Cafe School

Part of every week, we spend time doing work in a cafe. Tuesday mornings, Kaia and I spend two hours at the Readers' Cafe at Fort Mason while Mari is in her art class. It's my favorite; we're surrounded by books, they serve Blue Bottle coffee, and one of the employees loves Kaia and will often treat him to a hot chocolate (because "he's the most polite child I've ever met!"). We always sit at the same table on the cusp of the bookstore. It is some of the most pleasurable time for me - one-on-one, always a nice chunk of time, well-paced. On Kaia's birthday, we sang to him as I brought over his lemon bomboloni with a candle burning on it!

Mari and I spend time at different cafes on Mondays and Wednesdays each week while Kaia is singing. Usually, we walk up Gough St. to Tartine - which we learned the first time is not related to the Tartine on 18th Street. However, they've gotten to know us so it's pleasant enough. They have recently gotten connected with the French International School down the street; the students' art hangs on their walls. We don't like the vampire one much, but the grizzly bear studies are very captivating! Lately, Mar's been craving the See Saw cafe on Octavia where they've got a play room set up. She played with the dollhouse in there today for the entire time. Then rolled on the faux bear skin rug for awhile (once the other babies had cleared out)! She usually doesn't want food or drink, unlike Kaia who is a creature of habit. And when she is hungry, it's on the way out the door these days :).

Today, we actually spent most of our afternoon in two cafes. The Peets in Marin housed us while we waited on our car which was (supposedly) being worked on... won't go into how the temp gauge is still not installed after the second request to do it and a specific trip for that explicit reason! Then we rushed to chorus, made it by the skin of our teeth, and spent the next hour at See Saw. I think the focused time is great. And with internet access in almost all of them, it really allows us to get done what never seems to easily get done at home.