The summer of 2020 we didn’t do much. My son went to a few weeks of camp at our dojo and got into a couple weeks at a near by Rec Center in August. Our daughter went to Sailing Camp for three weeks, which we only knew about because we’d won a week of it in a raffle the summer before.
The summer of 2021 we made it to St. Louis to see my extended family. We really lucked out that our trip was in late June/early July so we were back before the summer wave was cresting. My son spent SIX WEEKS at dojo camp because San Francisco’s “Camps for Everyone” initiative meant that middle class families were shit out of luck. Our daughter did three weeks of Sailing Camp with friends again.
This summer we’re going to St. Louis again. (Yay! I’m always so grateful when this can happen – seeing my extended family is VERY important to me). And… drum roll please… London to see my sister! We’ll see if London actually happens. We’re planning to go in late July so I give it a 50/50 chance (when I’m in an optimistic mood), but I’m excited at the possibility of going. We were initially trying to go in early June, but the prospect of the London trip messing up the St. Louis trip (because of someone testing positive) stressed me out too much. I eventually had to tell my parents (who are coming with us) that I would go to London in July or not at all. They agreed and we bought our tickets last week.
This morning, at 10am, my husband and I tried to get our kids into some Rec and Park camps for this summer. We spent all week deciding on camps, and 1.5 hours hours last night populating our Wish Lists, but at 10am when registration opened most of the camps we wanted were immediately full. This summer they saved half the spaces of each camp for “priority registration” which means middle class families had more of a chance of getting their kids into a cheaper summer camp than last year, but still very little chance. We ended up getting our son (8yo) into only one week of the six weeks we tried for. We got our daughter (12yo this summer) into quite a few weeks of camp, but she will only be excited about one of them. Most of her friends aren’t going to camps this summer, but with our son in camps, we feel it’s ultimately better for our daughter to be doing something too. We know she’ll just sit around trying to get on a screen all summer and I’m not interested in managing that.
After we lost at the SF Rec and Park Summer Camp corral, my husband spent $600 on a week of Giants Baseball camp for my son. I’ll be spending another $450 on a week of martial camps at the dojo and then we’ll cross our fingers and hope he gets in off the wait list for the one week of camp we need in July. I fear we are SOL for the last week of camp before school starts in August, because very few places offer camp that week. Of course I actually need coverage that week because I go back for staff days on Wednesday. I hope the grandparents can help us out!
There is a lot more swirling around in my head about summers, and the pandemic, and the “pinching of the middle class” in places like San Francisco, and our immense privilege… But as you can probably surmise from that sentence, it would require it’s own post. And I’m trying hard to just put out shorter, less intense posts instead of waiting for the time to write the longer posts. So I’m going to stop here.
Thank you for everyone who gave me information on headaches on my last post. Having a possible name for the pain really helps – it helps find information and possible solutions. It also helps give me hope.
I’m writing this on Thursday night and I haven’t used ibuprofen for 28 hours (knocks on all the wood!) and my head is not throbbing. And that is despite the fact that we were practicing break falls on Wednesday night at the dojo and I hit the ground in a way that I was sure would exacerbate my headache. And yet, I didn’t take any more ibuprofen on Wednesday night, or Thursday morning, or all day Thursday and Thursday night, as I write this post, I’m feeling okay. I’m REALLY hoping I broke the tension headache, and that I don’t need to start researching migraines or rebound headaches. At last not yet…
I’ve been thinking a lot about how important it is to have a name for pain. When my glute was hurting I fell down a very deep, dark internet rabbit hole of chronic back pain and its possible causes. I was starting to get very freaked out. I read about so many possible causes for my discomfort, but none of them seemed to fit. Then I finally came across a website about periformis syndrome and it all clicked. Having a name for my pain, along with possible courses of action, made me feel so much better.
And my pain did subside. For a while. But it came back, mostly because I stopped stretching and strengthening the area when it started bothering me less. But I didn’t feel so hopeless when the pain came back after I had a name for it, because I better understood what was happening and why.
