Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (124)
October 17, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 206: Hello, hindsight. We meet again. Taking my COVID booster when I was mildly sick and rundown from sleep deprivation was a terrible idea. Not only that, I failed to take the precaution of staggering my and PiC’s appointments like I did our initial vaccines. So I got much worse over the weekend, and even PiC and JB got taken down by the mutant virus. Not COVID, thankfully, we tested everyone twice.
Sooooo everyone stayed home today. JB because they got sick last so are probably still very contagious, and we don’t want to spread their germs. Smol’s usually off on Mondays. We had tried arranging a day of care but it didn’t actually work out since they were sick within 72 hours of today. Me because I got little sleep and my body aches are phenomenal. PiC is still symptomatic but well enough to care for the kids so I can get some rest.
I’d gotten enough done on Friday to only have minimal important work to do today and I dispatched that, and the rehemming of JB’s uniform, quickly and crawled back to bed.
PiC covered the child minding for a few hours so I could be a lump in bed until a work emergency flared up. Thankfully I’d rested enough to take over and whip up some pantry dinner. My large batch of poorly composed garlic ginger rice from a while back was liberated from the freezer and turned into a decent rice porridge to go with the chicken adobo I’d cooked with some excellent foresight on Saturday before things all went kersplat.
Year 3, Day 207: We weren’t sure if the kids were ready to go back to school and daycare yet, they’re as full of energy as they are mucus so we thought we’d give it a try. Since they were feeling so conflicted about whether they were ready, but wanted very much to go, JB was told to let their teacher know if they were feeling too bad to focus on their schoolwork.
Just when I was wrapping up the most critical bulk of my work, I got the call. Sigh. They almost made it to lunch time. I fetched them home and gave them strict instructions to get through their after school routine, rest as needed, to let me get my rest time as well. I didn’t feel much better for the rest, alas, but PiC came home and took the kids out for a while to give me more quiet time. It helped a little but we still needed to put in an order for take out because neither of us were up to cooking.
Bonus: sushi! I love sushi and always feel the need to have a “good enough” excuse to get it. This was good enough!
Drawback: Smol was being an utter pill about eating their dinner, preferring to smash their California roll repeatedly rather than eating it. I’ve mostly made my peace with how little they eat when they eat, but when they won’t have anything at all, we all pay the price together later. I try to avoid that. Besides, they’re still sick, and need some kind of sustenance. But cajoling them to eat just the bare minimum is ever so frustrating and I was both grouchy at them and because my own dinner had grown cold by the time they consumed enough calories to support life. By the way, the bare minimum was one inch of teriyaki chicken and one round of the CA roll. Not a whole roll, just ONE SLICE. Dinnertime is my problem since PiC does all the daycare dropoff/pickup and commute, and daily baths. Not that you needed reassurance that things were more fair than not in the parenting department.
Year 3, Day 208: Sleep! For the first time in five nights, I got more than 3 hours of sleep! I love sleep. I miss it.
My cold has moved from my throat to my head – coughing and congestion are the order of the day so it’s another working from bed to “rest” day. The kids being out of the house for a few hours or more each day has been vital to my getting my work done AND getting rest. Thank goodness for daycare.
October’s got a whole lot going on. Two carnivals, a pumpkin decorating contest, an at-home scavenger hunt to put together. We may only go to one of the carnivals, the one that JB most wants to go to, but I’ve got to get some ideas for the scavenger hunt. Maybe: make a dozen mini ghosts from tissue paper and hiding them for a prize packet of stickers at the end when the kids find enough of them? Though I hate to make things that will just be rubbish. Usually I tend to prefer consumables but hiding Halloween cupcakes is a terrible idea.
Oh hey! My post-booster swollen lymph node is much else swollen today! Yay.
This performance of We Need A Little Christmas (featuring @StephanieJBlock in her full Elphaba attire and @KerryButlerNyc on rollerskates) is pure musical theatre madness and I love it. pic.twitter.com/0LQUxAuQLJ
— fintothewoods (@finianhackett) January 10, 2022
Year 3, Day 209: I still feel pretty terrible today so I wrapped myself in a blanket and mandated a couple hours of rest again. The one productive thing I did during that time was grumpily “contributing” to Lifetouch’s school picture monopoly. If they didn’t have a ~$20 option, I wouldn’t order any at all. We get dozens of great pictures of the kids on our phones in the course of regular life. I just ordered 20 free prints of the three of them from Walgreens thanks to the Tmobile Tuesdays promo codes. Since the total for the Basic package came to $20, we get a set of school pictures again this year.
