As I once predicted, when it comes to kid activities, I hate having to leave the house first and foremost. I hate the other parents as a close second. There’s an obnoxious sideline dad at JB’s self defense class who just talks to talk, constantly chattering and saying nothing of substance because he keeps cycling between bragging about his kid, commentary on the attendance and reasons it’s either high or low, and commenting on JB’s ranking. And he can never actually use JB’s name, it’s always “your kid”. As if JB doesn’t exist as a person except in relation to me.
There are other obnoxious sideline dads but he’s the worst by sheer volume of chatter. Can we not just observe in silence, for the love of (my) mental health?!
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On the one hand, I don’t want JB to replicate my refusal to ever ask for help until things are dire.
On the other hand, it makes me a little batty when they ask for help when they have all the tools to figure it out at their disposal. Answering a worksheet of questions about a story they read, for example, they asked me what a specific job title’s responsible for. I ask where the story is (it’s right in front of them). “Oh yeah!”
š¤¦š»āāļø
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Parent teacher conferences went well this month. Their grades for math, language arts and behavior (respectful, attentive) are all good. They’re happy to be in school and they’re enjoying the material they’re learning. They review it far more favorably than their first grade experience. I think it’s because their second grade teacher is very nice (not in a fakey sort of way) and they like that.
Life with Smol Acrobat
My aunt was right. Two kids is not just double the work, they are exponentially more work (and more frustrating) than one.
JB was tough. It took both of us to keep up with their entropy in motion, and we were much younger then. Then along comes Smol Acrobat and honestly, my worries that it’d be even harder were all justified.
This kid doesn’t eat well, doesn’t sleep well, clings to the wrong parent in all situations making it twice as hard to get through a day because you know they’re going to decide they need the parent who isn’t in charge.
And yet, sometimes parents just need to get the laundry done or attend a work meeting, and screens can feel like an effective distraction. For very young children, it’s probably still best to avoid screen time, Harrison emphasized. Instead, try to involve the child in house chores, she said.
JB was a very willing “helper” at very young ages but that was absolutely not a good way to keep them busy so I could take a meeting.
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Smol DOES have a few chores now that they love: feeding Sera and refilling the toilet paper in the bathroom. They even knew how to go fetch and deliver a roll to PiC when he asked for one. They’ll assist JB with the laundry sometimes. I’m enjoying the little wins. (Except when JB demands that the 2 year old have the same attention span as they have for their chores.)
Pupdate
Sera continues to be very stalkery this month. She starts to hover around noon, anxious for JB school pick up time. She used to go with me to pick up JB. Since they changed some rules so it’s too much of a hassle, we’ve switched to walking her together after we get back home from school.
Precious Moments
Will I ever get to use the toilet alone again? If it’s not one kid, it’s another, or the dog.
Smol opens the door: Mom.
Me: Smol. I’d like some privacy please.
Smol: yes. *Comes in, shuts door*
Me: wait, but you’re inside …
Smol: *hands me water bottle* eat.
Me: you want me to drink?
Smol: yah.
Me: *sigh* … Ok. *Pretends to drink*.
Smol: bye.
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I usually leave the kids to their own conflict management but sometimes BOTH of them act like 2 year olds.
JB grabs the blanket: Smol it’s MY turn.
Smol: ‘dactyl screech!
Me: From their POV, you just grabbed w/o asking. Give it back.
JB grumpily hands it back: Smol can I have a turn?
Smol: NO!
Me: Smol, it’s JB’s turn. When it’s their turn, what do you do?
Smol returns blanket.
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 $927.06 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
1. We donated 2 boxes of books to the library. That got the JKR series out of our house and cleared a whole (small) bookshelf for better books by better people. (People are complicated, yes, but JKR is unreservedly awful.)
3. I got ONE dinner this week where Smol Acrobat wasn’t a total pill! That’s more than the usual zero. PiC does breakfasts. They might be easier but I couldn’t say.