I’m still managing my periformis syndrom, and I think I will be managing for a long time. But now that I know what it is, I feel like I have the right tools to manage it. And even when the symptoms are flaring up in ways I find frustrating, I am less likely to lose hope.
I remember when my RE diagnosed me with Dimished Ovarian Reserve, I was both devastated to learn that our options were so limited (IVF is generally not a great option when your body won’t produce very many eggs), and also relieved to have a name for the constellation of reproductive problems I’d suffered since I was 15. It was validating to know that there was a real, medical reason for my amenorrhea, and my short cycles, and our failure to get pregnant. It was a relief to be able to name what stood in our way.
I am lucky to be a relatively healthy person who has sustained few major injuries. I definitely expect my body to perform at a certain level, and when it fails to do that I get frustrated. I know I’ll be dealing with more of that frustration as I age and things start to break down. I know how to build strength and stamina. I know how to push myself physically and mentally. I think my next challenge will be identifying when I need to rest, and learning how to best give myself opportunities to recuperate.
This weekend marked two years since we went into lock down in the Bay Area. My kids left their classrooms on March 13, 2020 and didn’t really return to them until the fall of 2021. This Monday my daughter was allowed to stop wearing her mask at school, though it’s still strongly recommended. The elementary schools are still requiring masks, so my son is still wearing his at school, but the dojo stopped requiring masks for his age group, and he took his off for the first time there on Monday afternoon.
My school’s mask mandate is also gone, but most students are still wearing masks. I am too, for now. I figure I’ll wait for a couple weeks to see how it goes. My daughter is also waiting for a week or two. We’re not in a big hurry to stop wearing our masks, though we’re tentatively excited to stop wearing them in the future.
At my son’s school students are allowed to take off their masks outside, but so far it’s been fraught for those who do because other kids taunt anyone who takes off their masks and calls them “contagious.” This has not happened to my son, but he’s seen it enough that he’s not interested in trying to take his mask off outside.
My daughter’s friends came over a couple weeks ago and all kept their masks on inside our house, despite the fact my daughter and I were not wearing masks. When I asked my friends if it was something about our house specifically, they assured me it wasn’t, and that their daughters just didn’t want to take their masks off, really ever. When I brought it in the car later, one girl said she planned to wear her mask until high school (she is in 6th grade), even if she’s the only one doing so. At this point, wearing a mask helps her cope with social anxiety; she doesn’t want people to see her face. I find it really sad, actually. The next couple of years are going to be very, very interesting, as we start to learn how the pandemic has changed the way people think and feel about being near each other without their faces covered.
Two years ago I found the pandemic unfathomable. Last year I was demoralized. Now I’m just resigned. I know it’s not over and I don’t expect it will feel over for a long, long while. My plan is to just do what I can do when I can do it, and expect that what I can do at any given point will likely change. This feels like the calm before another eventual storm to be sure.
And life goes on.
I’ve had a tension headache for five days now, and I’m pretty sure it’s perimenopause related. My hormones have been all over the place, but this headache is definitely the worst symptom I’ve had to manage recently. I’ve taken SO MUCH ibuprofen, but the minute it wears off the headache is back again. I’ve tried all my normal strategies to get rid of it and none of them are working. It’s frustrating to say the least. And it’s not helping my attempts to spring forward without disruption. Tuesday morning I slept past my alarms by 45 minutes. I lost pretty much all my prep time at work and suffered the rest of the day for it. I like Day Light Saving Time better than normal time but I do not enjoy springing forward. I really, REALLY hope we end this bullshit time change stuff soon.
I guess I’m still pretty crabby, so I better go. I hope everyone is getting through this week without any major issues, even as the world burns all around us. I’m really not sure how to manage reality right now. I know I’ve very privileged to be able to tune it out when it feels overwhelming. So, so, so privileged.
