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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January 30, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 307: Woof. Stayed out way too late last night. Happy Year of the Bunny or Cat depending on which zodiac you use!
I’m going with Bunny-Cat. Which makes me think of Bunnicula.
I’m on Week 1 of the new medications. Telling myself to be patient during these first three weeks isn’t actually making me be patient.
It’s annoying that while I was the frog slowly boiling in depression, I was entirely focused on surviving day to day. Now that I KNOW that it’s likely been what’s driving at least some of my inability to focus or be patient, now that I am actually on meds, I’m hyperaware of each symptom that’s been blocking my focus. Irritability! Anxiety! Snapping at JB for being late! Anger at myself for being late! Anger about my fatigue! Every! Unreasonable! Thing!
Please let my lowest effective dose be really low so that I can get to it sooner than later. I don’t know that my frayed temper can take four or five weeks of this.
Year 3, Day 308: I actually slept deeply last night but still struggled to get up. I can’t say I felt rested, generally I never do, but I felt less unrested if that makes sense. I’ll take it and hope for more.
The tendons in my fingers aren’t working right today. That’s awkward! I rather need my fingers to flex as needed. That’s sort of crucial to all the typing and dog walking, eating, and driving that has to happen today.
Letter writing was a lot harder too, with fingers that didn’t want to grip or glide a pen across paper.
Year 3, Day 309: My mentor reminded me that we have enough money that we can use some of it to buy our peace of mind. I’ve had to sit with that reminder a bit to see what form of help we can buy that would be a net benefit.
Some things, like hiring cleaners, are more stressful than they are helpful because PiC is extremely particular about taking care of our things and the last set of cleaners didn’t use ladders or stepstools, they climbed right on our furniture and floating vanities to clean above them. That worried me, I didn’t want them slipping and falling off or the floating vanity to crack off the wall. At installation we were told the beams attaching it to the could hold a certain amount of weight but the vanity weight plus a person might be too much.
I’ll start with ordering food delivery. It’s not the best bang for our buck but on Friday, we won’t have to figure out what to do for dinner and that’s a small cache of brain we can reclaim. PiC and I both think about dinner, that’s probably not efficient, but we’re sharing the pain and that’s something.
Bigger picture, we may have to take that full time daycare hit sooner than planned. Last year, I thought maybe we’d start around the summer. Now, I’m thinking… maybe much sooner. These part time weeks are wearing on me this year.
Year 3, Day 310: Every time I hear a pharma ad run through the side effects and say something about not taking this while breastfeeding, I feel this whooosh of relief that I’m not going to ever breastfeed again.
The prices at our new local Mediterranean restaurant have gone up 20%. Yeeps! I ordered anyway. We’ll have some for dinner tonight and I’ll freeze some for next week.
Tuesdays and Thursdays are hectic. I’m cramming a whole day of work into a few hours before self defense. We try to arrive half an hour early so we can get parking and to give JB another 15-25 minutes of cardio. The kids play serious games of tag and gymnastics before class starts. Makes me feel like we’re getting extra bang for our buck. We already save 30% by prepaying for the year but when would I ever turn down a little extra bonus?
I hit the Gap and Old Navy clearance sales for our Lakota families. If everything ships, I’ll have acquired 44 tops, 10 pairs of pants, 10 pairs of sneakers and toddler boots, and 64 pairs of socks split between the Allen Youth Center and the Red Shirt School for $370.
Year 3, Day 311: Maybe the meds are helping even at sub-therapeutic levels. Maybe it’s a placebo effect. Whatever it is, even with my cold getting much worse today, and terrible sleep interrupted with nightmares, heartburn, and other indefensible reasons last night, my level of end of week despair was not nearly as high as any other Friday of the past few months. PiC did cover a lot of the work day with Smol and that helped too but I took my turns both morning and afternoon despite feeling like garbage with this cough and chills.
Today’s dinner: small pies and fancy salads!
Pies: Chicken Tikka Masala, Cajun Chicken, Beef and Stout, Apple Saffron
Salads that I wouldn’t have time to make: Seared Lemon Pepper Tuna , Tabouli Quinoa Salad with Mediterranean Chicken, Duck Breast.
Very expensive for the quantities we’re getting but I couldn’t make this without doubling the cost in time and ingredients. Triple that of frustration. Also it’s sampler style so we can taste four different pies in one go. One pie can barely happen around here, forget more than that!
January 27, 2023
1. Last week I felt compelled to host our “usual” Lunar NY dinner. By Wednesday I realized I really didn’t want to host anything and instead got in touch with an old friend who’d been wanting to talk and they invited us over.
It was brilliant. The kids got to play with older cousins, there was no crying or whining, we had a lovely casual dinner without any pressure to do all the traditional stuff that maybe we don’t wanna do this year.
