Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (73)
October 25, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 218: Huzzah!! Smol made it through the night to 6 am! A painful hour but so much better than 3 and 4 and 5. The combination of overnight diapers and a touch of sleep training the first night they woke automatically predawn without real cause, no leaks!, and we’re back to square two with their sleep. Thank goodness. Zero (1-4 wake ups every night) really sucked. Hard as it was to crawl out into the dark cold to fetch Smol, they were so HAPPY, babbling and chatting away to their little plushie friends, it was hard not to be infected by their mood.
For my part, the flu shot we got over the weekend is kicking my behind up and down the corridors. I was fatigue-aching from head to toe, not unlike a pain flare tbh, yesterday and today my whole left side aches in a different way. Like it’s inflamed and angry. Here’s hoping this is actually producing an immune response and not just torturing me.
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It feels like I blinked and here we are deep into fall and Halloween just around the corner. I’m glad that I thought ahead enough that JB and Smol already their costumes for whatever small activity we do with their little friends, and I’m trying to use this time to get equally prepared for Turkey Holiday and the winter holidays. I’d rather put in the hard work early so I can enjoy what I feel like enjoying come the time. Half the winter presents are done but there are some I forgot to put on the list or haven’t been able to come up with yet.
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Yesterday I’d tackled the problem of all the kids’ clothes in too small (to give away) and too big (store sensibly for future use). Today I tackled the problem of boxes of uncurated hand me downs from friends clearing out their old stuff and figuring JB would probably like it all. They would, they are a budding pack rat, but I went through to sort things to keep, donate, or recycle. It was spiritually freeing to clear up the post-hurricane-looking closet and floor. This was during my long childminding break from work and it was deeply satisfying to get most of the way through.
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I noticed that I wasn’t physically carrying my normal Monday morning stress levels today. That kicked in much later in the day than usual.
I wonder if our new routine of Hypervolting my back for a few minutes every night for the past four nights is helping. Perhaps that breaks up the cycle: mental / emotional stress ➡️ physical pain ➡️increased mental / emotional stress ➡️ increased physical pain ➡️ pass out, rinse and repeat.
I’m noticing little things shifting lately, not just since the Hypervolt but more strongly since. Maybe it’s the combination of brain therapy and tiny daily pain reductions but these are unusual: Caring about myself and wanting to actually try testing to see if we can figure out why I’m so fatigued (and have been unrested after sleep for ten+ years). Cleaning because I want to, not to work off stress or because the mess is making me angry. Wanting to learn how to sew. Wanting to explore a project with a friend or feeling motivated to see beyond the day to day slog.
It’s no miracle cure, I’m still in lots of pain and deeply fatigued at all times which makes tiny things huge. I’ve been lost in despair and a fog of depression and grief and worry for two solid years, and the relentless march of worry and losses still hasn’t let up. Being able to feel a want now and again makes me remember the sensation of feeling alive.
I’m grateful for the single ray of light peeking through the fog.
Year 2, Day 219: My therapist reminds me a lot that we’re capable of holding multiple and conflicting emotions at same time. Boy do I. I’m conflicted today about childcare. I very much need it. WE very much need it. I am also having pre-separation anxiety. JB was a SUPER social and sunny baby. I wasn’t SURE how they would react to daycare but I had a reasonable expectation that they would enjoy it. I also had the ability to take them for a tour and witnessed their yearning to stay there to play. With Smol, we may not be able to tour the facility, we may not be able to see them settle in, and they are so self contained that it’s hard to guess how they will react. I hate the uncertainty of that aspect so much. I hope they won’t be the saddest kid ever who cries floods at dropoff, I can’t handle that. I couldn’t handle it when it was someone ELSE’S kid! I used to drop JB off, they’d run off and play, and the saddest kid in the class would lean up on me and sob. So I’d sit there watching JB play and patting this wee one’s back until someone peeled him off me. That STILL tugs my heartstrings when I see the kids being dropped off at the elementary school, crying.
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We have to tackle open enrollment next week and I can’t decide whether I want to carry on with our HSA Health Plan or go back to our really good HMO where we only pay $20-30 copays and everything else is taken care of. The sensible money answer is yes to the HSA: it reduces our federal taxable income (but no CA benefits), the company gives us a big chunk of money to enroll, and it lets us save money for future healthcare expenses. The emotional and practical answer is no to the HSA: I intentionally hoard the HSA contributions and pay out of pocket for our care right now but I also started to actively avoid using our health plan because of the complications of figuring out how much everything costs. We have a $2800 family deductible which irritates me.