I don’t feel like I’ve ever been very sure of myself, but I’m pretty sure they pandemic eroded what little conviction I did have. (Sheesh, I can’t even say with conviction whether or not I’ve ever had conviction!)
So many people seem so, so sure of themselves. They read things, and hear things and they just know what is right and wrong. It feels like every day I’m less sure. I think I can spot obvious bias pretty well, but once you throw in a little nuance I am less sure. I’m easily persuaded by the people saying what I want to hear. I I don’t know how to interpret data or understand statistics in a meaningful way. I’m easily swayed by anecdotal evidence. I always have to remind myself that correlation does not equal causation.
My husband is incredibly sure of himself. He is also incredibly smart. He’s smarter than I am, for sure. I wonder if all the people who seem really sure of themselves are smarter than I am. It’s highly plausible.
Next week I think I can stop wearing my mask at work. I have no idea if I should do that. NONE. I know I want to be able to stop wearing my mask, but I’m not sure if that is what I should do. I hate teaching with a mask on. It’s hard on my face, and my throat and my voice. It makes my ears and head hurt (I wear one of those straps that pulls my mask back, always). It’s not comfortable at all. The kids can’t hear me very well, and it’s actually really important that they can hear me well, at least when I’m speaking in Spanish. I could just take my mask off when I’m talking to the class, but that is exactly when I would be most likely to spread aerosol particles if I were contagious. I really am not sure what I should do. Some “experts” say that as a triply vaxxed person, I can responsibly remove my mask at school. Others say that if I do so I’ll be choosing my own personal comfort over the safety of the unvaccinated and immunocompromised. I don’t know which one of them is right. Maybe they both are, to varying degrees?
From what I can tell, most staff at my school are either counting the days until they can take off their masks, or restocking the best N95s they can find. I don’t know many people who aren’t sure what to do. I don’t know many people who are indecisive as I am.
I’m tired… of now knowing how to interpret the data and understand the statistics in a meaningful way. I’m tired of not knowing what to do and having so many people tell me different things. I’m so tired of feeling pretty good about a decision, only to read an article that labels people making that decision selfish and horrible and uncaring. I’m tired of the mixed messages and the double speak.
It’s exhausting to be this indecisive. It’s exhausting to be this unsure.
The next few months are going to be really, really stressful. I’m definitely not ready. This is a lot harder than I expected it to be.
Do you feel sure of yourself these days? Do you know how you’re going to navigate this new phase of the pandemic?
I’ve noticed that lately I’m not showing up here, partly because I decide to write about one thing, but then I realize I will comment on another thing, and I’m not really ready to write about that yet, so I just don’t write anything at all.
Like I was thinking this post would be about how my schedule feels really full right now. And right now it’s working but I can tell I’m going to get burned out at some point, and something will have to give, but I can’t identify anything I’m ready to give up. And my example was going to be balancing my own martial arts practice with my son’s martial arts practice and my daughter’s activities and my feeling that I should be home most afternoons because my husband deals with the kids every morning. But all I want to talk about with martial arts today is that I took my mask off at the dojo for the first time and it felt SO GOOD but also so weird and at times quite uncomfortable. And if I talk about taking my mask off at the dojo I need to talk about how my kids are evidently going to have the option to take their masks off at school later this month, and this feels unfathomable to me, and we haven’t even talked to them about it and I’m not even sure how I feel about it yet and it’s just too much for me to get into in a post.
So I don’t want to write anything at all, because it all feels related and it’s hard to tackle just one topic when they are all intertwined so tightly.
I really am truly not sure how to feel about the mask stuff. I know that my family, which has followed all the rules and has two triple-vaccinated adults and two double-vaccinated kids, is NOT the problem, and frankly I’m tired of reading articles and posts that insinuate we somehow are ALL of the problem suddenly because our desire to return to some sense of normalcy is somehow more misguided than anything that’s happened so far during the pandemic. I honestly did not anticipate California’s swift and decisive move to end so many of the mask mandates it’s had in place for so long, but my thoughts on that were meant for another post, one I intend to title, “Be careful what you wish for.”
