Two months ago, when PiC started the research into swim programs, I appreciated the legwork, but also had negative desire to add anything to our schedules and decisionmaking and budget.
BUT I took my deep breaths and did my best to focus on staring into the middle distance where I didn’t obstruct, if I couldn’t embrace a future with swim lessons in it. They started up this month, once he found a weekly lesson at a time that isn’t too terribly disruptive, at astronomical prices. We used to pay $20-30 a lesson, it’s $60 a lesson with this program *faint*. But we simply cannot get back into the YMCA’s program. They’re overbooked for months out. JB is over the moon about this one. They love being back in the water, they have three swimsuits to wear, they’re all around ecstatic. I’m glad about that part. It helps a bit with my sadness over their not having had swim for two+ years. Thank goodness for PiC doing all the heavy lifting on that and on Spring Break activities and taking that week off to mind the kids.
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Kids as humans
I was struggling with JB’s transition from Little Kid to not so Little but still not Big Kid last year. Because of pandemic haze, it felt like I missed so much. Now that they are definitely Kid, even if not yet Big Kid(? I don’t know what that transition point is) I have this perhaps unreasonable fear rearing up that as much as we foster their individuality, along with civility and humanity, what if I don’t much like the person they are as an adult? I don’t like most people as it is, and we are so dissimilar. I won’t try to mold them into my image but their personality is so far from restful, and that’s great if that makes them happy and fulfilled, but am I the only parent who wonders if they’ll get along with their kids as adults? Or whether their kid will like them as a person?
I hope we’ll always love each other and enjoy each other’s company. I hope this is just a phase since everyone must have less favorite age ranges.
Life with Smol Acrobat
I’m wondering, and maybe worrying a little, how behind Smol is at this point.
They’re growing physically and are engaged with us but we don’t do directed developmental stuff with them like they’d do in daycare. I hadn’t been taking the time at mealtimes to work on their utensils use. They still don’t respond as programmed to the clean up song, they’re still in the emptying buckets and putting them on their head stage.
We do music and reading and counting and the alphabet and lots of outside time but … I’m getting a bit more concerned about what we should be fostering and how to make it happen.
I can’t quite remember what JB was capable of at this age, though I think they did have cleaning up down pat by now. I do remember that they met their now BFF around this age-ish. Definitely by 18-19 months. At that age, that kid was astoundingly articulate already. I remember that JB wasn’t but they weren’t for a long while, speaking articulately was a struggle for a long while. The two kids were at opposite ends of the verbal spectrum so that gives me no real idea of where Smol should be.
I’m wondering if all the other kids at this age are competently feeding themselves. Since first wondering this, I’ve leaned hard into making myself not feed them directly, assisting them with the spoon instead and encouraging their independent feeding more but sometimes all they do is fork around and won’t eat anything at all unless I put the food in their mouth. I can’t help but worry that I’ve/we’ve held them back because we simply haven’t had time or energy to patiently let them feed themselves (or more realistically paint themselves in food).
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Maybe my favorite thing right now is once every night during dinner, they grab my hand and lay their cheek on it. Just a little headrest. It’s perplexing but cute and they get a whole lot of giggles out of it.
They also like hugging my feet. I don’t understand that either but whatever. It’s cute.
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We learned to sign “read” and to high five this month. Not well but they’re trying and it’s fun to see a new skill stick after a few tries. We also, after I mulled it over above, worked on spoon skills and they’re slowly getting better at scooping food into a spoon and then into their mouth. Toddler coordination and instinct to fling things aside, they lack the motivation to feed themselves so I have to push. They’re used to me helping and it’s a tough thing to wean them off the expectation that I’ll help when I’m right there.
But the more we do it, the more they build up enthusiasm for self feeding. It’s incremental but it’s still progress.
