Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (48)
May 3, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 43: Today was my relative’s funeral. I took most of the day to attend services virtually and just be. After the services were over, I took all the kids out for a walk. We spent 15 minutes in the backyard. JB tested out a hand me down tricycle that was gifted to Smol Acrobat far far far too early. Smol lay in their stroller contemplating belly buttons and sunbeams. I had a late lunch alone. Followed that up with a scoop of ice cream when the kids were all otherwise distracted. I did some work in the quiet.
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Last night was my second night in a row on Smol Acrobat watch. By the afternoon, I was tired down to my marrow. How the heck did I do this for four months in a row?? I was moving around purely automatically by 3 pm, doing what needed to be done, but none of it was enjoyable.
I cooked miso salmon and green beans for dinner, and decided to eat my feelings with a batch of Annie’s cinnamon rolls which are chock full of everything my body hasn’t been a fan of. Too bad, my brain needed it. No guilt, though, I refuse to let food become a guilt thing. I just try to maintain balance. JB thumbs upped the salmon over the green beans. They thumbs upped the cinnamon rolls over the salmon. Shocker, I know.
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PiC was on duty with Smol tonight, thankfully.
Year 2, Day 44: I slept so hard last night that I never heard a peep out of Smol. Our overnight notes showed there was PLENTY of peeping… squalling, really. My tired is still bone deep but the several solid hours helped the sleep debt. I really can’t wait for us to crack the code on overnight sleep because this is slowly killing us.
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We caught a three hour nap for Smol this morning and I can’t stress how much of a difference that makes. I got a slew of work done without being physically drained, PiC caught a two hour nap to make up for the bad night, JB and I played with Smol before their Spanish lesson. The rest of the day wasn’t so lucky nap-wise but those hours were precious.
I struggled with Smol for over an hour trying to get them to nap. They kept dozing off and then popping fully awake the second they were set down. They kept smiling at me and trying to engage. I finally gave up and left them in there for a few minutes while I laid down to rest myself. Hunching over a baby for an hour trying to convince them to sleep SUCKS. I rested my leg across the top of the bassinet to “keep them company”. Smol was adequately amused, reaching up to grab at my foot with their hands and failing that, touching their foot to mine in a foot-five.
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I defrosted scallops for dinner and JB was super excited to see the “mochi”. Oops. Mochi of the sea? My experimental non-recipe attempt to turn the fond into a pan sauce was absolutely terrible though.
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Year 2, Day 45: I had a terrible night of about three hours of sleep. I fully planned to take a nap buuuut Smol managed to get two decent naps and that was an almost helpful gift. I really wish I knew how to get more of those naps to happen. I wish I knew how to parlay those naps into an actual night of sleep. Many of them. HOW.
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I tried velveting chicken for the first time today. I don’t think I did it correctly. Must try again.
Year 2, Day 46: My brain feels like a blank slate today. Totalllyyyy blank. We had an even rougher night than usual. It was my night off, but at 3 am, the pitchy screeches were scraping layers off my brain and I suspected PiC hadn’t gotten any sleep at all. I took over for the 4-6:30 part of the night .. morning .. something …
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Does anyone remember going to the mall or shopping centers to hang out as a teen or young teen? I was thinking about growing up in the suburbs and how there wasn’t much to do. Oddly we spent more time in parks hanging out when we were older teens and college aged. Duh, parks!
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I’ve officially completed 25% of my first round of ortho work. The initial plan was for 20 aligner sets over 40 weeks. It’s very possible to need additional time beyond but I’m doing my best to do my part in hopes this is it. 5 trays and ten weeks down. 🤞🏼
Thank goodness for these health benefits. I would never have budgeted for this if insurance hadn’t covered a large portion of it. We upgraded to the premium coverage this year and that gave us $2500 towards my ortho bill. My ortho gave me a pretty big referral credit and also a cash discount since I planned to pay the remaining balance in one go. Our limited FSA (dental and vision only) covered my portion with pretax money. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again. Without that much covered, I probably wouldn’t have been willing to stretch to make this happen, this year or any other year. I’m both grateful we can get this done and mad that everyone can’t have this kind of coverage.
Year 2, Day 47: What’s that feeling when you discover you’ve been trying really hard to do something “healthy” but you were going about it all wrong?
