February 15, 2021
Week 48 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 48, Day 331: I’m struck by a peculiar manifestation of (Asian mom?) parental guilt that tells me that I’ve had almost a year with JB at home and my inability to have spent this time teaching them everything about money, science, math, history, music, crafting and a slew of other things is a failure. I especially feel the failure to impart sufficient money philosophy and knowledge keenly. Perspective, I do not have it.
For one thing, hello pandemic. Also hello being pregnant much of that time. And then having an actual baby. Also hello working FT as well. Where exactly was this magical pocket of time with which I would have schooled them?
For another, they are just at the very start of school age. All the academics aren’t necessary right this very minute.
And yet I feel the sting of “why haven’t you taught them how to play piano yet?” and “why haven’t you taught them how to do origami yet?” and “why haven’t you taught them the scientific method yet?” as if all I’ve had since March 2020 was time on my hands. I can’t help feeling some comparison to my mom who managed to teach me how to read and write in another language at a very basic level while we were growing up even though she was working 12-15 hour days by a certain point. My memory is a little hazy though so perhaps the time she taught us and the time she started working such long hours didn’t actually overlap like I thought?
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February 8, 2021
Week 47 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 47, Day 326: Sometimes I forget that it’s been 326 days since I could see the human elements of my family out the door to their work and school respectively, then settle down to work with just my dogs. I miss that. My introvert soul is struggling with that lack of a break.
***
My Twitter folks and blog readers are the best. Those who are able shared the Giving Project, and those who are able contributed. Having this work has been a balm for my grieving soul, having some additional resources helps. I appreciate y’all deeply.
Week 47, Day 327: I don’t know if this is due to stress, lack of sleep, or PPD which I’ve been fighting but I haven’t been able to feel full for days. Weeks, even, possibly. I eat full relatively balanced meals but feel physically hollow afterward. It’s like I hadn’t eaten anything. It’s exasperating and I don’t even bother trying to eat enough to feel full anymore because it seems pointless. No matter how much I eat, I don’t feel any satiety so I’ve been walking around feeling hungry for ages. It’s gotten so that I am both hungry AND lack appetite at the same time. It’s weird and I don’t know what’s going on.
***
I spent hours working on more fulfilment for our Lakota Families. My grieving process demands that I do things. Helping people distracts and helps my feeling of loss.
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February 2, 2021
Week 46 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 46, Day 319: TFW it’s 2 am, you’re thinking it is about dang time to wrap up because you’re already on your second post bedtime wakeup cycle with the baby (need to change a diaper while they wail rigorously to express a deep despair and grief, nursing for 20-30 minutes plus another five after you lay them down and they holler with such insistence that they weren’t done yet mom I’m still starving and they reattach only to hang out casually like it’s the mall), and you look down to see eyes that are wide open. No thank you please.
I am not enjoying this particular overnight stretch.
***
My cell phone battery life is absurd. It was 95% when I started typing. It’s now 68%. And I type pretty fast.
***
Seamus’s health took a sharp downward turn.
Week 46, Day 320: One of the saddest days and worst nights of my life.
JB was unconsolable this first night without their big brother Seamus and I wasn’t in better shape. We hugged and cried and cried and cried.
They thought they understood what “dead” meant, and they wanted to be there for the appointment to say farewell so we thought they were at least getting the idea of what was happening. I had explained it earlier and they’d had time to be upset at home. They seemed almost upbeat at the appointment, asking the vet which injection was “the dying shot”.
But they couldn’t understand why he wasn’t coming back home with us. They didn’t understand why he didn’t close his eyes. They wanted to know how he was going to be cared for overnight. I’ll tell you what, that last one destroyed me for another hour.
Week 46, Day 321: I just about remember how to exist. We still have to do all the usual things. Schoolwork, fighting with Comcast, figuring out why my leave claim at EDD is stalled out. It rained almost all day, so Sera just had quick trips outside for the bare necessities because she hates walking in the rain.
