July 19, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 120: PiC graciously took the 6 am wake up period with Smol, so I took the 8:30 am-12 pm shift with the kids. JB had tutoring for a big block of that time so it was me and Smol for most of that time. JB was predictably furious that Smol had to go down for their nap by the time their lesson was done, though, so I soothed their grudge with letting them do the bedtime routine of reading and singing. Their mood visibly improved with the wrangling of a sleepy, adoring, but also very grumpy (because sleepy) Smol Acrobat. After we completed the nap putdown, JB danced out to tell PiC: It’s your turn with the kids! Clearly, we have been doing the swappity-de-do for a while.
PiC took the next four hours after that and then we split the remaining evening chores.
*****
At lunch (I was working) JB asked PiC to text me: “Mommy I hope you don’t have too much work to do.”
Me too, kiddo. But I do.
Happily they decided to unload the entire dishwasher on their own though their primary assignment is only to do the utensils. That was nice.
*****
Money things, the coffeemaker: PiC’s french press was dropped and shattered so I had to order an immediate replacement. He says he’s not addicted to coffee but tell him he’s not going to have a coffeemaker for a day and see what happens, I dare you! 😉
Money things, my mouse: I have been fighting with my mouse for weeks and weeks and weeks. It keeps disconnecting. I finally went through all my old peripherals in the Computer Box and found one that does work but I hate the scrolling action on it. I’ve already adjusted the responsiveness up as far as it’ll go in the settings but it still lags and I hate it. I use it 8 hours a day, but am having trouble justifying the purchase of a new mouse just because I don’t like it. But then again it’s a lot of hours of use a day…. JB has been wanting to use a mouse with their set up but I was going to give them my Oldest Mouse that is much smaller and would fit their hand better. If I do that, I could retire this Second Oldest as a back up for them.
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July 12, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 113: Well, I forgot today was Monday 16 times even though I put in about 6 hours of work today. Holiday weekends always throw me for a loop. We had a conference call lunch with family for funsies so that was one bit of relaxing we did, and then we also took everyone for a looooong walk later in the afternoon. I needed to try to walk off some back aches and that didn’t quite work as planned but it was still good to stretch my legs. I did not get out for a walk more than twice last week. That’s pretty bad and it was even more obvious by how much I huffed and puffed my way back up the hill.
*****
Some days I am starting to see a tiny bit of the more normal parent me peek out. Sometimes I have patience again, kind of like before the pandemic. Not a lot, and not for long but I thought that part of me had died, crawled out of the grave, gotten bludgeoned, and died again.
Year 2, Day 114: For once, my decision to go to bed instead of working late the night before worked out. Usually I lay there futilely trying to fall asleep, get frustrated, and then feel like it was all a wasted effort by 2 or 3 am.
This time, I still didn’t fall asleep when I wanted to but I did get enough rest that after Smol Acrobat started their 6 am round of thumping, babbling, and hawk cries, I was just about able to get up and prep their bottle. PiC changed and fed them while I took care of my toilette, and then he passed out with the baby happily remonstrating next to his prone body. Smol and I hung out for the next hour and a half, playing, walking the dog, eating again, me trying to work a little bit in two minute spurts.
*****
I’m covering for people on the team being out again this week, this is the fourth or fifth time in five weeks, because everyone’s doing some kind of travel now that CA is opened up again. I’m DROWNING in work and my brain can hardly keep up. Well, it will. But I hate this feeling of being behind on everything.
*****
We made a rookie mistake and miscalculated both how long it would take us to run two errands and underestimated how much formula to bring with us for those errands for Smol. So underfed and tired Smol was very unhappy. We skipped their last nap and put them straight to bed after feeding but it was still too little too late, they were up multiple times in the night just miserable. Sigh.
Year 2, Day 115: My body’s all out of whack this week for other reasons but that lack of sleep really loosens up my joints. This is not great. On top of a doubled workload, I also need to schedule two sets of activities and lessons for JB for the rest of the month so at some point. One teacher won’t be available for weekly lessons anymore and the other one isn’t teaching anymore so I have to pick a replacement. I’ve got to find the time for that. Thank goodness PiC is on lunch prep today.
My pain was so high by the end of the day, between sleep-deprivation fatigue, stress multiplying my aches, and overdoing the walk in the afternoon that when I got up from bed, having forgotten my bedside water, I could only hobble. Hello, geriatric me.
