February 21, 2022
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 333: Our week of summer ended with yesterday’s warmth and fancy free sunshine. Today we’re back to cold, fog, and gloom. Brrrrrr!
*****
I was in a real mood all morning and because my brain was operating entirely off-kilter, ended up doing my work out of preferred order which just made it worse. I ended my morning work session without a certain amount of work done and the out of orderness meant that all the wrong and more irritating work was front and center.
I griped to PiC like a giant baby about my mood over lunch.
Smol’s staying awake longer between their first and second naps which means taking a 3-4 hour break from work that we have to get done later.
He had some emails to tackle after lunch but decided it was more important to go out with me, Sera, and Smol for a longer walk. It did help my mood so I’m glad he did.
Joking darkly with Abby about wanting to quit my job and how we’d engineer a windfall also helped.
We had our first Bentocart delivery which just happened to have enough Italian to work with the heart shaped pasta that JB asked for at the grocery store over the weekend to make an Italian dinner. Smol enjoyed 1.5 (weirdly buttery and weirdly delicious) meatballs and a double (adult) handful of heart pasta enough to feed themselves and thus redeemed themselves after yesterday’s dinner disaster where I felt like a failure because I couldn’t get the child to consume more than half a banana.
I keep forgetting that this kid isn’t a black hole for food and it is royally confusing when they eat like a small toddler with a moderate appetite. Tonight was better.
Speaking of forgetting things. I wasn’t feeling the same level of steaming garbage pain and fatigue as usual this morning and irrationally expected myself to feel happy as a result. Except everything else was still the same: COVID, working from home, no childcare, no under-5 vaccine, still juggling crappy conditions at work, still frustrated as hell over various family situations, still unable to plan anything for the year because so much that might be something to look forward to is dependent on a vaccine.
Big worries, small irritants, everything in between, that’s all the same even if I got half a decent night of sleep and don’t want to cry when I take two steps. I forget that feeling physically better isn’t a cure-all, it just feels like it should be.
*****
I’m feeling some real pressure to get JB enrolled into sports. They really miss their swim lessons, and I really want them to learn how to swim well before too long and while they still have the drive to learn. It’s an important life skill. They also need another activity to build their stamina. We’d been exploring either gymnastics or martial arts to start a second thing pre-pandemic but of course that plan went to hell. I feel like time is getting away from us. Suddenly they’re seven years old but can’t swim well because they’ve lost 2.5 years of practice. At the same time, we’re still in a holding pattern of juuuuuust keeping it together and I want to cry at the thought of adding one more thing to our plates. I guess the one thing that’s improved is as much of a handful as Smol is, they’re bigger and getting a bit easier to manage in some ways. Mostly not easy but still, as much as I love squashy infants, they are an absolute wrecking ball of work and fussiness. Smol has their things but they’re better now. So maybe that pressure has let up just enough for us to be able to take on something else for JB.
PiC has taken charge of getting information for some sports for us to evaluate. When I get over this feeling of overwhelm, we’ll sit down and figure something out.
I wish this dog could help me out.
*****
Smol’s firsts: they’re trying to give kisses now which are more like getting licked by a suckerfish. They also started rage squealing and biting when thwarted in their attempted to break into a cabinet so that’s a lot of fun.
Year 2, Day 334: What. A. Day.
Our tiny terrorist had a little mercy on us and didn’t wake everyone up at 5 am. That was much appreciated.
I’m frustrated with some things at work. Things are slowly improving, they’re a world better than they were last fall, but we’re only halfway through the struggle, I think. The internal issues all need time and patience to work out and I’m, as previously advertised, perilously in short supply of both. We’ll get through it, I was just feeling it particularly hard today.
