How we tiptoed back to “normal.”
“I want to live long enough to see my children grow up.”
This is my mantra.
WAY BACK then, in whatever month it was where we were being asked to decide if we wanted to go to school in person or virtually, WAY BACK before that changed and we all went virtual, my husband and I made a choice. We agonized, we read articles, we talked to friends and neighbors and we decided this: that our eldest would go all virtual and our younger child would go in person. Our thinking based on the number of children that would be in a building or a classroom on any given day, plus what we knew then about COVID-19 and children. The eldest was going into middle school and all that entails: nearly adult bodies, walking from class to class, lots and lots of people (potentially). The younger was heading to her usual tiny school, no real transferring between classes or crowding in the halls. Still, this decision was stressful and terrifying.
Then school didn’t happen and we didn’t have to choose. I can still feel the relief of being able to put that choice on hold indefinitely.
Many months later, doing the fastforward that reminds me that COVID-time is so irrelevant and squishy, we all learned more about how COVID-19 spreads, my husband and I got vaccines, schools opened part time, we put the kids on the waiting lists for in person school and they started school. And all that- minus the contagion education part- happened in the space of a week.
I sobbed when kid #1 went back to in person school, but I knew then and know now that she needed it. The pandemic and the lack of social interaction hurt her more than anyone in this house. She is an extrovert, fueled by laughter and endless conversation.
I sobbed when kid #2 went back to in person school, but she also needed it. Like me, she needs practice to interact outside of herself and her very close circle.
They both wear masks to school (mandatory) and masks in public. We all still wear masks in public, actually, regardless of whether or not we are vaccinated. Kid #2 got her first vaccine dose and is awaiting her second dose. This will offer more fragments of relief. I’m hoping that trials will show that the vaccines are safe and effective for littler ones, and when they’re ready, we plan to vaccinate kid #1. I know that a lot of folks are scared or angry or uncertain about vaccinations and I am too, but I remember a measles outbreak when one of the kids was tiny. The options then were: vaccinate and risk side effects or don’t vaccinate and risk death. I choose side effects. I want to live long enough to see my children grow up, but I also want them to live long enough to make their own dreams a reality.
Anyway, none of this is normal, still, and that deep wrinkle in the middle of my forehead isn’t getting any shallower, but the baby steps sure help.
