trauma

hi everyone, I know you're not all interested in what's going on but i believe the incident and our next actions need to be clear to everyone.

mr smear came home bitten yesterday, and no matter how awful the parents of the biter might feel that does not delegitimize how upset we are. not only were we upset about the bite, but also about the fact that there've been incidents in the class that have not been reported to the parents which we feel is a significant breach of trust on the part of the school.
having said all that, what gd posted yesterday was NOT targeted at the parents or biter, it was NOT targeted at the school and there was no intention to make any of those involved feel bad. they were not the subject of the post.

but one of you, or some of you, felt the need to generate drama and presented a twisted interpretation of the post to the parents and administration. i speak to you when i say this: you are a repulsive human being and, if you're "friends" with the parents, you're horrible, sadistic friends.

as of today we are officially pulling mr smear out of the [school] system. for those of you sanctimoniously bullying other parents and getting off on speaking badly or lying behind other people's backs, maybe you know who you are or maybe you don't but we are done with you dominating a class of generally good and kind parents. we want our son raised with good jewish values and whatever this is, it isn't it. for those of you who don't believe you're part of the problem i invite you to talk to us directly, as should have been done yesterday.

to the majority of decent parents in the class, it has been a pleasure and i hope the rest of the year is a positive one for all.

the past four days have been a nightmare, a post on facebook generated unbelievable drama and prompted an insulting and unprofessional response from our son's principal. as the story has unfolded it's become more surreal and psychotic and gd and i have been suffering serious anxiety and distress. we don't know what's going to happen for the rest of the school year and we're uncertain about 2018, but if nothing else we've learned a literally incredible amount about our peers and the administration. i couldn't even make up the majority of this shit if i tried.

tuesday 14th:

00.30am

up early and better than usual, although gd not so much

an online argument about marijuana use during pregnancy that upset me, but ultimately was resolved in a way that restored a little faith in humanity

buying swim gear on the way to picking up mr smear (good lord, people can be inefficient when you're in a hurry), and being inspired to post the following: "this movember, imagine a world in which hitler's mustache was for all men's health, not just for those in the third reich"

a struggle to get mr smear to nap and suppressing anger when gd accidentally interfered, settling in to get some work done when he finally did pass out on the couch

actually taking a short nap myself, then excitedly feeding mr smear chickpea curry and a bunch of other good things while working before taking him for a quick visit to the aquarium; back home in time for gd's class but ending up in a situation that cost half an hour and saw us heading out after my mom had arrived - the plus side being that she could read to him for a bit before i came home to feed him and get him ready for bed

gd's vegan lasagne a raging success for both me and mr smear, an easier shower and toothbrushing than usual and then watching educational material (the science of marijuana use during pregnancy and last week tonight) until gd returned home

gd's hit and miss in class (i wish she'd document her crazy stories), then working until i got sucked in to watching a movie with her that was only interesting because we didn't realize it was a romcom and were waiting for a payoff that was never going to come...

wednesday 15th:

... we stopped watching nine minutes before the end, after which i figured out what was wrong with my service bus app - nothing. the diagnostic tools are just really badly designed.

working until 2.20am, going to bed sensing that the morning would be tough but feeling like things were back to "normal"

up at 6am, my brain and body remembering just how "normal" being torn out of a great sleep feels, down for most of the morning but not getting much rest, getting up in a hurry to pick up mr smear and leaving late, after a discussion between gd and our nanny combined with an argument with SJWs the night before lit a fire under my ass

mr smear falling asleep on our way up to the apartment, grabbing a quick bite and heading over to my mom's to work and learn about the craziness in zimbabwe (hooray for mugabe's resignation!)

quickly picking up mr smear and taking him for a playdate at the aquarium, the kids had a lot of fun and we had some interesting conversations, home for gd's incredible vegan lasagne, shower and bedtime, an israeli miniseries on a 2006 murder in katzrin, work

thursday 16th:

leg skin issues, giving up on debating with SJWs (they will beat you with ignorance, or irrationality, or both), tortuous microsoft training videos and in bed around 2am

an intensely crazy dream thoroughly disrupted by mr smear crying out from a nightmare, then waking up at 6am and lying miserably uselessly on the couch until finally able to get up to drink coffee around 8am

cats being assholes to humans? funny. humans being assholes to cats? not funny.

