July 11, 2022

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (110)

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 108: Alas. We had ONE good sleep night, Saturday, and it made Sunday feel 100x better than an average day. It was too much to hope for a second solid sleep like that but 5 wake-ups in the night is too much! Like a dang boomerang.

*****

Anyway, I didn’t want to jinx us by recording the immediate post-vax reaction but now that we’re 72 hours out, it seems reasonably safe to report the short term: Smol Acrobat seems to be taking Dose 1 very well. They hardly noticed the actual needle, which is unusual, and they didn’t seem to have any side effects. No fever, fatigue, aches. Side effects to Moderna are expected to last a couple days so I think we’re through the woods on that part.

*****

Gas is currently $6.06/gal. Just stating that for posterity’s sake.

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We’re not celebrating this national holiday. We’re very tired humans. And we’re humans who are very tired of this country being a place that is controlled by the Christian right and tells most of us we’re second class or lower, that we don’t deserve to live happy healthy lives unless it’s within specifically drawn out lines of “acceptability” and says that it’s ok that children are slaughtered in schools as long as they can have their guns. This is not and has never been a great place. It could be so much better. But will it?

*****

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July 4, 2022

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

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.

*****

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.

***** (more…)

June 27, 2022

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (108)

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 94: 12 am, 2 am, 430 am, 445 am 515 am wake ups. I’m at my wit’s end today. Yes, it was a terrible night of sleep (half was my body being what it is and half was Smol) but it’s now what, three months of trying to ride this out?

This weekend I couldn’t take it anymore and spent some time researching a dozen articles on how to deal with borked sleep and there are so many many reasons it could be and half of them contradict the other hald. Bedtime too early, bedtime too late, too much napping, too little napping, low sleep need, more sleep need.

Today specifically, I’m frazzled between needing to work and needing to fix Smol’s sleep schedule because we cannot keep going like this. Diagnosing what’s causing them their early waking has me pulling my hair out though. They might average 3-4 hours of naps at day and only sleep 10 hours at night. They’re consistently getting up way too early every morning, bright and early and happy about it, but clearly they are still tired to be napping as much as they do. My working theory is to push them to take shorter day naps and hope that means longer night sleep. We’re testing this theory today but that also means I have very very very limited time to work. At best, two hours of nap time to work.

Naturally that means my computer was a steaming pile of rotten turnips. After an hour of troubleshooting and restarting (SEVEN TIMES), the file explorer finally started working only for another thing to break. I was on the verge of screaming. Thankfully, I managed not to blow my top and moved on to other things for a short while.

*****

JB complained of a sore throat at 9 pm, and since I’ve had one myself for the past four days which I chalked up to CFS, we went and took a precautionary test. Negative, thankfully, so sent them to bed with a dose of ibuprofen for the pain.

Year 3, Day 95: 515 am. Experiment has not yet borne fruit. I know, it was unlikely to change overnight but I hoped. Silly, I know. If it seems like I snapped overnight, it feels like I did! It was over the weekend. Suddenly I just couldn’t take this seemingly endless early morning waking anymore. I had thought surely it’d go back to a more reasonable time by now! (more…)

June 20, 2022

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (107)

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 87: 530 am.

Cycling through pain, fatigue, brain fog, brain fog, fatigue, and pain in quick succession for the ten days has given me the chance to more closely judge which is the worst. For reference, being tired is being out of breath for a few minutes. Being fatigued feels like 50 lb weights attached to every limb and another 100 lbs of sandbags on my shoulders. Pain is like getting speared in every limb and/or joint, repeatedly, with a few twists thrown in for good measure. Brain fog is like a cotton stuffed head that you can’t think through or around.

In order, worst to least worst: Fatigue, brain fog, pain.

At least with pain, as crappy as that is, I can still make myself do things. It doesn’t often make the pain worse long term, just short term as I strain whatever’s being forced to work. I can’t do that with brain fog or fatigue. Powering though definitely makes the fatigue exponentially worse. So that answers an idle question I’ve had for years.

Caveat: this is applicable to mild to moderate pain only, and generally it’s rare for me to have only one symptom. Today it’s moderate pain so I can physically push through but with a side of brain fog so planning anything is futile. I am a lot of fun.

Now where do I please sign up for D: none of the above.

*****

I’ve been deeply unsettled over the likelihood of having a run in with my biodad at a family event scheduled for later this year. For the past five years, we’ve enjoyed family holidays to which he was not invited, by my request, but his invitation is not revocable for this particular thing. I understand that part. They’ve supported me well during this period but this is on the level of a family reunion, so even as much as I’d like to be sure we won’t see him, I can’t be. We’ve discussed this with JB and I’ve discussed with my therapist a lot. I’m still mad at him. I’m still bitter about all the shit he pulled, all the lies he told, all the money he stole, and the bonus attempts at manipulation after he was cut off. I’m not ready to forgive and I’m never going to forget who he really was. Now, we are approaching this event with the aim of personal safety (masked, outdoors, vaxxed guests only) and personal comfort. We’ll go for as long as we can with the kids and their needs, I figure at best we’ll be there for two hours. If he does attend, I have no intention of engaging. My preference would be for us to ignore each other completely. I certainly have no intention of introducing him to Smol Acrobat. I don’t know that he knows about them but he’s most definitely not holding my kid. Smol Acrobat wouldn’t want to be held by a stranger anyway. (more…)

