Little blurb

Sometimes my kids look so relieved to get to Stephanie, our babysitter's house, that it's impossible to miss the change in them. Sometimes I wonder what that means but today I just accept it and feel grateful for it. Relief in any form must be good.

It won't go on any resume but today I ordered four new-cubby photos to be printed at Costco, took all four kids there, got groceries, wipes for the Bigs' new school, five hot dogs and five drinks and walked out with five happy, fed, entertained people enjoying each other and I felt like a damn super hero.

Related to that, we got two of my favorite comments today. The check-out guy remarked upon how well-behaved the kids were as they sat in the cart having food loaded around them. A woman we passed said, without looking shocked or aghast, "You have four small children? Bless your heart."
If I had a choice that would be the only thing anyone ever said when they see us.

We got two new kittens, Posey and Cow also known as Cowie. I named one, Lily named the other. It is a relief to have cats.

Last week I worked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and then had the kids Thursday and Friday. On Thursday we went to the San Francisco Zoo where we met up with our beloved Phyllis. On Friday we went to Aquatic Park in Berkeley where we met up with our beloved Nana. By 3pm on Friday I was a burnt-out husk of a person. The exhaustion and ill-feeling throughout my entire body and my mind were total. Complete. There was nothing left in me. I was a wash cloth with every drop forcefully, mercilessly, wrung out. It made me feel better, actually, to experience that feeling and remember feeling like every single day back when my main job was taking care of my kids. It made me feel sad that I'd gone on like that for so long, a wisp of myself trudging through days as though I was doing anyone any good. Sometime soon I will get down on my knees and thank every heavenly being I believe in for helping me survive that period of my life.

I wish I could write in more detail about my work, about the families I meet and the stories I hear. You would be better for knowing about it, about them. People all around us are somehow getting through the day with broken hearts and they don't wear signs so it's hard to pick them out in a crowd.

I will be forty next year. I used to wonder what people, especially women, meant when they told my younger self how much they loved their 40's. I don't wonder anymore. I am opening up, putting down burdens, understanding that not only can't I be everything to everyone but I don't want to be. I want to be me. I like me.

I miss this blog when I don't write and I have so many half-written essays, so many half-discovered ideas that never make it onto a page, that I sometimes feel sad and frustrated at all that I'm not able to write down for you to read.

The gladness I feel when someone tells me that something I've written touched them in some way is gladder than almost anything I've felt before.

I've got a cat purring next to me on the couch, a house cleaned by other people who are good at it, kids sleeping at someone else's house and a new book that I can't wait to dig into. My heart needs all of that right now, just as it needed to sit for a minute and write to you.

September, somehow still the start of a new year so long after I stopped being a student. Now I'm the mom to little students. I love the freshness, the breezes, the promise of this time of year. I hope you have some or all of those things in your pocket or around the corner.