Polarized

I don’t think I’ve ever seen coronavirus news quite so polarized as it is right now. Half my suggested news articles say we’ll have this whole thing in the bag by April, while half say with the X factor of the new mutations present, this thing could drag on for another full year. My opinion is the truth is, as always, probably somewhere in between. I doubt we’ll reach herd immunity in just a few weeks...but as of this moment the mutations don’t appear to be a massive threat. A threat, but not enough to make us start over. Mostly on my mind is of course schools - and the good news is teachers and staff are cleared to start getting vaccinated by March 1, with 10% set aside just for them. This is exactly correct. LAUSD is determined to open by mid-April, at least K-6, and it sounds doable to me. There are 25,000 elementary school teachers who could be vaccinated in two days. It can happen.

My online mom groups are on fire. Many parents angry at everyone for what’s happening (when really the thing that caused all of this is a virus, not a person, although people didn’t help), protesting the system, upset their special needs children have been left behind, upset their kids are upset, worried about their current and future academic performance. I’m just over here like “lol”. That’s a joke. But seriously - a lot of unpleasantness going on which is to be expected. I hear and understand everyone’s point of view. 

I had lunch with a friend with three kids on Saturday who told me her second grade son is struggling. Or not so much struggling but slacking. He’s in hybrid school and has not been doing his independent work. 100% if Bobby had been left to his own devices last year the same thing would be happening. I think it’s unrealistic to expect seven-year-olds to project manage like that - while avoiding the temptation to screw around on the computer since nobody’s checking in. Personally I’m glad these kids are home where I can check everything before submitting. Bobby mostly can handle this stuff alone now at nearly nine...but a year ago? Not so much. 

I stumbled across a cool outdoor art installation / scavenger hunt thing going on around Joshua Tree starting on Theo’s birthday weekend in three weeks - and wasted no time finding us a 1950s silver trailer to rent for the weekend. Hooray, we get to the desert once more before it’s too hot! I knew we could make it happen. I’m also about to pull the trigger on our epic Zion / Bryce / Antelope Canyon road trip this summer. I’ll start booking it this week. 

Here are the boys on our weekly jaunt to In-n-Out Friday after the boys are done with school. On this particular Friday I totally forgot Bobby had to log back in for small group stuff with his teacher for a few minutes in the afternoon. Whoops.