Year 3, Day 361: The weekend rain was light but wrecked my bones pretty well so I’m not thrilled about the storm expected tomorrow.
Someone asked me if I had ever experienced non-joy in the face of things that SHOULD bring me joy. As it happens, that perfectly describes my emotional state lately. It feels like things are going well enough that I should be happy.
Things are dramatically better than they had been even a year ago. I’m FINALLY not coughing up a lung all day, everyday. We finally have full time childcare. We have (so far, knock wood) continued to dodge the COVID bullet even as there are half a dozen reports of cases on campus. PiC is finally getting more exercise time with the childcare. Those are all the shoulds.
On the flip side, my brain fog is still thick. My physical self is wracked with pain and fatigue all day and all night. I am still never truly refreshed when I sleep. At best I might be less tired than when I went to sleep but most days I’m even more tired. A tweet has going around about what everyone has accomplished since COVID started and while I don’t begrudge anyone their accomplishments, my mood means that I started feeling rather badly about how I “only” made it through these past three years without getting COVID (knock wood) and how I’ve not published a book or done any of a dozen things I’d have liked to do before 40. I’m also sad about the loss of community, both on Twitter and with dear friends who have fallen out of touch for their own reasons. It’s hard not to feel complicated and unwanted when a chosen family member unchooses you to deal with their own issues. It’s not about you but it’s still sad.
Year 3, Day 354: Weirdly enough, the time change knocked us for a loop more last night and this morning, not on Sunday morning as expected. Probably because Smol needed soothing at 4:30 am, and went back down for another sleep cycle or two before getting up at the equivalent of their usual time instead of an hour earlier than that. Getting everyone to bed an hour later than usual last night was partially a function of how exhausted we were after a long day with two kids playing and fighting all day long. Our heads were ringing with the endless screeches.
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All the confusion about my antidepressants refill has finally been straightened out, I think, and my refill for 100 days worth of meds is FINALLY on the way. It took two false starts and three phone calls.
It might be time for me to try that off label naltrexone prescription for my pain. It’s startling to realize that I keep thinking I’m not in that much pain anymore so it’s not worth trying. In reality, most nights my marrow feels like lava. That’s not being pain free.
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My first (or the last one was so long ago that history has been erased) successful dinner!
I made a triple batch of chili, baked cornbread, and served both with a spinach salad that PiC picked up. The kids – BOTH OF THEM emphasis mostly for Smol the pickypants – ate up everything I served! No fuss, no fidgets, no frustration.
What do I have to sacrifice to which kitchen god for this to happen every (or most) night? Two thirds of the chili went into the freezer for easy dinners in the next couple of weeks. We’ve got just enough leftover chili to have chili dogs for tomorrow night.
Year 3, Day 347: Guess who has two thumbs and didn’t sleep until 5 am? This guy!
Thanks to painsomnia at its worst. It wasn’t even at the most severe levels of pain, it was just persistent and blocked my ability to find that falling asleep feeling. I did read three books trying to get there.
Needless to say, I was an entire zombie today. Sluggish and drooping at my desk, again grateful that I work remotely and don’t have to care what anyone sees or thinks of me.
I got my work done, answered a dozen texts from family and friends, picked up JB from school, walked Sera, and crawled into bed after making sure that JB knew what their chores were. Since they had scored two rainbow baskets at Target yesterday on the condition that they clean up the mess on their dresser, they were 100% cooperative and cleaned independently while I dozed, Sera at my feet.
Even Smol was a lot more cooperative than usual at dinner because tartar sauce has magical properties. Plop a good blob on their plate for dipping and Smol will willingly eat piles of broccoli. They plowed through a whole proper serving of broccoli entirely under their own steam. Bless that sauce.
Year 3, Day 348: Smol woke up, hysterical, a few hours into the night. PiC went to them and they became MORE hysterical, demanding me. This is unnerving. They get equal time with the two of us, and generally everyone wants PiC. Why am I in such high demand? Anyway, we three ended up passing out in Smol’s room which made for a less than ideal night of sleep.