gd losing her cool with the builders on the way out, mr smear singing loudly on the way in, staying to watch his teacher giving him a drawing / colour test and feeling immensely proud at how impressed they were (he's holding the pens correctly, drawing really good circles, staying in the lines and identifying all the colours!)

drinking coffee and watching jordan peterson videos before a very positive therapy session, completing forms and going to pick up mr smear - authorizing mr smear's friend's nanny to take him out of class, filling the tank while mr smear passed out to tool's lateralus, scanning documents, reading the long earth, devouring fry's vegan chicken strips and chilli in bed and resting during nap time
"waking up" for mr smear demanding mommy's pancakes and settling for végépaté, his infectious enthusiasm for shabbat tunes i like, taking him for a walk with my mom, picking up falafel wraps for dinner, a rushed shower and getting gd to class on time

(a man begging for clothing, all manner of red flags should've been set off)

interesting classes, the discussion on kashrut spawning conversations about veganism - being careful to call myself plant-based rather than vegan in light of the previous sjw encounter

home for funny stories about mr smear's bedtime, eating then taking my mom home before trying again to make some progress with gd's visa application and getting some work done

friday 17th:

deciding i'd had enough at 1.30am

cries at 6am for the "falafel be'laffa" leftovers (and tearing into them), holding in a poop that he told me about while i was brushing his teeth until he could get to the potty (!!!)

dropping him off horrified by a teacher's daughter's screams (seriously, teach YOUR freakin' kid not to do that), leaving a message for a manager to "park in your own parking space", a long gym prep

my first proper swim in more than two decades began with a bad landing on a hidden shelf, severely bruising my foot and pulling things up to (but thankfully not including) my knee. i was pleasantly surprised to find my muscle memory taking over and being very comfortable doing the work, but not so pleasantly surprised to discover just how pathetic my cardio was and each lap became an enormous struggle to complete because i couldn't handle the breathing

ice pack time waiting for gd, picking up mr smear and gd walking home while i (painfully) walked with him to his friend's place, dropped him off, and (painfully) walked back to the car, drove to my mom's, completed a service fabric tutorial, picked up mr smear, extracted him sleeping in spite of the asshole manager in the next bay parking even closer, fleeing an idiot talking loudly on his phone while following me (can you not see the sleeping baby, dipshit?!), involving the new building manager in the parking story, going to my mom's for half an hour of azure db play, returning home to say goodbye to the nanny (who hadn't seen mr smear since the morning)

a little work, a little play (music and food), showering and handing mr smear over to my mom before heading to the temple for a quick and pleasant service

a nice dinner but with a very naughty boy, my foot aching the whole time, watching the first episode of dinosaurs before putting mr smear to bed, seeing my mom out and watching a few minutes of québécois stand-up before hitting the hay before half past ten

saturday 18th:

6.30 up, 8am really up, mr smear's right foot sketching (and a disagreement over labelling his knees in english and hebrew), my foot much improved, a little drama getting ready for the company gardens, mr smear passing out as we arrived (as is his wont), hula hoops and devil sticks, meeting pseudo-friends at the breastfeeding tent

an emptier vegan market than usual with sailor and his girlfriend, fantastic food, delicious green tea kombucha that we realized a bit late shouldn't have been given to mr smear, him and his biker buddy and way too much "what does iron man do?" (an exhausting little game mr smear invented), hitting heavy traffic on the way home and mr smear down for nap number two

zimbabwéen revelries not only not waking mr smear but infectiously exciting, an afternoon of relaxing and a very short evening; passing out on the couch watching a great deadpan comedian, judah friedlander: america is the greatest country in the united states, moving myself to bed a couple of hours later

sunday 19th:

1.30am waking up for a scary night terror that we were infuriatingly helpless to stop and took about half an hour to bring to an end (not sure at the time if putting on a dr horrible's sing-along blog song worked, or if i put it on as he was winding down) and another half hour before he was ready to sleep again; not sure if actually a night terror or if the same inexplicable freak out from the week before. not helped by occasional loud, sudden and very unpleasantly metallic pipe noises from the apartment above us.

