August 29, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 157: Monday. Ugh. I’m still trying to recover from the weekend. Our Saturday afternoon plan turned into an 8 hour affair late into the night. The kids had a ton of fun, and the adults were completely wiped out by the many extra hours on our feet.
We retreated, sweaty and tired, and regrouped at our place. We all had late drinks and dinner in our pajamas. I even tried a couple sips of White Claw. That went straight to my head, but it was tasty. Sunday I worked and rested, napped even, but it wasn’t enough. JB kept me up quite late because they were crying about Seamus so I had to soothe them until they could sleep. End result: starting the week like a couple sacks of bricks are tied to my ankles. What l a bad week for this. In addition to the usual school/work/Smol Acrobat/swim lesson juggle, we have an eye appointment for JB today, a big daycare orientation tomorrow, PiC has a dentist appointment and late Friday meetings, and I’m shorthanded at work. Whoof. I needed to be at what passes for my best. But we’ll do what we can.
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At breakfast, Smol offered me their banana: “biii?” (bite) and then wiped down the peel, my knee, and their foot with a napkin. Very kind, thank you for the help.
Unfortunately our usual morning yardwork had to be postponed because I’m still broken. This was a great disappointment to Smol. Fortunately PiC was able to stick around and spell me with Smol for a little while before he had to go.
We were wrong, btw, the car battery wasn’t fine. It had to be replaced today. We expected it would be $240 but there was some prorating that brought it down to $120. Yay/boo.
After they got to observe a battery replacement, I wrangled an overtired Smol down for an early nap. They were absolutely losing it because they didn’t want PiC to leave. Or just because. It’s hard to tell, really.
I’m grateful they took a solid nap. I desperately needed those hours of sitting down even if I was still working. I’d considered moving to the sofa for a more comfortable sit but it’s too hard to set up a useful work station there now. Our new sofa fits our small space and does the job but I really don’t enjoy it. A shame that our $200 Craigslist sofa was more my cup of tea.
Year 3, Day 158: We did some really satisfying weeding but it was too much, too soon. My muscles were quite angry at me. Then my whole body quit on me. Extreme fatigue took over. You know that feeling when you’re about to be overwhelmed by sleep and can’t hold it off? That plus a feeling of my whole body being smothered under 100 lbs of weight is what the extreme fatigue is like. It is awful. I had to call it quits on Smol-care earlier than usual and set up my invalid workstation on the bed for the day. This sucks.
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Smol’s development continues to entertain. It’s funny to see someone so little be so dialed into certain things like: we weed together in the mornings, the snacks live here so push the stool over to reach them, the dog gets these treats.
I’m enjoying our together time even when they pick a patch of weeds for us to tackle together. I do all the work and they carry the results to the compost.
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A local car dealership that PiC looked at recently is asking for a $1000 (unclear if refundable) deposit to be waitlisted for a new car for 12 months. !!!!
We need a lot more details and confirmation in writing that it’s refundable to even maybe consider this but that seems like a big risk to take for too long a wait. I don’t want to have to fight with them to get my $1000 back if they never turn up a car that meets our needs.
Have you ever had to leave a deposit to be waitlisted for a car without getting an actual order / car assigned with a VIN?
*****
This Avatar / Bronte mashup makes me laugh.
Year 3, Day 159: What a day. The school has started minimum days again, elevating Wednesdays to be neck and neck with Mondays for the worst/hardest day of the week. My body is still struggling today, though a little less since I didn’t foolishly do yardwork again. I did take Smol Acrobat for a walk from which I had to carry them home, kicking and screaming, though and that didn’t do me any favors.
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Most days I like my mundane life but I was struck today with a feeling like I’m not doing one damn thing that matters. Some of the malaise may be related to the number of meltdowns that Smol had today but I bet it’s more related to feeling like I’ve wasted my precious time. First, my computer scare this morning which directly led to me spending more than one precious hour setting up my backup computer and fighting with a few key functions not functioning. Then, a friend asked me to help them make a decision and it turned out to be a waste of time because they’d already had their mind made up and they failed to provide key information upfront. Then, least consequentially but just adding to the pile of “ugh waste” feeling, some people changed their minds about stuff at work and that meant everything we’d done on that project will have to be thrown out.
