What Day Is It?

I mean.

I know it’s Thursday, but honestly, I had to check a few times today to remember.

The days they are blurring together.

I’m not upset about that, it is just interesting, how malleable time has become.

I have a good routine.

I got up with an alarm today.

I had group supervision on Thursday mornings.

Since shelter in place I get to “sleep in” on Thursday mornings until 7a.m., days when I would have driven cross town I would have been up at 6a.m.

There are some benefits of shelter in place, I won’t deny it.

There are many drawbacks, but I bet you already know what those are.

I’m just going to keep it on the up and up for the most part, at least today, whatever day it is, whatever month it is.

I had a client mention the three day weekend and I was like, what three day weekend?

Oh.

Ha.

Memorial Day is Monday.

I don’t have plans.

Well.

Not true.

I have hella clients.

Monday is my busiest day.

I will have seven client sessions, some weeks I have eight.

I definitely start the week off with a bang.

I also have some down time in the middle of it so it doesn’t blow me completely to bits, but yeah, Monday won’t be a holiday for me.

And I will soon really be in it as I will start picking up teenagers next week with the contract position with Daily City Youth Clinic.

I am going in tomorrow to do the last bits of orientation and pick up a “stack of files I have waiting for you,” from my newest supervisor.

I will be slamming right into the work.

Which is great, I am not complaining.

Again, it will keep my busy, it will keep me from ruminating or feeling lonely.

It may also blast out my brain a bit, I am a little concerned about being on my laptop so much.  I am definitely booking a lot of screen time.

With picking up another batch of clients that will only increase.

I was actually not sure about blogging tonight.

I mean, I wanted to, but I also was thinking I might want a break from my screen.

But, oh, the siren song of writing a blog and not writing something academic.

Well.

It surely called to me.

So here I am, on day whatever it is, writing to you about my day, which really was pretty chill and not dramatic and simple and when I am honest in my heart, very sweet.

I didn’t hang out with anyone but myself, and I like myself quite a bit, so I’m like, you know, fantastic company.

I had some really great phone calls.

I went on a long walk up and around Sutro Heights Park, which overlooks Ocean Beach and it was gorgeous and stunning and filled my eyes and heart and soul with goodness and beachiness and the smell of the Monterey pines and the Eucalyptus was so good.

So good.

The bright peppery smell of orange and yellow nasturtiums, the blooms of jasmine, the roses, pink sherbet swirled, lulling fat fuzzy bumble bees in for sweet repose.

It was good.

Then I walked the avenues for awhile.

I’m out on 48th Avenue and up a hill, so not many folks out walking and that’s nice.

I even took a break from calling people names, in my head, I don’t do it their faces, about not wearing masks.

Who am I to tell another how to live.

Funny, though, how often I have been prescribed a specific role.

Funny how I often say, um, no thanks, I’m going to do it my way.

So.

I know that it’s not helpful to tell people what to do and saying douche bag in my head only affects my experience.

I’m trying to gently curb it.

Sometimes I substitute, “oh look at you and your cute privilege!”

But even that snark doesn’t do me much good.

The best thing for me is to gently remind myself that I can only police myself and act with integrity in all my affairs.

I don’t have to tell others what to do, I mean, I have had plenty of experience with that and it’s no fun.

Keep my side of the street clean and move the fuck on.

And walk where there are not so many people.

And call my friends.

And make plans for when this moves away and it will, I don’t know when or how, but this too shall pass.

Go see my dear friend in Florida.

Go see my best friend in Wisconsin and as long as I’m in that neck of the woods, get in a visit with my oldest friend from high school in Minnesota.

Go to New York and hit up the museums, New York has really been on my mind, maybe because I am wearing a dress I bought here in San Francisco that I associate with New York–I bought it specifically for the last trip to New York I had.

I wore it to the Brooklyn Museum to the David Bowie installation and walked around Judy Chicago’s beautiful piece The Dinner Party.

It was hot.

The dress is red and I felt and feel pretty in it.

It makes me think of warm summer nights and wandering through the city.

I love New York.

There is still a little piece of me that thinks I should live there, but I’m here and I love San Francisco too, and well, frankly, it is prettier.

