happy holidays!

sunday 11th:

late to bed, early to rise. a regular morning with an aim to go to kirstenbosch, a little traffic along the way and turning around before we reached the entrance because gd's back and phobia got the better of her; getting stuck in rugby traffic for half an hour on the way back home.

exhausted and struggling to entertain mr smear while gd prepared lunch, unable to nap the minute i was given the opportunity

dr horrible's sing-along blog, taking mr smear for a walk through the green point park with my mom

prepping mr smear for bed, a great couple of episodes of 3%, going to bed early

monday 12th:

getting up after the midnight feed, a little bit of productivity and a lot of hacknet, very little sleep

gd still out of action, taking mr smear to the beach. mr smear loving the water! it's really difficult to manage a toddler at the beach alone, so leaving there with both of us full of sand and intending to shower immediately when we got home but he fell asleep in the car so that didn't work out :P

a bit of a rest, but not quite, then a chiropractor visit followed by mom visiting us followed by managing mr smear until bedtime while gd lay down.

getting back into work - stuck into the same problem i went on vacation with and it looked to be an issue with the version of visual studio we're using (figured out later it was even less sensible than that) - then a little ffix and dinner, then back to work, then crashing for a few hours

tuesday 13th:

waking up to continue the struggle - it's always harder when it's not a coding problem - finally calling it a night and then being kept awake by mr smear... who proceeded to make it look like he'd had a full night while we were shambling about

a mission to pick up my old comics from before i left cape town in the year 2000, then stopping at the new hospital for a script (seriously, it's an impressive hospital but don't they think people should be able to find it?!)

home, shopping, a little bit of neil gaiman's the ocean at the end of the lane (wow!), crashing, dr horrible's sing-along blog again (it's too good!), work / tweak copy / play with mr smear (who was being "pinchy"; it's bad enough he does it to us, but he's damaging beautiful books as well :( )

park mission with new old friends, winning the fight with mr smear over wearing his hat (for the moment), mom's visit and prepping mr smear for bed and frequency and a mosquito (and with gd really struggling, it's been days), ffix while installing vs2015 and finally getting it running with zero difference made in resolving the problem i'd been having

wednesday 14th:

3am bedtime after hours of fiddling to no avail

a better night, waking up to an alert that my money's back in my account but mislabelled (don't call it a "reversal" if it's not, i thought i was in trouble), cancelling my phone contract by accident (even though it's what i was trying to do, then being unable to actually cancel it because only one system registered the cancellation: THAT'S disturbingly bad UX)

a pleasant telkom visit, followed by trying (and failing) to get mr smear down for his nap, completing the ocean at the end of the lane and feeling a sense of loss combined with the excitement of reading it again when mr smear is old enough

mr smear being super clingy

a short nap, waking up to anxiety indigestion over our landlord increasing our rent and refusing to consider the impact of potential renovations

hitting the gym hard, the relief that mr smear played nicely at the crèche, coming home for a quick snack, running off to protoplasm's official launch and enjoying a beer while chatting with his folks for the first time since before i emigrated
car failure in the middle of the city but managing to get home on the broken gearbox

thursday 15th:

a night of mosquito (or black mold, we're still investigating), and finally figuring out what was disrupting my database queries (async entity framework calls don't always work with iisnode, but it's not clear when or why)
4am and feeling overstretched from the gym

a couple of hours' sleep, a relaxed morning, getting sunburned while the mechanic attempted to fix the car

naptime, work, and the last-minute discovery that the car wasn't fixed; quickly shopping before the mechanic returned, no luck sorting out the problem but fortunately my mom was available to help out, mr smear's fake tattoos and his launch for the toilet brush and his reaching over the counter and his ninja balancing on a toy to get into a box (i'm seriously excited about his motor skills)

walking mr smear, gd's horror when he dropped onto all fours while wearing his harness and my mom and i laughing uncontrollably
hot fusion, showering (and mr smear pooping in the shower - we knew it would happen some day, not a fun experience), work, car switch, sherlock and ffix and more work

friday 16th:

working through to 2am, then getting a good night's sleep

gd making playdough, checking out the new car, mr smear going down for a surprisingly long nap and using that time to play ffix - a little bit of guilt, but only a little...

