Not a Wasted Word

The Rhythm of our weekends

Posted on March 7, 2022 by noemikjames / 5 Comments

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?!)

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.

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.

What are your weekends like these days?

Self-compassion/Writing

The post that won’t upload (and apologies for my unannounced absence)

Posted on March 4, 2022 by noemikjames / 1 Comment

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.}

Life

One more day off

Posted on February 25, 2022 by noemikjames / 1 Comment

Tuesday I…

took both kids to school
stopped by work
ran six miles
had lunch with my parents
did a big shop at Costco
took my son and his friend to martial arts
shopped at Grocery Outlet
made dinner
watched TV with the kids
finished my Spanish language show on Netflix

Wednesday I…

took both kids to school
went to Lowes
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!

Life/Work/Teaching

Mid-Winter Break

Posted on February 22, 2022 by noemikjames / 2 Comments

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.

Connection/Marriage

A fun (and full) 24 hour date day

Posted on February 21, 2022 by noemikjames / 3 Comments

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.

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.

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.

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.

Health & Well Being

Current Head Space

Posted on February 18, 2022 by noemikjames / 4 Comments

I feel it would be disingenuous, after my previous posts, not to mention that I’m feeling a lot of ambivalence about the changing public health policies happening right now. Turns out I really did write those posts because I really do need to prepare myself for what next steps will look like. And while I feel my resolve oscillating, I keep trying to remind myself that I live in an area with very high vaccination rates, and that hospitalizations have never overwhelmed our health care infrastructure here.

And that my mental and emotional health has taken a massive hit. I really do think this part is important for me to take into consideration when I’m making choices for myself and my family.

My husband asked me today how I feel about being indoors in public (my parents are taking the kids one night this weekend so he’s planning our evening) and I honestly didn’t know how to respond. Finally I decided that I was okay with being inside right now. I do think this is a lull, and that things will get worse again, and restriction will have to be reinstated. And I feel like taking advantages of the months when it’s relatively safe (for us) to enjoy some semblance of normalcy will be key to our mental health in weathering the future waves. We haven’t always taken advantage of the months of normalcy, which made the subsequent wave that much harder to endure.

I do feel some relief in this mindset: I am willing to participate in a version of my life that feels more normal now, but I’m also aware that the ability to do so is probably fleeting and I’m mentally prepared (or preparing) to return to a more restricted existence when that is necessary.

I just wanted to come here and say that it’s hard. And if you feel yourself withdrawing from efforts by friends, family or public figures to return to normalcy, you are not alone.

And of course, if you think those efforts are folly, that is your prerogative. I’m not a public health official and I don’t mean to present my choices as the “right ones.” I’m just trying to explain where I’m coming from, even as that position constantly evolves.

We are not going anywhere this weekend, though it feels like everyone else is. But we are looking forward to the extra day. And I get all of next week off! Which honestly I’ve barely thought about because this week at work has been ROUGH. I’ve been counting down the days to the end of “Outdoor Ed at school” week without remembering that next week there is NO school! I’m grateful for the break because I really do need one. And I’m grateful to be home to support my husband because he needs a break too.

What do you have planned this weekend? Anything fun?

UPDATE: I realized I never clarified what “retuning to normalcy” looks like to me. I will continue to wear a mask in all indoor settings, especially in supermarkets, pharmacy and other places that provide essential services. But, I will stop wearing a mask outside. I will consider larger indoor events like movie theaters or live music shows (with a mask). I will consider eating indoors and maybe even going to a bar. I will train at my dojo without a mask when that is allowed. I (we) will let our kids play indoors with select friends we know are fully vaccinated. That is what “retuning to normalcy” looks like for our family.

Home/Marriage/Parenting & Family

Attempting an alternating week schedule

Posted on February 17, 2022 by noemikjames / 1 Comment

This is a scheduling/planning post. If scheduling/planning is not your think, feel free to skip this one.

