What’s Going On Here?

~ Laura

I’ve been a little quiet on the blog for the past couple of weeks. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the background.

Running. I’m slowly trying to get back into a 3-mile daily running routine. At the moment, it’s more walking than running, but I’m out there.

Kittens. Foster kittens are still here creating a rumpus. They’re going back tomorrow; we’re not adopting, despite the fact that they are A+ kitties. There’s too much uncertainty about work situations. Sad, but we’ll do it again.

Advocacy. I’ve been causing a stink at local school board meetings, because our schools are still not open full time and might not even open fully in the fall. Arg. I’m creating a new parents group for the town’s 18-21 program.

Writing. Well, not enough of that.

Kids. Ian’s prom is coming up. Jonah will be his date and his buddy for the night. So, they got measured for tuxes yesterday. I’m planning a graduation dinner for him. I need a new dress. And then we’re figuring out what happens after high school for Ian. Our temporary plan might just be temporary, but I can’t really talk about other plans. Lawyer. We’re helping Jonah chase a professor who did not submit a grade yet from last semester and buy a ticket to Alaska to visit a friend later in June.

Vacation planning. That’s mostly done. We just booked a hotel to stay overnight in Hudson, New York for our anniversary. Jonah and my folks will watch Ian for those two days. Yes, he’s 19 and theoretically could stay by himself, he really can’t. He might get a seizure. He will be lonely. There’s a lot he still can’t do on his own. Going away without a kid is a big milestone for Steve and myself. We haven’t had a night to ourselves, actually more than an hour to ourselves, since late 1999.

Relaxing. I pushed off a lot of things off my desk in the past month. One big horrible job was outsourced to a professional. The kids are on a good track at the moment. I might even have some brain space to contact editors for a writing gig. I haven’t felt this stress-free in ages.

Published by Laura

24 thoughts on “What’s Going On Here?”

  1. Laura wrote,

    “I’m creating a new parents group for the town’s 18-21 program.”

    That’s really nice.

    “We’re helping Jonah chase a professor who did not submit a grade yet from last semester”

    WHOA!

    “…and buy a ticket to Alaska to visit a friend later in June.”

    Very well deserved.

    “Going away without a kid is a big milestone for Steve and myself. We haven’t had a night to ourselves, actually more than an hour to ourselves, since late 1999.”

    We haven’t had a 100% kid-free night together since our 18-year-old was born. There’s always been at least one kid around. We’ll try for our 25th anniversary in a couple of years…

    ” I haven’t felt this stress-free in ages.”

    In the space of about a week, we lost a fridge, got a new fridge, and are now investigating the meaning of the wet patch of carpet in the college student’s bedroom. We’re hoping that it’s some sort of AC issue, as opposed to a bad pipe in the slab.

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  2. “Going away without a kid is a big milestone for Steve and myself. We haven’t had a night to ourselves, actually more than an hour to ourselves, since late 1999.”

    A big milestone and an interesting stat. I wonder how many couples that’s true for?

    Spouse and I have had a few trips away by ourselves, but, all work related. And, there have been some other trips in which both of us were away.

    I am angling to do an away trip by ourselves by choice but haven’t done it yet. It would be easy because our kids pretty much don’t need us and are really busy (so, we should take advantage, since we are now in the stage where our ability to travel is much greater than theirs). That also makes it harder, because we want to spend time with them when they are free!

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    1. bj said, “Spouse and I have had a few trips away by ourselves, but, all work related. And, there have been some other trips in which both of us were away.”

      My husband has had a lot of work trips. I’ve done an occasional fun family or friend trip all by myself (even when we had a little kid or two at home) and that was super fun, even if it was only a day or two. The logistics of a joint parental overnight trip without any kids while living 2,000-3,000 miles away from family have been insurmountable so far, but it’s just a matter of time.

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    2. Yes, grand parents used to live across the alley from our house so our ability to travel together was entirely contingent on family (they moved to the city to be with the grandchildren).

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    3. “A big milestone and an interesting stat. I wonder how many couples that’s true for?”

      In some families, the parents go away for a day or two *a week* after the baby is born. This happened with a friend of mine. It’s a good thing we were talking on the phone so she didn’t see my jaw drop.

