Page 29 - FDCC Pandemic Book

Living in a Pandemic: A Collection of Stories on Coping, Resilience & Hope
Mission Control
on the beach with my husband and sister, soaking in some much needed Vitamin D. We ate healthier, slept better and laughed more. We had our family there to watch Jude while Jon and I worked upstairs in separate rooms, uninterrupted for the entire day. Jude had his two cousins to play with, and he was thrilled. They swam in the pool out back, went for walks and had some normalcy for the first time in months. It was truly idyllic. We knew this time was fleeting, as fall meant the return to isolation, so we met each day with presence and gratitude.
As September drew closer, the anxiety levels steadily creeped back up. Jude was starting at a new Montessori preschool, and the final week of summer was fraught with uncertainty. Every hour, we reassessed “the numbers”—the COVID infection rate, confirmed cases, any data available in and around Delaware County, Pennsylvania. We went back and forth over whether to pull him from school, hire a nanny or return to our pre-summer mayhem of working full-time and parenting full- time while Jude raised himself, with the help of Disney+ and Paw Patrol. Ultimately, we were comfortable with his school’s health and safety plan, the small class size and the school’s commitment to mask wearing, social distancing, disinfecting regularly
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