poupak:

Let me just start by saying this is completely my opinion, and my feelings alone, and not representative of anything from any improv theater or performer involved. This is how I perceived that particular person who took center stage at a show I was attending.

The various legal loopholes and…

This is Kat Zwick and The Shift’s Debutante Gig on March 7, 2010 at Uncommon Ground, Chicago, IL.

Kat Zwick - Draft - Daddy Daddy - Original (via kmzchicago)

Brand new song. Draft form, still. Please rate and share! I would love a ‘fan base’ or whatever. :)

Today with L, I attempted to pay special attention to what she said and did all day long in hopes to share it with you and to reflect upon it, Interlink. There were at least two instances during which I felt strongly that THIS was something I should write about later, because wow, that was ______ (profound? adorable? bizarre? hilarious?). When asked later to recall these instances (I was asked by myself), I could only reply, “I do not recall, your honor.”

It may be useful to carry about a small L-Related Notebook. Preferably Moleskine. Because come on. Hemingway.*

One great event in our day today I do recall. We took the Chicago el and then a bus to the Swedish American Museum in Andersonville, because they have the Brunk Children’s Museum of Immigration** and it was too late in the day to go to the Nature Museum. It took us about an hour to get there. Upon arrival, we found out it closed in 25 minutes. Alas. A combination of Boppy’s poor planning (could have packed a lunch) and a late wake-up from a nap by one Miss L.

L and I therefore ventured over to Women and Children First Bookstore. L ran around the store with a military truck, a cop car and a fire truck and we read a few kids books, most notably a Llama Llama book she’d not yet read (“Llama Llama MISSES Mama”), which was all about going to school and missing mama. Just this week, L has been discussing “missing” her mama. Well-timed Llama books, ho! At other times, while L played, I found myself in my own private feminist heaven and perused the bookshelves like I was a celiac in a bakery. Mouth-watering books in psychology, spirituality, fiction. No expendable income. Salivating Feminist Alert.

At some point whilst she was running around with her motley crew of trucks, tanks and stuffed pigs, smiling at the older women who run the store, L stopped and grabbed my calf and looked up at me and said, “What’s that?” She was pointing to a little display of feminine hygiene products called Diva Cups. I was holding a box in my right hand, checking the price ($35) and slowly considering this radical change in my menstruation experience. I said to L, “Oh! It’s a bit of a device for adult women.” L started up running again and shouted, gleefully, “Iiiiiiii’mmmmm an adullllllllt womannnnn!!!” 

As she rounded the cashier’s counter, she ran smack dab into a beautiful boarder collie and her be-stoned*** short-haired owner. Yes, in the store. Because W&CFB is a “neighborhood” bookstore. I realized many years ago that “neighborhood” often means “dog-friendly” and that ever-elusive “funky.”

B-SSHO to L: “Are you an adult woman?”

L: “Yah! Hi, dog. Hi, dog. Hi, dog. Hi, dog. Hi, dog.”

The collie proceeded to say hi back - licked L right in the face with a tongue about the size of her head - and L jumped over to my thigh, grabbed it for dear life and giggled, pinching the back of my knee with her teeny tiny 1/2 inch fingers. Grip of a vise, though, I’ll tell you what.

Then it was time for eats, so we skipped on down to Kopi Cafe. B-SSHO and her dog Ruby walked behind us about 30 feet, and the whole two blocks L and I traveled, L screamed “Oh my goodness! The doggie is going to get us! OH MY GOODNESS OH MY GOODNESS HERE COMES THE DOGGIE! Ahhh! The doggieeeeee!” Of course, we were actually walking much more quickly than B-SSHO and her doggie, and at no point was Ruby expressing even feigned interest in L, so this alarmism reminded me instantly of that scene in the first Austin Powers when Michael McDonald - playing a henchman in Dr. Evil’s underground lair - becomes immobilized with terror as Austin and Ms. Kensington approach him at a snail’s pace in the steamroller.

At Kopi, we snagged a low-to-the-ground table with cushions to sit on. L exclaimed “We are having a picnic!” As we waited for our dinner - she had “The Elvis,” I had a big salad and a tempeh patty with a side of tortilla chips and hummus - she decided it was time to dance and start squirming about, arms flailing and punching the sky and said, “Boppy, dance! Dance, Boppy!” So we squirmed on our cushions and then played Where’s The Splenda Packet until our meals arrived. A local hippie or possibly affluenly raised old youth eschewing yuppie status by wearing patchouli and a meaningful expression**** sat ponderously with his rail thin gal pal nearby and they smiled sunflower-like at the energetic free bird I call L. L smiled back, with none of the cynicism or stand-offish bemusedness I had already jumped to in my own head about them. 