Although I sense I might have more adventures in New York than I have here, but that’s speculation.

New York just holds a special place in my heart.

I also want to visit my best friend from my Master’s cohort in Paris.

Paris, my love, I am ready to see you again too.

Hell.

I’m ready to see the rest of San Francisco.

Sit in my favorite cafe and drink a really hot latte and have girl friend time with my best girl out here.

Go get a mani/pedi.

Oh!

Eat lunch at Souvla.

Yeah.

I know I could get take out, but I want to sit in the back patio and stare at the sky and people watch.

I have a good routine.

I have many, many, many blessings.

I am grateful.

I am graced.

I also have feelings and I miss things and travel and adventures.

I miss people.

Even though I am good company to myself, I miss the touch of another’s hand, a hug, a shoulder to set my head on.

This too shall pass.

This too shall pass.

This too shall pass.

 

 

Oh, That Thing

I completely and totally forgot I had to send in a bio for the lecture series I’m participating in next Tuesday.

Jesus, like in six days.

Don’t I still have homework to do?

Oh my God.

I have so much going on, I’m so tired, I’m fucked, how is it all going to happen?

I mean.

I’m fine.

It’s just going to be a push, it will come together.

I only wish the people who are in my group project would chill the fuck out.

I don’t actually give a flying fuck about my final group project for Transpersonal, I have so many other things on my plate but one of the people in my group has been sending out these huge text messages about how we need to talk to each other and make it cohesive and blah, blah, blah.

I got the text and lost it.

Not on her.

Not in general.

Just kind of in a melting, I don’t have energy to even read this text kind of way, to coordinate a time to talk about the project when I am busy thinking about this other project and all the papers I still have to write and all the things.

My God, all the things.

But.

Sigh.

Breathe.

It’s ok.

It’s all working out.

I just have to do what ever the next thing in front of me is.

And.

You know.

Be gentle about it, be nice about it, be kind about it, not blow up on my friend in the group because she wants it to work smoothly.

I just already know how much energy I have to give to any certain thing and the energy it took to respond was about all I had to give.

I did get the bio done and I did send it off to the producers and I got a big thank you and that they quite liked how I had written it and then a nice thank you for participating and that they are really happy to have me as part of the project.

I am too.

Even though it means having a full schedule this week, I’m on board.

Here’s the event again if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about:

People Who Usually Don’t Lecture.

It’s going to be a fun night and I’m grateful I get to do it.

I’m excited and a little nervous too.

I have been practicing and I started carrying the lecture with me, I did a little work on it today at work when I had five minutes of down time.

And it was seriously, the only five minutes of down time I had all day.

It was a full tilt boogie kind of day at work.

And even when I got home from work.

I did some food prep and then did a bunch of homework.

I finished half of the online assignments for the Psychopharmacology portion of my class.

The other part is a final paper on the Human Sexuality aspects of the class.

I should be able to finish the rest of the online stuff either tomorrow or Friday.

I was just too tired after coming back from my evening commitment and the business that had to be discussed after the meeting, end of the month stuff.

Sigh.

I really wanted to bounce, but was basically wrangled in and I’m grateful for that, there were things that I was able to help with, but I was so tuckered out that I considered not writing my blog.

Work really zapped me.

But.

It wasn’t horrible, just full.

The dad’s been away on business for two days and juggling three kids and her own private business has made the mom super busy and in turn me super busy.

And also, super validated.

Really sweetly validated.

The mom has just been nice as pie to me and it’s nice to be told that I’m doing a good job and that I am so appreciated.

And!

Oh my God.

I don’t know if it will work, but I had mentioned that my supervisor thinks I’m going to have to quit being a nanny at some point and devote a year of my life to working, probably unpaid, at a school to get my child hours and how that rather stressed me, I get anxious when my finances are threatened, and hey, privileged white guy, I’m super stoked that you were able to get all your hours in one year because you didn’t have to work a job to pay rent, that you had money from other sources.  Bully for you.

I don’t have money like that.

I don’t have a year to not work.