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My brain is, as usual, in search of dopamine. Naturally, I search for it through money and checking off the to do list. MyPoints, I’m about 250 points away from a $25 gift card redemption. Swagbucks, I’m 2200 points away from a $25 gift card redemption. Bing, 2000 points away from a $100 gift card redemption (in 4 increments, I’m just holding out for the multiple redemptions all at once). No joy there.
I did finally wrap up the warranty claim for the second of the kids’ water bottles, and that has shipped. I’m still waiting for the movie tickets trade-in to arrive. That’s due this week. Fingers crossed! You know what I’d really like – to organize a gift area better. I currently use a bin but that’s only good for the gifts without an intended recipient. Maybe it’s time to clear a shelf for the gifts that can be wrapped and bagged up for distribution.
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Lakota Reservation: My friend has gathered a literal truckload of new or like new clothes for us to donate to the Lakota reservation. One box goes to a family and then we’ll have multiple boxes to ship directly. We can use their $20 Giving Box prepaid shipping labels (up to 70 lbs per box, which is a great deal) for the large community donations but I’m running low on the reserved pool of cash to pay for shipping these boxes of clothes. We have enough to send one or two boxes now, I’ll know once I’ve gotten the box for the current family together. For the preservation of sanity, I think we have to limit the number of boxes that we try to ship.
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Have you heard Orville Peck sing? A friend introduced me. THAT VOICE!
Year 3, Day 349: Grumble. I sent our tax preparer our stack of documents (digitally speaking) last weekend. She said she’d download everything on Monday. Yay. I’ve been doing my best not to bother her for a week. Today she asked me for access to the files. Which means she hasn’t worked on them at all! Which means I have to restart the clock on being patient all over again. Darnit! I really wanted to know what the damages were.
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After reading Paladin’s Hope (affiliate link, LOVE the book/series) again, and also finally agreeing we’d go on a family obligations thing for Spring Break (all work, no fun, barf), my nightmares are out of control. SMH.
I’m going to work on packing while my subconscious does its anxiety thing.
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There are a lot of people in the comments ruffled at Tracee Ellis Ross’s privilege but that’s ignoring the point that her message isn’t wrong. It’s true that money lets you actually slow down in a lot of ways. But the lack of money doesn’t mean you should ignore the underlying message.
This line in particular struck home: “I give big, so I have to restore big.” I give big and restore none, most days. I feel that imbalance deeply. This is a habit forged in the worst days of my life. Even if I couldn’t financially afford to stop and take a day off, I could have been learning to put up better boundaries, to value myself as someone worth protecting, or just not to give away everything that’s in me without a thought for replenishment.
All rich women speak like this. I just want someone to be honest about how money allows you to slow down. https://t.co/PX3VsnZVDX
Year 3, Day 350: It’s been extra nippy and damp in between the multiple atmospheric rivers flowing through CA. Another one is meant to come through this weekend and stick around all week. I’m starting to wonder whether my cough and congestion or the weather will clear up first. This is about to hit two months of coughing/congestion and that’s not a record I was looking to set.
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Two small Smol yays today: At their midnight waking, they begged to sleep in the big bed with me as they’ve been demanding the past few nights. I hugged them and cuddled them and firmly said no. It took two tries but they finally settled in for the rest of the night in their own crib.
They actually walked to and from JB’s school dropoff location! Walks with them have been one of my least favorite activities because they frequently refuse to use their own perfectly good legs in the absence of a big sibling to chase. It makes a HUGE difference not having to carry 25 lbs of toddler or encourage them to keep walking every two steps, literally, for the love of sweet baby capybaras.
— Caleb Dume’ Simian Stan Account (@pfunk1130) March 1, 2023
Year 3, Day 351: A neighbor I’ve said hi to for the past two years of kid dropoff and pickup tapped me on the shoulder to introduce herself today. I might have struck up a conversation before but she’s often with her husband who appears very standoffish and won’t even do a nod hello of acknowledgement. Didn’t seem worth the effort, so though she seemed perfectly friendly herself, I figured it was safer to just hang back and leave it at nods and hellos. What do normal people do in these situations?
