storm breaking

monday 5th:

a pretty good night, a comfortable start to the day, working and feeling healthy while gd organized the new dresser, picking up mr smear and doing a big shopping mission, then home to try and rest before gd's hair appointment and my interviewing a potential new employee

waking mr smear from a deep sleep and getting gd there just on time, finally finding unframed ice cream - great product, really poor signage - and mr smear refusing to try the absurdly good macha tea flavour until the cup was empty and he attacked the meager remains in a pathetic display of regret

home late for a meeting that had already been postponed, feeding mr smear and working on an interesting new side-project, a short visit from my mom and bedtime prep, a little bit of a struggle to get him to sleep and an episode of the second season of f is for family while feeding myself before digging back into work

tuesday 6th:

a scarily convincing paypal / spotify phishing scam, reviewing shitty sales material while designing an in-house solution for a licensing server, getting to bed at 2am and "enjoying" about four disrupted hours of rest, up early for dinosaur train and self-applied cashew yoghurt before dropping mr smear off at school and coming home for a couple of hours of rest that felt like i'd been dosed with morphine without the brainless side effects
picking up mr smear, stopping quickly at home for a forgotten ready bag, stopping at the rental agency to pick up a car door lock lever then continuing to canal walk to return something, buy something, discover the games arcade, eat lunch (and have mr smear smear half of it across the table) and go home to pre-storm groceries and a little boy who refused to nap

the aggravated return of the acid reflux after two months "hiatus" [*i'm* amused by that pun, at least], doing dishes and juggling books until dinner, then bedtime prep and battening down the hatches

interviewing (successfully) a new teammate, f is for family, getting some work done while the storm finally broke

wednesday 7th:

in bed around 3am, barely any rest again, some crazy winds and a day of blessed rain leaking in our windows (along with the cold, but the panels i installed are doing a great job), mr smear a little bored but generally alright and the three of us getting through the day with gd's comfort food and a little work and mom's visit

a couple of moments worrying about all the things that i haven't been taking care of

f is for family interrupted by a message asking why i was late for a meeting, minestrone soup gone bad, a little tekken before work

thursday 8th:

working until 2am, a cold and tough night and waking up to a particularly unpleasant morning (dishwasher issues); work and finances, confirmation from a professional that our window installation is inadequate (cheap landlord), mr smear napping when we got home, two hours of kitchen duties and the surrounding drama, receiving acknowledgement from my previous mobile carrier that they've owed me money since december

i wish i'd learned about mint.com years ago

a post-office / shopping run with mr smear and his impossible-to-get-on shoes that he sneakily kicked off in a store, picking up post that specifically said it wasn't there (glad i didn't go to pick it up first), sold out cashew yoghurt, mr smear singing to all the world, a shoe tantrum in the car and carrying everything including mr smear who was carrying another box with a weak left arm (i still don't know if it's a nerve thing or a tendon / muscular thing)

just getting through the evening, mom's visit and gd's peanut butter soup, mr smear falling asleep easily and us following suit

friday 9th:

catching up sleep with the usual interruptions

work, picking up mr smear, him napping soon after we got home and me getting kicked out of my "office" by the cleaning lady and resting a little before going to my acupuncture appointment; very interesting appointment, dreaming with no rls, and being left in a relaxed state that would only wear off enough for me to be functional the next morning

a family walk, a sunset red with the fires from knysna, friday night dinner with my mom (an uncooperative mr smear), f is for family (season two gets progressively more serious than funny) and crashing early

saturday 10th:

up early, the dark crystal and gd making slime (long story short, a great idea in theory), mr smear's early nap and my second coffee allowing me to get some important work done, a visit to the aquarium (taking a long time getting there, and arriving with a shit cup of coffee that wasn't what i ordered), a fun visit and mr smear finally crawling into the kids' exhibits, a big shopping on an eerily quiet afternoon in sea point, occupying mr smear with dr horrible's sing-along-blog, mom's visit and me purchasing myself an early birthday present with seasons one and two of battlestar galactica, mr smear's bedtime followed by some downtime

omg bg is even more brilliant second time around, a little twelve monkeys and the rest of f is for family - that awkward moment when you want to rate a series one star because you're upset that it ended

sunday 11th:

nasty rls for a while, stretching, reviewing a couple of children's books, returning to bed still struggling a little

not a lot of sleep, mr smear up early and gd hurting herself and the first couple of hours of the day generally unpleasant

