So, against our better judgment, we let Alice go on a week-long trip to the mountains with Jess, Rosa, and Anna. Jess and Rosa were both fully vaccinated, and they promised they would avoid restaurants and wear masks. We were nervous because the Delta variant was surging, and we were just sure Alice would get covid. And sure enough, she did. But get this, she most likely got it from Jess! In the middle of the week, Jess started feeling sick, but didn't think much of it, just chalking it up to how she normally gets sick on vacation because she's so stressed out in advance. But, she went and got a Covid test, just to be sure. They were out of rapid tests, so she would have to wait for results. Meanwhile, they carried on with their trip. It wasn't until about 6 days later, when they were already back home, that she got the results and it turned out she was positive. She texted us Monday night to let us know.
Being irresponsible parents, we went ahead and sent Alice to school on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, Alice said she had a sore throat. So Zac kept both kids home so he could get them covid tested. I went to work, but went and got a covid test that morning. The pediatrician didn't have rapid tests either, so after getting the kids tested there, Zac took Alice to an urgent care that offered rapid testing. Hers came back positive. So the virus we had been working so long to avoid was now in our child, in our house.
What followed was two weeks of stress. Zac worked from home and the kids stayed home from school. I could still go to work, since I was fully vaccinated, wore a mask, had no symptoms, and got tested (rapid and PCR) every morning. At home, we all wore masks (except Simon, who mostly stayed outside and far away from Alice). Zac and I slept separately and we ate supper all spread out, with Alice at the art table.
In the end, we all got through it. Alice never got very sick, thankfully. She just had sniffles and a very grumpy attitude. The rest of us never got it, although I did have a false-positive at work one day (which I blame on David checking the test two hours later). The bad part was that Alice missed two weeks of school and Simon missed three (since his last day of exposure started on Alice's 14th day). It was all pretty insane thinking about how so many families have been through so much worse. The whole strategy of "stay home when you're sick" ignores the fact that people live with other people. At least this didn't happen until Zac and I were fully vaccinated, or I would have been far more paranoid and stressed out. I mean, you can't just lock a 10-year-old kid in her bedroom for 14 days. It was bad enough always kind of moving away from her and trying to keep distance.
The other tragic part was that we missed our annual Jordan Lake camping trip, and this was going to be the biggest year yet, with a couple of new families joining in, that we hadn't seen in a long time. Saying I was very disappointed is an understatement.
