Weekend whines

 Our COVID and flu vaccines (although I am SURE it was the COVID shot because I am a loyal flu shot recipient and this has never happened to me before) DESTROYED US this weekend. Well. Destroyed Ben and me, anyway. The kids were all fine (Minnie and Cooper might be coming down with something today (BECAUSE OF COURSE) but they were fine yesterday).

We got vaccinated at 1:20 on Saturday, en masse, and by 7pm, I had really bad leg pain and felt chilled. Ben mocked me (HE MOCKED ME!), and we worked together to put the kids to bed, but by the time we were bundled in blankets on the couch waiting for Harry to come home, he had a fever of 102 (SERVES HIM RIGHT THO), and I had the most terrible headache of my life.

Neither one of us slept well because we had just awful body aches (at one point, lying on my back, I could feel every vertebrae because EACH ONE WAS ACHING) and were FREEZING despite multiple layers. 

Sunday was more of the same. I didn’t even feel well enough to drink coffee, which is huge for me. I would take ibuprofen, feel a little better for a little while, and then feel rotten again until it was time to take Tylenol, etc. And my arm! OMGGGGGG. I couldn’t even lift it above my shoulder. 

We decided that next year, one of us will get vaccinated a few days before the rest of the group so that both adults aren’t out of commission at once because the very worst part was doing all of the usual Sunday things and feeling like death warmed over.

After dinner last night (pizza, natch), I took another dose of Tylenol because eff my liver, right? While I waited for my fever to break, I climbed into bed with Dorothy (she felt ok-ish compared to us but stayed mostly in bed in her jammies all day watching The Simpsons) and slept for an hour before it was time to put Minnie to bed, and that was my favorite time of the whole day (except for the 45 minutes I spent in a scalding hot epsom salt soak— thank you to the house-building Sarah who made sure we have super deep soaking tubs).

In the middle of the night on Saturday (or early Sunday morning?) Ben was moaning, I think I have COVID, which did make me laugh, even though laughing hurt my head. Cross your fingers that these vaccines do their jobs.

(Also, I have never had a shot reaction before— did this happen to anyone else? Maybe it was both at once? Maybe I got a different brand this time? JUST LUCKY?)

5 on a Friday: Things I am loving right now

 1. Baby dance. NEED I SAY MORE? LOOK AT THIS PICTURE? (Also the sign says September, but it was def October)

2. The Milio’s Snack-which— the perfect sized sandwich—FINALLY. Comes in SO HANDY when I do not have my ish together to assemble my lunch. WHICH IS ALL OF THE TIME.

3.  Salted caramel brownies— but the easy way. Use your favorite brownie mix and make it cakey with an extra egg. Line your fave baking pan with parchment and put half the mix in the pan. Then unwrap an entire freaking bag of Kraft caramel cubes and melt 3/4 of the bag with some (?) heavy whipping cream in the microwave. Spread the melted caramel over the brownie mix; sprinkle with kosher salt; top with the rest of the brownie mix. Bake it as you normally would and when the brownies come out, melt the other 1/4 bag of caramels and drizzle over the top. SO GOOD. Do not overcook though— they are better a little squishy than dry. I have made these twice recently, and I have no regrets.

4.  Two Good vanilla yogurt— it might be the perfect snack.

5. Clinique! I have not dabbled in this brand for decades, but I got a couple of moisturizers, plus a couple of lipsticks, an eyeliner,  and a mascara, and teenage me was ONTO SOMETHING.

Blergh

 Minnie is like the most stereotypical pandemic baby who is now out in the wild around her peers. Every time someone coughs in her direction she needs antibiotics. An exaggeration, but barely. This week, it is an ear infection. 

LOVE THAT FOR ALL OF US.

(she was up for 2.5 hours in the middle of the night last night and oh my goodness.)

UGH. I swear I had a whole post planned in my head but then I WORKED instead of blogging LIKE A CHUMP, and now I do not remember anything. BOO.

Except! Pomodoro! I thought this time management method would be good for Jack because his AP history class as a pretty daunting notes assignment every week, and he hates getting started and often leaves a bunch of it until Thursday night/Friday morning despite having SEVEN DAYS to do it, etc. So I introduced him to this method where you work for 25 minutes and then take a short break, repeat, etc. He likes it OK, but I? LOVE IT.

I am grading my midterms myself instead of having my TA grade them because it is a new exam, and I want to see if the questions are assessing what I thought they were, etc, and the Pomodoro method is genius for grading— GENIUS, I tell you. My grading muscle is out of shape, so I have loved having a structure. (Also this is for my 100-person lecture, not the 68-section class I direct, so not as overwhelming as it seems).

That is how Minnie went to swim lessons the other day— I am THE WORST.

Minnie has The Force, by the way. AND SHE IS POTTY TRAINED! All of the sudden! It just clicked for her. Such a big girl.

DANCE WEEKEND!

 Hey! I know! Let’s take a break from complaining to talk about something FUN?

Dorothy had a dance convention last weekend in the Dells, and it was adorable. 

She took thirteen dance classes in 2 days— a mix of jazz, hip hop, ballet, and contemporary, with some fun ones like Pom pons (taught by a pro-bowl cheerleader), tap (very loud in a giant ballroom. Very very loud), and belly dancing thrown in.

