By: Revanche

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (106)

June 13, 2022

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 80: 1045 pm, 330 am, 530 am wake ups. 😒 On the one hand, toddler just wants hugs. On the other hand, why can’t those hugs wait until actual daytime?Especially since I’m solo all day with them. 😵 I told PiC not to rush back since dun dun dunnnnn JB’s started summer camp today! (And he’s got to pick them up, it’s more on his way than not.)

He couldn’t be back in time to be help at the time I’d need a hand anyway, his meetings conflict. So it’s best for him to just do as much work as he can while he’s on site and he can run some errands on the way back. I did a VERY short Costco run with Smol the other day and was very uncomfortable with the number of unmasked people there. As a percentage, it was low, but the place was more crowded than I had hoped so we ran in and ran out with only exactly the things I remembered we needed.

So we vacuumed a lot, went for a walk (terrible walk, they wanted to be carried half the time and that’s not the point!), played in the garage a bit, played with a few toys, and had two snack times. They were terribly upset when I wouldn’t haul out the heaviest of the vacuum attachments. Life is full of disappointment, I know.

They are understanding a lot more words (today: ate more cheese when I told them to eat more cheese), but still aren’t speaking. They articulate lots of sounds and babble but no actual words. Our check up is this week so we can talk to the pediatrician about this. JB was slow to speak too, I’m really hoping Smol Acrobat won’t require speech therapy. It can be arranged but it’ll be so much harder with COVID.

*****

I’m revising our master packing list. It was a person-based list last year: a list of names next to a thing we should pack so we could check off a box. That was satisfying but didn’t mesh well what how I ultimately packed. Centering it around the bags we’re packing, listing everything that goes into each bag or suitcase, based on our schedule, makes more sense. If the contents of the bags are planned ahead of time, I’ll know the order to pack in and the order for moving things out for transportation.

It might be time for additional packing cubes. We’ve been squishing everyone’s clothes into a single set of five differently sized cubes but now we have a Baby Bear to account for alongside the three of us. It will also eventually be time to add a third suitcase but I’m resisting that for now.

Year 3, Day 81: 530 am wake up. Grateful they only cried once last night and not enough to require me to get up. Pretty wiped from a full day solo with Smol and work.

Today’s voting day and I’m happy we dropped off our ballots last week. It’s so nice not to have to worry about getting something important done at the last minute.

Mildly annoyed that after having called Michael’s twice to get a return label emailed to me, it still hasn’t arrived. They said 30 minutes. 18 hours later …. Still waiting….

*****

I can withstand almost all of Smol’s crying, tantrums, attempts to flee, and wrestling maneuvers they pull when trying to evade a diaper change. But they have discovered the one defensive move I can’t defeat: the octopus hug!

They cling with all limbs the way they absolutely never do when they just want to be carried. It’s irresistible and impossible to counter without being inhumane and peeling them off. Dangit!

*****

Is it still Tuesday?

I did so much work and even made a phone call. Smol napped ok, not great, not terrible. We’re tired but it feels like time has no meaning.

JB had SO MUCH fun yesterday at summer camp, they were raring to go again this morning. The longer days are, so far, wearing them out and helping us out at the same time. They were concerned about making friends, on Sunday, and as of today they’ve already named a friend, a best friend and a bestest friend. I remain intrigued by social children.

*****

I cracked open the new rotary cutter! Since I have so many straight lines to cut for my practice projects, I wanted to starting with this. A good pair of scissors will come next. I’m trying not to acquire gear too fast and find myself flopping on this hobby. They put a different strain on my wrists so I’ll need to be careful but I like how much easier it is to cut lines and measurements. My first test was cutting out mask filters from large sheets of filter fabric. The corners were a mess but the edges were mostly clean. The ragged bits were my inexperience showing.

Year 3, Day 82: 6 am wake up!! The toddler terrorist had mercy!!

Alas, it did nothing for my brain fog which hovered over my brain but I suspect this is a bit of blowback from the past two days of joint aches. Yesterday it felt like either we had a huge barometric pressure change or we’re about to have one because all the joints were hollerin’.

