We recently sent my son back to daycare, and it has certainly taken some adjusting for all of us. It went from a hunger strike from my son to some outbursts to nearing acceptance of his fate. But it wasn’t just tears that he brought home after a day of daycare, it was germs. And although the tears hit me hard, the germs hit me even harder.
Right away, my son and I were staggered by colds (my wife is tougher than both of us). Runny noses, coughs, and a tad bit of fatigue, if he hadn’t just started daycare, I would have worried that the pandemic had caught up to us. Overall, it was more annoying than anything, especially since my wife shows no mercy for me when I have a cold since she thinks I should take medicine to fight it off instead of relying on my will and fortitude to battle the disease. Unfortunately, the store was all out of horse dewormer, which is apparently a cure-all these days? It also makes my coat much shinier and gives me a nonstop craving of apples.
Being sick is not fun. My son is fussy; I’m fussy, and we both just can’t be our effervescent selves if we aren’t at 100%.
It makes me yearn for a simpler time. A time where we did not interact with any human beings outside of grocery store clerks and…nope, really, it was just grocery store clerks. We went fairly hard into the lockdown early on, and I’ve got to say that it was by far the healthiest year of my life. I created a fitness plan that worked great for me. I was eating fairly healthy, because we were cooking 98% of our meals. And I just stopped being exposed to germs, so I never got sick.
The first two are manageable, although the cooking percentage has dropped a few percentage points in the last couple months. But now that my son is at daycare, there’s going to be germs everywhere. Every time you walk in that daycare room, you are sure to be greeted by snot-nosed germ monsters. Let me be clear, when it is other children, they are monsters. But when it is my son, he is a brave little warrior fighting off the vicious attacks put onto his immune system. He is never at fault, but the outside world is faulting up my health big time.
So this is my new normal. Kleenex and Boogie Wipes in every room. Dirty looks from the general public anytime I cough, and me longing for the days where I could hunker down at home and feel like a million bucks.
It’s times like these that I realize that socialization and having your child turn into a well-rounded individual kind of sucks.