I used to think my teeth weren’t as white as they should be because they were stained. So I kept brushing them vigorously. Then I added brushing after meals because of my orthodontic work, and we’re home anyway so it’s easy to add that.
Well guess who’s been thinning their enamel which cannot be replaced because of overzealous brushing?? SIGGHHHHHH.
I am making some changes to how I brush and adding fluoride mouthwash but some damage is done and I feel like a fool.
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Someday road trips may be a thing again and I find myself wanting a non-gas only minivan more and more. I don’t need a new car. Our very old cars are in reasonably good shape still. But we are now one person too big a family to be comfortable in our current sedans in a road trip scenario with luggage and say, a kid’s bike or something like that for fun. And if we were to replace a car, we wouldn’t want it to be a gas only car. EV would be a bit of a dream stretch except for road trips, we’d have to plot a very specific sort of route to ensure we could charge up and that makes me nervous. It certainly wouldn’t be any good for a cross country road trip if we ever made that happen. A hybrid seems to be the happy medium between the dream and the reality for a wider range of possible use.
Honestly my absolute ideal would be a family and dog friendly train trek across the country but this country won’t ever get its act together enough to have a robust public transit option and even if it did, it wouldn’t be that accessible.
We’re limping along with a single car (a 2001 prius, with cassette tape player!!); we’re trying to nurse it along until EVs become the kind of car we could buy used. We live in the city, with on-street parking instead of a driveway or garage, so having an old, beat-up car means that we don’t have to fret about a new shiny car getting damaged.
One of the things we’ve discovered by having a single car in not-great shape is that it’s very easy to rent a car for a long trip. Like, really easy. And it’s actually a lot of fun to drive a different car for a little while — it’s very clean, has amazing new (to us) features: seat warmers! Remote ignition! And we can rent the size car that we actually need for that trip (small car for 1-2 people, van for lots of us). At any rate, that’s a big part of why we think a used EV would be our next car, because it would really be for the day-to-day stuff, and the longer trips would be rentals anyway.
You make me so glad my youngest is 21. I treasure every night of sleep I get because your blog reminds me of what a gift this is!
Your arrangement seems really practical! We’re in a strange position. We do have access to rental companies but it frequently requires an extra day on either side of the rental for us to pick up and return. I wish it were just a bit more convenient because your set up sounds great.
Please get some extra winks for me!
I love love love my model Y and would probably just get another one. Maybe with no budget I’d get a model X just because of the doors, but that’s a bulkier vehicle than I really want so probably not. I will say (at least for Teslas) EV range is not much of an issue. There’s a wide enough supercharger network that you can absolutely drive cross country and charging doesn’t typically take an outrageously long time (obviously still longer than getting gas though). For instance if I wanted to drive from LA to the bay area I’d need to stop once for probably 30-40 minutes (depending on the specific charger and how busy it is). So I’d stop, plug it in, get a meal and walk around a little and be on my way- and I’d stop for gas and to get a meal and walk around all the times I made that trip in a gas/hybrid car so it’s not really different. (maybe more an issue if you’re getting kids in and out of carseats; maybe not if you’d have to stop for diapers/bathroom and snacks anyway.) And there’s almost no maintenance on a pure EV which is also amazing.
I saw that going from the LA to Bay Area was reasonably doable when some friends did it, but I did wonder if we could do a trek that crossed through more rural places like Montana. How long have you had your Model Y?
I’ve had the Y about 7 months and drove a model 3 for a bit over a year before that- similar range-wise. For superchargers the continental US is pretty solid, at least along major highways (https://www.tesla.com/supercharger%20). In more remote areas you might need to use other charger networks, hotel chargers or RV hookups (the adapter that comes with the car can generally fully recharge it from an RV hookup overnight). Rivian is supposedly going to build a supercharger-equivalent network in the next few years that will focus on more remote areas- trailheads, campgrounds, etc- which would be nice too.
My kid refused to sleep alone (or well) for a long time. The first many weeks he absolutely refused to sleep unless his face was right next to my naked breast (sorry if tmi). I couldn’t turn over in my bed at night, I was basically stuck to that one position until the next time he would wake up to nurse. It was horrible. I certainly tried to put him a couple of inches away from me after he had fallen asleep, but he would just wake up and start wailing. That he should sleep in his own bed was out of the question.