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I’ve finally submitted the paperwork for PiC’s Global Entry renewal. Happily it was confirmed we really only need the physical card if driving back to the US from Canada or Mexico so it wasn’t needed for the renewal but I still sure would like to have it back where it belongs. It feels quite careless for me to have misplaced it. With the absolute wreckage that is my desk these days despite my best efforts, I feel even more pressure to get it right with the important stuff. Maybe it’s time to get one of those little business card books to store current and expired cards like this. How do you store important cards that are infrequently used?
Year 3, Day 340: After a high pain weekend, it’s almost (?) a relief to start a weekday where I get to sit for more than 3 hours at a time. It was such a cold day. The rain poured down, becoming hail at one point, and chilled me to the marrow. To further complicate the week, it’s parent-teacher conference week so JB comes home at 1 pm every day. Thank goodness I put it in the Google Calendar or else I would have blown past the pick up entirely. I set new alarms for this week on my phone, both for each day and for the end of the week to go reset all the alarms again.
I promised to take a look at my cousin’s kid’s college scholarship essays if I had time today, so once time-critical work was shelved, I dove into the 6 short essays. It’s been a while since I last read a teen’s writing and I did my best to keep the edits light. It was a favor for my cousin so I didn’t expect to hear from my nibling, but they texted me a polite thanks and I was a little too surprised. Apparently I’m that geezer expecting the younguns to be brats. I recently rendered a similar sort of favor to another cousin whose child never bothered to speak to me directly, and those kids are close, so I mentally painted them with the same brush. Oops. At least I helped in the first place….
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I probably could have (should have? Naaaah…) used that time to help out my staff because they’re also having a high volume Monday but I’ve arranged more resources for them. It doesn’t always have to be me personally that does the work to catch them up.
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Lakota family: I’ve been collecting funds for this family who cares for more than 16 kids. They received an emergency placement of 2 more grandkids, but they’re out of bed space. They asked for bunk beds (and all the bedding stuff), and clothes for the kids, along with hygiene and cleaning supplies. The two grandkids that WR took in came with only the clothes on their backs. One didn’t even have shoes. Another granddaughter also needed clothes. Over the weekend, my friend with older boys gathering up clothes from her kids to contribute, and I found a set of bunk beds and mattresses that we could afford. I hate shopping at Walmart on principle but I couldn’t get it for our budget anywhere else. Now, we need money for the clothes, hygiene, cleaning supplies, etc. I tapped a few friends on the shoulder but this is where the lack of a functioning and robust Twitter really sucks. So much of our fundraising happened there.
Year 3, Day 341: It’s a real limbo-brain sort of day. I’m waiting for a replacement lantern for our emergency kit (due this week), a replacement water bottle (due ??), a reply from Contigo about the other water bottle.
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JB was exposed to COVID last week by a kid who doesn’t mask and we don’t know what day they could have contracted it. We’ve been testing them every day since the weekend. So far, still negative. It’s really not great to have to worry about this.
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Last week my mood was so dark nothing could shake it. Not comfort food, not petting Sera, not toddler giggles and hugs. I even passed on sushi night because I knew it would just make me madder to expect it to help me feel better, and then have that fail. Maybe a baby goat or lamb could have helped but Shep’s too far away. Today, it’s not great but it’s not terrible. Sushi could make a dent this time, so we picked up a few rolls and a sashimi salad to go with soba and tofu from the pantry. Smol Acrobat’s shenanigans (want this! no, that! no, I hate it! wait, I want more! but I hate it! Sit! on! Mama!) did put a damper on my enjoyment but not enough to make it counterproductive.