It’ll pass. I just hate when what little routine remains to me is overturned and even more hate when hard work is wasted. It feels like I poured myself out and it was all futile. Not cool
Also! The many many meltdowns and toddler whining wasn’t my favorite. Was JB this whiny and melty? I don’t remember if I ever had to work this hard for them to just get through a day. I could go through the archives to find out but the answer to that question isn’t going to make today any better.
Year 3, Day 160: I hope we always have a Zoom option for back to school nights. We were able to fit in swim lesson, making dinner, JB’s homework which required two calls to two aunties, and the back to school night all by 710 pm.
It’s been a hell of a day and I absolutely forgot to finish a couple important things at work but in the end, we got it done. Fewer days like this, though, please.
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We need a wider variety of delicious crunchy snacks for the kids that are actually healthy and low-mess (easy for Smol in particular to self feed in the car) but I’m starting to doubt that’s possible.
JB will eat crunchy veggies but Smol won’t. They just chew them up and dribble them back out. Gross. They only want nuts, raisins, and carbs. Maybe they’ll eat dried fruit… ? We’ll try that and see.
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Year 3, Day 161: Boy, my psyche is working overtime. This time it was all about being left, lost, late at night on a vaguely familiar college campus to find my way out to my best friend who could easily have driven up to pick us up but chose to park miles away. Not the most deep metaphor for feeling tired, and abandoned by people I trust. Whoof.
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Longest. Day. Ever.
I hate when Fridays act like Mondays.
Smol Acrobat was a hysterical mess to and from school dropoff, they didn’t want to walk a single step. They begged to be carried but I can’t carry them all that way, and you can’t carry them partway. Once you cave, it’s a whole thing of “don’t put me down!!!” Not that it’s better than the constant “pick me up!!!” demands.
My stomach has disagreed with every single food choice I’ve made all week and ramped it up this morning to stabbing pains just at the thought of food. Rude.
After we got through all that mess, I got bad scheduling news from one staff member and then a huge project of “bad news please fix it” from another. The latter is actually a huge problem. But I’m going to mentally reclassify it as a non urgent issue because it’s been broken so long.
We made it to mid-afternoon, when PiC doublebooked himself for a meeting and a tire repair. Whoops. He went ahead with the tire repair, taking the call while he was out, and then was trapped there for the next five hours. His appointment was at 3 and they didn’t get to our car until 8 pm. Thankfully the kids were in great moods and played well the whole time but wow what a day. WHAT a DAY.
August 22, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 150: PiC got JB a slot in the local swim classes for the fall! It was a highly competitive registration process. 6 am on a Monday morning is just inhumane. I loaded him up with all the step by step instructions the night before and he got up predawn to make it happen. We lucked out, he had everything fully prepared and there were more slots at the lower level. JB has been going to a private swim program that costs $60 PER LESSON (vs $60/8 lessons) 💀 and they refreshed lost skills and added new skills the instruction these past two months has been so hit and miss. They started placing kids in JB’s higher level classes who hadn’t mastered the very basic level’s essential skills, they were passing JB on skills they most definitely hadn’t acquired yet. I’m glad JB is back in the water like a fish (temperament wise) but they need consistent instruction that doesn’t just pass them on skills. I am not paying an arm and a leg for the appearance of ability!
This makes me wonder what their problem is: poor instructor training? A mistaken belief parents just want to see progress whether or not it’s real? Bad communication across the program?
I also did some initial research into some weekday self defense programs for JB.
