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What I’m grateful for going into this week:

1. Our co-op preschool. Attending this past year has been really good for B and I both. He has grown comfortable with drop-offs, which has opened up other possibilities like the YMCA, and my drop-off days have given me a much-needed two-hour break every week. B has learned that there are other people besides just me he can go to when he needs something. It has been good for me to go to go out and interact with a group of grown-ups each week. And we’ve met some really great people through the co-op who I hope will remain in our lives now that it’s ending.

2. That this is our last week at the co-op. For the amount of money it costs to attend and what has felt to me like an overwhelming amount of parent work, the two hours of drop-off time each week isn’t enough to make it feel worthwhile. Add to that the weird detour our particular class took into some uncomfortable and harmful drama, and I’m all set with this level of involvement.

3. For the preschool he’ll go to next year. I’ll get ten hours a week of drop-off time, it’s free, and there is no parent work. We know somebody whose son is in that exact classroom this year, and they’ve loved their experience. I’m really glad we found this program.

4. That my new job happened to come along after we moved B into his new bedroom. The move was a lot of work done in small increments whenever I had time, and I wouldn’t have had that time if I’d also been trying to work a job. It would have felt really overwhelming. I’m glad we were able to finish that big project before this opportunity appeared.

5. For a really fun weekend. We spent both Friday and Saturday evening with some new friends we met through the co-op, hanging out in their yard drinking a few beers and chatting while the kids played. This version of parenting, where we hang out with some really cool families and have fun ourselves while our kid is also having a great time with his buddies, feels so much more sustainable than the past few years of parenting in what has felt like isolation. And B was having so much fun it was easy to keep him up pretty late, which we usually hate doing because we’re desperate for his bedtime so we can have some time for ourselves, but keeping him entertained was fun for us too for a change. Staying up late meant he slept in a bit both yesterday and today, which was wonderful. Yesterday we filled the kiddie pool and relaxed for a while in our back yard, and then went out to a big neighborhood festival for another fun night. Best weekend in a long, long time.

What I’m thankful for going into this week…

1. Our neighborhood’s summer street festivals are back. The vibes are so good – we absolutely love them.

2. My work laptop arrived. That makes the job feel much more real, and I still can barely believe this has happened.

3. B had a good weekend, which makes me hopeful that we’ve turned a corner on this particular stretch of difficult behavior. He tends to have these little rough patches that are theoretically short-lived, but in the moment they feel like an eternity. Recently he’s been biting, hair-pulling and pinching A LOT, and he absolutely never shuts his trap, making it impossible for Kyle and I to have a simple conversation. Whenever B hears us, he interrupts us to say “what does that mean? what is that called?”, and if we don’t answer right away he starts yelling. It’s sensory overload to the max and it makes me feel completely fried. So hopefully things are starting to improve.

4. A nice lunch with some old work friends on Saturday. My team at my old law firm was pretty tight-knit, and had very low turnover so we worked together for a long time. One of the ladies is retiring and had a little lunch celebration. I was grateful back in my firm days to have been assigned to that team – it was a good crew. I’m grateful now to still be considered part of the team.

5. My thrifted Patagonia Torrentshell parka. Every rain jacket I’ve ever had has soaked through in hard rain, but not this one – it actually keeps the rain out.

(I meant to post this yesterday but never got around to finishing it)

What I’m grateful for going into this week:

1. Somebody in our neighborhood Facebook group is giving us a supposedly like-new jogging stroller. We’ve put literally thousands of miles on ours (not jogging hahaha, not for me [actually my kid would love that, maybe I’ll take up jogging]) and it’s falling apart, so I asked the group if anyone is looking to re-home one and got a response.

2. A somewhat related item – our crib is now out of our house. It’s really hard to find somebody who wants a used crib. Thrift stores don’t generally take them, and I see people trying to give them away in the Facebook group all the time without any takers. Fortunately for us, a couple months ago somebody in our preschool no buy group asked if anybody had one they were done with. I responded that we would have one in May and she said that would work, and she has now collected it. I had expected we’d have that thing sitting around for a long time. I’m very happy somebody else will get some use out of it.

3. We got new sidewalks with pedestrian ramps at all four corners of the big intersection leaving my neighborhood. It’s a big safety improvement and also means no we longer have to maneuver the stroller over the huge mounds of dirt that existed at one of the corners where there was no sidewalk before. It’s nice to see the south end getting some improvements.

4. Another big win for the south end: we’re officially getting our new light rail station (still years away ha), which will be only a couple blocks from my house. We were already pretty close to the existing station, but this new one will improve access for a lot of people coming from east or west of the tracks who previously had a 30ish minute walk to the train. And for us personally, it will make trips to and from the airport SO much easier. The station had initially been approved in the same package as another, far less useful and far more expensive station, and with funding problems they had both up for removal. The mayor recently amended the proposal, which effectively stopped them from considered a packaged deal. Now ours has been approved to go forward, while the other, less practical station remains on a list of projects to cancel if the money doesn’t miraculously appear.

