Home.

Being a birth doula is strange.  Being a postpartum doula--especially one who works nights--is a little bit more strange.  I just spent the last 36 hours living in someone else's house, rummaging through their cabinets for linens and toilet paper and silverware (not really in that order); eating their food (which, actually is a bit of a stretch because they really didn't have any food there until dinner last night.  Let's not talk about it.), sleeping in their guest bedroom, showering in their shower, washing their underwear,  snuggling with their progeny.  I mean, that is a weird way to make a living.  

But these people were grateful and ready to have me come back again--no haggling my hourly rate or bemoaning the divit I'm putting in the newborn's college fund, all the while I can't stop thinking of my children at home all day with a sitter who will expect half of what I make.  Not complaining--it's not their fault that this is what I choose to do with my life and that I have hooligan kids of my own who need someone to break up the fights every once in a while.  It just is what it is....  This family was ecstatic for a handful of hours of sleep strung together and someone with the clarity of mind (yes, that'd be ME) to pipe up and suggest, "Hey, I bet your baby would love to be held after spending the last few days in isolation, more-or-less, in the NICU." 

I'm home now, curled up in my own bed, drinking an iced coffee that I mourned the loss of for an entire day.  In a few hours, I will move again, hopefully to eat cheeseburgers and other food I probably shouldn't but am too tired to stop myself from.  For now, I'm thankful for a few things:  Fighting babies, parents who are strong, coffee, chocolate chip cookies, and thunderstorms.  Not quite in that order, but close.

P.S. - While working, I had to park at the end of the street to avoid a ticket.  When I got in my van this morning to head home, it was clearly threatening me.  "Wash Me!  Or I will break on you!" was etched into the crust on my back window, along with a sun holding a sponge?  That van bettah recognize.  No one tells me what to do.  No. One.  ;-)