By: Revanche

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (94)

March 21, 2022

Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 2, Day 361: *The day numbering reflects when I started chronicling our lives in the pandemic, about a week or two into the shutdowns.

This two year “anniversary” of when our lives all turned upside and stayed upside down has been bonus difficulty levels with a yucky cherry on top. We’re all frustrated and angry because even with little bits of “normalcy” like in person school for JB, everything else remains so topsy turvy that the stressors outweigh any good exponentially.

I’m starting to feel some resentment that folks have routine childcare support and we don’t even though I care about them and want them to have it. Or envy of that resource at least. I’m most definitely resentful that companies are acting like things can go back to normal now and are scheduling in person travel and conferences as if we parents of under 5s don’t have ENTIRELY unprotected kids. I’m so angry and tired of feeling like every minute of every single day is a slog because we can never take a break. We can swap off childminding for an hour or two at a time, yes, but there are always chores to do and there is always household stuff to do and we are always fighting against a tsunami of Needs to carve out any time for ourselves. And then I feel like an absolute heel for complaining, even just in my head or here, because there are lots of people who are in far far far worse situations.

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Some of this is because things that were already hard are going to get even harder. PiC has to go back to work on site. He now has conferences that require him to travel. I have absolutely ZERO idea how we’re going to manage that.

Spring break and summer are fast approaching. We’ve looked at multiple scenarios and they’re mostly impossible to manage because it adds hours of commute in addition to our work and Smol Acrobat schedules. And no matter what we choose, daycare or some combination of camps and at home virtual stuff, it’s going to cost $2000 a month just for JB.

I broke down and cried today. I don’t know how much more I can give.

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Sera, Smol and I went for a very long, very slow walk down the hill and back again. Their little belly was baked warm by the sun, and the rest of them was a warm limp noodle wrapped in warm sweats, when we got back. We spent a bit more time in the yard before heading back to the reality of work and naps. I wouldn’t mind a few more naps in my week, truth be told.

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JB woke with a sore throat and came home with a runny nose. We’d tested them before taking them to school of course and so far they’re negative for COVID but the school also just reported another positive case so we’re being cautious. We have enough rapid tests to test them daily to be sure to set my suspicious mind at ease. I’m doing my best to avoid their germs, whatever they are but have my doubts I’ll dodge them completely.

My brain fog and fatigue was so bad yesterday that I forgot what a Roth IRA was and why I have one. That’s almost as bad as forgetting my own name.

Year 2, Day 362: We had a power outage in the middle of the night and that always does some weird things to our electricity. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep but oddly enough I slept so deeply that I next woke to JB whispering It’s time to get up!! after 7. It’s been months since JB was the one to wake us up, and not Smol. Grateful for the sleep that was almost restful but rightfully suspicious that we all slept so deeply because JB’s Crud got the rest of us. Smol is now sniffly and snotty (nasally not just attitude-y) and I’m achy in that sick sort of way and the headache moved in for keeps. I hope PiC’s immune system holds out.

I had a strong case of the shivers mid morning and had to turn on the Dyson for a bit of immediate direct heat. Smol was fascinated. They kept passing their hand across the front (warm) and across the back (not warm) and then through the middle (???) trying to figure out what was going on. It’s the first time they’ve been around it when it was on.

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Yesterday we tried the Good Eggs Moroccan chicken and couscous with a side of oven roasted chimichurri beef and veggies (potatoes fresh dug from our backyard!). It was pretty good but the portions were on the smaller side. Still, it’s enough when the only one child at the table eats like an adult, and the other one hardly eats at all.

I remain steadfast in my calming approach of not caring how much Smol eats so long as they cover the main food groups and it mostly helps though I still find them incredibly annoying when they simply MUST eat this bite off a fork but that bite must be hand fed and the next three bites they must feed themselves. That’s irritating enough but tonight’s development was screeching that they wanted all the food that everyone else was getting but if I offered that exact same food, they’d smash it or refuse it. However, if I held the fork with pasta 7 inches away from their face for inspection, and didn’t offer it so much as display it, then they’d politely sign “more” to ask for a bite. What kind of infuriatingly picky and bizarre creature is this??? I roll my eyes so hard. They’re lucky they’re still cute. Because this is nonsense! But it eventually gets us there and I get to eat my dinner when I worry less about how much they eat. I have to assume they’ll be better about all this when they start daycare and one must stuff one’s own face or go hungry. Peer pressure can be for the greater good too.

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Our second installment of property taxes is due and I sent the check today. I can almost hear the money whooshing out of my account. It sounds like the mail sending sound from AOL mail in the olden days.

Year 2, Day 363: Why are children so DAWDLY. We do the exact same thing every single morning and yet JB always finds some way to get distracted from getting ready to go to school. I don’t get it. FOCUS.

Focus like your younger sibling who is totally focused on fake coughing every time someone else coughs. It’s mildly hilarious.

