Mal has to get used to this

Over the past couple of weeks, Mal has headed back into James's office or our room to tell James something... only to find that James isn't home.

Today, on the way home from meeting a friend, Mal said, "Since we didn't watch that program last night, we should watch it as soon as we get home, if Dad's awake. 

I had to remind him that his dad IS awake and is, in fact, at work.

It's an interesting situation. Mal is 11, and for the past six years of his life (minus about a month), James has either worked from home or not worked at all. 

That's more than half of Mal's life!

Another thing is that James is often absolutely exhausted when he gets here, and at night, like yesterday, he's ready to go to bed as soon as he's eaten dinner. 

One of the traditions that James and Mal have had over the past few years is that at around 10 PM, Mal will go into James's office to announce that he's "ready to talk." (I'm usually well into my night's sleep by then.)

James will go into Mal's room, and they'll catch up for 10 minutes or half an hour or whatever it takes. 

I think this is beautiful. It's something James is going to try to make sure happens whenever he can, even if it's less than when he didn't have anywhere to be.

On the way home from Temple yesterday, we stopped in at The Home Depot because I needed to pick something up (nope, we don't get an employee discount; they don't have one). 

While I ran in, Mal hung out in the garden center with James for a few minutes.

You might notice that James is standing upright without crutches! He was limping around, but able to work without crutches. He took them, and he used them to walk into the store, go to the break room, and just get around in general. But he could hobble out of the little garden center hut to scan stuff, so that's a good sign!