I have not reported on Covid-19 Statistics in well over a month. The last post was solely focused on our vacation. Unfortunately, things have gotten quite a bit worse. After the "re-opening" of Georgia -- the bowling alleys, gyms, tattoo parlors and restaurants -- our numbers have continued to climb. Now, some schools have opened in person (ours has not) -- and I'm sure the numbers will continue even higher. The US has hit a milestone: 5 million have tested positive. (Worldwide - it's close to 20 million) The number of Covid-related deaths in the US is over 162,000. Worldwide it's over 727,000.
Up 'til recently, I "think" I've only known one person who had Covid - the teacher I used to work with who I talked to on the phone many months ago. She sounded awful. She thought she had it. Her doctor thought she had it. There weren't tests available back then. Her doctor wanted her to stay away from the hospital. Now... I officially "know" someone who was confirmed to have had it. I spoke to her last week and she told me that she's on the tail end of having had the Corona virus for 3 weeks. I felt bad. I didn't even know! (I haven't talked to her in more than a month.. when she was telling me that her divorce was finalized. This young lady from our church is now a single mom of 3 young girls, but has family here in the area to have - probably - helped support her through that time.) Luckily, both of the women are doing fine!
We're still doing well in our little family cluster. We have been out a bit more.... worried if that puts us more at risk? But trying to distance, wear masks, wash hands, etc while doing so. The main thing that we've been doing / "going out" is outdoors. (Baseball)
- Both Mercer and Isabella have been playing some "sandlot" baseball a little bit this summer. It's like a pick-up game... but it was organized by the league. At Mercer's level, they were taking temperatures and checking symptoms. (I suppose now there have been studies that show around 12 -- they can contract as easily as adults.... in fact... my school system is looking at research and data and is looking to open elementary schools before middle and high when a phase-in plans go into effect.)
- Mercer has also been playing with his "tournament team." Here are a couple of photos from the last tournament of the season -- they came in 2nd in the Silver bracket of the tournament and the team got a trophy / the boys got medals. The last game of the tournament, however, Mercer got stung by 2 yellow jackets when putting his glove on. (They were horrible... we were swatting them away in our lawn chairs... I heard that a boy from the other team also got stung in their dugout.) Mercer didn't play for part of the game. All seemed fine 'til later in the day when he had these weird things going on: chills... mumbling... shaking. I looked up symptoms and they weren't in alignment with yellow jacket stings. But I called the on-call nurse and they told us to go to the ER immediately.
UGH. so we went. I took him to the new ER addition that is really really close to our house. We went on a Sunday... Todd said it had just opened on a Thursday. We did not see a soul. (I've heard that the hospitals are suffering b/c no one wants to go to the hospital right now. Agreed!) It was very clean and very EMPTY. They took our temperatures - both of us - gave us a pass and in we went to the children's portion of the ER. After running all of Mercer's vitals, the doctor came in. Mercer's mumbling and chills were still present, but they didn't know what it was. The doctor - however - had a hunch and he went with it: he said that Mercer's mind was causing the symptoms.
Perhaps his thoughts about the stings or him being upset about something were manifesting into physical symptoms. He calmly asked Mercer to stop with the chattering-mumbling and listen to him... really listen to him. He said "you are fine. Nothing physically is wrong with you. You are very healthy. This fear or anxiety in your head is causing the chills and mumbling. You will be OK. There is nothing wrong and you need to hear this from a doctor -- not your parents. Just take a deep breath. Calm down." etc. And... although he was still chilly, Mercer's inaudible mumbling stopped. He and I sat in the private room for another 30 minutes or so. He came and checked on Mercer again. The doctor said he actually had a 12 year old son that was supposed to play baseball in a tournament the same weekend. We described the tournament / he described his team... and we realized that M's team played that team 2x over the weekend tournament. The doctor's son was out because he was at a baseball camp earlier and was exposed to someone with Covid / was isolating in their basement for the previous 1 1/2 weeks! He was upset that he was missing the tournament, but..... doctor's orders! There was no follow-up, although I called the pediatrician to let them know M had some sort of anxiety attack. :( We let him chill the rest of the day and just kept an eye on him. He was fine and hasn't had anything since. That's been 2 weeks ago today (at the time this published).... but NOW... after finally UPDATING photos a week later.
