing things around the house on his days off.

There are still a few single parenting days, but we are managing fine, and they are fewer and further between than in the past.  Friday was one of those days.  Unfortunately, he missed J's ukulele debut at her Choral Cabaret fund raiser.  She played the uke and sang with her friend, and did a wonderful job!

Yesterday he missed seeing L make a basket in her Basketball game.  Only 5 team members showed up, so she played the entire game, although they pulled in another teammate's little sister to give a couple of the other girls breaks.

 

I wanted to show a picture of one of my favorite birthday gifts this year:

Totoro and friends join my family of other matryoshka dolls, which I find nearly irresistible.

 

They all have stories, too.  My brother brought back the light colored set from Russia when he went on a school trip.  The blue set was purchased when JP and I took our trip to Alaska...we found it in an old Russian settlement near Soldotna.  The singing pigs are also Russian, I believe, although I found them in one of our favorite haunts, Glen's Fair Price, in our college town in VA.  The snowmen only come out at Christmas time with my other snowman decorations.

Today JP is home, so we can sit around and watch the Olympics together as a family.

Happy Sunday.