Confession: I felt like a failure last weekend.
I’ve been feeling guilty that I’m so tired and sick that I’ve mostly taken to watching the kids play while Tom takes the lead. Last week I decided to change that, and came up with a bunch of Easter crafts we could do, and spent time prepping them. I had big plans for the weekend. We’d make muffins to use up the bananas that were sitting on the counter, do some crafts, and even cut everyone’s hair.
E is starting to learn about superheroes, thanks to a few of his friends. It’s all second hand knowledge since he’s never read a book or watched anything with a superhero in it, so the translation is kind of funny. When asked to pick out what superhero he wanted to dress up like, he obviously said Cookie Monster hero, which is how he ended up with a Cookie Monster cape. He’s also been told about “bad guys” so anytime Tom or I say no to something he wants, we’re labeled a “bad guy.” Which at least makes sense, but not all of his uses do. Every morning when I go to work, I tell both kids to “Have a good day!” and E has started replying “Have a bad guy!”
I’m at a weird stage in pregnancy. I guess you could call it a good stage, though. My nausea has pretty much subsided to a manageable level, and I was actually able to wean off the medication that I was on until 22 weeks with G. It came on harder, faster and way worse than previous pregnancies, but didn’t stick around as long, so I’ll take that. I do still feel off every day, with something or other just not making me feel 100% well. It’s fairly common for me in pregnancy, though, so that’s not too bad either. I’m still a bit too early to feel the baby moving yet, and I’m really not that big, so I’m in that in between space where I could forget that I’m pregnant. All of the symptoms I have are odd, and related to pregnancy, but don’t make me feel pregnant. I’m starving but nothing tastes good and almost everything upsets my stomach. I’m exhausted all the time and take lots of naps, but I have major insomnia in the middle of the night. Etc, Etc.
I sat down with the intention to write an update about what we’ve been doing lately. Time has been passing, but since time has no meaning anymore, it’s hard to quantify. I have a lot of half started projects going, that’s for sure.
First I decided it was time to sort through everyone’s clothes. I moved E up to 4T and G up to 3T (they’re honestly the same size, and they weigh the same, but for my sanity this is what we’re doing. Close enough. Except I also decided that they should share a closet now, and the baby will take over G’s closet. Which meant Tom might as well pull out all of the baby clothes from the attic so I could start going through those.
Time seems to be moving quickly so far, which I think is a good thing. I’m starting to pull out maternity clothes (not so much a bump yet, but definitely bigger), and trying to wean down on how much nausea medication I’m taking daily.
E & G have started to talk daily about the new baby, which is interesting to watch. We never sat them down to say that a baby is coming or that things will change, we just sort of keep it as part of the conversation. When E is passing out things (something he manages to do almost daily), he often will name family members. “This one is for Mama, this one is for me, this one is for G…” and he’ll often name one for Maia, our kitty who died almost a year ago. So it’s not that weird to suddenly be naming one for “baby.” A sort of hypothetical entity that can be named.
E’s favorite bird has always been a cardinal. Don’t tell him that you think it’s red, because he calls it the “orange bird.” Luckily we get a lot at our bird feeders, so he’s always happy.
I keep waiting for a goldfinch to show up, because obviously G would love that, but I’ve yet to see one at our house. Instead, we recently had some Chickadees show up. I was super excited, because I’d been mentioning to people that I thought it was weird we don’t see them AT ALL in Massachusetts. I mean, it is the state bird and all..
It’s an old joke at this point in the pandemic, but it’s definitely groundhog day over here. It’s hard to write about anything new, because there’s really nothing new. As our risks increase and the virus has gotten more contagious, we’re leaving the house even less than before. We’re now ordering groceries online and having them delivered to the house, we haven’t seen anyone in months, and while we might have braved a trip to Target occasionally before (okay I’ve gone twice in this pandemic), we’re no longer doing that.
And while I’m cheering everyone I see get the vaccine, since they’re little bits of hope to hold on to, it’s hard too. We know it’s going to be months and months before we’re offered it, and it’s not easy to watch others move on with their life and get to see people and do things that we can’t. And won’t be able to do.
