By: Revanche

Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (63)

August 16, 2021

Year 2 of COVID in the Bay Area.

Year 2, Day 148: Each Monday seems to take the preceding Monday as a challenge of one-upsmanship.

I was juggling time zones, time critical problems with our systems, onboarding new people, hiring new people, my regular work, and dealing with the school board trying to get the information we need to make the least-worst decision for JB’s upcoming school year. PiC had to take the bulk of parenting today as I was in deep for hours and only emerged to shovel several bites of food down around lunchtime and get back to work. I’m also juggling the ongoing tracking and orders for our latest Lakota family and organizing contributions for a former PF blogger who was recently diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia. Oh and I still need to wrap up the last part of JB’s teacher appreciation gifts before our 5 pm meeting with the superintendent, and our 6 pm call with the school.

My urge to stress shop at JetPens is rising.

My urge to stress eat cheesecake is definitely rising.

We didn’t wrap up the night until well after 9, and it felt like it’d been a week in a day.

Year 2, Day 149: We had our dry run walk to the school today with the whole family in the morning to see how early we have to leave. We can make it in ten minutes handily which is good because I’ve got a bum ankle from yesterday and now a bum shoulder today.

Half the day was school prep. We had the meeting with the teacher, we had to cut filters for JB’s masks, we had to organize their to-go area by the door so that they won’t waste all morning running around trying to figure out what they need. I wrote a list to be posted on the wall and made them a backpack tag with the same list so they can check their belongings when they leave the house and check again before they leave school. All day I was stressed but I realized midday that I’d gone to Ice Mode. I desperately wanted to break down and cry but I literally could not show any emotion. Except some anger. Which I repressed. Of course.

I’m highly conflicted. I have no way to assess the risk in numerical terms. We have gotten a lot of last minute information about the mitigation layers. They have said that all classrooms will have a portable air filter, that hand sanitizer will be supplied, the desks aren’t spaced apart but they do still have little barriers up, the doors and windows are supposed to stay open unless it’s raining, everyone is to be masked indoors and outdoors. They will be eating outdoors unless it’s raining. It all sounds like it should be reasonable measures except for the part where they’re going to be indoors with 24 other people for 5-6 hours a day and that’s a lot of people who are seeing a lot of people who are also seeing a lot of people. They have also confirmed that it’s actually always been a legal requirement for them to inform parents of close contacts within classrooms so the principal was being shady as hell acting like they didn’t know what that protocol was. It’s unfortunate but this school is one of the preferred schools in the district for this age and she clearly knows it and acts accordingly. I have been completely unimpressed by her leadership through this pandemic.

I felt better about the first grade teacher though. For one thing, she didn’t whine or complain or act surprised that we’re in a pandemic, like the kindergarten teacher did (every single day of the school year). Not even once! She just got to the point and gave us relevant details and told the kids what they needed to know for the next few days.

The independent study program, which we expressed interest in, looks pretty terrible. We could still manage, we’d find a way, but I also know it’d take an immense toll on us. There’s just no way to compare the two options. I want them to get to go and experience school, they’re highly social and miss it, but I want to not have an ulcer by the end of the first week worrying about their health and safety in a hundred ways that were never a concern pre-COVID. When I dropped them off at daycare for 8-10 hours, they ran off without a glance backwards and that made me smile knowing they were being educated and looked after to a reasonably high standard. Every classroom had their own sink and set of toilets, they had meals provided, they had to abide by state law for class sizes and conduct and so on. Here I’m wondering how they’re going to let kids go to the bathroom when they need to safely. They are trying to discourage kids from going when it’s not with the whole class. How does THAT work?? Are they really standing in the hall for an hour while 24 kids do their business two at a time? Do they really expect 24 kids to be able to coordinate their bowels across a full school day? Maybe my kid just had intense bathroom needs but they hit the toilet something like six times a day. I don’t know, I’ve lost count.

But just like that, the day was more than half gone before I could get back to my desk and plow through any reasonable amount of work. I left so much undone and didn’t go back after dinner because I am simply too tired to function. I woke up with Smol at 4 am, 5 am, and 730 am because they’re having some kind of sleep regression thing and it’s slowly killing me again. I’m teetering on that edge of having no reserves and yet having to dig deep. PiC took the previous four morning disruptions, four to my one, since this has been going on for daaaaaays, and he was too zonked to take this one. More than fair, I’d say but my body disagrees.

We packed a snack/lunch for them and had them set out most of the things they will need to take with them tomorrow.

Some days are all about Smol, today was all about JB.

So many mixed feelings, so much worry, so much hope that they won’t be exposed to anything, so much fear that we’re misjudging the safety and there will be an outbreak and we’ll regret this. We are planning to take it day by day but even that feels unimaginably risky. Maybe it’s because this is our first venture into allowing them to get cared for by anyone else out of our sight for any amount of time, in COVID times, and this feeling will ease? I know friends out here who have been using childcare and it hasn’t been the end of all things. But the biggest difference is they have functional immune systems. I would like one, please.

Year 2, Day 150: What. A. Day.

We decided to let JB try attending and observing in person school for a few days and then reassess while we’re also enrolled in the independent study option that promises to be labor intensive and unappealing in so many ways. There are purportedly multiple layers of mitigation, a high staff vaccination rate, and JB has a four layer mask that includes an N95 filter plus the good sense to keep that mask on all day long.