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Someone tweeted this Budget Bytes recipe (ONE POT LEMON PEPPER CHICKEN WITH ORZO) which sounded better than the dinner from the freezer we’d planned. I throughly borked it since I had neither lemon pepper, orzo, or parsley. I used ground lemon peel with garlic powder (Penzey’s!) and ditalini. Nothing quite worked as it would have if I’d stuck to the recipe’s main ingredients. By the time I was done, I was pretty sure the chicken noodle soup I’d renamed it was inedible. I set it aside on the stove to cool and walked away. Oddly enough though, after it had soaked up an unreasonable amount of broth, it wasn’t half bad. Not good, but not bad.
(Thread) Here is a list of extremely easy ways to improve your day that everyone should know about:
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August 15, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 143: This bit resonated so strongly with me from: Laziness Does Not Exist; But unseen barriers do
“She was busy with therapy and switching medications, and all the side effects that entails. Sometimes, she was not able to leave the house or sit still in a classroom for hours. She didn’t dare tell her other professors that this was why she was missing classes and late, sometimes, on assignments; they’d think she was using her illness as an excuse. But she trusted me to understand.
And I did. And I was so, so angry that this student was made to feel responsible for her symptoms. She was balancing a full course load, a part-time job, and ongoing, serious mental health treatment. And she was capable of intuiting her needs and communicating them with others. She was a fucking badass, not a lazy fuck. I told her so.”
I hesitated to disclose my physical illness to any bosses for exactly the same reason: fear I’d be seen as my illness, fear I’d only be judged by my worst days. I’d seen this happen over and over for other people making mistakes, why wouldn’t it happen when I had a mysterious health condition that didn’t even yet have a name?
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This Monday is especially hard. Two kids home with me, PiC working on site, my work carrying on as usual, a school Zoom conference in the evening at dinnertime.
My stress levels are peaking: school starting soon, we’re making an attempt to register JB for much in demand swim classes at the local pool (cross your fingers for us, please?), Smol Acrobat’s daycare to start in less than a month has me entirely frazzled.
I’m worrying about disease, of course (all of which Smol will bring home to me), and Smol’s experience. I really hope they are open to being social with the teachers and kids at daycare without us. I hope they don’t have separation anxiety every dropoff like some of the kids I remember when dropping off JB. It broke my heart when those little toddlers were released by their parents who had to go. The sobbing little bundles would crawl up on my lap, any lap would do at that point, for comfort. JB, across the yard playing while I sat there patting little Toddler’s back, would occasionally notice I was still there and wave but otherwise they were happily busy. I hope for an experience closer to JB’s for Smol.
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This frog made me smile but I looked at it too long and now I’m mildly creeped out and I do not know why:
Year 3, Day 144: My subconscious is really flipping after seeing my family. I’ve had family related dreams for a solid week; last night it was my big cousin telling me he’d buy my books at the bookstore and desperately trying to pick a second book in time, only to fail and find out I’d missed dozens of text messages from friends expecting me at a funeral I was now late for. I have no idea how to unpack this latest.
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This article struck so close to home: Bad science misled millions with chronic fatigue syndrome. Here’s how we fought back
I’ve been fighting with CFS for ten years and didn’t really know what it was until last year. Without knowing about the PACE study, I replicated their theories in my life, assuming I just needed to build up my stamina by forcing myself to get out and exercise regardless of how I felt. The results were generally consistent: when I didn’t feel up to it, it made me feel worse. When I did feel up to it, I came back more tired. That elusive second wind I remembered from my teens after a good run never occurred. This past summer it finally struck me that maybe it’s a one way street between my fitness and my health. Meaning: even if I am fit in the sense of being capable of the walking, and have stamina, that still doesn’t help when my health is damaged. On a poor health day, I gasp for breath with every step and on an ok health day, I can walk without too much effort. My stamina is always impacted by my health and not the other way around. I always blamed myself for being out of shape but it makes more sense that it’s simply not how I can function with CFS.
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Related: it’s kind of a bummer that last week and this week have been every bit as hard, and more, as I was braced for.
I was hoping to be proven wrong. But I’m absolutely dragging after 7 days of JB home during the workday plus Smol Acrobat at full steam and lots of days where PiC wasn’t around for Smol support.
JB goes back to school tomorrow. I hope that’s going to be a net gain for me in terms of energy.