2. JB shared that they like their self defense partner and I just said I was glad for them. I was tempted to say they need to work harder at practice but you know what? I’m starting to remember how some of that felt when I was growing up. That’s a comment for another time, if ever.
Challenges this week: I’m sick again. Bah.
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January 24, 2023
Life with JB
I’m a highly risk averse person, and that absolutely influences how I parent and what I let JB do. They’re still not allowed to cross the street or go to the store alone, though I’d wager I was probably doing that when I was close to this age. I was walking my dog to the vet alone by the time I was 13. We live on a very busy street with reckless drivers, and their level of attention is not nearly where it should be for something like this.
This article suggests that modern parenting is preventing kids from getting reasonable doses of stress, impairing their flexibility and growth. This is a question and a balance I struggle with.
I don’t feel the need to expose them to truly stressful situations like harassment and fighting but we also don’t want them to be Pillsbury doughboy soft.
We saw a neighbor kid walking their new puppy last year. I thought he was JB’s age. It took me aback, and made me reevaluate what I considered safe or unsafe for the kids. I mean, I still wouldn’t let JB walk Sera alone. Unlike neighbor dog, Sera outweighs JB and is a STRONG pibble. Seamus used to drag me on runs and I had to sprint to keep up with him in my 20s when I had experience with dogs. So this is me being sensible. Would I / we let them walk a small dog? Hm. I’d be willing to have them practice short solo jaunts. Maybe. But we aren’t likely ever to get a small dog. I’ve had them and I love them but I tend to need a big dog to get my arms around for a therapeutic hug.
We had some conflict the other day when they came shrieking about a bug in the garage. I was quite impatient with them for panicking and not investigating the situation a little bit more before running to me. It was dead! I took care of that one but I made them sweep out the second dead bug they found. They were highly resentful but this feels well within their capabilities to hold a broom and push a dead bug out the door.
I try to give them more “advanced” responsibilities in our day to day lives but I do still worry that I’m sheltering them too much.
Life with Smol Acrobat
The new year brought a few happy changes: they seem to be eating more, and on their own. By itself, not eating much wouldn’t bother me, it’s the fact that they were constantly distracted and wouldn’t just eat their little portion and GO. They’d dilly dally and mess about and then repeatedly come back asking for more little bits. It’s such a pain!
Now that they have more of an appetite, they are more focused on eating until they’re finished and then we can move on. I hope this sticks.
Their language is developing more, they’re trying to gabble out more syllables if not not words. Some words are coming through.
I’m less enamored with the memory and object permanence related development. Specifically to do with vaccines. They’d gotten their bivalent booster and instead of forgetting all about it a minute later, they remembered. They wouldn’t stop talking about it. They kept pointing at the injection site and telling us “poke”. But they also wanted to turn back around and go back to the vaccine clinic, asking for “more” so I’m not clear on what was going on there.
Pupdate
Sera’s been extra snuggly of late and I like it. Though it is hard to work with her constantly prodding me with her nose for attention, I like that she’s been coming to hang out with me during the work day. Usually I can’t convince her to come into the office, much less hang out for petting.
Sera’s sweater arrived and it’s Very Cute! She’s so snuggly in it!
Precious Moments
JB: I wish the laundry would just wash itself so I could put it away faster.
Boy howdy, me too! On all counts.
*****
JB looking at a McLaren: hey! That looks like a Hot Wheel!
Kid perspectives make me laugh.
January 23, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 300: I love and hate holiday Mondays. This one everyone else has off except me. I should have taken it as a vacation day but I forgot to.
On the one hand, it never feels like Monday, it feels like an odd floater day and it makes all the rest of the week feel off. On the other hand, I got to sleep in a little because Smol didn’t insist on being officially awake at 6 am (minor miracle) and no one else had to be taken to school or to daycare or anything by a certain time. I always appreciate a little more rest when I’m this fatigued. My nights have been plagued with intense fear nightmares since last week. My subconscious is clearly fixated on my fear of abandonment. Is this enhanced because of the upcoming psych evaluation? I realize that I’ve internalized the old stigma of the ADD/ADHD from days past. I certainly didn’t feel anything like judgement for friends who were diagnosed in adulthood in the past few years but I feel it for myself.
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January 20, 2023
1. A handful of us PF folk threw together a bundle of money so I could buy a variety of snacks for Penny’s students before the holidays. It was gratifying just to know that hungry kids were getting some food, but this update made me so happy.
2. Then a handful of folks chimed in wanting to be part of the next round. This is great! There will be a next round! I hold the funds in a separate account and track it on a spreadsheet between rounds, then let people know once I shop what our collective funds bought. It’s great.
Also supporting:
Child and Family Relief Round: The “Child and Family Relief Fund” campaign aims to support families with children who are significantly impacted by the ongoing crisis and famine in Afghanistan.
