And then four months passed in a blink.
Here in North Carolina, things have begun picking up instead of slowing down. Back in Miami, things are speeding up at an alarming pace - I'm constantly worried about my family in Florida.
Where everybody was all "kumbaya" before, with celebrities singing "Imagine" in perfectly social-distanced clips taken from their phone cameras - now the world is divided on so many fronts.
There should be an app, actually, to qualify people who you're considering spending time with in any capacity. A simple rating scale, answer a few questions, and get a numerical value to where you stand.
1 = Reopen everything. Go to COVID parties. It's all a hoax. Something about Bill Gates and microchip vaccines.
10 = I have been in my home for the last 4 months, I'm growing my own produce and when my groceries are delivered I step outside in a hazmat suit and spray everything down with Lysol.
... I had to stop typing for a second, because my darling four year old just came up to me and gently draped his underwear on to me. He is now naked.
Oh well. Hopefully that resolves itself while I finish this entry.
I began at a 9, and I'm now hovering at around a 7. Here's me in a nutshell:
- I wear a mask everywhere I go.
- Lysol gets sprayed on everything, and my house is super-clean
- I have gone to a few places purely recreationally, but only ones where I can assure I'll be able to remain socially distant (for example, I went to an escape room... my family was the only group in the entire facility).
- I've begun taking my son to a few places, he's doing semi-private swim classes to burn some energy. I figure between the clorox and the instructor wearing a mask, it's among the safer activities.
- Everybody in my family is taking: Zinc, Quercetin (it helps your body absorb the zinc), Vitamin D (low vitamin D levels have been found among the severe/fatal cases... though no scientific reason for WHY has been discovered), and a multivitamin. This excludes the baby, who only gets an infant multivitamin and Vitamin D droplets.
- Though I struggle immensely with milk production, I've stayed vigilant about breastfeeding, to pass on any potential antibodies to my little one.
- We've put Mason back in part time school. His preschool is a standalone building (HVACs have been identified as a source of spread) and the standards they have set for cleanliness are pretty intense. Nonetheless, I feel guilty each time I drop him off. Then I feel relieved each time I pick him up. School helps his soul so much. He has missed his friends immensely.
- My husband's job never shut down, he continued to work outside of the home. When he gets home he goes upstairs immediately to change clothes and wash up. He wears a mask all day and cleans his hands often, but this remains a huge source of stress.
I'm always back and forth on what I should be doing. Balancing the business, the baby, and the big boy has been tough. I've gotten creative though. I've asked online if anybody has horses, and visited some random people's horses. We've walked trails, waded in waterfalls, made bracelets for friends, printed out photos and talked about our friends that we can't see right now, and Mason's even learned how to cook a few things all by himself. He can make scrambled eggs and pancakes all on his own (I just turn the stovetop on and stand nearby), and he's so proud of himself.
He's also really bonded with his baby brother. When this first began, I thought it would be the absolute opposite - all 3 of us at home all the time, me with no time to just bond with the baby, and Mason competing for attention. But, it turned a corner at some point and now we have our little routine. As I type this, Mason just finished his lunch and is sitting watching TV, while the baby naps, and I have a few quiet moments (usually, I fill these with coffee).
We watch the news out of Moderna (US based company in Phase 2 trials for vaccines) and Oxford (England based company in Phase 3), and hold out hope for something that will lead us to an end. I imagine a happy Halloween, and visiting my family for Thanksgiving... but I don't let myself buy into that hope too much. I know this is how it's going to be for some time, and I'm learning to be OK. I know I'm lucky.