Unless somebody has some for me to take a year to work unpaid, um, it’s just not fucking happening

It’s like the dirty little secret of getting your MFT license, you have to accrue a lot of hours, 3,000 to be exact, and most of them are completely unpaid.  I’m basically volunteering 10-12 hours a week for no money.

So unless you have some outside income, family, spouse, etc, it’s hard to get those hours quickly.

It takes time to acquire them if you have to work a full-time job.

And I do.

I have to work a full-time job to support my continued living in San Francisco.

Frankly I don’t know where I would go anyway.

All my support systems are here.

There really is no where else for me to go.

Anyway.

I shared some of this with the mom and she said, “it’s too bad you can’t get hours for being a nanny.”

OHMYGOD.

The thing is.

I could.

It was suggested I check it out and I talked to my supervisor about it and he said, yeah, it’s possible, but most families won’t want to deal with the paper work, the supervision, etc.

I told the mom that and she said, “I don’t have a problem signing something.”

Holy shit.

Now.

This is not to say that it’s going to necessarily happen, but options, baby, options.

I’m going to research it further.

As though I don’t have enough to think about.

Anyway.

That’s it.

I’m done.

Good night.

I have to get up early and move the car and shower.

Sweet dreams lovelies.

Sweet dreams.

 

Nope

My homework is not done.

I have been hoping to have time to read all week at work and I have had the baby non-stop.

Which is great, but no down time.

The baby also really likes napping on me.

Which I love, my God, I love it, but no reading is happening.

Instead.

I find myself sitting and looking at things.

Yes.

Some of those things are social media.

But mostly.

I find myself looking at nature.

Today he napped on me up at Douglas park.

The grounds crew for SF Parks and Rec had just gone through and mowed the grass.

It was a gorgeous high, tight, bright blue sky kind of San Francisco day.

The park is on top of the city way up in the hills towards Diamond Heights on Douglas at Clipper.

It’s flat, but surrounded by a steep cliff and towering trees.

I stood in the open field of grass gently rubbing the baby’s back and humming to him and looking at the grass.

When was the last time I sat, well stood really, and looked at grass?

It was gorgeous.

So green.

And wet.

There was dew and the sunlight sparkled and the sky was blue, blue, blue, and the air smelled so good and I was alone with the baby in a field of grass surrounded by sky and trees.

Who the fuck gives a good god damn about school work.

It will get done when it needs to get done.

Being with the baby is actually the kind of break that I need when I let myself acknowledge it.

He slows me down, I have to be very present and then once he’s asleep, which today took a bit, he’s also teething, so yeah, the bad part of trying to get a baby to sleep who’s teething.

Screaming.

A screaming baby strapped to one’s chest is not the most relaxing thing.

I over heard someone say once, “I’d rather have a bomb strapped to my chest, at least it would be quiet.”

But then.

The exquisite relief when he stops crying, when he lays his heavy warm head on my chest and sighs really big and just drops into the sleep, secure, safe, held.

It is bliss.

And I got to have the experience twice today.

Once at Douglas park and once at the home.

When he naps on me at the house I tend to sequester myself in a corner of the house where the mom won’t be so that she has a moment to be baby free and work on her own work for a while.

Today I was in the play room.

For a while I was on the back porch, next to the gigantic avocado tree, overlooking the city, which still strikes me with its loveliness, which still floors me with its beauty and that I still get to live here.

Such a huge gift.

May I always.

I love to travel.

But having San Francisco as my home is so important to me.

I have created such a life for myself here I cannot imagine making it elsewhere.

And you know.

I did try.

Paris.

But here, San Francisco, is home and I had left my heart here and back I came and the city opened wide its arms and said welcome back, prodigal daughter, now don’t do that again.

And I know its crazy and techy and millienially and weird and there are places where kombucha is on tap and there are lots of Tesla’s on the road and privilege and segregation and racism, covert, and more privilege and holy shit the rent and the cost of anything.

But.

Oh.

The beauty.

The houses, the bay, the bridges, the islands, the restaurants, the smell of delicious things being made everywhere, the farmers markets in all the neighborhoods, the Victorians, the colorful paint, the fog, Ocean Beach, Sea Cliff, The MOMA, The Legion of Honor, The DeYoung.