5.30am waking from a long, remarkably real and intense nightmare of living next to a twisted evil mastermind and slowly becoming involved in his machinations, maintaining his respect for me until i mistakenly admitted the possibility that i could understand how they got to where they were, at which point he began playing games to try to "own" me that included involving my family. trying to leave, witnessing an idiot tying his shoelaces in the way of a vehicle and causing the driver to plow into other cars, becoming caught in a long night of drugs and manipulation, and avoiding a trap intending to get me to use his credit card to buy my way out of an unjust situation, returning to his house to return the card and stumbling across prisoners in a walk in fridge, narrowly avoiding insane death traps and gearing up to stand up to him

up early but not feeling wasted as usual, a morning of duplo, gaming and nursery rhymes, shopping at mambo's turning out to be considerably more expensive than intended, home for a heavy half-challah and hummus lunch, reading the long earth which has progressed from "pretty interesting" to "pretty damned amazing", napping a bit until it was mr smear's turn; things were going well until i needed to wash his hands and he became uncooperative, and there's nothing that'll break my nap-space like fighting with a two year old

getting him to sleep pretty quickly but unable to rest myself so finally succeeding with a work task that had been frustrating me for a couple of weeks

an amusing evening, mom's visit and holiday strategizing, postponing mr smear's shower but making up the effort in a never-ending goodnight that gd and i had to manage in shifts

judah friedlander is amazing

in bed 10.30pm-ish

monday 20th:

an excruciating long night, unable to get comfortable and hurting my back

epic dream of a military course, switching teams, a day at the beach, returning after a break to less food subsidies, waking up from a spaceship simulation where the enemy ship was closing in on me and the weaponized creatures strapped to the front were prepared to board us with their fertility increased by ten percent

the last dream from the top of a building preparing for a celebration by throwing flare guns set to go off on timers to the ground

mr smear refusing to leave his bed for quite a while, hebrew nursery rhymes, multiple struggles to get him showered and ready for school with gd losing patience, dropping her off at the chiropractor and mr smear arriving in class just as one of the girls bit a boy really badly

working at my mom's, picking up mr smear and finding he'd also been bitten

an exciting coffee with sailor (too much caffeine?), a little work and a cloudy and cold afternoon indoors (mr smear playing memory and reflex games, watching my neighbour totoro and asterix)

a few achievements during the day, including booking gd's visa appointment and a night in a lodge, and really worrying news from the CRA that we owe them lots of money for some inexplicable reason

a very long bedtime with the poor kid begging for "falafel be'laffa" that we didn't have

my "me time" involving posting photos and reading how some idiot israelis sold a product to the wrong customer, then diving in to azure / edge.js material

tuesday 21st:

that moment when you realize, after having given up looking for your watch a while ago, that it was on your wrist all along

pleasant rain accompanying a lot of reading with some interesting discoveries along the way

2am to bed, 4.10 up for another night freak out (quicker on the dr horrible draw, it was effective), 5.15 finally moving out of our bed and going back to sleep, everyone waking up late after 8am

a jump start to the day being bullied by some of the class moms who not only made the biting incident public but also took a bullshit story to the principal, trying to get work done in spite of the drama, being frustrated and disappointed by a principal we thought was smarter than that and pulling mr smear out of the school

a long afternoon, a trek for an unappreciated laffa, a struggle to nap, and waking up inexplicably upset

a long afternoon, eventually my mom coming over and discussing the days events, watching robert mugabe's retirement letter being read before putting mr smear to bed; another interminably long goodnight and finally winning with some surprise inspiration... he was yelling to us that he was iron man, so i told him that iron man was going to sleep and he just lay down and went to sleep!

the realization that we need to get him a bed and fast, as he can now climb out the crib

early bed 22.30 on a cold, wet, mid-november night

wednesday 22nd:

up at 6.30 when mr smear woke up but alone as he didn't want to leave his crib for the first half hour

picking up mr smear's belongings from the school and bumping into bitermom, who smugly demonstrated that she had manipulated the principal's inappropriate behaviour

working at my mom's, heading off at lunchtime to meet with the school director who was my middle school principal to discuss the week's events. pleasantly surprised to find him considerably smarter and wiser than i remembered him, the anxiety made it hard to breath at the beginning but whether he agreed or not he clearly heard and appreciated what i had to say. i eventually walked out of there with a relatively good feeling, continued to work until 4.

