Essential

How do we decide what is essential? I mean, do we go back to basics and say that food, water and shelter are the only truly essential things? I’ve been working since late May. My job would not be deemed essential if you were to use the above criteria. I do not provide anyone with food, water or shelter. Okay. So in the case of a pandemic, we need to add medical care to the list of essential items. That means that anyone who provides people with food, water, shelter and medical care is essential. I’m still not essential and yet…here I am. I cannot do my job from home. Please know that if I could, and if my place of employment would allow it, I would absolutely be at home trying to parent my daughters, wife my husband and work for my employer. Alas, that is not an option for me. The girls are scheduled to go back to school on August 19. This makes teachers essential, right? Absolutely. And the support staff that keeps a school running must be essential too. With school starting, so are sports, which…are they essential? I mean, the kids probably thing so, right? We want so badly for life to get back to normal. We want to live and thrive and do things and be with people and yet…doing this might mean that some of us won’t live through this. Sigh. Recently (and here’s where all this pontificating is going, finally) Alyssa’s voice coach messaged us. She has openings for the fall and would love to add Lyss back to her schedule. Alyssa stopped voice lessons back in March when the world skidded to a halt. Her coach, Ms. C messaged us in June (?) and offered Alyssa a spot for summer lessons. We declined, deciding that at that time, voice lessons were not essential. But now? Still probably not essential but maybe, well, necessary? Or if not necessary, perhaps a bonus? Alyssa has worked so hard all summer. She’s masked up and served up beef and cheddars with sides of cheese sticks and jamocha shakes with very few complaints. So…voice lessons? Skip them for fear of contracting a potentially deadly virus? Go for it because damn it, how much more are we all going to have to give up? I know, logically, that limiting the number of people we have contact with is smart. I also know that each person one of us (my nuclear family being the ‘us’ in this instance) has contact with is bringing with them all the people they’ve had contact with and so on into infinity. But…my heart argues with my head and says, “When does it end?” My head wants to know who has to die for us to really stop all this whining. My heart whines that the voice coach gave lessons all summer long and apparently all is well. (Can you tell that Tom is my head and Alyssa is my heart?) What do we do? How far is too far when it comes to slowing down? How much is too much to give up? But really, when it comes to people’s lives, their actual hearts beating, is anything too much to give up if it means everyone gets to, you know, live?

Lulled (alternate title: False Complacency)

I feel like we’re in the quiet before the storm.

Things are calm right now. We’re muddling through the summer and doing our best.

I still get frustrated with Olivia on a daily basis. I fuss at her over the water all of the bathroom floor (she washes her hands and then shakes them all over the floor. It drives me insane.) as well as her over-use of toilet paper. One day a few weeks ago, she went to get Alyssa to help her unplug an upstairs toilet. O had basically put an entire roll (sans the actual cardboard roll) in the toilet and then tried to flush. Sigh.

But really, those are just annoyances. Her moods have settled. *Knock on wood*

Alyssa’s in band camp, so we’re watching each other closely since we’re all around people more and more these days.

Alyssa and I attended her prom. She was beautiful. It was fine. I worked with other mothers (there were some dads in attendance but they didn’t really work so much as they stood around watching the moms work…seriously.) We served the kids their dinners, we made sure their drinks were full. We wore masks most of the time but there were times when we didn’t. So…

I’ve filled out the survey put out by the school asking what type of school we’re looking for this coming year.

Alyssa insists she is going to school. She does NOT want to do online learning. I don’t blame her. It’s her senior year.

Olivia needs to be back in school. But I also need to manage her and Tom’s anxiety over her being in school.

The survey asked if we wanted in-school learning, online learning or a blended version. I checked blended. Alyssa balked at that. She said that there was not blended option.

But wait, there was! I told her that the survey wasn’t locking us into anything. I reminded her that everything is negotiable. We’ll figure it out. If Lyss goes to school five days a week and Liv goes three that would be perfect.

Olivia will not be riding the bus this year. Since Lyss drives, Olivia can ride with her. There is no need to put her on the cesspool that is the school bus. That’s on less area of anxiety we’ll have to manage.

Olivia is perfectly willing to wear a mask to school each day. She’d love it if they could just eat lunch in their classrooms. She said she’ll actually eat if that’s an option. She’s even said she’ll speak louder from behind her mask so everyone can hear and understand her.

Her classroom is already small. I think there are a total of nine kids in the class where she receives individual instruction. It should be fairly easy for those nine kids to social distance.

I don’t know. I want what’s best for all of us. Just like every other parent out there facing these decisions.

Obviously my girls’ physical health is important but their mental health is important too. Their social health, while not quite as important as their physical and mental health, is still something we need to take into account. They need more than just to be wrapped in protective layers and kept at home. I wish we could do just that but it’s not healthy for any of us, not in the long run.

Ramen and Toilet Paper

So… corona virus, aka, Covid 19…

Yeah.

Ohio schools have closed at least through April 3. The situation will be reevaluated at a later date to see if they’ll close longer than that.

Oh how I laughed at Tom when we found out he’ll be stuck in a house with Olivia for three weeks.

And yet…damn.

I mean, sure, I get it. We need to slow this thing down. Social distancing and all that.

We currently have plenty of toilet paper, in case you were worried about our butts.

Alas, we’re down to our last package of ramen. Think there will be some when I go Walmart to buy groceries on Saturday?

I’m taking bets here.

See, I don’t even plan to go in order to ‘stock up’. I just need to buy groceries, which is what I do every Saturday. But we are low on ramen. And since the girls will be home for three weeks, we’ll need soup and Spaghetti-Os. Ewww, but still, a child can’t live on ramen alone.

Let’s not forget the macaroni and cheese.

It will appear to the average shopper (me) that I’m stocking up and perhaps even hoarding and that’s okay.

I took Alyssa to the doctor the other day for her sports physical. I felt a vague sense of guilt for taking a perfectly healthy child to a germ-infested doctor’s office but she needed that physical in order to participate in track meets. She can practice without it but she has to have had the physical in order to compete.

She’s fine, by the way. I know that shocks exactly no one.

But our doctor talked to us a little about covid-19. He said that the panic amongst the medical community is due to the unknown. They just don’t know what this virus will do to people, not really. It’s spreading so fast and making the elderly SO sick (or, rather, KILLING them) and there simply are not enough tests in this country to stop people from spreading this stupid virus.

So we have to slow everyone down.

I mentioned SARS and Zika to my doctor and he seemed surprised that I remembered them. They were flashes in the pan, if you will. He said he hopesCovid-19 goes the same path but no one knows for sure that it will.

It might become more like influenza, which still kills tens of thousands of people each year.

He pointed out that the flu killed more people in the late 1910s than bullets did in WWI. So…yeah, that’s depressing.

But we’re hopeful. We’re rallying. We’re staying home and washing our hands and not licking the handle of the shopping carts.

And…some of us (not me, but some people) are buying ALL the toilet paper and hand sanitizer. I just hope there’s still ramen available the next time I go buy groceries.