The external stuff is more frustrating. Our clientele of late have been a particularly trying lot. They lie, they behave unethically and try to get away with it (no), lie some more, act totally entitled, and THEN expect to be coddled. I am doing my best not to let my feelings splash out on my team but here I can say more honestly: I hate these people so much. I’m sick of this nonsense. Act right and tell the truth! *HARUMPH*
It’s not all of them but it’s a large enough subset to make me gnash my teeth several times a day and I don’t see an end to these. But, as a leader, I have to keep my hollering under wraps among my reports because I don’t want to demoralize them. I’m here to hear their frustrations and empathize and help, not to dump my annoyance on them. It’s a bit isolating at times but I don’t think it’d be a good thing if I did have someone in the company to whine at anyway, that’s a bad habit to get into. Anyway, after working late into the night to resolve one person’s problems they created and still having half the problem to go, I’m calling it quits for today. I’ve had more than enough and I’ll have to try again tomorrow.
I don’t know how people shake it when they’ve hit this level of funk with clients at a job but a way must be found and soon. Maybe the way is a long vacation.
*****
I did a combo Bentocart order and cooking dinner: tofu soup (mine), lentil salad (mine), and pulled pork salad (theirs). Everyone had their favorite thing but everyone had some lentils, even Smol, which was nice. We still have one entree left from our big Monday order to serve for tomorrow’s dinner so I’m happy with how this first order stretched so far. I am not sure next week will work as well, I was struggling to find anything that sounded particularly appealing for either Monday or Tuesday. But that’s my weird appetite thing again. Sometimes I want all the food, sometimes I’m meh about everything. It’s not helpful!
*****
Over the weekend, a conversation with Maggie reminded me that I hadn’t even looked at our Alaska Air miles since the pandemic started, after working so very hard to build up a stash of miles for our Imaginary Big Fancy Trip to Somewhere. That triggered a big dash of adrenaline-worry: Am I going to lose all our miles??? We were told that PiC’s stash was set to expire in ten days without account activity and they had no idea when mine would expire so I quickly made donations from our accounts and held my breath. Still holding my breath yesterday, the activity hasn’t recorded yet. It’s still within the 3-5 business days they estimated for posting the activity so I’m hoping that both of our accounts will be ok by the end of the week.
Year 2, Day 335: Smol’s mercy extended one more day which was fortunate and appreciated.
I continue to be frustrated by complex tasks cropping up at work but that’s what I’m paid to deal with. š Meh.
I AM happy that Smol’s in my favorite age range with babies though. Smol gets into everything of course but they’re cute and little and walking like a determined and dizzy zombie, two arms extended forward, cackling or calling out nonsensical syllables like a tipsy town crier. They play in weird and interesting ways, they emote Really Intensely and cycle through emotions.
Oh! I emailed the local gym about their masking policies for the summer camp. I’m hoping they will require masking and JB might be able to do a week or two of summer gymnastics for fun at this age before it gets intense and competitive.
Year 2, Day 336: SCADS of Good News today! The HSA transfer from Random Crappy Company to Fidelity is done! WOO!
Both our Alaska Air mileage accounts updated to show activity so we are safe for another two years. I will plan to do a bit of card churning this year to add some miles too. Look at me, living with hope that we’ll ever travel again!
AND some good developments at work are happening. Really helpful for the morale.
Today is JB and PiC’s Friday, they both have Friday off. Lucky ducks! They did the Trader Joe’s run while I dealt with some pressing business and came home with 14 bananas because we’ve been eating them like monkeys lately. Literally. JB eats them upside down now. Because that’s how monkeys do it! Duh.
*****
Reflecting on how this week was different: we both felt that ordering premade meals for the start of the week made a huge difference in our stress levels. You could see it as simply paying for the privilege of moving the thinking about dinner to a different time but I perceive it very differently when I am setting up some orders for the next week rather than trying to get something now for tonight when I’m feeling the ticking of the clock as I / we have to make a decision with work demanding our attention and kids tugging at us and a dog to walk and and and. Planning ahead comes with an different kind of dopamine hit, the satisfaction of knowing you’ve settled a future question and you’re going to enjoy that later. It’s the same happy spot in my brain that loves travel planning even more than travel itself.