June 13, 2022

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (106)

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 80: 1045 pm, 330 am, 530 am wake ups. šŸ˜’ On the one hand, toddler just wants hugs. On the other hand, why can’t those hugs wait until actual daytime?Especially since I’m solo all day with them. šŸ˜µ I told PiC not to rush back since dun dun dunnnnn JB’s started summer camp today! (And he’s got to pick them up, it’s more on his way than not.)

He couldn’t be back in time to be help at the time I’d need a hand anyway, his meetings conflict. So it’s best for him to just do as much work as he can while he’s on site and he can run some errands on the way back. I did a VERY short Costco run with Smol the other day and was very uncomfortable with the number of unmasked people there. As a percentage, it was low, but the place was more crowded than I had hoped so we ran in and ran out with only exactly the things I remembered we needed.

So we vacuumed a lot, went for a walk (terrible walk, they wanted to be carried half the time and that’s not the point!), played in the garage a bit, played with a few toys, and had two snack times. They were terribly upset when I wouldn’t haul out the heaviest of the vacuum attachments. Life is full of disappointment, I know.

They are understanding a lot more words (today: ate more cheese when I told them to eat more cheese), but still aren’t speaking. They articulate lots of sounds and babble but no actual words. Our check up is this week so we can talk to the pediatrician about this. JB was slow to speak too, I’m really hoping Smol Acrobat won’t require speech therapy. It can be arranged but it’ll be so much harder with COVID.

***** (more…)

June 6, 2022

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (105)

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 73: 1 am and 515 am wake up.

It’s the US Memorial Day holiday so we all actually have the day off. We also have my most trusted relative in town and I cannot even begin to tell you what a relief it is to have a responsible trustworthy adult we get on well with here. Having an extra hand with the kids is breathtaking. Having someone that the kids RUN to, squealing, because they adore them? Absolutely priceless. Remember, Smol doesn’t take to just anyone at the best of times. Having someone they will equally go to for hugs and carrying, for playing or comfort, is such a huge help. I normally can’t nap during the day, I fight it because I don’t want to ruin my night sleep but also because my body doesn’t want to relax enough to fall asleep in the first place. After a long morning outside with the kids and doing some much needed yard maintenance, I passed out after lunch. It was WEIRD. But good. I needed that badly.

It also means that a flood of chores that we haven’t had the brainpower to nail down got done. Which also happens to mean more spending. šŸ˜¬

*****

Smol took 2 naps totaling five hours today, are we doomed for night sleep?

Year 3, Day 74: 515 am. I suppose we ought to be grateful that wasn’t 415 am given yesterday’s naps!

*****

With JB spending the morning with their auntie, and Smol conked out hard, I was able to catch up on everything that had piled up from Friday. There was also a moment of relief in there that if I can work when I’m working and parent when I’m parenting, instead of both hats constantly at the same time, I can actually be a human instead of a simmering pot of volcanic frustration. (more…)

May 30, 2022

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (104)

Year 3 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 3, Day 66: 515 am wake-up.

Late last night I looked up ME/CFS to see if my night sweats might be a bonus symptom and it is. It also reminded me that both sore throats and flu symptoms are also normal bonus symptoms. I’ve been on my sore throat from a virus pain management all week to no avail. My throat stayed swollen and raw all week which is unusual for not developing the rest of the full blown cold or flu symptoms. Today I’m thinking this is an escalation of my CFS symptoms. Being solo with Smol Acrobat 3-4 hours a day twice a week is wearing me down harder and faster than usual. But it’s only going to get worse before it gets better. We don’t have daycare until October at the earliest. Le sigh.

So today’s short (naturally) nap was followed up by a looooong play session: checking out the new basket of toys I rotated in (yay new baskets!), working the 35 ml giant syringe I pulled out of a cabinet for their amusement, sitting down for a long session of sunblocking (their request). Followed up by the signs: all done, eat, milk. Remarkably civil compared to last week’s screeching and SITTING ON THEIR HANDS refusing to sign. We vacuumed, then went for a short walk, and then after reading a couple books, they hit the wall HARD. Me too, actually.

In an unusual move, I made myself take an hour to lay down instead of pushing through more work because my health needs it more than work needs to have one more email answered earlier.

Though actually the real internal battle was over taking the time to lay down versus cutting out more fabric for my next projects. I want to have fun, dangit!

But given the state of my hands and throat and head and well, the rest of me, resting had to be the wise move. Also, I need to buy that rotary cutter to help with the straight lines I’m simply not capable of achieving with a pair of scissors. I’ll need to cut out more mask filters as well and those are all straight lines, in bulk. (more…)

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