8. Supported a friend’s crowdfunding to escape Arkansas.
9. Once in a long while, Smol has a looooong nap. Sunday morning was one of those days. I did some work AND laid down for a little bit. I’m generally primed for missing out on rest because babies have a sensor to wake up the minute a mom’s head hits a pillow but today allowed for some leisure. I also didn’t work that much, just enough to set up my other time zone people in order for their Monday, and started backing up my files to my external hard drive. Since the external hard drive is massive, I’ve decided that instead of trying to only replace the changed files, I’ll copy over the full set of files on a semi regular basis without worrying over the duplicates over time. I have so much space on there, it shouldn’t matter. After several versions of back ups, I’ll delete the oldest ones but I don’t need to waste time on that for a long while.
Challenges this week: Not sure it needs to be said? Ukraine. Attacks on trans kids and their families in Texas are already starting to result in investigations of parents (though a limited stay on that specific one was issued), thesituation in Kabul is terrible, the GOP continues to attack all kinds of right including reproductive rights andvoting rights.
Year 2, Day 340: Woof. Still recovering from the weekend physically. And I foolishly skipped the full dose of diphenhydramine I’ve been taking to force myself to fall asleep at a reasonable hour. On purpose or by accident? I don’t remember. Either way, I couldn’t sleep until very late and then couldn’t get up early. Sigh. I don’t want to be dependent on a sleep aid in the sense that I always need it to help me sleep at a reasonable hour but I am very dependent on sleep to live. Not loving this impasse. But for now I’m putting myself back on the full dose this week to get my body the rest it needs.
Upon emerging from our bedroom, in my haze, I was greeted by a chuckling Smol escaping from the bathroom, zipper bag of trial size mouthwashes swinging from one hand, headed straight for my knees. They were in such a good mood, it was a bit contagious, especially when they started chasing me around the house cackling.
*****
I’m fighting with myself to maintain a healthy boundary in one of my relationships. A loved one is having financial difficulties after an already long and arduous road to get where they are today. I have been supporting them for years in various ways, knowing that I have to NOT go overboard and have been relatively good about making myself stick to boundaries, but I still instinctively want to rescue them. I know that is unsustainable, it can’t be my (fifth) job, and it cannot be what my life revolves around. But it’s still hard to tell that part of me to sit down and just care without trying to take on their burdens for them.
This impulse is what my biodad played on for so long and it needs to be corralled.
I also have to stop feeding that deep down belief that I only have value when and if I help people. I need to find the belief that I am a good enough person as is somewhere in me.
JB’s normally an equal opportunity attention hound with a STRONG preference for PiC. Lately, they’ve been coming to me for more attention, hugging me more, calling me Mommy, and asking me to read to them for bedtime. Up until a couple months ago, they actively did not want me to read to them to the point that when PiC would come to say goodnight if I was reading, they’d remove the book from my hand and say ok! Daddy can read now!! (Implied: byyyyeeeee-eeeee)
It’s rather bemusing. They’ve always been his and the two of them always enjoyed a very close relationship. Usually I’m just orbiting their cozy companionship. I can’t even say I’m out of practice being wanted, I was never wanted long enough to GET in practice. I always assumed I’d have my turn when the time was right but I didn’t expect it to feel so weird when it did come around.
With Smol, I’m wanted about as often as PiC is and that’s also a funny feeling. I like being wanted sometimes but it’s an unusual feeling. Of course we both play second fiddle to JB, the apple of Smol’s eye.
Life with Smol Acrobat
We’re entering my favorite baby stage where Smol has a tiny modicum of understanding of the world and is soaking it all up and banging on everything to see what that does.
I’m restraining myself from assisting the way I would a few months ago and displayed no awareness of space or gravity. They dropped a book off a step and instead of pitching facefirst off the step as usual going after it, they carefully sat down, braced their body, and reached down only after they were properly stable. I was so proud!
I also love their penchant for cuddles. They love to come lay their head on my face or head, sometimes at speed which results in a BONK, sometimes gently where it feels like getting a kitty face rub. (more…)
Year 2, Day 333: Our week of summer ended with yesterday’s warmth and fancy free sunshine. Today we’re back to cold, fog, and gloom. Brrrrrr!
*****
I was in a real mood all morning and because my brain was operating entirely off-kilter, ended up doing my work out of preferred order which just made it worse. I ended my morning work session without a certain amount of work done and the out of orderness meant that all the wrong and more irritating work was front and center.
