About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
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June 11, 2021
I had a hard time coming up with anything for this list at first, but here goes!
1. I made a sale on Poshmark! Yay!
2. That little kitchen scale PiC pushed me to get has come in handy for clearing to-do items off my list. I needed to go to the post office for two packages that had been waiting for ages but I simply haven’t had any time or energy to fit that in. The scale took care of figuring out postage for two of the four things that didn’t merit going out flat rate.
Challenges this week: My back pain is back. I’ve not done my planks in months, and I’m not even getting out for a walk once a day, so of course it’s back. I should have remembered to start them again once sleep training started taking hold, I had stopped because of neck pain flaring up and just being too dang tired to exist. Back to planking.
I’m struggling with grieving our friend as they enter hospice and their final days of life. It’s setting off my defense mechanisms where I distance myself from people, tell myself that they don’t care about me anyway, and go into my antisocial-shell in a futile attempt to protect myself from further pain. It won’t protect me at all but I’m learning to recognize that’s what my instincts tell me to do.
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June 7, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 78: Every single time I think we have a grip on our schedule for the summer …. nope! Something big shifts or changes. So now I’m back to the drawing board. I had to take one weekly remote class off the board entirely, one weekly remote class can’t be weekly any more, and their 4 days a week tutor is now down to 3 days a week. We did add a new weekly exercise class for June so that helps.
I realize that this is just practice for the shifting we’ll have to do forever and ever amen. With adults, you can fall into a rut (or deliberately stick to a routine which is my favorite), but with kids, things are constantly changing for one reason or another.
I’ll figure it out.
I have one weekly exercise class on the calendar, then we set the new schedule with the tutor this week. Once that’s done, I can add the Spanish classes in. Then I’ll see if we can add some virtual and maybe outdoor playdates. Thank goodness for aunties and uncles who generously offer their time for the virtual playdates.
Year 2, Day 79: PiC and I had a hilarious fight all the way to the baby’s crib over whose turn it was to take the first post-nap wake up period. I won because he was laughing so hard and I’m used to fighting through laughter but I conceded the baby anyway and went to work instead. I still don’t know why he didn’t want to take the kids in the afternoon instead of splitting the morning and splitting the afternoon.
It was a gloriously (and rare) sunny day today and PiC and the kids got some good backyard time in. JB worked really hard to make Smol Acrobat laugh, way harder than was strictly necessary considering they are Smol’s favorite person and almost anything they do gets a laugh. They chortle themselves into exhaustion. I tried to get some sun too but I missed the narrow window of time where conditions were good. Our blustery windows started howling through the yard, trying to blow me and my computer away. Ah well. At least the kids had their fun.
I was feeling pretty good about Smol’s napping today. They have been falling asleep on their own with less and less fighting, with better stretches of sleep more regularly. I don’t panic up half as much as I used to when I see them moving on the baby monitor because movement is normal now and doesn’t always mean they’re going to wake up. And even if they do, sometimes they just need some time to cry and protest and go back to sleep. And even if they wake up after a short nap which used to feel like daggers in the heart, I can reasonably hope that the next one will be better instead of despairing. We had so many days with just 30 minute naps, all day, before sleep training and the pain of it still lingers. So I’m deeply appreciating this right now.
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June 1, 2021
On Money
Income
Our primary income comes from our full time jobs. We have minimal income from investing in index funds and dividend stocks (all reinvested). We earn money on the side to supplement our main incomes. We get a bit of income from Swagbucks and cash back sites (Rakuten, Mr.Rebates). Some posts have affiliate links that pay a micro-commission to keep the blog running and I’ve added a way to support the blog in the sidebar to the right!
Our long term goal is to replace our day job income with passive income before my health prevents me from working. I know from my Mom’s experience that qualifying for or relying on disability is incredibly tough or near impossible here in CA. Aside from that, I aim to do my best to make the most of what we can do while we can.
***
Dividend income. We received $801.61 in dividends this month from the stocks portfolio. This was an unusually big month and that’s all reinvested.
While I work hard to cultivate our alternative income streams, they’re still too tiny for us to make any changes to our work lives. Unfortunately, we’re still very dependent on our W-2 income unless and until we live in a lower COLA. That isn’t as simple a fix as people would have you believe, since PiC’s job with the good salary and the great benefits are right here in the Bay Area. Don’t think I haven’t considered it! But there’s a bigger picture involved. It would cost us a whole lot of money to move, we’d be giving up our community we’ve taken so long to build here which is a huge deal for me because I do NOT make friends easily, and neither of us are prepared to take the risk of going down to one income / career right now. With two incomes, we have some options and flexibility. We can save aggressively, we can give money to causes we care about, we can pay to solve problems that are bigger than we can handle. I think about that for the future, though.