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Yesterday there was a Twitter thread from the Fioneers asking why the pandemic is so hard for parents of young ones right now.
It felt like such a “where do I BEGIN” moment. My worst pain points are, and all of these date back to March 2020: not having had more than an hour of alone time; not having more than one week of help with the kids; having to work full time while burnt out and understaffed and parenting at the exact same time; having to schedule all kinds of educational lessons for JB to both keep their brain engaged and to occupy their time so we get tiny chunks of respite during which we work furiously to catch up on work. For half that time, we were also caring for Seamus in his last days which were the most labor intensive with accidents in the house, nine doses of medications and four walks a day.
And this is with PiC sharing the burden as equally as possible! He’s done 99% of the grocery shopping, prepares most of our meals, handles almost all the kid heavy lifting, most of the cleaning, does most school drop off and pick ups.
We have essentially zero support here, the day to day burden is on our shoulders alone, and that’s been hard and isolating even before you take into account how polarizing COVID has been.
We’ve also been very fortunate in the family who has made themselves available virtually and in large swaths of time, that’s been life saving, but it’s still incredibly hard to do without any in person support. Huge trade off in time and energy and sanity.
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I’m also feeling very low today. I’m missing Seamus deeply. I’m sad about the general shape of some family rifts due to politics and COVID, and general isolation. I miss my friend. And I’m trying to just let the feeling be, so I don’t drive it into my joints further.
The one bright spot with all this sadness is that it’s forcing me to really practice that habit of making myself be ok with feeling the feelings and not shoving them into a box and sealing it up like it’s nuclear waste like I normally do. That means I’m feeding the pain cycle one less way and that means my inflammatory response is less intense. So THAT means my dietary restrictions are less restrictive.
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Year 2, Day 220: Smol keeps waking up at 4 am all week. After that first night when I confirmed the overnight diapers were doing their job, then refused to pull them out for a change or rocking or soothing, and of course they cried very indignantly for 20 minutes, they quickly adapted and now spend 4-430 babbling to their crib friends. It wakes me every time but hey, at least I don’t have to get up!
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Is there anything more satisfying than your dental hygienist busting that dang tartar buildup that you’ve been working at with the floss to no avail?? I kept my eyes closed most of the cleaning and sent my brain on a few little bouts of meditation. I love dental cleanings so much. Maybe not the scaling bit at the end but everything up to that.
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We’re getting some much needed rain here in Northern California. Unfortunately I’m suspicious that the barometric doohickeymabob that shifts when a storm moves in is wreaking havoc on my joints down to my finger joints. Unpleasant.
Year 2, Day 221: Smol’s teeth are coming in thick and their appetite is very up and down as a result. Thankfully, the ill effects mostly seem centered on weird appetite which is not super abnormal for then, anyway. I try to give them a variety of healthy options but not push too hard if they’re not interested. PiC reminded me I turned out relatively ok after being a very spare eater as a kid. I’m so used to JB eating swaths through our fridge, the shift to an indifferent eater throws me off sometimes.
I’m giving them bigger chunks of food to gnaw on now that they have enough teeth to cut food. That’s led to new fun: they try to climb as far out of their seat as possible, arm outstretched, hand clenching bread or green bean, and wave it at me urgently. When I lean forward and pretend to take a bite, they burst into cackles. Reciprocity! They also enjoy pretending to poke me in the face so we’re full of fun and games here.
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My anxiety over work stuff spiked midday today and I instinctively hunched over my desk to force myself to work through it. After a little while I realized that was not the way out and made myself walk away. Smol and I worked on a Poshmark listing and more cleaning in the guest room until my fatigue took over and I laid on the ground. Smol immediately pounced on me and started “kissing” my cheeks (big open mouth sucker fish “kisses”) and then graduated to experimental biting. I protested, they drooled all over me in reply, then got mad when they bit me too hard. Where’s the justice in that, I ask ya? They went from happily chomping on my sleeve to angrily yelling at me with tears in their eyes. My guess was they suddenly realized they were hungry. I was wiped out at this point but I was still on duty for another hour so that I could take the afternoon for work, so I dragged my ten ton feeling body up and at it again. No rest for the something something.
