Jean turns 1!

Jean and her dad, Ali!  Jean is the daughter of our nanny of 6+ years, Dorothy.  She is a delightful girl, beautiful, happy, clever, easy to please, quick to learn, the perfect "younger" sibling to temper our Rachel's baby-of-the-family status.


Here are some of our neighbors and friends helping Jean open her presents.  Jean is like, "what's this all about?"



I would say that having Jean and Dorothy so close to our family is a constant arena of "what's appropriate?" What does it mean that we have access to so much, materially, educationally, medically, etc, etc?  How do we share that in an appropriate manner but not disproportionally in regards to our other friends, employees, Ugandan community?  How do accept that our kids will grow up with vastly different opportunities than Dorothy's kids will have? And yet also I do not to condescend or pity a lifestyle that is full of joy, family, good meals, hard work, community--- Dorothy and Ali live with Dorothy's sister (who has her youngest with her now--Rogers is holding the blue bowl/toy in the photo).

So, mostly, I wing it.  And Mark is a good "temper-er" as I would tend to over-indulge and his rational and "fair" tendencies are pretty well in place.