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This is so cool!
Year 3, Day 145: Yuck. I felt like garbage this afternoon. I don’t know what’s up with my electrolytes but the more water I drank, the worse I felt. I snacked a lot too, for the salt, but it didn’t do the trick. The full body weakness and nausea segued into a pounding headache by dinnertime. Bodies. So unreasonable.
OTOH, at dinner, Smol ate a whole slice of pizza with most of the toppings for the first time! Normally they reject everything but the crust so I’d feel terrible about their lack of nutrition but today was a relatively decent food day. They had oatmeal, granola and raisins for breakfast, yogurt for snack, fried rice for lunch, and pizza and grapes for dinner with minimal food waste and minimal coaxing. It’s generally the food waste that gets my goat, and the exasperating rapid fire rejections of any and all foods on offer, just eat something! I’m partly worried they’ll wake up unbelievably early hungry but also just generally annoyed by the experiment. There was less of both today.
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This tweet led me down an interesting path of rain garden and conservation links. Not that I have time for it right now but it’s good to know.
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It’s striking and scary for my version of ME/CFS to only be considered mild. I’ve definitely lost more than 50% of my function and that’s only MILD.
Year 3, Day 146: As much as I enjoy the ritual of back to school shopping, this article wasn’t us this year. At least not for JB. It helps of course that only one of ours is school age right now. Our spending will probably look different in five years. The majority of school shopping we did was for our Lakota folks and for local schools: Back-to-school shopping takes ‘a major financial toll’ amid high inflation. Here’s how to save on supplies for the fall
Our own school runs a huge fundraiser annually and pays for all the school supplies out of that pot, so the teachers ask parents to supply a small list of optional items. This year that list is: tissues, paper towels, wipes and prize items. That approach does seem more sensible. They can shop the sales and buy in bulk all at once.
We did buy JB a lunchbag this year, and they’re reusing a backpack that they were gifted two years ago.
On the other hand, having saved on the school supplies (minus the $150-200 contribution we’ll make the school’s various fundraisers), we’re spending on my old car next. The battery is shot(?), one tire has a slow leak, and we need a battery backup thing. We borrowed a friend’s trickle charger and used it to confirm our alternator isn’t bad. I’ve been on the hunt for a jump starter for a few months. I wonder if they might also have a trickle charge function because that’s handy at home. I think we can have EITHER a trickle charger OR a jump starter, though. I suppose we do the former for home and the latter for the road?
Update: the car battery is not shot. Yay! The trickle charger finally revived the battery enough to be usable again.
Year 3, Day 147: Sera made a local friend! She got to play with a puppy that was just adopted by our neighbors. It was great. Also I got puppy kisses so life felt pretty good.
While it was a happy morning treat, we’d also gotten out the door really early for school drop off. It was an hour of socializing by the time we detached from the multiple people we encountered after dropping JB off. That’s about 45 minutes too much for me mentally and physically first thing in the morning. The next two hours of Smol time were the longest hours of my life. Excruciating. I had to stay conscious and upright, and get them into their crib for their one nap of the day so that I could then cram in a full day of work into their unconscious period. Phew. Struggle.
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I’ve been muddling around in my feelings a LOT lately.
The first week of school is done as of today annnnnd we also just got our first COVID exposure notice. It’s been three days with no pooled testing and no mask mandate. Who’s surprised? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Other things pushing my anxiety buttons deet-doot-deet: Smol’s upcoming daycare start and related separation anxiety. We have to put together daycare approved supplies: toothbrush, sunscreen (nut free which, for some reason, includes coconut even though I have argued for four years that coconuts aren’t actually nuts), boots, hat, blanket, water bottle … what else? I don’t want to wait until the week before and scramble to get their things together.
Holiday planning because I already have to be working on ALL THAT right now and it’s hugely complicated.
I need to make some packing cubes and need to buy super long zippers. This isn’t actually stressful. I simply lack the decision making power by the time I get to this end of the list to actually do the thing.