The smell of eucalyptus.

The sound of fog horns in the morning.

Riding my scooter up and over Laguna Honda and onto Clipper Street today, the view, my god, I live in a literal movie set.

It is magic.

And it is where I feel myself, who I am with no apology, with pink pom poms on my shoes, or a flower in my hair, not that I wear them so much anymore since I have been taking clients, but I still have them, and the art, the street art in particular, I love it, so, so, so much.

And coffee.

Oh coffee.

So much good coffee.

So much.

I am a spoiled brat.

I love my city, I love San Francisco, I love that I go to school here, that I live here, that I chose it as much as it chose me.

I know plenty of people who have had to move away and I have gotten to stay and it boggles the mind sometimes.

I make less than the median income.

Way less.

Like I make half the median income.

But.

I make it work and I don’t feel deprived.

I mean.

I bought prosciutto today at a new butcher shop in Noe Valley.

And duck sausages.

I eat organic foods and I have a scooter.

I have a job, I get to go to graduate school, I have music, a Macbook Air, I have an Iphone.

I have.

Better yet.

Better than stuff and things.

I have happiness.

I have joy.

I have freedom.

I have perspective.

I am of service.

I am loved.

And that.

More than anything.

Means more than anything.

I have love.

Love.

I have you.

Foiled!

But not really.

I mean.

Yes, I am a bit disappointed that the Friday 8:30 a.m. yoga class I was going to hit up was cancelled.

Boo hiss.

But.

On the other hand.

I get to sleep in!

Yes!

Especially after a full week and a very, very, very full day today.

It was a good day, but it certainly had some big pockets of anxiety.

Not mine either.

The family I nanny for left today for three weeks.

THREE!

Oh my God am I so excited to have some down time.

I actually.

Wait for it.

I have the whole day off tomorrow!

The whole fucking day.

Can you tell I’m excited?

Like.

Over the god damn moon.

No clients.

No internship.

No paperwork.

Not as though they didn’t try.

Ugh.

I had an e-mail today that I wasn’t paying much attention to as I was busy helping the parents get ready for their trip.

I had to do a lot of monkey wrangling today and the monkeys did not want to be wrangled.

When I showed up the oldest boy was already in his travel clothes with his back pack on his back.

Oh dear.

They didn’t leave for the airport until 4p.m. today.

It was 9a.m. when I showed up for work.

Sigh.

I could tell it was going to be a challenge, but I was game for what was happening, although I thought I might lose it when the two oldest siblings just about killed each other at the playground.

They are really physical kids and sometimes I think they go at it a little too hard, somebody gets too aggressive, somebody pokes too hard, or pulls hair or bites and all hell breaks lose the the sister goes bananas.

I mean.

The lady can howl bloody murder.

I also know when she’s faking for attention, so there’s that, but like, the rest of the playground doesn’t know that, she sounds like she’s dying but it’s just dramatics.

I let it go as long as I can, hoping they will work it out and once in a while I do have to intervene.

And of course, though it was pulling teeth to get them to the playground, when it was actually time to rally and go back up the hill, we were at the Noe Valley Rec Center, they didn’t want to go home.

Haha.

Ah.

Nanny life.

They did get home though, and by the time I got them across the MUNI tracks at the end of Church Street and heading up the hill on Chenery, they started to get excited.

So too, did I.

I could see the end of my shift in sight and though I was going to have some down time in between my client that I saw tonight and the end of my shift, I was happy that my shift was about over.

It did seem like an extra long day.

Just the anticipation and the anxiety and the double and triple checking the passports and visas and id’s and snacks and last minute laundry, and cleaning out the fridge (I was given three pounds of asparagus as a parting gift and two avocados that hadn’t been eaten.  What the hell am I going to do with that much asparagus?  Soup maybe.) and getting the keys to the house and making sure I had an extra set of car keys if there was an emergency and also co-ordinating the cars and the all of it.

It was a lot.

So yeah.

Four o’clock and I was able to zoom out.

I got a check for the overtime I worked this week.

