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Sunday, August 18, 2013

Embracing Call Weekends

Since we are at the very beginning of this medical journey I am far from an expert. [End preface]  This was our 4th consecutive weekend of Joe being "on call". Which is just a funny little euphuism for an additional long day at the hospital. Or not funny. Depending on your perspective:)  I personally am beginning to wonder what a real weekend is like. I kind of remember but it is becoming a somewhat faint memory...

I am quickly learning call days are much more tolerable if the kids and I have something fun planned. Otherwise the hours can seem endless. In my dream world we would have other med school families to commiserate with. But alas we don't. We have friends. But those friends generally operate on the typical M-F work schedule so we have some extra hours to fill sans company. And I have found it best if we find "soft landings" for those times. By definition a "soft landing" in my world is somewhere very kid friendly where the noise and ruckus we bring will be welcomed and not just tolerated.  Like playgrounds, splash pads, children's area at the library, the beach, and my new favorite...Walgreens. Odd I know. But I am nothing if not a little odd. 

Yesterday our soft landing was a "Community Carnival" at a local church. 


I drove by the church a couple days ago and saw their sign for the upcoming carnival. Immediately I filed away that little bit of information like a small golden treasure as I knew carnival day and call day coincided. I wasn't positive we would attend. But yesterday morning as I was getting all the kids out of the bath, putting away the clean dishes and throwing in a couple loads of laundry and it was still only 9:13 AM I made the game day decision that we WOULD in fact attend the carnival. Otherwise the day threatened to draaaaag on for.e.ever and ever!


And boy am I glad we went! It was a blast...you know for the 10 and under crowd:) Carnival games, bounce houses, face painting, balloon animals, photo booth, prizes and treats galore! We tried them all of course. Hot dogs, watermelon, sno cones, cotton candy and popcorn. Some treats we even had twice. 







Lots of noise and ruckus there! We almost blended in. Minor detail I did not take note of a few days back: the carnival was held at the local Chinese church. We were one of two...maybe three Caucasian families in attendance. Which ended up being a bonus for me as a single parent of 3 mobile children...they were much easier to spot in the crowd:)


Call day hours have never flown by faster or tasted as sweet as they did yesterday. Here's to hoping the next 2 weekends of this rotation - yep you guessed it both call weekends - are just as enjoyable! A girl can dream, can't she?!?




2 comments:

  1. Now you know why the kids and I jump at every opportunity to do something. With Luke working 6 days a week and never knowing if he will be in before bedtime it is best to keep on moving. That way when he is home we want to be home too!! The carnival looks like it really hit the spot!

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