Shots! Shots! Shots!

Today the kids seemed to just be healthy enough after a cold to take them to get their first COVID shot. We had cancelled 2 appointment for them already. It was a walk in run by public health, and there was no other patients while we were there.

The kids were brave, while clutching their stuffies and watching shows. Isaac was stressed and cried a bit, but still took the shot. It was our least publicly embarrassing shots that we've ever had.

And I didn't cry. I thought that I'd be balling... but it didn't happen.

So happy that I feel that they kids are on their way to being protected.

Tough times

 I go through waves of despair. I can't help it. Exercise helps which Laura knows so she pushes me out the door for bike rides. But it usually feels like it starts to close in again. I'm still doing better than I was before in the pandemic. At one point I... I just didn't want to be awake anymore. It was too much. I just couldn't deal with everything or anything at all.

Now? I feel listless. It doesn't help that what I have to do at work seems unfocused. I want to help the team get things done, but for getting into the nitty gritty I don't have the background. For the things that I do have the background for, I'm really not supposed to be helping too much. For the work that I spent 10-15 years working on? It's being abandoned. Not transitioned off of like we had planned. Just straight up abandoned. And they are re-creating the same thing more or less without knowing or paying attention to any of the lessons learned. It's tough to watch but I'm trying not to care too much since it's out of my control. It seems that work is marching towards disaster with a bunch of people saying that this is bad, but because the funding is split between so many groups no one wants to take on the responsibility. No one is given the authority to take it on.

So I fall back to trying to make sure the family has a good dinner and a caffeinated father. The second being the most important.

We will see how things go. Maybe I need to switch teams. Maybe I need to do something else.

We will see how I am tomorrow.

Shots booked, weekly colds

 We have the kids shots booked for Wednesday. I'm not sure if we'll actually make it though because we seem to be suffering from a cold weekly. Like, this would suck on a normal year, but this isn't. And there's news of some omicron variant. Honestly, I never wanted to learn the Greek alphabet like this.

I'm hoping the the cold will just stay as a runny nose and clear up quickly because otherwise I think we'll have to reschedule, at least for Lucy.

It sounds like places even have walk-in appointments for the 5-11. This gives me hope.

I feel like we're close. Yes, new variants might throw a wrench into things, but hopefully we'll still be moving in the right direction.

Vaciness approved for kids 5-11

The COVID shots were approved for the 5-11 kids, which thankfully covers all our kids. This started when Lucy was 3 and I said I figured that she's "age into" the age ranges, and... yep. :-/

I'm excited about the kids getting it. Appointments open on Tuesday and first shots will go in on Friday. But with this provincial government it'll be hunger games trying to find appointments.

I'm totally going to cry when the shots are in the kids. I don't think that I'll be able to help it.

Alice isn't as worried about the shot. Isaac is excited "because we'll be able to go in people's houses!". I didn't get a strong reaction from Lucy. Really, COVID is really all she has known. I'm not sure she how much she can remember from when she was 3.

I'm worried that about the perception that the pandemic is over. I really get that vibe from adults once they've gotten their shot. We probably have 2-3 months (at least) before the kids have had both their shots. Even then, it won't be over, especially for the rest of the world. I find many people are way less cautious than we are. I feel I'm more cautious than most. I know what it's like not to be able to breathe. I'm not sure how many other people know what that terror feels like.

We went out the other day for a lunch and had a lovely time on the patio in the snow. I am pretty sure that the staff thought that we weren't vaxxed since we asked to eat outside (and would avoid the vaccine passport check). When I went inside to go to the bathroom there was like 6-8 booths / tables of 2-4 people eating, some back to back. Just no. That's not for me.

Give me the hallmark winter scene with my lovely any day of the week.

602 days and counting

The last time I went to work in the office for the day was March 12th, 2020 (I'm pretty sure). We went to lunch. That was the last day that I ate inside with someone that wasn't in my household.

Not family. Household.

We have been pretty good and strict about not eating indoors with others. I feel that we've been lucky and hopefully the luck will carry us for the next bit. The current rumour is that vaccines for kids 5-11 will approved in the next couple of weeks and public health says that they will be able to vaccinate all kids in 4 weeks. It feels so close.

Although I enjoy the patio season with winter hats and gloves, one day it will be nice to have a fancy meal indoors.

Wiggles, Giggles and Sunshine at 5, 7, and 9

 I'm totally stealing the title from Laura. And with less than a month left for the kids to be all odd birthdays like this, I have to get this done now.

Alice is a huge reader and spends so much of her time reading all day every day. She's a talented monkey bar swinger and so, so clever. She's more and more independent, but still enjoys cuddles and holding my hand to skip down the street.

Isaac loves to look through books. He's close to reading, but I don't think that he'll have any issues with it clicking. I think that he'll be a huge reader too. He's strong, kind, and loves being chased. He gets along great with Lucy and they get into all kinds of trouble together. The more laughter coming from them tells me the more mess they are making.

Lucy is becoming more independent all the time too. She's still small enough that I can easily carry her. She loves playing games and still loves her bunny Berry. She, like the others, still loves the cuddles and attention.

