March Musings

This is my attempt to feel accomplished today. It's almost 9PM and I feel like I have done nothing.

Logically, I know that isn't completely accurate. I fed myself and my daughter. I coordinated a long chat via internet video with some of my friends back home. Our kids squealed at each other. Lunch was had, as was a massive and necessary on the part of both my daughter and myself.

We didn't clean the house, which is the one thing we should be doing and I wanted to get done early this week, before I am so exhausted by my lacking alone time that I cannot focus enough to clean. We didn't make it happen, and I'm annoyed with myself. I gave in to exhaustion and let us rest instead, which we needed to do, and the hints of a narrowly avoided migraine attest to this being the right course of action. But I still feel like nothing is happening.

After our nap, we did run to the grocery store, and while we were there, Julia wandered around a little, occasionally getting in the way of other customers, most of whom were happy to smile at my four-year-old, perhaps remembering their own little people at the same age. There were two professionally dressed people who thought casting me a dirty look was a better option, and whether those looks were meant to indicate a need for my kid to be tethered or dismay at our nearly-6PM shopping trip, I'll never know.

As a teen, I spent a lot of time at some friends' house (They're twins. They're both my friends. I'm not just being clumsy with my apostrophes or noun agreement.) and their dad tended to point out parents with children at Walmart after 6PM, if we happened to be there at that time, saying that it was practically child abuse to have a kid out so late and that those kids should be in bed. At the time, I agreed, but now I see it in a little bit different light. What if the only parent works a job that doesn't allow for them to hit the grocery before/during work hours and with shifts that don't end immediately at 5? What if they can't afford a babysitter for something like a trip to the store, or they need to get that kid new sneakers or supplies for some last minute school project they only found out that evening? I can come up with a dozen reasons that don't involve people just being unreliable or horrible, and that's with my brain half-exhausted. I think it's a bit judgmental.

And that's not just because I get a lot of side-eye when my kid and I make a grocery stop after 5PM. But I do live in a country of quiet bigotry and low-level English understanding, so I get to pull my daughter to me and advise her to stay close so the mean old bats stop staring at us. And I can say this loudly. And if they understand me, they are far too restrained to take it up with me. I'll have to nip that in the bud before our trip to Michigan this summer. I need to not instigate crap.

Otherwise, this month has been a lot better than last month. I blogged on city-cost a bit, bought a bunch of random Chinese knock-offs at Wish.com instead of the 100 yen store, and generally had an OK time.

I have become obsessed with audiobooks and listening to one or another while I wash the dishes or do some basic chores is how I am making the lack of alone time up to myself. Ready Player One was a lot of fun, Old Man's War interesting, and Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology compelling. Now I am listening to Tremblay's A Head Full of Ghosts, which is interesting and a bit creepy. Also more compelling than I thought it would be. I've got three hours left in it and can't wait.

The other day, Julia had her first over-eating induced tummy ache ever, and her response to this new sensation was to cry, "Mommy! I want to go to the doctor!" to which I wanted to immediately compliment her on proper sentence structure but instead had to focus on trying to help her. I explained to her (three times) that there were no emergency pediatrics in the area (there aren't) and going to the hospital wouldn't mean that we could see a doctor who could help with this anyway. Slowly, I convinced her to calm down and wait it out, and within an hour she was back to normal and happy to be feeling better.

So now the big challenge is figuring out how to get her to eat enough to be full without giving herself a stomachache. I'm mostly just limited snacks and stressing meals as eating time.

As for me and this evening, I am happy to report that writing this blog update has helped me feel more accomplished.
9PM. Next, bed time! As I found out yesterday, letting Julia sleep in leads to evening craziness, as the excitement of the later hour propels her over the threshold between exhaustion and nutball. Then it's all chaos and anarchy and headaches. So better to go with an earlier bed time.

Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise. I can't attest to all that but kid in bed keeps pain from my head, so we're going this way.