After two long years of winter, it's finally starting to feel like spring.
Because, at least in our house, we're entering our third straight week of one or more family members being sick with an ever-rotating type of non-COVID illness.
In the Before Times, preschools, parties and playdates were giant virus incubators, kids jostling to be the first to transmit their runny noses and hacking coughs to the rest of the crew.
The winter of 2019-2020, our younger son was sick, in an unbroken streak, for months, coming down with stomach flus, colds and croups. We made not one but two trips to the ER the week of Christmas, one on Christmas Day itself, with sick kids.
But in March of 2020, the coughing stopped. There were no more runny noses or fevers. No one woke up puking in the middle of the night. Kids forgot the taste of children's Tylenol and grape Pedialyte.
Due to quarantines, masking and social distancing, our children have been silently, eerily well.
We parents have forgotten those times, too.
"They're going to be sick for months," I warned my husband when the masks started coming off at schools and daycares. The "sick season" was bad pre-COVID, but now there's their stunted immune systems to deal with. Without practice, their little bodies have developed all the immunological defenses of a wet paper towel.
Our grown-up bodies are similarly weakened.
The other day, I found myself, sick with a cold and nostrils completely blocked, walking my kid toward school when I realized I had a problem.
I had no Kleenex, and one of two things was about to happen: I was either going to choke to death on a giant globule of post-nasal drip or I was going to spit out a snot-blob in front of my son's entire kindergarten class.
I turned my head, discreetly, and made like a catcher during spring training.
When I looked back, I saw the dad of one of my son's best friends smiling at me and waving. His hand halted, mid-air, and a look passed across his face, a questioning look that seemed to be saying,
"Did she just ... hock a loogie?"
I played it off.
Hahaha, nothing to see here! my answering smile said with confidence. I would never do something that disgusting!
I'm already borderline with the folks at this school after I had to let my younger son pee on the majestic tree in the kindergarten playground after school one day.
"I need to go," he said, holding the front of his pants and giving me the look, (END ITAL ) the look all parents of a potty-trained-or-training kid know, the look that says:
If we don't get to a bathroom in 30 seconds, you're going to have a lot of cleaning to do.
"Can you wait?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"No," he said, firmly.
So, I did what any parent would do, which is "let your kid pee on a tree while you try to melt into the sidewalk."
I mean, COVID quarantines are horrible, but, as with winters, there are some benefits.
Back in the long pandemic winter, during the days of outside masking, I could have credibly denied being the person who let her kid publicly water the school oak tree. And instead of worrying about spitting in public, I could have performed some privately humiliating but face-saving maneuver with my mask.
On balance, though, I think I'll stick with spring.
After all, embarrassment fades, kids get over colds and parents forget seeing other parents' kids peeing on trees.
At least, I hope they do.
To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.
Photo credit: designmeliora at Pixabay
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