It was a struggle to juggle: JB’s morning routine and longer commute, Smol’s nap schedule, get my work up and running, starting the laundry, feeding the dog and cleaning up that pile of sand the kids managed to strew all over the floor. I slogged through but whew was it a march through brain mud.

On the other hand, this lack of focus was sort of a boon. There are a ton of things I haven’t gotten to, either because I didn’t know about it (Paypal didn’t notify me about a couple contributions to the Lakota funds) or because it’s slipped off my radar. Being distracted from everything gave me the chance to round up some of those scattered things.

*****

Smol’s added “Ap!” (as in apple) and “Ba!” (of the sheep variety) to their verbal repertoire. New to me: saying “Ba!” in response to seeing sheep on the page of a book! Interaction!

Smol games: reading and making animal sounds. Headbutting my stomach in a game of me faking alarmed noises and then cackling. Rocking in the recliner.

Year 3, Day 83: 445 am wakeup. No mercy.

The blinds arrived. PiC’s figuring out installation but we have a sneaking suspicion that this will do no good considering they’re often waking up before it’s light out. Ah well. If they help, they help. If not, we tried.

*****

A local elementary school put out a call for the community to come pick up books and clothes they were cleaning out. The clothes were all washed and the whole load is destined to be donated if people in the community don’t take it off their hands. We swung by, poorly prepared!, and packed up a big bag of cold weather gear for our Lakota families! I really needed that happy boost.

*****

Today was an IT day: My computer is being a grouch again. I finally got it working again but as a precaution, in case I ever have to reset the machine, I created a recovery drive for my work computer and a document with all the programs I’ll have to reload if a wipe happens. We need more USB drives to create recovery drives for our other computers but that’s a job for another day. I also created another full back up of our files on an external hard drive that’s not linked to the internet as a measure of back up redundancy in case our server-back up ever gets fried. It’s just a snapshot of all the files I have today but that’s better than nothing if my other back ups are somehow compromised.

*****

Big thanks to @CDNCoffeeMom for the Klean Kanteen recommendation. (I do not love the unnecessary Ks in their name.) I was worried that Smol Acrobat would be a right pain in the patoot about it but they love the toddler bottles and sippy lids. They even love carrying it by the little handle and carefully fold it back every time they get ready to drink. They are a tiny human!

Year 3, Day 84: 530 am wake up.

Sooooo the blackout blinds didn’t help Smol sleep . I suspected they wouldn’t, but rats.

*****

The irony of our having our longest commute (camp is farther away than school) now when gas is over $7 a gallon. 👎 We’ve been lucky enough to keep our driving to a bare minimum most of this time but we’ll have to fill up at painfully high prices more frequently this summer.

Related, on our commute to camp I noticed a new set of traffic lights in a low visibility area that really needed them. I’m so glad that they were installed, I’m just curious how that happened without having to suffer through a whole lot of bad accidents first.

We’re paying through the nose for camp itself. When I was pricing options, this was the top of the price range at $450 a week. I wondered if we should economize by piecing together a combination of part time activities for each day. That would have saved us about $100 a week, that’s no small beans. Ultimately I decided to pay the extra $400 a month

The first week has been a huge reminder why we were infinitely more sane when we had daycare. With the exception of special event days once a week, drop off and pick up times are up to us. We can get up to 12 hours of continuous care (not that we ever use that much but that range is really helpful). It means we can plot their day around our schedules instead of the other way around and that’s a huge burden shift. Money and scheduling aside, my top priorities were getting them outdoors and keeping them playing all day long (without needing us to constantly monitor, accompany, or assist.) This program does all that. Tons of outdoor and active play time.

The best part? They LOVE it. They are having so much fun they wish it was open on weekends. Us, too, kiddo XD.

Thinking about JB’s spikes in attitude, it never occurred to me that tiredness might be part of the problem but this comment reminded me to take that into consideration. Thanks Alice/Nicole&Maggie!

:: How is your summer starting off?

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