Family Oktoberfest Festivities 2020

These family "Oktoberfest" festivities were planned before we received the sharply disappointing news about Thomas's cancer treatments on Friday. Having this event to occupy our minds and brighten our moments on Saturday turned out to be fortuitous timing (and delayed the sorrow settling deeper into our marrow till Sunday).

This event was God-arranged this year: I had begun seeing advertised the prior week tours of various pumpkin patches and farms, the likes of which I've always taken my children to see for 13 years. I realized that it would not be prudent this year with Thomas's compromised immune system. Even with some old fashioned cancer patient level of social distancing in place, I could not be sure how crowded or not it would be until I would get there. Also, Thomas is supposed to avoid digging in dirt or places where dirt is really going to be kicked up (fungi and bacteria) as well as all animals (bacteria), and both dirt and animals proliferate on farms.

I was feeling this twinge for several days, mourning another little thing lost to cancer, but had not mentioned it even to my husband when family friend CR called Chris with an idea: "I'd like to do something special for Thomas, so I was thinking of bringing my tractor and trailer full of hay to give him a hayride around the neighborhood."

From there sprung my idea to flesh out the hayride to an entire Family Fall Fun Day!

My life's accomplishment

Face Painting by Mary

Corn Hole

Thank you to the neighbor who lent this game to us!

Ring Toss

Guess the Candies in the Jars

Hay Ride through the Neighborhood

Thank you to dear friend CN who heard about our plans afoot and baked pumpkin cookies, which she sent to our home to eat while on the hay ride!

Not really driving

Not really driving

Not really driving

Chris put Thomas on his lap to drive around the cul-de-sac. Thomas (5) is so young that he really thought he was driving the tractor himself. As they slowly circled the cul-de-sac, he told his daddy, "I never knew I was so good at driving a tractor!" I wish I had video of him leaping off the tractor at the end and running up the grassy hill shouting triumphantly, "I drove it all by myself! I did it! I really did it!"

Roasting Hot Dogs

Thank you to the neighbor who lent us the firepit!

For dessert, we roasted s'mores also, but I don't have cute pictures of that mess! As the dusk crept in, the children ended their fun covering the driveway in sidewalk chalk.

I'm so grateful that we could have an enjoyable afternoon full of laughter and joy, free of appointments, needles, chemotherapy, and stress.

 * * * * *

Nothing is without risk at all--but these are the measures Chris and I took to lower risk for this joyful day given to Thomas:

• We timed this event in Thomas's chemotherapy cycle for when his blood lab numbers were strong. There are times during each cycle when his immune system would be so weakened that he could not see any friends.
• The entire event was held outdoors. 
• I intentionally did not put out any finger foods or snacking foods so people would not be playing and interacting while putting food into their mouths.
• When it came time to serve food, we all washed our hands simultaneously and then I brought out the food all at once.
• Adults were the ones who handled serving of food, instead of kids grabbing at it willy nilly, and we washed our hands repeatedly throughout.
• I tried to reduce germ transmission in making s'mores: an adult put the marshmallows on the sticks, then the child would bring over the stick with roasted marshmallow and an adult would assemble each s'more and hand it back to the child. The adults had washed their hands and this kept many hands from digging into the s'mores supplies on the table.
• The Halloween candies I gave out as prizes for games were all the type wrapped in packages. I provided paper sacks with names written on them for the kids to save their candies to eat later.
• I was ready for this to be an event just for our family. I waited until the day before to invite anyone and I was purposeful in inviting a smaller family. When one invites a family weeks in advance, and someone starts feeling maybe a little off, maybe a little sick, there is internal hopefulness and pressure to still come to the event. 'I'm not really sick, maybe those feelings are nothing, I just won't say anything.' By waiting till the day before, I was able to put out an invitation with the caveat "as long as nobody has any illness symptoms at all."
• Only one family with three kids attended, as well as the couple providing the tractor. The crowd looks big, but it is only three family units, only two of whom brought children along! (I don't count an exclusively breastfed baby as a germ vector.)