4. It was my turn on Murderbot All Systems Red again and every two sentences are a genuine delight. I wish I could write like this.
Year 3, Day 326: I rarely have the Sunday Scaries. What I do have is Sunday how am I starting a new week with my tank on completelyempty???
I had a “blocky” weekend. One activity in the morning followed by lunch and putting Smol down for a nap whereupon I crashed for a few hours. Saturday even included a surprise nap for me. But I’m still not starting the day recharged or rested because this damn cough has been wrecking any semblance of rest I could have gotten. Here’s hoping my doc has prescription cough meds I can get immediately.
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Just realized that I started this memory in last week’s post and didn’t have time to finish it: I’m feeling alllllll of my 40 years today. When I was a young teen in martial arts at the community center, we had a classmate. I think he was 40? He could have only been 30. It sort of all looked the same from the vantage point of a 15 year old. Anyway, Harry was older than us by a lot and the poor guy crackled when he tried to stretch out with us. We were limber and young and wow, we really took it for granted. I did, at least.
Now I’m snap-crackle-popping when I turn my head and maaaan. It feels like a little bit of the past coming back to haunt me.
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We got the prescription cough meds just before the pharmacy closed. š¤š¤
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!
There’s a lot of uncertainty this year. Without Twitter, my fundraising reach might be next to nothing. Many, if not all, donors came across the project from Twitter. Greg Doucette, who runs a massive campaign each year to feed kids feels the same way. When asked when he’ll start fundraising for this year’s Foodraiser, he replied:
I truly don’t want the demise of Twitter to be the end of this project too but we’ll have to see. I hope that y’all will share, and donate if you’re able, and help us keep this going.
This year’s goals:
Continue helping 1-2 families a month throughout year.
Raise $6000 to shop the Thanksgiving-adjacent and weekend sales to supply the community in bulk.
In March, we’ll start saving large boxes in March for the end of year giveaway. When school lets out and they wash all the left behind clothing, I’m driving over there with an empty car and loading it up with as many good coats and sweaters as we can carry home to ship out. They’re perfectly good clothes, free, and will only cost shipping!
I’ve shipped 30 lbs of clothing, toys and COVID tests to start us off. With three contributions, including our own first donation of the year, we’re at a total of $418.22.
If we can get to $700-800, we’ll be ready to start with our first family of the year! There’s a family of 9 that lives waaay out in the country and hasn’t received any help for a month. I’d like to get them well outfitted.
Year 3, Day 288: Gas is below $5/gallon. I checked our records and it went below $5.25 around Thanksgiving weekend. What a difference it makes to each fill up total! We’d been nudging $100 for a 3/4 tank at those prices. *shiver*
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We have a break between storms today and I’m trying to make the most of it. I ran out of steam yesterday. We’ve got two more loads of laundry, I’ve got some donations to ship to Allen Youth Center, and I’d like to get Sera a doggy sweater.
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Huzzah! Nicole and Maggie’s comment fixed my problem. Well, got me to fix it. When the block editor was first rolled out, we were able to pick which editor to use for new posts. Then they took that choice away. So I went into the settings but my toggle to turn off block editor was greyed out.
I checked again this week and the toggle is functional! I can write new posts in classic editor! š
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I noticed on Twitter that a player collapsed on the field during the Bills/Bengals game, and the NFL didn’t immediately, or very quickly after, cancel the game. I don’t follow football but this is the kind of stuff that floats up to my attention because it’s something my circles are interested in. It was both not at all surprising that the NFL didn’t have what it took (morality? souls?) to immediately cancel the game and apparently expected both teams to take the field again shortly after, without knowing if a fellow player was ok. I heard that the teams and the team reps told the NFL that the game wouldn’t go on (buzzfeed article). There’s something deeply wrong with parts of our society for that not to be an immediate decision, IMO. And football is such a dangerous game.
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.