By: Revanche

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (102)

May 16, 2022

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 52: Smol’s waking up at 445 am was painful but I now have a theory that they’re waking up cold. I noticed their hands and feet were colder than usual and wrapping them up like a burrito and rocking them until they warmed up a little before putting them back to bed seemed to help. It took two tries but it bought us another hour of sleep to the much desired 630 point. Precious hour. PiC took over then and I got to rest just a little longer.

*****

All I wanted to do today was work on my little sewing project. Not work. Booo work. Alas. ’twas not my fate.

Smol granted me two hours of work time which I begrudgingly used wisely and then we were off to the toddler races. They searched the house for anyone else. No dice. Just you, me, and Sera makes three!

They snacked, which was really lunch, hoovering up all the leftovers I had intended to eat. By the time I was done pitching food into their voracious yet picky little maw, I was too tired to find food for myself. After cleanup, they made a strong bid for vacuuming time. They like to vacuum everyday. Or at least they like the sound of it. They went knocking books off shelves like a cat, and then we sat on the ground so they could practice buckling buckles, removing everything from my bag, emptying my travel pouches, and throwing everything out of my wallet. I put it all back in and they’d do it all over again. It gave me a couple ideas for creating more “discovery pouches” for their entertainment.

We picked up JB from school together and they seemed ready for a nap after but the joke was on us. They spent their entire nap period playing.

I crammed in another hour or two of work while they didn’t nap and then abandoned shop entirely for the chance to try and find them some warm pajamas at the local shops. No dice there either, unfortunately.

Thank goodness for crockpot leftovers from the weekend. The four of us dragged back in, exhausted and hungry, from our fruitless little venture and demolished huge servings of Kahlua pork and cabbage on rice. Two thumbs up. Even Smol ate with gusto. A rare treat, that.

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What a relief to get (almost) everyone into bed. PiC has to work late. I should but won’t because I’m too darn tuckered out.

Oh! And I’m 40 days out from the end of this Invisalign treatment so fingers triple crossed that this is the end of the regular treatment and that I can go to a retainer after this.

Year 3, Day 53: Another two middle of the night wake ups. This sleep regression and sleep deprivation is actual torture.

Ursula Vernon’s thread yesterday resonated to my core. It’s surreal to be simultaneously worrying about our parenting, how we have one ounce of patience between the two of us, and the nation spiraling into fascism. Trying to conserve enough energy to make through the day and having to fight white Christian supremacy taking away our bodily autonomy. Having to show up to work every freaking day while state governments try to destroy trans people. Taking care of my kids while supporting the people fighting for children’s rights (Young Center), immigration and civil legal services to survivors of violent crime (Mid-South Immigration Advocates, Inc Survivor’s Project), and abortion funds (NNAF).

We can’t not do every day life stuff. We also can’t not do activism stuff; the pace of the attacks on the vulnerable are relentless.

This story made me cry, as HONY often does, and I’m so glad there’s a way to help DiCo continue to do this incredibly important work. (In a non self pitying way, I doubt I’ll ever do anything that resonates this way for someone who needs it so I appreciate the opportunity to help other people doing the things.)

(1/12) “There wasn’t no plan really. I’m walking down the street with my best friend Koreh, and we see this house. And Koreh’s like: ‘Yo. Let’s break in.’ And I’m a stupid eighth grader—so I agreed. We climbed in a window and started grabbing whatever we could. The police were..” pic.twitter.com/EMEuHd7E0g

— Brandon Stanton (@humansofny) May 9, 2022

PiC was WFH today, and had no meetings for once, so we swapped Smol-minding an hour or two at a time. By 5 pm, even after two decent naps out of Smol, all my ball and socket joints felt like they were bone on bone and my other joints felt friable. So we sat on the ground and vacuumed. It’s a low energy activity.

*****

My canvas arrived in the mail finally so, one of these days when only 50% of me hurts, I can cut it out to make things! I have my sights on learning to put in zippers and to make zipper pouches in custom sizes for my own needs.

*****

We’re both fraaaaayed from the sleep deprivation.

Year 3, Day 54: We have received a gift: Smol slept for 11 hours. I woke up several times just certain that they were about to wake, but they didn’t. That made such a vast difference for both of us. Everything feels a little better even if everything else is still terrible. We get to feel human. My fingers which have been progressively fattening sausages are nearly to normal size overnight, my creaky rickety bones are half as bad as yesterday. I have a sense of humor, irritating little things didn’t get blown out of proportion. Sleep and/or continuous rest really is a miracle balm. Dare I ask for more nights of sleep? I dare!

*****

Cases are up enough that PiC’s work has reinstated a number of mask and distance rules. We’ve seen a continuous stream of positive case reports from school for weeks now so this isn’t a surprise. Many of my very cautious friends have finally been hit. We’re holding out as long as we can, hoping that Smol will have any kind of a reasonably effective vaccine before it gets us.