[3 weeks ago we were at the ER.... I was asking him not to touch ANYTHING.... wash your hands.... change clothes when we get home... shower!] I was concerned about visiting the hospital, honestly, b/c of Covid... but we're in the clear at this point. whew. However... in the the last week... I know of two more people/ families that have Covid currently... one family is also from my church - young mom, her husband... hopefully not the kids. She didn't mention that in her text. AND a woman who was making a piece of jewelry for me (I'll gladly wait!) who I used to work with at SAE school. She, her husband and two of her sons... one of them used to be a student of mine! I'll need to check in with both families!
Other than our RV trip, the boat ride for Todd's birthday (both published on previous blogs) and baseball... that's about it for going out!
Everything else was staying IN or doing something outdoors with just our family.
I ordered "camp kits" for Isabella since all of the enrichment camps were cancelled. (Here are just the first couple of weeks of camp gear from 2 different camps.) They went OK.... not fantastic... but every week, there was a little something new to check out. At least she had fun looking at the items in the bag (or from one camp in the bucket). There were either live Zooms that went with the camp or pre-recorded videos that went with each. There were paper activities that accompanied each as well. After the 1st week or so, we employed Mercer to help be the junior camp counselor and administer the activities. He didn't have much more success than I did - but at least it kept BOTH of them busy and I would get shots of 10 - 15 - 20 minutes of alone time while he got paid a couple of bucks. Ha!
The little one loved chopping up carrots and lettuce for salads... making up her own yoga routines that she would inflict upon me... I mean... do with me... making up science experiments to try (I've always seen this one - colored dye with soap in milk and have never done it... it was actually fun / mesmerizing!) She suggested it so - OK!
Her *favorite* thing that came in one of the kits... a magnifying glass. Not a plastic kids one but a real one with metal handle and a real lens. She likes to look through it of course, but she LOVES trying to burn things with it. (Um... thanks Mercer for teaching her that! In these photos, they're using his magnifier, but they did this several times a week for a couple of weeks when I said "time for camp!" ha!)
They made slime from a camp kit. They made marshmallow blow guns from a camp kit.
I wish they would have done ALL of the activities and games, but it seems that they picked-and-chose one or two activities from each bag.
Well, it was better than nothing, I suppose! (The difference in paint colors seen in the marshmallow gun trials above... we were trying out some for when we finally do the siding project. That's something else we were working on this summer, but didn't happen... people are just too busy to get back to us, I suppose!?)
Mercer had "camp" too for Boy Scouts. His was more like book-work, though.
He completely earned the Environmental Science badge (with a lot of help from me, honestly) and he partially earned the Camping badge. Here are some drawings that he and I did together after observing different ecosystems (our pond + the community garden).
A couple of other things we did outdoors this summer:
1 - went to the Chattahoochee Nature center's butterfly exhibit. (I had 3 tickets from "Uncle Orie" across the street. Mercer brought a sketch book and sat outside the enclosure while Isabella and I explored butterflies inside. (on this 2nd photo, you can see him sketching at a picnic table outside of the enclosure... otherwise there are no pictures of him! but - he hates bugs, so...)
He would have really hated this... in this particular enclosure they give you "sugar sticks" (really orange gatorade... I used to work there many many summers ago and knew the trick). You could lure them to you and they would want to land on you! It's such a unique experience at this nature center instead of the other butterfly enclosures we've been to elsewhere. I do love that it was very empty (for when I used to work there - we were herding people through. masses of them!)
Then we all went on a hike around the property of the Nature center.
Everything was VERY socially-distanced... they only allowed in a certain # of people through. We barely saw anyone.
2 - we celebrated Hip Hop's 4th birthday with a hike + ice cream / dog treat.
This was one of our last hoorah's before school actually started.
Todd and I like the hikes, but the last several that we've been on - Isabella has thrown a fit.... so she's apparently not enjoying them as much as she used to? Mercer confessed to me - too - that he doesn't really like it either. (On his meet-and-greet Zoom with his teaching team, one of the teachers said they liked to hike. I mentioned to him - oh... cool... you have something in common with this teacher. He said. Nope. I really don't like hiking.) :(
He goes along without too much complaint, but... I suppose it's still good to go. Push them a little. Get them outdoors.... I don't want to give up on it yet!
Mercer has been receiving speech therapy over the summer and for Isabella - we're working on some CBT and DBT therapies for she and us (as parents) both! No photos of those, but that's something else us being able to "slow down" has allowed us to research / work in.
I worked on completing my architecture license requirements (oops - a summer early - so I won't have to do it next year).... taking one online teaching class / knocking it out to get closer to earning the teaching certificate.... I was in a book club with some of my previous colleagues looking at racism issues.... I organized my teacher supplies from the previous few years... and we researched / but didn't get a lot of work done on the house.