I love them all dearly.

Strange Dream of Family

 First off I don't know what it means.

The other night shortly before I fully woke up, I was in one of those dreams where I knew it was a dream, but was still in it anyways.

I was at the cottage on the lawn beside the cottage and coming down the hill were family that would have gone to the cottage, both living and dead. Everyone looked the best possible way, not too old, healthy. They greeted me with hugs and it felt so damn good. My grandma Phillips was there, and uncle Gord, and just... everyone it was so warm. As I was hugging them I could hear myself saying that I missed them and that I really needed the hug. I was just overcome with emotions and I think that I actually woke myself up sobbing.

 I'm not sure what my brain is doing or what it means. It was just so short but happy emotions. Just so much of it.

Went to a movie

 It was raining so for a Date Day we went and saw No Time To Die. I always love spending time with Laura.

This was the first movie that I have seen in a theatre since Frozen 2 right before things shut down early 2020. Thinking about it, I think that this might be is the longest that I've spent inside somewhere that's not our home or rented place in quiet some time. It was nice to be out.

I'm very much looking forward to all the kids getting their shots and maybe, maybe doing things like this again.

Finding What was Lost

Many years ago on my old computer I had all our pictures on had the hard drive crash. I didn't have timemachine backups running (stupidly) and lost everything on that drive.

Many of the photos I had backed up to an external drive, but not all. Thankfully they were on flickr though.

For more than 10 years I've been meaning to figure out what pictures were lost and download them and... I've not yet done it. Maybe in the short term I'll just look for photos from the old camera as a starting point. I'm not sure if that's enough but it will probably be better than nothing.

Update 1: It looks like pictures that were taken between May 20th 2006 to July 16th 2006 were the ones that were lost. I also discovered that my uncle took pictures of our wedding and had the wrong date set on his camera - by a whole year. Somewhere less than 250 pictures were lost, but some of those were wedding shots from my buddies wedding.

Update 2: And after like 15 years of meaning to do something, but in a nice generic way, I threw in the towel and looked on either side of the picture above until I found the images that I was missing. Turns out it was like 73mb of 203 images. I tossed them in a set in flickr and downloaded it. Broke it up into the proper albums and tossed it onto the network drive. Yet another example of perfect being the enemy of good.

Getting ready for domestic travel

 It continues to be a year for the books. Both Laura and I have our shots. The rumour is that kids will have approval for their shots in the fall / December range. Cases are currently low, but there's news about the delta or even lambda coming up.

I'm worried about long covid for the kids. I'm still stressed out but... selfishly, not as much because I don't think that I'll get killed by covid. Not right away anyways. I did just get a cold and it's like a week and a half to get over it. I'm the weakest one here.

I'm on income averaging leave right now so I don't feel in the verge of a mental health crisis. Soon we're headed up to the cottage. It'll be really nice to be up there with the kids by the water. I hope that the weather holds out. After that we're home for a couple of days and then into Quebec for adventures there. It'll be a lot of driving but hopefully it will be many nice memories for everyone. As I said, it's been... well, much more than a year.

Lucy started to bike without training wheels 4 days ago. She's so fast. I think that the combo of riding on the yuba for balance and loving the balance bike really gave a jump start for biking. If anything, training wheels reverted some of her skills. She hated them. I don't blame her, they are terrible.

Alice is reading up a storm. Always has her nose in a book / kindle. I can't keep up with getting her enough books. By the end of virtual school last year she had quite good computer skills and was mastering many different skills. We still have issues with her using her words for good and evil. She can heal or harm depending on what she wants at the time. Evil usually happens when she's hungry.

Isaac is doing well. I feel that he's on the edge of reading but we need to put some more time with him. I think that if he had a normal grade 1 he would be reading fine by now. It amazes me how much time he'll spend looking at comics. He and Lucy, when left alone and well fed, will happily play together doing something like foosball. As the kids are getting older and more independent it's been nice. If I'm sitting, someone will still come and curl up in my lap. That's also nice, if somewhat uncomfortable.

I am not looking forward to the fall, the return of school and work, and everything else that will be happening in the world. But maybe at that point our road won't be a torn up mess. We'll see.

COVID - almost been a year

Around this time last year we had been hearing of COVID. I didn't realize at the time how much it would change everything.

It's been hard.

With the kids back in school after an extended Christmas holiday and doing "virtual" school at that time, my work at home came to a slamming stop. Being constantly interrupted lead to context switching hell. Even after they went back to school (1 week so far) I kept on checking over my shoulder expecting to be interrupted... but no one else was home. It feels like some kind of PTSD.

The kids are doing reasonably well. I am a bit worried about new variants coming up with no studies being even started for kids our age. At this point I'm not expecting to have a chance to get a vaccine for myself before September and it wouldn't surprise me if I didn't have a chance until Christmas. I'm feeling a bit bummed out right now because this could easily go on for another year, despite having a vaccine.

I feel lucky with what we do have. But I'm still worried and stressed.

At least the days are getting longer now and there's some sunlight.