So my daughter started boxing last month. This is great because she REALLY needed some regular physical exercise and this activity provides that, while also allowing her to see a good friend who is at a different school. Of course it also means I have another two activities to figure out every week, on top of an extra martial arts practice for my son, who is preparing for his red belt (!!) test.

We usually figure out a weekly schedule and stick with it. For example, all fall my son went to martial arts on Monday and Wednesday. I also went on Wednesday (same time as my son) and Saturdays. My son had soccer practice on Friday and games on Saturday.

I have staff meetings every other Tuesday and one professional development meeting a month on Wednesday. And of course other things come up, like my monthly allergy shot and other appointments.

I liked this schedule well enough, and I probably wouldn’t have thought to change it, except that my son was missing the only two high belt extra lessons on Tuesdays and Thursdays because we never went to martial arts on those days. So during the winter break, I decided I’d start bringing him on Thursday. And since he doesn’t like to go twice in a row, we’d stop going on Wednesday. This was kind of a bummer since that was the one time a week we could train at the same time. But I was so stoked to have my early release afternoon on Wednesday to run, so I thought it was probably worth it.

Except it really is nice to train at the same time… so when they announced (a couple weeks ago) another high belt lesson on Mondays, I wondered what I should do. Should I taking him on Thursday so he could get two high belt lessons a week (and get to keep running on Wednesday)? Or should I switch us back to our Wednesday double dojo day? My daughter’s new boxing schedule also impacted this because they go on Monday and Thursday, which meant I could never help with the transportation.

Then I wondered, what if one week I did one thing, and the other week did the other?

And then I plotted out an insane alternating week schedule that allows us to go to the dojo together some weeks, and allows me to run at 1:30pm on my early release Wednesdays some weeks. This is the schedule:

	WEEK “A”	WEEK “B”
Monday	W at dojo B at boxing (I drive?)	W at dojo (I drive) B at boxing (E drives)
Tuesday	Staff Meeting	RUN
Wednesday	W with grandparents RUN	Double dojo day
Thursday	W at dojo (I drive)	W with grandparents B at boxing (I drive)
Friday	W at soccer	W at soccer
Saturday	Double dojo morning (I stay long – H picks up W)	Double dojo morning (I stay short – W waits for me)
Sunday		RUN

Alternating Week Schedule FTW?!

As you can see, it’s either crazy or genius or both. (It’s probably not genius). It’s complicated in and of itself, but it’s even more complicated because there are carpools, and grandparent afternoons, affected by this. On the old schedule my son always got picked up by his grandparents to spend the afternoon at their house on Tuesday, because I have my staff meeting every other Tuesday. Now he goes to their house on the Wednesdays that I run, and the Thursday of the next week, so that I can take my daughter and her friends to boxing on that Thursday. We also have a carpool to the dojo on Mondays, but that hasn’t been as consistent. On the days they take the boys to the dojo, I’d like to take the girls to boxing.

And of course, this all works fine and well when my district follows it’s every-other-Tuesday-staff-meeting schedule, which ALMOST always happens. But of course next month it doesn’t happen for some weird reason, and I’m not sure how I’m going to handle it. I also have the kids’ physicals scheduled on a Wednesday next month…

But it’s not like our weekly schedule didn’t need to get moved around every once in a while. I’m sure I can move things around on this schedule too. And some things, like my runs, can be moved around (or skipped) easily.

The good news is my in-laws are super flexible and don’t mind me changing the day they pick up our son. I just have to let them know on Monday what we need that week.

There are other points of flexibility too. The kids can miss a martial arts or boxing class here or there. I can miss a run. Things can be moved around.

This is our second week of trying out this new schedule. Last Wednesday I took the boys to the dojo and I went to class too. It was nice to get our training all done at once, but getting there on time was stressful and biking home in the dark with two boys on the bike is not my favorite. Yesterday I got to run, it was beautiful out and I very much appreciated the time in the sunshine. I also appreciated spending the afternoon with my daughter while my son was with his grandparents. Today my friend is taking the girls to boxing while I take my son to the dojo. Next week I’ll take the girls to boxing on Thursday while my son is with his grandparents.