That was it. Now - back to it. another school year has just begun.
We had online Zoom sessions for both Mercer and Isabella to meet their teachers instead of a face-to-face meet and greet. I had to pull together a meet the teacher bio page for my students. There was no meet and greet at the high school level. Everything is online. It's "Different!"
Since publishing this a week ago... there has been an explosion of cases in the county above ours that started school face-to-face last week! In Cherokee County students stated face-to-face the same time we did (masks optional). Two days later, cases were reported and quarantining began. The school was on national news for this photo (yay - Georgia is on national news again... not yay.) Since last week, they now have a lot more who have tested positive AND over half of the school was quarantined by the end of the week, so they closed. WHAT A MESS! I am grateful that our school started the way they did. I really hate not seeing all of the students.... many of them don't turn on their zoom cameras. It's hard to build connections this way. I don't know how I'm going to do the hands-on part of my job with distance learning.
BUT... it's safer. I'm in a BIG beautiful classroom (compared to my last one with no windows!)... in a brand new building. Lots of computer and tech equipment (3D printers, laser cutter, etc) and no students. It is sort of sad. But - the logistics of trying to figure out how to clean the classroom between classes and the computers and the drawing equipment? How to prevent this travesty of class changes like seen above. It's a good thing that we've started the way we have with the cases sky-rocketing... and test results taking several days or even a week.... and contact tracing... and quarantining... I think it would have been more stressful!
Here is my 1st day of school photo (with very very sleepy eyes!)
This is my big empty classroom. My desk area looks tiny in comparison to the rest of the room!
There is a skylight-filled atrium outside of where my room is located. you come down these big steps after crossing a secured elevated bridge to get to our building. There is a coffee shop at the back of the atrium room... and large standing tables for socializing. My room is just beyond this big table behind all of the windows. ( The stairs can serve as a hang out area and as a big classroom or lecture hall too.)
Isabella is in a room with 4 other kids (one in each corner / one in the middle) + a room monitor ("Coach Keith") who helps keep the kids on schedule and logging into their zoom meetings if they need help. There are 2 classrooms of 5 kids each. Between them, there are 3 adults as one is a floater. In the past 2 weeks (at the writing of this update), she has missed a couple of things, but that may have happened at home too, honestly!
It is a God-send to have this opportunity to be able to focus on teaching and not doing the juggle of parenting and home-schooling while teaching! Last spring (from March to May) was SO HARD. I am seriously grateful!! I have heard other teachers in the building talking about the kids -- some love hearing little voices... but some are upset that they all run around in the gym together. Is it 100% fool-proof? No. But - the majority of the time, they're socially-distanced at their desks at least 8-10 feet apart from each other + wearing masks except for recess and lunch/snack time. I think the socialization is helping her some although she complains about a couple of the kids. I feel bad for Mercer. He's not getting socialization. He seems OK, but I am worried.This is the worry of many during closure / virtual... mental health. The majority of our training during pre-planning a couple of weeks ago + an ongoing monthly meeting is on trauma and mental health. It IS important!!
She is gaining a couple of other cool experiences while at my school: she is gaining the attention of the girls' volleyball team... if I need to work late (which is often) I pick her up from the room monitor at the end of the day and come back to my room. Sometimes, she likes to take a detour in the gym and run. Run. Run. She just has energy from sitting so much and wants to run! So... she makes use of the elevated track in the gym. The girls below have - several times - been cheering her on as she runs... which is super sweet and makes Isabella try even harder. (I even heard the coach saying to the girls that they needed the same kind of hustle as the little girl on the track!) ha!
She and I have also developed a game of fetch in my room... but I think one of the coolest things is that she has figured out some things on the smart board to be creative! There is a tradition in our fair city (for more than 60 years) that seniors roll the school with toilet paper. Isabella got to see it and experience it on her way in to class one morning. That afternoon, seniors were to come and help clean up, then paint their parking spots. Probably 80% of the paper has been removed, but.... not all.
I am learning about the various rites-of-passage. It will be great once things are more back-to-normal... but 'til then... we're making it work as best as we can.
Here is the "first day of school" photo of the kids. Isabella is in uniform - just for the heck of it.
Just for fun - look at this comparison of the 1st days from the past 3 school years... 2 actual calendar years.
Mercer looks so much more grown from age 10 to age 12!!
And Isabella looked like a baby for her Kindergarten year! so cute!!
