But, hey, "conveniently" timed, I have a reason to be homebound anyways...
This week my knee started hurting like a mofo again. I think maybe I wrenched it while dancing with Chaya in the kitchen with our awesome new party lights. FAMILY RAVE (with collateral), but honestly I don't need an occasion to aggravate my bum knee these days.
 |
| Yes, yes they are kitchen essentials. Some people have an air fryer, we have laser lights |
Anyways, back to limping. It's frustrating and makes it harder to keep up with Chaya, but it kind of makes the current lock-down feel more personally academic. I don't even want to go down the stairs right now. Not feeling urgent enough for another round of pointless medical tests, and putting off the inevitable PT. So... hobble hobble, hermit hermit. Ice ice.
We'll say that for now my injured-knee-stuck-at-home FOMO has officially been replaced with just FOE (fear of everything). Well, no, that's not true exactly, is it? It is a scary time, but it's also a tedious time for those of us lucky enough to just be stuck at home.
Oh hold up, excuse me, FB meme tells me I'm not "stuck at home" but "safe at home." They clearly have never met my boisterous stir crazy "love''til'it-hurts" child. Or seen the way I have managed to trip myself over random items on the ground and/or bang myself into any number of drawers/doors and cupboards while tripping over a mix of apple juice, kinder egg toys, and diluted bleach. Or warranted how many toxic cleaning supplies we all have at home and how many otherwise sane seeming people are telling us to light anything from the outdoors on fire for ten minutes before touching it and then taking a bleach bath under UV lights. Or... This place is a landmine. I may not get the covids, but I probably will emerge from this with at least several bruises and a need for additional therapy.
But right. The mood of a pandemic when you aren't in the frontlines is probably more one of background anxiety, guilt, mild bouts of hypochrondria, restlessness and the occasional flash of grief.
It's eerie having been in the original hot zone of the US. Now watching other states' numbers blast past ours. To see our per capita testing rivaled only by New York. Our per capita death rates looking increasingly modest by relativity. At first it was reassuring to see that we weren't the only one. Not the US Wuhan. Not the US Lombardi.
Some kind of score-keeping schadenfreude - yay Seattle Freeze, as the joke is going - mixed with a realization that this doesn't end until the entire country works through it. And even for us, this doesn't end easily or soon, and all depends on people not getting restless - not undoing whatever time we've bought ourselves with premature impatience.All the while the pressure gets heavier as more people feel the crunch and pockets wear thin. When anxiety dies down, there will likely be a backlash. Will we catch up on the curve if that happens? It feels a lot like racing an invisible clock that lurches forward several minutes at a time between hours of stillness.
But for now in Seattle, we're starting to get a new sense of normal I think. Things don't feel as moorless anymore.
Well, sort of.
We've reached an antsy point in Chaya's incarceration. Two weeks was a doable stretch - winter vacation really. And although usually we intentionally fill two week stretches with plenty of playdates and play structure visits, at least it isn't totally out of the realm of familiar. Three weeks has been that little bit extra.
There's been a moderate increase in tackle run butt-hugs, screaming fits, and the curiosity biting (she knows she'll get a time out; she knows mommy will be unhappy and she'll end up sobbing; she knows it's not ok, but... sometimes.... executive function is not 100%). Just at that right height to constantly be under-skirt and face first in the delicate private areas. Sometimes violent. Sometimes just attention seeking. Also, affectionate - both of us are more affectionate at the moment, so it's not all bad-touch high contact hereabouts. But sweet moments can transition to eye jabbing in the blink of a swollen eye, so PPE is advised!
Chaya's started talking a bit more about this all ending. Last few days she's asked "mommy is the virus over?" And I have to tell her no, no hon' it will be another while. She kvetches. But then she gets happier and says when the virus is over she'll go to school and her friends will be there and they will be so happy. And when she comes home she'll have lunch, take her nap, have a snack, watch songs, eat dinner, have dessert, use the toilet, go to bed and when she wakes up she'll go see Gramma Pam. Sometimes also we'll be in our new house and we'll roast marshmallows. She has chanted this sequence a handful of times in the last week. It's soothing, and a little heart breaking.