the mouse usb chip jumping out of my hand and into a half a cup of coffee. taking mr smear to meet our friend at three anchor bay and letting mr smear play in the rock pools for the first time, learning incredible details about the parents meeting that we hadn't been invited to, including who started all the trouble, the psychotic tales of weeping bitermom (the whole community knows! people keep coming up to me and making fun of my daughter!), mr smear's class bestie's mother not interested in playdates with us anymore because *we're* too much drama

discovering another surprise debt to the CRA we hadn't seen coming, and locking out gd's account because it asked my security question expecting her answers. at least the debt is interest free.

mr smear's big potty before bed (he had to be convinced *not* to hold it in)

... falling asleep early from stress exhaustion...

thursday 23rd:

up early and rushing to get to the new school for an 8.30am interview, i have a feeling we shouldn't have been as forthcoming as we were but the principal seemed understanding and we were very impressed with the teachers and facilities. what turned a pleasant experience sour in the blink of an eye was a phone call from my anger management therapist asking if i was on my way, we hadn't realized that we'd been there for over an hour and a half and i hadn't received any alerts. then we realized that gd was late for her therapy too, so THAT was an expensive morning...

we looked at beds for mr smear instead, then met my mom at vida; mr smear loved his almond babychino and did *not* like me leaving for a few minutes. we took him home to nap, and i spent the next couple of hours finally figuring out the azure changes required for my project after four days of struggling (i did a little dance)

taking mr smear for a park walk and ride, coming home to a very quick dinner and shower before leaving him with my mother and going to a particularly exciting class during which gd and i experienced a couple of revelations about genesis

coming home to gd's amazing chocolate cake and a little telly and work and desk clearing

friday 24th:

i can't believe this insane week isn't over yet. oh, hello 1.30am.

concerns and burning out

fleas again?! i freakin' hope not, but something's jumping on my legs right now.

the overarching concern of the past two weeks is that a grave pharmacy mistake we recently uncovered may have negatively affected mr smear's growth potential :(

tuesday 31st:

going to bed around 2/2.30am after doing some finances, then being woken four hours later by the loudest, most aggressive banging yet: scrambling to dress and go downstairs to confront the bastards and finding an empty mall, plus the boxing school bozos very confident that it wasn't them. in the evening we heard that same banging again and i jumped downstairs to find a guy using ropes so hard that they banged every time they touched the floor - it WAS the boxing school!

a slightly tense morning, coming out alright, dropping mr smear off and heading to town for half an hour of "fifteen minutes" installing a vehicle tracker with no internet connection because the fool agent from telkom sorted me out for the following month but not the one i needed help with

backing up gd's scans, taking her to pathcare, picking up mr smear who - according to plan - fell asleep on the way to the hospital. not according to plan: forgetting his stroller and having to carry him napping until i woke him up because i simply couldn't manage any more. again struggling with the lack of internet because we didn't know we needed her id with us, eventually getting everything done and returning home; working a little then taking mr smear and his bike for a walk (bissli winning the day), then home for drama (anxiety over gd's physical course discomfort and content)

straightforward bedtime, needing coffee just to shower, meetings with pivotal revelations and feet really hurting for a long time but grateful for gd's friend's massage tool

gd having a breakdown (the pain)

gd convincing me to go to bed at 11pm after finding me sitting on the floor in a pained stupor trying to stretch and manipulate my neck and back

wednesday 1st:

still exhausted early, a fairly standard morning, my recently printed shirts already falling apart, dropping off mr smear and heading straight to my mom's to work

good work, picking up mr smear and taking him home, an hour shopping and eating lunch, showing the nanny the shaded park and mr smear falling asleep along the way, more work and believing i'd broken something just before rushing out to take gd to the chiropractor (i hadn't), just enough time to drop off a visa form at the doctor's office then wake mr smear, pick up gd and do more grocery shopping