I griped to PiC like a giant baby about my mood over lunch.
Smol’s staying awake longer between their first and second naps which means taking a 3-4 hour break from work that we have to get done later.
He had some emails to tackle after lunch but decided it was more important to go out with me, Sera, and Smol for a longer walk. It did help my mood so I’m glad he did.
Joking darkly with Abby about wanting to quit my job and how we’d engineer a windfall also helped.
We had our first Bentocart delivery which just happened to have enough Italian to work with the heart shaped pasta that JB asked for at the grocery store over the weekend to make an Italian dinner. Smol enjoyed 1.5 (weirdly buttery and weirdly delicious) meatballs and a double (adult) handful of heart pasta enough to feed themselves and thus redeemed themselves after yesterday’s dinner disaster where I felt like a failure because I couldn’t get the child to consume more than half a banana.
I keep forgetting that this kid isn’t a black hole for food and it is royally confusing when they eat like a small toddler with a moderate appetite. Tonight was better.
Speaking of forgetting things. I wasn’t feeling the same level of steaming garbage pain and fatigue as usual this morning and irrationally expected myself to feel happy as a result. Except everything else was still the same: COVID, working from home, no childcare, no under-5 vaccine, still juggling crappy conditions at work, still frustrated as hell over various family situations, still unable to plan anything for the year because so much that might be something to look forward to is dependent on a vaccine.
Big worries, small irritants, everything in between, that’s all the same even if I got half a decent night of sleep and don’t want to cry when I take two steps. I forget that feeling physically better isn’t a cure-all, it just feels like it should be.
*****
I’m feeling some real pressure to get JB enrolled into sports. They really miss their swim lessons, and I really want them to learn how to swim well before too long and while they still have the drive to learn. It’s an important life skill. They also need another activity to build their stamina. We’d been exploring either gymnastics or martial arts to start a second thing pre-pandemic but of course that plan went to hell. I feel like time is getting away from us. Suddenly they’re seven years old but can’t swim well because they’ve lost 2.5 years of practice. At the same time, we’re still in a holding pattern of juuuuuust keeping it together and I want to cry at the thought of adding one more thing to our plates. I guess the one thing that’s improved is as much of a handful as Smol is, they’re bigger and getting a bit easier to manage in some ways. Mostly not easy but still, as much as I love squashy infants, they are an absolute wrecking ball of work and fussiness. Smol has their things but they’re better now. So maybe that pressure has let up just enough for us to be able to take on something else for JB.
PiC has taken charge of getting information for some sports for us to evaluate. When I get over this feeling of overwhelm, we’ll sit down and figure something out.
Smol’s firsts: they’re trying to give kisses now which are more like getting licked by a suckerfish. They also started rage squealing and biting when thwarted in their attempted to break into a cabinet so that’s a lot of fun.
Year 2, Day 334: What. A. Day.
Our tiny terrorist had a little mercy on us and didn’t wake everyone up at 5 am. That was much appreciated.
I’m frustrated with some things at work. Things are slowly improving, they’re a world better than they were last fall, but we’re only halfway through the struggle, I think. The internal issues all need time and patience to work out and I’m, as previously advertised, perilously in short supply of both. We’ll get through it, I was just feeling it particularly hard today.
The external stuff is more frustrating. Our clientele of late have been a particularly trying lot. They lie, they behave unethically and try to get away with it (no), lie some more, act totally entitled, and THEN expect to be coddled. I am doing my best not to let my feelings splash out on my team but here I can say more honestly: I hate these people so much. I’m sick of this nonsense. Act right and tell the truth! *HARUMPH*
It’s not all of them but it’s a large enough subset to make me gnash my teeth several times a day and I don’t see an end to these. But, as a leader, I have to keep my hollering under wraps among my reports because I don’t want to demoralize them. I’m here to hear their frustrations and empathize and help, not to dump my annoyance on them. It’s a bit isolating at times but I don’t think it’d be a good thing if I did have someone in the company to whine at anyway, that’s a bad habit to get into. Anyway, after working late into the night to resolve one person’s problems they created and still having half the problem to go, I’m calling it quits for today. I’ve had more than enough and I’ll have to try again tomorrow.
I don’t know how people shake it when they’ve hit this level of funk with clients at a job but a way must be found and soon. Maybe the way is a long vacation.
