Kris's Covid Pandemic Blog

Year 2! As promised, I've stopped numbering days. At least in part because it's very clear there's going to be a definitive end to this, just a very slow and drawn out fadeout. So a lot of conversation has happened about schools since I last wrote. Our school made a plan for returning kids to in person school and literally the same day they announced this the governor came out with a directive about in person school and it was all lovely chaos. We had 48 hours to decide if we wanted to send James back to in person school, which is...not long enough to make big decisions, but it is what it is. I'll spare you the long story but here's the upshot. James is participating in what are called "bridge weeks" this week and next week. Each grade K-3 is divided in half and half of the kids from that grade who are returning to in person learning (there is a stay all remote option, not sure how many kids are going to do that) come for a 2 hour session once per each bri...

Dude, I don't know what to say. A year ago was James's last day of school. He is currently scheduled to start "bridge weeks," where he will go to school one day a week to do some orientation and rules introduction stuff, the week of March 22 and back to school 2 days a week after spring break. That's the current schedule, but I'm not counting on it yet. I've learned enough to know better than to count on things before they happen. For most of the country, the anniversary of the shutdown is about a week from now but for me and my family it's tomorrow. March 5 was the first day school was closed in our district and also the day we moved my husband out of his office and into his remote work space, while listening on the radio to a press conference happening at a nursing home that had been the site of the nation's first outbreak. The nursing home was down the street from the hospital where we used to volunteer. March 6 was my last day of work. I don...

I was pretty distracted when I wrote the other day so I wanted to finish the story of the sickness since I sincerely hope we are through it now. After the movie on Thursday afternoon James's temp was still high and he developed a stiff neck so I called the pediatrician nurse line. By the time they got back to me it was after 4:30 and she said with that combination of symptoms she really wanted him seen that day and suggested we make an appointment with the children's hospital urgent care. So he and I went there at 7:50 and Josh stayed with Max. That's probably the way we would have done it anyway but with Covid protocols only one parent was allowed in. Josh and I talked after this was over about how lucky we are that we really have had overall healthy kids. Max had very minor surgery when he was one to remove a benign growth in his neck that he was born with and James spent the first three weeks of his life in the NICU because he came early but other than that we have been ...

 One of the many things this pandemic has stolen from us: I can't just have a sick kid and stay home and let him sleep and check on him and feed him warm soup and let him get better. I mean...I can...and I am...but I can't do it without the worry of what if and wondering at what point we get a test, etc. Let me be clear: he's okay. He has a small temperature and complained of his tummy hurting and being dizzy so he went back to bed after breakfast. Where every time I check on him he acts like I am holding him hostage and not like he elected to go back to bed on his own. He has no cough and no other symptoms. If he rallies and feels better this afternoon, which I fully expect he will, I won't worry about a test because it's not like he's going to see anyone to expose even if it were Covid. So we are totally okay. I just hate that a sick day is ANOTHER thing that has to have this layer of crap added to it. It's been a LONG time since I updated...it's hard....

When I was a kid I had this (totally illegally copied on cassette tape from the library) audiobook of The Cat Ate My Gymsuit by Paula Danziger. This book was formative for me for a lot of reasons and I actually prefer its sequel There's a Bat in Bunk Five, but one thing I remember is that she has to write a paper on the James Thurber quote that is the title for this post and her response is "I am never going to be calm enough to think this is funny." This is what I thought yesterday as we finally finished the writing assignment from hell and I stuck it on my bookshelf to find someday. As a friend said, if I were the sort of person who drinks I would have put it on the shelf with a bottle of bourbon. Given the state of my bookshelves it will likely be awhile before I find them again, but right now it's difficult to imagine being in a place where when I find them it will bring a "oh, remember how awful that week was" smile. So the writing assignment from hell ...

 I am sabotaging myself by not going in for an early bedtime. At least I'm aware of this? Been a rocky week in these parts. The feelings are BIG. James is all of a sudden very emotional and now Max is trying to out clingy him and it's been exhausting. It started with the worst writing assignment of all time I think. The first graders have been working on this nonfiction writing assignment for...well, it feels like approximately seven hundred years but it's been two weeks or more. This is one of those things that was broken down into endless steps. Reading about three animals was a step. Drawing a diagram of the chosen animal was a step. When it came to the research portion, they had to read some ebooks about their animal and write six interesting facts to put into their papers. It was exactly six. I know because on the paper we recreated when the first one got ruined there weren't exactly six slots for facts and we got called out on this. Then the actual writing happene...

It's weird to me when things that were part of my old life show up and try to play ball in this one. So...where to start this story. Once upon a time I went to a librarian's conference. In the summer of 2006 I was a student librarian intern for King County Library System and in graduate school. I worked about 15 hours a week and went to school online (which was more unusual back then but at a time when online higher ed was exploding.)  In summer of 2005 there had been a huge hurricane that hit the Gulf Coast. Flooded New Orleans and wiped out the coastal areas of Louisiana and Mississippi, just awful devastating loss. I really wanted to help but I was a graduate student and had no money. I also had no skills to speak of. I mean, I'm not in construction, I can't go down and help rebuild houses, assuming I can get there, I'd just be in the way. So I remember feeling very helpless. That spring a friend of mine calls me and says she heard from a Girl Scout friend of her...