August 8, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 136: 6:20 am, drat. The sleep is creeping in the wrong direction again.
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My return to work was a depressing crash landing into stressing about too much to do. It was less about the work and more about the volume of everything.
I have to: do all my work in a limited amount of time; mind Smol Acrobat most of the day before and after their ONE nap; help JB (who still has another several days home before school starts) with any tech arrangements needed for their tutoring refresher courses that I set up; follow up on the Lakota giving orders I placed.
I think the stress is compounded by my (near pathological) need to have everything tidied up and right and tight on my FIRST DAY back. That may be related to my need to depart on time when we travel, as well, which sets off no end of anxiety. I keep twisting myself up into knots trying to meet totally unreasonable standards. Huh. There’s a theme.
PiC and I are trying something new: not pushing ourselves to be all caught up on work in an unreasonable amount of time.
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I leaned into the inevitable inability to work after Smol’s nap, and took the kids out for a walk to the playground nearby. Sadly for every inch of my body, the nearest one was closed. I should have steered us home to the backyard but gave into the “try to be a better parent” impulse to give JB a proper play on a big play structure and urged Sera and Smol into this ill considered adventure. It was a huge pain getting Smol to cooperate and get there in the first place. I had regrets almost immediately. But after much coaxing and pushing and prodding, they conquered the promised playground. They also had fun playing in the dirt so I remind myself we didn’t have to go that far for entertainment.
***** (more…)
August 1, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 129: 730 am. Totally reasonable!
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Unfortunately, the wait list for private swim lessons at our local Y is closed. They don’t have enough instructors, and already have 120 families on their list. Sigh. I imagine that national staffing shortages will be a problem for a long time considering how many people have been ill with or died of COVID.
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PiC started the hunt for our family car again just to get a feel for the landscape. It’s bad. Waitlists are 12-18 months for new vehicles. Used cars are priced as high as new. Since when do we pay $55k before tax for a used vehicle?? We last paid an average of $10k for each car and we keep them for a decade or more.
Year 3, Day 130: Sadness. Our pediatrician is moving his practice out of town. We liked him a lot, he started his practice here when JB was born so he’s seen them, and now Smol Acrobat, since they were newborns. I hate changes like this.
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My maternal grandmother passed away. I had a lot of feelings. We haven’t spoken in years. Not even at my mom’s funeral since I didn’t even want that side of the family there after the week of shenanigans that my grandfather and aunts engaged in. They harassed me for a solid week and at the funeral itself.
On the one hand, I feel a familiar tug of “you SHOULD feel like you should go to the funeral.” But I don’t want to go. I don’t feel like I should go in spite of my feelings, either. What sense of duty I have doesn’t apply to them. I haven’t had a relationship with them for 20 years, what contact I DID have in those 20 years wasn’t good, and I don’t have respects to give, any desire to give the living any comfort over her passing, or desire to tolerate their inevitable sniping and gossip.
On the other hand, I’m still mad at them for being such selfish grasping people and I remember how much I wished they’d be family that I could be close to. I couldn’t, they’re just not capable of being considerate or kind. They’re mean and petty. I remember when I was 13, one aunt deliberately picked a fight with me when I put her shoes in our closet. On opening the door, I commented, man, our closet smells weird! She asked if I was saying her shoes smelled to which I replied, of course not! It’s our closet, I just noticed it smelled funny BEFORE I put your shoes in. It was like that before you got here. But she continued to pick pick pick trying to force me to admit I’d offended her somehow. It was so strange but very thematic.
It’s better to protect my time with the people who actually value us but I remember that when they first emigrated here, I had such high hopes of coming into more family to love. Alas.
Year 3, Day 131:
JB and I are having sobering conversations about unhoused people in the city and it’s hard to explain how much our government is failing its citizens. We shouldn’t have so many people in such terrible circumstances. We do the best we can to help but it’s hardly a drop in the bucket.
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We finally cleared out a space for Smol’s crib in the guest room. They would have been moved out ages ago but this is their main play room and I’ve lacked the motivation and energy to tackle that chore until now. I hope this is the thing that turns around their morning wakings.
