Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (172)
September 18, 2023
Year 4 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 4, Day 171: I am made of anxiety and overwhelm today. I have staffing issues at work. Not bad issues, but issues that required a great deal of my attention last week and need more this week for it to work out right. I also have our meeting with the principal who has my hackles up so high, I can’t stand the thought of being in the same room.
I was honest about my feelings and did my best to breathe through them. That helped a bit. But it was frustrating that every time I noticed the anxiety symptoms had ebbed, noticing them brought them back.
Year 4, Day 172: Terrible sleep after staying up late to clear the decks before this morning full of meetings. But I am still glad I stayed up, that advance work let me get through all the meetings and the scheduling of more meetings and the regular work today without an anvil weight on my chest.
Quite annoyed that because of the many distractions caused by the school failing to do what they should have done without our prompting, I missed sending out a package on time to our Lakota sponsee. I had spent two months putting it together ahead of time, so I can schedule it to go out later this week once I have a moment. Just very annoyed at how impossible it is to handle all the things, all the time.
We got another “whose child is this?” report from daycare. Smol Acrobat turns into a whiny blubbery mess at the drop of a hat, mornings, evenings, and weekends at home. They go from happpyyyyyy to CRYFACE in nanoseconds. But their teacher at daycare commented one morning, after PiC exasperatedly observed that it was yet another hellish morning getting them out the door: that’s weird, they never cry here.
WHAT.
I briefly forgot but pretty sure this was the same for JB, too. I think they were a triple handful at home and mostly just fine at school. I remember many instances where I had to heft JB like a log and take them to their room for a time out, and conversations with a former teacher friend whose kids were the same age who reassured me that the kids who are terrors at home are frequently totally fine at school.
Year 4, Day 173: The meeting happened today, finally. The anticipation was getting to me. While it changed very little, we got a bit of new information that we didn’t have before. Their former teacher covered most of what we needed, the principal confirmed that they wouldn’t allow this to drag on if it keeps up this year. She mentioned checking in with the kid multiple times to make sure they were staying away from JB. So that’s the last piece we needed: to see the school taking some accountability and not ignoring the whole thing as a NBD.
Year 4, Day 174: Sera 🐶 and I both had a rough night. Not sure if her restlessness was due to arthritis pain or being unable to settle until PiC stopped working but she paced the halls at half hour intervals until 2 am. I had painsomnia and when I did finally drop off, my sleep was fragmented and light. Could someone bottle sleep and sell it, please?
On the bright side: it’s been two whole weeks since my last sore throat!?
Year 4, Day 175: Friday food! Go figure, the meal I liked the least was the meal that Smol Acrobat actually ate on their own: Costco rotisserie chicken wrapped in cheesy tortillas with (and without the second time) Mexican rice. I’m positive the selling point was the tub of sour cream they were allowed to dip into. They were given one wrap and they ate it entirely on their own without needing me to coax them one mouthful at a time! 🎉 We also had bulgogi from the Costco fridge section with rice and salad one night. The bulgogi is great on top of a salad without rice too if you’re cutting back on starches. We had each of those meals twice, on alternating days.
Two comments on kids behaving differently at school as at home.
1. It’s safe to misbehave at home. This is WAY better than the alternative where kids act up at school and are terrified at home.
2. You can learn a lot from daycare and I think it’s sometimes helpful to use the same language that they’re getting at daycare. So like, what cleanup song do they use (Barney or something else?) How do they deal with sharing toys etc. I think we have an old post on this somewhere. But mirroring any of the good stuff from daycare can also help at home. If you or PIC ever get a chance to just observe and mentally take notes, you should. (I think I got a lot from lingering at pick-up when I was nursing, and then later just from chatting with the teachers or letting DC1 play a little bit longer at pick-up.)
1. You’re right, I keep forgetting about that safety aspect.
2. We do use daycare language, it does help! It’s really funny to see Smol telling us that they have to clean up first, and sing to themselves. The points of friction are the transitions, even with timed warnings like they do, it’s hard to get them to get on board.
I hesitate to be the umpteenth person to tell you about this, but did you see the article in WaPo about a hope for a chronic fatigue breakthrough? Published the 17th, author is Brian Vastag, I can give you a gift link if you don’t subscribe.
It’s nothing NOW or event SOON but it’s actual information and science.
You’re not! I haven’t seen it at all, if you have a gift link I would love to see it.
Here you go!
https://wapo.st/3EK5iJK
Thank yoU!!
I agree with the idea that the kid feels safe at home to be himself (and also be tired or grumpy or whatever), and knows he has to behave (just a little bit) at daycare. Hang in there, I just saw the pictures of my nieces and nephew from seven years ago and oh, how small they were. Time goes fast.