tax return deadline approaching

... and i really don't feel like it. nor much else. i just want to get my job done and play with my kid and rest. that's how men do it in the movies, right?

sunday 9th:

up early, trying to watch stuart little: no. just... no.

weather fail: from chilly to midsummer in two minutes
blue train, the next generation
may mr smear always be the first on the dance floor - tearing it up for half an hour while everyone fawned
the pain of seeing kids in forward facing harnesses
my kid wearing an accidental glitter hitler mustache

a nap, being woken from beautiful slumber and taking a while to shake it off, eventually deciding not to go shopping
mr smear's spontaneous eruption in contemporary dance moves with hints of breakdancing - and of course not recording any of the good stuff
the long bedtime song / practicing all his words / cold water mistake / another night coughing

the help: incredible movie

monday 10th:

good sleep full of dreams, but still not enough by a long shot. a big shopping mission on the worst possible day, compounded by being forced to use the point centre's shitty elevators numerous times, finding guinness!, mr smear falling asleep and giving me a chance to grind in ffix before crashing for a proper nap

mom coming over and joining me for last minute gift shopping, getting dressed (my nice pants don't fit properly anymore) and fully packed and arriving at dinner have forgotten the dessert (second time we've done that!)

chasing mr smear, but otherwise enjoying a lovely evening and managing a pretty good seder - although i forgot to hide the afikoman and we needed modernized hagadot - mr smear *almost* falling asleep but eventually keeping his eyes and mouth open until we entered our parking lot

tuesday 11th:

a full night's sleep, though still exhausted upon waking; getting through the morning (peanut butter matzah camouflage breakfast, the upstairs neighbour's dirty water on our balcony), almost late for the chiropractor, a mission to the piazza and mr smear's fountain joy, picking up great salads on the way home and a big lunch. mr smear falling asleep while we planned a trip to kirstenbosch, getting a little rest and then getting ready for second night.

hospital bills by snapscan: THIS is the future

leaving more organized, a really nice seder with great food and mr smear providing plenty of entertainment; his first time walking down stairs by himself (i had to catch one misstep halfway, but that was it), and getting biggles' kids to open up with a conversation about gaming

wednesday 12th:

13 reasons why until 1.30am

another pretty decent night's sleep, although there was a trying period where mr smear was crying out in his sleep, making us repeatedly jump to the rescue only to find him calm again

up at 8am to go downstairs to pick up milk for my mom and realize that in the span of a few days i've gone from detesting the managers at our supermarket to pitying them

opening sabuda's peter pan with mr smear for the first time and both of us being blown away by its sheer craftiness; paying hospital bills with snapscan and purchasing origin's complete command and conquer combo

mr smear's nap followed by 13 reasons why instead of working

when "i love you" needs a safe space (no "more") and an angry sunset; a fix before returning home, a big dinner (mr smear's throwing arm is improving), showering, taking a painful punch to the eye (his punches are improving, too), a quick goodnight and some more 13 reasons why

mom's fantastic news! (a long time coming)

working on security

thursday 13th:

getting to bed around 1am

big pancake breakfast with an enthusiastic mr smear

reintroducing the chewbacca mask
mr smear pointing at his diaper and yelling "tar!" (star), we laughed and told him "diaper" until we realized there actually was a tiny star on it

no nap, but good music
great almond chai latte after a lovely afternoon playdating in the park with the grannies, a little bit chilly and a bit of rain
unlocking somebody else's golf: my key unlocked it, set off the alarm, and wouldn't lock it again. the owner was nowhere in sight. awkward.

keeping mr smear from falling asleep before we could feed / antihistamine him, then struggling to get him to bed, giving up for a while then trying again

the trigger warning in 13 reasons why comes way after i'd been triggered by a bunch of things in the series: it's an amazing series, brilliantly written. irresponsible, according to a lot of angry people, but i'm not so sure.

trying a little rest before work, soap under the sheets to protect against rls

friday 14th:

unable to get up, but the odd sensation that the rls soap was actually working

another big pancake breakfast, trying to work and losing twenty minutes to a stressful hunt for something that gd didn't lose

the furniture store closed, hitting checkers for a big grocery shopping, running into other school parents, the awkward discomfort of eating bread in public on pesach

hido and wife arriving for coffee and staying for a great afternoon catch-up, the sudden wind chill when saying goodbye, prepping for dinner and almost making it on time

a lovely, loud friday night dinner with my sister and her sister and our sister-in-law, mr smear very busy attention-seeking and thoroughly basking in what he received, my cousin saying a lot of inconsiderate things that i believe he thought were funny

a quick goodnight, 13reasons why

saturday 15th:

into the night, a coughing episode
work frustration: should've started node dev with swagger or similar; getting to bed around 3.30am

second night of the rls soap experiment, stuffy nose, waking up to 13 reasons why and weeping uncontrollably at the clay revelation; managing to stop watching in the middle of powerful drama to keep the season finale for the night

mr smear progressing from the tune of "twinkle, twinkle" to what sounded like fragments of the words, reading gennady spirin's beautifully illustrated version of little red riding hood, verifying against the original and learning that i don't like *any* of the versions because i believe the story should end with her being eaten

