Halloween firsts

First Halloween for T this year. When he was an infant he spent it in a sling. When he was one, C19 mean there was no way we were taking the risk. This year I think we were able to take enough precautions to keep us safe

He and I went around the neighbourhood. He'd knock on the doors with the houses with pumpkins and decorations. I'd then known louder or use the knocker that he'd not be able to reach. When they answered, he'd always just try to walk inside. And I'd have to remind him Say Trick Or Treat. And he would say Trick or treat while I pulled him back over the threshold (That's not how we do things tonight). Then they'd hold out basket for him to pick a candy from. About a third of the time the person would also say how adorably cute he is. And he was, indeed, cute, in his little skeleton suit and skull jacket.

I don't think T has any clue what he was being given, or the meaning of this all. But he would literally run to the next house (sometimes missing a house in his excitement), so he clearly was having a great time. When we passed in sight of his sister, he'd yell out her name at the top of his lungs so she'd be sure to notice him.

This was R's first Halloween trick or treating entirely without us. She was in a group of friends, all ten or eleven, and I think there was a parent with them too. They hit our neighbourhood as well as the next one over. Which is why R and I kept running into them – we both took rather random routes through the area.

R decided she would eat half her candy before she got home. I've no idea why she thought this would be a good idea, but she ended up throwing up the lot on the street, which brought a quick end to her outing. I hope she now realises that we ration out her sweets for a good reason, and with her best interest in mind.

In completely unrelated news, later that evening she lost her first molar.

Now we argue

T is generally quite agreeable. He's new to language, so it helps that he accepts that things are called what we tell him they're called. However on one case he seems quite obstinate.

The other day we were sitting together and he heard a birdsong from outside.

Dogs!

No. It's a bird.

Dogs!

That's a bird singing.

Dogs!

Bird.

Dogs!

B-ir-d.

Dogs!

Bird.

Dogs!

Bird!

Dogs!

Biiiiirrrd.

Dogs!

Ok. Nevermind.

The next day we're sitting again and he hears some construction noise from down the street.

Bird!

sigh No. That's just a noise.

Bird!

Shortly after that a bird calls in the distance.

Dogs!

Tell you what – we'll pick this up later.

Now we have words

One advantage of having children is that it gives some geography to lockdown. The baby who was just starting to eat solid foods at the start of it all is now on the verge of talking. The little girl is now somehow creating poetry and music that is actually pretty good. If not for them, every day would be some unidentifiable variant of work, food and mild entertainment.

T is starting to talk. He's been making progress for some time. He's been mastering repeating words said to him. He's recently reached the point of being able to recognise words and use some in the right context. He's still missing out on certain letters. B replaces many letters at the start of words (Bup instead of Cup). He still can't manage G and K sounds.

• duch instead of duck
• meeeb instead of milk
• dodds instead of dogs
• beeboo instead of peekaboo
• dood instead of good – though he does get the G right on rare occasions
• beeejuu which is his version of pleasure to meet you which he says when someone shakes his hand

I'm impressed that one of his first words was Please (beeeze). Addmittedly, it's used in the "gimmie" sense of the word. But I'm determined to appreciate it anyway. More recently he's added sorry, usually alongside hurt, given how easy it is for an aging adult to injury themselves doing toddler-related things like lifting and carrying.

Just so I have a record for later, his most common words are mostly body related Eye, ear, nose, boop (the noise of poking someone on the nose), bebby (belly), bum, feet, arm. Plus a bunch of normal nouns like loo , ball, sit and shirt.

He's picked up a lot of other mimicry. He's not bad at baby sign language. Probably better at remembering those gestures than I am. 2 days ago he started the blow-a-kiss gesture, which is rather sweet, especially when used alongside hi and bye. Yesterday he today he grabbed a tissue and wiped his nose. I've no idea if he actually needed to or was just copying.

He'll also put a flat duplo or block or suchlike against his ear and say Hello.... ummm..... I feel that he's trying to say that I say um a lot on the phone.

Like his sister, he'll point at a picture of himself and say, You! The other day he poked me in the chest with his index finger and said, meeee.

Speaking of R, she had a whinge at me yesterday about how the world is all screwed up and everyone is expecting her generation to fix it. I did, first off, apologise for Gen X for never having gotten sorted out enough to either really fix anything (or really break anything, for that matter). Then I said that maybe the millennials might fix some things so there's less burden on her. That did not help.

Yes, I still exist

Having two children leaves me with very little time for the pondering and writing I need to maintain this blog. Actually, there's a lot of things I've not really had time to do since the son was born. I've hardly had any time to work on the daughter's spaceport beyond simple repairs. Spare time seems to go to cleaning and reorganising rooms and just trying to have enough space in this home for 4 humans.