      We had very few nights away without the kids. When S was about 2, I talked my parents into driving 7 hours to visit us so we could have 1 overnight trip. We did a hike on the way to our motel, and when we got to the motel, we realized that I had left my suitcase home. I’m not sure we went away together again without the kids until our 20th anniversary trip, which would have been 2012 when S was 13 and E was 10. We left both kids and the dog at my mom’s house. My father passed away in 2011, which is why we didn’t do that sooner (my mom was a full-time caregiver for him for 4 years before he died; I couldn’t ask her to take care of my kids too). Before my dad’s illness in 2007, E was a hyperactive kid, and I couldn’t leave him with my parents then, either. He still was in 2012, but he was getting less impulse-driven.

      For this weekend (S’s graduation), we thought about leaving E home alone if he had started working, but so far, the job we think he will be working at (waiting on drug test results) can probably be started on Wednesday (we get home Tuesday; S graduates Sunday). E can’t go to the graduation because tickets are limited to 2 per student, but he will hang out with a friend of S’s who isn’t graduating.

      I have been incredibly busy working on a report for work, plus I am overseeing E and his summer class. Today’s goal: get him to agree to do his work 48 hours earlier than the due date because we will be in Ithaca when his next assignments are due. He will try to argue that he can do them in the hotel Saturday or Sunday, and I will have to disabuse him of that notion. An aside: I have been learning a *lot* about ADHD from ADHDTikTok. There is something about these short videos by people who have ADHD that really get across what it’s like to live with ADHD. E’s pragmatic speech issues, which come from his autism, really make it difficult to understand his experience.

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      1. Wendy said, “In some families, the parents go away for a day or two *a week* after the baby is born. This happened with a friend of mine. It’s a good thing we were talking on the phone so she didn’t see my jaw drop.”

        Looking back, my parents had A LOT of getaways when we kids were growing up. It helps to have grandparents right there and/or to live in your home town.

        “When S was about 2, I talked my parents into driving 7 hours to visit us so we could have 1 overnight trip. We did a hike on the way to our motel, and when we got to the motel, we realized that I had left my suitcase home.”

        Wow.

        Two of the couple trips I’ve been thinking about are either San Antonio (WINTER!) or Vancouver Island (SUMMER!). It’s very important to get the timing on those two right.

        “He will try to argue that he can do them in the hotel Saturday or Sunday, and I will have to disabuse him of that notion.”

        Yeah no.

        S is graduating! WOW!

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      3. Wendy said, “In some families, the parents go away for a day or two *a week* after the baby is born. This happened with a friend of mine. It’s a good thing we were talking on the phone so she didn’t see my jaw drop.”

        Mine would too!
        Though I do have friends who’ve had a regular date *night* a month since the baby was born (Grandparents in town, or a trusted nanny to babysit).
        I still remember it being a big deal when my mum had my son for a sleepover for the first time – at the age of 7. And coming back to find him with a high temperature starting the ‘flu! It took another year for him to agree to trying a sleepover again!

        While I’ve been lucky to have my Mum in town (just 5 minutes down the road) – she made it *very* clear that she had no intention of having a regular day to have the baby – and any babysitting would have to fit in with *her* life and *her* schedule. Lots of my friends (and lots of her friends as well) have a regular date with the grandkids one day a week. But not us….

        “get him to agree to do his work 48 hours earlier than the due date”
        I’m still working hard on Mr 13, to remind him that he *really* doesn’t enjoy last minute deadlines, and persuade him that we’ll all be *much* happier, if he schedules his work in advance….. Work in progress….

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    1. How cool that Ian wants to take his big bro to the prom. Hope they have a wonderful evening.

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  4. And, stress free & peonies are good! My purple azalea are done blooming but my red peonies are still buds. Picked some white ones in the last few days, though, and have white and red azalea as well as red & pink rhodies blooming

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    1. The iris have started to bloom.

      We’ve also seen two foxes (or the same fox, 2 times), trotting home with a rabbit in its mouth (separate rabbits.) The circle of life continues.

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      1. We keep seeing raccoons–possibly the same?

        They apparently enjoy the city storm drains.

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    2. Loved the paeonies. My absolute no. 1 favourite flower (and they simply don’t grow when I live – not cold enough in the winter), so I really do have to buy them for the short time they’re in season.

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  5. We went away overnight for the first time since having my eldest son in 2019, for our 25th anniversary. (Kids were 14 and 8.) And my MIL lives with us! Weirdly, I’ve been on way more vacations with my kids only, or alone for work or with a friend. My spouse does retreats 1-3 times a year too. I smell a trend article. 🙂

    Our irises are out and the bleeding heart is just about done. It snowed briefly today though and I had just invested in some larger tomato plants from the nursery so I hope they make it. 😦 It was 30 degrees Celsius last Friday! 3 degrees today.

