Solo dadding for the week because my wife’s sister had a baby so she’s going out east for then. Good thing is that I have work completely off already.
So instead of my normal duties of being a dad, husband and ER doc I only gotta do one. I kinda think it will be easier? I might eat those words but we’ll see.
For us it’s pretty enjoyable if one the kids, this time of year just go swim every day then chill out in afternoon.
With both the kids nobody would bathe or sleep, we all would wear same clothes all week, eat delivery pizza 7 days straight and probably some property damage to house.
Bingo. I’ve always told people 2 kids felt like 5 times the work of 1 kid.
You are sorely mistaken.
Yep.
Heh, we’ll see. I got daycare during the week. We’ll see.
How old is the kid? For me the key to solo parenting was playdates.
2.5
No playdates planned for, although that’s a good idea.
Oh yeah that is a prime age to get another kid involved. For me doing all the cooking/cleaning/bathing/bedtime was never an issue, but having to keep the kid occupied and engaged every waking minute was a killer. Whammo, playdate.
So a real KITN this weeks. Son#2 lost one of his best friends growing up. Apparently marital strife and he did it to himself. Wife found him, thankfully not the kids. Two pre-teens.
Back to the Midwest for the funeral. Watched a couple of hundred baseball games with his parents.
Update:
Brag: keeping up so far
Beat: Thought what’s the worse that can happen as I gave a cup of ice water to my daughter after she had been playing in some sprinklers? Whatever, she’ll just get wet and she’s already wet. She gagged on an ice cube and vomited an holy combination of guac and Mac and cheese
Things I underestimated:
Yeah staying at home full time with preschool kids is really rough for folks if they don’t have some regularly scheduled social outlets
Every once in awhile, something I see at work sticks with me, and I take it too personally for whatever reason and I just roll around with it in my head for a bit.
I’ve been off work for a week to take care of my daughter, and my wife hurt her arm and can’t use her right hand so I’ve been busting my ass trying to get things straightened out for the next few weeks. I get to work exhausted and start picking up patients at 2pm.
Get an alert from EMS about a stroke alert, get kind of annoyed because we have to take these seriously but it’s a stroke that we can do something about maybe 5% of the time.
Anyways EMS rolls in and I can tell it’s a head bleed from the gurney. Massive one. Teleneurology usually runs these stroke alerts but they don’t do bleeds. I bypass them, they get a little huffy about it, I don’t care it’s a bleed.
The resuscitation is damn near perfect. In 42 minutes from the moment they walked in the door, I got all the imaging done, labs sent, patient intubated, fancy blood pressure meds started and accepted for transfer.
It won’t matter though, the patient almost certainly died from her head bleed suddenly at a fast food restaurant. Maybe her body will live. But she’s gone. It’s not a bad way to go honestly. Quick and you’re not conscious for it.
I just struggle sometimes if what I do matters and if I’m doing actual good in this world. It’s hard to explain.
We do not handle death well in this country, probably as a species.
If it was dog you’d not treat, but grandma gets to live another two years in hell.
Had our first earthquake as Cali residents, the alert system far outweighed the experience, but that’s a good thing and it’s pretty scientifically awesome that that’s even possible. Got the alert to take cover before we felt it, A+ on that. We were in the hot tub and our phones weren’t nearby so by the time people relayed why everyone’s phone went off, it had started. Didn’t really feel it, saw the water in the pool sloshing around a bit.
My fellow Californians, do you have an earthquake kit or whatever, or do people just ignore that? We’re supposed to have like a week or two of food/water on hand right?
Depends on where you live. For me, a low risk zone with lots of ways out, I don’t have one.
If you live in some isolated valley or whatever, then yeah you should have a week or two.
Umm I think my wife put one together (I would be too lazy) but I’m not positive where it is. The kind of earthquake that would cause you to need something like that is maybe a once-or-twice-in-a-lifetime kind of thing. Like the last ones that qualify were the 1989 quake in the Bay Area or the 1994 quake in LA. You’ll be glad to be prepared if the big one hits, if it ever does.
hah this is 100% better advice
Right, that’s for like a 7+ I assume, and probably within like 20 miles or so of it? I guess there’s the risk that a huge one in a particularly bad location (like right along the I-10) cuts off transportation into the region for a week or more and impacts the entire metro area.
I’ll grab a couple extra cases of water next time we’re at Costco, seems like that’s the main thing.
My wife was talking about putting together a go bag in case the big one happens and our building collapses, and I let her know that if our relatively new (within a couple years) concrete building collapses, we probably won’t be going anywhere for a while even if we survive unscathed, that would be a survive in place and help our neighbors situation.
On the other hand, keeping important documents and supplies in a go bag probably isn’t the worst idea during wildfire season, although we’re in a relatively low risk area for that.
Costco used to have cases of Mountain House dehydrated camping meals that would be a pretty easy thing to stick one or two in a closet. You can Ebay MRE cases pretty reasonably if you want to appear hard core. Making sure you have lots of water is probably the hardest part.