Really, the whole point of this post is to say blogging will be all over the place. Hopefully it’ll only be through December and then I can spend more time here, but who knows?
Back in June, the plan was for us to send our oldest back to the classroom and our youngest would be starting preschool not long after. It was very exciting, especially after being cooped up at home for over a year. I was definitely looking forward to some quiet time at home to give our home a thorough cleaning, get more time blogging and reading, and time working on This Story and Sisters of String and Glass. Our county’s numbers were looking really good and we were down to about 200 new COVID cases a day. I was so optimistic about sending my kids back to school in August.
On June 15th, California essentially decided the pandemic here was over. Of all the stupid ideas we could ever have…
Anyways, that meant no social distancing and no masks for the vaccinated. So, of course, what do people say? Oh, yes, I’m vaccinated. Uh huh, totally!
It should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that, within a couple of weeks of June 15th, our numbers started going well in the wrong direction. It’s hasn’t gotten better since. We went from the low hundreds back into the thousands and the Delta variant has a very strong foothold here. Oh the joys of that!
I keep an eye on the outbreak list for businesses and schools our county keeps. My husband and I have developed a little joke about one of them. Delta Airlines has an outbreak, so they should definitely vaccinate all employees against the Delta variant. It’s funnier when we talk about it to each other.
So, yeah, we’re not looking anywhere as great as we did a couple of months ago, and even that is pushing it in my mind. Of course I started freaking out the closer to the start of the school year we got.
My kids are both too young to be vaccinated. It makes the decision of whether to send them to school extremely excruciating. We’re fairly sure our oldest would do best in a classroom, so we desperately want to put him back into the classroom. But our distract has decided on no social distancing in the classrooms. It’ll only be in place when the kids are eating lunch. They’ll just be wearing a mask all the time.
I’m sorry, but elementary school students cannot be vaccinated at this time. Literally every student in his school will be unvaccinated. Why on Earth would I send my unvaccinated child to school where he’ll be right next to other students who are not unvaccinated? (Children can still get seriously ill, but, besides that, why would I want my child to get COVID if he didn’t have to?) I mean, if a mask was enough to protect us last year when none of us were vaccinated, why was social distancing in place? I don’t know. It just boggles my mind. I ask my husband sometimes if he, who is vaccinated, would go to work full time at his work place with just a mask and no social distancing and be close to other vaccinated people. Since there are breakthrough infections and there is evidence vaccinated people can spread COVID, he says he wouldn’t do it. So if my vaccinated husband refuses to be not socially distant from his vaccinated co-workers, why would I send my unvaccinated child to be around 20-something other unvaccinated children in one classroom?!
So we’re very thankful our district does have an online option. It’ll be very different from online learning last year and will require much more time, but I feel safer keeping him home until he has every protection we can offer him. Meaning he has to be vaccinated before I’m willing to send him back to the classroom.
Not only that, though, I have to get my daughter’s preschool education going. If I don’t feel safe sending my son (who thinks everything is icky and won’t touch anything) to school, I’m not going to send my daughter who literally touches everything to school.
Online Second Grade and homeschool preschool are in my near future. By near future, I mean this coming Monday. As in just a weekend away. How everything’s going to work out, I have no idea, but I’m determined to make it work, and so it will work out.
It just means I’ll have less access to my computer since my son will be back to using it and less time to do anything. My goal is to keep up with book reviews and my writing, but other kinds of posts will probably be sorely lacking. I also love blog hopping and reading everything everyone has to say, but I anticipate I won’t have as much time to read blogs. I’ll probably try my best to keep up in my email, but definitely won’t have as much time to comment and like. It makes me sad because I’m really missing the community as it is, but I have to put my kids first. While I need this space to keep me sane, I need to focus more on taking care of my babies, keeping them educated and safe. So, if all goes well, next year will be a return to pre-March 2020. I hope.
Stay safe!
The Lily Cafe 
For literally no reason, I’ve been expecting the absolute worst to start this September and continue for some time. I’m such a cheery, optimistic sort, /sarcasm.
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Well, I’m expecting the same. I have the feeling humanity is going to take a plunge off the cliff, though I’m also hoping I’m completely wrong. Doesn’t stop me from telling my husband the aliens are about to descend and say we have failed and annihilate us all.
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I’m wondering what the start of school will bring. The university my daughter is at is going to try once again to have in-person classes – masks inside. Now these “kids” are old enough to be vaccinated and hopefully many, if not all, of them are. I’m still curious how that is going to turn out though.
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It feels like a giant experiment to me, so my fingers are crossed it all goes a lot better than I think it will. I hope your daughter will be able to stay safe!
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Good luck with it all.
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Thank you!
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I don’t press “like” because I don’t, but I wanted to comment.
I think the problem with the school and unvaccinated kids should no be on the parents or on school.
We all need to be flexible and aware.
Here, for example, they were asked to pass in class 2 antigen tests per week.
Sometimes some kid was giving positive, and the corresponding quarantine established for all the class.
But “only” for that class. It happened to us twice, and they ended up being false positives.
Unfortunately we’re speaking about “government paid” antigen tests, and it looks like they will be stopping those in October. We’ll see what we do them. If they ask us to keep bringing them despite of the high incidence, for sure I’m going to buy self-tests by myself if needed.
Take you all care!
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That’s very true and I’m inclined to agree. Unfortunately, half the people around me think COVID isn’t real and there’s really no clear message on it and how to live with it, so we’re just being jerked around by the people in charge. It makes for very uncertain times and each individual just has to figure things out on their own. Right now, it’s hard for me to put trust in the people around me, so I’m in a wait and see phase. We also have no clear answer on what happens if a child or even a whole class needs to quarantine and how they would continue learning, which has concerned quite a few parents.
If we did have to do 2 tests a week, I’d feel much more comfortable. As it is, they say weekly, but it often turns out to be more like once every other week. I hope your country is able to provide some kind of testing beyond October, or some way of providing you the ability to easily check if your positive or negative.
Take care to you as well!
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Kudos to you, Kat. You’re doing what a mother does: puts her children first. Yes, it’s a hard educational blow we’re dealing with when so many had high hopes of the learning environment possibly going back into a safer direction. But, we just have to have a plan and back-up plans ready to go for whatever takes place these days. I pray that your son has an excellent start to his school year nevertheless. It sounds like he has adapted to the virtual learning environment and he seems like a very disciplined young man. Plus, he has an awesome mother who will be at the helm of his learning success. So, I’m thinking he’s going to have a great year. And I know the demands of being a parent of a virtual learner all too well. So, I definitely know your priorities will be divided among many different things (including your children’s educations). So again, I say “kudos” to you. Take one day at a time, which is all any of us can do. And don’t forget “YOU” in your day-to-day. Have a great start to the school year!
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Thank you, Jana! Yes, it’s so hard, but I’m really hoping for proof that the schools can keep our children safe. I have so many back up plans it’s almost driving my husband crazy, but it’s definitely better to keep everyone as safe as possible in any situation. So far, we have a very promising start to the school year and my son seems so much more engaged than he did last year, so that’s one less thing to worry about. It’s very comforting to know we have this option, especially since he’s afraid of being unvaccinated in a classroom, so we don’t plan on putting him back until he feels reassured he’ll be okay. I hope you and you family have a great start to the school year, too!
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I figured you were prepared for the different scenarios that could possibly come your way. I’m so glad that you can keep your son at home and that he’s handling the at-home learning environment well. And yes, I pray that we all have a fantastic start, middle, and end to our school years. Here we go!
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