Omicron vs. Mommy Moondragon

Lesson learned: Never broadcast to the world that your family is healthy and COVID-free. The day after my last blog post, I received an email from the school notifying me of five COVID cases in Julia's class of nineteen students. As soon as she got home from school, I gave her an at-home test, and it took about four seconds to register as positive. Thus began our family quarantine. Claire tested positive two days later. Jeff tested positive on day six, despite his best efforts at avoiding the children.

I held strong and cleaned up their messes and left vegetables outside their bedroom doors. Let's face it, moms aren't allowed to get sick. But after all that worrying about my chemo-damaged immune system and my borderline high-risk status, it turns out that my body is an impenetrable fortress, susceptible only to its own mutant cells. I kept churning out negative tests every two days, to Jeff's amazement. I'm not sure if this counts as a competition, but if it does, I totally won. My prize was getting to sleep in the guest room for two weeks.

Thankfully, everyone had mild symptoms (except for Waffles the cat, who broke all of his bones repeatedly during Claire's game). The worst part was being stuck in our house. It was like April 2020 all over again. 

Our fence contractors finally showed up on the first day of our quarantine to start jackhammering. And we live in a modern house made primarily of glass, so the construction crew could see us lying around the living room in our pajamas and KN95 masks. 

Did I mention that the day Julia tested positive was the first day of my new 13-week planner? I had all my goals written out, along with a weekly plan and daily progress markers. Have you ever tried finishing a novel while quarantined with your family and a jackhammer? Ha! On every page of my planner, I'm supposed to plan my day in 30-minute time increments and, at the end of the day, I have to grade myself on "plan vs. reality." By day four, I just put a giant question mark for my daily plan. On day five, I wrote "Binge-watch the second season of Cheer!" down the entire daily plan column, and my plan vs. reality score was a 10 out of 10.

The day the kids went back to school, I danced in my living room, and I am not a dancer. Without a fence, the entire neighborhood could see me celebrating as the school bus pulled away. "Hey! Don't judge me! Parenting is hard! And I quit dance lessons after one year of ballet, okay?! Not all of us are blessed with patience! Or rhythm!"

Since then, I've written about 70 pages of a screenplay and zero pages of my novel. The novel feels more daunting. And Mochi is a bad influence. I start writing and she comes and pushes my laptop off my lap and whispers, "Stop with the typing. The kids are at school. It's quiet. It's the perfect time for napping."

Good luck staying healthy and pursuing your goals, everyone.