Snow, snow, so much snow.
The most in the state, to be exact. I’m not sure how that happened. We were right on the edge of predictions of “a lot” and “not a lot” of snow, and we ended up with 5” more than the upper limit of predictions. Towns next to us got half as much as we did. Apparently we live in a snow pocket. A wonderful place to be when you have a broken snow blower, and a driveway that a plow truck can’t clear.
There are a lot of parenting choices that split parents into one of two camps. Team pacifier forever or team take it away quick. Team potty train early or team wait until they’re way older. Team switch them to a bed at 18 months or team wait for years.
I don’t know many parents of littles who don’t have strong opinions on these. We certainly do. And if you know us, it’s probably not a surprise that we’re team wait it out on a lot of things. Including the crib.
This year has really been an experiment in the minimal amount of brain power required to still function as an adult. Something about this pandemic and repetitive home monotony has turned my brain to mush. Add in all the insane things happening in the world, and my brain just wants to shut down, instead of think of the consequences of an attempted coup.
So of course it’s super fun to add in pregnancy brain, plus nausea medication that includes a time released sleeping pill that keeps me in a never ending fog.
We woke up on Christmas morning to pouring rain, high winds, and warm temperatures which dissolved our more than a foot of snow we’d had when we went to bed. At least we’d had a white Christmas Eve? It made me glad that we’d spent the entire day before playing outside and enjoying the snow, since we stayed inside all day Christmas.
Which was fine, that’s pretty much how I like my Christmas days. At home, in my PJs, not straying far from the couch or the Christmas tree. We listened to Christmas music, watched some movies, ate yummy food and of course opened many presents.
Just because there isn’t going to be a big party, doesn’t mean that I can’t decorate like there would be! Picking out a theme, deciding what the cake would look like, those are things that are fun to me. I enjoy doing that for my children’s birthdays, so even though we’re in the middle of a pandemic, that didn’t stop me.
Well we did it. 2020 is coming to a close, Christmas is here, and I feel like I’m at the end of a marathon. I’m excited to be taking some time off of work, for staying in my PJs and watching the kids go nuts over their presents. They definitely get what’s happening this year, have been diligently counting down on their advent calendars every day, and becoming crazier and crazier as each day passes.
Sometimes I have a hard time time coming to terms with the fact that you’ll be two, since for me, time has stood still during this pandemic. Much like my desk calendar in the city, my mind is stuck in March. You know, back before you even knew how to walk? So how can it be that you’re two? On the other hand, it seems like I’ve been telling you forever that you don’t “get” to wear a mask until you’re two! Just a little bit longer to wait, we keep telling you. (Don’t think it’s lost on me that the biggest marker of you turning two will be that you need to be masked now - what a perfect snapshot of our world).
This year has been… different.
I know I like to talk about how it’s a lost year, an awful year, the worst year ever.. but it’s not that simple. This year has given us a lot of great things too. (Did everyone see our local fame on The Great Christmas Light Fight??) And while yes, a lot of things aren’t how I had planned, some things actually are.
There are a lot of things we’ve lost this year. A lot of traditions broken. Our annual family trip to Maine was cancelled. Birthday parties, get togethers, even the Boston Marathon is going to miss two years. So when I started thinking about what Christmas was going to look like this year, there was one thing I didn’t want to give up. Sure it’s not the most important tradition, and I’m sure the kids wouldn’t have noticed, but I realized it would make me feel a little bit better if this one wasn’t broken.
And honestly anything I can do to feel a little bit normal these days, I’ll take it. My coping strategy with this pandemic seems to be part good enough and part humor. So that’s what led me to order Tom a Santa suit back in September.
We pretty much jumped over this holiday and went from Halloween to Christmas, even putting up decorations a week before Thanksgiving. I was also fully prepared to order pizza and ignore it completely, but in the end we decided to create our own small celebration. It was certainly more simple than anything we’ve experienced in the past - we didn’t even cook a turkey!