gd banging her knee with a door as my mom arrived to relieve us

rockpool with the gang, hido and sagirl and dirk diggler and another couple of friends i've barely seen since the beginning of the millennium, a great afternoon with popcorn mojitos and good food, eventually returning home to wake up mr smear and arrange canada post and enjoy a delicious new dinner (gnocchi in chilli with tofu scramble and oyster mushrooms)

bedtime prep, 13 reasons why was absolutely amazing right until the ending, which was full of empty promises of catharsis and unsettlingly unsatisfying. the series was worth every second, and i can't be sure i won't watch it again one day.
*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT* i only hope that awful frustration we're left with is intentional, we found no catharsis in there whatsoever... just a bunch of characters frozen in motion in our minds, forever trapped under threat of consequences. i guess that's what hannah would have wanted?

sunday 16th:

another night exhausted and unable to claw my way out of bed for the alarm and lots of interruptions by an uncomfortable or hungry mr smear and feeling the frustrations of having lost a lot of project time

a little morning tension (misinterpreting "breakfast arrangement"), the realization that an implementation was done wrong (the tech doesn't support the design)

an interesting coffee at my uncle's with my sister, her sister and our sister-in-law, mr smear trying desperately to interrupt my mom's international call

running into a birthday boy at checkers seconds after sending a message suggesting we meet up sometime, then running into our old neighbours; a pleasant drive through to tableview and only being a little misdirected by apple maps, enjoying a really nice afternoon with hido's family

driving back from a gorgeous sunset, hitting the shower with mr smear who pushed out a life-disrupting poop just before i picked him up to rinse him; tensions rose.

sailor arriving, introducing him to john oliver and indian racism as we walked to pick up over-pickled falafel (i forgot to avoid the pickles, and i suffered the entire length of what would otherwise have been a delicious laffa); talking until late about a couple of exhilaratingly good ideas

monday 17th:

early up, a little work, mom's visit to bring gd soil stones, planning work days ahead, taking advantage of mr smear's nap (passing out for a good one) then heading off to sort out the car rental and arriving ten minutes before they closed; meeting mom at the waterfront for a little shopping and food and a little more shopping then coming home and getting ready for dinner and bed

my wife gave me a son who's as passionate about jazz as he is about nine inch nails and tool and psybient and funk ^_^

a bit of a tough sell getting mr smear to sleep, gd sorting out my sore neck before my fight with entity framework

junk food dinner (vegan burger and hot dog) and reading fascinating stuff in social: why our brains are wired to connect

tuesday 18th:

a hard night continuing the struggle, eventually turning in around 4am after finally completing what should have been a relatively straightforward task

mr smear up and down since 5.30am, getting an hour's rest in from 8 when the cleaning lady arrived then getting out of bed and sort of starting the day with coffee and telkom (who have been ripping us off for four months now, and who i'm trying to avoid buying a phone from because my home button's failing) and paying lots of medical expenses and dealing with labourers accidentally bursting the water pipe feeding our building

a half hour on my back before reading more social during gd's chiropractor visit: consistently surprising and surprisingly important information even if the balance between readability and good science is poorly navigated

trying to work during mr smear's very short nap, getting halfway through my veggie burger and happily (for both of us) sharing the rest with him when he woke up

a mixed afternoon (from fun to frustration and back again), stopping by my mom's before walking mr smear to and on the promenade; it was a glorious sunset and he had fun playing with a couple of fearless kids in the playground while their father struggled to accept my being local because of my accent

showering mr smear at my mom's, which wasn't too bad but very different from what we're used to, then coming home via the grocery store and running into an old friend (my first dm) who's making aliyah soon

re-watching louis ck live at the comedy store and finishing my current task around midnight

wednesday 19th:

climbing into bed after half an hour of tidying up

an hour's mystery struggle in the middle of the night

a shitty first morning back at school even after a mostly good night's sleep, then a quick run to town for breakfast with SxS at plant interrupted by a rush back to sea point to pick up gd and take her right to where we were; a quote request from a printer to another short visit with SxS, gd joining us with her new haircut then back to the school to pick up mr smear and return home for lunch (his nap, my lunch) then return to SxS's hotel for a few hours of work

feeling wasted, reading mr smear his new hebrew books, a call with telkom after they brilliantly "resolved" a billing issue by telling me which phone it was happening on; a promenade walk with my mom and quick shopping before settling down for a delicious scramble / avocado dinner

nodding off waiting for mr smear to fall asleep

thursday 20th:

3.30am start

5.30am back to bed, then two hours up and down for mr smear's complaints before getting up to feed him and prep for school; he refused to eat until i gave him the spoon to feed himself, at which point he remembered that he actually likes the maize meal...

