Not too many weeks after our little Seguin trip, and just before school started, I was hurriedly cutting cabbage and chilies for slaw when I had my first-ever kitchen injury that required medical attention. My big, shiny knife slipped on the cabbage and right down onto my unsuspecting pinky finger. As is my habit, I cussed at the interruption to my progress, wrapped my finger in a paper towel, and hustled to the bathroom for some antibiotic ointment and a bandaid. The damnable cut wouldn’t cooperate and stop bleeding long enough for me to actually install the bandaid so I could get back to work.

We bought Ian a new lunch box and backpack, even though he seems unlikely to use them much this year.

I finally had to give up and admit that I’d need to go somewhere and have it stitched. Sean helped me hunt up a place that was open on a Sunday afternoon (apparently the “urgent” in urgent care can only happen during normal business hours), while I finished cutting and storing my slaw one-handed. (Yes, really. I’m an idiot.) A quick three-stitches later, and I was back home and ready for business. A week later, I had the stitches removed and cautiously resumed normal behavior. Even for as much as I’ve been cooking during this pandemic, I had had essentially zero kitchen injuries before that one. After The Slaw Incident, I proceeded to cut myself twice and burn myself with splattered grease once. <Shrug>

One of the events leading up to the weirdest school year of our lives was school supply pickup. Earlier in the summer, we had ordered boxes of pre-assembled school supplies for each kid. Also, because distance-learing was mandatory for the first four weeks, we had to pick up books and worksheets and whatnot so the kids could have school at home.

Masked bandits!

We all masked up and drove through the parking lot at the kids’ school. As we approached the second grade area, they loaded all of Maya’s textbooks and take-home materials and her box of school supplies, and let us drop off a couple library books she still had in her backpack from last school year. As we approached kindergarten, Ian’s teacher loaded the car with his bag of school materials and his box of supplies. Each masked kid got to wave from inside the car at their masked teacher – the closest they’ve been to them so far.

They had neat back-to-school signs up on campus, and we were going to get the kids’ photos in front of them but it started raining! I was worried they’d be taken down right away, so we went back that afternoon even though it was still raining and grabbed a few photos of the kids.

Puddle stomping never goes out of style.

It wound up raining a lot and the storm knocked a big limb down from one of the trees. But it also left an entirely-too-enticing puddle in the back yard. The kids went out and jumped and splashed till the puddle was completely dispersed. We don’t have a lot going on, so when something like this comes up, we just kinda go for it.

Maya busy doing all that second grade schoolwork.

Thanks to start of school being delayed till September 8th, we actually had the kids’ learning spaces largely cleaned up and ready for action on day one. Maya sits at a desk in her room so that she can shut the door and really focus. Ian sits at a desk in the kitchen and is often visited by the cats as he’s working.

Nox is helping Ian study

School so far has been … well, let’s be honest … it’s barely been manageable. Sean largely works with Ian to get him to his Zoom meetings and help him get his schoolwork in. I mostly try to get Maya to the right place at the right time and keep after her to complete her work. We try to do our jobs in between times, and in the evenings, and sometimes on the weekends too. I don’t mean to whine, but the simple truth is that it’s exhausting. Luckily, the kids seem to be doing well with their online schooling. It’s not all roses, of course. Ian desperately wishes he could make new friends. Maya is indifferent, but really needs to have access to the social situations that school would normally provide. But generally, they seem to have settled into this being the way school is going to work for now.

But things are about to change again. This coming week, for the parents who have chosen that option (or had no real choice but to accept that option), the district is opening the schools up for in-person learning. They are taking a phased approach to slowly ramp up occupancy. If we hadn’t chosen to keep the kids home, both of them would be going back this week, I believe. Ian because he’s in kindergarten, and Maya because she is Ian’s sibling (2nd graders technically don’t go back till October 12th). Maya’s teacher will now be at the school teaching both in-person students and distance learners. (Ian’s teacher will continue to be distance-only due to her own personal circumstances.) The schedules have already started to shift, and while it’s tough on us, I suspect it will be exceedingly difficult for the teachers. As with everything during this stupid pandemic, I’m sure we’ll adapt, but the weariness runs bone-deep at this point.

Scooter ride with Dad.

