Roof Is Installed! (Day #61 Phase I)

Thursday, Day #61 Phase I of Reopening

We request continued prayers for my husband's mother D. She has been sick with COVID-19 for six weeks (now negative, but still sick) and is now out of ICU and recovering at a long-term, acute care facility. D. is off her ventilator! Sitting up in a chair! Smiling! Next goals: learn how to speak with her temporary tracheotomy. Praise God!

I took no photos today at all. :) Maybe I was just too tired because my day began at 4:30 a.m. when I heard loud stage whispering in the dark hallway. My four- and two-year-olds were standing there, wide awake, discussing where they might find mama. Was it morning? Was she already downstairs? They were straining their eyes in the dark to discern if the kitchen light was on. I escorted them back to bed and the four-year-old went back to sleep, but the two-year-old never did at all, so after an hour of trying, I took him downstairs for me to get coffee.

We did our summer school and it was a red letter day because we had our music teachers teaching live and in person inside our home for the first time now that we are in Phase I of re-opening. We have appreciated their teaching over Facetime, but we think lessons in person are much more effective.

The roof installation was completed so, when the roofers left at noon, the kids burst outside like a dam bursting because, for the first time this week, they could play outside at will, entering and exiting freely, without me sitting there to supervise them like a hawk. Shoes will be required for my usually barefoot children for now in case of nails, but this superior company left the property immaculate daily and I bet we won't find a single nail in the weeks to come.

Today, I let the kids watch a more worldly movie, the type we rarely watch due to crude body humor, popular slang, and generally lower standards, but I was so tired and Chris was gone on probably his fifth trip to Georgia to help his dad while his mom is in the hospital. So, I let them watch "Ice Age" (funny and cute, right?) so they would all be occupied and stay quietly still. Unfortunately, even with my teenager skipping about five scenes, the movie absolutely terrified the four-year-old who emerged at the end to find me and wept in my arms, clinging to my neck, for 15 minutes. It was very hard to get him to go to sleep over the course of an our and he woke up repeatedly overnight with fears. I say this because most of us are inured to big box Hollywood movies for children and our kids become calloused to them, but when one does not normally watch them, I can at least say our kids (and probably others) are much more sensitive to the tension, the drama, the scary scenes, the loud music, it's all just too much. I've seen it over and over again with my kids growing up. So, it's a reminder to me as a parent.

Bonus Reading for Posterity:

• It is so hard to figure out the wearing of masks and I don't consider it "no big deal." For all of time, sick people wore masks, not well people. The CDC, WHO, and others always advocated that well people should not wear masks . . . until just a couple of weeks ago when they all did an abrupt turnaround. Now various people are citing actual dangers potential in long-term wearing of masks. And then there are, of course, the psychological and spiritual dangers of dehumanizing ourselves and continuing to see other humans more and more as Dangers and Biohazards, so we all distrust each other. 
• From a medical study generally supportive of our wearing masks: "Our findings indicate that surgical masks can efficaciously reduce the emission of influenza virus particles into the environment in respiratory droplets, but not in aerosols," (Respiratory virus shedding in exhaled breath and efficacy of face masks.)
• A board-certified neurosurgeon details how little evidence we have to go on, but illuminates that there are real risks to wearing of masks. (Blaylock: Face Masks Pose Serious Risks To The Healthy.)
• Everyone should agree that wearing masks while exercising is a bad idea, as we keep seeing reports of people who die or nearly so during that activity. (Jogger's lung collapses after he ran for 2.5 miles while wearing a face mask.)
• Hygienic fascism: Turning the world into a 'safe space' — but at what cost?
• Meanwhile, the health care system is in its own collapse, as the COVID wards are not full, the rest of the hospitals stand empty, and people sick with other illnesses are too afraid to show up. (As Hospitals Lose Revenue, More Than A Million Health Care Workers Lose Jobs.)
• Some of the schools in Candada are re-opening even now (not waiting until next fall), and I appreciate the honesty that it is to provide babysitting for working parents. It is worthwhile reading this article and clicking through to the three-minute video showing students what to expect in their new school experience. It is not satire. (A different look for Gatineau classrooms as Quebec schools reopen.)
• Just as Italian officials have said that 99% of their COVID deaths were among those with multiple serious comorbidities, an official in San Diego county said it another way: only six of the county's 194 deaths did not have comorbidities. This should be cheering to know because most of us do not need to be hiding in abject terror that our whole family is going to be decimated. So far, the statistical rate of death in children under 18 is zero. (Supervisor Jim Desmond says San Diego has only had ‘six pure’ coronavirus deaths.)
• And just when I think things can't get weirder, the worldwide obsessive admiration of a very mentally challenged teenager--autism, severe anorexia, selective mutism, and OCD--with strong opinions continues. (Greta Thunberg added to CNN’s expert coronavirus panel, Twitter erupts.) Babylon Bee gives further coverage! (MasterClass Replaces All Instructors With Greta Thunberg.)