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Parahawking looks so cool.
Year 3, Day 132:
TIL I have to throw out the old or excess candy behind everyone’s backs, including PiC’s. He usually doesn’t even eat candy! Why was he standing there picking through the bucket as if he was going to save these old things from doom? I hate adding to landfill but don’t know what to do with unwanted candy we’re gifted for the kids.
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Smol Acrobat is BIG into sharing food now. They insist on feeding us almost as much as we feed them, they want to split breads that I give them in half to share.
They are now consistently identifying eyes on other people. By poking them with their finger while enunciating “eyeeeee”.
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I watched the Wakanda Forever trailer and was sad all over again that Chadwick Boseman is gone.
Year 3, Day 133: Moving Smol Acrobat out of our room made such a difference! They’re still waking early but so far, since they don’t see us, they’re settling back down for another round of R&R. Dragging my feet on something that takes a huge amount of energy (clearing space for their crib) was just feeding the cycle of exhaustion.
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So many chores today. I unpacked and organized a huge pile of hand me downs, incorporating it into the existing supply of next size up hand, sorted out smaller things and excess things for donation and moved Smol’s clothes to their closet. All bedrooms here are now occupied and that feels really weird! I had a dream last night about discovering a new empty bedroom (with the unfortunate addition of my leech brother), maybe it was inspired by this sense of being crowded.
My office is still 75% intolerable but I’ve been steadily moving paper and trash out to their respective bins, which makes it feel like progress is happening.
My head is chock full of sewing projects, and I’m not ready to figure out the logistics or commit to the prep work. I’ll let them simmer for a bit longer. Today, I tackled a simpler project: a small hand me down photo album. It’s the kind that holds 100 (ish) 4×6 photos stacked in a book.
The insides were pristine but the cover was this nasty tapestry fabric with leather that will flake and fall apart when it ages. So I pulled out my scissors, Kraft glue, and special Hello Kitty fabric I’d indulgently bought a while back and covered the entire cover with fabric. It’s nothing I’d give as a real gift but JB will get a kick out of it. Maybe they can use it to store pictures or stickers. Now that I’ve said that… I wasn’t going to cover the second one but feel almost obligated to since they have a LOT of stickers and probably would love to have a sticker book. We’ll see. I’ll let them have this first and go from there.
July 25, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 122: 6 am. BLERGH.
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Massively overdid it over the weekend and paying a steep price for it today. Absolutely everything aches and my fingers were swollen sausages all day.
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I’m finding it deeply conflicting having a relationship with the conservatives in my family. Hell, it’s difficult just talking to them without holding them personally responsible for their political views that shore up the horrors of gun violence, the horrors of SCOTUS wiping our rights away, the horrors of violence against LGBTQA people, children and adults. Every time we have a conversation, I’m fighting with myself not to lose my head and start screaming. It’s complicated. It’s not how I want to torch our relationship. I only have so much family that’s cared about me and mine. But I’m not wrong about their politics and how harmful they are, either.
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Another family of my Very Cautious circle are COVID positive/exposed and it’s infuriating all over again that despite all our precautions, it’s gotten more of us. I hate how society and our government have failed us. I hate that we have to rapid test constantly if we want to see people and still can’t feel relaxed about being vaxxed and masked and air purified and outdoors.
Year 3, Day 123: 630 am. PiC is my morning parent saint, he let me get a solid extra hour and that made such a difference in my physical functioning. I still couldn’t make it to 8 pm without intense pain and fatigue but I did have a few decent hours.
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This Kyoto band made me wonder how widespread swing dancing was back in the day. Was it an international thing or primarily the US? I should look that up when I have time. Someday.
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I am facing a hard truth: I am an avaricious bag hoarder and it might be a problem. I love functional totes, crossbody, messenger bags of all shapes and sizes. Sometimes backpacks too. We were at Sports Basement the other day and I found myself examining the Fjallraven bags. I thought they were hip packs at first, and my conscious thought was: maybe that’s better for dog walking than my current little crossbody that gets tangled in my coat sometimes. But my subconscious was just: bag! bag! bag! How do I curb my inner bag monster?
