a series of events
Over Christmas, the prince's day care always closes for two days - Christmas or whenever it is observed as a federal holiday (so Friday if the 25th is a Saturday, Monday if the 25th is a Sunday) and the most sensible adjacent workday as well (usually Christmas Eve, but the extra day can be anywhere from the 23rd to the 27th, as you can imagine). So that was a four-day weekend for us.
Of course New Year's Day is always a week later, and the day care takes a single day for that holiday (January 1 itself, or the Friday or the Monday as necessary); this year it was Friday 12/31. Then there was a biggish snow event the following Monday 1/3, so that was a snow day - a second four-day weekend in a row.
Following the snow day, the prince went to school Tuesday and Wednesday - and then after I'd put him to bed Wednesday night we got a message from the director of the place that someone in his classroom had tested positive for COVID. The positive person was vaccinated, masked, and symptom-free; the prince himself is vaccinated and good about wearing his mask; we are vaccinated and boosted and barely leave the house except to drop him off and pick him up. So we were as optimistic as possible in the circumstances, which were that we had to keep him home Thursday and Friday but kids in his class were allowed to come back in on Monday with proof of a negative test that morning. (So, antigen test, because to have a negative PCR ready for Monday morning we'd have to get him tested Saturday, which realistically would have been Friday evening, which is too soon after exposure to be reliable.) So we barred the door and ordered our groceries for no-contact delivery and didn't see the family on Sunday as we usually do, even though Sunday was his grandmother's birthday. (We FaceTimed with her.) A third four-day weekend. In a row.
This morning all three of us tested negative and the kid is back at school and the relief is stupendous - not the relief at not having COVID, because like I said we were pretty optimistic about that, but the relief at not having him cooped up in the house all day again, I can't even tell you. HOWEVER. While I was hanging out with him Thursday afternoon, I suggested that we think together as a family about a schedule for days when he's stuck at home all day (sick days, snow days, etc. - this problem isn't going to go away, of course, and it's actually going to be worse when he goes to kindergarten because the county closes the public schools for snow way more often than the day care does), and he agreed it was a good idea, and Friday afternoon we made such a schedule, and I hung it up under the clock in the living room and it made Saturday so much better than long featureless weekend days have ever been, oh my goodness. It does have more screen time on it than we think would be ideal, but on the other hand (a) his preferred screen activity at the moment is a coding game for kids on the iPad, so it's not just passive vegetable entertainment and (b) he is much more willing to take no for an answer when we can point out the time on the clock and that it's not the "screen time" block for another hour or whatever. No fooling: My stress levels were so much lower on Saturday that I bet I got 15 points of blood pressure back.
Meanwhile I have accomplished many other items of being a competent and productive adult:
Of course New Year's Day is always a week later, and the day care takes a single day for that holiday (January 1 itself, or the Friday or the Monday as necessary); this year it was Friday 12/31. Then there was a biggish snow event the following Monday 1/3, so that was a snow day - a second four-day weekend in a row.
Following the snow day, the prince went to school Tuesday and Wednesday - and then after I'd put him to bed Wednesday night we got a message from the director of the place that someone in his classroom had tested positive for COVID. The positive person was vaccinated, masked, and symptom-free; the prince himself is vaccinated and good about wearing his mask; we are vaccinated and boosted and barely leave the house except to drop him off and pick him up. So we were as optimistic as possible in the circumstances, which were that we had to keep him home Thursday and Friday but kids in his class were allowed to come back in on Monday with proof of a negative test that morning. (So, antigen test, because to have a negative PCR ready for Monday morning we'd have to get him tested Saturday, which realistically would have been Friday evening, which is too soon after exposure to be reliable.) So we barred the door and ordered our groceries for no-contact delivery and didn't see the family on Sunday as we usually do, even though Sunday was his grandmother's birthday. (We FaceTimed with her.) A third four-day weekend. In a row.
This morning all three of us tested negative and the kid is back at school and the relief is stupendous - not the relief at not having COVID, because like I said we were pretty optimistic about that, but the relief at not having him cooped up in the house all day again, I can't even tell you. HOWEVER. While I was hanging out with him Thursday afternoon, I suggested that we think together as a family about a schedule for days when he's stuck at home all day (sick days, snow days, etc. - this problem isn't going to go away, of course, and it's actually going to be worse when he goes to kindergarten because the county closes the public schools for snow way more often than the day care does), and he agreed it was a good idea, and Friday afternoon we made such a schedule, and I hung it up under the clock in the living room and it made Saturday so much better than long featureless weekend days have ever been, oh my goodness. It does have more screen time on it than we think would be ideal, but on the other hand (a) his preferred screen activity at the moment is a coding game for kids on the iPad, so it's not just passive vegetable entertainment and (b) he is much more willing to take no for an answer when we can point out the time on the clock and that it's not the "screen time" block for another hour or whatever. No fooling: My stress levels were so much lower on Saturday that I bet I got 15 points of blood pressure back.
Meanwhile I have accomplished many other items of being a competent and productive adult:
- We've arranged to have some work done on the house and had signed the estimates and returned them to the contractor - and now I've also paid him the deposits required by those contracts. (Okay we were a little late on that, oops.)
- I ordered some hardware with which to adapt the KN94 masks the prince doesn't like so they will fit the way his fabric masks do in the hope he will be prepared to use them instead. (A fabric mask he will wear is better than a better mask he won't; still I'd like to find a way to get him using the masks that work better.)
- I placed an order with a British foods website so in a week or so we should have some honest-to-god Cadbury instant hot chocolate in the house for the first time since who knows when (I don't know why Cadbury's drinking chocolate (add hot milk) is readily available in this country but their instant hot chocolate (add hot water) is not, but the latter is what I want, because mixing the former with powdered milk and then adding hot water is a vaguely viable workaround but I've never got the ratio exactly how I want it) after having the tab open on my phone for literally months and months).
- I am experiencing a fandom Renaissance, which is great because I've missed fandom!, but less great because while I was experiencing my own personal fandom Dark Ages apparently everyone migrated to Other Places and thank god for those of you I know in person because otherwise I wouldn't have a way back in. I'm learning how to use Tumblr (just as it's apparently collapsing; nice timing, self) and I'm on Discord now as well, but speaking of Discord, where the servers at? I got on the Yuletide one in time for this year's Yuletide and I'm on the Bujold one as well. Where else are folks congregating where I could slip in and lurk until I have the hang of the place, as one used to do back in the days of bulletin boards? (I'm not new! It just feels a little bit that way.)