Sometimes, L reminds me that I’m a Buddhist. She reminds me why. And maybe more importantly, she reminds me how.

And I smiled at our table neighbors, too.

*I don’t give a single solitary owl’s hoot about Hemingway. No ‘fense.

**Cannot help but think of parents bringing children there to be shipped off to other countries.

***Rather than be-jeweled. Not to categorize older feminists, but often, where there is turquoise and amethyst and red corral, there’s a grounded artsy progressive feminist.

****I’m one of the latter on certain be-stoned days. OMG I JUST REALIZED THIS MAKES ME SOUND LIKE A POTHEAD. Note: I am literally speaking of precious and semi-precious STONES, like lapis.

Hello.

I am Boppy. To people who are not the toddler L that I nanny, I am Katherine or Kaite or Kat. But to the 2.5-year-old L, I am Boppy. Sometimes I am Boppy-Katherine. Her dad sometimes call me Bop, and thus L sometimes calls me Bop. Once recently I jokingly referred to myself as “Boppa,” because I thought it sounded cute, and L stopped in her tracks and said “No no no no. You are NOT Boppa. Baba is Boppa. Boppa is Baba.” Baba, of course, is her paternal grandfather.

She’s totally right. I am not her paternal grandfather.

L has been doing cute, adorable, challenging things since I met her when she was 5 months old. I am and have been a blogger for the past 8 years, so I’m not entirely sure why it never occurred to me to document this adventure of adulthood Nanny-dom on the one place I spend most of my expendable time: the Interlink. 

Yes, that’s a “V for Vendetta” reference. Hi, let’s get acquainted for a second: I am not your average nanny, at least not as I understand it. I’m a graduate student finishing my MA in Clinical Psychology and I’m almost 31. I like Zombie films, graphic novels, I am a half-marathon/marathon runner, I’m training to become a Buddhist, I’m a therapist, and I sometimes sport Feist-y bangs. I am the lead vocalist of a band named after me, which is new and amazing, and I am, while awesome, one of the most annoying people you will ever meet. I talk a lot, I talk loudly without realizing it in quiet places, I accidentally swear in restaurants when other people’s children are sitting at the table next to me, I sometimes emo-vomit on people who are not my close friends, and if I ever tell you “I’m running late,” I’m STILL going to be a couple minutes early.

Hello, friend?

This blog is not for the faint of heart or people looking for sweet surface-level entries on the innocence and perfection of children and on the quixotic experience of taking care of them. I want to speak honestly about the adorableness of L but I also want to speak honestly about the challenges of pseudo-parenting. I’ve been L’s nanny for over 2 years, working 28-35 hours/week every week except when the fam went on vacation this past December for 2 weeks. While it is hard to complain about L or her family - this is NOT The Nanny Diaries - I have begun to notice that it is a complex thing being, essentially, a part-time mother. It is a complex emotional relationship that I have not only with L but also with her awesome parents, all of whom feel like surrogate family to me at this point. As I near the end of my tenure as their Nanny - though hopefully will always be in their lives - I am noticing more and more that this particular closeness I’ve developed with L means much more to me than even I have realized. While it was never “just” a job - because I tend not to be someone who has “just jobs” - I have grown to love L, not just because she’s a kid, but because she spent her entire 2009 repeating the same phrases over and over again (i.e., “This is a ball. This is a ball. This is a ball. This is a ball, Boppy. This is a ball. This is a ball…”), because she was sitting across from me a few weeks ago while we were eating lunch and said “I see your bo-bos, Boppy. Someone drinks from your bo-bos,” because she has imaginary friends named Coco and Zoba, because for some reason it was really funny to her when a doll frog fell off my head over and over and over for 20 minutes straight when she was about 7 months old, because she wanted to pray before eating lunch yesterday and said, to her God, “God bless Boppy’s feelings,” because she will grab a drum and a cleaned yogurt container (which she will call a bucket) and we will play the drums and make up songs about our day which we will sing at the top of our lungs…

There are many reasons I love her, and I don’t want to forget any of them. I have jokingly referred to myself as a part-time mother and a primary caretaker for about a year now. But the fact is, this relationship is not a joke, and L means a great deal to me. Additionally, this has gotta be one of the strangest jobs on earth. I am getting paid to raise a child; I am compensated for loving her; I am an employee of a family of which I feel an actual part. Winding down that dynamic, as I enter the workforce as a therapist or other psychology-related-paid-person, many thoughts, feelings and memories arise.

And thus, I bring you Boppy Blog.

*Bo-bos are breasts.