One minor consolation, pondering “maybe I can make one?” gave me a quick jolt to the creative brain area at least.
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Everything IS terrible.
Year 3, Day 124: 6:50 am.
Smol Acrobat is really full of themselves right now. They are running at a higher gear of mischief and “talking” more. They’re forming audible yeses and nos, and mixing up all their baby signs. It feels like a (temporary) net loss in total communication success as they test a shift to more verbal communication.
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I watched a Love it or List it episode, which I usually don’t do because the whole fakery of reality TV is unappealing, and it was actually an interesting one because it addressed accessibility issues. One of the couple is in a wheelchair and they need their current or future home to be more accessible. They kept mentioning “universal design” which I need to look up, but it was striking how many homes are so deeply inaccessible. I see this a lot in the Bay Area as well. What would it be like to have homes designed to be accessible or accessible ready from the start?
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Some days I feel like doing nothing but staring into the void. Surely my expression matches that of these owls.
Year 3, Day 125: 7 am.
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My aunt called me to ask about the kids and then asked me about whether I’d speak to my bio-dad if I saw him. Um. Why would I see him? It was a very weird conversation. I wonder if she knows something is going on or if she was just testing the waters of our relationship. Even that’s a weird reason. It wouldn’t be out of character coming from anyone else but she’s not generally nosy that way. She’s usually pretty respectful of my boundaries and that’s why we stay in touch. It was a very unsettling conversation and I didn’t like it. Not so coincidentally, with that on my mind, naturally when I read this tweet I thought: BIODAD.
Also, I always feel like there’s another shoe waiting to drop, with him (and my brother who lives with him). The first shoe was my cutting him off and some of his halfhearted attempts to manipulate me through other people. The second is, I’m assuming, what happens when he finally gets sick and needs care. For damn sure my brother won’t provide it. So at that point, I’m going to have to deal with something to do with them and not knowing what I’ll be facing bothers me. It’s absolutely not an option to take him/them in. We don’t have the room but even if we did, I refuse to let him/them into my home near my children. They cannot be trusted. I tell myself not to borrow tomorrow’s troubles, it’s just hard not to want to prepare myself for whatever bad stuff will come down the pike.
Year 3, Day 126: 8 am. They are so unpredictable. Earlier in the week they had a late bedtime and were tired, still woke up in the 6 o’clock range. Same conditions last night? Late sleep in. Weird.
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My throat has been hurting all week and I’ve had a persistent dry cough. I’ve tested myself, all of us actually, every day this week and keep concluding it’s not COVID or a cold, because everyone else remains well (thank goodness). This must be my CFS acting up and that may be because I’m staying up entirely too late. This needs to stop. Ouch.
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This is mesmerizing. I wonder what AOL did wrong starting in the year 2000 to lose their foothold as an early tech company with massive loads of users. We used them starting around 1996, roughly, and I can’t remember when we stopped using them for dial up. (Remember that eeee eeee eeee eeee squeal of the modem?)
July 18, 2022
Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 3, Day 115: 610 am. We had some sleep progress over the weekend but it’s going in the wrong direction now. 🤞😬
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Monday Morning Musing: why am I such a sucker for Hello Kitty stuff?
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Smol thinks it’s HILARIOUS to pretend to fall off a step. Sure, yuk it up, it’s funny ’til you actually DO fall off.
We had a looooong stretch of time before their nap today. I think we’re on day 5 of shifting them to one nap a day and this was the first day of those that I was solo with them. We did ALL THE THINGS. Backyard time, digging weeds time, trying on water wings, bouncing the basketball, bouncy ball, and soccer ball. Even tried on a baseball glove but they were iffy about that one.