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    1. Jenn said, “I smell a trend article.”

      That’s true! And it wouldn’t be fake, the way trend stories usually are!

      “Weirdly, I’ve been on way more vacations with my kids only, or alone for work or with a friend.”

      At some point, we realized that it was much less expensive and much less of a headache for one of us parents to travel with a kid or two to see West Coast family, as opposed to taking the whole family on the road. Our youngest is 8.5, and we’ve only done two plane trips as a family of 5, despite travelling to the West Coast a couple times almost every year. With both hotels and staying with family, there comes a certain point where the logistics of a bigger group are just really tough.

      My husband had a work thing at Oxford in 2019 for a month, and we had the teens fly over to him by themselves (age 16 and age 14) and spend the last week staying with him and doing sightseeing. That was a lot more streamlined and cheaper than if we’d all 5 tried to do the same thing. The teens travel really well together.

      I also had a fabulous trip to the West Coast with our youngest when she was 7/8 months old. The next time she went on a plane, she was 4.5, because by that time, I had clued into the fact that flying cross-country with toddlers is to be avoided at all costs. My youngest and I will be flying to the West Coast together after Memorial Day weekend.

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  6. Here’s how the pandemic thing is going in Central Texas.

    –Fewer than 3% of hospital beds in our county are being used for COVID.
    –Our county has been hovering around 3-4% positivity, a level last seen 11 months ago, before the start of the summer 2020 surge. I believe that local cases are tracking with the state, at around 6 per 100k.
    –While vaccine uptake is pretty moderate in Texas (about 44% with 1st doses), and while the governor’s March 10 lifting of the state mask mandate had essentially no impact on behavior at the time, things seem to be moving very quickly right now in the direction of relaxation, perhaps due to a combination of new CDC guidelines, the TX governor’s recent ban on any state or local government mask requirement, and of course the holiday weekend.
    –The governor has ordered that public schools have to drop mask requirements starting June 5, but that’s not quite as daring as you might think, as a lot of TX school districts end school today, right before Memorial Day weekend.
    –We’ve seen a lot of changes locally over the past week or so. A number of local entities (including a local college) have switched their signage to say that masks are mandatory if unvaccinated, but optional if vaccinated.
    –Our family’s magic date was May 19, as that was two weeks after the last eligible member of our family got her second shot. Our youngest is not vaccinated and isn’t eligible at this point, but we are rolling the dice on that.
    –Our kids’ private school announced suddenly a week ago that the last week of school would be mask optional.. The principal said that school has had no cases since spring break, over 2 months ago. Ever since that announcement, there really haven’t been any masks visible at school. I went to an end-of-school party at school today, and the classroom was packed with maskless parents. There was one little girl (doctor’s kid) kinda sorta wearing a mask. There was also one poor kid attending the party on Zoom–I don’t know what the story was behind that.
    –Ever since last summer, every tradesman who has been inside our house has appeared at our door in a mask. This past week, however, I had a plumber and an HVAC guy show up with no mask. I conferred with my cleaning lady this week and we decided (by mutual consent) that seeing as how we are both vaccinated, there isn’t any point. She said that her boss says they are supposed to keep masking if customers ask for it, and she says she makes a point of it with older, more fragile clients.
    –If there’s not a surge in Texas 2-4 weeks after Memorial Day, I don’t think it’s going to happen at all this summer.
    –On the other hand, there are occasional strict businesses (no dine-in at Panda Express!), and HEB still has a mask sign, but no longer has an employee at the front door with complimentary masks. I was at the store this week, and only 10-15% of HEB customers are unmasked. As I’ve said before, it’s not over until HEB says it’s over…but it’s getting really close.
    –I’m now hearing occasional COVID vaccine ads on the radio. My HEB finally has a sign up, advertising COVID vaccine at their pharmacy, but you have to make an appointment. There are walk-ins available elsewhere in town, though.

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    1. Arlington County 7-day av cases 0 7-day av dead 0 total cases 15,290 total deaths 256

      Going by the numbers, seems to be over here. total population 230000. I still feel odd and uneasy being out and about without a mask, even though vaccinated.

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      1. ds wrote,

        “Going by the numbers, seems to be over here.”

        For now, at least. There’s probably going to be some kind of late fall/winter/spring thing.

        I see that Vermont is the first state to reach 2 daily cases per 100k.