We’re making it work, and this alternating schedule might give me the best of both worlds. Or it will make my head spin until I puke. We shall see.

How do you make your schedule work? Do most weeks look the same, or do you alternate or otherwise change things up?

Life/Parenting & Family/Work/Teaching

A weird week (after a nice weekend)

Posted on February 14, 2022 by noemikjames / 2 Comments

This week is a very weird week at school. About half the 7th and 8th grade students are going to Outdoor Education, and the remaining 7th and 8th grade students are going on walking trips and doing other activities in groups. Since four of my five classes are 7th and/or 8th grade, I’m one of the teachers taking students on the walking trips. It’s going to be so weird to be at school, but not have any of my regular classes. In the past just the 7th graders went to Outdoor Ed, so I would still have my 8th grade classes, though I might be covering something random here or there. I’ve never had an entirely different schedule before. It’s going to be very weird.

But I like weird. I like different. I’m ready for a week of being outside.

And then next week, we have our Mid-Winter Break! (I guess that is what we’re calling our Presidents’ Week now…) So it’s two weeks of “rest,” which I need right now.

We’ve been enjoying our annual February heat wave. I swear we get a week of “uncharacteristically” warm weather every February. If it happens every February, is it really “uncharacteristic”? This one seems long though. It started last weekend and stayed strong all week. It’s been in the low 70s! Which honestly is warm for San Francisco, even in the summer. I’ve been reveling in it. It’s been a COLD winter, teaching with the windows and doors open. This past week I took my jacket off in my classroom for the first time in weeks!

I had a nice weekend. Yesterday I got the house to myself for three hours! This almost never happens and I panicked about how to spend the time for a while, before deciding to read a book outside in the sun for half of it, and tio watch a Spanish show for the other half. It was a delightful afternoon.

Today I ran early (for me anyway) at 9:30am, then came home and got us ready to go for an afternoon in Oakland while my husband made us brunch. We ate before we left, then drove to Lake Merritt, where we walked the three mile loop in the 70* weather. Then we spent 2.5 hours in the Oakland Museum of California. It was, of course, Super Bowl Sunday, which meant the crowds were light both at the lake, and the museum. The kids totally crushed the walk and the museum. I was ready to head home before they were! It’s so nice that they have the stamina for such a long afternoon. They are really good in museums too. They are always very interested in the exhibits, and today was not an exception. We had a really nice time.

The Golden Gate Bridge all dressed up on a Sunday.

My husband took these for me as we crossed the Bay Bridge. She really is a pretty city.

And now it’s Sunday night and I’m wondering if I could fall asleep if I tried to right now. Saturday morning I slept until 10am! I never do that anymore, but I guess I needed it. Sunday morning I was up at 7:30am, because I knew I needed to get out the door early to run, and I know it takes me a couple of hours to do that on a weekend. So maybe I can fall asleep relatively early tonight.

I hope you all had a nice weekend as well!

Self-compassion/Writing

Some days I just…

Posted on February 9, 2022 by noemikjames / 4 Comments

Some days I want to come here and write and I’m not sure exactly why. What do I want to say? I have other stuff to do right now, but I opened this page in my browser instead. Which would be fine if I had something to get off my chest but I don’t really. I’m honestly not sure how I feel right now. Do I think writing will help me clarify?

My leg / glute / lower back is bothering me again. It never really went away, but it’s much worse than it has been. I’m really frustrated by it. I’ve never had a pain like this. I’m not sure how it originated. I’m not sure why it’s not going away. I’ve thrown a ton of money at it (new running shoes, chiropractor appointments, a psoas release stretcher, a seat for the car), I’ve spent a lot of time on it (chiropractor appointments and stretching, so much stretching). I’ve changed my workout routine to incorporate more yoga. Nothing seems to help. It’s really, really bumming me out.