It also takes the pressure off in both not having to cook in that very small window of time between work and dinner and takes full cooking duties off both our plates for a couple days. It’s costly but I think I’m accepting that buying ourselves sanity this way is acceptable. We’ll do less when we have more childfree time back.
Year 2, Day 337: The Smol Acrobat is out of mercy. Up before 6 am making today feel like a Monday top to nearly bottom.
But since PiC had the day off, he caught the early baby, and I prepped their Adventure Lunch.
He went for a rare weekday run during Smol’s first nap while I worked and JB did chores and took TV breaks. They’re currently in love with Encanto video activities so they did a couple of those.
My break at lunch time was all about getting them out the door by noon, and off on an Adventure they went! Sera stayed home with me and for three blissful hours the house was otherwise empty. I had my pre-pandemic lunch of a cheese quesadilla eaten while hovering over my keyboard dashing through emails and I cleared enough of my work to be in shouting distance of caught up when they got back.
As Monday as it felt internally, PiC’s day off was greatly to my benefit to make it a Friday by the end of the night.
They all had a wonderful time out and about and came home in radiant moods. Smol passed out HARD when I put them down for a nap but was so happy that they didn’t even have the I’m sooooooo tired meltdown. JB floated on air the rest of the day.
:: Do you get all discombobulated by long weekends?
February 14, 2022
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 326: Third terrible night of sleep in a row as I wait out this latest flare up that feels like my bones are on fire. Tossed and turned for hours last night. PiC took Smol as soon as they were up so I could rest as much as possible before we absolutely had to get out the door but it wasn’t nearly enough.
Monday workloads suck to begin with. It’s extra weighted down with fatigue and underlying pain that won’t go away so it’s Molasses Monday. The kind of extra Molasses Monday that destroys even your muscle memory so that you try to crack the eggs into the compost and throw the shells into your bowl, and you turn off the lights as you go into the room instead of turning them on.
It’s going to have to be the little things today.
Smol, having gotten a later start than usual, this morning, got to spend the hour after we dropped JB off at school with me indulging in their current favorite pastimes: throwing all the socks out of their bin, throwing all the shoes out of their bin, unmatching socks, and carrying diapers around like a football. It’s good to have interests.
PiC pulled together a magnificent simple pantry dinner of steak, risotto (frozen from Trader Joe’s) and roasted broccoli. We enjoyed that after a short family walk through the neighborhood to let Sera do her business, JB run some laps and Smol stretch their legs a little.
I came back to my desk to put in some work on our Lakota family orders. For the orders already shipped, those tracking numbers needed to be shared. FedEx needed more information for a shipment. Diapers have been going in and out of stock since the weekend so I needed to grab what I could when it was back in. I’m juggling three families at once which may have been a bit daft for my energy levels but it’s mostly working out.
That done, I dragged myself off to bed for an “early” night in hopes of sleeping off my pain hangover.
(more…)
February 7, 2022
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 319: Welcome to another week of “What childcare?” with the added twist of a random no school day in the middle of the week. It started at 430 with Smol babbling at us, WIDE AWAKE.
JB is highly offended by this day off, it’s on their library visit day and they had plans for the book they were going to borrow next. I see their pain. Though PiC did just take them to the public library on the weekend, and they did come back with about 20 books, they still want one more.
For my part, I am obsessively watching the mail for our tax forms. It doesn’t make them come any faster but I can’t quite stop stalking the mail anyway.
Smol finally had a good first nap today, and woke up in time for lunch. They were hanging out with PiC while I wrapped up some work, and had started complaining about wanting to eat. As usual, I was talking to them like they can understand me, “let’s get some food into you” and went over to set up their seat and tray. They walked right over to me as if making a conscious decision to come to me and get ready to eat! Like they know things! It was kind of amazing.