Yeah.

Overtime.

And I’m interning, but whatever I got to make it through and yes, I am a bit disappointed about the lack of yoga but the additional sleep in time will be nice.

The time I had in between work and my client this evening was spent running errands, post office, zip home, drop off package, collect mail, tidy house, clean bathroom, masturbate, ahem, I needed to de-stress after I sat down and checked my e-mails.

They booked me a client for tomorrow!

NO!!!

I said no clients.

I wanted to have this one fucking Friday free.

What the hell?

I was upset.

I have plans.

I thought about contacting the person I am seeing tomorrow and saying, well, shoot, sorry, I got a client, but then I saw it was a consult and I was like, no, this is bullshit, I marked the calendar clearly and I do not want to take a consult tomorrow.

NO.

I started an e-mail and then I was like, why the hell am I fucking around.

Call my assistant director.

I did.

We cleared it up.

I have tomorrow off.

Which is fucking good since I’m getting my hair done.

Cut and color and a blow out.

Please and thank you.

I laughed with the mom today when she asked if I was doing anything fun, besides working at my internship while they were on vacation.  And I told her I was going to a ritzy upscale salon downtown to get my hair did.

I always feel a bit out of place there, so many ashy blondes with razor cut layers, so much money, the atmosphere is very white, upscale, wealthy, which is fine, I just feel a little out of place, although I like to play like I have money and I hazard I tip better than the majority of the clients, much better.

The cut and color will still be a pretty fucking penny, but I don’t care, hello student loan summer disbursement.

Thanks overtime check from this week and last week.

I got the cash and I deserve to be a little spoiled.

Anyway.

I do like Harper Paige (good grief even the name sounds like ash highlights and toner), I get a sassy cup of coffee, fashion magazines, and the prettiest smock I’ve ever worn getting a hair cut.

And.

I know the colorist.

I have known her for over twelve years and she’s amazing and probably has as many tattoos as I do and we have a lot of mutual friends in common, I mean a lot.

So.

She’s the reason why I’m “slumming” at a fancy pants salon down town.

I’m even going to skip taking my scooter and splurge on a car.

Get all dressed up, wear some stockings, put on some heels and a pretty frock and really play the part, you know, tattoos be damned, I can look hella polished and femme when I want to.

I’m so excited.

It feels nice to take the time and let myself be properly pampered.

I may even book a massage over the next couple of weeks.

I have a tentative MOMA date with a girlfriend Monday after I meet with my supervisor and some lunch dates and coffee dates with friends lined up.

Nothing solid yet, but I’m going to enjoy my time “off” so much.

I’ll still be taking clients.

Just not tomorrow.

Heh.

Here’s to a very well deserved day off.

I mean.

Seriously.

Luckiest girl in the world.

I Need A Carmen

Don’t we all lady.

I mean.

On one hand.

I was flattered, it was a compliment, and she quickly followed up with, “not that everyone can do what you do, or that you aren’t valuable and have your own skill set, not that you’re replaceable….”

She trailed off.

I smiled.

I than quietly got to witness an entire business transaction that I was not at all at part of, an assumption that if I was available I would work for the woman.

As though I don’t have my own life, my own plans, my own things happening.

Graduate school.

Interning.

My own fucking life.

Maybe my own time off.

She asked when the family I work for was going on their summer vacation, the family was having a play date at the home where I work and I know them from play dates with the family I work prior to my current situation.

They are nice people.

The kids are great, a bit untethered and rambunctious, but I think that happens a lot with play dates, the kids get wound up and kooky and into things and it can me melee.

Nonetheless I was rather stunned to stand in front of the woman while I was holding my bosses baby and listen to her logic of how I would be great for them, but too bad their summer plans were not coinciding with my family’s plan, that since there was no over lap that I would not be available to her as a nanny.

I stood there and smiled and jogged the baby on my hip and did not say a word about school or my internship or my plans for summer or any of it.

It wasn’t her business and by the time she got to her realization that the timing was off I didn’t have to inform her of my own personal stuff was more important that a temporary nanny gig to help out another family.