They’ve been “talking” up a storm since the weekend, forming near words and even managed “mum/mom”. They were mostly talking to PiC but today they patted me very hard from chest to head establishing I also get to be mum mum mum mom mom mom. We also suddenly have a more clear “no” (but for nose, not negative) and “yep/yip” for yes. It’s a little disconcerting to have a handful of words when they didn’t have any a few days ago but also a relief. The unfortunate bit that goes with these three words is that they now mostly refuse to sign. Instead they insist that we go through intricate charades to figure out what they want. CHILDREN.
Year 3, Day 116: 4:45 am. BAH HUMBUG. I thought we were starting to make progress after three post 6 am wake ups in a row. That seemed so promising. This was a big step backwards as were the micro catnaps they kept taking in the car when running short errands instead of waiting to get home for a real longer nap. They finally took a whopper of a nap mid afternoon. 🤞 for tonight’s sleep.
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My pain has been out of control the past few days and therefore unbearable at night. At best I can get 3-4 hours out of 8 hours of laying down because it just hurts too much to fall asleep or stay asleep.
I’m need pain relief to sleep but I can only take so much heat and nothing else does much. I just have to wait it out.
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I asked Twitter and now I’m asking you: Is (was) there anything about your job you think is fun?
Year 3, Day 117: So many wake ups. I lost count after five. I was so tired. I am so tired. I’m so tired today that all I want is to curl up and cry for several hours and hibernate for week.
Alas. It is not meant to be. It’s so frustrating that when I’m most tired is when my pain will skyrocket. Can I please take them one at a time please??
Can Smol please start sleeping in a decent routine please please please??
(So far, the answer is no.)
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As the end of our summer nears, JB is increasingly stricken with grief that they’re heading back to school soon. We made a tactical error sending them to a summer camp that was Too Much Fun. They never want the fun to stop and they’ve been trying to negotiate more camp and less school. They even tried to get me to agree to homeschool them. Hah. Hah. Hah. They won’t even do their chores without attitude and whining, there’s no way I, with my absolute lack of any teaching skill or aptitude, would take on that task without a massive life change first. No no and no. I have been tempted in principle because sending my kids to school where they run the risk of being murdered, because it truly can happen anywhere, is one of my many parenting nightmares, but in reality, I think we’d both be scarred for life.
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Such tired. Help.
Year 3, Day 118: 5 am? 6 am? So tired I couldn’t tell but thankfully PiC was able to field them today.
So tired today that my brain continued to spin like a whirligig when I finally laid down in bed. Ouch and ouch.
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Struggling with massive disappointment today. We thought we’d get to see a family member who we’ve been missing deeply next week. After 2+ years of being super careful, we got our hopes up. Then COVID got them. I am still steeped in denial that they will be well enough (aka test negative) in time for a visit but I may need to start making my peace with yet another disappointment and a refresh of my fury over how people not giving a damn about this pandemic has deprived us YET AGAIN of the company of a loved one.
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My brain is the tiger:
Year 3, Day 119: We had a lot going on yesterday and Smol didn’t get to sleep until very very late. I was sure this would lead to a disastrous sleep but they were out cold until 8 am. Yay!
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I’ve been struggling with sewing. After making several zipper pouches in various sizes that I really like, I’ve hit a wall. I suspect my creative engine went on hiatus and writing this is my way of actively making myself be ok with the pause. It’s ok to wait until my brain and body are in sync and ready to take on the learning process for another set of projects.
When I have a longer stretch of time between looming deadlines, I’d like to make a set of packing cubes using the fabrics that I have on hand. I know mesh tops would be useful but I’m inclined to fiddle with (and yell at) mesh yet. I’m thinking of making each of us a large cube with a different cotton fabric top “lid” piece for each person. We are all sharing one packing cube set now and we’re going to outgrow that really soon. I’m studying these two tutorials in hopes that the process will start making more sense before I get started. If you have a good tutorial, I’d love to see it!
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There’s some irony in the fact that I recognized Andrea Bocelli’s “Time to say Goodbye” on Sesame Street from another room because my mom really liked his music. Sending her to his concert was one of the few gifts I was ever able to give her as an adult.
Is it irony? Or is it just a heart twinge?