For naps, he either had to be pushed in his pram to sleep (stop and he would wake up) or he had to sleep on top of me. Occasionally he would fall asleep on someone elses chest. We would usually get one good nap a day (1,5 hours), but I had to perform all kinds of rocking and singing and voodoo spells to link his sleep cycles, and it didn’t always work. So exhausting and stressful.
Honestly, it just slowly got better with time. I got mastitis when he was 6 weeks old (yey!) and I had to cover my breasts with clothing at night so they hopefully wouldn’t get cold and clogged again. Mercifully, he at least accepted that. Over time he would be ok if I moved a little bit away from him in the bed at night. Less rocking/voodoo became necessary to link his sleep cycles during the day over time (but he still only had one good nap, with some rare exceptions). Eventually he would sleep in a non moving pram for half an hour, it just happened. We started solids and that helped him sleep longer stretches at night. We started putting him to bed earlier and I would get up after he had fallen asleep. The first weeks he woke up many times and I had to run back to try and get him to fall back asleep again (I was the only one who could get him to sleep at night), but then he got used to it (though regressions certainly happened) and I could go to bed later than him, and so I only co-slept with him part of the night.
One night, after a two hour fight to get him to fall asleep again during the night (that I had lost) I was absolutely fed up and his dad had to take over. Kiddo was fine with that at that point. One night we decided that his dad should try and put him to bed, and that was fine too.
Eventually it became clear that while before I or his dad would be necessary to help him fall back asleep, now I had just become a disturbance, he would wake up earlier and earlier and want to play or be super upset he couldn’t fall asleep again. I moved out of the room as an experiment. He started sleeping longer stretches again, and was able to fall back asleep on his own, though it often took a while. (We did try to go back in and help him, but it only made it worse, so at that point it seems he needed to learn to do it on his own). That also became easier and easier for him over time. And one day he was just suddenly able/willing to sleep for for a long time in his pram, just in time for daycare. Now he’s 18 months and sleeps well in his own room at night, and well in his pram during the day (most of the time). But who knows how it’ll be 6 months from now, these things can certainly change!
I’m not sure if this was comforting or horrible to read. At least you are certainly not alone with sleep struggles! Honestly, while the above may sound like a horror story to many, it could be so much worse. Some babies don’t link their sleep cycles until they’re a year old, so only 45 minute stretches. Some only fall and stay asleep if they’re constantly not just held, but carried. He didn’t have colic or much trouble with stomach pains either. Someone I know has a kid who at 4 years old still doesn’t sleep through the night. Her older one was completely different so parental input only counts for so much. If we have another one, I wouldn’t at all feel like an expert at what to do.If we have another baby, I would not at all feel like an expert at what to do, Would just have to figure it out along the way like we did with our son (but at least I know some hacks to make co-sleeping easier for instance). Babies are so different when it comes to sleep.
Maria, thank you so much for the comment. Honestly, that was incredibly helpful to read and remember that it isn’t forever …
Nighttime was brutal with our firstborn. She was a slow nurser, so I’d spend 30 minutes trying to keep her awake & focused on breastfeeding. Then about an hour walking (not just rocking, not swaying in place, she DEMANDED forward motion!) around & around & around the apartment to get her fully asleep. Ease her into the cradle and slip back into bed to spend 30 minutes lying awake while coaxing my chronic insomnia to please oh please let me sleep already. I’d usually get 45-60 minutes of actual sleep – and then she’d wake up hungry to start the process all over again. My husband valiantly took turns changing diapers & walking laps, but as the insomniac boob lady I could never get a full break and I was completely wrecked for months.
But
it didn’t last forever. Over time we learned the exact combination of swaddling blankets & techniques to wrap her tightly enough Houdini himself couldn’t escape; that helped get her deeply asleep a tiny bit faster & kept her asleep longer. Over time she started developing a single 4 hour stretch of solid sleep in the middle of the night. Then finally she was sleeping pretty consistently through the night by 1 year old. Now at age 11 it’s just a funny story she enjoys listening to us retell. My 2nd born has needed the absolute minimum amount of sleep in the normal range since she was a newborn, but she was a very calm & easygoing baby so it was pretty manageable. If those two had been combined like Smol…. *shudder* I don’t know how you & PiC are surviving but major kudos to you both for continuing to slog along. I promise that someday this will just be a family story to tease them about!
Thanks so much for sharing <3