R is 9 now. As she gets older I'm less comfortable putting details about her life out there. Part of it is that it's not my story to tell. On the other hand it's my life too. So I generally keep details here to a point where she won't hate me for this later. That said, she's a proper human now. She's grown. Her legs are only 10cm or so shorter than mine. And she seems to know more about cellular biology than I ever did (Thanks lockdown). She also can fall alseep on her own now without being tricked, but I do still read to her from a book every other night because we both like it and, TBH, it's the only recreational reading I ever do these days.

The boy, T, is 15 months now. I've skipped a lot of his life on this blog. He's very different from R, even though they look really similar, especially in the first few months. They both got teeth really early (like at 3 months). They both started walking early (he started at 8 months, but slowly built up to it over the course of 2 months when he could walk around the room just fine. she started at 10 months, but just decided I walk now and in the space of 3 days was a pro). I don't think many of the differences between them are boy vs girl. They're just different people with brains and bodies that work differently. Plus he's grown up more than half his life in some form of isolation or lockdown, so he's not had much physical socialisation. No idea if that's had a big impact on him or not, tho.

Some interesting things about T:

• He never got into crawling. He bear walks – back legs slightly bent, knees nowhere near the floor.
• Until quite recently he's had no sense of stairs. To go downstairs he'd just walk straight off the step and just expect someone to catch him. Needless to say, the stairs have been babygated off.
• His favourite book is We're Going on a Bear Hunt. When he was young, he didn't like any other books. The only way to keep his attention in another book was to start a page with We're going on a bear hunt. We're going to catch a big one. followed by the book's actaual text.
• bear was his first word. He has a very easy time with words that begin with B, to the point that he inserts a B to make words he can't otherwise pronouce. He says up as bup.
• He's picked up some baby sign language and will actually make signs. "Hurt", "Done" and "More" are the 3 he uses most. The last of which make sense since he eats amazing amounts of food.
• When he wants me to sit next to him, he pats the surface he's sitting on with his hand. I always dutifully join him there. Whenever I pat the seat next to me to get him to join me, he ignores me and acts as if I did nothing.
• He learned to say no pretty early on. Not in a terrible 2s kind of way, but more in a helpful way to answer questions. Do you need the loo? no.. He may have said yes once or twice, but I can't really tell. He certainly never says yes when we ask if he wants something. He laughs uncomfortably and manaically, which is a good sign. But no words.

I could go, and at some point I'll go into more details about things. When I have the time.

Plague diary: Shopping

I went to the shop today. This was my second attempt. Last time I tried there was a queue the length of the outside of the supermarket. Today I avoided the queue by going at stupid o'clock at night.

I've hardly left the house at all since getting sick, so a trip to the shops was a big deal for me. I've lost lots of leg muscle sitting around all day, and I need to start using it before my health starts suffering from plain old neglect. I wore a hoodie, a hat (I got a terrible haircut just before the lockdown), and a mask with a handful of reusable bags. I'd been told many things about supermarkets in this new world, and I was very curious to see it myself.

It was 20:30 and very few people were in the shop. So the one-way shopping I was warned about wasn't in place. Here were my main take aways

• It was pretty easy to stay 2m+ from everyone else at this hour. Only twice did I have to adjust my path to get around or make room for someone walking nearby.
• No eggs. At all. Why eggs, though?
• No vanilla
• There was flour. Bread flour only, though. Not sure what that means besides everyone must be making cookies or something
• there was plenty of dishwasher stuff except rinse aid. Which is the one thing I'm out of. I can't imagine everyone else is out of it at the same time. But evidence shows otherwise.
• The shop finally stocks the brand of decaf espresso that L likes. And it's on sale!
• I left uncomfortable picking up items to decide if I wanted them. So everything I picked up I bought. It meant for a bit more impulse buying than I normally do
• All the tellers were in the same queue. You'd just queue up and go to the first free teller. Just like passport control. No more getting bitter seeing the queue next to you going faster than yours. I do so hope they keep this.
• Big clear plastic barrier between the tellers and the buyers. Which is good to see they're trying to keep their staff safe. That said, only one of the tellers had a mask. So I guess they felt safe. I do so hope I'm not longer contagious.

The walk back was kind of hard, as I'm not used to the exercise. The mask actually made it notably harder to breathe, and I was kind of dizzy when I took it off.

I keep my outside clothes quite separate from anything I wear in the house but I suspect it'll be impractical to wash them after every time I leave the house. I wonder if, over time, we'll start having disinfectant closets for outsidewear, so it can be made safe from viruses. Something like UV-C lights or some kind of spray. It would make me more comfortable about contamination.

Plague diary: Day 38 - back working

Day 3 of me back at work. The C-19 has subsided enough that I've been able to work, but I've been so knackered by the end of the day, that it's taken me a while to blog about it.