a little work, taking mr smear and his bike to a park where he played nicely with a little girl until she tried to use his bike - i was sorely disappointed - coming home for dinner, israeli music and shower-and-bedtime

finishing joe rogan: triggered (excellent), clearing my desk a little then working

thursday 2nd:

until 00.30

migraine day and a big upset over not answering non-trivial questions with trivial answers, dropping mr smear off at school and resting a little before a very interesting and angry therapy session, a little work before picking mr smear up again, letting him get away from me but finding him shortly thereafter, home to big hunger on both our parts, a frustrated toddler on the potty learning that you can't pee with an erection, running into our neighbours carrying their stroller up tight stairs because the elevator was out of order, a pharmacy mission and picking up lavender essential oil

a long and difficult process getting mr smear to nap, eventually putting him on the couch and leaving the trance playing while i worked

mr smear eating veggie burgers wrong, a little work before rushing to get to gd's class; mr smear throwing a tantrum last minute and refusing to brush his teeth because "no water!!!", finally rinsing his mouth and laughing in my face when i pointed out that he was thirstily drinking the water he'd said no to

phenomenally bad driving on the way to the temple, another interesting class but gd very uncomfortable, a heavy thunderstorm, coming home to funny stories about my son's bedtime behaviour, leftovers and sorbet and stranger things 2 and early to bed (11.45) with rls

friday 3rd:

up at 4am to work with more lightning and rain, a fair amount of the day spent building a robust converter that i'm amazed isn't freely available already

picking up the second copy of my book in the rain, a waterfront grocery run alone, picking up gd's medical form a day late because the not-so-bright receptionist had forgotten about it, walking to our friend and not arriving because mr smear got caught up in dog parks and made a new friend in the kid's one

going straight from the park to the temple, mr smear loving the songs then trying to play with a group of older girls and getting a ton of exercise; explaining to me that he's afraid of heights by saying "owie!" and navigating a narrow log heigh up in spite of his fear, vegan sushi and flings before returning home, friday night dinner with my mom, reading to mr smear and almost passing out myself, then starting rls and taking something for it that seems to have worked

saturday 4th:

waking up to a real-life nightmare at 4am, gd having pinched a nerve that had her in unbearable agony that i'm still shocked she refused to take to the hospital; the pinch calming about half an hour later and everyone sleeping until 9am

waking up from a dream about a joyful goodbye with old family friends leaving in a dust storm

tears for "yerushalayim shel zahav", mr smear's shofar obsession, finding good french nursery rhymes, taking mr smear to kirstenbosch quite late, seeing the traffic and heading to the farmer's market instead; a pleasant time, a shocked smoothie seller repeating incredulously to other customers that microwaves are safe, running into sailor's (now-ex?) girlfriend finding homes for dogs, coming home for nap time, gd's successful mexican take on hummus, taking mr smear for a walk with my mom, an exquisitely distressing episode of stranger things (pollywog), giving up on watching ufc 217, working on my JSON/CSV converter

sunday 5th:

finally finishing at 2am but taking an hour to publish the damned thing before going to bed, then being dragged out of bed four hours later completely incapable of doing more than lying uncomfortably and uselessly on the couch

a slow start to the day, going to kirstenbosch with my mom, forgetting to lock the car until after we'd ordered lunch, a serious vegan spread at the tea room, a fun stroll back and playing happily in the water until mr smear picked up a splinter

arriving home napping but waking up immediately, tired but feeling good after sunshine and nature

sailor, mr smear and the wookie, flower advancement (what a stunning game), putting mr smear to bed and eating too much (gd made chilli) and everybody pleasantly relaxed
stranger things
i thought i'd seen fat, sick and nearly dead before, really interesting

monday 6th:

going to bed at midnight just as the wind began gusting, waking up at alarm time for a straightforward morning until drop off time, then struggling to get all gd's visa documents together and finally realizing we're still waiting for some from pretoria... heading to my mom's to work, picking up mr smear, back to my mom's to work some more, back home in heavy winds thinking i was going to return to visit our friend but gd's végépaté needed more time to cook; work and play then rushing off to my mom's for a video conference

encountering heavy traffic, passing a parking spot and not being able to open the gate, being forced to go around and fortunately finding another one that had just opened up, bounding up the stairs to set up my machine and put the kettle on, pressing "connect" and then receiving a phone call to tell me the meeting was postponed...