On a lighter note, we – especially Sean – have been trying to keep the kids active, at least on the weekends. Sean purchased a grown-up sized scooter so he and the kids can go riding around the neighborhood together. Much to Maya’s enjoyment, he’s also been taking them to a nearby school basketball court to ride their bikes on the weekends. Ian’s still trying to gain some peddling strength with his training wheels, but Maya is tearing around like she was born on a bike. Sean thinks it may be time for some around-the-neighborhood rides. Too bad we’re in the middle of ALL THE HILLS.

I have been keeping active this summer largely by overhauling parts of our neglected back yard. My September project was to work on an area that used to be populated by dying St. Augustine grass. It was too shady for the grass, so at some point before the kids were born, I cleared the bed, laid some beautiful flagstones, and planted fancy drought-tolerant “lawn replacement” plants all through the area. That was the year is rained torrentially for days and days and all of the plants drowned. When we started having kids, I let that area lapse along with everything else. This past month, I planted several hundred little dwarf mondo grass plugs. It’s supposed to be very shade-tolerant. It can handle lots of water, but “once established” is allegedly somewhat drought tolerant. We’ll see. It didn’t cost much beyond my labor, and at least for now, it’s holding up pretty well. Now, I just need our local armadillos to stop digging up my plants.

The kids learned recently that we were unlikely to go trick or treating this year. It was not a happy time. And then Ian forgot and I had to give him the bad news all over again. We did get them costumes, and we’ll figure out some way to celebrate, but going door to door during a pandemic will not be it.

Pumpkin hay bale at the Zoo Boo.

This past Friday though, we did drive down to the San Antonio Zoo to participate in their Zoo Boo celebration. We could pay a per-car admission and drive through the zoo. We listened to a guided tour via our phone of the portions of the zoo we were able to see. At various places, masked staff would pop by the car and give the kids little bags of candy. (We had to work out with the kids whether we were talking about their coronavirus masks or their Halloween masks when we told them to get their masks on!)

Traffic was worse than I’d have expected with so many of us working from home, but we eventually made it. The weather was beautiful – perfect for having the windows down and watching the animals. Maya got carsick both on the way there and on the way back, but she perked up while we were driving through and seeing the animals. We didn’t see a lot of the big standard zoo animals – no elephants, giraffes, lions, or zebras, but we did see bears and kangaroos and a tiger and all manner of bird life. Maya has been way, way into birds, so this was great for her. We even saw little hummingbirds (her favorite) just hanging out around the zoo’s various flowerbeds.

Bald eagles at the San Antonio Zoo. Maya was in bird heaven.

The zoo visit felt fairly well-distanced and safe. Our stop to grab takeout and let the kids use the bathroom on the way home did not. That fast food joint is probably the most crowded place I’ve been since March. Once bathroom visits were complete, I scuttled the kids out to the car and swabbed them down with hand sanitizer while Sean finished getting our food, and then we just ate in the car.

Raccoon at the ground feeder.

We’ve had a few more backyard visitors. I can’t remember where we are on the bird list, but we have now also seen a ladder-backed woodpecker, a bluejay, and some kind of hawk. We have seen a couple little rats bouncing around back there with the birds and squirrels by the bird feeders. The other day, Sean found a katydid under the house eaves. I brought it down to let the kids observe it for a bit before letting it go in the yard. And, most fun of all, a raccoon surprised the crap out of me one morning last week. I had just been out to fill our ground-level feeder, so I wasn’t expecting any critters to be out there when I went to check the other feeders. I yelped as I came nearly face-to-face with the raccoon, helping itself to the ground-feeder food.

The coronavirus news just keeps getting more alarming. This past week, President Trump announced that he and the First Lady had tested positive for Covid-19, and now it feels like we’re all caught in this horrible waiting game. How sick will he get? Who else was he in contact with? What impact will this have on the election, the economy, the horribly divided populace?

The numbers are still as sickening as ever. There’s been a lengthier gap since the last time I posted, so that should be taken into account. Travis County – 8/16 24,144 cases and 335 deaths – 10/4 29,799 cases and 429 deaths. Texas – 8/16 555,394 cases and 10,396 deaths – 10/4 790,194 cases and 16,320 deaths. United States – 8/16 5,412,997 cases and 169,860 deaths – 10/4 7,420,779 cases and 209,821 deaths. The World – 8/16 21,593,607 cases and 773,649 deaths – 10/4 35,078,236 cases and 1,036,104 deaths.