Troop 6000TM is a Girl Scout program specially designed to serve girls in the New York City Shelter System.
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January 17, 2023
A compilation of thoughts about travel from 2021-2022
I was not at all in the mood to travel while COVID continues to mutate alongside the plethora of flus, RSV, colds, random upper respiratory things, and various other contagious diseases. Especially not after weeks and weeks of just keeping nose above water. Once upon a time I loved flying but these days? Home, thank you very much, I’m very happy at home. Alas, even I had to venture forth to fulfill obligations. Add masks and Lysol wipes, take away indoor dining, take away casual attitudes about what you touch and who you share your air with on the road, and add a whole lot of medication for the slew of germs the kids brought with them.
On the road: I thought it was overkill to bring our own seat protectors but we had to make some stops at REALLY gross rest stops and they were very much needed.
Flying with kids: take away sleep and watching movies mindlessly, and replace them with your child (or both) imitating an R.O.U.S.
Things I forgot: my airline specific credit card for a discount on in flight purchases. Drat. Our filter replacements for our flo masks. To pre-order fresh food trays before we flew (overpriced yes but a convenience because our carry-ons were already jammed full of other things and we couldn’t fit another food item).
Things I remembered: all the electronics cables and plugs. Most of the medications we needed. I wish I’d packed all of them; that was a conscious and wrong choice to leave some behind. Treats for our flight attendants for both flights. Activities for the kids for long confined sitting periods but not enough for many hours upon hours (I don’t think it’s humanly possible to carry enough to entertain small / younger kids for that long on a flight). Plastic reusable water bottles along with our heavy insulated bottles, those came in handy for the flight portion of our travel. Mini hand sanitizers that fit into pockets and small shoulder bags.
There are some people out there who are real jerks about families flying with upset children. Exhibit A: As if we enjoy flying with screaming children and we are in fact doing it AT you. Honestly. Some people really don’t know how to exist in society or a community with others. This is why I dread flights with other people. You never know which one is going to be a flagrant asshole about your small human being a small human. As if it’s not hard enough. 
We did get lucky a few times. I profusely thanked our seatmates for being such good sports about the kids. One of them let Smol Acrobat fall asleep holding their finger, unbeknownst to us at the time. They told us later with a laugh that it was cute. In an unwanted restaurant experience where Smol Acrobat was a screech owlet, our table neighbors were incredibly sweet about their ups and downs and joked with them. On a mini train ride, they met a dad with his three older kids who was goofier than Goofy and did little dances to entertain them, offered fistbumps, and even took a picture with them. It was almost like traveling with baby JB again who would play with EVERYONE they saw, whereas Smol Acrobat tends to be a frozen statue staring at the new person in confusion or horror. JB was too busy doing bigger kid things to interact with strangers.
Time zones. I had forgotten how horrible it is to have young kids cross time zones. Up at 11, up at 2, up at 4, up for good at 5 am local time. AUGH. Toilets and landlines and under-4 year olds. The constant “no, no, leave that alone!” battle. I remembered to unplug the hotel room phone just like we used to do with JB so they could walk around the room with a handset to their ear babbling away to their invisible friends.
JB at Smol’s current age was a good traveler in liking all the adventures, wanting to follow wherever we went although they of COURSE went on their own little side quests frequently and Smol is no different in that respect. But JB would eat everything, and be up for more. Sleep badly but was generally happy when they were up. They could more easily co-sleep. It wasn’t EASY traveling with JB, my memory isn’t THAT bad. I guess it’s also fair to say that it was simply easier because we only had the one kid to juggle, and not two. But please be honest, I cannot be the only parent who hates traveling with young kids, can I?
We were dragged to a formal dinner thing (long story) that we left as soon as we could because Smol Acrobat is an unruly squirrel and the dining option was totally age inappropriate. We weren’t paying the bill but we found our server and tipped her $30 cash personally just because she made a shitty situation for us manageable in lots of small ways that she didn’t have to do.
January 16, 2023
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 293: We were doing so WELL for a few days there. Smol Acrobat was eating most meals with gusto, they were communicating better and best of all: were not coughing, sneezing, dripping, or burning up. Until today.
Add that to the last three days of terrible sleep (worse than my usual, which is saying something), caused by searing pain in my neck and shoulders, and feeling really shitty about the weekend of conflict with JB which had me feeling like a total parenting failure. I could absolutely cry today.
All I want is a burger, fries, and 16 hours completely alone with my computer, some books, a pile of blankets, and Sera.
Sigh. None of those things are happening, of course. Not on a Monday, not with a sick Smol to tend to. I vented to some friends and sat at my desk, glumly working as fast as I could, wanting to let out the stress with tears but not being able to.
At some point, the thought occurred to me: everything feels very hard right now. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to give myself a little break. Maybe I can commit to just a little time to myself, sometime this week, if Smol can be away during a school day.