Grieving for my brother. He was so much more than me, better than me at doing things in so many ways, but his need to seek the quick win and talk the big talk, and then later, his mental health issues, well. He never found his way. I see a neatly groomed young man at the bank with a Vietnamese name on his name tag and my heart aches. That could have been my brother but he’s lost to us now. Alive but gone.
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Lakota family: The bunk beds shipped! I breathed a sigh of relief for that. I hope it is delivered in one piece. I put together a shopping cart of basic supplies and bedding for the kids. Friends have been contributing piecemeal and it’s adding up.
Year 3, Day 342: It’s taking longer each night for the pain subside so I’m getting less and less sleep each day this week. What a terrible trend.
Momentarily having deeply mixed feelings about going to full time daycare. That (foolish) sense of “but we managed with no childcare or only 3 days two months ago” keeps nibbling at me without regard for the reality that it sucked and that we were slowly losing the battle to keep our sanity. This may be down to getting more days of uninterrupted work but not nearly enough hours because JB is only gone 5-6 hours a day. Once upon a time, my ideal was 8-10 solid hours of not speaking to anyone per working day. Now with only 5-6 hours a day, and with the work has been expanding to fill all the hours, plus an hour or two a week catching up with family… it all adds up to feeling incredibly antsy without a specific cause.
At 6 am on Monday (the day this goes live), we have to battle for one of 12 slots in the recreational swim lesson program. Smol should be easier but JB’s classes are really tough to get into. Wish us luck?
Good things today: 3/4 of a soft peanut butter cookie with peanuts in it!
We ended the day on a real low point. Smol Acrobat came home from daycare looking like their face had been mauled. Another kid and they wanted the same toy and the other kid went full Sabretooth on their face. They had HUGE livid scratches and gouges, and lots of perpendicular scratches to the huge gouges that tell me that the kid took more than one pass at them. The teacher was busy with other kids and didn’t catch the altercation, they only noticed when the crying started. PiC has seen the likely culprit acting very aggressively towards other kids when frustrated or wanting something another kid has so we have our suspicions who it is. Smol says yes to their name every time we list the classmate names, and no to everyone else. So that’s incredibly frustrating. As much as we understand that kids this age are terrible at communicating, respecting boundaries, and regulating their emotions, this attack on Smol was much more serious than the standard toddler swipe or smack over a disagreement.
Year 3, Day 343: PiC fielded all the parent and director meetings about the incident at daycare. We discussed after and we’re in a holding pattern now. The daycare has to have a meeting with the other kid’s parents and work out an action plan. Whatever it is, it had better include a whole lot more attention to Smol’s interactions with that particular kid.
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I keep rolling over my list of weekend to-dos. Maybe writing it down means I’ll actually do it? I need to cut JB’s hair and trim the hedges. I did get my other to-do list done: Follow up on missing cashback, get a refund for an order that never arrived, and fix the home back up server.
Year 3, Day 344: Whether it’s because of pain or because of nightmares, Smol woke up several times really upset, gesturing at the scratches on their face, sobbing like their heart was broken. Unusually, when PiC went to them at 5 am, the time he normally takes over the night wakings, Smol sobbed even harder, insisting on me.
That broke my heart. Not the part where they wanted me, but the part where they were so unsettled that they needed me instead of Dad who is their usual go to parent at this time of the day.
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The trouble with putting on old shows for a background soundtrack is they don’t hold up in a lot of ways throughout. There’s just so much casual sexism.
Booth (from Bones) cracking that he and Hodgkins don’t need to talk about an issue because “we’re not girls.” Ick. There’s also the thing where it feels like a form of copaganda, also ick. Though I won’t beat up on myself for wishing we lived in a world where people cared about “justice for all” and not the world we’re actually in.
I prefer more up to date shows like Legacies: (Hope) “I know this is a fairytale and all, but a nonconsensual kiss is never the answer.” It’s just harder to relegate the better shows to background only semi-listening.
