I haven’t written much, if really at all, about COVID-19, other then to say we’re at home, bored and losing our minds. Which maybe is strange since it seems to be the center of life currently. Why I haven’t written…? I don’t know, maybe because my thoughts and feelings related to it are all over the place, and change from day to day… And, they are just my thoughts. I read random different news articles daily, from all different sources, but as far as research, no, I haven’t done any actual research from a medical perspective, meaning reading peer-reviewed journals. I surely could do this research, but honestly, I’ve had other things on my mind with Nadia’s sensory issues and moving soon. So below are some random thoughts currently floating around in my head, in no particular order…
- I’m sick of being home, even though I know it’s the safest place currently, as I see infection rates are going back up quickly in certain states and areas.
- I’ve always thought my roll as a stay-at-home-mom was ill-fitted to my personality. I still believe that. I find it incredibly difficult to entertain my children at home, day after day after day. Especially when it’s very hot or raining, which the weather has been quite often lately. I hate sticking iPad’s in their hands, but I’ve been guilty of that lately more times than I’d like to admit.
- I fear for my own mental health, as I struggled with depression and anxiety before the pandemic, and obviously more so since the start of social distancing. I miss doing things other than directly related to parenting. I miss my friends. I miss eating out. I miss it all.
- I fear for my children’s mental health as they have very much lacked social interaction since March. My girls both struggled with separation anxiety before March, in fact, it took us many months before either would walk happily into preschool without me. I feel like we took a million steps back now… How will I ever get them back into school without tons of screaming on their part? And maybe on mine too…
- I fear for Eric’s mental health as I know he is exhausted at work. I fear he will bring germs home, as in clinic he will routinely see 40+ patients a day. He’s back to performing both emergency and elective surgeries, but thankfully they only operate electively on COVID-negative patients.
- The title of this post, overprotective, refers to how I’m feeling as a parent currently. I would say the vast majority, maybe 90%, of my mom friends here in my current city are acting as though the pandemic is over, or never started. Several refuse to wear masks due to “their rights as Americans” their words, not mine. A few even think the pandemic is a complete hoax, made up to advance certain political agendas. I do believe the media tells us only what they want us to hear/know about COVID, but as the wife of a physician, I believe COVID is real, and dangerous for all ages.
- We were invited to a child’s birthday party tomorrow at a local gymnastics club. We aren’t going, and I feel like the other moms think I’m completely over-reacting by not attending functions yet. They assure me the club is cleaning extra well… but I don’t know, I just don’t feel comfortable yet. I don’t feel like the pandemic is at the point where it’s under control. But will it ever be?
- Speaking of… I fear for the fall and the start of school, which is really next month already I guess. My feelings are very torn. I’m scared for the kids to go back from a medical, safety perspective… and for all the teachers and staff too, a lot of which are older. But on the other hand, my girls needs friends other than each other, they need social interaction, they need to learn, experience life outside this house… I realized yesterday that Nora (5) still doesn’t recognize all her letters and numbers. I guess my fault, I should have been working on them with her all these months. But after the bad experience with preschool over zoom last spring, I decided to just let the girls play all these months. And what about all the parents who work full-time outside the home? I stay home, I could theoretically teach the girls… but… I realize not everyone is in that position. Eric wants to hire a private teacher to come to our home and teach the girls this year…
I have more to share, more on my mind… but I best go dream up some lunch for the girls who are getting rather moody…