Year 2, Day 116: We were supposed to do pizza night last night! We forgot. My brain is maxed out. All I could think this morning was I hate work, I want to retire.
I ran a load of laundry last night, the dishwasher this morning, and the robot vacuum this afternoon. Thank goodness for robot helpers! JB suffered a great disappointment when an Auntie had to cancel their call this afternoon, they instead spent their afternoon doing a consolation puzzle (100-200 piece puzzles are too easy for them now, we need to level up. What’s next, 300?), reading, racing on NitroType, and watching the Hello Kitty and Friends Adventure shorts that I had picked out for their viewing. I really shouldn’t share so much Hello Kitty stuff with JB. Passing along my personal obsession to the next generation is Not Good for our pocketbooks. (But it’s so CUTE.)
Year 2, Day 117: Thinking of my CPA and how she still owes me a few amendments that would result in refunds and how I can’t pay her until she tells me how much I owe. I’d like to pay her. I already sent a reminder saying I’d like to pay her, please tell me how much but she just said she would get back to me. Still waiting….
*****
Smol woke up, and laid back down to nap several times over the course of an hour. I can’t tell if I should count that as awake time or asleep time for the purpose of calculating their next nap time!
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We’re starting to see school related information and it’s giving me whiplash. The CDC says vaccinated teachers and students don’t need to mask. I want to know why this country thinks I’ll believe anyone who is maskless without solid proof of vaccination given the behaviors we’ve seen to date. The tantrums, the lying, the people who spoiled vaccines, the person who was caught selling blank vaccine cards. And even if I wasn’t completely mistrustful of the general public, kids under 12 still can’t be vaccinated so are we going to only expect them to mask? Personally, though we’re both vaccinated, PiC and I stay masked to keep JB company. They have been really good about it but I know it helps with their compliance to have us masked. Our friends with under-12 do the same.
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We’ve been having medium range planning conversations about the next car. We need to decide 1. what we need 2. when we need it and 3. when what we need will be available. Ideally this purchase will be somewhere 2-5 years down the line, if we can push it out that far, because I want to save for this incrementally over a long time. Also because we aren’t convinced the technology is mature enough for what we’re looking for. We don’t want to get into a new tech money and time pit.
He’s done some initial research and for the size of hybrid vehicle we need for four humans plus an additional guest at times, a large dog, and luggage, we’re looking at $30-50k. That’s a staggering sum. The high end is almost laughable and it’s really truly unlikely we’d ever be willing to make that happen. That’s huge. HUGE. It’s far too large a proportion of our income.
Heck, the low end of the range is the total cost of what I’ve paid for the two cars I’ve purchased for myself in the past twenty years: one new and one used. I know that’s a meaningless stat but it’s still true. My first car served me well until I had to let my dad keep it ten years ago. I eventually gave it up permanently in the Going No Contact process. My second car is over 15 years old and I fully expected to hit 20 years in it. I’m not sure if it’ll be my car or the dog car that gets replaced but they’re both quite old and the maintenance costs are real.
:: How old are your vehicles? Do you have timelines for replacing them?
July 5, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 106: An unexpected boon of Smol’s early morning wakings is that if I can get up too, PiC and I have time to talk for a few minutes like adult humans with interests in the world and live together. This morning we talked about the photos of our dear recently deceased friend that I found over the weekend while doing data backup. We couldn’t decide at first the best way to share with their widow but landed on making a photo book. So that’ll be my thing this and next week.
*****
I read The Pout-Pout Fish (Bookshop, Amazon) to Smol. They’re not quite old enough to appreciate it yet but it nailed my feelings today. I feel sick (Blub), achy (Bluuuub), and tired. . . (Bluuuuuuuuub).
*****
PiC cooked all weekend and I’m so grateful to him.
*****
Smol slept through the night most nights last week but come Friday, that went out the window. They just had this burst of development and they had to wake up the first night because HANGRY! The second night because … I’m not sure why but just needed to be held and sung to for a few minutes. The third night was to babble and raspberry to themselves a few times. Weird, but funny!
One less funny side effect of the development is their mood swings. So many swings. Happy sad happy sad.