I don’t even know if she realized what an assumption it was, how it felt demeaning, that I am just open to be swapped around family to family, to not even be asked if it was something I would want to do or be available to do.

I mean.

I have any down time those weeks the family is away I will be helping my friend who is about to have twins.

I made the mom’s tea and snacks and corralled the littles and the play date was good and I know the mom meant no harm, it’s just a privileged assumption that I am going to jump at the chance to work for them.

I had another mother at the school recently praise me for “getting in good with ____________, “you’ll always have employment!”

Wow lady.

Fuck you very much.

As though my life aspiration is to be the private nanny to successions of children through their private school.

Although, I have thought that I might work with the families of the school, it did not occur to me to be in the context of being a nanny, but as a psychotherapist for families at the school.

Ahem.

It’s a kind of unconscious privilege that I have not always seen as privilege.

Or.

I will say instead, I had always felt uncomfortable with assumptions such as these, but did not understand they came from a state of privilege.

I’m able to name it better and understand how it feels and the way it lands.

I read this super intriguing article in my Multi Cultural class a year ago in regards to how “the help” is often more in the know because they straddle to very different worlds.

The people who come in to clean your house or cook your food or take care of your children may actually be more worldly and sophisticated because they have a broader spectrum of experience.

And I also am a cultured person, well read, traveled, studious, intelligent.

I got the connection and the correlation very fast.

Grateful that I also have a strong spiritual program, that I let it wash over me and past me and that it, in the end, didn’t matter, water off a duck’s back, I didn’t need to show my indignation, I don’t have to share my opinion.

It was not asked for.

Nothing worse than someone who wants to give advice or their opinions when they weren’t asked for.

I didn’t need to be a teaching moment.

I am just very happy that my employers have consistently modeled to me how valuable and important to them that I am.

I had a great day with the oldest boy today and a lot of solo time with him that felt really special and sweet.

We made a music video of him singing to the Beatles song “Here Comes the Sun.”

I made him grilled cheese for lunch.

We sat and read from his amazing Smithsonian encyclopedia.

We played games, drew, and snuggled.

We played goofy imaginary games and built satellite models.

I even sang him a lullaby.

It was the best bonding moment and I just felt his little vulnerable self melt and I got to have a connection with him that doesn’t always occur as his siblings are needing attention too.

I think that all couples therapist should nanny a couple of siblings.

The things we all could learn from our interactions with the closest people we love.

The inability of language to express what we need or want from a partner writ large in the negotiations of playing children.

Reasoning with an upset child who’s sibling won’t give them space because they love the other so much that they have to kick over the model or hide the stuffed dog, or hit the other on the head with a toy, can’t you see how much I want to be with you, thunk, then tears.

I have actually used a few Couples Therapy interventions with the siblings to navigate fights that happen.

And space apart.

They both got that today.

And they will tomorrow too.

Field trip!

I feel a carousel might be happening.

Or the Children’s Creativity Museum.

The little girl was sobbing on her mom as her brother had said something mean, which translated to I need space, and her mom was consoling her and telling her that she, the little lady, and I, the nanny, were going to get to go on our own solo field trip tomorrow.

She stopped crying.

Looked up at me.

Smiled.

And asked.

“Will there be snacks?”

Oh my God.

Of course.

Yes, darling.

There will be snacks.

I promise.

Hell.

It’s Friday.

You might even get an ice cream cone.

With sprinkles.

 

I Want My Privilege Back!

He screamed.

He could barely breathe.

He slapped me.

He kicked me.

He threw himself around the room.

He was naked.

No.

This is not a picture of any man I have dated.

Second thought.

Yes.

It actually could be, but not any one I have dated recently (at least not in the last fifteen years), I swear.

Just the little guy I work for, the big boss, the 2 and 3/4 boy who also whipped a metal fork so hard across the table that it bounced up and smashed into a window.

I pulled him up and took him out of the high chair and there was no more dinner.

I pulled him up and took him out of the bath after the three count.

“M………. please stop throwing water out of the tub,” I said.

“M…………second time, please stop tossing water out, I will take you out, I will.”

“M………..last time, dude, you can enjoy the rest of bath time or you can get out.”