driving out to the play shed to crash a birthday party for a play date, meeting some nice people and mr smear having a ball, a few awkward moments and then a long detour on the way home, mr smear falling asleep, me getting some work done before my sister arrived for a lovely afternoon visit, my mom's frustration at having failed to get hold of us for various reasons, mr smear being busy but amusing, a bit of a struggle getting mr smear to bed, finishing leftovers and working a while

monday 12th:

a couple of times up in the night but he slept in long enough to allow us an extra fifteen minutes (glorious!) and a quick shopping run

dropping off mr smear, coming home and diving into the last piece of my rabbitmq puzzle, picking up mr smear (some of the other parents seemed a little cold to me), getting mr smear home and finding him completely disinterested in multiple offers of a nap. finishing the rabbitmq puzzle, trying to entertain through tears of exhaustion, a visit from someone my brother knows and the hilariously awkward moment when we realized that he'd lied to her about something - a ridiculous lie that had us all embarrassed on his behalf. getting through the afternoon, including a fight with aliexpress (i made the mistake of trying to purchase some iq puzzles, they took the payment and then informed me that for "security reason" i needed to upload all sorts of private documents. i've now learned my lesson)

late coffee, blackboard wars is like a gritty version of dangerous minds where the white teacher and the principal really aren't amazing, a little twelve monkeys in between and then a good few hours of work

tuesday 13th:

mr smear had skipped his nap and received an antihistamine dose that gave us a good night's rest with only one feed, him waking up hungry to rick and morty on a miserable morning, the car taking a long time to start when we were already running late

dropping off gd, dropping off mr smear, picking up gd, passing out for an hour or so, working, picking up mr smear, everyone gobbling down gd's homemade hummus before mr smear and i went down for a nap

coffee and coding before driving to the hospital for a two month follow up, a slow truck on one road and construction on the other inspiring me to open waze and learn that they've disabled typing when movement is detected (good for them)

good news, i guess? i didn't really follow how requiring 15mg of PPIs is progress when i barely needed them before, but whatever. mr smear sleeping four hours and giving me excellent work time - i actually managed to get in more than a full day's work before bedtime - followed by a walk outside to find a hardware store (both closed before 5.30pm), shopping, dinner and a visit from my mom, bedtime prep, and then an hour of tears and frustration putting mr smear to bed which turned south as i was supposed to be joining an important meeting... fortunately that was postponed for other reasons, but i didn't know that at the time.

work, the big fat truth, a little email clearing and

wednesday 14th:

bed at 12.30am, "dropping the soap" (literally, the rls bar hitting the floor scaring the crap out of me) at 5am with the city blanketed in deep fog, mr smear sleeping through, long office dreams

invader zim and cashew yoghurt, another wintery, foggy day; trying to get my papers in order but installing heating panels and hunting down hardware instead; using gd's appointment as an excuse to walk down to buy cashew yoghurt

on the way i picked up a cup of delicious vegan soup, and i still had a tiny bit left when i picked up mr smear; hilarity ensued as he couldn't get enough of the stuff, for five or ten minutes the teachers and i laughed uncontrollably as he tried every which way to extract the last drops, most of it staining his forehead and cheeks a bright turmeric yellow

home, gd's wildly successful third hummus attempt and mr smear going down for another long nap while i installed panels at my mom's; home (ramen and supergirl), then taking mr smear with to my cousin's to return his drill and discuss recruitment with his wife

coming home late in heavy fog (dangerous roads, a couple of near-misses) for a delicious but messy dinner (we can't trust mr smear with spoons yet), bedtime prep, a positive weekly meeting, supergirl vs the big fat truth, early to bed

thursday 15th:

mr smear and the spoon of yoghurt, dropping him off less late than usual, working most of the next couple of hours, twisting my knee while picking him up, trying not to laugh in his face when he cried because i accepted his father's day gift to me, failing to get him to nap and trying to work and generally being exhausted

tension headache to go with my knee

breaking weaning protocol and a half an hour deep napping, a chiropractor visit and occupying mr smear by turning a polystyrene cup inside out followed by a visit to the waterfront

mr smear pushing all my buttons on a day when i already lacked the patience - if my boy had done that sort of thing as a member of my generation he'd have been thoroughly beaten, and he would have been far too young to even understand why - some frustrating shopping experiences, lego and fudge to try to make it better, a tough food court dinner and mr smear's grand finale screaming right in my ear while i was strapping him into the car seat, which hurt my ear and made me angry which upset the rest of the evening.

a difficult-ish bedtime around 9pm, then signing on to a call with the big boss that lasted an hour and a half and had the pleasantly surprising outcome of my design and strategy being met with complete agreement and much appreciated praise. i followed that with an hour or so of me time, including this posting, and now...

friday 16th:

it's back to work.