*****
There’s a chance we might have daycare in October so I inputted the cost into my spreadsheet for the last three months of the year. O_O This upended my delicately balanced cashflow and budget. Daycare is so expensive, even part-time. I don’t want to reduce our savings but we’re going to have to. Better to know now. At least I already funded our brokerage for our planned weekly investments for the next quarter. We’d sold some investments to shift our allocation so that helps soothe my nerves. (more…)
June 28, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 99: Smol slept through the night! But chose to end the night at 5 am. Win some, lose some. I didn’t get to sleep until midnight because of my leg pain, PiC didn’t get to sleep until 2 am because of work, so we were both in rough shape. But they had a good first nap, which freed us to get work done and feed everyone breakfast and settle into a bit of a rhythm for the rest of the morning.
*****
Sera’s got a dry hacking cough that started last week. It was only once a day before and sounded like she was just trying to clear her throat but today it’s acting up more frequently so we’ll need to get to the vet. I wasn’t ready to go back yet. The last time we were there tore my heart to pieces. I’m not ready.
The vet’s booking routine appointments well into July, their first available is in ten days. That’s not great but I’ll take it.
This keeps turning my mind to my second dog. He developed a heart murmur which turned into congestive heart failure and it was awful. I’m hoping so much that this won’t be anything close to that.
*****
JB woke up very late and was a rumpled mess in mind and body. They brushed their hair and their teeth but boy was their mood terrible. We clashed a few times. We managed to pull it out of the dumpster once in the morning, and then by mid afternoon, they were wound up again over losing one of their little art kit doodads. There’s only so many crises I can manage and work on a Monday.
Year 2, Day 100: Is today Tuesday? Friday? Wednesday? Monday? I don’t know. This is how most days start: What day is it? Weekday or weekend?
*****
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June 21, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 92: Some mornings, you have your shit together. Some mornings, you don’t even notice that you and the kids are still in your pajamas when lessons start. Guesses which today was? I can’t even entirely blame the pandemic or the kids. Pre-kids, PiC DEFINITELY had to yell “PANTS!” at me more than once when I started to wander out of the house without actual pants on.
*****
People are traveling again for the summer, including my teams, which means that I’ve got a massive workload with very little time to manage it. It’s got me wistfully wishing for retirement money now because I really don’t want to go to work today, tomorrow, or the next day. Maybe this is burnout talking. Maybe I just need to schedule some of my own time off even though we aren’t traveling. I don’t yet because I’m worried that it’ll make it even harder to go back.
*****
Mondays stink in the normal course of things but they are worse now that PiC’s Mondays and Tuesdays are so jam-packed. I’ve started taking over the bulk of childcare on Mondays so he can deal with his particularly difficult Tuesdays. Making that an expected part of my Mondays actually eases my stress factor a bit but boy it sure it still tiring.
Of course it being a terrible nap day made things extra hard on all of us.
*****
We spent $80 at Sprouts on the weekend to get a lot of produce and fish. I got way too much sockeye salmon (almost 2 lbs) and that’ll probably make three dinners for us.
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I had such brain fog today that I had to choose to run an errand mid-afternoon to try and clear it. It did work, thankfully. It’s such a hard thing when every single decision is so zero-sum. 20 or 30 minutes to clear my head has such a tangible impact on what I can get done, but at the same time, the less obvious impact where I can regain some breathing space and my patience also has an impact on my workday and my day.
Year 2, Day 93: Oh my aching knees. I’ve been playing and sitting on the ground with Smol too much. My knees are both swollen and hyperextending today. What a combination. I was on the overnight last night. They were squirming around 130 am but settled back on their own, and howling at 330 am and needed a feed. We’re working on weaning off night feeds to try and get uninterrupted sleep overnight and are down from 4 ounces to 2 ounces per night waking. It’s not that they’re always up for prolonged painful periods, it’s that the wake ups are always disruptive and we aren’t getting enough consecutive hours strung together. My fingers are crossed that we can get to 10-12 consecutive hours overnight without needing parental intervention.
My circles are starting to dip their toes back into circulating more. We had a masked playdate with friends we haven’t seen in person for more than a year. One friend got a haircut. Another one will schedule one soon. Yet others traveled for vacation recently.
I wonder when we’ll be out of pandemic times here. I’ve gotten in the habit of these weekly logs, I wonder when I’ll close these out.