apartment hunting - our landlord is being foolishly greedy and is pushing us out at the end of season and before renovations - then a short, wet walk on the promenade

bedtime prep, dinner, titus - norman rockwell is bleeding, and going to bed early

saturday 17th:

trying to teach mr smear that pinching isn't cool (it's been days), kulipari is great for kids but it's NOT a kid's show

a day filled with managing a busy mr smear, more trouble from me&you mobile: warning, don't use them, even telkom is better

an afternoon spent hunting property with my mom

meeting up with cousins i haven't seen in ages, then quickly walking home along the promenade in the cooling evening and needing to warm up mr smear with a shower before bed

trying to relax knowing that we have bedbugs. bedbugs!!! [and then finding out later that we didn't]

sunday 18th:

midnight explosion after mr smear started a bad cough, catching copywriter for an hour

a little sleep, a long morning with more kulipari, a great lunch with joburg cousins (and mr smear loves amba! very cool) on a hot afternoon, flea cleaning and exhaustion

fighting with css and being powerfully reminded why i'm not a front-end dev

sunset with mr smear, putting him to sleep with tool

titus - neverlution is just as solid the second time around, not in the mood for tekken, finally getting the css for my crowdfunding site more or less right, then sitting down for a few hours and making real progress on my work project

monday 19th:

fleansanity

car rental: everyone knows my name by now, but i don't know theirs...
telephone port attempt two
getting tired of smsing an ex-history teacher who's into the shakespeare authorship conspiracy (hint: it's bullshit)
nap
great news about gd's surname! the south african government automatically changes it to mine so we don't need to go through another process
mom's shock over our lack of a prenup and planning a breakout from the rent cycle

mr smear's balance improvements and my heart nearly stopping when he walked across the bars that the bigger kids find tricky

getting home past his bedtime and rushing through preparations, a big dinner and passing out watching crazyhead

tuesday 20th:

two alarms before getting out of bed at 3am, then going right back to bed feeling awful... second time winning at office christmas parties while absent

losing at fleafighting, up early and working, a hilly walk with gd and my mom to check out a very dark apartment, hot fusion and knockout exhaustion with a tired mr smear refusing to rest until late

number porting issues again, taking hours to sort out but eventually coming right

emergency pesticide shopping and application, not being able to get mr smear to sleep at my mom's but at least being able to shower him and brush his teeth when we did eventually get home; a long time putting him to bed and a long debriefing afterwards followed by

wednesday 21st:

finally bringing all the infrastructure on my project to an operational state so i can focus on the bit that my bosses have been holding their breath for: 4am crashing and waking up at 7am for the early morning joy patrol and going to see an apartment across the road from the pavilion

nü breakfast and mr smear's literal fountain of joy, then another apartment in green point (nice but tiny), then an encounter with an inconsiderate prick who was blocking the road, then another apartment (nice but small and dark)

getting mr smear to nap and taking advantage of it for an hour or so but getting up restless; van helsing the series has a great start, then working and looking after a particularly mean mr smear until the evening, the fleas driving us nuts

crazyhead and dinner and passing out

thursday 22nd:

up around 3am and working until morning

sleeping soundly for an hour or two, then waking up to learn that my mom's home has been bitten too and she suggested that we may have picked it up from the new rental car...

pre-fumigator stress but getting some work done (albeit frustratingly unsuccessful), mom's safe house and showering and resting, abandoned coffee and 24 hour laundry services and driving to pick up flea powder

the quote of the day cannot be published, but it involves fleas hiding from pesticides

mr smear having an awful reaction to the insecticide and us following suit; an absolute nightmare night ensuing

friday 23rd:

intolerable burning skin in sensitive areas

laundry
xmas shopping
introducing my brother to my family, a few hours of chatter and then a few more running after mr smear
heavy rain
still struggling with our reactions to the pesticide
princess mononoke and early bedtime
restarting ffxv with subs

discovering an important article on invisible biting bugs

today:

a much better night, although being forced up halfway through with burning skin again

a slow, chilly morning, listening to bill hicks