The phone rang the night before Thanksgiving, just as I was about to plop my turkey into a 5-gallon bucket of brine. The woman on the line introduced herself as the supervisor for my son's preschool.
Yuen: Back-to-back quarantine? Welcome to the world we live in
I had just emerged from COVID isolation with one child, only to learn I'd have to do it again with a second kid.
December 7, 2021 at 3:00PM
Instead of hello, my first words were, "Oh, no ... "
Because I knew what she was about to say.
I had just gone through the same scenario two weeks earlier with my third-grader. The first time around, it was the school nurse telling me a "close contact" in his class tested positive for COVID-19, and that my child would have to stay home for a week and a half.
We had just made it to the other side — my kid rejoined his classroom, I danced a jig — when I got the news that we'd have to do it all over again, this time with his little brother. And now I was expending energy on the mental calculus on whether to cancel Thanksgiving with my parents.
When I talk to other parents wrestling with these kinds of disruptions nearly two years after the start of the pandemic, they describe an out-of-body experience. The tank carrying all of that early COVID spunk has been depleted. Whether they are caring for family members sickened by the virus or kids shut out of classrooms because of raging case counts, they feel like they're a shell of their former selves.
When the pandemic hit, we rallied. Adrenaline bought us a way to cope with the unknown and move forward in crisis, as did the promise of a vaccine. But as one of my friends observed, we're not writing on sidewalks with chalk anymore, spreading messages of hope and solidarity. There are no teddy bears in living room windows. We are exhausted.
My tremendous privilege of having a partner and a flexible job that allows me to work from home helped our family power through the disruption. Still, I had almost forgotten the absurdity of trying to do any work while staying on top of remote instruction for a young child.
On that first day of learning by tablet, my 8-year-old grew frustrated with the number of assignments, the isolation of not seeing his friends, and the sheer monotony of the day. When he crumpled into a mess of hot tears, I felt like we were both reliving the distance learning nightmare of March 2020.
To get by, we rewarded ourselves with daily soccer breaks in the backyard. Over lunch, we learned more about each other. "You were a waitress at IHOP?" he'd ask incredulously. "You lived in Taiwan?" It made me realize that, amid the daily grind, I've neglected to tell him stories of who I was before he made me a mom.
He also started to share more with me, including a difficult relationship he was navigating at school. And the exhaustion we felt in lockdown was paired with gratitude for time spent together.
I'm no expert on parenting or adulting — I do believe we're all just winging it. But in the spirit of sharing to help someone else struggling, here's what has helped me survive these still-weird times:
- Stocking up on at-home rapid antigen test kits. There's a good number of folks out there who still don't know you can test for COVID without leaving the house. (The why and how behind that probably involves exploring a national failure to make these tests cheap and widely available.) You can buy the BinaxNOW kit, for example, for as little as $14 for two tests, if they're in stock. They are not as accurate as the PCR tests, but they're a fast and convenient first step — a pink line appears within 15 minutes. During quarantine, I tested my asymptomatic boys every two days.
- Top Ramen. I'm embarrassed to admit this is probably my 8-year-old's favorite "meal." But now is not the time to worry that you're not a good parent because there aren't five major food groups on the table. These are still emergency times, so let go of the small stuff — and that includes screen time limits. What is the metaphorical Top Ramen in your life?
- Chunk your days into smaller tasks. After my kid's first-day meltdown over distance learning, a good friend whose son was also quarantining broke down all the daily assignments in a Word doc template that she generously shared with me. I printed it out, and my kid felt empowered as he checked off each little box. "It's less stressful when I see everything I need to do in order," he told me. I also struggle with organization, so I needed a very organized friend to show me how to make my son's day more manageable.
- Parents' text thread. A group of mom friends started a text group near the beginning of lockdown. One of us was diagnosed with breast cancer, and we were searching for ways to support her and stay connected. We weren't all close when it started, but now I consider this group a lifeline. They make me laugh several times a day. We share tips on everything, from how to manage our kids' anxiety to reminders about Picture Day. My sense of community has strangely deepened during this period of isolation.
- Eyes on the prize. My older son just got his second COVID shot. Once he's fully vaccinated, he will no longer need to automatically quarantine if he's exposed to the virus at school. I'm clinging to that kind of future, where our kids have consistency, our lives feel in control, and a phone call from school doesn't evoke an all-too familiar dread.
What are your COVID-era survival tips? Drop me a line at laura.yuen@startribune.com.
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