Day 1 of work went ok, beyond the drop in energy at the end of the day. And of course, I managed to sleep funny on the inflatable mattress. Getting out of bed was such pain I just had to sit on the floor for a minute or two. I got through the morning, but I had to give up in the afternoon. OTOH, my lungs were actually able to fill to the bottom, so, if it's not one thing, it's another.

Back in time a bit... Two weeks ago, the wee boy woke up in the night, and crawled off the bed. The baby monitor we were using (which we used when R was a baby) gave up giving us audio, so we didn't notice him deciding to roam around. After roaming off the bed entirely, and the crying that ensued afterward, L and I took action. 1) Barriers so he could not get out of his cot, and 2) a new, working baby monitor.

The barriers are working, but the baby monitor is crap. the camera gets up to 50^C just being plugged in, not even on. So we have to return it.

Back to the present. I've been calling every day since Sunday, being on hold, waiting for someone to answer, and finally giving up. Yesterday, instead of working with back pain, I lay down on the sofa, feet in the air, and pipe under the painful part of my back, on hold for an hour and 42 minutes. When they finally answered, I discovered I was asleep and had to drag myself into sentience. Despite the wait, they were very fast and efficient resolving my request to return it. In fact, they just picked it up and took it away 2 minutes ago, as I was writing this.

Given the inflatable had betrayed me, last night I slept in my own bed. It was lovely. I didn't sleep very well, but I awoke with no back pain, so that's really nice. Day 3 of work had almost practical levels of energy, so I could do things. Let's hope this continues

Plague diary: day 31 (really, 31?)

Now that the pneumonia is gone, one day seems to be much like another. I did push it a bit too hard on Tuesday, and needed a long rest. The rest of this week has been more or less the same. I'm ok as long as I'm not doing something. But once I do I just get winded and lose all my energy. I can hang up laundry just fine. Then 3 minutes later I realise, no, it wasn't fine. I can't figure out my limits because the goal posts keep changing all the time for no obvious reason.

A couple of the doctors I've spoke to have said that they're finding The Virus can linger as long as 6 weeks. I'm only just past week 4, so I'm not surprised it's still having an impact. I am worrying that this is what life is like now. Perhaps the lung damage is permanent and I'll just have no energy to speak of from here on out. I mean, with chicken pox, I've gotten scarred for life in a number of places on my skin, so it'd not be shocking that covid-19 might do some irreparable harm. No one knows. It's all new to everyone. Like those Samsung phones with exploding batteries. They were just phones. They're expected to just either work, or to break. Nobody expected them to blow up. Perhaps The Virus just smashes things up before it leaves like a renter who lost their deposit.

In other news, the son is getting consonants. M and D and H, mostly. He says Da like his sister did, but not as often, and with more variety of other things. I suppose by the time we next leave the house he'll be walking and speaking at least a few small words. He's eating too. Anything we put in front of him. Blueberries, cucumbers, avocado, tomatoes, squash, asparagus, mushrooms, lemons, brussels sprouts. Anything. This is so very different from what we got used to with his sister, who in retrospect, was a picky eater. I always thought she was just the sort to just eat a bit, and was ok with only eating a bit. Now I know, she was really thinking Ok, I'll eat this one thing, but the rest, I'll just move around and hope they never try it again. I like milk. Can I just stick to milk?.

Of course I'm not doing the food prep. I'm sure I would have passed on The Virus by now if they didn't have it already, but I'm still a little wary, since no one really knows how this things can spread. I'll feed him, but with chopsticks so I stay far away from touching the food or touching him myself. It's odd, and awkward and unpleasant. He has changed quite a bit in the last month, and it bugs me to be missing it from so up close.

I've spent a huge amount more time with R than I did while we both had school and work. I'm still sleeping in her room, but I don't really count that as quality time together. I've stopped reading her bedtime stories. I've run out of books from our queue and have struggled to find age appropriate stuff. I read Neverwhere on a few good breathing days in there, but that and the short story sequel are done. I need to get back in to the habit of reading before it's broken entirely.

Also, R is now pretty big. She's still smaller than us, but she's not a little girl. She's a small person, but a proper person. Still very headstrong. We are still facing many challenges. I'm trying to get a bit of learning in there, but all she wants to do is use the iPad or sometimes play with toys (which I'm happy to join on, when I have the energy for it, but her room is so cramped with the extra bed, we can't both use the spaceport at the same time). I've been trying to teach her useful stuff based on things that come up in conversation. Monday I explained how FM and AM radio (frequency vs amplitude modulation) works. Today I explained triangulation (how do we know where a lion is when it roars). On a practical level, to get her away from the iPad, I hid it today, and taught her card games. Poker and solitaire. She seems to like them both and the latter I'm finding less boring. This seemed to get her happily away from technology for the whole day.