By: Revanche

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (109)

July 4, 2022

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 101: 530 am wake up. Our sleep experiment has been a shambles since we’ve all (except PiC) caught JB’s virus (not COVID). We couldn’t, in good conscience, cut short Smol’s daytime naps when they are trying to recover from this bug. And really, I’m just barely holding on myself. I need those longer breaks.

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I’m surprised I hadn’t mentioned some of these things but in hindsight I shouldn’t be. Last week was full of managing sick children, PiC’s work overload (lots of people are going off on vacation in his department so he’s covering double digit projects), the soul punch that was SCOTUS overturning Roe v Wade. I got sick too, so I could barely think. This week’s post will catch up on the big important things.

I spent every day since June 15th stalking the sites for Smol’s vax. The earliest I could get a slot was for last Friday which we had to reschedule to this week because they were feverish on the day. The first replacement appointment we could get was a week out. Deepest of sighs. I had to get my booster when I was sick and it was absolutely terrible so we don’t want to put Smol through the same wringer.

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I’m still sick, but maybe a touch less, so I squeezed in 5 or 10 minutes of weeding which has been much needed to work through some of the psychic / emotional soul-clenching turmoil I’ve been holding deep inside over what’s happening in this country.

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Sera’s suddenly limping today. I dearly hope she just pulled a muscle or slept on it funny, but called the vet anyway to get an appointment in case it turns out to be more than that. Fingers crossed. (I always immediately think “cancer” when old dogs limp. Clearly, catastrophe brain.)

I also proved that I can indeed pick her up and carry her solo. She got stuck crossing from one bed to the next and I rescued her.

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For a tiny bit of joy, the updates on this emu dad thread is pretty wonderful.

This emu has taken over the duck coop and is now diligently siting on goose eggs. I just watched a chicken run in, burrow under him, lay an egg, and leave. pic.twitter.com/v6VVavCLIv

— Foxfeather Zenkova (@foxfeather) May 12, 2022

Year 3, Day 102: Always fun when I’m the one who cannot fall asleep. Pain was severe through the night so I couldn’t sleep. I finally caught a nap, essentially, between 3 am and 7 am.

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A huge thing this weekend: meeting our dogsitter in person. We’d been looking for a solid replacement dogsitter since before the pandemic with no luck. We need someone with experience with reactive dogs. We’ve done so much work with Sera and she’s come so far, I didn’t want to undo that with a bad or inexperienced sitter when we eventually do travel.

WindyCityGal came up with a deeply appreciated referral and we worked out a lot of the details: Sera’s needs, costs, how they manage their boarders. We finally got together for the meet and greet which was a Big Deal for us: a 4 hour round trip with both kids. It was also 100 degrees. 😰 The kids weathered it well, thankfully, and Sera got to meet friendly dogs in competent hands which was a first in a long time for all of us. I will still be worried until after a first (or a few) successful stays but this was a huge first step.

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Grateful that Sera’s limp seems to be gone today. We celebrated by taking an ill-advised (for me) walk and then groomed her in the backyard. She’s got the shortest coat of any dog I’ve ever had but she loves a good brushing.

Year 3, Day 103: I truly dislike the fact that rest, the hardest thing to come by most days, is the primary driver for getting better, or not getting better.

My 4 hour sleep yesterday pushed me down the slide of getting sicker so fast. Despite taking a short break from work to lay down, my collection of symptoms doubled. Even worse, letting Smol sleep lots during the daytime naps because they’re sick has them waking up at 4 and 430. 😭 I’ve got to get them back to shorter naps to TRY and extend the night sleep.

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I want to talk about some very concrete next steps now that Roe v. Wade is gone—where we can go on offense as well as defense in our fight for the right to an abortion. Here’s a quick thread:
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) June 29, 2022

Year 3, Day 104:

It’s probably because three of us are sick but this week has crept along like a glacier.

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Absolutely splendid news! /Sarcasm. I’m covering Smol solo two days a week now which is rough. Now we hear that PiC’s employer will soon make them go back three days a week, probably within a couple months. So I’ll get to manage Smol solo during the day, have to pick up JB from school mid afternoon, and try to get work done. Or PiC will start rushing to get home before school pick up most days which will cause a boatload of extra stress all around. All excellent options. Fan-freakin-tastic. This, after one of the executives in charge of these kinds of decisions, who seemed to be in touch with reality was out for three weeks with COVID, and then came back observing that the work site was “just too quiet”. You were just out for three weeks because you were sick. Is it possible it’s quiet because people are sick or trying not to get sick? Idiot.

Until we get Smol’s first shot tomorrow 🤞🤞 we won’t know when to attempt daycare. We’re currently scheduled for an October start. If we have to take Pfizer with the three doses across 3 weeks and 2 months, they won’t be done with the series until nearly the end of September so we have to keep the October request (no guarantees). If we can get Moderna, we’ll be done end of July / early August and we could request an earlier start date. Again, no guarantees. I’m still not happy about the idea of sending them to the germ factory when they’re not old enough to mask but we can’t wait that long. Folks who work with 2 year olds commented that even if they’re old enough to mask, they do not in any way do so effectively. It makes me wonder how folks in other countries teach their little ones to mask. I need to look this up.

Year 3, Day 105: I limited Smol’s naps to 3 daytime hours yesterday and was rewarded (I hope it was causation) with a 515 am wake up this morning instead of 430 am. If today’s naps are 2.5 hours, perhaps we can inch closer to a 6 am wake up? 🤞🤞🤞

Smol’s cough sounds super congested today, but JB’s cough has lingered all week too so I’m not surprised. They’re doing better than last week so we’re going to keep that first vaccine appointment today.

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I’m pleased that before they were meant to depart for JB’S camp drop-off, when Smol did their running away routine, this time they added a sign: sleep. Usually we have to chase them down, them cackling all the while, to put on socks and shoes and then they’re too tired to hang for the whole trip. This time they actually accurately communicated the running away was because they wanted to nap!

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