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Event-ual
I didn't mention, but on the 12th of May my partner Katy gave birth to our son (healthy but three weeks early, and even more underweight than this would normally imply). Since then, a variety of things have occurred:
- my mom found a way to make herself a giant nuisance, as we could have expected,
- we were told the baby might be deaf (which turned out not to be the case),
- my sister Meghan came over for a couple weeks to help,
- I had the loft floored out and electrified, enabling us to use it for storage (with an eye to a possible eventual conversion),
- with hired help, I moved everything out of the loft and back (the timing of this would have been very, very different if we'd known the baby would show up a month early),
- I moved all the architecturally-salvaged parquet up there for the time being because the guy who's been, since January, scheduled to come put down that and some tatami mats realised that despite my specific instructions and a site visit, he didn't know how deep a tatami mat was and what putting it down would entail (yes, a tatami mat, which has roughly standard dimensions to the degree that Japanese flats are literally measured in mats--that tatami mat),
- due to a broken Victorian front ventilation grate and the continuing revelation of the DIY fuckeries of the guy who lived here before us, mice have chewed through the wiring around the fuse box. We have thus been without power to the kitchen for a fortnight, with everything on extension leads (which causes us to get mildly electric-shocked on a near-daily basis). The rice cooker then broke, after only one year, so our cooking options have been whittled down to the stove (which I could deal with, if I weren't so fucking exhausted from the new baby).
- the probably-unnecessary surgical intervention the hospital did when Katy was giving birth caused her painful complications,
- the baby got bronchitis,
- I had dental surgery and then a follow-up,
- we had to mouse-proof the house by replacing the grate and getting wire wool in every crack of the Victorian masonry,
- we discovered that a brothel has moved in next door, which has caused some complications (I contacted some sex workers' rights collectives to see if they'd do a peer wellness check to make sure no one was being trafficked, because no fucking way am I going to the cops, and they sent me some fliers for the shelter they're affiliated with to put through the door, so that is something),
- coming back from lunch one day, a bus ran into a small child directly in front of us, so we had to call 999 and salvage bandaging supplies from the baby bag (the boy will be fine--there was a nurse on the bus),
- I got the baby his US citizenship, which was a massive affair involving, I shit you not, my 4th grade report card,
- the UK authorities tried it on, attempting to not list me as the mom for lesbian reasons (didn't work, nice try--it wasn't intentional, really, just lack of familiarity with the procedure for Double Moms),
- Katy had to switch out our car because the ULEZ is expanding, and the new car has MANY undisclosed issues,
- the vet was an absolute nightmare about the cats' flea med prescriptions,
- I'm STILL waiting on my UK citizenship to arrive,
- Katy's Irish citizenship is still in limbo, and will come too late to include the baby (we plan to appeal this, as she started the process well before his arrival),
- we had to secure permission from Ireland to get the baby a Covid vaccine there, as the UK now doesn't administer them to anyone under 11,
- my job has done fuck all to support my all of one week of 'paternity' leave and very nearly found a way to sour the massive, totally necessary project I've set up for them (god I hate this company, I feel like no one but me cares to do the most basic shit), and
- today we spent 6 hours in a&e because Katy, exhausted, accidentally gave the baby 3 drops of toxic lavender oil instead of 3 drops of vitamin D solution (the bottles are identical, except for the label).
The baby is perfectly fine, as I'd thought he would be, but better safe than sorry. I don't regret calling 111, even if the whole ordeal has been annoying and pointless, because it might well not have been.
I'm really exhausted, and even though I've applied all my leave so I'm only working two days a week throughout the summer I'm clinging on by my fingernails. I cannot keep having all these fucking things happening. This is simply too many occurrences.
- my mom found a way to make herself a giant nuisance, as we could have expected,
- we were told the baby might be deaf (which turned out not to be the case),
- my sister Meghan came over for a couple weeks to help,
- I had the loft floored out and electrified, enabling us to use it for storage (with an eye to a possible eventual conversion),
- with hired help, I moved everything out of the loft and back (the timing of this would have been very, very different if we'd known the baby would show up a month early),
- I moved all the architecturally-salvaged parquet up there for the time being because the guy who's been, since January, scheduled to come put down that and some tatami mats realised that despite my specific instructions and a site visit, he didn't know how deep a tatami mat was and what putting it down would entail (yes, a tatami mat, which has roughly standard dimensions to the degree that Japanese flats are literally measured in mats--that tatami mat),
- due to a broken Victorian front ventilation grate and the continuing revelation of the DIY fuckeries of the guy who lived here before us, mice have chewed through the wiring around the fuse box. We have thus been without power to the kitchen for a fortnight, with everything on extension leads (which causes us to get mildly electric-shocked on a near-daily basis). The rice cooker then broke, after only one year, so our cooking options have been whittled down to the stove (which I could deal with, if I weren't so fucking exhausted from the new baby).
- the probably-unnecessary surgical intervention the hospital did when Katy was giving birth caused her painful complications,
- the baby got bronchitis,
- I had dental surgery and then a follow-up,
- we had to mouse-proof the house by replacing the grate and getting wire wool in every crack of the Victorian masonry,
- we discovered that a brothel has moved in next door, which has caused some complications (I contacted some sex workers' rights collectives to see if they'd do a peer wellness check to make sure no one was being trafficked, because no fucking way am I going to the cops, and they sent me some fliers for the shelter they're affiliated with to put through the door, so that is something),
- coming back from lunch one day, a bus ran into a small child directly in front of us, so we had to call 999 and salvage bandaging supplies from the baby bag (the boy will be fine--there was a nurse on the bus),
- I got the baby his US citizenship, which was a massive affair involving, I shit you not, my 4th grade report card,
- the UK authorities tried it on, attempting to not list me as the mom for lesbian reasons (didn't work, nice try--it wasn't intentional, really, just lack of familiarity with the procedure for Double Moms),
- Katy had to switch out our car because the ULEZ is expanding, and the new car has MANY undisclosed issues,
- the vet was an absolute nightmare about the cats' flea med prescriptions,
- I'm STILL waiting on my UK citizenship to arrive,
- Katy's Irish citizenship is still in limbo, and will come too late to include the baby (we plan to appeal this, as she started the process well before his arrival),
- we had to secure permission from Ireland to get the baby a Covid vaccine there, as the UK now doesn't administer them to anyone under 11,
- my job has done fuck all to support my all of one week of 'paternity' leave and very nearly found a way to sour the massive, totally necessary project I've set up for them (god I hate this company, I feel like no one but me cares to do the most basic shit), and
- today we spent 6 hours in a&e because Katy, exhausted, accidentally gave the baby 3 drops of toxic lavender oil instead of 3 drops of vitamin D solution (the bottles are identical, except for the label).
The baby is perfectly fine, as I'd thought he would be, but better safe than sorry. I don't regret calling 111, even if the whole ordeal has been annoying and pointless, because it might well not have been.
I'm really exhausted, and even though I've applied all my leave so I'm only working two days a week throughout the summer I'm clinging on by my fingernails. I cannot keep having all these fucking things happening. This is simply too many occurrences.