Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (78)
November 29, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 253: JB and I have been spending bits of time together which we haven’t done since the pandemic started, it feels like. I’ve been helping them with their hair and reading to them some nights. I think my therapist was at least partially right that a major source of frustration and conflict we’ve been having lately has been related to their lack of connection to me which I was strongly feeling the lack of as well. These very little things that we’re doing together somehow seems to take the edge off our interactions that were frustrating me so much earlier.
Related, I think: They called me Mommy today for the first time in two years.
*****
A crowd of relatives dropped by for a visit and they brought GERMS with them. UGHHHH. I was immediately infected and so very very frustrated by this. We work so hard to protect Smol and me from germs right now, when we’re on a razor’s edge of being burnt out, and then this. It’s so inconsiderate. We’re immensely lucky to have help in this moment and I’m so mad that that’s squandered because people couldn’t have some consideration for my health. We were all masked of course but that and airflow still wasn’t enough to save me with more than one person running around sick and my not knowing that.
I’m very frustrated.
Year 2, Day 254: Still sick. Still frustrated.
I have a mega ton of work today and no energy with which to do it. So instead of getting it done early so I can enjoy Thanksgiving Thursday off with my family, I have to do the bare minimum today and conserve my energy to try to survive until Thursday. Awesome.
Still, my priorities are at least a little better in that I’m annoyed about the work but I’ve grown to a place where it doesn’t eat away at me (consciously, I still get the work nightmares at times) like it once would have. That’s a big change for me and I’m glad for the shift.
*****
Sometimes Smol is crawling across the floor and stops to do downward dog pose and I don’t know why they do it but it tickles me every single time.
I’m also tickled by their sudden flopping around thing they’re doing. It’s silly and funny.
Year 2, Day 255: We’re normally done with our grocery shopping by now but the disruptions to our pre Thanksgiving routine continued into today and I finally had to break away from work to just go and shop. It was another set of frustration but ultimately the best plan given everything that was going on.
I did put in some solid work time so that I could be set up to skip a day of work tomorrow and be ready to deal with stuff again on Friday at least part of the day no matter how little I want to go back to work. Definitely don’t wanna.
After three almost uninterrupted hours of work, I emerged from my cocoon to play with the kids a bit before we finally wrangled some leftovers for dinner. Our meal times have been all over the place lately and I just wasn’t hungry from still feeling sick anyway so I just grazed.
Year 2, Day 256: As we slowly started our day, PiC mentioned that an old friend is back in town. Not a particularly close friend but one that goes back several years. Normally it’d be fun to have an impromptu meet up with them but the timing overlaps with my person’s time here which has been well and truly disrupted beyond all reason so I firmly put the kibosh on this new development. I like them but no. I may not have set plans for the day but what I do have is a firm conviction that I am absolutely not open to making it work with anyone else for any reason, period. I’m done. While he doesn’t typically argue when I feel this strongly about it, and rightfully so, I normally would have guilted myself into trying to make it happen for his sake. They’re not here that often and I like him getting to see his people when possible. And especially after our being isolated for so long, it’s harder on him than it is on me. He wants to see people. I only want to see very specific people and anyone outside that list is exhausting right now.
So not this time. My person’s time is my priority and that’s that.
*****
We planned to start cooking at 130 but really started at 12. I’m glad because it worked out to a super early midday dinner at 4 pm when Smol was asleep. We were able to enjoy our hard earned sit-down meal at a leisurely pace without the squawking demands of a fussy eater. After they woke up, they got to have their own sit-down with our leftovers, and of course they squeaked and squawked and did their thing but it didn’t matter because we all had happy full bellies and had an hour to rest.
We still have entirely too many leftovers, of course, but not of turkey this year.
We decided to try something new and it’s a good thing we did because we ran out of fridge and freezer space four days ago. I’m not sure where we’d have fit a turkey.
*****
Oh also yesterday, JB and I had a few long conversations about the origin of this holiday. We told them that it actually involves a whole lot less goodwill towards the First Nations people than the stories say and a whole lot more bad behavior on the part of the colonists. For the sake of being age appropriate, we didn’t get into the genocide part yet, we can do that later.
They were appalled that their teacher didn’t tell them the whole truth. I explained that there are probably a lot of reasons for the half “truth” but that they also shouldn’t march in there and call the teacher a liar over it. (Not in first grade at least…) Twitter found this whole thing very amusing.
Year 2, Day 257: Definitely had to work but didn’t wanna today. I did the bare minimum and skipped out before 5 (barely). This has been a most unsatisfying week compared to what I had envisioned but I was super grateful to have my person here all this time. The kids adore them utterly and it’s been a real balm for the soul to have someone who loves the kids and who I love be here with us.
We even took a couple hours (across two days) to watch Shang-Chi. Note: I will watch anything with Michelle Yeoh, Gina Torres, or Ming Na in it. But I truly cannot remember when we adults last had a movie night. Years, plural, minimum. On the second day, JB excused themselves on the grounds that live action movies sometimes scare them and they believe it’s real when watching. We told them they’re never obliged to watch anything they don’t want to, but having a screaming tantrum about it (like they kind of did on the first day) is completely inappropriate. Just leave the room!! So they did. They did a solo art activity session for 1.5 hours and enjoyed themselves heartily. Isn’t that so much better than tormenting yourself or having a tantrum?
The first day behavior is clearly a mimicry of a cousin whose behavior I cannot stand. We have to “deprogram” JB from those absorbed behaviors every flipping time we see them and it’s such a pain. More on this later.
So grateful for the weekend!!
