Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Another Day, Another COVID Life Update

Now that I'm not following a list of writing prompts, I don't really know how to blog anymore. Since my last four posts have been in "list" format, I feel like I need to offer up some legit paragraphs or something - I just don't know if I have any in me. 

For the sake of documentation, let's do a COVID update, shall we?

We're seven months into COVID life now - rocking the "new normal" or whatever we say these days. We're fine. Except for when we're not fine. But mostly we're fine. 

(The emotional rollercoaster is a blast, isn't it?)

 

So far our schools are still in session, but Nicky was sent home last week for possible COVID exposure from another student and can't return to school until the 19th (though his "quarantine" ends this Friday). I knew it would happen eventually, and I'm actually really surprised that we lasted as long as we did before we had a kid sent home. I honestly thought our schools would be shut down by now, but our two schools have only had a case or two thus far, and none have been deemed as "school spread." A couple of the high schools in our district have closed down for two weeks because they were getting up in the double digits, but overall, things have gone very well with the schools in our area. 

Last week, Zoe had a day where she said she was having a hard time breathing. She told her teacher she needed her inhaler. Zoe uses an inhaler for a chronic cough, but it's not an emergency inhaler, and she has never had issues breathing. When I got to the school, she said her body was hurting, so I decided to check her out of school just to be safe. Of course, she was fine for the rest of the day at home. 

I feel like every day brings some sort of COVID scare. Every sniffle, every sneeze, every itty bitty little pain could be COVID. Just this morning, Zoe came into my bedroom sniffling, and I awoke thinking, "Oh crap! I'm going to have to keep you home from school!" but it turned out to be a bloody nose. I've never been so happy about a nose bleed!

I haven't been paying attention to other states lately, but here in Utah, we've had a pretty big spike in cases. Back in June, we had a spike that took us up to the 500-600 per day range. Now we are having 1,000-1,500 a day. Masks are mandated where we live in Salt Lake County, and masks are required at school. 

Scotty continues working from home. They were supposed to start phasing employees back to work last month, but when this spike hit, they postponed. I've been having a hard time managing the kids when they are home on Fridays, so I asked Scotty to go to work on Fridays. I need the freedom to parent loudly.  

We started going to church again last month. To me it feels like we’re “playing church.” It reminds me of being a kid and setting up a make believe scenario, “And pretend you’re the bishop and you tell us what song to sing and I’ll sit on the bench and wear a mask, and then you have to look at me and try to guess if I’m singing or not singing. And you’re not allowed to get up or talk to anybody because floor is lava. Then later we’ll get on our walkie talkies and play Relief Society.”

I just keep wondering what it would have been like to look into a crystal ball a year ago and see today. What would we have thought?  









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