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What a cold and gloomy day it is today! It matches the inside of my brain. It’s utterly clogged up with brain fog today, I can hardly think. I wonder what it’d be like to be able to just take time off and rest when I needed it. I don’t just mean from work but from life stuff.

My experience with my Invisalign is very representative of my attitude about things that are difficult. I don’t do well with taking a break and then going back to the torture. ie: I had a 6 week break from active Invisalign aligners during the day and only wore them at night. The ortho sent me home with another 100 days of treatment. I am a Grumpy Turtle, FAR grumpier about this that I was in any of the prior 44 weeks of treatment. Because I had a break and I LIKED it. Having to restart treatment is the pits.

It sucks to be back in dental pain most days again. It sucks to have to remember to put them back on after every meal. It sucks to have another variable on the schedule, and to have to plan meals around it because half the time I need soft food. I’m trying to decide if a countdown would help or annoy me more.

Year 2, Day 364: I started this day thinking it was Friday and ended it wishing it was Friday. It was not.

My teeth ached all day, the third day of this new aligner and it should have stopped by now but it hasn’t.

Add that pain to the flare up symptoms that are almost certainly prodded forward by the crud virus that the kids shared with me this week, oh so generously. It’s set off a minor sore throat, medium aches deep in my bones, and claw hands (fingers so swollen they’re stuck in a crooked position like the crone’s hand in Snow White). Not comfortable. Not the worst flare ever but bad enough. Far far worse is the intense brain fog that blankets my brain. It impedes my ability to think or reason or make sense of what I’m reading. Kind of a big deal when all of my job is reading things and making decisions about them or teaching someone to make logical decisions about them.

Out of desperation, I sipped some of PiC’s caffeinated soda, which I rarely ever drink, hoping it might help. Maybe it did? Maybe it just coincided with some lifting of the fog.

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My fate to have a phone call with Vanguard, much as I resisted it, was realized. That call actually answered a lot of questions I had about mistakes our tax preparer has made in the past several years. Relatively small ones in this case but ones that carry penalties and they add up when the mistakes are repeated. We won’t make them again after this point but…well, the past errors must be remedied. We didn’t always file an 8606 for every year’s IRA contribution (I checked, we’re required to) and that’s a bad thing. So I’m about halfway to understanding the silly string explosion level mess. We have to file six missing 8606 forms and I have no idea how to correct the three incorrect filed forms but we’ll get there.

Year 2, Day 365: I sweated out another day at work, doing all the things that I was supposed to do for everyone, feeling like a whole disgruntled Grumplestiltskin. We’re years away from being able to walk away. I’ve got to do something to turn my attitude around a little bit because this is no way to spend our next decade.

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Our tax preparer has not been very responsive in the last year and a half to our various needs which, frankly, I understand in general terms. I don’t know what’s going on in her personal life but I would imagine that only the worst anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers are truly unfazed / not traumatized by the past two years of COVID. I normally get our paperwork to her in February well ahead of the rush. This year was very late. I only just got everything together today, a mere month before the filing deadline, which makes me feel itchy-antsy. This delay was because of the issue with the Vanguard paperwork. I don’t want to joggle her elbow but do hope she can get our filings together in the next two weeks so we know what we owe and all that.

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Sweet Maui onion chips are the closest I’m going to get to Maui or the islands anytime soon. Crunchy.

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PiC had taken the lead on researching all the many options for activities for JB for Spring Break and Summer. It was too much extra work but also I was paralyzed by the very idea of adding anything to our schedules which is utterly antithetical to anything I want right now. But we’ve finally figured out some plans. They are trying swim lessons once a week with a new company ($$), a morning / outdoor only camp for Spring Break at a place our friends recommended ($$$), and a month of all-day camp for the first month of summer ($$$$). After that, it’s fuzzy. Maybe it’s for the best. My wallet is gasping for air.

We still don’t know when we will have an under-5 vaccine, when we will be able to start daycare for Smol, and how much impact PiC’s having to go to work in person will have on the rest of our schedules. I also have a sneaking suspicion that his manager is going to be a real problem about in person work. They are subtly acting in direct opposition to the company’s directive to be very flexible about schedules. This is infuriating on more than one level. And there’s nothing I can about it but fume quietly and hope that someone higher-up checks them on the nonsense sharply.

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I keep trying to find a way to set my feet on even ground, metaphorically. Every day is a fresh battle of shuffling (mental) feet. The more I struggle, the more I feel like everyone else has their shit together and it’s some personal failure that I keep missing the mark or failing to find my balance. Some friends assure me they too feel semi-permanently unsettled and at less than 100% after all this mess. It’s hard to see that when it looks like a lot of people (who mostly have older kids) able to do way more than we do with less signs of strain. I’m at least a little envious of those people who have support.

I don’t know what to think but it sure feels less than stellar.

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