This is everything that happened in my life on Friday, January 7, 2022. Location: Pasadena, CA.
Gus and Gibson are 6 1/2 years old.
6:30 AM Gus and Gibson wake up and crawl into our bed. They bring stuffed animals with them. Gus has a cheetah; Gibson has a family which includes a dog dad, unicorn mom, and baby dogicorn. Today the dog-unicorn family decides to adopt the cheetah as well.
7:00 AM time to get ready for school. The kids are in first grade this year and have been attending in person since the beginning of the year, minus one week of quarantine due to positive COVID cases. I help them put on their uniforms, then make myself some coffee. I check my email to see negative COVID test results. The kids' school tests everyone on Wednesdays.
7:20 AM Kindles turn off. I use the parental control functions to set time limits for them, and once they got used to it, it has been working well to keep our morning schedule moving along. Now it’s breakfast time. We have a standard breakfast menu that is hanging on the wall in the dining room. Gibson grabs a pencil and draws a picture of a cookie on it in hopes that it would join the permanent rotation along with toast, cereal, and waffles. Good try, ha ha.
7:42 AM we are out the door! Kids in puffy coats today because it is below 50 degrees. Too cold for Californians!
7:48 AM manage to drop off at school just before the bell rings. They get a squirt of hand sanitizer and temperature checks as they enter. I have upgraded their cloth masks to KN95 now as the Omicron variant is running rampant through LA county. Over 25% of the student body was absent on Tuesday. I stop to get gas at $4.45 a gallon.
8:10 AM Back at home, I eat breakfast then chat with DF. He works Monday-Thursday and has every Friday off. A few months ago, he had to start going back to the office about half time. I play some Duolingo, a language learning game. I want to keep my Spanish skills strong. Recently I’ve started Japanese as well. I like learning hiragana (one of the writing systems). It’s so different from English, and I think it is cool that humans have created such diverse ways to communicate. I play a few other games and scroll social media.
9:20 AM take shower. I try out some new skin care I received as Christmas presents, including a moisturizing eye cream and a spot/blemish controlling turmeric roller.
9:50 AM Time for some work. I submit my first time sheet for paid employment since 2015. I just started a new job. This week was online training. It’s a temporary and part-time position administering a standardized test for the US Department of Education. It will be good to get something current on my resume.
Next I type up minutes from a school meeting yesterday. I am the secretary for the school PTA and one other committee this year, called ELAC - the English Learner Advisory Committee. For this one, the meeting is conducted in both English and Spanish, and I produce bilingual minutes. It definitely takes some extra brain power, and there is a bilingual staff member who reviews my work. She says I’m doing ok and it makes her job easier, so I guess I’ll keep it up.
10:00 AM DF takes the van in for an oil change. I will be commuting to different sites around LA and the surrounding suburbs, so I need to have my vehicle in good shape.
10:30 AM Uncle Monte, DF´s brother, emerges from the guest room and greets me as he gets ready for work. He has been staying with us since the fall. He works swing shift as a delivery driver.
10:45 AM I am done with the meeting minutes and have the house to myself. I crank up the Hamilton soundtrack while putting away laundry.
11:00 AM DF is back. We watch the latest episode of the Expanse. It’s a sci-fi show on Amazon Prime. Season 6 just started and I’m having a hard time remembering what happened in the previous 5 seasons, in part because most of the action happens on various space ships that all look similar to me…but I still enjoy it.
12:00 PM lunch time, then I wash some dishes and attempt a vinegar-baking soda solution for the hard water stains that have built up in one of our toilets. Oh such a glamorous life I lead. It worked somewhat but I need something stronger to really do the job. While waiting for the solution to do its thing, I read a social media post about vaccine mandates that is full of logical fallacies. I write a rebuttal in my head but decide not to actually post it.
12:40 PM meal planning. Since I will be working 2-3 days a week for the next couple of months I am doing what I can now to get organized. DF and I discuss some meal options, and I look up a few new ideas to add to the rotation. I make a spreadsheet of ideas.
1:00 PM DF turns on the new Nintendo Switch to play Zelda. It was a whole family Christmas present. I ponder if the children would eat a casserole. I can’t recall them ever doing so… I put aside the meal planning project and read a book instead, “The City We Became” by N.K. Jemisin. I am on chapter 2 and I am already digging it! She is a great author. My latest Amazon order arrives, replacement parts for the robot vacuum, which is probably my favorite household tool.
2:00 PM I leave to pick up the kids from school
2:50 PM return home. The school is a 2-3 minute drive from us. What takes so long? Their class comes out late, and they boys like to play on the steps outside the building. We walk across the street to the library to use the bathroom, but of course they have to fight about who is going to go inside first. They have been so loud inside the library lately that I make one of them wait outside with me while the other one goes inside.
I get them a snack and set the 1 hour sand timer while they watch Daddy play Zelda. They get an hour of screen time before homework. I eat my own snack and putter around the house.
4:00 PM homework time, but first they request a piece of candy. They have a math worksheet, a book to read, and their snap (sight) words to review. They need a brain break between English and Spanish so they play Prodigy, a fun math game that involves battling wizards.
4:45 PM I head over to Domino's to pick up pizza for dinner. It's cold and foggy outside. My phone says it's 53 degrees but it feels colder. At home the kids are still playing prodigy. They take a pizza break, but get distracted by yogurt pretzels that I left on the table from earlier. Oops. I heat up some leftovers for myself, since I don't eat cheese.
5:30 PM homework is done and the guys are playing more Nintendo. I watch as the gamers beat the final Bowser boss on New Super Mario Bros! Fun animations at the end. I'm half watching thyen play, half scrolling on my phone. I have also poured myself a glass of Two Buck Chuck Cab Sav. Not that bad really, I usually get the red blend but Trader Joe's was out of it.
7:00 PM screens off, and the nightly WrestleMania begins. The rest of the routine includes snacks, read stories, go potty, and brush teeth. I manage to load and start the dishwasher, too.
8:00 PM I tell the Goldilocks story tonight. Yes, this tradition continues! Tonight's tale is Among Us themed (the video game). Gus is an imposter, Gibson is a sniper, Mama Bear is a ninja, Baby Bear is a medic. I don't have to say much, as the boys pretty much tell their own story these days. One more potty break, several hugs and kisses, and by 8:20 I'm out of their room. Better than usual these days!
8:28 PM Gibson calls me in to tell me he's scared of Huggy Wuggy. This is a character in a video game he has never seen or played, but it's apparently a popular thing to talk about to scare your classmates in first grade. I tell him to think about something happy like unicorns or candy rainbows. Gus says he's scared of furry tarantulas crawling in the window. They talk to each other for a bit and eventually quiet down.
I eat a snack and veg out on the couch until bed time.
9:55 PM I get ready for bed as another day in the life comes to a close.