She's decided the best thing to do would be to give the virus away to somebody. Like all of it. Give until it's gone. I suggested we get a giant virus vacuum, hoover it all up, and hand it over to a trustworthy epidemiologist. So... wish us luck. I expect a few parades and some statues if all goes well. Chaya will like the parades. Unfortunately, our vacuum vacuumed up a sock the other day and is suffering from indigestion, so we'll have to delay our save-the-world plan for a while. We'll get there though.
Meantime, we find respite. In hugging. In playing. In streaming. In the little annoyances that distract from the big ones. The missing kinder egg pieces. The markers that never have their caps on them. Those darned almonds clogging up the trail mix Chaya eats for most meals these days. The horrors of bathtime and the vexations of a constipated preschooler... normalizing. Grounding annoyance.
We find respite in Facebook memes that have a very early-2000s myspace feel. Retro! I have yet to indulge, for reasons unknown. Back in "the day" I wrote small novels out of those surveys. But it's harder to really indulge with the full time mom-gig. And the beast has yet to facilitate helping one of those "interview your child" memes.
Ends up looking a bit like this:
***Ask your kid these questions and write EXACTLY what they say!**
Q: What's your name
A; You tell me what's my name mommy!
Q: How old are you?
A: Mommy what's my name?? TELL ME MY NAME!
Q: How do I annoy you?
A: How do bad guys feel when there's poop in the bath tub??
Q: What's three words to describe me?
A: Adelyyya, when I'm five I will poop in the bath tub and you will tell me my name.
Q: What's your favorite movie?
A: SCREEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAM! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! I screamed because I have no marshmallows.
Q: What do you love about your daddy?
A: What's when daddy broke his collahbone and then died and there was poop in the tub?? How did bad guys feel about that??
***
And so on.
Maybe it's easier if it's just me.
Ten Things I Can't Stand That Everyone Else Likes
1. me
2. me
3. Hiking
4. me
5. Scented candles and/or essential oil diffusers.
6. me
7. Camping
8. me.
9. Every thing I've ever created or pretended to "create" but is really a sludge of ill formed hodgepodge nothingness that never really came together but full of the pretense of some actual substance betraying the emptiness in my spirit and the preposterousness of all my pretensions...
10. Pedicures
I kid, I kid: Not that many people like me.
Please no, just a joke. I like myself fine - call off the droves of teletherapists.
Seriously though, in this niche partisan age is there really anything that a strong majority of people like? I mean maybe like 51% of people like-to-find-inoffensive, but that just means theirs a 40% minority of rabid haters. I can't even think of an example of something so universally likeable that I could make a joke about it. Tom Hanks? Oh oh Mr. Rogers maybe? Dare I google "Mr. Rogers Sucks"??? I can't. I just can't. Ok, I can. And apparently Fox aired a clip calling him an Evil Evil Man, so, there we go. But in general. I don't think there's much I could dislike that would be delightfully surprising or unique. It's hard to be a curmudgeon these days! You just slip right into hipster or terrorist - or heaven forbid hipster terrorist - just like that.
Aaaaaanyways. So maybe I just watch the memes come and go and check the models again to see if "the virus" has gone away enough that maybe I can do some more exciting PT!
We also find respite in virtual contact.
In addition to liking my friend's and family's faces, I tell myself it's important for Chaya to have face to face interactive contact with other people and kids. She spends hours yelling at me to CALL SOMEBODY. I do and she immediately (a) runs into a different corner and completely ignores the entire chat, (b) spends the entire time jumping on me, screaming in my ear, hiding behind me, hugging me, and making noises at me, totally ignoring the other person (c) playing with the filter and activity features on Messenger.