We finally had a break in the early evening so the whole troupe went for a walk and the pain of our being all together without Seamus was palpable. I felt like I was holding my breath the whole time, muscle memory telling me to walk slowly and looking down to ensure his feet didn’t slip or his hips didn’t give out or that he wasn’t struck with a sudden unpredictable need to stop. Then I’d look down and he wasn’t there. And my heart would hurt all over again. This is so incredibly hard.
Week 46, Day 322: I miss my Seamus. I will always miss him.
***
I’m incredibly frustrated with EDD right now. They have questions but they didn’t give me any way to respond to them when I missed their unexpected call. Then they just rejected my claim without explanation. Then they refused to answer the phone ever. It was nowhere near this painful getting my disability claim paid with JB, I don’t understand what’s going on but it’s taking several phone calls to our doctor to see if they can help with documentation.
Week 46, Day 323: With the good news about the J&J vaccine, I find myself pondering the state of things.
As parents, we’re deep in the “it’s a phase” stage of life again with an infant, with things changing day to day and week to week. Also sleep deprivation. I haven’t gotten a full night of sleep since the 2nd trimester probably so I’m going on 6 or 8 months of interrupted sleep?
As humans, we’re almost a year into this pandemic. We still have no information about when we adults are going to have access to vaccines, when kids under six are going to have trials for vaccines, when it’ll be moderately safe to travel or how we’ll establish our next new normal. I have to confess to at least some jealousy of our family in other countries that have dealt with this so much more effectively that they have essentially normal lives now. I also have to figure out if I can make any changes to JB’s educational experience this year. Looking into some of the online public school / charter school options, they don’t seem to be well reviewed by employees which suggests to me we’d still be dealing with stressed and disgruntled educators and it may well be going from the frying pan to the fire.
Collectively, at least a dozen friends have lost a loved one to COVID, at least six of us have bid farewell to long beloved dog companions, we’ve lost grandparents after not seeing them the past year, our kids have been socially restricted for so long I wonder if they’ll just be feral by the time they’re back in society again and I’m honestly not sure how badly stress has deteriorated the health of most adults just coping.
:: How are you?
January 25, 2021
Week 45 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 45, Day 312: We miss grocery shopping pre-COVID. We love browsing the shelves and coming up with new foods and recipes to try. My appetite is really suffering these days. It makes me want to just revert to takeout all the time but honestly, even takeout palls after a while.
As a homebody, this doesn’t happen too often but I feel trapped today. I wanted to make this a good day where we enjoy the rare sunny day but everyone was grouchy when I got up and so that made me grouchy, and I want to put this day in the bin.
I want to take the kids somewhere but there’s nowhere to go. We can’t go swimming, we can’t go to the craft store, we can’t see most friends safely. Everything has to be carefully planned and spaced out to be sure we’re not putting anyone at unnecessary risk. Sigh.
We did find a safe place to hike, eventually! Though it was hot enough for ME to be happy and comfortable, that meant it was too hot for JB who got TIRED and WHINY about halfway through the outing. I calmly pointed out that a little suffering wasn’t going to break us and that we could manage to keep the day from going to pot if we took some breaks, had a bit of snack, and powered through. We probably walked and jogged about 2 miles over two hours which is the furthest I’ve gone in months. I hope it helps me sleep better.
We were all tired mid-afternoon but I’m still glad we made it out. I juuuust kept a lid on my temper as JB asked 20 million questions while we mixed up some cornbread for dinner together but it was a very close thing. I had to put some brakes on before it went too badly.
PiC had them help him with some coffee grinder. That went a little less well but they found their way back to playing pretend after a bit.
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January 19, 2021
Week 44 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 44, Day 305: My jobs today were: 1) revive my old iPad, 2) talk to the vet about Seamus, 3) set up a therapy appointment for myself, 4) keep Smol Acrobat alive, 5) fax our representatives to insist on accountability for the Jan 6 and ongoing coup attempts.
#1 and #4 took me all flipping day.