Year 2, Day 320: Some of PiC’s work frustration is encapsulated perfectly in Debbie’s comment over at Nicole and Maggie. He has to keep asking his collaborators / vendors to do their d*mn jobs and they won’t unless he CCs their supervisor. Then he found out that this incompetent lout was promoted! Unbelievable.
Parts of my work frustration is the same: sometimes it feels like pulling teeth to get people to reply to simple emails and yes we’re all still in a pandemic but when this is ultimately work that they want done and won’t do their part and will then whine at me later about why it took so long… I wish to bite them.
*****
JB doesn’t have school today, so I scheduled a couple of Outschool lessons for them to try out: some art and some language. In the hour before their first much-anticipated lesson, they were told that I was working and PiC was in a meeting so only come ask me if they needed something. They were left to their own devices after that. I snuck out to check on them about 20 minutes before their lesson and they were laying on the ground reading. It’s really nice to see that they make reasonably decent choices when not under direct observation because I can’t say much for their judgement when they ARE being observed!
Unfortunately the teacher never showed up for the second class which was a massive waste of my time. We got a refund but it was 25 minutes I couldn’t get back.
(more…)
January 31, 2022
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 316: We don’t technically live paycheck to paycheck but I sure do look forward to payday as if we do. About six days before we get paid my radar starts going up, every two weeks. Where’s my money. I want it Right Now. I wonder if that twitch will ever wear off…
*****
I am not sure if the principal is deliberately misleading us but they’ve only notified us of a handful of cases. When I check the district dashboard, that reports 6x more cases than what the principal has reported. This isn’t doing good things for my stress levels.
*****
Related: I have been noticing the urge to shop more and more often. Not an urge to get something specific that we need – just an urge to shop. Which tells me that I’m seeking endorphins to combat the stress chemicals racing around my body.
The thing is, once I identify the want to shop, rather than the want to acquire things, I remember that I don’t want a quick hit of dopamine. I’m craving more peace and tranquility, more smooth and longlasting doses of quiet and rest and recuperation. The quick hit seems more achievable but it’s not the healthy stuff I actually want.
I don’t know how to get the part though.
*****
I AM proud of making dinner tonight. I tried this baked panko chicken recipe (thanks for the idea, Hawaii Planner!), with a big salad and roasted potatoes on the side. Everyone liked it, eventually. Smol was my Pickypants holdout spitting out everything I gave them but it turns out they were just being their usual kind of ornery and not wanting much of dinner until JB brought them a banana. That, they ate happily. Pickypants. (more…)
January 24, 2022
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 309: Everyone else has the day off today and I’m jealous. I’m also annoyed because JB’s morning shenanigans wasted an hour of my work time which means I can’t knock off early or take a long lunch time walk with them. Humph.
*****
Over the weekend, I made a pasta sauce with ground turkey. I set aside half for one meal this week and half to freeze. We also dug up our teeny tiny potato harvest and I think they’re going to become a plate of crispy garlic roast potatoes. Twitter enlightened me to the magic of parboiling and it works!
*****
My phone continues to mess with me. Adding to the randomly turning off trick, the keyboard has begun to refuse to actually type at a normal speed and inserting random caps locks and spaces at will. That’s less than ideal. I started researching possible replacement phones over the weekend and got really useful info from folks on Twitter. I think I’ve narrowed down my preferred candidates to three Samsungs: S10, S10e and S20.
*****
I should NOT have eaten that many shrimp chips in one sitting. š¶
Year 2, Day 310: It’s been a solid two weeks on a new supplements regimen and I think it has been doing some good for my fatigue. I was at rock bottom for my annual exam a few months ago. They referred me to a specialist who gave me a whole slew of lifestyle modification recommendations, some of which I already do, and the one that was easiest to act on was adding a lot of supplements to my daily routine. It’s still early yet to know if it really works for me but even with my other heartburn and heart palpitation issues, I’m a step up from my lay on the floor because I’m so steamrollered and hollowed out and can’t breathe mode.