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May 31, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 71: I overheard kindergarten students talking about their experiences at Disneyland and other amusement parks with frequent flier style attitudes. They might have been exaggerating but if not, and this is the Bay Area so it’s totally plausible, the idea that young kids might have gone to Disney multiple times already was jarring. I grew up a mere hour away from there and we went to Disneyland once only because my school arranged a field trip when we were older. We couldn’t afford to go to Disneyland for fun. And it’s so much more expensive now than it was back in the 80s. Heck, with the money we have now, it still seems prohibitively expensive.
We go to Comic Con every year but we stay with family, we economize on food expenses, and kids attend free. Even with travel, we make it an affordable trip in a way I can’t imagine making Disney because just getting into the door is exorbitant.
*****
Civilizing small humans while still giving them the tools to thrive is hard work.
*****
We’re on Day 3 of terrible second and third naps for Smol. They were doing so WELL for a few days last week; they’d get two really solid naps. In this series, we are getting one semi-decent morning nap and then we’re lucky to get 40 minutes at a time after that.
Sigh.
*****
I missed this Ask the Grumpies when it first came around: How are you dealing with returning to post-vaccination life? I’m not anywhere near returning to post-vaccination life myself. I’m not yet fully vaccinated so it’s not a relevant question yet. Even when I am, the kids still aren’t close to vaccines yet. We still assume that we won’t be traveling this year for a lot of reasons. So their question of what do we want to keep from pandemic life is more relevant to me. A lot more stuff became accessible for me this year with the shift to remote only and curbside services. Though we never used grocery delivery, curbside pickups for retail and restaurants was so so so helpful in preserving my limited energy.
Year 2, Day 72: Here’s a sad discovery. Those little packs of powdered donuts that were such a treat when I was growing up? They taste terrible (now)! Of course JB still likes them. I too enjoyed terrible tasting desserts as a kid. And a teen. And in my 20s.
*****
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May 25, 2021
Growth
This month’s discovery: I’m not going to be able to hang them upside much longer. They’re too big. O_O
Emotionally, they’ve made great leaps and bounds. Some steps forward and some back too, of course. They were practicing mindfulness and communicating what they felt and what they needed. They’re also practicing appropriate choices given time and place.
Culinarily, I’m puzzled how we ended up with a six year old who thinks that when we split food, it should be three ways equally. But they’ve always been that way. The real question is how did a 2 and 3 year old eat adult size portions??
Language
Words have meaning but in JB’s world, they’re all the wrong words: “hitball” for baseball. “Ketchup loaf” for meatloaf.
You’d think they weren’t familiar with the English language. But they’re reading tons! Alvin Ho, Geronimo Stilton, Amelia Bedelia for young readers, Kitty and the Sky Garden Adventure, Superman Family Adventures.
Responsibility
We’ve been refining JB’s responsibilities. We’re not adding a lot, just a few small things here and there, but focusing on having them do a better job of the jobs they do currently have because what’s passable work for a 4 year old isn’t for a 6 year old who has more dexterity and can have more attention to detail. Folding laundry, for one thing, has to be neater. They should be hanging up clothes in the right places where, before, it was fine for them to make it to any closet. Cleaning more thoroughly and taking charge of cleaning up their own bigger messes: It’s easy to be in the habit of doing the big stuff because we’re adults but we want to be mindful to keep building their skills.
We’re also working on pushing them to take the initiative, in chores and in entertaining themselves.
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May 24, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 64: I had an imperfect weekend. I didn’t check off half the things I needed done, I didn’t get nearly enough rest or food or water. But we did get five and a half major things done, we did get Smol to have three really decent naps across two days, we each did get some sleep on alternating nights. Not bad. So when Monday came back around the corner bearing the expectations of work again, I was zero percent excited.
It’s not you, Monday, it’s me and work. I’m not in love anymore.
What would I do if I didn’t need to work today? I’d still need to finalize our taxes, our CPA has been MIA for a week and it’s our last day. I better get that done.
I’d turn those four boiled eggs into a small batch of deviled eggs. (We’ll see if I have time.) We’d still need to figure out lunch and dinner. I ordered a Monday delivery of Indian vegetarian side dishes and they tend to deliver earlier in the day so we could have that for lunch or dinner along with some salmon and rice. Maybe I’d prep some tofu to add to Indian, or cut up that paneer that was hiding in back of the fridge. I need a new recipe for cooking small frozen scallops. The last batch was not to my satisfaction.
