A fly buzzes up and down the inside of the window, a weed blower just broke a perfect silence, the babies are down for their nap, it’s 2:25 on Thursday afternoon. I would love to have a nice hot cup of coffee, but I have to compromise with herbal tea or I’ll be up all night. Today Jack, Fiona, and I went and got our flu shots. We had to wait quite a while, the babies started getting restless and wanted out of the stroller. The waiting room had chairs and soft benches they wanted to sit on. I finally gave in and started reading a story, “A Duck on a Bike”. Surprisingly I had Jack and Fiona’s complete attention and corporation. As I was reading the book I felt a little silly, with my silly voice, then another little girl and her mom came over and listened to me reading the book. All three kids were happy as pie. The other little girl was a little older so I could engage with her more than I can with jack and Fiona. It was cool and embarrassing all at the same time. My silly voice. We go into a room, which is set up for Code Blue, with cardiac kits and supplies for resuscitation. I thought of my mom, re-lived the hospital room, the last moments of her life, as I tried to keep Jack and Fiona busy enough to think we were doing something fun. The nurse comes in, Jack had opened a drawer with supplies, a little yellow tag fell off,

“Did you do that?’ she asks me.

“Umm, I’m not sure, I think Jack may have opened a drawer, is it bad?”

“Yes”

“Sorry, jack we’re in trouble”

Whoops, well I’m doing the best I can. It’s challenging with two two year olds in a situation like this. They are curious. The nurse gives me my shot first, the needle is big.

“Look, mommies getting her shot, then you’ll get yours” I tell them with a smile on my face.

It hurts just a touch and then I don’t feel anything. The babies get their shots, they cry a little, but then they must not feel any pain anymore either because they get over it quickly.

They were good babies today.

Yesterday I had my first GAP collaboration session with Carl Heyward and Alvaro Sanchez. It was so fun, we made some really cool collabs. I was nervous and wondered how it would go, but I felt immediately engaged and connected to both artists. I’m really excited about GAP and working on projects with artists from around the world. I started working in a couple new books today for our GAP collab project. We’ve got a bunch started now, we’re passing them around so everyone has a chance to work in them. As I opened one of the books, it is the first book I didn’t start, meaning it already had information and mark making from other GAP artists. It felt like I was peeking into someone’s secret book. I looked through some of the pages and notes, I felt a personal connection. I wanted to know more about who wrote the notes, made the marks, what day it was, where were they? What state of mind were they in? It also made me think of street art in the way that I am covering up, reworking, adding to something someone else made. It agrees with me, this process, the way I work and think.

Today when I worked in my studio on my “Nap time paintings” I worked on some collab and a few of “Just me” and noticed a difference in the way I looked at/ worked on/ made decisions on my “Own” pieces. It is really interesting. I learn so much about painting by working on collab. I also feel like I can work more freely on my own stuff, like there’s a healthy detachment, or I can look at it from a very un- self-critical way, more than ever before.

I’m starting to hear Jack and Fiona waking up from their nap. Time to get back to work as mom.