About sixteen years ago, I met him for the first time. My trainwreck sibling brought home this adorable puppy he had no business adopting because he had not one thing in his life that wasn’t a mess. I was furious at my sibling – he didn’t even take care of himself, how could he drag
1. I’m doing a bigfundraiser push for Lakota groceries. We’ve got a contact in Red Shirt, one of the more remote and poorest areas on the reservation, willing to organize within the community if I can get bulk supplies to him.
I took the (rare) initiative to contact a middle school mom who we seemed to get on with fine last year to set up some play time for the kids since they rarely see each other now. I got the weirdest longwinded reply about how the kid doesn’t think they need to make plans and is perfectly happy doing their own thing on the other weekends and “kids spend enough time in school with friends and classmates way more than with parents” and and and.
I was confused and it took me a couple days to understand it feels like a rejection because it is one. We had exchanged information in the first place expressly to set up time for the kids to get together. We just hadn’t managed it last year but we used the contact to keep in touch about other stuff. But I guess that’s the first of many little shifts in middle school social life.
Life with Smol Acrobat
Almost out of the blue, to me at least, SmolAc has begun singing songs they learned at school and daycare before that. The ant, the bug and the bee. Once I caught a fish alive. Five little speckled frogs.
I love it. JB did this when they were 2-3 but SmolAc has been musically silent until now.
Also they’ve had school lunches and breakfasts and declared it better than daycare food at least in the first week or two. Now they used to have really good food, JB loved going back for camp specifically for the food, but I think things had taken a turn for the worse in the past year for it to rate below school food. I’m not knocking school food, I liked it back in the day, but it’s certainly nothing fancy. The shine wore off after the second week, they’ve decided they prefer to eat breakfast at home and bring their lunch.
They have been sharing stories about their 2 seatmates in kinder being jerks to them (hitting, saying they’re going to hit, calling them stupid) and it’s surprised me a) how very calm they are about sharing “today someone was unkind to me” and b) how they seem to have handled it (told the kids to stop and then escalated to the teacher).
JB, their much more social and outgoing older sibling, did not tell us or their teachers for months when they had a problem with a kid hitting them in 2nd grade so I’m relieved that they seem to know what to do (and scared all over again about how much we need to develop JB’s self defense).
Precious Moments
SmolAc: Today was a big day. We had to do a wot of math. You know how 5+5 is 10? And 2+2 is 4. We had to do 11+11! We are working on dat.
SmolAc: Today was a Very Big day. Me and Z and my friend who I did not know their name, we had to clean all the tables. EVERY TABLE WAS A MESS. We also cleaned everything else. I did most of it. Z did not clean very much.
SmolAc practicing sports: the better I get at it, the better I will be!
Year 7, Day 125: We’re still figuring out the rhythms of drop off and pick up. When PiC has an 8 am meeting, he can’t do drop off. Since we have an excessively narrow window for dropping off SmolAc, this gets extra complicated. We managed it this time by having SmolAc go early and get school breakfast. Their grade is escorted to class by teachers when it’s time. It’s not a great solution because SmolAc feels pressured by the very short block of eating time and don’t like it, but they also aren’t allowed to go to breakfast and NOT eat. I understand why but it’s a dilemma when we have multiple kids to get to different campuses. The next morning we have like this, we’ll ask the neighbors to drop JB with their kid. They leave much earlier but that’ll give JB time to hang out with their friend.
Year 7, Day 126: I’m so tickled about our creative reuse store visit.
We found all the notebooks ($2 new on sale) and poly folders ($23 new) for the kids for school. We found the big envelopes (~$12) and page protectors (~$20) I need for mailing things and saving their art. We found useful odds and ends in the free section and wrapping paper and a puzzle in the tubs. We walked out of there for $5! I only have to buy a calculator for JB new on sale now. They had used calculators for $1 but they didn’t meet PiC’s standards.
My body is far less tickled by the outing. Entirely too much walking and socializing for this bag o’ bones. The pain has been quite high this week even if the swelling has stayed under control. I’m hoping that we’re past the hump of this flare.
Year 7, Day 127: I’ve been craving brownies for ages. A slightly fudgy but also kind of cakey (but not too much because that’s dry) brownie chock full of walnuts. After a friend mentioned their kid loves the Ghirardelli brownie mix, it stuck in the card catalog of my cravings section of the brain and I finally grabbed a box recently. Mixing it up was incredibly fast, melting the butter is what took ages, and then it went into the toaster oven for an hour while I took myself off to bed. It was a really good treat for being in the middleish of a multi-day pain and fatigue flareup.
Year 7, Day 128: Alright after N months of NOT looking or finding a repair person, I texted a friend to confess my cowardice over the possibility of delving in and making things worse. We decided that I probably wouldn’t break it more and well, if it does, I needed a repairperson anyway. I took apart the oven, cleaned it because we’re already in here why not, replaced the battery and put it all back together minus that one screw that’s been put into timeout because there’s absolutely no way to put it back in flush and it’s not critical. I’m still not telling PiC where the screw should be though, the perfectionist.