Pupdate
Sera is starting to visibly show age these past couple of months. Her muzzle is getting a bit of that salt flecked look and she’s slowing down a little bit. She’s still strong as a little ox and has her zoomies but she’s lost interest in playing fetch and just wants to sunbathe. It’s weird, we adopted Seamus when he was this age and he was in his prime. I worked on him for months to combat his allergies, bring his weight up and put gloss back into his coat. At 10 and 11 years, he was strong as a bull and still enthusiastic as heck. At 14 he was doing backflips to catch a ball. I spotted some dryness in her coat and I’m going to start her on his sardines regimen to help put the shine back in.
She’s Smol Acrobat’s dog and I hope they have at least six years with her. They love trying to cuddle her even if she simply tolerates it.
They’re good for each other the same way she was good for Seamus even if he only tolerated her cuddles.
Precious Moments
Smol’s obsession with Sera’s food bowl has reached a new level. They brought their Pikachu friend to the bowl and stuck his head in – feeding time for friends! Next day, they picked up the bowl themselves and walked around pretending to eat from it. Sera had absolutely no opinion on the matter.
The moment Smol cries, JB drops whatever they’re doing and swoops in to the rescue. “I’m here I’m here I love you you’re ok!”
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JB making up an origin story for the shark plushie: “Did you know why sharkie had to come live with us? His mom and dad were trying to eat him. And his brothers and sisters were too! Because sharks eat sharks. And the other fish wouldn’t help him because they thought he was trying to trick them.”
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So this was absolutely amazing. I didn’t think anything would come of it but for a few weeks, before putting them down, I’d ask Smol if they were all done and we’d head in for their bedtime routine when they signed all done.
On Sunday, it was getting close to the end of Smol’s period of awake time. They tend to do better with 3 hours of awake time between naps now. We’d played with some toys, and then I was reading to them. We were still ten minutes out from naptime, I thought. Partway through a second book, they reached out, closed it, and signed “all done”. I said oh, ok, you’re ready for sleep? They climbed up on me and put their head on my shoulder like an emphatic yes. We went through the routine of brushing teeth, changing into pajamas and reading one more book and then they were out like a light a few minutes after being put down. It was perfect! I am still marveling that they accurately judged their own need and communicated.
That ended after a week. But it was lovely while it lasted!
:: The age difference between the two is both helpful and jarring at the same time. Growing up, everyone was always two years apart from their siblings so this is a bit out of my lived experience.
Year 3, Day 31: JB has another wiggly tooth and we’ve gone from the excitement of having a wiggly tooth to Extreme Angst Because It Hurrrrtttssssss. I hope we’re not stuck in this stage for long.
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JB has the day off from school and it’s PiC’s day in the office so I get to work with both kids at home with me! Yippee!
/extreme sarcasm
Since I’m still in a bad fatigue flare-up, I took my in-case-of-emergency (really bad fatigue) days pill and hoped it would help. This is the second time I’ve tried it. The first time was when my brain fog was physically painful, and I couldn’t tell if the meds were why it partially cleared in the afternoon Today’s experience: it doesn’t give me energy or reduce pain. It paused the incredibly painful crashing downward spiral I’ve been experiencing every day for the past few weeks. It’s hitting a hold button (and leaves a bad taste in my mouth). I crashed later in the night so the pause analogy seems appropriate.
JB was assigned to doing Correspondence and self directed activities when Smol was napping and to play with Smol part of the time they were awake so I could get through small bits of work. I’m doing the serious Smol stuff: diaper changes, feeding (OMG this is such a pain), and navigating transitions.
We survived until PiC got home at 430 pm. I wish I felt better but we limped over the finish line and a finish is a finish.
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PiC met a parent at the park yesterday who speaks only Japanese at home with their daughter so their daughter is primarily fluent in Japanese and man do we feel like failures. Neither of us are fluent enough in our secondary languages to pass on much to the kids, but I’d hoped to pass on at least what we have. That’s not going well.