Year 3, Day 333: Smol Acrobat was up at 530 am again. *falls on face* PiC and I split the painful morning hours but even with snagging an extra hour and a half, my body is absolutely wrecked. Over the weekend I developed another sore throat. If this is a new infection, I … well, I would want to throw things but that’s not an option right now. My everything is so off balance that I’ve actually lost muscle memory – plain forgot basic keyword shortcuts when typing.
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PiC said he wanted to spend more time with JB on their day off and I … don’t. Poised on the cliff over Guilt Spiral Bay, I had to remind myself that he spends his work day away from them. I do school pick up every day, which is fine. But that means I’m managing their activities even if minimally on week days. I have a lot less separation between parenting and work time than he does. I’m already “spending time” with them every day, albeit in the least positive way, so it doesn’t make me a bad mom for not wanting more today (on their day off when it’s not our day off). Also, see: sick again. I don’t want to spend time with anyone right now but my pillow and my blanket. Spiral averted.
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Their one chore was getting the laundry from the washer to the dryer and putting it away. Guess who repeatedly ran it on air fluff instead of timed dry, so it was still damp an hour later? Ah well.
Year 3, Day 326: I rarely have the Sunday Scaries. What I do have is Sunday how am I starting a new week with my tank on completelyempty???
I had a “blocky” weekend. One activity in the morning followed by lunch and putting Smol down for a nap whereupon I crashed for a few hours. Saturday even included a surprise nap for me. But I’m still not starting the day recharged or rested because this damn cough has been wrecking any semblance of rest I could have gotten. Here’s hoping my doc has prescription cough meds I can get immediately.
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Just realized that I started this memory in last week’s post and didn’t have time to finish it: I’m feeling alllllll of my 40 years today. When I was a young teen in martial arts at the community center, we had a classmate. I think he was 40? He could have only been 30. It sort of all looked the same from the vantage point of a 15 year old. Anyway, Harry was older than us by a lot and the poor guy crackled when he tried to stretch out with us. We were limber and young and wow, we really took it for granted. I did, at least.
Now I’m snap-crackle-popping when I turn my head and maaaan. It feels like a little bit of the past coming back to haunt me.
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We got the prescription cough meds just before the pharmacy closed. 🤞🤞
Year 3, Day 319: Oh, my aching head. I was up all night coughing and sneezing and intermittently gasping for breath when my nasal passages would suddenly close up. That was not fun.
I thought Smol Acrobat might be turning a corner on their cold-thing as well, they weren’t nearly so unpleasant/moody after their nap yesterday as they’d been all week, but they still woke up screaming at 1 am. At least it was just one time. Sigh.
This is Week Four of random viral something. The better news is that it’s Week 3 of the antidepressants and while I’m not yet 100%, it’s getting better. That very unstable fragile feeling is a little less pressing and present each day. I feel a little less like I’m standing on a raft in a stormy sea each day.
Year 3, Day 320: My brain worked at the speed of the original game of Pong today.
Bink. Bonk.
Bink. Bonk.
Bink.
PLONK.
By the time we had to leave for JB’s class, it was an empty echoing cavern.
I can’t tell if this is the depression, anxiety, or being sick for a month finally all being too much for me. Or just Tuesday. Could just be a Tuesday.
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Smol Acrobat is an absolute pill at meals and tonight’s dinner was no different. They ate several bites voluntarily but then everything was screech! No! Demand! No! Demand! No!
They particularly dislike my insistence that they behave like a human with manners and say please along with whatever verb we’re fielding. They hold food hostage midmeal, holding it over the edge of their chair, asking yes? Yes?
NO.
Yes?
NO.
Yes? *grins, drops it*
They’re a tiny villain in the making.
Year 3, Day 321: Smol is keeping up their game of playing favorites and of course since PiC had an 8 am meeting, they chose him. That meant every single thing was a fight: wants milk. No, wants milk from Daddy.
Wants to get in the chair to eat. No, wants DADDY to help them into the high chair.
Wants milk. NO, milk from Mama is poison.
Wants more bagel. With cream cheese. No, don’t put away the peanut butter! Want cream cheese on bagel and want to see the peanut butter jar sitting on the counter. No reason.