And this is why I don’t show up here as much these days. Because I’m busy. And tired. And there is a war happening. And everything old is new again. And a lot of the time it feels like I’m shouting into the void, repeating myself ad nauseam without really gaining clarity or coming to conclusions.
I’m also reading a book I enjoy, and it’s nice to just lie in bed at night and read it, instead of banging away at my computer, all alone, when everyone else is asleep.
But really and truly, I don’t know how I’m going to make it all fit moving forward. Something has got to give. But I don’t want to give any thing up! I’m at a high enough belt level that I need to be at the dojo more if I want to keep progressing. My son also has to be there more. My daughter has a couple of weekly commitments too. And my husband needs support in the afternoons and evenings, especially as he returns to the office a couple days a week (again). There simply aren’t enough hours in the week. I’m really not sure how to make it work long term.
I guess I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing until some part of it is making me (or someone else) miserable and then I’ll reassess. It sucks to know I’m heading on that path. Maybe I can last until summer, and then I can put off the inevitable for a couple more months.
Last weekend we spent a day in Alameda and about half way through I realized what a lovely time I was having. It occurred to me then that my husband could have planned the day we were enjoying as a date for just the two of us, but instead we were all able to enjoy it as a family. We weren’t just engaged in a bunch of kid activities that were pleasant enough ways to pass the time, but instead were doing things we actually enjoyed.
It was the kind of day that I dreamed of when I wanted so desperately to be a parent.
This weekend wasn’t quite so idyllic. Saturday was fine – my son went to a kids-day at the DeYoung Museum with a friend while I took my daughter and her friends to a Crystal Fair. On Sunday, I accidentally locked my husband and kids in the backyard and then went for a run. They ended up stuck out there for two hours. I felt HORRIBLE. Luckily we had nothing else planned that afternoon so it didn’t mess up the rest of the day, but I continued to feel absolutely awful about it.
As things open up and we start doing stuff again, our weekends have taken on a certain rhythm. A rhythm I’m getting quite found of. Not every weekend is great, but most of them are pretty good, and even though a lot needs to happen between Friday afternoon and Sunday evening, we end up having some fun too.
I thought I’d document, for my own recollection later on, the current rhythm of our weekends.
FRIDAY
Prep at work. My son plays soccer on Friday afternoons, and he is able to participate without me bringing him there, so I take advantage of Friday afternoons to stay at work and get some stuff done. Most other days I have to book it pretty quick, so I don’t really mind staying on Friday afternoons. Also, no one is on campus and I have free reign of the copy machine! I also appreciate having a moment to plan the next week and get what I need ready before Monday.
Errands. I also usually take advantage of the extra time on Fridays to run an errand or two on the way home. Sometimes it’s Costco. Sometimes it’s PetCo. Sometime’s is the grocery store. But almost every Friday I stop somewhere on my way home.
Wash masks. The masks my son, husband and I use need to be hand washed, dropped in boiling water, and then hung to drip dry. They generally need the whole weekend to dry, so I have to get them washed on Fridays. It’s a whole process, and I won’t miss it when I don’t have to do it anymore (which may be sooner than I expected?!)
The masks, drip drying.
Laundry. I try to do laundry during off peak hours (9pm to 4pm), which means I do almost all our laundry on the weekends. I prep it all Friday night – sorting it into the Costco bags I use to transport it to and from the laundry area – and wash my son’s load starting at 9pm on Friday. I usually just leave his clothes in the dryer to fold them on Saturday morning because the load isn’t done until around 11pm. I do two more loads on Saturday morning and another two loads on Sunday morning. Sometimes I squeeze on in on Saturday night too.
Sleep over (daughter) + video games (son). My daughter spends the night at my in-laws house pretty much every Friday. My son comes home after soccer and gets to play video games with his dad (he would also get to have a sleep over with his grandparents, but chooses not to. He gets to spend one weekday afternoon with them every week.)