Aside 1: JB asked for new backgrounds this year. I advised them to take a look at how much that cost. “$40??? $60????”
“Yep.” And that was the end of that.
Aside 2: I always wondered why my own parents wasted their money on the bigger packages when I was younger. I was most decidedly NOT photogenic and we never had enough people who cared to want my pictures to give them all away. What a waste.
*****
I’ve been appreciating all the tributes to Angela Lansbury on Twitter, but one recollection led me to look up this story: How Angela Lansbury Saved Her Daughter From Charles Manson’s Cult.
I had a sobering moment thinking about how this would translate in today’s world. I’ve thought about those stories of girls being harassed, assaulted, or bullied. How teens can be so brutal, and now they have the ability to video those moments of humiliation and pain and they share them widely without regard for their classmates. It’s appalling. It reminds me how little we can protect our kids from a pretty shitty outside world.
*****
Reading ESB’s update, this line stopped my eyeballs in their tracks: “Most parents we know hire professional consultants to help them and their kids with their applications.” I’m sorry, WHAT? Most?? That feels like way too much work to put into college applications but is this the atmosphere now? Jeepers.
*****
My mental trajectory today:
1. So tired, need rest.
2. Resting and bored. So bored. Want to do things. But resting. Pondering entrepreneurship, no never.
3. Take JB to self defense. Feel miserable. Want to rest. Will shopping help me feel better since I can’t go home yet? No. I already bought the things we needed last week. Pondering entrepreneurship with the right partner, sure that could be a thing.
Very up and down!
Year 3, Day 210: Wuff. PiC was up all night working, and my head cold is fully committed, so this morning’s routine was extra painful for the adults. Smol was feeling their octaves, screech screech, and JB got themselves ready for picture day, thank goodness one of the kids is self sufficient enough to need just the bare minimum from us for now.
I took the first shift with Smol, winding down slowly and painfully like the Tik Tok Man from the Wizard of Oz, as I ran out of energy. By the time their nap started, I was more than ready for a nap too. Alas, that was the start of my work shift so I settled into that for a couple hours and then sent myself to bed to recoup what energy I could before JB came home from school and Smol was up.
There was a BOGO 50% off cold and cough supplies at Walgreens and we needed to restock: a peds cold and cough syrup for JB, a jar of Vicks ($1 coupon), 42 tabs of the generic max strength Mucinex, a forehead thermometer that Done By Forty recommended. All told, it came to $68, and since I broke it up across two purchases, I should be eligible for $10 Walgreens cash. We weren’t totally out of the Mucinex yet but I hate paying full price for the stuff so figured I should stock up now.
Thankfully, PiC figured out dinner tonight: frozen pizza, salad, and quick pasta.
Most people do not hire consultants for college. Most people who go to college end up going to the college closest (or one of the closest) to where they live!
I hope you’re feeling better!
Love the Angela Lansbury clip and the Spock meme. I needed to hear Spock tell me that today. (Though in fairness it was like 3 different 5 minute things, including accidentally smashing a tiny $9 container of clotted cream that I had been really looking forward to. Not as important as the previous two 5 minute episodes, but definitely in straw that broke the camel’s back territory.)
That’s good to know, I feel like it’s a whole WORLD out there with college stuff and I am trying to find that middle ground of prepping.
I keep reminding myself of this Spock meme, especially as we careen into the holidays!
Sorry for the late comment! I read this post when you shared it a couple of weeks ago, but haven’t had time to comment until now. (Thank you so much for sharing my post, BTW. ❤️)
It’s troubling that the university application process has become monetized and that parents now feel a new pressure to “keep up” with everyone else.
Where we live, parents have the means to pay for such services. There’s also an overarching mindset that they never want their kids to miss out or be at a disadvantage (whether it’s real or perceived).
I don’t think that this is the case everywhere or even in most communities. I’m quite sure this is just an anomaly in our high income neighbourhood. (I’m sure all our neighbours thing we’re weirdos. We’re one of the few families here who don’t drive fancy cars or shop regularly at Whole Foods!)
You’re welcome!
I’m glad you think it’s just an anomaly 🙂 I’m not willing to sign up for that level of participation in this process.