Obviously still deeply fatigued, as one step away from rock bottom is not much and can be reached easily by a little overdoing it but still. It’s a step up that I’m on most days and I’m really grateful for that much. More please.
****
PiC fixed our water filter! Three cheers for PiC! It only took a $250 full replacement of parts which apparently has to happen every 3-4 years. š
*****
JB is really into chorizo burritos these days. We only tried it because of a mistake, we were given someone else’s order. But fun surprise for us, they’re good!
*****
I hate the plastic waste related to this but I’ve had to make some food plastic concessions for our sanity and energy. We have been going through our fresh fruits and veggies too fast, usually running out before the next shopping trip and we’re trying to keep our shopping time minimal, so I’ve bought cases of fruit cups. When we run out of whole fruit, we still have something for the kids. It helps us bridge gaps and reduces my stressing over that element of their diets when we’re juggling so much.
On that subject, feeding Smol has been a real challenge. They’re so opinionated about what and when they eat that they can spend an entire dinner yelling at me and waving their arms in negatory gestures. The fruit cups help smooth the way to their eating a balanced meal.
Speaking of dinner, I managed to make a lentil salad and salmon dinner tonight! It’s the first night in weeks that I was able to take up my dinner duties again and I’m so relieved to be capable of cooking again.
Year 2, Day 311: I had to gain consciousness at 4 am in part 3 of Smol’s jaunt down FUBAR Sleep Lane. First it was a diaper change. PiC took care of that and then passed out. 20 minutes later, Smol was hollering because they were hungry. PiC speculated (hours later) that we’re hitting another growth period where they’re hungrier faster than usual, but also they were a right pain about eating yesterday so I’m sure they simply failed to get enough calories during the day. I cuddled them in our bed while they drank a bottle (still trying to wean them) and then plopped them back into bed. I couldn’t get back to sleep until just after 5, expecting that I’d really regret going back to sleep later. I did. It was HARD waking up again to take JB to school and get to work!
*****
I had what should have been my last ortho appt today. PiC said that was fast! I said that felt like an eternity! He said, well that’s because you were holding your breath for 20 minutes!
It’s true.
My ortho is incredibly brisk and to the point which I VERY much appreciated in a time when I wanted to get in and out as fast as I can. It turns out I’m not done yet, alas. They still need a bit more work so while he’s removed the little bits that hold the aligners on, he’s also ordering another set of treatment trays.
*****
I made dinner two nights in a row! I’m happy that my thrown together chicken in enchilada sauce turned into taco salad night with blue corn taco shells, romaine lettuce and tomatoes, Mexican rice we’d had frozen in the pantry, and guacamole! We both grew up almost exclusively on our respective Asian cuisines but in a pinch, what I can throw together is an approximation of Mexican food for dinner with pantry foods. We’re kinda weird.
Year 2, Day 312: Up at 5 am with Smol, both PiC and I were. Ugh. Why. What have we done to be punished so??
We did our best to keep on chugging today, but it was quite a slog to keep the body and brain in motion.
*****
My annual collection of tax forms dance has begun! I’ve got a W2, a 1099, just twenty more forms to go! I’ll have to wait up until the end of February to get my Vanguard forms. Booooo. I always look forward to being done with filing so of course I’m on tenterhooks the whole of January and February trying to gather all the forms.
I don’t know why I enjoy this but I do.
Year 2, Day 313: Smol slept well all night!!!! We didn’t have to get up at 4 or 5 am!!!
So that was exciting. AND we’re speculating maybe all the wake ups this week was for a developmental purpose because today, instead of screeching all throughout their meal(s), Smol suddenly started pointing with a purpose which clearly communicated what they wanted at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was amazing. It was so much better than the dramatic hollering at random that was impossible to figure out.
*****
JB celebrated their 100th day of school today. (We all did, because as I pointed out, this was not a solo endeavor.) They had a crown, and wrote 100 words as fast as they could, and brought in 100 small items to share. We had cheesecake for dessert with pretend candles to top it off.