Movie. My husband and I try to watch a longer movie on Friday nights because our son gets to bed a lot early than our daughter and we have more time when just he is home.
SATURDAY
Chores. I usually do chores on Saturday morning. What those chores are depends on what needs to get done. I usually spend about an hour doing stuff around the house before getting my son ready for martial arts.
Martial arts. My son and I try to make it to the dojo on Saturday morning for class at 10am. So far we’ve been making it about half the time. My son’s class starts 30 minutes before mine, so my husband comes to pick him up. I drive the car down, and my husband takes the bus to meet us, and drives the car back. I take the bus back when I’m done. Sometimes I just stay for one class and am back around 12:15. Sometimes I stay for sparring and then I’m not back until almost 2pm.
Library. We frequently hit up the library on Saturday, because it’s closed early on weekdays and not open at all on Sundays. We get A LOT of books from the library, and we have to put a lot of them on hold, so most weeks we have to stop by there at least to pick up the hold books. It’s a very quick walk from our house – I love the library!
Outing. We usually do something on Saturday afternoons. Sometimes we do it as a family (after our daughter comes back, and sometimes we get together with friends. My husband is the one who plans most of the family outings and I plan most of the stuff with the kids’ friends.
Movie. My husband and I try to watch another movie on Saturday night. Sometimes we just watch a show.
SUNDAY
Morning video games. The kids play video games in the morning on Saturday and Sunday, but Sunday they are both home for it. Sometimes they play together, which is great. Most times my husband plays something with my son. I usually use this time to sleep in and/or do chores around the house.
Bath time with Bilbo. My daughter and I usually give her bearded dragon a “bath” on Sunday mornings. We put warm water in a big tub out in our driveway and let him swim around in the sun. We used to do this in the backyard but the backyard gets very little sun this time of year, so we’ve been doing it in the front. It’s funny to see the people walking by, wondering what we’re doing with a lizard in a big white basin full of water. It feels very “San Francisco” of us.
Bath time with Bilbo.
Run. I usually run on Sunday “morning” and I’m putting “morning” in quotes because I never seem to get out the door before 11am which means I’m never home until 1ish. I don’t run for two hours or anything, but its a 10ish minute drive to the park, then I have to get ready and stretch, then I run for about an hour, then I have to stretch and drive home. I always start later than I intend to and it always takes longer than I expect, but I always feel great doing it.
The park where I run has be most amazing views.
Outside time. We usually don’t do our big weekend outing on Sunday, but I always try to get the kids out of the house for at least a couple hours. Some mainstays are the park with a friend, or walking to a great shaved ice place and then eating the shaved ices at a nearby park. Sometimes we just walk to a spot to get boba tea or some other treat.
Lunch Prep. The kids prep the non-perishable parts of all five of their lunches on Sunday. We have enough Bentgo containers for them to prep the whole week. I finish up their lunches with the perishable parts each morning before I leave for work. I know they should be doing all their lunch prep at this point (at least my daughter should), but right now this feels like a good first step. They’ve been doing this all year, and it’s been a great lesson in “the thing you dread doing is rarely as bad as you think it’ll be.” They are even learning to get it done earlier in the day, because they hate having to do it later.
Family movie. We frequently watch a movie on Sunday afternoons/evenings. Sometimes I make pretzels, and if not, I make popcorn. The kids get to drink a soda. Last weekend we watched The Sandlot, which they loved. This weekend we rewatched Sonic the Hedgehog, which was better than I remembered. We don’t have too hard a time finding something because we have similar tastes (and we have pretty much every streaming service). My daughter struggles with movies, and a lot of times she leaves to read comics or something. If we don’t watch a movie we play a board game or Dungeons and Dragons. We play card games most weekday nights too.