struggles with mr smear (he was having a reaction to something and the allergex combined with a missed nap made him a bit stoned), putting him to bed, watching the end of fat, sick and nearly dead (brilliant, and a bit surprising), then another episode of stranger things (amazing), then working

tuesday 7th:

until 1am, up at alarm time again and getting through the morning, dropping gd off along with mr smear and then coming home to pass out for another hour waking up to reliving trauma from my canadian immigration experience and my first employer there (megaman's bullshit), shopping and chugging coffee, picking up mr smear and having an interesting conversation about languages, bullying and kid's television with an old high-school buddy

stressing about a rash on his back (prompting an early shower), working while he napped on the couch with music drowning out the construction noise, overall an indoors afternoon until we dropped gd off at her conversion class then finished dinner before starting the bedtime ritual: the evening had some unpleasant parts but was mostly positive, although by the time he was in bed i was *done*

watching a bit of the truth about alcohol, trying to rest behind gd but rls dragging me half-asleep into child pose on the floor after gd had ice-sprayed me

wednesday 8th:

still tired but better
me smear: the water boy ringleader. he's figured out he can get other kids to do his dirty work for him.
my haircut
rushed fix at bootlegger, no time to tip
picking up mr smear pretty quickly, returning to my mom's to work, an interesting movember argument
taking mr smear for a walk with his bike, a little tension with our friend's kids, fireman's pole technique improvement, rushing home slowly, almost leaving the bike twice and threatening to leave him once, borrowing my mom's gate remote just in time and joining a conference call with some Big Deals five minutes late
a long call, some awkwardly ill-prepared moments and hurting my cracked heels
home for throwing-toys-outside, shower, and bedtime; with a little successful moment during a tantrum getting mr smear to stop crying at me because he didn't like me crying back at him. sadly that hasn't worked again.
half of an amazing stranger things episode, then a short meeting followed by a couple of hours adjusting a diagram while fighting the urge to do anything but

thursday 9th:

going to bed just before 1am

tank girl's death, sandman and me mourning her passing over her convertible bathtub, her resurrection followed by my waking up face down with no sensation in my arm

a bad night's sleep, another slow morning, feeling overwhelmed and slow and tired and depressed and burned out, a positive therapy session and about twenty minutes playing flower before rushing to pick up mr smear late, getting him to nap on the couch and having very little energy to be productive, figuring out how to create an online visa application (vfs makes you guess the urls), a short period of resting and working before taking mr smear to the park for twenty minutes, wet paint that i'd thought was bird droppings and swings and then returning home to shower and dinner and brushing teeth before handing him over to my mother

a fascinating look at where modern orthodox judaism went wrong, stranger things and rick and morty before diving into service fabric

friday 10th:

until 00.45

up super early and super tired, getting mr smear to school late again and heading straight to my mom's, forgetting my key but fortunately not needing it. a surprise job interview that i'd forgotten i'd agreed to, not sure how interested i am but there were some amusing awkward moments

struggling to get service fabric to do basic things - it's excellent when it works, but half the time it just doesn't - picking up mr smear (the car pleasantly like a sauna) and arriving home utterly drained, slugging down the remainder of my morning coffee (which was most of it) and returning to my mom's to crash on the couch for fifteen minutes before digging back in to service fabric until the end of my workday, with a fifteen minute break to be impressed by the codility demo test

buying a parking remote for my mom's, coming home to a grumpy family (apparently there were problems with the nanny) and vegan meringues that had flopped into flat toffee, taking mr smear to the park, finally meeting the israeli family from mr smear's best friend's class, mr smear taking a tumble while i was on the phone with horseman and combining legitimate crying with a tantrum that made me take him home and even crack open a beer once he finally calmed down... which was about fifteen minutes later...

my mom and her greek friend stopping over for drinks, chinese takeout for dinner, putting mr smear to bed and stumbling out of his room completely empty

the disappointment in louis ck (of all people) turning out to be a sex offender, making it through an episode of stranger things then going to bed with a phantom itch (psychosomatic or fleas?)