Unreasonable terrorist! We fought every inch of our way through washing up, putting on socks and shoes, dropping off JB and coming back home.
They finally called a truce when I offered the opportunity to dump yard clippings into the compost. Thankfully, the hedge needed trimming badly anyway, so I clipped and they gathered. I can’t lift my arms now but at least we had peace for about 25 minutes.
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Mental health today was a bit shaky. I couldn’t figure out why.
I had outdoor time with the unreasonable toddler in the morning. I had a good but short conversation with my cousin. I picked up JB and walked Sera and floated a plan to bake a random cake today if JB gets all their chores done. We have an extra Duncan Hines strawberry cake box mix from their birthday. I don’t actually like it much, myself, though everyone else does. I used to love the box mixes but this one tastes chemical-ly to me. What’s a good box mix we should try instead?
Catching up with a friend late at night it occurred to me that the tough morning with Smol left me feeling like I was on a back foot all day. I was probably as emotionally exhausted as I was physically.
Year 3, Day 322: We’ve been seeing a lot of new birds around the house lately. Usually it’s just blackbirds and a bluejay, but I spotted a few robins last week and two blue headed, rusty red breasted small birds yesterday. I might have to try and look them up.
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Mental health today is … still opaque. It was a nice day outside. I appreciated the warmth of the sun, and cool breeze. But it just underlined the feeling that I can’t remember how to feel joy or happiness without the burden of whatever it is I’m feeling now. Heaviness. Bit of numbness.
This NYTimes opinion (gift link) article on supporting a friend with depression and suicidal ideation may be the closest to accurately describing the experience (and what one needs when dealing with depression) that I’ve seen in a long while: How Do You Serve a Friend in Despair?
It’s only later that I read that when you give a depressed person advice on how to get better, there’s a good chance all you are doing is telling the person that you just don’t get it.
I tried to remind Pete of all the wonderful blessings he enjoyed, what psychologists call “positive reframing.” I’ve since read that this might make sufferers feel even worse about themselves for not being able to enjoy all the things that are palpably enjoyable.
I learned, very gradually, that a friend’s job in these circumstances is not to cheer the person up. It’s to acknowledge the reality of the situation; it’s to hear, respect and love the person; it’s to show that you haven’t given up on him or her, that you haven’t walked away.
Year 3, Day 323: Our first Friday with childcare! It felt a bit strange. Not that we have had any actual routines on Fridays, it’s frequently a catch as catch can sort of merry go round with PiC and I taking turns hopping on childcare and school pickup and trading work time. We are just testing the full time waters without commitment right now and seeing what issues it raises for us. Right off the bat, I know PiC is nervous about the huge jump in cost. I was too, but I’ve been processing that for months. The other big thing is the dropoff and pickup grind. The daycare facilities are quite nice so we know they’re getting lots of chances to explore new things we can’t offer at home. BUT that means that it’s challenging getting them in and out of the classroom because they want to dawdle and explore and poke around and climb this thing and play with that giant connect four thing and wait! There is sports equipment right here to grab hold of and and and. It’s a solid 45 minutes at the top and bottom of each day.
That’s not including the 30-60 minutes of fighting with Smol to get them to get dressed, eat, wash up, put on socks and shoes, and a jacket and to go. You’d figure it was a 25 minute routine, right? Yes, if they cooperate. They have never cooperated. It’s constant redirection and herding them and working through one meltdown after another. We’ve never had a morning free of crying floor angel or rolling log full of scream. Not once. Toddlers. They’re hell on the nerves.
Still, at the end of this day, physically, I didn’t feel like a steamrollered pile of muck. It’s a weird distinction to make to folks with reasonable health, I’m imagining. I’m tired, yes. Very worn out, definitely. But I don’t feel that imperative to crawl into a dark hole and pull it in after me like most Fridays before this. This seems to be an improvement. Is it because of the meds or because of the childcare? Maybe both.
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.