dropping him off and then dropping gd off and meeting my mom to give her the car seat before heading to town to have breakfast with SxS and his cousin

a little work, then meeting gd and my mom for lunch at plant (very slow service), the giving of baby gifts and the realization that the swimming pool visit wasn't a good plan, some solid work and the traffic on the drive home inspiring me to download waze

gd's insanely delicious vegan cheese naan experiment, mom bringing the car seat over, shower time and a frustratingly long good night

watching legion and passing out,

friday 21st:

getting up at 3.30-4 to sort out an email problem and begin a morning of struggle with programmable migrations

mr smear's smearing maize meal and cashew yoghurt all over his hands, his face and his legs right before we had to take him to school; heading straight to meet with SxS who wasn't answering so enjoying a decent (though not amazing) "traditional breakfast" at plant while working, joining SxS for his coffee and then being interrogated by his cousin on the topic of my graphic novel

waze + tool ftw, picking up gd and mr smear and getting him to nap soon after coming home

instagram account separation (moving all the feeds i follow to a new account on the same device) and sudden exhaustion just before mr smear woke up extra demanding; gd with her stupidly good chilli-cheese-stuffed mushroom crêpes

mom coming over after her first day of training, a delicious ghanaian dinner and sorting out her business mail and finishing legion (gd's not a fan, i think that the basic premise is really good and the execution was over the top and sometimes silly but still entertaining)

massaging javascript regex handling, mixing and matching solutions until i (mysteriously) got my routing right

saturday 22nd:

an awful hour of mr smear vomiting his lungs out

hotel transylvania (great film, insultingly cheap music and singing) followed by high drama before heading to the doctor

getting in on mr smear's short nap, suddenly being struck by extreme fatigue that'd been looming since thursday... eventually coming around just before my mom arrived to relieve us for an hour, giving me a chance to slug down a cup of coffee and figure out programmatically creating databases with entity framework

the hunt for luxuria superbia (we owned it, but couldn't recall its name so i ended up downloading and scanning through my copy of gameloading to find a reference), the warning poop (on the lookout for c. diff again) and a shower and a long goodnight

a little peanut butter soup leftovers (bowl nuked but soup tepid), a little ffix and a lot of work with entity framework migrations

sunday 23rd:

00.40 into bed

"he plays amazing chess, when everybody else is playing backgammon"

did mr smear suddenly become significantly heavier or was i just becoming particularly weak? [seems to have been a bit of both]

restarting my day with automatic migrations, eventually moving towards an undocumented strategy and tasting success just as we needed to get to the hospital to deliver a stool sample and pray that mr smear wasn't still carrying c. diff...

not the brightest nurse doing triage, an uncomfortable waiting room experience; mr smear napping when we got home and giving me time to figure out the migrations, waking up just after i finally lay down myself.

tending to his royal grumpiness (employing the magic pudding to good effect), mom arriving with the other half of lunch and stuffing ourselves

staying over to give me a chance to rest a little, getting up from a two hour nap in the sun with a sweaty neck; on lockdown due to mr smear potentially being ill, so an afternoon reading and playing before settling down to some adventure time before showering before putting him to bed

...

the profound gratitude in mr smear joyfully dancing to tool and nine inch nails, and in catching him just as he was toppling into the bath while i dried my face; the pride in him not swallowing when rinsing his teeth, and in his new reliance on words to communicate with us; and the joy of hearing him singing "twinkle, twinkle" to himself as we ready him for bed

...

lucas bros: on drugs (some very funny jokes, mostly just cute and clever), then work

monday 24th:

getting into bed around 1.30am after fighting with configuration files for three or four hours

up at 7am after too-little sleep overloaded with intriguing, weird dreams that i couldn't recall

episode 3 of the secret life of four, five and six year olds and jaja upsetting gd, getting mr smear's test results and the relief of an "all clear"

working throughout the day while entertaining mr smear, making solid progress; mom's business partner arriving half an hour late for me to sort out his email (so no evening walk with mr smear), followed by an incident of spilled (not milk) that escalated quickly and painfully

tuesday 25th:

a night of decent work, calling it early at 1am

a decent night's sleep? still feeling shitty from the night before, mr smear playing with his breakfast, dropping him off at school and heading to the waterfront to demand that the apple doctor fix my phone - which they appear to have done this time - doing a quick and heavy shopping and hitting baby city on the way home

still a shitty feeling, trying to get a little work done then rushing off to pick mr smear up again, taking his grumpiness to buy rechargable batteries for my mouse and his nap on arrival home; i don't recall that portion of the afternoon, but after some time playing with him when he woke up i decided to take him to kirstenbosch.

leaving for anywhere after 3pm is a bad idea, and this was about 4.45pm so it took us forty-five minutes to get there; it being winter hours, we ended up with about twenty minutes before it was time to go home. insane drivers, but great views, and running into someone i went on the kfar haro'eh programme with and her 9-month old

mom's upsetting email experience after a long day - sorting it out, but surprised (or not?) that mweb didn't warn its customers that they were taking down an in-use pop server... thrown dinner time, mr smear suffering from a sore tongue (he actually pointed to his mouth and said "ow", which is a first), getting him to bed fairly easily and watching the fourth episode of the secret life of four, five and six year olds while eating everyone else's dinner before settling down to post this. for a number of reasons - and a couple of distractions - it's taken a couple of hours, but i did come up with a solution to a project problem i've been struggling with so that's nice :)

now, do i work or sleep?