        California, Nebraska, New Jersey (!), Oklahoma and Iowa are at 3 per 100k.

        Maryland, Hawaii, Alabama, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Virginia, Kansas, South Dakota, Connecticut and New Hampshire are at 4 per 100k.

        The US is trending toward the point where a daily COVID death will be a 1 in a million type event.

        I’m counting 11 states that are averaging fewer than 100 new cases a day.

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      2. AmyP, as to whether parents should vaccinate their children…

        There seems to be a theory with evidence that COVID-19 may cause or increase the chance of developing diabetes: https://www.endocrineweb.com/professional/diabetes-complications/covid-then-diabetes-diagnosis

        What might explain COVID-19 leading to a new diagnosis of diabetes? According to Dr. Thirunavukkarasu, that is still under study. While the stress that understandably accompanies severe illness might explain it, the ”diabetogenic effect”—that is, that the COVID somehow triggers the diabetes—needs to be considered.

        Some research has found that the virus that causes COVID can attached to receptors in the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas and lead to impaired secretion of the insulin. Thirunavukkarasu said the virus may also injure beta cells by triggering inflammation or enhancing autoimmunity—the body turning against itself—at least in people who are genetically predisposed to autoimmune diseases. (Autoimmune disorders include Graves’ disease, multiple sclerosis and Addison’s disease.)

        So, it’s still under study. However, if it increases autoimmune conditions, even people who have asymptomatic cases, which is likely in young people, may be harmed by the virus.

        Right now, I know of two young people (one child, one late 20s), without previous health conditions, who suddenly have high blood sugar. The child’s doctor is apparently talking of “type 3 diabetes,” possibly caused by Covid. That’s anecdote, but we’re not talking to oodles of people on a regular basis.

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      3. Cranberry said, “There seems to be a theory with evidence that COVID-19 may cause or increase the chance of developing diabetes.”

        I’ve seen a lot of hesitation among various reputable MDs and medical researchers with regard to vaccination for under-12s, These are people who are quite enthusiastic about vaccination for adults, and often for older teens. They’re often troubled by the lack of a clear cost-benefit relationship, and are also often troubled by the math of how many US children you need to vaccinate to save one life, compared to how many lives of older people overseas could be saved with the same level of vaccination. (Brazil is currently under 22% for 1st doses, Mexico is at 17%, and India is under 13%.)

        The thing is, there isn’t a lot of COVID circulating right now in the US (1/10 of what there was this winter and still dropping in many areas), so there is time to wait and see, especially for kids who don’t have obvious risk factors.

        There are concerns right now about post-vaccine myocarditis in teens, particularly teen boys.

        https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/myocarditis.html

        “Cases reported to VAERS have occurred:
        Mostly in male adolescents and young adults age 16 years or older
        More often after getting the second dose of one of these two COVID-19 vaccines than after the first dose
        Typically within several days after COVID-19 vaccination.”

        One suggestion I’ve seen is to give one shot to kids and then wait. And of course, there is no vaccine approved for under-12s right now, so their parents really have no choice but wait and see…

        I believe type 1 diabetes does seem to get triggered in children by viral infections, so it’s easy to imagine a pathway there.

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      4. The CDC has updated the page you linked to, emphasizing that the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks: Yes. CDC continues to recommend COVID-19 vaccination for everyone 12 years of age and older, given the risk of COVID-19 illness and related, possibly severe complications, such as long-term health problems, hospitalization, and even death. If you or your child has already gotten the first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccine, it’s important to get the second dose unless a vaccination provider or your doctor tells you not to get it.

        The known and potential benefits of COVID-19 vaccination outweigh the known and potential risks, including the possible risk of myocarditis or pericarditis. Also, most patients with myocarditis and pericarditis who received care responded well to medicine and rest and quickly felt better. (bold type in the original)

        Imminent death is not the only reason to vaccinate. The cases caught by testing right now seem to be comparable to the number of cases from June of 2020. In other words, the virus is still here. It seems clear that children can still catch this virus. As we only have a year of experience with this virus in humans, we don’t know what other nasty surprises may lie in wait for us.

        For example, more than 3,000 cases of MIS-C have been reported in the US. https://www.cdc.gov/mis-c/cases/index.html

        In addition, as the virus passes through millions of people worldwide, it mutates. This year’s variants may send few children to the hospital, but there’s no guarantee about next year’s variants. As with the flu vaccine, while being vaccinated for the original strain may not protect you for next year’s strain, it can decrease the severity of any illness.

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