saturday 11th:

a horrible night, restless, uncomfortable and with two incidents of mr smear yelling "nooooo!" in his sleep (the second one leading to us getting up at 6am)

a slow morning, then preparing to go to the temple, dropping gd off and heading to the pharmacy but mr smear sleeping through the experience to make it especially uncomfortable

mr smear waking up in a stupor saying "i wanna eat ice cream", i told him that hummus was even better before giving him some and he wolfed it down happily

a decent temple morning, uncomfortable changing station, mixed feelings about a new friend

trying to go to the vegan market and turning back halfway, trying to induce nap time and failing, straining to handle a bored and tired toddler while exhausted and eventually (around 3pm) taking mr smear out in his stroller hoping he'd fall asleep, regretting that decision because he didn't sleep and the stroller interfered with doing other stuff he might have enjoyed; he wasn't interested in running on the promenade, tried to throw his cap at some ducks and then got pushy with another two year old on a slide. the evening wasn't too bad, though, sailor came over for a while (it was really cool that mr smear picked up that he needed hugs and gave him a few) and then i joined him, a coworker of his and protoplasm at a really nice (but remarkably expensive) sushi restaurant which had some delicious vegan sides and plenty of sake (which was our primary reason for being there)

lots of fun talk - probably quite inappropriate for almost any other group on a saturday night

...

sunday 12th:

4.30am where the fuck does this "not my bed" shit come from all of a sudden?! managing to get him down again and sneaking out with my heart in my throat

waking up really well at 7.30 and then mr smear rushing out of the living room screaming and not calming down until we put on his favourite show - but we still have no idea what caused the freak out in the first place

spirited away after dr horrible's sing-along blog stopped streaming, getting ready to take mr smear somewhere and having the morning thoroughly soured by a misunderstanding gone wrong

a pleasant visit to the aquarium, mr smear's luck with the coin-op on the way out, lunch on a step, enjoying a live band in nobel square and mr smear loving the slide there and making a bunch of friends before my mom brought her friend and gd for lunch

a disappointing make-your-own bowl that had potential, but i wouldn't have been able to enjoy it anyway as mr smear was tired, irritable and not hungry; he was very cute falling asleep singing b-i-n-g-o though

nap time, then coffee and taking mr smear on a big shopping mission, a pleasant evening with good food and lots of playfulness, putting him to bed and settling in for more stranger things - so damned good!

watching the seinfeld special just to make sure that my low rating was warranted, ending up passing in and out of consciousness on a suddenly uncomfortable couch (gd's noticed it too)

monday 13th:

1.30am woken from a weird dream where a french man caring for a women in a wheelchair who was relearning to read after a car accident in which her husband was killed taught me the funny song he'd made up about the event in front of her

4am smacking the cup of water next to me with my pillow after hours of restlessness, narrowly missing the sockets on the extension cord for my bedside lamp; sitting on the floor developing anxiety over the thought of getting into a swimming pool to actually swim for the first time in many years

4.30-5.30: clearing my inbox instead of taking the opportunity to be really productive

going back to bed, just beginning to get comfortable as mr smear woke up (as always), catching up on the couch, a mostly pleasant morning once i was up (even getting a little work done), dropping gd off at the chiropractor and mr smear at school, rushing home to let the nanny in, off to my mom's to work, being pretty productive until lunch time

taking about an hour to get mr smear out of the school, dropping him off at home and eating quickly before spending a couple more hours working then coming home to finally validate my azure troubles with a coworker that SxS has been assuring me we just me

taking mr smear for a fun walk to the playground, a pleasant evening and finishing season two of stranger things after putting mr smear to bed: they nailed it, i kinda hope they don't do another season.

work, a few distractions, this.

tuesday 14th:

and now bed.

movember: a public service announcement

movember, the month of masculinity when men grow amusing facial hair to remind other men to find someone to stick a finger up their bums to find out if they've managed to give themselves cancer yet with the meat-heavy diets they've been manipulated to believe make them more manly.

you know what's manly? eating food that doesn't give you cancer, and being healthy enough to take care of your family and have cash to burn on good experiences and educations instead of meds and medical procedures and funerals.