Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (119)
September 12, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 171: Monday holidays are weird. Nice, but weird. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not Sunday again, tomorrow will be Tuesday.
The weekend wasn’t meant to be a busy one but it turned out to be.
Flying high from my meal planning brain turning on, we invited our local food friends over for dinner on Saturday. That was fun and wiped me out just about completely. Sunday, PiC took JB out for an afternoon playdate that I missed because Smol Acrobat was sleeping so deeply. Just as well. I was still drained and I needed to work so that time was well spent at home huddled in my office.
Today, PiC had his morning run with his friends and then we went to see our long time friends in the afternoon which turned into a dinner with them. Almost like old times again. Also, I didn’t actually believe we’d be touched by the heat wave but it did come for us today, so thankfully, the friends we visited are the only ones we know with air conditioning. It wasn’t strategic! We didn’t know they had a/c until we were nearly there! But it was a lovely surprise.
We had to set up fans for everyone at bedtime, we were still feeling like we’d gone to bed in a convection oven.
Year 3, Day 172: WOW was daycare dropoff lousy. Poor Smol Acrobat had to be peeled off me. It was terrible. They calmed down after a few minutes, to a sort of stoic sitting and staring position, but UGH. That felt awful.
I went home and threw myself into work since it had to be done anyway.
Feeling slightly smug today on the food planning front. I forced myself to make some food decisions yesterday in time. Since today’s forecast was for extreme heat, and I’m so very tired, I knew not cooking would be the best plan. We got a Bentocart delivery of nice cold healthy salads (and Indian food for later this week). When we got home in the evening, we grabbed the salads and plates and sat down to a refreshing buffet of salads for dinner. It’s not cheap but sometimes it pays to pay for sanity and nourishment.
There are a lot of times I have to remind myself that it’s ok to spend, especially on food, because we work very hard and forcing ourselves/ myself to clock more time on my feet cooking when I’m already at the end of my capacity isn’t being frugal, it’s being cheap. It’s sacrificing my health for a bit of extra money. It’s hard to see the sense in paying for convenience regularly but it does make sense. We’re doing a good job of not wasting money, we’re saving a good amount even if daycare is now eating into that, and it’s ok to live a less painful life today than to save it all for an uncertain tomorrow.
Year 3, Day 173: PiC and Smol were environmentally aces today, they rode the bike into work. I was a bit of a nervous wreck. It’s only Smol’s third day in daycare and not dropping them off felt really weird. On the other hand, it meant 4.5 hours of uninterrupted worktime before JB got home and that’s a gift.
I’m still adjusting to the availability of work and quiet time. Instead of relishing, nay, wallowing, in the multiple CONSECUTIVE hours that I got to work undisturbed by small humans, my brain got stuck on the “what am I forgetting what am I forgetting” gear. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely cherish it but it’s still sitting awkwardly. This may be affected by still having too many tasks in a day to feel like there’s freedom to focus and concentrate, or it could be that change feels weird. Or both! There’s also an abundance of appointments breaking up the bliss as well: eye exams, dental cleanings, massages. There’s got to be a better way to distribute the appointments so they aren’t all bunched up.
I hope that next week my mood gears will shift into O GLORIOUS QUIET TIME.
On second thought, I’ve been able to plan and prep three dinners from scratch without the brain fog effect whomping me. That may be evidence that my brain has already stretched to take advantage of the time and mental unloading.
Year 3, Day 174: PiC did the daycare drop-off again today and his reports still made me sad. Smol Acrobat was clinging to him desperately when it came time to separate. Sigh. I really hope that this gets better soon.
*****
JB came home relating sad tales of spending their recess sitting on the bench alone because they didn’t have anyone to play with today. Their friends were playing with other kids and they “didn’t want to interrupt”. I chose solitude and isolation for myself at that age for a lot of reasons, and I know those reasons left scars much more than the solitude did. In my desire for them to have a better life than I did, I’d hoped that their social inclinations would buffer them against that and that they wouldn’t have to deal with bullies like I did either. I remind myself that so far this may just be a blip and they’re generally happy right now.
*****
I don’t know how true this is but it’s ADORABLE.
Just learned that baby elephants suck their trunks for comfort, just like baby humans suck their thumbs. Everyone look at this pic.twitter.com/VWXNQyfL1G
— Today Years Old (@todayyearsoldig) September 8, 2022
Year 3, Day 175: Wuff. It’s Smol Acrobat’s stay at home day. They’re happy to be home but the flip side is that is because they very much didn’t want to go to daycare and were mildly distressed by our curious questions about whether they might want to go. We played for a while, then PiC took them until naptime so I could work.
My piles of work have been more overwhelming than usual lately which doesn’t make sense considering I’ve had extra time to work this week. Anyway I especially wanted to be done earlier in the day because a dear friend was passing through and I very much wanted to spend a lot of time with her. PiC and I managed to split time, and share time with JB who wanted in on the socializing action, pretty well even as we juggled the ordering of dinner and picking up of dinner and putting Smol Acrobat through their bath, book, and bed routine. It’s clear they don’t get nearly as tired on at home days because they tried to negotiate for more books after the three long ones we read at bedtime. I had to defer, I was hoarse from so much reading aloud. And my body is ever so tired from so much socializing.
*****
I’m weighing whether it’s worth the effort of setting up a child account so that JB (7 years old) can have access to a Kindle account for reading books during travel on my Very Old Kindle. It’s just B/W without a backlight. The idea is to streamline the number of things we have to pack, a stack of books isn’t fun to lug around on planes.
Pro: I already have it. Con: It’s very old and maybe it’s not a great single-device solution for travel. We’re going to have to fly at some point and lots of airlines now skip the built in TV, instead letting you stream on your own devices. That means you have to have a device. I could let them use my old Pixel 2 but that still requires me to figure out the Kindle account with books that are age appropriate
I’m unenthused about the idea of Amazon tech, like the Fire tablet, but have struggled to come up with an easy for parents to monitor device that’s not terribly costly or connected to the Amazon environment.
Ideas, anyone?
