Hours after I published the last post that I concluded with a mention of our planned trip to Florida, I came down with a sore throat. The next morning I woke up with the telltale headache, and then a message from a relative we’d spent the weekend confirmed it: COVID. The rapid test I took turned bright pink as soon as the liquid hit the line, and suddenly we had some decisions to make. It was Tuesday morning, and our flight to Florida was planned for Friday.
There was no way we could go.
I was gutted.
I haven’t seen several of the relatives we were planning on visiting in years, and most of them have never met Adam and Aaron. We spent weeks planning out who to see and when, where to stay, and making the puzzle pieces come together for a whirlwind week of visits and chill fun. Even the thought of trying to shift those plans, much of which had been made with a holiday weekend in mind, was overwhelming, especially on top of being sick. We canceled all our plans and sent apologies.
By Tuesday afternoon Aaron had a cough too, and Adam quickly followed suit. MJ somehow got a couple days of grace period, but by Thursday he was down too. This is our third time with COVID, and it is notable that this is the first time the kids actually got sick from it. By Friday our house was a cacophony of sniffles, coughs, and short tempers. Thankfully, it moved through our house swiftly and we’re all OK. No one had fevers for more than a day and aside from a lingering cough, the boys were better within a couple days. On Sunday morning I tested negative and was ready to rejoin society. MJ is the last one on the mend, but thankfully we already had taken the time off from work, so he’s had the opportunity to rest.
I feel bad about how the weekend went though. Since the boys recovered quickly they were clearly bored. What should have been the first real vacation we’ve taken as a family turned into being stuck home with a pair of tired, grumpy parents.
Still, I was feeling well enough on Thursday evening to take out the sparklers we bought earlier in the week and play outside in the heat with the boys to celebrate the 4th of July. Little sparklers are the only fire-thing my family ever did for the holiday, we were never the firecracker (or more) crowd, and so it was nice to share this with the boys. They were both a bit scared (it’s fire!) but Aaron eventually was brave enough to hold one, and Adam started coming up with ideas for setting up patterns in the grass where we could place them, but he kept his distance. As the sun began to set, we also started seeing fireflies on the tree line. We don’t have the opportunity to see fireflies much in California, so it was a magical moment for them, not having realized that the fireflies they’d seen in books and on TV were real things.
Friday I was well enough to take them outside and play in the water sprinklers on our lawn outside. I’m not sure I’ve mentioned how hot and dry this summer has been. The temperature has been soaring into the high 90s almost every day, making our outdoor excursions quite short. Still, the boys enjoyed the sprinkler fun and, for once, respected my request to not get me totally soaked. They did seem to understand “Mom doesn’t feel well, please don’t get me wet.”
Saturday night I was improved enough to grab a mask when we heard the ice cream truck and ruin dinner by getting the boys an ice cream in the early evening, hah! They actually did eat dinner though, and it was worth it anyway for the joy that a melting ice cream brought them on an otherwise disappointing weekend.
The big takeaway from this latest infection for me is the shift in how people feel about COVID infections. In spite of continued reports of the risks of Long COVID and vulnerable populations, it’s basically being treated like any other common infection now. I had people surprised that we had canceled our trip. One mentioned they just treat it like the flu. Apparently they’d get on a plane for a beach vacation with the flu? I knew that culturally we are a bit intense when it comes to working through being sick, but I wish we had come out of the other side of this pandemic more cautious and thoughtful. That was incredibly naive. We came out the same, with another disease to add to the pile of things we spread everywhere. I guess the only thing I’m grateful for is that in most places wearing a mask in public has become normalized. I now wear them when I just have a cold but have to go out somewhere. Colds aren’t fun either, I don’t want to share that!
On the family side, I always knew that living in California our opportunities to visit family would be more limited, but I certainly didn’t anticipate a global pandemic at such a critical time in the life of our family. Our line had always been, “yeah, we live far away, but we love traveling and we can afford to visit!” Suddenly the monetary cost is only one piece of the puzzle. As a result, having this vacation home in Philadelphia has turned out to be more important than we ever expected, the ability to have regular visits with MJ’s side of the family and develop a closeness with cousins is so important to us, and not something we could have done with week long visits from a hotel. As for visiting my family, that will always be more difficult, but we do hope to at least re-schedule this visit in a few months, or early next year at the latest.