I got through the work day with a certain amount of anxiety still nibbling at my heart but the long physically taxing break helped diminish the anxiety spiral. Small favors.
Year 2, Day 222: I’d made a judgement error last night, not giving Smol one last bottle before bedtime. They don’t need a bottle to go to sleep, but those last couple of ounces would likely have tided them over until the usual 6:30 am wakeup. I paid for my folly with a 5:30 warbling demand from the crib. They sucked down 4 oz and quietly settled back down for another hour so I spent that hour almost dozing lightly and kicking myself. I couldn’t quite get back to sleep nor could I get up completely.
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Two calls today which is two calls too many on any work day, but they had to be made so made they were.
I hate phone calls.
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I’m also wondering why Michael’s still hasn’t shipped my order from two weeks ago. I’d understand it being slow to deliver but it’s been stuck in processing for ages.
I’m glad that I already bought an almost unreasonable alternate stack of fabric from a later sale, some of that has already arrived. It was all at $3 a yard so this should last me through many simple projects once I actually learn how to properly work the machine.
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On the subject of burnout, thinking about it as not just a matter of resting due to fatigue but also as a need to refill my soul with things I want to do has helped a little. I’m sure I saw it somewhere else as well but I saw a snippet from a recent newsletter from AOC that someone shared that talked about ways to manage it and it sank in for me in a way that I could actually embrace. Maybe it’s the timing, maybe it was her example, maybe I had finally gotten my feet on the right path and this was my brain following. I don’t know. Whatever it was, it felt good to have these small moments of choosing to do things, even if only 10-15 minutes at a time, that I want to do and not just endless hours of what I have to do.
The “have to do” is still there but I’m not forcing myself to keep working through the anxiety or refusing to let myself have any fun of my own ever ever until I finish all the work (trick question I’ll never finish all the work). We spent a little time with our potato garden, hilling up the plants just in time for some epic rains to start, and while my lower half is going to be mad about it for days, my heart is just a little bit lighter.
Re burnout: I’ve been pretty intentional the past few months about not letting work drive me crazy, and even taking time in the day (when LO is at school) for myself where it makes sense, knowing that I give that time back (or taking legit vacation days randomly, just because). I’ve said no to a new project and dropped off a project I was failing at anyway (so much mental stress!), although I did immediately say yes to two more requests, at least they were requests I was excited about.
Re pandemic parenting: The working full time without normal childcare is insanely brutal. I would have collapsed had it gone on any longer than it did for us – only about 4 months. Work stress kept me in burnout mode through about May of this year, but I’ve been crawling back since then. I hate the advice of “just have your partner step up!” It is still too much for two people. I wish I would have taken a leave of absence during the time childcare was closed, and am making mental notes not to put my job on a pedestal. They will survive, and if not for protecting my family/health, what is all this savings for? (Easy to say in retrospect, not sure I would actually had the guts to do it.) LO cried at drop off the first few days, and it is TERRIBLE, but she did settle in after that. I can’t imagine doing it daily. 🙁
Hope that there are more and more good sleep days for you all!
We have to periodically remind ourselves that we’ve been working full time with no childcare since **MARCH 2020**. It’s normal to be this tired! And we share very equally, so I agree, it’s definitely too much for just two people.
With the pregnancy, we both did take a long leave of absence so neither of us felt like we could do another one, but it wasn’t the kind of leave that was a RESPITE given the new baby. There doesn’t really seem to be any good answers other than ending this dang pandemic. And there is going to be childcare eventually. I just don’t know when.
I remember one child cried every single drop off and I dread the possibility that that might be Smol. Cross your fingers for us?
I’m dealing with burnout by doing the minimum in some areas, and picking up interesting projects elsewhere. There’s a work conference I often present at, and I’m trying to rope in a couple of great teammates to partner with – will make the planning enjoyable and also the actual event.
You know, the addition of interesting projects made NO sense to me in dealing with burnout until recently. My therapist has been advising me to add some fun for the past year+ and clearly I am a slow learner since it didn’t make real sense that that’s the kind of thing that replenishes the soul and doesn’t JUST take up more time and energy.
I hope your teammates hop on board with your work conference!