August 8, 2022

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (114)

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 136: 6:20 am, drat. The sleep is creeping in the wrong direction again.

*****

My return to work was a depressing crash landing into stressing about too much to do. It was less about the work and more about the volume of everything.

I have to: do all my work in a limited amount of time; mind Smol Acrobat most of the day before and after their ONE nap; help JB (who still has another several days home before school starts) with any tech arrangements needed for their tutoring refresher courses that I set up; follow up on the Lakota giving orders I placed.

I think the stress is compounded by my (near pathological) need to have everything tidied up and right and tight on my FIRST DAY back. That may be related to my need to depart on time when we travel, as well, which sets off no end of anxiety. I keep twisting myself up into knots trying to meet totally unreasonable standards. Huh. There’s a theme.

PiC and I are trying something new: not pushing ourselves to be all caught up on work in an unreasonable amount of time.

*****

I leaned into the inevitable inability to work after Smol’s nap, and took the kids out for a walk to the playground nearby. Sadly for every inch of my body, the nearest one was closed. I should have steered us home to the backyard but gave into the “try to be a better parent” impulse to give JB a proper play on a big play structure and urged Sera and Smol into this ill considered adventure. It was a huge pain getting Smol to cooperate and get there in the first place. I had regrets almost immediately. But after much coaxing and pushing and prodding, they conquered the promised playground. They also had fun playing in the dirt so I remind myself we didn’t have to go that far for entertainment.

***** (more…)

August 1, 2022

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (113)

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 129: 730 am. Totally reasonable!

*****

Unfortunately, the wait list for private swim lessons at our local Y is closed. They don’t have enough instructors, and already have 120 families on their list. Sigh. I imagine that national staffing shortages will be a problem for a long time considering how many people have been ill with or died of COVID.

*****

PiC started the hunt for our family car again just to get a feel for the landscape. It’s bad. Waitlists are 12-18 months for new vehicles. Used cars are priced as high as new. Since when do we pay $55k before tax for a used vehicle?? We last paid an average of $10k for each car and we keep them for a decade or more.

Year 3, Day 130: Sadness. Our pediatrician is moving his practice out of town. We liked him a lot, he started his practice here when JB was born so he’s seen them, and now Smol Acrobat, since they were newborns. I hate changes like this.

*****

My maternal grandmother passed away. I had a lot of feelings. We haven’t spoken in years. Not even at my mom’s funeral since I didn’t even want that side of the family there after the week of shenanigans that my grandfather and aunts engaged in. They harassed me for a solid week and at the funeral itself.

On the one hand, I feel a familiar tug of “you SHOULD feel like you should go to the funeral.” But I don’t want to go. I don’t feel like I should go in spite of my feelings, either. What sense of duty I have doesn’t apply to them. I haven’t had a relationship with them for 20 years, what contact I DID have in those 20 years wasn’t good, and I don’t have respects to give, any desire to give the living any comfort over her passing, or desire to tolerate their inevitable sniping and gossip.

On the other hand, I’m still mad at them for being such selfish grasping people and I remember how much I wished they’d be family that I could be close to. I couldn’t, they’re just not capable of being considerate or kind. They’re mean and petty. I remember when I was 13, one aunt deliberately picked a fight with me when I put her shoes in our closet. On opening the door, I commented, man, our closet smells weird! She asked if I was saying her shoes smelled to which I replied, of course not! It’s our closet, I just noticed it smelled funny BEFORE I put your shoes in. It was like that before you got here. But she continued to pick pick pick trying to force me to admit I’d offended her somehow. It was so strange but very thematic.

It’s better to protect my time with the people who actually value us but I remember that when they first emigrated here, I had such high hopes of coming into more family to love. Alas.

Year 3, Day 131:

JB and I are having sobering conversations about unhoused people in the city and it’s hard to explain how much our government is failing its citizens. We shouldn’t have so many people in such terrible circumstances. We do the best we can to help but it’s hardly a drop in the bucket.

*****

We finally cleared out a space for Smol’s crib in the guest room. They would have been moved out ages ago but this is their main play room and I’ve lacked the motivation and energy to tackle that chore until now. I hope this is the thing that turns around their morning wakings.

*****

Parahawking looks so cool.

Parahawking is an interactive experience of gliding with birds of prey, combining paragliding with falconry

Trained birds of prey fly with paragliders, leading them to thermalspic.twitter.com/3BcBzfjK1s

— Science girl (@gunsnrosesgirl3) July 23, 2022

Year 3, Day 132:

TIL I have to throw out the old or excess candy behind everyone’s backs, including PiC’s. He usually doesn’t even eat candy! Why was he standing there picking through the bucket as if he was going to save these old things from doom? I hate adding to landfill but don’t know what to do with unwanted candy we’re gifted for the kids.

*****

Smol Acrobat is BIG into sharing food now. They insist on feeding us almost as much as we feed them, they want to split breads that I give them in half to share.

They are now consistently identifying eyes on other people. By poking them with their finger while enunciating “eyeeeee”.

*****

I watched the Wakanda Forever trailer and was sad all over again that Chadwick Boseman is gone.

Grief was actively happening while we made this film. We pushed through and worked hard for Chad. We told stories and laughed at moments we remembered. It was hard. I honored him everyday, I wrote to him all over this movie, throughout the world we built. 1…a thread
— The Dowager Chinchilla (@chinchilla1970) July 25, 2022

Year 3, Day 133: Moving Smol Acrobat out of our room made such a difference! They’re still waking early but so far, since they don’t see us, they’re settling back down for another round of R&R. Dragging my feet on something that takes a huge amount of energy (clearing space for their crib) was just feeding the cycle of exhaustion.

*****

So many chores today. I unpacked and organized a huge pile of hand me downs, incorporating it into the existing supply of next size up hand, sorted out smaller things and excess things for donation and moved Smol’s clothes to their closet. All bedrooms here are now occupied and that feels really weird! I had a dream last night about discovering a new empty bedroom (with the unfortunate addition of my leech brother), maybe it was inspired by this sense of being crowded.

My office is still 75% intolerable but I’ve been steadily moving paper and trash out to their respective bins, which makes it feel like progress is happening.

My head is chock full of sewing projects, and I’m not ready to figure out the logistics or commit to the prep work. I’ll let them simmer for a bit longer. Today, I tackled a simpler project: a small hand me down photo album. It’s the kind that holds 100 (ish) 4×6 photos stacked in a book.

The insides were pristine but the cover was this nasty tapestry fabric with leather that will flake and fall apart when it ages. So I pulled out my scissors, Kraft glue, and special Hello Kitty fabric I’d indulgently bought a while back and covered the entire cover with fabric. It’s nothing I’d give as a real gift but JB will get a kick out of it. Maybe they can use it to store pictures or stickers. Now that I’ve said that… I wasn’t going to cover the second one but feel almost obligated to since they have a LOT of stickers and probably would love to have a sticker book. We’ll see. I’ll let them have this first and go from there.