Also under the Feelings category, I’m pretty sure that Smol isn’t hitting any of their age appropriate milestones. They have a lot of babble but no words. It worries me. Yes kids hit them all at different ages but until we get past this I’m going to worry. JB struggled with this too and that was a really rough ride for us all.
Year 3, Day 32: The kids are both big enough to be shifted out of their current car seat situations (Smol from their infant / toddler and JB from their convertible seat they’ve been using for the past 5 years). Smol will get JB’s seat and JB’s getting a new booster. I ordered the new booster yesterday with our 20% off coupon from trading in an expired baby seat and am so mentally wiped that I thought “April 21” was two weeks from now. No, it’s actually two days from today. So yay! I hate hate hate that I haven’t been able to haul the kids on my own in part because the car seat was always too hard on my hands. Now, I may be able to take them SOME places.
Challenges this week: Childcare. Please. But no, none for us because ….
Vaccines for under-5s, please.
Still zero reliable news on our vaccine prospects. It’s so incredibly frustrating to both of us here and all of our circle who are Still Waiting. Yesterday there was a flurry of news saying “maybe June” but they’ve been saying that since December. “Maybe Jan. Maybe Feb. Data in early April!” The goalposts keep moving and I just cannot keep hoping.
Year 3, Day 24: Well hello Monday. Starting at midnight with the utterly brutal pain that made it hard to breathe, and then moving right along to the four am wakeup with Smol who somehow managed to drape a blanket completely over themselves like a tiny distressed ghostie and cried for rescue. After a few rounds of patting and signing, they settled back down for a couple more hours. We got our real morning started around 630, that superb night under my belt, with a downpour that didn’t bode well for JB’s playground ambitions.
No wonder I’m tired before I start work. No wonder it felt like two days compressed into one.
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Work felt exponentially more repellent than it should (than usual?). Nothing was actually wrong aside from a couple annoying policy problems I have to deal with. It’s probably that I’m just worn to a thread already and now my brain must somehow turn on and do stuff. Yes of course why not.
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PiC’s work informed him that he’d had a close contact exposure to COVID at work last week and JB’s school informed us that they had a close contact exposure today. This does nothing good for my frustrations with how much we’ve endured and how stupid policies are right now. (Why did it take his work a WEEK to inform him??)
Year 3, Day 25: Two huge reliefs. My pain was a bit less than yesterday’s so I got to sleep and Smol slept right through to 7 am so I got almost 6 unbroken hours! Huge. Not restorative but at least it’s not taking two steps backwards like most nights.
Year 3, Day 3: As promised, the Things Got Even Harder edition!
Challenge 1: 3 hours of sleep, y’all. Painsomnia had me deep in the marrow and it burned until 3 am. Of course, right when I finally drifted off, Smol’s white noise app, which runs on an iPhone so old it’s literally splitting apart, shut off and up popped Smol like a chirping jack o’lantern. I fixed it and went back to bed quietly cursing, and finally slept at 4 am. Fab. U. Lous.
Perfect way to start an incredibly hard first day of a tough week.
Challenge 2: PiC had to go on site for work today. That left me with Smol most of the day. So naturally….
Challenge 3: Smol woke up after a 45 minute nap sobbing fit to wake the dead. I’d prepared myself for a short nap and so I maintained my emotional equilibrium. I sat on the floor with them patting and humming, my butt going entirely numb, waiting for them to calm down. Usually they take about 10 minutes to stop crying and then signal they’re ready to get going. Today was weird. Of course it was. They kept kneeing me in the stomach when I stopped humming or patting, so I kept it up, working on my phone as much as I could while also patting and humming. My arms and butt were losing feeling steadily. But I figured I’d enjoy the cuddle however long I had it, it’s rare that they sit still anymore. Then they finally sat up, I got ready to get up, and FLOP. They burrowed onto my left shoulder, right cheek bright red. They’d been sleeping! And were going to keep on sleeping. Alrighty. So they got a catnap laying on me while I did what little I could on my phone. Momentary regret that my phone is too decrepit to have more work apps so I could make the most of that time.