And that is what are weekends are like these days. We’ve found a nice rhythm and I like it. It’s nice to enjoy the weekends; I remember that when they were younger Saturday and Sunday were a loooong 48 hour stretch. Now they seem much more relaxed and enjoyable, and I don’t take that for granted.
I did not mean to be gone for so long, but this week kicked my ass. Hard. There just ended up being way too much to do. Some of it was my fault for actually taking a break last week, but other stuff was not on me.
And of course the news had me anxious and rattled. I’m not trying to make it about me, just acknowledging that it played a part in me not showing up here.
Our trimester ends today, and I’m ready to start fresh next week. I really hope next week is a lot less hectic than this week was. I can’t manage another week like this one for a while.
It sucks that when I really let myself rest, shit accumulates to the point that I pay for it later. Sometimes I wonder if the rest is worth it, when what comes after makes me so much more exhausted than I would have been. I don’t know what the right answer is. Maybe we just never get to feel truly rested, at least not during this “season” of our lives.
I say all this knowing that things are so much easier now than they were when my kids were younger. I don’t know how I got through those years. When I look back at what I managed… it makes my head spin.
{…and I wrote this on my phone last night but it wouldn’t upload. Which is exactly the kind of week I’ve been having! Things just aren’t working like they are supposed to and every time that happens it compounds into a time suck of exaggerated proportions. I couldn’t fall asleep last night until after midnight but I was up at 5am so it’s going to be a looooong day. I need to implement some concrete anxiety management ASAP or I’m not going to get through the final trimester.}
picked my son back up from school (he said his throat was horse and was immediately sent home)
hung out with my son
replaced the toilet handle
got a Thai massage (cannot recommend this enough)
took my daughter to the mall
brought In-n-Out home for dinner
played Exploding Kittens and Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza with the family
did the dishes
watched an episode of Foundation
Thursday I…
dropped my son off at school (and gave his teacher a bag a books)
shopped at (a different) Grocery Outlet (I LOVE Grocery Outlet)
watched two more episodes of Foundation (while doing some work)
folded laundry
did a Pilates workout
walked with my husband to get our CSA box
took my son and his friend to marital arts
translated two google forms into Spanish at the dojo
made dinner
played laser tag with my kids
cut my daughter’s hair
finished a Spanish audiobook with my daughter
Today I will…
buy our flights to St. Louis this summer (the only one-ways on Southwest are out of San Jose now. Boo!)
steam clean the kitchen floors
go to the library
watch more episodes of Foundation? (while doing more work?)
get lunch with my husband
hang out with my husband
pick up my son from soccer
hang out with my son (while my husband goes to a concert! Yay!)
watch a Spanish movie alone
Tomorrow we will do the following in Alameda…
Go to the Pinball Museum
Go to the park
Go to the arcade
Go to the crazy toy store
Go to another park
Get hamburgers at a Saturday popup
Sunday we will…
not do much (but I WILL run)
prep for a regular week
Oh and also maybe drive the car around to run the battery down before it gets replaced on Monday
All in all it was a nice week. I’m so grateful for the time. I really needed some rest and I did get a little bit of it. As is definitely the case these days, I’ll take what I can get!
I have the rest of this week off. My kids do not. This means it’s less like a break in some ways, and more like a break in others. The mornings, afternoons and evenings are pretty normal. I have to get up earlier than I would like. I have to deal with stressful mornings. I also have to ferry kids to activities in the afternoons. And pick up from school when there are no activities. We have to get to bed on time. Everyone else has a normal week. But then, for those hours when I would normally be working I have… time to myself! This so rarely happens and I very much appreciate this one week when my kids are in school but I’m not working.
Today I’m actually heading down to work because I need to put up a sign in classroom for where I want them to hang the TV. I was supposed to do it last week but I forgot. And I don’t really expect they will hang the TV like they are supposed to, but just in case… I need to know that I did my part to make it happen.
I’m going to bring my running clothes down there, but if I’m inspired to deal with some of the mess in my classroom instead of run I will do that. My room has gotten quite disorganized, and I’d love to pick it up a bit before the last push of the year.