5. And speaking of money miraculously appearing, a part-time job seems to have fallen into my lap. And not just any part-time job, but something that feels… absolutely perfect? Evidently an attorney I barely even worked with years ago recommended me so highly to an aquaintance whose company needed a little bit of paralegal help that they contacted me with an offer. At first I wasn’t very interested. I was initially told they needed somebody to work 3 to 4 hours a day, and I can’t work that much. I don’t have any childcare until September, and even then it will only be ten hours a week. But they decided they want to move forward with what I can provide, so it will be one or two hours a day, remotely of course, and at whatever time of day I’m able to fit it in. Throughout the past two years there have been several moments I’ve wished I could find a way to make a bit of money, but these opportunities are really hard to find. I can still barely believe this one found its way to me, and it feels good that the work I did years ago impressed somebody so much as to facilitate it. I am BEYOND excited about it.

What I’m thankful for going into this week:

1. We’re done switching the office and B’s bedroom. Why we ever decided to put B in the smaller room as a baby and then move him into the bigger room when he got a little older is beyond me – all it did was make a future hassle for us, and a hassle we’d have a toddler around for! We had to cram all our office furniture into our bedroom for the weekend to make space for his things in the bigger bedroom, and then once his things were out of the smaller bedroom we moved our office things in there. We still have some reorganizing to do in the office, but the move is done. I’m happy the house is now in its forever configuration.

2. My kid handles change we really well. I know that’s not the case for a lot of toddlers. We had talked with him a little bit in advance about his bedroom moving, and it probably helps that his new room has a cool new race car bed, but even without the cool new bed I think he would’ve been fine. He’s happy as a clam in his new room.

3. We had a really fun play party on Sunday. We invited a few toddler families over so the kids could play in a new space and the adults could hang out together. We set up a vegetarian gyro bar and a toddler snack table, and arranged the back yard to fit as many people as possible, and it went well! We really like the parents we had over, and now that we’re almost done with the co-op (how we know most, but not all, of the families) we’re hoping to transition to being actual friends with some of them. I’ve been trying to crystalize what exactly makes a parent feel like somebody I can be friends with. Aside from what I look for in a friend regardless – compassionate, funny, similar values – we want friends we can drink a few beers and talk shit about our kids with (out of earshot of the kids, of course). The co-op environment can feel so precious, with a lot of parents who would be truly bothered to hear somebody say “oh man, my kid was such a dickhead all weekend.” Those parents are not for me. Parenting is hard, and we don’t need to make it harder by pretending it’s always a magical experience. Like, let’s not take ourselves that seriously.

4. Our backyard. It’s small, but it’s so nice to have a little oasis in the middle of the city, and it’s mostly in the shade in the evening, which is wonderful.

5. That I’ve spent the past year writing. Before having B I was a pretty lazy writer, waiting for inspiration to strike and not being very purposeful with whatever story I was trying to tell. Which all meant I did very little actual writing, and what I did write was usually sloppy and lacked intention. The first couple years after having B I just didn’t feel like I was in the headspace to spend the little free time I had writing. Last June, when it became clear I’d be staying home another year, I committed to spending that year making a real effort with writing. And in that time I’ve written six short stories, started working on a new novel, and created a really cool little writing group. Six short stories might not sound like much, but they’re real stories I’ve put thought into crafting and effort into refining. I’m so grateful that for whatever reason, last June everything came together to prompt me to get serious about my writing. This next year I’m hoping for another six short stories, a finished novel draft, a few acceptance letters and maybe a second, different kind of writing group. Either a workshop group or just a group of writers in my area who meets regularly to work.

What I’m grateful for going into this week:

1. B had a good first session with the speech language pathologist, despite her concerns at our evaluation that he wouldn’t be able to follow her instructions. The exercises were very simple and he did pretty well, and we’ve been working with him since then and we’re seeing improvement. I’m feeling optimistic.

2. Our neighbor has great things to say about the preschool program we’ve chosen for B next year. We ran into her and her family at the playground yesterday and chatted about preschool – we had no idea her son has been in that class, with the same teacher, this past year. She says it has done WONDERS for her son’s development, which was really reassuring to hear. We’re really excited that that’s where he’ll be next year.

3. That I’m almost done with my co-op parent responsibilities. The fundraisers are all over, my committee has held its last meeting, the final parent meeting is this Thursday, and all I’ve got left besides a few more weeks of classes is an end-of-year cleaning shift. Y’all, it has been a lot. Some parents thrive in a co-op environment, but I am not one of them. And with everything I’ve heard about drama at the board level, and the parent drama my class has already dealt with, as well as chatting with a few moms at a birthday party last weekend and hearing that they’re all overwhelmed – well, I’m doubtful that anybody involved is actually thriving. The classes have been really beneficial for B, though, and I’ve met a few parents I genuinely hope to remain friends with, so in those ways it’s been worth it.

4. I had a really fun night out with one of the preschool moms last week. This mom and I have been trying to get together for a while, but our kids kept alternating periods of illness. We decided last-minute to attend a school event together and I had SUCH a great time. It was really refreshing to spend time with another mom I felt I could really relate to – that just hasn’t happened before. The vibes could not be beat. I really hope she and I become good friends.

5. Brooklyn 99. Hands down, my favorite show. For me it’s a show that always feels good, with characters I want to root for (like, all of them, even the criminals), it’s hilarious but not stupid, and even though I’ve seen it three times now it’s so densely funny that I’m surprised by the jokes and the plot twists every time. This show got me through the months after my dad’s death, and somehow that doesn’t make me sad rewatching it now. And the reason we’re rewatching it now is that it’s the perfect show to decompress with after an episode of The Pitt. I’m not a huge TV person and I often get bored and can’t make myself give a shit what happens from one episode of a show to another, but I absolutely love this show. (I’m also really liking The Pitt, but goddamn).