I see there’s cause for concern about the Delta variants and I wonder how that’ll affect us here with family who are vaccine hesitant. It doesn’t feel like this is over yet but it also feels like many are putting a cap on it like it is. Our kids are still unprotected so we remain in a strange limbo. (more…)
June 14, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 85: Alice recommended a math app, Math Tango, but when I went on the hunt for it, I realized that w are totally outclassed. My iPad can only be updated to Version 9. Math Tango requires Version 13. And they don’t have a desktop version. Drat. I can’t justify buying an iPad for a kid’s use, much less in addition to the family laptop that I was needing to replace.
JB starts their summer schedule today. It’s a bit spotty. I didn’t get information early enough to schedule a full set of Spanish lessons for two weeks but we’ll see how it goes.
I function so much better when I have a structure to work with. Even if things have to change, even if they change last minute, I feel better having a framework. This goes for work, for handling JB’s days, for Smol’s day to day. Now that we have an idea of how long Smol can optimally function (about 1 hour and 20 minutes up to 2 hours of awake time right now), that gives us a firmer footing on when to do what to support his sleep training.
I was thinking over at Nicole and Maggie’s about which of us would be suited to being a House Spouse and realized that since we can’t do without both our incomes, the next best (also highly unlikely) thing would be both of us working part time and still getting half time for everything else. We both have a lot of household stuff we take care of in our separate realms of expertise and we’re always badly juggling the four areas of work / home / parenting / personal. The personal gets the shortest shrift under the current circumstances but if we both had half time, what glorious self care would result? It’s nice to dream anyway.
It was a long frustrating day at work, I felt myself completely tensed up as I struggled to cross things off my to do list. I very pointedly limited that list for today because I knew there was more work than even I could do on a good day but still I kept getting derailed by one problem after another. I got through but I was really irritable at several points and had to make an effort to rehydrate and refuel. Pacing myself was never my strong suit. I’m a sprinter through and through and you can see that in my work style.
On the bright side I did manage to call the medical equipment people to clear up this nonsense about them billing me when I don’t owe them a dime and got our eye exams scheduled. That bit feels good. (more…)
June 7, 2021
Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Year 2, Day 78: Every single time I think we have a grip on our schedule for the summer …. nope! Something big shifts or changes. So now I’m back to the drawing board. I had to take one weekly remote class off the board entirely, one weekly remote class can’t be weekly any more, and their 4 days a week tutor is now down to 3 days a week. We did add a new weekly exercise class for June so that helps.
I realize that this is just practice for the shifting we’ll have to do forever and ever amen. With adults, you can fall into a rut (or deliberately stick to a routine which is my favorite), but with kids, things are constantly changing for one reason or another.
I’ll figure it out.
I have one weekly exercise class on the calendar, then we set the new schedule with the tutor this week. Once that’s done, I can add the Spanish classes in. Then I’ll see if we can add some virtual and maybe outdoor playdates. Thank goodness for aunties and uncles who generously offer their time for the virtual playdates.
Year 2, Day 79: PiC and I had a hilarious fight all the way to the baby’s crib over whose turn it was to take the first post-nap wake up period. I won because he was laughing so hard and I’m used to fighting through laughter but I conceded the baby anyway and went to work instead. I still don’t know why he didn’t want to take the kids in the afternoon instead of splitting the morning and splitting the afternoon.
It was a gloriously (and rare) sunny day today and PiC and the kids got some good backyard time in. JB worked really hard to make Smol Acrobat laugh, way harder than was strictly necessary considering they are Smol’s favorite person and almost anything they do gets a laugh. They chortle themselves into exhaustion. I tried to get some sun too but I missed the narrow window of time where conditions were good. Our blustery windows started howling through the yard, trying to blow me and my computer away. Ah well. At least the kids had their fun.
I was feeling pretty good about Smol’s napping today. They have been falling asleep on their own with less and less fighting, with better stretches of sleep more regularly. I don’t panic up half as much as I used to when I see them moving on the baby monitor because movement is normal now and doesn’t always mean they’re going to wake up. And even if they do, sometimes they just need some time to cry and protest and go back to sleep. And even if they wake up after a short nap which used to feel like daggers in the heart, I can reasonably hope that the next one will be better instead of despairing. We had so many days with just 30 minute naps, all day, before sleep training and the pain of it still lingers. So I’m deeply appreciating this right now.
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