But my attempts at organizing it last week didn’t really pan out. If it doesn’t feel like I will get much done, I’m just going to run. Either way I’m meeting my parents for lunch, which should be fun. I so rarely get to hang out with just them.
I don’t really have plans for the rest of the week. The kitchen floors need to be steamed clean but otherwise, I might just let myself rest. My attitude at work last week made it clear that I REALLY need to recharge, so I think I might allow myself to do just that.
We shall see. Rest and recharging have never been my strong suits.
My mom picked up the kids at 4pm on Saturday and didn’t return them until 4:30pm on Sunday. After a bunch of “chilling at home on the sofa” date nights this past year, we really took advantage of these 24 hours to get out of the house and explore.
To start, we hiked my favorite park, where I usually run alone. The weather was beautiful Saturday, so it was still pretty warm even though we were hiking at the end of the day. I’ve never really been up there that late, and the light on the city, and bay, was beautiful.
setting sun reflecting off Salesforce Tower.
We went to a new restaurant (Good Good Culture Club) in the Mission for dinner and… we sat inside! It was a first for both of us. The food was amazing, and it was nice to sit inside and eat without being cold and having wind whip in our faces.
We stopped at Dog Eared Books on the way home and we both found a couple things we wanted. It was so nice to just stop into a book store – I haven’t done that in a long time.
At home again watched The Paper Tigers, which is a funny, silly movie with some decent fight scenes. I always wonder how movies like that get made these days. I’m glad they do.
Sunday morning we had to hustle to get to BART on time to catch a train to Oakland for an 11am reservation at the new Native American-owned restaurant Wahpepah’s Kitchen. The food was again amazing, and I very much appreciated that my husband has places like this on his radar.
This meal was so, so amazing.
After brunch we hit up a newish coffee spot (Red Bay Coffee) which was also very good. I got a couple bags of beans for my parents too.
charcol latte + candied yam latte
I saw a dress I liked hanging on a tree as we walked around, and when we went in to get it, my husband realized they had belts, which he desperately needed. The owner made him a belt while we watched, and my husband loves it. Again, it was nice to step inside somewhere and support a local business.
We walked all the way to Alameda and checked out a couple spots we plan to hit up with kids next weekend. We also discovered that there is an INSANE toy store right next to an arcade we plan to take them to. It’s very good that we know about the toy store ahead of time, because it will definitely be a “thing.” But I can’t be mad about it because it’s truly a marvel to behold; every square centimeter is filled with toys, and there are tons of old vintage toys behind glass. It was a real walk down memory lane, and I’m fine letting my kids spend $10 each in there next weekend.
The Star Wars section.
There was also a candy and soda shop that we’ll definitely have to drop some dollars in.
By the time we walked back to BART and took a train home it was 4pm and we were wiped. We hung out with the kids, and played Catan Family Edition on Sunday evening.
Today our son is going to his grandparents’ house (the other grandparents) while my daughter’s friends come over for her first TikTok session. We just let her get an account (after writing up a contract she had to agree to and sign), but she doesn’t really know how to make a TikTok so her friends are coming over to show her the ropes. Then I’m taking them all to boxing, and finally out to dinner. It should be fun.
The reality is, our behavior this weekend isn’t so very different than it has been, except for some key exceptions: we ate inside at a restaurant and my daughter’s friends are coming into the house without masks today. But the shift in mentality allowed my husband to conceive of all that fun stuff because he knew we were “opening up” a little. I do think maybe our “opening up” is everyone else’s “hot vax summer” and that our “move toward normalcy” is only getting us to a place that many people already have been. Or maybe not. Maybe I am one of the sociopaths who can’t be bothered to care about covid anymore because I’m simply an awful person. I’m still trying to figure that all out. In the meantime, I found our date day to be deeply gratifying, and I know this afternoon will mean so much to my daughter. I also know we are lucky that we can do these things in our area and feel relatively safe.
