Every morning, when Ishu and I take the elevators down to the lobby of our building, the doors open to Dave. He’s a member of the concierge team and he works most weekdays starting around 7am.

He sees a lot of us throughout the day.

The morning trip to the park.

The early afternoon trip to the grocery store.

He’ll occasionally see us if I’m too lazy to make lunch and want to run out and grab a sandwich.

And, sometimes, he’ll see us around 2ish when Bella leaves for the day and Ishu needs a break from the apartment.

The other day, we stepped out of the elevators and I spotted Dave behind all the packages piled up on his desk.

“Dave, good morning!” I said.

He looked up at me and smiled.

Dave knows that I started my job at the beginning of September. He was witness to the daycare debacle and now he watches as I pop in and out of the building with Ishu – putting my mama hat on, taking the school psych hat off. And vice versa. All day long.

“How’s it going?” I asked, noticing that he looked incredibly busy. He was surrounded by Amazon and USPS boxes, probably sending out notifications to the tenants in the building.

He sighed real big and said, “Work, work, work. You know how it goes!”

I laughed and said, “Yeah…I sure do!” as I headed toward the door.

I looked down at Ishu, looked back at Dave and said, “Well….I guess with a little ‘play’ scattered in between cause of this guy.”

“Mandatory play!” he said. “I like it.”

I walked out the doors to head to the park and was smiling the entire way over.

Mandatory play, I thought. It’s like Ishu is indirectly forcing me to get up off my butt. He’s making me stretch my legs and take my eyes off the screen for a bit.

It can feel overwhelming to have to “mom” in between the work day. I feel pulled in multiple directions sometimes. But it’s also a privilege to get to take these breaks with Ishu.

The flexibility that this job has provided me is something that I am so grateful for.

So, yeah. I work hard.

But I also play hard. Because it’s mandatory.

Question of the Day:

What does your work day look like? Is there any mandatory play scheduled in?