I’d check in with JB’s tutor to confirm they’re still on for lessons this week, and get a start on crafting some envelopes for the magnets I ordered to send to family and friends.
All this would be fit in around Smol’s nap times. Who has time for a job amidst all that???
What actually happened: not that. I got some work done. I did pay our taxes and filed our return. I cooked a little bit to prep for dinner. I made it outside for a bit of a walk after JB’s lesson because they were furious that PiC and Smol were walking Sera without them.
Year 2, Day 65: I was up at 5:30 am, thinking that Smol Acrobat was up for the day, because they couldn’t soothe themselves back to sleep. I took them out for a quick feed and to play but they passed out after eating instead. Well ok then. I won’t argue with that! I dropped them back in their crib for what turned out to be a good 2 hour sleep. I put those two hours to good use, mostly: walked the dog, cut up fruit, made deviled eggs for everyone else for breakfast. I had a bit of breakfast for myself while I powered through some really complex work problems. Sadly, before I could put all of them to bed, I heard a CRASH come from the kitchen. JB had dropped my precious Pyrex and it shattered. *cries* My Pyrex! My time and energy cleaning all of that up! *cries* I was nearly wrecked by the time I swept and vacuumed.
The next two hours were spent with Smol Acrobat since they, of course, woke up right when I finished clearing up that mess and PiC had two hours of meetings. My arms were jelly by the time Smol’s nap time came back around and I’d gotten them squared away. Naturally, the moment that JB finished class, they showed up in my office demanding their baby. Whoops. The baby, they are napping. Sorry! (Again, furious. Notice a pattern?)
Then it was time to plow through a pile of work and bills to pay. So many bills to pay! I don’t know how they all came to be clustered at the end of the month.
Our utility bill has been steadily rising the past three months and I’m baffled as to why but this has to stop. That mystery has to wait though, today turned into TAX RESEARCH day. UGH. I had to dig through 11 years of returns and forms to figure out my problem with my missing 8606 forms. I went down that rabbithole because we both missed filing the 8606 this year. 🤦🏻♀️ Ugh. It needed to be done, but I’m a little worried my accountant is going to hate me. This has been the year of discovering years of mistakes. Hopefully they won’t hate me too much… some were mostly their errors originally that I’m catching. I just wish I’d caught them before.
Smol’s sleep training results are all over the map. We had increasingly large blocks of sleep and then a reversion back to multiple wakings a night. We get great naps for a day or two and then a reversion to fighting and fussing. It gives me a pit in my stomach, listening to the crying some days, even though most days I’m ok with the process. I need to compile our notes for the sleep consultant to figure out what to tweak to get to full night sleep. With no time in the day to even finish a full day of work, adding data collation sounds like a barrel of laughs. Gotta be done.
Year 2, Day 66: The day really got away from us. We managed to get through last night with just one feeding but Smol was up again at 6 am. Ghastly.
We were playing on the floor just before naptime. Sera came in to see what the chirp-shrieking was about. Smol, laying on the floor, stopped and stared at her. She looked at them, then at me, then wandered off. My throat closed up with grief anew. Seamus would have come and laid down nearby, offering his side or his tail for the baby’s inspection. He would have let the baby wiggle and lurch their way over to him and grab his tail like a lollipop. Once I’d put the baby into the crib for a nap and they started hollering, he would have stayed in the room until they fell asleep. During sleep training, he never once let the baby cry it out alone. He’d lay nearby, we’d leave and shut the door behind us. He’d prod the door to be let out only after the snoring started. He was always there. And now he’s gone. And I miss him so so so much.
*****
I unearthed some lamb and beef curry from the freezer for lunch, still good five months later.
*****
My work day was completely derailed with a series of (work) problems. I finally just gave up on getting my usual work done and shut down to go deal with dinner. Everyone was out of sorts for various reasons. PiC’s stressed by the lack of time. He can’t get his work done, or his exercise in, or a million other things. I’m frustrated by the mountains of work and my lack of patience with JB this morning. I oversaw their reading assessment for school and was a complete jerk about their inability to follow directions. I was doing my best to guide them only on navigating the platform and not commenting on their answers at all but I had to walk away to compose myself when they went back to check their answers and changed them to the wrong ones. It was right, why are you doing that?? I forced myself by sheer force of will not to affect their answers. I physically put my hand over my mouth to stop myself at times. JB was frustrated that they keep biting their cheek when eating. It’s happened twice at every meal for the past three days and they are furious. Smol didn’t want their micro nap at the end of the day and they were furious about the whole business. Sera was pretty happy though.
