Writing together: October(ish) 2022

October seems to have disappeared in an instant. I had every good intention to make my (self-imposed) October 30 posting deadline (even gave myself a buffer day in there) but, well. Life gets in the way, I guess.

Our month was busy. Thanksgiving weekend saw a trip to stay with friends at their cottage – a nice escape that included a turkey dinner, lots of time outside at the beach in spite of chilly fingers and windburned cheeks, and, unfortunately, a return of the wee one's carsickness. This might just be a thing for us for a while now. She blames the "wibbly wobbly" roads and I apologize that she's having a bad timey-wimey of it in the back seat, and then we deploy endless paper towels and wipes and change her clothes on the shoulder of the two-lane highway and shove it all into a massive ziplock bag and hope for the best. One day she'll get the joke. Hopefully by then she'll either have outgrown the carsickness or I'll have laid my hands on a TARDIS.

I didn't actually come here to write about carsickness. Or Doctor Who.

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we had a visit from one of my closest friends and her two sons, both under 10, both bundles of energy, both idolized by Georgia, who appreciated their attention and willingness to let her drive the train she loves to make with all the kitchen chairs. That girl loves to holler "ALL ABOARD!!" They were here for a few days and we did some tourist things (Peggy's Cove, Halifax waterfront) and some local things (packed a snack of apples and boiled eggs to watch the surfers at the beach on a blustery Sunday morning). The kids loved searching for sea glass and throwing dead crabs around and generally giving the adults a run for our money. The adults tried to hang out after bedtime and could barely stay awake.

And then...then what? The rest of the month passed in a blur and I can barely recall it even when I look at my calendar for clues. We've been sick again and again since September (that's life when you have a toddler in daycare) and so what I wish was a joke about time disappearing as though in a fever dream is actually somewhat true. At some point we both had C-19 shots (second for her, fourth for me) and flu shots; at some point I ate dinner on a boat and she ate chicken nuggets on the couch at a friend's house. (She had more fun.)(Obviously.) Isn't it something when your social engagements are outnumbered four-to-one by appointments for immunizations? Life in 2022.

(But that can't be entirely true! We had friends over for cupcake decorating and an impromptu spaghetti night. They returned the hospitality with a pumpkin painting party. I've gone for coffee. We've eaten sushi.  She went to school wearing a pair of pants as a hat. Good things happen.)

She dressed as a witch for Halloween. This involved a selection of hand-me-downs and a $2.99 hat from Toys'R'Us. I tied some sticks (windfall from September's hurricane) together to make a broom and coloured a takeout chopstick black to fashion a wand, which I adorned with some foam stars salvaged from some daycare "art." She turned me into a frog. Repeatedly. She was highly skeptical of trick-of-treating at the first house, very excited about it by the 14th house, and started falling down every three steps after the 15th house. Night over, we came home.

Turned out she had RSV and spent the next two days home from school with a raging fever. I worked part time while she watched Peppa Pig on the bed in the background of my Zoom calls. I ate all her candy. She didn't miss it.

And so it goes. This is a season of life (turn turn turn) and my big skill right now is KEEPING GOING. (Not that you'd notice by the posting of a single blog post and then nothing for over a month.) If I've learned anything over the last three years, though, it's that I can keep.going. Head down, one foot in front of the other, it doesn't look pretty but it gets the job done, keep going, keep going, keep going. There's food on the table and gas in the tank and the clothes are clean though the shoes are mismatched. Keep going. Sometimes the load lightens a bit – fantastic. An extra meal gets made for the freezer, the tub gets a thorough scrub, I manage a row or two on the sweater I'm making her. Keep going.

See you soon.

(I didn't intend for this to be a blog about My Life with Kid but it turns out that......that's probably what it's going to be. That's what my life IS now. Won't be always. Maybe this will help me remember some of it, because god knows I've already forgotten a lot of it. Thanks for reading.)