Voila, I fixed it! I have saved myself at least a $100 callout fee and embarrassment over wasting that time on a callout for something so simple.
Year 7, Day 129: PiC is looking into aftercare programs since the most desirable one waitlisted us, again. I’m betting we never get off their waitlist. We never got off their preschool waitlist and had to pay for THAT privilege, too, blech. But he asked for some recs and checked out one of them. He came home bearing printouts and brochure type information and would you believe that for a 5 day program with pickup, they’re charging basically $10k and change per year? Probably that price lands differently when you have two full incomes, we certainly were paying twice that for daycare (for full days with 3 meals though), but with mine soon to end, that doesn’t sit comfortably. I need a happy medium between SmolAc being bored at home with me and paying through the nose for a few hours of care a day.
This school year feels like a more benign version of 2020 where it’s a whole lot harder and people are home a lot more. It’s a lot. It’s also temporary. Kindergarten can’t/won’t last forever. But I don’t love how tired I am every single day.
Our long term goal is to replace our day job income with passive income before my health prevents me from working. I know from my Mom’s experience that qualifying for or relying on disability is incredibly tough or near impossible here in CA. Aside from that, I aim to do my best to make the most of what we can do while we can.
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Dividend income. We received $1,221.50 in dividends from the stocks portfolio.
Litter watch. 4 stray litter receipts this month resulted in 9.2 cents in Fetch and $0.05 in ibotta.
Year 7, Day 118: The first week of school, which was all of two days last week, trounced me. I was exhausted in body and spirit by the time retrieval of both children was accomplished. Taking to my bed was all I could think of by the time we fed everyone. JB was still fairly overwhelmed by Day 2, SmolAc was fine and jonesing for more. They’re going from a full day to a partial day so it’s a downward adjustment.
I’m a little bit better prepared for this week with my own schedule but have accepted the responsibility of on-call dog care for my friend who is going through family drama and managing an elder’s healthcare due to a massive sudden decline. Very much hoping the scheduled nurse visit for which they need the dogs out of the house happens at a manageable time for me and the kids.
I’m so glad I’ve been holding firm against bringing home a new dog before this period. I’m having enough trouble with the changes/transitions of 2 human dependent, a third might well have broken me.
Year 7, Day 119: It is a dark day today, losing Dolly Parton. So few people could measure up to the example she set, much less people in the public eye. She was always so genuine, and she cared enough about people she’d never meet to do all kinds of good for them from the Imagination Library, to Dollywood, to the Moderna vaccine, to the direct aid she did for schools and marching bands, to helping out the folks affected by the fires in Tennessee. That’s probably just scratching the surface of the list of all the good she’s done over the years. What a loss for the world. I hope that everyone whose lives she ever touched is moved to do as she did in whatever way that they can. I’ve always tried to follow her example in my own small ways.
Year 7, Day 120: I’ve been diligently digging out roly polies of all sizes from the potato bag and watering with the cold shower water catch buckets. The potato plants are coming up strong and the one green bean plant that survived the isopod depredations seems hidden among them. I’ve got another green bean seedling sheltering in a tiny pot, waiting for the right time to transplant it. If I transfer it too early, the isopod families will converge on the weak baby and devour it. They’ve wiped out two seedlings and four germinating seeds already and I refuse to sacrifice any more to them.
The blackberry bush came back strong with branches and leaves after being cut down to the ground, but only produced one flower that just withered away. I suppose they’re all primocanes this year. Both that and the blueberry bush seem to be responding a little bit to the acid amendments added to the soil a couple months ago but it’s too early to anticipate fruit, that’s for sure.
The sole sugar snap pea plant that managed to germinate seems pretty happy among the other potato plants, grabbing hold of its neighbors and growing a bit more sideways than vertically. But so far it seems free of the powdery mildew blight, crossing my fingers that it continues to stay healthy. Might I risk germinating another few? Maybe in a week or two. This week I’m full to the brim with responsibilities, and I’m dropping the ball on something if I add more to my plate.
Year 7, Day 121: Human guinea pig time? I’m exploring the possibility that a GLP-1 med might possibly help reduce my inflammation (which is at an all time long term high) and immune system failure (which is also high despite my diligently taking antivirals). It might not be a HIGH chance of success but any hope is better than nothing.
Update: Nope, Kaiser won’t dispense tirzepatide off-label and it’s apparently VERY expensive. I’ve checked Costco Pharmacy and Cost Plus Drugs and they don’t carry it at all. Rats. I’m pondering whether I should continue digging for other pharmacy options.
Year 7, Day 122: Doing my usual clear my public data off the internet dance. Going through and removing my data scraped from public records is tedious but I feel better for having done it. This week’s targets were Radaris and Truthfinder.
One of them lists an address that I have never been at — my brother and dad’s address since their last residence. I don’t know if they associated it just because I’m related to them OR if it’s because my dad used my personal information to apply for housing behind my back. 😒 My credit reports have been locked down for several years to prevent his using them, though, so I hope this is inaccurate data scraping and linking.