Year 2, Day 67: I’m still trying to knock out the more complex problems at work one at a time and it feels hopeless. The sheer volume is overwhelming right now, and nothing is helped by the constant interruptions and lack of dedicated work time. PiC and I continue to trade off work time blocks so that helps a little.
I’m struggling with feelings today. Mostly the failure related feelings: guilt, sadness, frustration.
I’m on a mission to get Smol to settle down at night better which means a combination of getting them to eat well and sleep during the day and timing the naps so that they aren’t awake for 3+ hours before bedtime. It’s a tricky dance. We spend short 10-20 minute blocks out in the ultra windy yard with JB and Sera to give Smol plenty of fresh air and natural light in between each nap.
Observing JB’s Spanish lessons has been frustrating. They don’t seem to be absorbing anything, and I can’t tell if it’s because they truly don’t remember anything or if the teacher’s soft approach lets them off the hook. It makes me bananas when they’re asked “do you remember this phrase” and without taking even half a beat, they immediately say “no”. But the tutor doesn’t press them to try, they just move the lesson along, and I’m not sure that’s always the right approach. I feel this frustration when we verbally review math and money concepts and they just wildly guess answers, mentally flailing like they don’t have any foundation to start from even though we’ve been talking about money and the value of coins for years. It feels like I’m banging my head on a wall: I’ve got a headache, I’m annoyed and absolutely nothing changes. I’m trying to prioritize – teaching them how to be a good human is probably more important than specific skills but it’s hard to let go of the desire to educate them in everything useful. We started revisiting a daily earnings chart but we’ve absolutely sucked at recording earnings and demerits regularly there too so that feels like a bust. Another bust among too many.
My dear friend’s spouse is dying and I’ve offered support in all the ways I am currently able to. They are not very responsive, understandably, but I thought that was their desired level of engagement. I just got some feedback from a mutual close friend that it’s not good enough and that sucks. There simply aren’t enough minutes in any day to rest, eat, drink, work, parent, and support and I hate that I’m coming up short.
Year 2, Day 68: I’m embarrassed to admit that for the past four years I thought our dryer was a little bit broken because at a certain point, the heat would turn off but the drum would keep rotating periodically. There’s a little rectangle on the screen, and the load isn’t always dry, so I was convinced that was an error. But it worked otherwise so I shrugged it off as a low priority problem. I just did some Googling and discovered that it’s not an error state, it’s the wrinkle prevention setting! ALL THE FACEPALMS.
It doesn’t explain why the load is still damp at times, though.
*****
Left to their own devices, JB likes to decide we’re having sandwiches for lunch. That’s fine if they’re making them. If they were always in charge of lunch, we’d eat an endless cycle of tuna salad and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We have really got to teach them to make something else.
*****
Yay I nabbed a sale on Poshmark! I don’t use the app often but I’m glad it still works on occasion.
*****
I really need to get my eyes checked again. I’m noticing some eye strain when working.
May 17, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 57: I’m thinking about how people are here for a minute, in the grand scheme of the universe, and how I hope to matter in the lives of the people who know me but that in the end, my life will be over and forgotten in a blink. Just .. a thought.
*****
We’ve scheduled a free initial call with a sleep consultant for this week.
We’re also battling a reverse cycling situation where Smol Acrobat is waking to eat twice a night. We’re trying to shift those calories into the daytime and it’s been tough because they have no interest in eating during the day. On another angle, PiC wanted to replace the hand me down nipples that we were using. They finally came in stock and it turns out that might be one of the reasons Smol has been disinterested in eating. We picked up medium flow and they were much more interested, though we struggled with the nipples collapsing. We’re still figuring this out.
*****
I want to be helpful to JB when they say something doesn’t feel good but I really don’t know what to do with “My tongue feels funny.”
*****
We live, work, school, and play at home. We have no commutes right now. Yet we still can’t get done with dinner, bath, and bedtime by 730 pm every night. Why?? Related: Why am I not in bed by 8 every night? That would be the dream.
An hour later I realize the answer to this question tonight is: because we have no childcare and they chose to play in the backyard for an hour in afternoon while I worked on the patio outside. Oh right. Any changes to our routine means the schedule slips by an hour or so very quickly. (more…)