*****
I did a combo Bentocart order and cooking dinner: tofu soup (mine), lentil salad (mine), and pulled pork salad (theirs). Everyone had their favorite thing but everyone had some lentils, even Smol, which was nice. We still have one entree left from our big Monday order to serve for tomorrow’s dinner so I’m happy with how this first order stretched so far. I am not sure next week will work as well, I was struggling to find anything that sounded particularly appealing for either Monday or Tuesday. But that’s my weird appetite thing again. Sometimes I want all the food, sometimes I’m meh about everything. It’s not helpful!
*****
Over the weekend, a conversation with Maggie reminded me that I hadn’t even looked at our Alaska Air miles since the pandemic started, after working so very hard to build up a stash of miles for our Imaginary Big Fancy Trip to Somewhere. That triggered a big dash of adrenaline-worry: Am I going to lose all our miles??? We were told that PiC’s stash was set to expire in ten days without account activity and they had no idea when mine would expire so I quickly made donations from our accounts and held my breath. Still holding my breath yesterday, the activity hasn’t recorded yet. It’s still within the 3-5 business days they estimated for posting the activity so I’m hoping that both of our accounts will be ok by the end of the week.
Year 2, Day 335: Smol’s mercy extended one more day which was fortunate and appreciated.
I continue to be frustrated by complex tasks cropping up at work but that’s what I’m paid to deal with. 😒 Meh.
I AM happy that Smol’s in my favorite age range with babies though. Smol gets into everything of course but they’re cute and little and walking like a determined and dizzy zombie, two arms extended forward, cackling or calling out nonsensical syllables like a tipsy town crier. They play in weird and interesting ways, they emote Really Intensely and cycle through emotions.
Oh! I emailed the local gym about their masking policies for the summer camp. I’m hoping they will require masking and JB might be able to do a week or two of summer gymnastics for fun at this age before it gets intense and competitive.
Year 2, Day 336: SCADS of Good News today! The HSA transfer from Random Crappy Company to Fidelity is done! WOO!
Both our Alaska Air mileage accounts updated to show activity so we are safe for another two years. I will plan to do a bit of card churning this year to add some miles too. Look at me, living with hope that we’ll ever travel again!
AND some good developments at work are happening. Really helpful for the morale.
Today is JB and PiC’s Friday, they both have Friday off. Lucky ducks! They did the Trader Joe’s run while I dealt with some pressing business and came home with 14 bananas because we’ve been eating them like monkeys lately. Literally. JB eats them upside down now. Because that’s how monkeys do it! Duh.
*****
Reflecting on how this week was different: we both felt that ordering premade meals for the start of the week made a huge difference in our stress levels. You could see it as simply paying for the privilege of moving the thinking about dinner to a different time but I perceive it very differently when I am setting up some orders for the next week rather than trying to get something now for tonight when I’m feeling the ticking of the clock as I / we have to make a decision with work demanding our attention and kids tugging at us and a dog to walk and and and. Planning ahead comes with an different kind of dopamine hit, the satisfaction of knowing you’ve settled a future question and you’re going to enjoy that later. It’s the same happy spot in my brain that loves travel planning even more than travel itself.
It also takes the pressure off in both not having to cook in that very small window of time between work and dinner and takes full cooking duties off both our plates for a couple days. It’s costly but I think I’m accepting that buying ourselves sanity this way is acceptable. We’ll do less when we have more childfree time back.
Year 2, Day 337: The Smol Acrobat is out of mercy. Up before 6 am making today feel like a Monday top to nearly bottom.
But since PiC had the day off, he caught the early baby, and I prepped their Adventure Lunch.
He went for a rare weekday run during Smol’s first nap while I worked and JB did chores and took TV breaks. They’re currently in love with Encanto video activities so they did a couple of those.
My break at lunch time was all about getting them out the door by noon, and off on an Adventure they went! Sera stayed home with me and for three blissful hours the house was otherwise empty. I had my pre-pandemic lunch of a cheese quesadilla eaten while hovering over my keyboard dashing through emails and I cleared enough of my work to be in shouting distance of caught up when they got back.
As Monday as it felt internally, PiC’s day off was greatly to my benefit to make it a Friday by the end of the night.
They all had a wonderful time out and about and came home in radiant moods. Smol passed out HARD when I put them down for a nap but was so happy that they didn’t even have the I’m soooooootired meltdown. JB floated on air the rest of the day.
:: Do you get all discombobulated by long weekends?