“M…………you lost your privilege, let’s go, out of the tub.”

I had already asked his older brother to pull the drain plug up, bath time was about to be over anyhow, which was a blessing, I was about done in today, although not as bad as yesterday.

Despite the little guys nap being shorter today, I actually managed my time better and made myself sit down and eat and rest.

I have to be on point.

Tomorrow begins Spring Break.

Which means I have both boys full throttle, all things go, zoom.

For the next two days and then Monday through Thursday of next week.

The nice thing, though, the family is taking a long weekend next weekend, and yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, I have next Friday off.

Three day weekend!

I haven’t gotten there yet, I still have a nice weekend a head of me and two days of two boys yet to go.

I will be going in a half hour early every day from tomorrow on until the family leaves for their mini vacation.

This is balanced by being able to leave a half hour early.

But I was a little resentful this morning and had a lot of chatter in my head about how it was going to go today and what I was being asked to do, some extra work, some extra time with the boys, all the marketing, cooking, laundry, etc.

You know.

Work.

So I did some inventory and sent it off in a voicemail and what do you now.

The chatter stopped and I was present.

Present to go with the little guy to BiRIte and get some really nice fruit to have around the house for the next couple of days.

Present to make a really nice meal for the family (marinated chicken breasts in my own marinade–orange juice, tangerine zest, grape seed oil, sea salt, black pepper, thyme, rosemary, garlic–with sushi rice and corn on the cob for the parents and for the boys toasted Acme bread with smoke whitefish salad and avocado plus fruit salad from all the nice fruit I picked up at BiRite).

Present to snuggle with the monkeys when they needed snuggling, to see the park from their eyes, to run around Dolores Park and ride the wiggly slide and sit by the sandbox and watch them bury dinosaur eggs (I mean, duh, the Easter Bunny brought them dinosaur eggs, not peeps, please) that I had filled with “special snacks” to lure them out of the house with and to the park.

Present to laugh and sing and be jolly and silly and do my job.

“You just get to practice telling the family that your priority is going to be the boys and being present and energized for them,” she suggested to me over the phone.  “Which means, that you take a break when you need to, you sit down to eat lunch, you let some things slide.”

Ack.

I don’t like letting things slide.

I always want to be on top of it all.

I want the dishes not only loaded in the dishwasher, but I want the timing to be so that it coincides with the sushi rice being made in the rice cooker, so that I can unload said dishwasher and have all the food wrapped and prepped and washed and chopped and managed.

I want the laundry folded and arranged, with towels ready by the bath and pajamas, tops and bottoms and little boy, er excuse me, “big boy” underpants, at the ready, so that after bath time I can transition them to be ready for their parents and go to bed as I am leaving.

No such luck tonight.

I had a banshee of a little boy, running naked up and down the hall screaming about wanting his privilege back.

“IWANTMYPRIVILEGEBACK!!!”

I finally got him settled down and though breathing heavily and wriggling like only a slippery two-year old boy can, I brushed back his hair and said, “M……….., I have something for you.”

I held out my hand, flat, offered it to him.

“This is for you.”

He looked at my empty hand.

He looked at me.

“Here’s your privilege bunny, you can have it back.”

He snatched it out of my hand and ran back to the bathtub and tried to climb back in.

My tactic backfired.

He wailed when he saw that all the water had drained out.

“I want my bath!” He yelled and cried, and I knew I was about done.

I only have to get through the next ten minutes.

That’s all.

And the dad came up and helped and the Meow Meow was found and the pajamas got in and then.

Oh.

“M………… can you tell Carmen thank you,” the dad said.  “Can you give her a hug.”

He launched himself at me, “thank you Carmen!”

He kissed me, both sides, European style, sloppy, wet, heavy, delicious kisses.

“I love you.”

Sigh.

Kid.

I love you too.

And you get all your privileges.

I promise.

I really can’t deny you a one.

Because, ultimately.

The privilege is all mine.

See you bright and early in the morning.

Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite.

(What a horrible saying, who still says this?)

Tomorrow is another day full of privilege.

Sunshine.

Love.

Adventure.

And boys.