My nerves were still crackling all day, worrying about whether we are making the right choice even trying this for a few days. But the IS program doesn’t start for two more weeks anyway so it’s either this or two weeks of digital makework while it’s set up before we have to be part time teachers since this won’t be a fraction of the same interaction as they had in distance learning.

Can I tell you how much I hate our choices right now (even knowing that even having any choice is a luxury and that our district has finally taken some real steps towards risk mitigation)? It feels like we’re stuck in a vise. There’s no good way to turn and the pressure is on.

A friend cautioned me not to be too hard on myself, there are no good or easy decisions here and so that means no decision is the “right” one but here I am, desperately trying to find the right one. At least the right one for us. And the truth is, the definition of right simply doesn’t fit any one box. The thing we’d choose for our health and safety looks very different from the thing we’d choose for our sanity which looks very different from the thing we’d choose for our peace of mind. We can’t satisfy all of these with a single answer.

Doesn’t stop me from wanting to try. But. It’s not possible.

*****

Despite all our shared angst, which led to my finally breaking through the emotional ice that’s formed around my heart this month, which was mostly well hidden from JB so as not to infect them with our fears, they had a reasonably good day. They were nervous and a bit withdrawn at first, but they had some fun. There were hiccups of course but they really do want this to work and they really do want to attend if it can be safe enough. I really want them to be safe enough to attend. I just don’t know if I can trust that it will be. All I could see in the vast sea of children was disease vector upon disease vector upon disease vector. Walking Petri dishes, the lot of them. As children are, naturally. JB is good about masking and I hope that plus lots of caution about washing of hands is sufficient to protect them along with the other safety measures. But I don’t feel comfortable with the risk at all.

I don’t know what we’ll decide in the end but we agreed to give it a few days and see. I really wish we had pushed for distance learning options earlier, I was so tired I simply didn’t think to do it. I also didn’t think we’d be in this place in time.

*****

After an intense day, JB came home starving. They inhaled a massive snack and we had an early dinner because they were hungry again by 530. They suggested soup night, so I heated a quart of soup from a box and made a chicken spinach salad. They ate almost all the salad and almost all the soup. I’m surprised there was any left for me and PiC!

It was another late night for us adults. I worked until 11, then had to tackle school paperwork and other related paperwork. I crawled into bed after midnight. PiC started work after midnight. Ugh. So tired.

Year 2, Day 151: YAY Smol slept in until 6 am this morning! Which doesn’t feel like sleeping in but after several days of 2, 3 and 4 am wakings, I’ll take it.

JB was ready to leave for school 15 minutes before they were even allowed on campus. I am happy for their excitement at least.

*****

I saw a Cup of Jo headline that asked: “Did this summer feel off to anyone?”

Did we have a summer?? I don’t know what it felt like, but while I never truly feel like it’s summer in SF, this year was especially unsummery. We didn’t have SDCC. We didn’t have picnic lunches out in the yard because we only had a couple sunny days now and again. It seemed like we fast forwarded to worrying about the new school year and then BAM. It’s here. We start the school year far too unreasonably.

*****

I think Smol may be at least a little confused why they don’t see JB at all for a whole between naps waking period but they are enjoying their freedom to roam JB’s room! They managed to snatch a drawing off the wall and gnaw a hole in it in the 2.5 seconds I looked away from them. Sneaky critter!

*****

I’m still such a mixed bag of emotions. JB is SO into school and I want them to have this. I feel so wound up about the inability to properly assess risk, especially since we can’t even go on campus to visit the classroom and see the HEPA purifier in action. They can TELL us they have one for every room but I want to see that thing with my own eyes. I’m so mad on behalf of all my parent friends who are feeling the same jumble of emotions and have even less in the way of mitigation from their schools. Local friends and distant friends alike are struggling with all kinds of nonsense. I cannot believe, though I saw it with my own two eyes, that the CDC says they don’t count close contacts in classroom environments which means parents don’t have to be notified. That’s absurd! It’s enraging! We’re totally uncomfortable with our choices and we’re the lucky ones! ARGHHHH!

Year 2, Day 152: Day three of sending JB into the maw of public school, fully quad-ply masked. I am still a bundle of nerves about the health and safety aspect. But the difference it makes to my other stress levels in terms of having my attention having to be split 3 ways constantly is tangible. I still have to operate on Smol’s awake/asleep times but when they are asleep, I can focus on work for a whole hour at a stretch without constantly monitoring another person’s movements and schedules. Mostly. Today is harder, it’s Friday, and having forced myself to manage most of my workload earlier in the week has left me with not a great bin of patience left. The intense pressure of the whole week has had me sitting hunched up like an armadillo.

“Thankfully”, I have plenty of ways to procrastinate: wrapping up the last of the things shipping out for our 8th Lakota family (done), pulling together direct aid for two fellow bloggers / Twitter friends going through some tough times (done and done), uploading new tee-shirt designs to Merch (done) because they tickle me and I had a burst of ideas last week. Then there’s always the reliable standby: stare at your spreadsheets wondering what the heck is going on with our money and if there’s anything else I can do to grow it faster (ethically). You can set your watch by that last one.

PiC announced last Friday with a gust of relief: WE MADE IT. And we had but for me, that was just the windup. This week was the Big Game. We had all the fighting with the district still to do, and the first week of school and the massive projects I have going on at work and the vet appointment for Sera and I truly was not sure if we’d make it to the other side.

We did. We made it.

:: How did you fare?

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