On My Mind This Week, 1.10.22: our nanny is back, clinic day, organization, what’s wrong with And Just Like That, paleo, etc. 

Our nanny is back! 

After over two weeks without childcare (17 days but who’s counting?), our nanny is back! She is one of the kindest, warmest people, and is like family to us, and the “balance” just wasn’t there for us without her. I enjoyed my time with the girls but working until 11PM is exhausting. I need to do something for myself, but it was a lot. She ended up coming for a few hours yesterday since she really missed the girls and I had so much to get done and needed a moment to myself.

Conor and I watched the Dexter finale in bed at 10:30AM and I wrapped up a few blog posts. And instead of working late, I was in bed early and asleep by 9:30! It was nice to get ahead since I won’t be able to get much done after Thursday. I have 4 posts scheduled to publish this week! 🥳

We have clinic this week

We have a spinal tap, IV chemo, and 5 day steroid pulse (2 doses per day for 5 days) coming up this week. “Just” 3 more until we’re done. These very medical days feel so heavy since they only happen every 3 months and honestly, it’s a total mind f*ck that this is the “easy part.” In the cancer world, my daughter’s diagnosis is one of the “better” ones so I feel like I have to be grateful but to everyone else with “healthy” kids, we’re living a nightmare. I’m still struggling with this being our reality. I have talked about this, but the few glimpses you’ve seen were honestly nothing in terms of what we’ve been through.

I showed Margot happy and smiling because sharing the sad, hard moments felt too personal, and I already struggle with what to put out there. You’ll just have to trust me when I say it was bad. I know we’ll get through it but the steroids cause some severe PTSD for me since those meds were the second most traumatic thing we went through. It’s a major, major trigger, and the fact that my baby needs a spinal tap feels like a lot, even though she’s had more than a dozen of them. It’s so hard, but we’ll get through it. We have to. 

When I posted about struggling with our upcoming clinic day, I was completely overwhelmed with supportive, loving messages, and just want to say thank you to those of you who have been so kind. It can be really lonely. Thank you. 

My thoughts on And Just Like That

I touched on how I don’t love And Just Like That yesterday and wanted to share a little more about why. For those of you finding joy, I’m so glad you have that. Here are some thoughts on the show (I know there’s more but I’m tired). First, it was so good to see (almost) everyone again. Life is real and hard, and the show didn’t need to be sunshine and rainbows. The abandonment by both Samantha and Stanford and Big’s dramatic death felt like too much after what we collectively endured in 2020 and 2021. Sure, it’s real, but also, she didn’t call 911 so it’s kind of not. Samantha abandoning her friends felt so cold and too close to home. Stanford, too. I know he passed away but come up with a better story line. Miranda of all people wouldn’t struggle with pronouns.

It’s 2022. Staying in a loveless marriage, drinking, cheating, and doing so in an open-concept apartment with her grieving, recovering friend in the next room? Ew. And allowing her son to have loud sex in the next room? I know I don’t have teenagers but I’m thinking there should be some boundaries there. I will say I love her grey hair, but that’s about the only thing she has going for her. Charlotte struggling with Rock being gender-fluid isn’t that shocking, but her desperation for Black friends felt like a bit much? Everyone gets a racially diverse friend – it felt so forced. Representation is huge, but they overdid it. It feels so forced.

Carrie has a nonbinary boss, and Charlotte has a gender-fluid child (who could be nonbinary or trans – we’re not sure yet). It’s all a lot. Points for trying, but it was a miss for me. And can we do without the aging jokes? They’re not that old. I’m still watching because it’s nice to see my old friends and I can’t look away. Ok: what are your thoughts?

A work update

I’m a month in and it’s going well, so I want to share something that feels like a big step. I hired someone to do my SEO and to manage Pinterest! Their site explains what that means – I am not an expert. I do not have anyone writing content for me and my voice isn’t edited, but SEO is optimized. Some post titles are approved, and I’ll get tips on things I can include (like keywords) but am not really doing anything differently on my end. It’s also so nice not having to pin my content.

I’ll share more on this later, but we can’t always do it all and shouldn’t have to. Feels really good to hand something off, and to get help with SEO since prior to this my strategy was to write content that I hope people would like. And that’s still what I’m doing, but now it’s SEO-friendly. 😂

Misc thoughts

On a more positive note, we rented Sing 2 last weekend and watched it 3 times. Totally worth it! And I finally finished Encanto. Loved that, too. 

Spring is 69 days away. 😉 I just ordered this. 

And because it’s the new year and we no longer have our cleaning ladies coming, I ordered this. 

I was thinking about my Day in the Life post and am still a little surprise by how much it resonated. On one hand, I get it. Motherhood is hard, and working on top of watching kids is sort of impossible. It makes me a little sad that you all needed to see another mom who wasn’t planning anything elaborate to feel less alone, but it makes sense. Sometimes, I feel like I should be putting together sensory activity tables and doing “more” with my girls. The last two weeks I found myself just trying to work, play, and keep up with house stuff. It’s more than enough to just play with your kids. And it’s also ok to let them play on their own – in fact, it’s good for them. And when you need a moment, or an hour, there’s always Daniel Tiger. We’re in this together. 

I cannot believe how many of you ordered these for Valentine’s Day! They’re so cute, $10, and still available in a few sizes.

The year is off to a decent start at home.

I shared my 2022 goals and intentions in this post. It’s day 10 of paleo and I’m feeling great. The biggest change is honestly the fact that I’m eating lots of veggies and cooking more. It feels really good to put good food in my body. I also discovered CorePower’s streaming classes and have actually been enjoying them! And I really miss yoga. 

I managed to do some more purging over the last two weeks. Mostly old toys and clothes that the girls no longer need or use along with some random lamps etc. 

Buddy is getting his teeth cleaned today. Really hoping he doesn’t need any extractions because the last time he did he was mess. Poor little Budster. I was going to do it before the holidays but worried something might go wrong and didn’t want to end 2021 that way, so I pushed it back.