I was also reminded last week that perimenopause is still… a thing I am dealing with? I mean obviously I didn’t think it was over yet; it just started and it will be years before I’m out of it. I guess the thing is, the obvious effects come and go, but I the hormonal fluctuations are probably wreaking more havoc than I’m aware of on a regular basis. I definitely need to remember that.

Last weekend I made a costly and embarrassing mistake and I’ve been trying to manage the shame I’ve felt about it in a healthy, self-compassionate way. I’m sorry to vague blog about it, but it’s taking up a lot of mental space and emotional energy so it feels too hard to not mention it. (I really loathe reading this kind of shit, so I really am sorry to write about it this way). It was just a reminder that no matter how far I’ve come, there is still a part of me that will never move past my shortcomings. It’s incredibly dispiriting to realize that at 41. I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress in so many areas of my life, and then I do a dumb thing and feel so ashamed.

I’m trying to honor where I’m at and take the mistake seriously, instead of just sweeping it under the rug. But it’s hard. I don’t have the mental or emotional reserves right now, and professional mental health help is so hard to find (and afford!) at the moment.

Finally, one of my kids is having a hard time again and I’m reminded that I do not have “easy” kids and that everything in my life is A LOT harder if your kids are hard. Really and truly, whenever my kids are in a good place I am delighted (and kind of shocked!) by how much easier everything else seems. I think people who have “spirited” (or neurodivergent) kids probably don’t fully realize how exhausting it is, because it’s just what parenting feels like for them. (But then they read some blog posts and want to throw their computer at a wall? Or is that just me?)

My friend’s first daughter was so low key and chill. She always seemed kind of confused by my comments about parenting – she could tell that my daughter was different from hers but didn’t think it could possibly make that much of a difference. Then she had her second child and now she gets it. She said something to me about it recently and it was very validating. Having highly reactive kids that react strongly to pretty much anything, at any time, is truly exhausting. It really, really wears on parents.

And none of that takes into account all the thinking you do about whether or not it’s your fault, or what the future will look like if things don’t get better… like maybe if you had just made better choices none of this would be happening, or maybe if you start making better choices now, things will be better later. Corralling that kind of thinking is exhausting in and of itself. And then there is the conversations with your spouse about how to manage it, and the attempts to get professional help if think it might actually improve the situation. It’s just a lot, and whenever I’m in the thick of it, I’m struck by how all-consuming it can be. I guess I’m lucky that our struggles ebb and flow – we do get respites here and there and that really helps.

So I guess all that is what I wanted to write about? Nothing feels processed, but maybe I can get some work done now. It’s Wednesday, so this is my long, block-period prep which I need to take advantage of because tomorrow I have NO PREP, and my students are taking their final Trimester 2 assessment, so I have a lot to prepare.

I guess I’ll just hit publish then.

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Some follow ups on (probably unpopular) thoughts

Posted on February 7, 2022 by noemikjames / 6 Comments

Thanks you for the conversation last Thursday. One thing I thinks is clear, is that different people are having different experiences in different parts of the country. I live in city that has been held up as paragon of low death rates during the pandemic. More people have died of overdose during the pandemic in San Francisco than Covid. The Bay Area was one of the first to shut down in March of 2020, and we’ve continued to “take this seriously” ever since. San Francisco Unified School District was also one of the last to return to in-person learning, and when we did, our students got far less time in classrooms than their peers even in other parts of the Bay Area. People here are still very cautious – most people wear masks while walking around outside, and even in large open spaces like parks or the beach. My call for us to start talking about “off ramps” is very much in response to my lived experience here in the Bay Area. I would probably not be so worried about managing an eventual “return to normalcy” if I lived in an area where things already were starting to feel normal. Where I live, they are not.

