Category: Family

As I mentioned back on my Jack’s First Day of 4th Grade post, I was nervous about what this year would look like. With Jack being too young to be vaccinated and in-person school with no online option… well, it only felt like a matter of time before he was sent home to quarantine.

And I was right. Because 2 ½ weeks after school started, Jack tested positive for COVID.

He came down with symptoms on a Saturday. Super high fever, sniffles, body aches and a headache. Overnight at 2am, he came into my room and had a 103.5 degree fever. I gave him some Tylenol and an hour later, he was so sweaty that he looked like someone threw him in a pool. I changed his pillow and sheets and an hour later he couldn’t sleep because his head hurt.

Poor guy was a mess.

On Sunday morning, we took him to the local walk-in Covid testing site. I say local, but it’s 40 minutes away. And then we waited in an outdoor line for 40 more minutes. Every single person there was a parent with a school-aged child under 12. He got his swab and back home we went. Later that night, I got a text that Jack tested positive for COVID and that we were to quarantine for 10 days.

As I mentioned, there is no online school option this year for our county. So, each day, while I was working from home, we were back to checking Google Classrooms for assignments and doing them the best we could with no instruction. Thankfully, a 4^th grade STEM teacher had a special hour-long tutoring session on Thursday night for any quarantined students. Only Jack and one other student showed up. Ironically, it was his friend who sits next to him in class…

As for Jack, once his fever broke on Sunday his main symptoms were body aches, lack of energy, sniffles, a headache and a cough. By Friday, he mostly just complained of feeling tired and still had a cough.

Because Jack has occasional asthma, I’ve been keeping a special close eye on his breathing. Some kids also have inflammation symptoms called multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C), which can include neck pain, stomach pain, vomiting, a rash, red eyes, swollen hands or feet, or swollen glands among other things (you can read more about MIS-C on the CDC website here). I received a COVID tracking call from the heath department reminding me to check for these symptoms regularly as well. They can appear several weeks after infected with COVID, so I will continue monitoring my little guy.

According to NIH, after Jack’s recovery he may be immune from reinfection for up to 8 months (source). The CDC says maybe to 3 months (source) or maybe not. Their official answer is “Research has not yet shown how long you are protected from getting COVID-19 again after you recover from COVID-19.”

Any which way, I’m hoping his immunity sticks around until vaccinations are available for his age group.

As for me, I’m just feeling exhausted and sad. And a little bit of mad too. We’ve been so careful for the past 18 months. Travis and I are both fully vaccinated. We wear masks and socially distance. We aren’t flying away to vacations or attending festivals. We’ve been careful and Jack still got COVID.

Jack’s quarantine ends on Tuesday and he returns to school on Wednesday. I’m planning to get a COVID test for myself on Tuesday before I return to the office later this week. Jack’s immune for now, which is great. I think I can breathe a sigh of relief?

And just like that, it’s back to school time. Last year, we started the year fully online and then finished in the spring with a hybrid schedule. This year, our county has decided to open 5 days a week for in-person school with no hybrid option.

I have plenty of thoughts about this, but let’s just say… I’m a little nervous about what this year will look like. We are still in the middle of a pandemic and elementary aged children are too young to be vaccinated. So, let’s throw them back together at school with no online option for if (when) they are sent back home to quarantine if (when) there is a positive COVID case.

{I’ll just ball that anxiety up and shove it back next to all the rest of anxiety that lives in my head.}

Luckily, Jack is much more positive about school starting. He has totally no issues with wearing a mask and was super excited to find out that his desk is next to one of his favorite friends that he’s known for years. We met his teacher at a quick open house meet-and-greet and she seemed super nice.

His Nintendo backpack is all packed up, he has a full pencil case of neon sharpened pencils and he’s got all his favorite tie-dye shirts (and sweatshirt, and masks) ready to go.

And on we go for 4^th grade. Happy Back to School Everyone!

I was looking back at my post about Jack’s last day of 2^nd grade from last year, and I thought THAT year was the weirdest year of school. I was quite wrong, because this year was the continuation of our experience with pandemic school. Jack was fully online from September to May, and then returned in person 4x a week for about 5 weeks.

I set up a desk and laptop in Jack’s room, which is right across the hall from my home office. I also got him an iPhone (not hooked up to any networks), so that we could set alarms for when he had to check in for each class. Each day, he had live classes followed by classwork/homework. I listened with one ear to each class and supervised to make sure all his classwork was completed and submitted.

While it was exhausting to juggle full-time working from home and full-time supervising classes, we got into a good rhythm. Then, once my husband and I were fully vaccinated I did some belated ‘back to school’ shopping to top off Jack’s backpack with new pencils and folders and sent him off to in-person school.

The transition was hard for me – after being involved in every single day of his learning, suddenly I was in a blackout. Rather than knowing exactly what the teacher discussed in class, I would get the typical kid response of “I don’t know.” It was a nice break though. It finally felt like I could put some of the balls down that I’d been juggling since March 2020!

I was a little worried about potential behavior issues with Jack’s return to school. I mean, it had been many, many months since he’s been able to play in-person with his friends and frankly, we’ve both gotten a little weird(er). Jack’s transition to in-person was super smooth though and he finished the year strong! He had absolutely no problem with wearing a mask to school each day and his grades were stronger than I had even hoped for.  

He also accomplished his self-imposed goal of wearing a tie dye shirt to school every single day that he attended in person.

And now we’ve made it… and he is on to 4^th grade in the fall!