*****

JB had their dental appointment today and apparently it didn’t live up to expectations. Their favorite things are: getting teeth cleaned, good tasting toothpaste, and a toy/treat at the end. All the boxes were checked but it “felt a little funnier than usual”. That’s because they had a bit of plaque so we need to do a better job with brushing.

*****

I finished critical work early enough to think about dinner an hour out, instead of scrambling to throw something together long after it should have been made. I indulged in a big order of sushi and Japanese food because we’ve hit our last free month of Dashpass and I don’t want to start paying monthly fees. We used up the last of our gift credits on a big meal trying a new place. You’d think two udons, four gyoza, a chirashi bowl, and 3 big rolls would be more than enough for two adults and one kid (Smol eats so little their consumption is merely incidental when meal planning) but JB continues to eat enough for two kids so we nearly ran out!

I also indulged myself for 7 minutes of me time: measuring and cutting out fabric. I wanted to get more prep done so when I get a half hour or more to myself some day, I can just figure out the fiddly sewing bits. My hands didn’t appreciate the cutting though. Maybe it’s time to try a rotary cutter and mat instead of my 20 year old sewing scissors. Might help.

*****

Smol is silly: they keep running soap on their hands, or water from the dog’s bowl if we forgot to put it out of reach, and slapping it into their hair. You don’t need to keep “styling” your hair!

They also went down the slide by themselves for the first time today! Wheeee!

Year 3, Day 55: Back to the land of the trolls for us. Booooo. Smol woke up crying three times overnight. They simmered down after the first time but the second two times they needed consoling. We took turns but it was still so disruptive that by the pre-6 am wake up, we too needed consoling. Sigh.

*****

JB’s shooting up inches AGAIN. Why is their whole life a growth spurt? I cleared out their size 5 clothes and took out the bag of size 6 hand me downs. Picked out all the stuff I knew they wouldn’t like or wouldn’t wear and set that aside to pass along, left them a pile to pick through and fold. All their smaller sizes go into the newly emptied bag to be sent back into the ecosystem to live another life. We adore hand me downs here and do our best to keep the cycle going.

I’ve got to pack up another box of hand me downs for the Lakota Youth Allen Center, and then another box of toys for friend’s kids. Then another box plus a pile of clothing for some younger friends expecting their first. Lots and lots to do!

*****

The market keeps dropping, like a rock in some cases, and I’m vaguely curious about why. Also it seems wrong that the Fed keeps hiking interest rates to fight inflation while prices are actually sky high not because of inflation but because companies are price gouging and getting away with it. Ugh. I am more curious how long this downturn will last. We’ve never relied on our investments but this is the first downturn during which I’ve had steady income and can saving and investing steadily. All my years before in downturns were spent surviving. It also really helps NOT to have to worry about covering the mortgage for a rental sitting empty. I’m hoping to have a full year of investing regularly from Jan to Dec without interruptions. It’d be the first year I’ve managed that. Ever? IRA contributions don’t count.

Year 3, Day 56: Bless PiC for biting the bullet and going to grocery shop for us last night. It’s felt impossible to make it happen during the week and we ran out of time last weekend. Well, I suggested we go on Sunday but he didn’t like the idea of shopping on Mother’s Day. I was fine with it.

I’d decided yesterday that we were going to reenact sleep training protocols because this has gone on too long. We kept hoping it was just a phase but the haze of sleep deprivation was preventing everyone from thinking clearly and if that’s not a sign, I don’t know what is. They were in bed just after 7 and made it to 5 am with just one waking episode that we ignored and they weathered well. We’ve got to stay the course.

*****

Smol’s developed the “putting away” skill and I’m a Big Fan. They can now dump everything on the ground AND put it back in the container (sometimes) instead of (always) leaving it for me to clean.

I’m also a Big Fan of when they actually eat. They haven’t been eating or feeding themselves much this week until today, along with lack of sleep, and it’s been driving me up the wall. We had a lot more successful feeding and self feeding today, thank goodness. It’s amazing how not having the basic eating and sleeping thing down just keeps one’s sanity shaken and stirred.

We had a nice walk today and watched birds for a while. I’m tempted to get myself that new phone I’ve been needing that won’t randomly die on me repeatedly so I have enough storage to try the Merlin app for bird calls. It’d be fun to know what birds we’re watching in the neighborhood. But that desire doesn’t overcome the biggest barrier: I hate phone shopping because I just want what I already have plus an additional 200 GB of storage. I’m not quite a Luddite. It’s just that the idea of having to find and program a new phone of the right size and other specs is about as appealing as jeans shopping!

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