I answer a "q" I rarely ask: What do you do?

Well, I can't believe September is officially over and thus closes the 5th month of my leave from work. Time sure does fly by. What do we have to do to slow it down some? I try staying up all night, that doesn't work. I try filling my day up, that doesn't work. I try doing nothing and having no plans, or making lots of plans, but in spite of all my attempts the days just seem to speed along.

I have been missing work a wee bit. At first it was a relief. Then I didn't quite know what to do with myself. Then I became busy with an assortment of crafting projects. Now I think I am at the point where I think a lot about work and what it will be like to go back and see the people I work with again. I do look forward to it. I remember what it felt like to be "in the zone" and to feel passion and fired up about what I did for a living. I have had all of this time to persue this other side of me. The creativity, the crafting. Now I feel like I have fully explored it and I am almost reaching a point where I am not afraid to be completely passionate about more than one thing. Also, I am beginning to recover from my depression.

What I do for a living is really special. When I tell people there are many responses. Most, I know, respond out of little understanding. I work at a multi resource centre for pregnant and parenting teens.

The centre provides tons of services such as child care, education, counselling, housing search, parenting and prenatal classes, help with tax returns, fun outings, respite care, parent relief, health counselling, prenatal photography, bellycasting and referrals for services that we don't provide on site.

I work with the best families in the world AND I get to play with babies all day. Most of our clients are women, but yes we see fathers and extended family at the centre as well. Some teens are married, in long-term relationships and some are single. Some have supportive families and some don't. Some have been abused, neglected, traumatized and some have had happy safe and loving childhoods. They are as varied as you and me. They chose to have babies-or not. I work primarily with the parents and their children, so they are the focus of my work.

I came to find out about this particular resource centre when I was 18 and pregnant. I registered for the services and attended prenatal classes and afterwards I attended a breastfeeding support group. I also did a program called "videotaping" where once a month we had the opportunity to bring our child in for a videotaping session so that we could track the progression of our child's growth. My son loves this video! (If I can transfer it to digital somehow, I will put it on my blog. Really cute.)

I never expected to be working at the centre I once relied on for support. The philosophies of the centre fit in with the things that I believe and teach me what it means to be a feminist day after day. I love my job! The families are so special and young parents are very dear to my heart.