*****
I’ve gone without a massage for several months and underestimated how severely I’d be in pain after my first one back. After much deliberation and anxiety, I’d taken up an appointment today and it felt good at the time. But the physical feedback afterward had me curled up on the floor in pain by the evening. Seamus and I used to share my heavy duty pain meds to manage his arthritis. Now I’m using his leftover heavy duty pain meds. Turn and turn about.
I couldn’t sleep until 5 am because that’s the tradeoff for being in slightly less than excruciating pain: having a brain that simply cannot fall asleep for the entire night. I wonder if pain meds actually reduce anyone’s pain because my experience with it has always been, at best, a temporary and mild reduction in pain with horrible side effects.
Maybe there’s a different med I can try in the future.
January 17, 2022
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 302: After a too active weekend, I started this day in a bad place. Bad mood, drained of energy, short of breath, mostly zombie.
I think everyone started around the same place because our morning was no good.
The rest of the day boded ill as well with Smol waking up early from their afternoon nap, but it got better once we adults flipped our mental commitments from work to family. Though too early, we stopped trying to squeeze in work and went for a walk in preparation for an earlyish dinner.
That was better. Then having a fun Zoom call with family helped revive my spirits a lot. Some days feel like weeks, this was one of them.
Year 2, Day 303: Have you ever had dreams about your adult teeth falling out? I used to have a recurring dream where I wiggle a tooth so much it falls out and then I realize it was an adult tooth and I needed that!!
Those all came back today when JB asked me to wiggle their loose tooth, and then to pull it out. *Shiver* I’d like to pull it out but it’s not ready yet. UGH.
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Taking my fun where I can find it: tickling the breath out of Smol when they’re up for it. They also like plonking their face on my head and smushing their face into my face. Then they rub their face onto my face like a cat, and start chuckling. They’ve also discovered bouncing today. Happy bounce, angry bounce, shrieky bounce, giggly bounce. They tuck their legs underneath them and bounce! bounce! bounce!
I also quizzed, wait, no, interrogated PiC on his retirement desires and goals.
**** (more…)
January 10, 2022
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 295: What’d we do last year for Christmas? PiC asked. I don’t remember but I was a lot less stressed and anxious since we did no socializing. Though we also had a tiny baby so … Probably not less stressed but certainly less anxious than this year.
Today I had childcare coverage all day in the form of PiC still being off work one more day and it was both amazing and a grind because then I really really really had to make the most of that focused work time. I got caught up on a lot of important or overdue stuff with some intense effort to stay on task, so that’s something. I was sad to have missed out on midday baby snuffles and snuggles but that’s the trade off, isn’t it?
PiC took care of everything today: dog walks, feedings, kids, lunch, and dinner. I’ve got a great partner.
I’m still decompressing from a remarkably tough holiday season. We socialized much more than usual. We were super careful everywhere (vaxxed, masked, no indoor dining, running an air purifier wherever we could) and the anxiety that it still wouldn’t be enough was ever present. There was a lot of internal conflict when I met with conservative family members who did respect my needs (masked and outdoors meeting) but still clearly expressed their views which are in direct opposition to mine. We were able to say our goodbyes to a longtime friend and carried a lot of sadness back with us. My fatigue was always so bad that I felt sick most of the time – it expresses itself as cold symptoms when I’ve gone too far. Of course I rapid tested to be sure it was just my body sending up alarms and not COVID. Naturally that was another source of anxiety: we didn’t have enough rapid tests for the serial testing that I’d prefer considering omicron was taking off in the days after we’d hit the road. I was also trying to get all of us an appointment for PCR tests so we could be reasonably certain we were all COVID free before returning to school and that was an inordinate amount of effort. Of course I was working the entire time we traveled. Basically I now don’t want to leave my house for a month. Maybe two. (more…)