Which brings me to some of the backlash surrounding this conversation, which generally seems to be around timing. I do want to reiterate that my post was not a call to end any and all restrictions RIGHT NOW. I know that, at least where I live, it’s going to take a LONG time for us to come out of this mentally and emotionally. If we start talking about it now, maybe when mask mandates are relaxed, those people who stop wearing them won’t get dirty looks from those who are continuing to wear them, and may continue to wear them indefinitely. We have a long way to go where I live, and we need to start having the conversation at some point. Starting these conversations now seems reasonable to me, even if it will be a few months, at least, before we could actually start relaxing restrictions. If we start talking about this stuff now, maybe we could put metrics in place for changing behaviors.

So, shall we engage in some light whataboutism? Why not.

Why not wait until the 5 and unders can be vaccinated?

It looks like vaccines might be available for our youngest cohort soon, maybe even in the next month. Of course their pending arrival is not being met with elation of past approvals, and currently only 25-30% of parents intend to vaccinate their children under 5 years old. But I understand that for those families who fear the worst outcomes, vaccinating their under 5 year olds is necessary for a return to normalcy. I’m so glad that those parents will have that chance soon. I know a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders when my kids were vaccinated, and even though I was never that fearful of them catching Covid. So I do think this milestone is necessary for us to move on, but only so the families who want to vaccinate their younger kids can feel safe. If the rate of vaccination for 5-11 year olds is only 25% at this point, I don’t think can expect vaccinations for younger kids to help us reach the level of “immunity” required to hasten community spread significantly.

But what about the crazy high rates of hospitalizations and deaths!

Obviously omicron is still raging in the United States. Sure we’re on the downward slope of the wave, but the wave was massive and our daily case rates are still much higher than what they were during the worst of the Delta wave. And hospitalizations rates and deaths are also very high in most of the country. The thing is, the vast majority of those hospitalizations and deaths are among the unvaccinated. These are people who have had almost a year to get vaccinated and are still not, for whatever reason. If we are changing our behaviors to keep people from being hospitalized and dying, and the vast majority of people being hospitalized and dying are unvaccinated, then we are asking everyone to change the way they live so that the people who aren’t vaccinated don’t get severely ill and die. And we’re asking them to do that, knowing that the unvaccinated are the last likely to be changing their behavior themselves – they are the least likely to mask, and rapid test before seeing others, or quarantine when they feel ill.

At this point it’s clear that the US will continue to have a much higher rate of severe illness and death than other large, wealthy nations because we have so many people who are not vaccinated. We say that “this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated” but at some point do we say that “this is a crisis because of the unvaccinated”? Or is that not fair? Or does it not matter either way?

I realized driving to work this morning that I wrote my last post not because I think public policy should change right now, or even in the next few months. I wrote this post because *I* personally need to start changing my own thought process around this. In my personal situation, where I live in a highly vaccinated area of mostly like-minded individuals, I need to start changing lanes. I need to start accurately assessing my own risk and the risk of my family because *we* are not doing great and I don’t think *we* are always following the science when we decide what we are and are not going to do. Thankfully I am not a public health official and I do not have to make decisions that affect others. All I can do is make decisions within the rules and guidelines provided by actual public health officials.

I want to be ready for the off ramp when it does come. I want to be ready for my kids to return to school unmasked when officials decide that is safe. I want to feel comfortable in my own classroom when that happens, and I need to start thinking about it now if I’m going to feel okay about it in the fall (which is the earliest it would ever happen around here, I’m sure). I think a lot of people where I live need to start thinking about these things now, so that when we do start inching towards normalcy, they will be mentally and emotionally prepared for it. Because right now we are not. And there are a lot of complicated, non-science-based reasons for that.

Thank you for reading along as I figure all this stuff out. It’s messy and it’s complicated and it’s important to talk about. I appreciate your input – it’s helpful to understand where other people are at and why.