Challenge 4: When they felt ready to get up, it was time to go go go for three hours. Time for food, play, more play, try to cram in a minute or two of work here and there whenever they veered off to do their own thing for a bit. Already tired, this was a particularly rough patch.
Challenge 5: Realizing I botched my own weekly meal / dinner plans by not ordering earlier. They sold out. Sigh. I’m too tired to kick myself. I’m just disappointed. We’ll figure it out.
Year 2, Day 361: *The day numbering reflects when I started chronicling our lives in the pandemic, about a week or two into the shutdowns.
This two year “anniversary” of when our lives all turned upside and stayed upside down has been bonus difficulty levels with a yucky cherry on top. We’re all frustrated and angry because even with little bits of “normalcy” like in person school for JB, everything else remains so topsy turvy that the stressors outweigh any good exponentially.
I’m starting to feel some resentment that folks have routine childcare support and we don’t even though I care about them and want them to have it. Or envy of that resource at least. I’m most definitely resentful that companies are acting like things can go back to normal now and are scheduling in person travel and conferences as if we parents of under 5s don’t have ENTIRELY unprotected kids. I’m so angry and tired of feeling like every minute of every single day is a slog because we can never take a break. We can swap off childminding for an hour or two at a time, yes, but there are always chores to do and there is always household stuff to do and we are always fighting against a tsunami of Needs to carve out any time for ourselves. And then I feel like an absolute heel for complaining, even just in my head or here, because there are lots of people who are in far far far worse situations.
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Some of this is because things that were already hard are going to get even harder. PiC has to go back to work on site. He now has conferences that require him to travel. I have absolutely ZERO idea how we’re going to manage that.
Spring break and summer are fast approaching. We’ve looked at multiple scenarios and they’re mostly impossible to manage because it adds hours of commute in addition to our work and Smol Acrobat schedules. And no matter what we choose, daycare or some combination of camps and at home virtual stuff, it’s going to cost $2000 a month just for JB.
I broke down and cried today. I don’t know how much more I can give.
Year 2, Day 354: Smol started the festivities at FIVE AM.
I, having had severe heartburn until 2 am, was less than pleased. And less than half conscious. Thank goodness PiC took them for the morning round as usual.
I finally crawled out just after 7 am, barely functional and wishing for day’s end. What a way to start the week!
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JB had the gall to watch PiC making their lunch, to their exact specifications, and then asked: can I buy lunch today?
I came down on that like a ton of bricks. How rude!! Children, I tell ya.
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We had leftover ramen for lunch, yum. I’m glad that PiC pushed me into catering to my cravings yesterday. There was nothing on Bentocart we wanted so we decided that local takeout would be our “ease the pain” meals this week. It’s still surprising how much decision making capacity is freed up by choosing ahead of time to pay for just two meals that someone else cooks ready to reheat for dinners and maybe some leftovers for lunch. The planning ahead is one huge bonus, we’re no longer stressing over what to order and pick up while juggling two kids who need our attention now now now. We plan ahead and get the meals in the course of our chores. It also frees up enough energy to cook the rest of the week, without scraping rock bottom, or snarling to ourselves like bewildered rabid badgers!
Saturday afternoon I had cooked a big batch (4 large chicken breasts, from 2 Costco chicken packs) of the baked panko chicken. Remembering to spray oil on the foil before baking was instrumental to this batch turning out better than my first try and JB declared it their FAVORITE. That was a big enough batch for two dinners and a snack. I’d not have this foresight or energy without the takeout assist.
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I finally asked the right questions and updated my spreadsheets with a whole chunk of investing information on a portion of PiC’s portfolio I didn’t have before. We make decisions on that portfolio together but since I’d assumed the website was through his company intranet, I couldn’t access it. Not true! So now I have a whole load of information at my fingertips to work with and make better decisions with. That’s exciting.
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.