Year 2, Day 326: Third terrible night of sleep in a row as I wait out this latest flare up that feels like my bones are on fire. Tossed and turned for hours last night. PiC took Smol as soon as they were up so I could rest as much as possible before we absolutely had to get out the door but it wasn’t nearly enough.
Monday workloads suck to begin with. It’s extra weighted down with fatigue and underlying pain that won’t go away so it’s Molasses Monday. The kind of extra Molasses Monday that destroys even your muscle memory so that you try to crack the eggs into the compost and throw the shells into your bowl, and you turn off the lights as you go into the room instead of turning them on.
It’s going to have to be the little things today.
Smol, having gotten a later start than usual, this morning, got to spend the hour after we dropped JB off at school with me indulging in their current favorite pastimes: throwing all the socks out of their bin, throwing all the shoes out of their bin, unmatching socks, and carrying diapers around like a football. It’s good to have interests.
PiC pulled together a magnificent simple pantry dinner of steak, risotto (frozen from Trader Joe’s) and roasted broccoli. We enjoyed that after a short family walk through the neighborhood to let Sera do her business, JB run some laps and Smol stretch their legs a little.
I came back to my desk to put in some work on our Lakota family orders. For the orders already shipped, those tracking numbers needed to be shared. FedEx needed more information for a shipment. Diapers have been going in and out of stock since the weekend so I needed to grab what I could when it was back in. I’m juggling three families at once which may have been a bit daft for my energy levels but it’s mostly working out.
That done, I dragged myself off to bed for an “early” night in hopes of sleeping off my pain hangover.
As I was gently tickling a crying Smol, checking them for anything that was poking them or otherwise making them physically uncomfortable, JB scolded me: Mom, they’re sad. Don’t try to cheer them up if they’re sad!
This came from a conversation we had about how it’s ok for people to be sad and they don’t need to be jollied out of it. They just need to be allowed to have their moment of sadness and to let it pass in their own time. I had to explain that there’s a difference between having sad feelings, which are fine, and being sad because something physically doesn’t feel good that can be fixed. For babies, we’re responsible for figuring out the latter, but as they get older, we’ll be responsible for recognizing the former.
*****
JB was instructed to put away laundry and of course, even with the motivation of opening reserved gifts if they finished the entire chore instead of just the half they were assigned at first (it should go without saying that it should be without whining), they were FULL of dramatics. They don’t specifically whine about the task because they know they can’t get away with that. So instead they dramatically exclaim over and over when they do something asinine like overload one side of the laundry basket and it pitches over. Six. Times. Six freaking times. Six times we hear the basket tip over and a loud exclamation. I can’t say how utterly grating it is to hear them being extra dramatic as an equally irritating alternative to whining. And then we lose it and they lose their incentive and then it’s all tears and grouchiness and arghhhhh. I can see why some parents don’t bother to have their kids take on responsibility. It’s a right pain in the caboose. But we’re not going to give up just because this is like nails on a chalkboard. We endure. In bad moods, but we endure.
Life with Smol Acrobat
We are DONE WITH FORMULA. I have shaken my last bottle of formula for this baby! *Snoopy dance*
I have been so ready to be done with making up formula bottles. The mess, the “finish in one hour after starting” calculations, the waste when Smol decided after a taste that they weren’t hungry after all and refused to be hungry until one hour and five minutes after contaminating that first bottle we can’t use anymore.
We’ve been offering all kinds of solids since they were 6 months and they’re just now making the mental shift of preferring to fill up on solids rather than milk. Some days they still don’t want food, though.
Here’s a weird thing: they like cold food and warm milk. Can’t reverse them. It’s so strange. Feed them a bite of warm bread and they grimace like it’s bitter. Give them a bottle of cold milk and it’s BRAIN FREEZE CITY. But cold food straight from the fridge? Divine. Warm milk? Perfection.
We’re working on it. They’re slowly loosening their grip on these convictions. Our next thing is to convince them that milk IS permitted in non bottle containers. Like sippy cups. Their firm belief is that that sippy cups are only for water. They’re happy with any sippy but it MUST contain water.
Speaking of food progress, I keep forgetting that Smol has Rules. Any new food to be introduced must be the TINIEST of bites. They’re more willing to try new foods now but the first bite must always be nearly microscopic so they can check for poison. Large bites are accepted and then immediately dribbled down their front in the most disgusting possible way to teach this lesson.
Also, some foods must be hand fed, some spoon fed, others fork fed, some self fed and you have to figure out which is which purely by process of food being ejected with varying levels of force.