#1 was not a continuous effort, I just had to keep coming back to a failed restore and start again. I hate Apple products.
#4 was naturally an all day endeavor. Smol is currently refusing to sleep unless they are being held. In related news, I’m in the market for new arms to replace these two falling off. PiC and JB were doing yardwork so I managed SA and their need for constant cuddles forever. It’s surprisingly tiring and a small part of me is grateful for our current stay at home orders because I remember how hard it was to do this all day all alone but for Seamus who couldn’t hold the baby for me.
#2 was heartbreaking but we had a necessary discussion.
#3 was initiated but I haven’t heard back.
#5 has to happen tomorrow.
Week 44, Day 306: I got three hours of sleep. ZOMBIE TIMES. After handing over the baby to PiC for the morning shift and trying to catch another nap, unsuccessfully, I hauled myself out of bed to deal with pumping and eating and all those other lovely basic necessities that I resent so much when I’m dog tired.
Today’s top priorities: 1) Contacting our representatives – DONE. 2) Do more data / files clean up because our cloud storage is running low. 3) Overseeing get well cards for sick relatives – MAILED. 4) Take another swipe at setting up the iPad. 5) Refill Seamus’s meds – ORDERED.
Thanks to OMDG for this JAMA article link: “Under baseline assumptions, approximately 59% of all transmission came from asymptomatic transmission: 35% from presymptomatic individuals and 24% from individuals who are never symptomatic (Figure 1).”
Week 44, Day 307: It seemed like the day was a bust between my getting up super late (long night with Smol meant I needed a longer mid morning nap), a long-winded call with a relative, and the hours spent with the Comcast tech trying to figure out WTAF is wrong with our connection. He removed some attenuators and that helped with half the problem. I pulled the plug on our range extender and that helped with the other half. Here’s hoping it actually works for more than two days.
At 4:30 I got my butt in gear and started dinner prep super early. I had this vision of prepping dinner, walking the dogs, then hitting the Target parking lot for a drive up pickup of the things I needed to clean our dishwasher and try to cut my hair.
What actually happened: I put the first half of dinner in the oven, vetoed Daniel Tiger for JB, took them and the dogs out for a walk, deferred the Target run to tomorrow, and had JB work on several chores while I finished making the salad and pumping milk.
On the subject of dinner: We had our Home Chef delivery today and I think I’ll throw together a review for it. Getting dinner on the table by 6:30 and much of the evening routine done myself since Smol Acrobat was holding PiC hostage felt really good. I haven’t felt physically able or mentally competent to mentally organize / prioritize / execute like that in a long time.
I’m truly appreciating the glimpse into what it’s like to feel capable again, and not just struggling to get the bare minimum done while feeling like a failure.
Week 44, Day 308: I’m pondering on the situation of a dear relative who we’ve been helping out a lot through some serious circumstances. These are thoughts I’d never share with them because they’re about me as it relates to them, not about them, and also because it’ll sound judgy. It’s not meant to judge them, though, it’s just me weighing things.
They have made some choices that were based on lack of information and now they’re doing their damnedest to fix the situation. I’m providing financial and moral support. It’s been years and it’ll take more years to extricate them safely. The hazard for me here is I tend to get too emotionally involved. I forget my place, as it were. I want so badly for them to be ok that I throw my whole being into that end goal and then I’m devastated when they inevitably make choices I disagree with because we are not the same people and there are reasons we’re at different places in life. I’m observing my ability to see that now, I couldn’t do that in my younger years, and maybe it’s growth that each time they flail or say they’re going to do something I really wouldn’t recommend or think is a bad choice, my first reaction now is to step back and let it breathe. Previously it would have been to try and convince them to do the safe thing. The “right” thing because it was safer. But you know, the right way was only “safer” because it created familiar pain. Not because it was pain free. It was successful financially, I’ll grant you, but there most certainly isn’t one path to getting to firm financial ground. It’s just that there’s only one path I know well enough to share.
