routinely routineless

friday 7th:

suspecting the green tea of having made me feel ill, queasy and faint, lying down for a bit then waking up with mr smear to spongebob shorts (because postman pat is a real loser, and his town enables animal abuse)

more tantrums getting ready for school, a mostly fine drop-off, an official weigh-in (apparently my bmi is high, but my waistline proves it's not unhealthy), grocery shopping (insulting the store supervisor trying to pick up an item that i later discovered was from somewhere else), a traffic jam home, unfair elevator policy (we can only transport things in one of them, but we can't choose which elevator arrives), trying to fit the postbox lock (the measurements were all wrong), discovering that i'd bought the wrong colour remote (if the colour matters, ****ing TELL people!)

working until pickup time, another soiled pair of pants, mr smear happily roughhousing with bigger kids, bringing him home with tool's lateralus, mom's storeroom and the locksmith freebie, shopping taking too long and then being stuck in front of a smelly, loaded man who insisted on having a conversation with the back of my head, traffic back home, gd's apple butter, taking mr smear to the temple (with a 30 minute tantrum preamble), a good start, mostly positive until towards the end when i had to take him outside to finish screaming, successfully tricking me so that he could drink his wine before kiddush, a five minute conversation on the way home that freaked me out until i realized he was quoting a scene from something, arriving home in need of a stiff drink (vanilla infused rum ftw), slow cooked dinner, granny getting mr smear into bed, an unpleasantly long evening

saturday 8th:

a long night, sciatica having become a feature, mr smear's breakfast burgers (fry's asian spiced), eventually heading out to kirstenbosch for a really nice (and natural) playdate, dnd introductions and mr smear falling into a pond (also scaring the crap outta me on a bridge by almost falling far onto sharp rocks)

a pleasant walk back to the car, a painless drive home, a surprising lack of naps, more spongebob then taking mr smear to the company gardens with his bike; good riding, duck swarming, a man cursing someone out (apparently for being mean to birds), the copper man beneath a big tree, squirrels versus rats (the squirrels won)

gd's pizza the third, fun pre-shower shenanigans until heads got bumped, shower / bath / fake fear of the foam crab, negotiating toothbrushing, a lovely bedtime (in particular reading him life is but a dream for the first time in a while)

elon musk on joe rogan inspiring us to watch ready player one

sunday 9th:

going to bed at 2am after an hour and a half exploring jwt and oauth

another night of intriguing dreams, another morning with sciatica aforethought, a friend's newborn daughter's brita and khoi pond play, raspberry frozen coconut yoghurt, home, nap, sailor, gardens with the bike, a particularly stinky homeless man, broken ladders, smokers in the kid's spots

adventure time, second lunch and snacks, arriving at the temple with mr smear passed out, sciatica crush and an entire service including an honour with him on my shoulder

a fun dinner at my sister's, mr smear dominating the dogs with confusion

home around 11pm, a quick story bedtime

monday 10th:

getting to bed at 3am after almost three hours of putting together an online poetry slam channel that might have worked if youtube hadn't disabled comment mentions (what?!?!)

a late wakeup, mr smear crawling into the bed to cuddle then going around to the other side to discover that gd had gone to see a doctor (to receive positive news)

ipad games, humus and challah and tea, gd building lego with him, around noon taking him outside (stopping to drop off the right-coloured remote for programming) into a lovely day and paying the aquarium a visit

arriving in the parking lot with him telling me not to yell at him (i haven't in a while) and that i'm the worst dad ever - which stings regardless of whether or not he knows what he's saying

aquarium sand pit fun and a puppet show, wolfing down a laffa before playing outside before grabbing coffee (giving him the old phone to play with), having to explain to another child's mother that letting their kid jungle gym with ice cream isn't cool

back home, no naps, finally sitting down to manage medical bills and GAP insurance while spongebob played out behind me, showering and prepping for dinner, struggling out of the parking lot trap i'd helped set (and my mother calling while i was being instructed by three different people), taking our little chinese dragon to our cousins and arriving with him passed out

an adult friday night dinner with lots of good food and conversation, unintentionally waking mr smear on the way out, getting him into pajamas and whispering him to sleep

ready player one, enjoying it immensely the second time even if some of its flaws showed more

tuesday 11th:

not clear if mr smear's complaints and cries were in his sleep or not, trying to help and getting told to "stop talking, daddy"

1.20am bedtime

another full viewing of spongebob over oatees while letting gd sleep in, then going back to bed for a bit before beginning a morning full of chores. taking mr smear to play and picnic in the park with his best friend, gd joining us for a while, returning home around 4pm for mr smear's first tantrum in two days

a shopping run by myself (three times queuing at the pharmacy), coffee with my mom then returning home to make a salad (which i basically ate by myself), taste gd's home-made chocolate (amazing), shower mr smear and get him into bed (which involved bad behaviour that i managed from his side but didn't manage from gd's)

intense communication failure

diving into work and slowly but surely getting things done

wednesday 12th:

going strong (or, "doing stuff"), until 2.30am

begrudgingly up early-ish and getting mr smear to school precisely at our regular late o'clock, "i can't play with my friends, we're not wearing the same boots"

first gym visit since july, taking it easy but with similar output to before, finishing up feeling pretty good

(was that our abusive cousin i bumped into?)

a few hours of mostly work, finally getting into the meat of crypto

stopping by cp&b to order a mixer for the bathtub, picking up a very happy mr smear, solid psytrance kid!, home for a bit, a tantrum going out because we turned off the tv (that's not good, we've warned him that if that becomes a thing there won't be any more telly), getting to the museum and enthusiastically rearranging the furniture rather than viewing exhibits, feeding squirrels ("one for me, one for the squirrel")

getting the locksmith to reopen for me, buying vegan cold cuts and not buying a whole bunch of things that were out of stock (are our tastes too mainstream?)

installing a cam lock in a postbox that was clearly installed by someone who was drunk on the job

my first time actually playing catch with my son, checking out guacamelee! and being quite impressed

a mostly good shower / bath and bedtime, getting him to sleep by reading the first chapter of roald dahl's matilda

catching up on last week tonight while eating dinner and chocolate, then deciding to crash around 10pm with the intention of getting up to work

thursday 13th:

a restless night, partially caused by resetting my alarm every couple of hours, but effectively sleeping until 7.20

finally resolving tuesday night's issues, arriving late to mr smear's new school's interview - a wild success, he already has friends there and he adored the campus - dropping him off with his class, returning home before remembering that i needed to pick up the bathtub mixer, driving to pick it up, returning to the school to drop off a second lunch, returning home and working solidly for a few hours, being approached to mentor junior devs by a good recruiting firm, picking up an irritable mr smear: he'd fallen, but he'd also skipped his nap, had a busy afternoon and was visibly fighting sleep

powerful psytrance knocking him out on the way home, putting him to bed and organizing my payslip (and gambling on crypto with some unexpected extra), a little more work then dinner and the spiderwick chronicles, which had great potential but was only mildly entertaining due to horrible writing. my mom arriving to say goodbye and helping me navigate the thoroughly abysmal websites for checking in to our flight, booking airport parking for our car and renting one for johannesburg (my brother said we should use uber, but we could get a car for the whole weekend for the price of one uber ride from his place to comiccon)

settling in to work again but being called to mr smear's room to feed him (we allow bananas and squishies in bed), read another chapter of matilda and then fall asleep trying to get him to sleep in spite of having just had half a cup of coffee)

friday 14th:

resuming work at midnight, spending more than an hour on trying to get node-gyp working (after having spent a good hour or two earlier), posting this at 1.15am and planning on being in bed by 1.30