P.S. You’re going straight to hell if you’re using chopsticks for yourself but not for them.
Mealtimes are Such Fun! 🤯
****
Baby milestones: They have started trying to walk in earnest. It’s very exciting! I’m not ready for a toddler!
We’ve also entered a phase I tend to enjoy for its predictability: the unpackingbaby. My babies, maybe most do? I have insufficient data for this, tend to have a period whereby all containers that contain things must stop containing things. Laundry in a basket must become the laundry out of a basket. Diapers in a bag must be diapers strewn across the floor. A nearly packed diaper bag must become a completely empty diaper bag. It’s easy to keep them busy at this stage. I’m never concerned by the sound of their shaking a ziplock bag, I know what they’re up to but they don’t yet have the dexterity to open sealed bags.
Segue to another thing they enjoy:
They’ve spent months trying to steal Sera’s kibble out of her bowl, never succeeding because we’d always pull them away in time. Sera, it must be noted, would probably let them take the food out of their bowl while she ate. Her only reaction to a baby sneaking up on her food bowl is to move over to make space.
Unbeknownst to me, Smol had discovered the jackpot of an unsealed dog food bag and went to town. I’d dismissively handwaved their location: they’re fine, they’re just playing with Sera’s food bag.
PiC, attentive father that he is, went to check anyway and discovered them with two hands, and a mouth, full of kibble. “Oh. They’re just eating dog food.”
Oh. Oh indeed.
Pupdate
Sera continues to demonstrate hitherto unthought of levels of patience for Smol’s overenthusiastic love pats. They really like petting Sera, but they also pet Sera like a heavy metal drummer.
They do pet all of us that way, but Sera should be the most confused about it. She will walk away if she’s not in the mood, which I am most grateful for, but she’s usually just very patient about it.
Precious Moments
JB: What do you call 2 bananas?
PiC: A pear of bananas?
JB: no! Two slippers!
Us: What? I don’t get it.
JB: It’s just a joke!
*****
The (would-be) traveler’s lament
JB: I wish travel was easier.
Me: Me too.
JB: Why can’t we teleport?
Me: Boy I wish I had the answer to that question.
*****
Are they, though? (Possessiveness)
Me to Smol: Hello, my potato.
JB: Hah, you’re calling them your potato when they’re actually my potato?
Also…
JB to Smol: You’re so cute, you’re so cute, I love you, my dinosaur!
Year 2, Day 319: Welcome to another week of “What childcare?” with the added twist of a random no school day in the middle of the week. It started at 430 with Smol babbling at us, WIDE AWAKE.
JB is highly offended by this day off, it’s on their library visit day and they had plans for the book they were going to borrow next. I see their pain. Though PiC did just take them to the public library on the weekend, and they did come back with about 20 books, they still want one more.
For my part, I am obsessively watching the mail for our tax forms. It doesn’t make them come any faster but I can’t quite stop stalking the mail anyway.
Smol finally had a good first nap today, and woke up in time for lunch. They were hanging out with PiC while I wrapped up some work, and had started complaining about wanting to eat. As usual, I was talking to them like they can understand me, “let’s get some food into you” and went over to set up their seat and tray. They walked right over to me as if making a conscious decision to come to me and get ready to eat! Like they know things! It was kind of amazing.
Year 2, Day 320: Some of PiC’s work frustration is encapsulated perfectly in Debbie’s comment over at Nicole and Maggie. He has to keep asking his collaborators / vendors to do their d*mn jobs and they won’t unless he CCs their supervisor. Then he found out that this incompetent lout was promoted! Unbelievable.
Parts of my work frustration is the same: sometimes it feels like pulling teeth to get people to reply to simple emails and yes we’re all still in a pandemic but when this is ultimately work that they want done and won’t do their part and will then whine at me later about why it took so long… I wish to bite them.
*****
JB doesn’t have school today, so I scheduled a couple of Outschool lessons for them to try out: some art and some language. In the hour before their first much-anticipated lesson, they were told that I was working and PiC was in a meeting so only come ask me if they needed something. They were left to their own devices after that. I snuck out to check on them about 20 minutes before their lesson and they were laying on the ground reading. It’s really nice to see that they make reasonably decent choices when not under direct observation because I can’t say much for their judgement when they ARE being observed!
Unfortunately the teacher never showed up for the second class which was a massive waste of my time. We got a refund but it was 25 minutes I couldn’t get back.
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.