Life By Kristen

October, Pandemic version

Thank you to the many of you who sent well wishes for my little guy’s surgery last week. It went perfectly and he was such a champ. I only cried once- I wasn’t prepared to have to hand over my child to the doctor. He has a small, benign lesion on his arm that was removed, and as with most things with kids, he’s pretty unphased by the whole thing, though he’s pretty peeved every time we have to give him a sponge bath since real baths are off-limits for another week.

So here we are, October. I’m feeling incredibly riled up these days in different ways– anxious/nervous/fed up with the impending election; bored with various bits of work; inspired/determined to clean up the house/declutter/get organized; exhausted/thrilled over life with a toddler; happy with my partner for going to the grocery store every week/mad at my partner for going to Target and not asking what I needed, and about a million other things. I’m looking forward to so much, and so apprehensive about others. I’m feeling like I can go out in public, masked and armed with hand sanitizer, but also scared to go to other places or see more people than I currently have in my tiny bubble. 2020 is exhausting.

A silly little thing that is bringing me a tiny bit of calm is a funny document I made for my household called “Kristen’s Sanity Schedule.” It’s part meal template, part cleaning schedule, part adulting list and includes things that I do every week without fail ( like changing the sheets) and things I need to be reminded to do, despite them being weekly tasks (why is there so much dusting to be done!?!). Making it felt like I was finally understanding the pace of life in these weird times, but also reminded me that I’m actually doing pretty well in terms of taking care of myself and the other humans in my life. It also reminded me of how thankful I am for a great life partner who actually takes on a good portion of chores, especially the ones I don’t love to do like vacuum and laundry.

Public service announcement- If you’re struggling to get your partner to take on tasks, I highly recommend you convince them to look at vacuums with you (or another equipment related to a chore)– Q is a  science guy and is fascinated by the Dyson line of vacuums. When our old stick vacuum died, he spent a lot of time doing research; he loves the Dyson we have so now it’s his chore and he loves it. We also have a Roomba (another idea of his) and minus the Swiffering I do to control all my hair all over the place, he is solely in charge of floor cleaning in our house.

I’m trying to enjoy the fall, even though so many of the fall activities we enjoy either aren’t going on or are different this year. Even nature seems to get that 2020 sucks because the leaves in our neck of the woods are just dropping off the trees instead of changing colors. We’re in an extreme drought so they’ve just given up. I think our town is still doing trick or treating on Halloween, but we haven’t decided if we will give out candy or not. The one year we didn’t, our house got egged- lovely neighborhood, huh? We won’t be dressing the little guy up since he doesn’t eat candy and doesn’t know about this stuff yet anyway! Maybe I’ll get a pumpkin for the front of the house, but last year the squirrels decided it was their own personal buffet and made a mess of the porch and steps. We did go apple picking though!

Here’s wishing you a safe, healthy October as we brace ourselves for what the November election brings….