She cajoled me into buying not one but 2 sports bras that say SHOWSTOPPER in tiny sequins and also a sweatshirt, but she also had an absolute BLAST with her friends, made new friends on her team, and enjoyed spending time with just me, too.

She worked SO HARD in all of her classes, even the last one when she was super tired. Even in her contemporary class that she took barefoot (as you do) and had to pull her leggings over her heels because her tap shoes gave her blisters, and her feet were LITERALLY BLEEDING, but she DANCED  FULL OUT ANYWAY. She learned a bunch, was way better at picking up choreography quickly than she was last year, and even got called out to perform at the end of a class in a small group, something she wanted to do all weekend.

It was a people watching FEAST that I delighted in. I also wrote a bunch of scripts for videos for my online class (YAY ME!!!!!) and read a great book. Plus we ate Jimmy Johns both days, and I discovered one of the other team moms is a sorority sister of mine. I walked by the mini room and thought OMG my Minnie could be in there in a couple of years because clearly, I have downed the dance mom Kool Aid.

Good News/Bad News

 Good news: Ben got an AWESOME WONDERFUL EXCITING new job, and we are so proud of him and happy for him and cannot even wait for him to start because he is going to LOVE IT and welcome the professional challenge.

Bad news: My already out-of-balance work.life balance is going to get EVEN MORE WOBBLY, and I am not sure how much room I have left to stretch.

Or! Is the bad news that I am a selfish asshole who can and IS looking this gift horse in the mouth? HARD TO SAY.

(Minnie will go to preschool more starting mid-November, and this is going to be amazing for her and for me.)

IT IS ALL GOING TO BE OK.

Better than ok! Fantastic, actually. Ben will be in the office 5 days a week with an hour commute— very pre-panny for sure, but IT REALLY IS GOOD NEWS.

And!! No need to freak out about not having a routine yet because it is all getting smashed to pieces next month. 

I had this whole, tortuous thing written about exactly how I spend my time between work and childcare and house stuff and being a sportsball taxi, but it was... not helpful. Helpful for me to write but not for other people to read, if that makes sense. 

We have not had such a stereotypical, gendered split of work and home time since before Ben went into academia in 2012-- although when he worked for the governor's administration, things for him were very 9-5 (but all our kids were in school all day at like the SAME 2 schools and also COVID forced everyone home, which turned out to be excellent for us and our new baby, etc.) 

ANYWAY, I am a huge complainer-- but you all already knew that.

More good news is that now that Ben is back working for private industry, he is game to podcast again, so get excited for more talk about our utterly craptastic parenting.

5 on a Friday: Things I Love About My Teens

 1. One kid gave us a very traditional Homecoming experience last weekend. He went to the dance with his smart and funny friend group. They went out to dinner first. He bought a new fancy outfit. They took pics together. It was darling, and I loved it.

2. One kid went a very non-trad route. He didn’t want to go to the dance because it was only open to kids from our high school— no dates from other schools. Instead, he planned a night in with a person he likely would have taken to the dance, and it was also darling, and I loved it.

(No pics of either of these because these people are very much their own people, and it’s not really my story to overshare anymore, you know?)

3. Harry is 7/8 with college acceptances— just waiting on UW, and since he did not apply early decision, he will be waiting until APRIL. It is so fun to sit back and watch him enjoy his senior year with college stress not at all a part of his life. 

4. Jack is so fun to be around these days. He is kind to the little kids, engaged in current events, a fan of the same TV shows I am and just a person I like hanging out with who happens to live in my house— how great is that?? We can’t wait to see his fall play at the end of the month

5.  Both boys are SO EASY. No drama, a good mix of nights in and fun with friends. Harry has a job. Jack saved tons from summer, and they both fund their own social lives and part of their wardrobes. WE GOT SO LUCKY, you guys.

FALL!! It’s HERE!!

 It’s so delightfully chilly this week that I cannot even get mad about putting last year’s body in this year’s jeans! (Not trying to be eating disordered. I cannot replace everyone’s wardrobe this exact second, so I am just going to have to make do with snug pants because I have several children who literally outgrew all their clothes overnight).

I have made chicken and noodles, a chili, cut out sugar cookies in Halloween shapes, and also pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. IN THE LAST 3 DAYS. Like, that’s how excited I am to see fall starting to appear.

Minnie looks like a teddy bear in her tight little fleece jackets!

And she is getting TONS of wear out of her Halloween clothes

The Paw Patrol movie? Was terrible. When Minnie told me she was ready to go 15 minutes before the end of the movie, I did not think twice about packing up our stuff and heading home. Also, I packed her a lunch instead of buying gross movie food, and this was 100% the right move.

Inspired by Lisa playing games with her preschooler, I scoured our shelves for new-to-her tiny kid games and found ONLY Busy Town Eye Found It (which was still sealed in its box!). Goodness knows what happened to the rest of them, but yay for easy Chrismukkah gift ideas! Anyway, she LOVED this game and played very seriously twice then just played with the pieces and the board making up an elaborate story about sharks in the water, etc. She has a couple HABA board games that you can play with rules or as free play, and I think that has framed the way she approaches games in a really helpful and creative way.

FALL, though, you guys. FALL!!