Oh you haven't seen these? Infinite Jest got it mostly right, but the future is more delightfully insipid in just the perfect way for a four year old.
It starts with one cute little effect. And then suddenly you've spent about an hour with one child flipping through and finding one effect, the other child trying to find their equivalent effect, stumbling on another one instead, being angry about not finding the right one, then feeling ok because the other child likes it and tries to find it and so on and so forth until...
Somebody hits the "activities" button and you get stuck in endless loops of very basic semi-interactive "games"
There are plenty of them and sometimes the kids fall out of camera view.
Anyways, for kids it's actually kind of a cool tool, because talking together is still sort of awkward and weird for them via video. It's weird for everyone. That time lag, inevitable volume modulations and pixelization and distortion of eye contact really throws off normal conversational flow, but I think you learn tools to get used to that and just appreciate any contact as an adult.
But young kids, they interact by playing usually. Not by long monologues or interviewing each other about the details of their personal preferences. Having something to play together, interactively. It's a good idea. Makes video calls more bang for buck.
However, it means Chaya always wants me to call somebody and she doesn't care who I call so long as I call whatever somebody immediately. If I'm trying to actually talk to a friend it can be damned distracting. And if the other kids don't have access to the features (like if it's on the computer), it's really not interactive at all and Chaya is just using the other people for access to the camera filters while they drift off to do their own thing.
Anyways, if I haven't called you yet to show my child turning into a giant barfing lizard monster who hisses and eats virtual pizza for not clear reason... give it time.
***
Oh and I'm still married. Going on seven years in fact - April 6th 2013, which I know because google calendar is good about reminding me. Happy Anniversary to us.
We've pretty much never officially celebrated our anniversary (usually I would just stuff any variety of sweets into surprise locations for the hubba-hubba to find through the day and maybe a note or two), but part of me feels cheated of the chance this year. At least I really miss date nights about now. Tempting to throw Chaya in front of the tv in one room and have a take out picnic while streaming the ballet in the study or something.
Even though we're locked in the house together and are thus technically more proximate, we have to work a little harder to fit in "our time" now. Little snippets of time in the morning before Chaya wakes up. After bedtime. And fit that in with our need for "personal down time." It was nice having a bit more of a village to let us just throw child to the wind and be kidless for a little while. I'm calling a third honeymoon once "the virus is gone." Or at least dumping Chaya with her grandmother and canoodling in a space that isn't this apartment.
But we find ways to keep it real.
Quarantine hair!
Yeah no, nobody is getting their hair cut. At least not by me. When I had ass-long hair, I would dare to trim the ends since that length is uber forgiving since it's inevitably a bit ratty no matter what. But that's it. No layers. No short cuts. It's not happening. So as of now Andrew can shave his head if he needs, but Chaya and I will be growing ours out.
But BUT, Andrew has all this lovely silver hair we've always thought would take color without futzing with bleach. And since he's not doing presentations or having to look conservative...
It shows up better in person, but I like the subtlety.
Chaya was bereft that she could not also have blue hair (trying to dye a four year old's hair with actual dye only works if you're subsequently able to repaint and/or burn down the entire house afterwards and make peace with everyone's skin being all blotched and blue). But she warmed to the idea of temporary dye and is now voting for green for herself and red for me.
So... if all goes well, we'll look like Easter Eggs for Easter!
Looking at you weekly delivery: can you produce all the fixings for Passover Dinner AND some bright colorful hair chalk?? What will you substitute in for the 80% of things you don't actually find on the shelves? We live in exciting times!
Happy April! I leave you with this very important question: Do you think the easter Bunny can contract covid? How big of a mask should we be constructing for a giant magical bunny? And will Easter baskets this year be half sanitizer and wipes? (Answer: no, not even magical bunnies have access to those supply lines this year os bring on the chocolate)
Stay"Safe" Colorfully at home. For at least another month. We got this. Kind of. I hope.
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