The weeks before and after Christmas are some of the strangest of the year, I think – when you’ve got one foot in the New Year and one foot out, and it’s supposed to be this time of PARTIES! and SEQUINS! and FAMILY! and FUN! and, honestly, all that serves to do is make me feel intense pressure to socialise and enjoy myself, two things I simply cannot do under pressure (and even, sometimes, struggle to do at all).
It hadn’t even gone 4.30pm on Monday when I uttered the fateful words, “sure, you can’t cook the week before Christmas”, as if I would be cooking non-stop on Christmas Day when, in fact, we were going to Bea’s for Christmas dinner, and things simply devolved from there…
Monday
Due to last week’s Covid diagnosis (I tested myself on Friday after 24 hours of sniffles and a terrible headache), Atlas is staying home from his babysitter this week, meaning (a) I’m bound to get very little done and (b) my routine is very Atlas-focused.
It turns out Brandin has Covid, too, so he’s working from home today as well – but he sequesters himself in his office-slash-Finn’s room for most of the day, only emerging for meals and coffee.
As for me, my day rotates entirely around Atlas: letting him sleep in until he wakes naturally (around 9am, he loves his sleep, thankfully); attempting to feed him healthy things and then giving in and letting him eat mainly Doritos and chocolate; and acceding to his every demand that I sit next to him on the couch / turn on the TV / let him nurse while watching said TV.
Due to my taking Paxlovid, though, he is not enjoying his breastfeeding, so makes do with sitting next to me and sucking his thumb while we watch endless episodes of Bluey.
When he goes down for his nap at around noon – he’s more tired than usual today, which makes me even more convinced that he has Covid, too (I didn’t bother testing him because, with both me and Brandin testing positive, it seemed like a sure thing, and in any case, it’s not like he can go out and about without us) – and I go into my office to do some writing.
While I’m in there, I check on a package I sent Liam last week, and discover that it’s made it to Ireland, but that I owe around €25 in customs (the package cost me $79 to post, and will, as a result, have the honour of being the last thing I ever ship to Ireland), so I pay that on the An Post site. ($24.74)
Atlas sleeps soundly until after 4pm, at which point I decide to get him up so that he’ll sleep tonight. At least, that’s the thinking behind waking him; honestly, he seems to sleep pretty well, regardless of how long his nap was or how long he’s been up for.
There are still nights when he wakes up and roars crying until one of us goes in to him, but so far we can’t really establish any link between those nights and long naps the day before or anything, so who knows what goes on in that little baby brain of his.
For dinner – it’s the week before Christmas, etc – we order Taj Mahal on Doordash. ($63.73) We’d usually have the boys on Mondays (and they don’t like Indian food), so Monday Taj is rare, but due to the household’s Covid status, they’re staying with their Mum tonight and tomorrow.
Daily total: $88.47
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