My therapist often says being gentler with myself would help let off a little of the pent-up pressure and I usually don’t know how, but that silent ghost of a promise helped.
I stress ate some candied pecans (why do they sell these by 6 oz bags and not the pound?!), went in on a little lotto pool with a friend, tried to set up Yotta and got rejected, and discovered that Smol can put on their own jacket. I had forgotten they would have learned at daycare by now, so when I asked semi-jokingly “can you put on your coat?” and they said “yes”, well surprise surprise, they can! Only when they’re inclined to.
This tweet thread is timely. Given these two options, if I am transparent at all, I’d almost always opt for emotional transparency instead of vulnerability. I get close to emotional vulnerability here, mostly, and with a very few other people. I think it’s because I am so accustomed to people not showing up when I express a need or a struggle. I expressed it in the past and I was still on my own. So why bother? Why bother and be disappointed when I could just skip that entirely? I understand the flaws in that thinking now but I remember why it developed.
Year 3, Day 294: Treating my pain today is a whole universe away from when I first experienced my chronic pain 27 years ago. None of these factors listed on the tweet below were ever examined back then, most certainly not the trauma bit. It’s not eliminated my pain, this week is a huge reminder of that even if I were inclined to forget, but it makes a big difference. I can function more. The joy is dampened by having developed ME/CFS in the meantime but I can appreciate the reduced pain frequency nonetheless.
Year 3, Day 295: Alas, we did not strike it rich on the Mega Millions, friend and I bought tickets on a lark, so after a terrible night of hysterics and some vomit for Smol (with PiC and I sort of splitting the night), and night sweats and nausea for me, it’s back to the donut factory for both adults this morning. Darn.
Semi-related: My sense of taste is all off this week. Things taste metallic or “chemically” (I don’t know how else to describe it) to me, where they taste perfectly fine to others. This could just be my normal weirdness rather than anything COVID. I go through cycles where potatoes taste bad and carrots taste like soap. No idea why, but I hate it. Last night’s Japanese curry dinner tasted too salty and my berry flavored sparkling water tasted like medicine. 🤷🏻♀️
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Some days I feel all kinds of conflict internally: I want to be up and about, I want to curl up in a ball and hibernate, I want want want. It’s puzzling today because I already let myself lay down for a couple hours today to rest, anticipating another hard night with Smol Acrobat. These feelings make me feel like a child. Shouldn’t I feel like an adult by now, here in my 40th year? What does an adult even feel like?
In fact, that reminds me of a conversation I had with my friend and mentor who is starting a new stage in life and likens it to being like a toddler again: it’s exhausting having feelings, feeling them, and learning how to navigate them. No wonder we get sensory overload and exhausted.
Speaking of lacking emotional vulnerability: I saw a tweet asking for help for a stranger going through medical issues, from a friend of theirs, among many many other Mutual Aid tweets. It struck me, again, that my whole emergency and savings planning revolves around never asking for help. I want to save enough for retirement and for our future health needs, and set very high goals, because I don’t ever want to tell anyone that we need help in an emergency. I spent too many years digging out of financial holes, and getting set back frequently, and I can’t believe or trust that anyone would care enough or be able to help us if we hit the rocks. SMH. My scars run deep.
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A whole lot of friends discovered they had ADD/ADHD during the pandemic, and I was happy that they were getting treatment that helped. It took Abby’s latest post to make me start wondering if I might have a touch or more of it. I emailed my GP with the list. I am a slow learner!
Weirdly, as I sent it off, I had this bizarre feeling of “no I don’t WANT to have another thing wrong with me!” I was almost embarrassed. I feel so broken. I already have fibromyalgia and ME/CFS.
And yet, I will have to laugh if I end up with another diagnosis, courtesy of blogging friends. So many gifts from Twitter/blogging/the internet.
Year 3, Day 296: Much less overnight hysteria from Smol last night, though they still had multiple wake-up, which was much appreciated because my joints and tendons are furious today. It feels as though iron spikes were driven deep into my joints. It was impossible to find a comfortable position to sleep in that didn’t make it worse. So, that’s fun! /sarcasm
~~~~~
I’m trying to redeem an expense benefit from an employer today. They offered a small stipend for certain expenses this year so I chose to use it on daycare.
Since daycare won’t take credit cards, we paid in full and followed the directions (I read them three times) to submit a claim for reimbursement with the receipt.
Dear readers, they rejected the claim today because “you paid in full”. Yes, we did, that’s why we’re asking for a reimbursement. Duh? Who asks for a reimbursement when they didn’t pay? That’s a whole other verb. That’s what the whole reimbursement and uploading a receipt process is for, is it not? Annoying. I’ve submitted a help request. Let’s hope someone gets their head out of wherever it’s hiding. I’d like to cross this thing off my list and deploy that money where it can do some good.