But today’s thought is about how I have to keep practicing being a better listener and a better friend by providing what’s needed and not adding more pressure by adding my preconceived notions of what’s right and what’s wrong. I’ll give them my judgements and opinions when they ask, or when it’s dangerous, but not when they’re fixing to build a new life and trying to figure out how.
Week 44, Day 309: Smol wasn’t feeling up to snuff yesterday and this translated into an interesting night. We had somewhat longer stretches of sleep but they were also clearly uncomfortable and sad and that tugged on my heartstrings. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to have suuuch a helpless little loaf that doesn’t have any way to communicate other than crying and little non-word sounds.
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I don’t know if I’ll ever use it but I decided that I wanted to learn about options trading. A mentor has been doing it for a year and if nothing more than an intellectual stretching exercise, I’d like to see if I can’t at least wrap my head around it. We have to manage options from our company compensation anyway so I would like to understand them more deeply than I do now. I hope it’ll help me make better decisions.
***
The Nicole and Maggie gross dishwasher post inspired me to pick up some Lemi Shine to clean our dishwasher. We just ran it today so I hope to see results in the next dishwasher load! Fingers crossed.
:: How was your week?
January 11, 2021
Week 43 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 43, Day 298: You’ll forgive me skipping the week after Christmas – we are still trying to right the ship that now has an extra human passenger and some days are harder than others. Nights, harder still. Nothing of note happened other than keeping ourselves alive and intact, anyway. I have a to do list the length of my leg today, and my brain only wants to crunch money numbers. The biggest things I need to get done: clearing PiC’s old SE for a trade in, organizing our investments, we need to organize our thoughts about how to talk to JB’s principal about better options for their school situation, deal with our still broken internet and yell at Comcast some more because it’s still broken though they promised a fix by yesterday. (Who actually believed Comcast when they promised me this would be fixed by Sunday? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?)
I notice my brain avoiding all but the number crunching though. That might be because I was up with Smol Acrobat most of the night? MAAYBE. We went for a very slow medium length walk today and it was extra hard on my joints. Also maybe because I was up with SA most of the night. PiC slept quite well though thankfully so I could go rest this afternoon while he parented. It worked out though. I can’t sleep through Smol’s whimpers and nighttime wakings, while he can, so I might as well field those and let him sleep so he can parent during the day when I catch up on my sleep.
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COVID LIFE: Over at Nicole and Maggie’s, I said I would start talking about the things we do and do NOT do , so I’ll go over a bit each day this week.
We will maintain these rules for as long as it takes to get to a point where we feel things are safer. Between you, me and PiC, that’s going to take several months, minimum, even after we get vaccinated.
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January 4, 2021
Week 41 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 41, Day 284: Holiday gifts for JB have been showing up on our doorstep all month. I am surprised to find, since I love opening mail, I’m starting to have a bit of package fatigue. If they were more spaced out, that would be really helpful since, speaking of arrivals, Smol Acrobat has joined us. JB is thrilled to share this first Christmas with their very own baby sibling they get to keep without kidnapping required. I hope they still feel this way months and years from now!
My recovery is a slow process. I know this is normal, and it’s normal to take up to a year to be back to pre-pregnancy status, but I’m still very impatient. I don’t want to take months to get back to normal, I want to be on my feet 100% now. Obviously that isn’t going to make that happen so I’m grateful that I arranged more leave from work than I did with JB instead of trying to force myself back in several weeks. This time I have no desire to go back to work a minute sooner than I need to.
I’m glad that both PiC and I did, in fact, because even if we’re working from home, having to cater to a newborn and working effectively isn’t gonna happen. We’re sleep deprived zombies and glad that JB is old enough to be well trained in helping with a certain amount of chores around the house. The time we put in this summer insisting they do age appropriate housework regularly was well worth it. They do like being helpful and this way they have chores they can do to meaningfully help with baby. They feel like part of the adult unit in that sense, they are a contributor, and not just pouting that they’re not getting enough attention. (more…)