12. How Covid affected Us as Parents and what We Learned
Internet Safety for Grandchildren, Part I
“The more useful a machine is, the more dangerous it is.”-My Dad, after slicing his hand pulling grass out of the lawnmower chute…
The summer of 2019 was great! It was the last year that our neighborhood pool opened although we didn’t know that at the time. (Covid and then a life guard shortage would follow.) We threw a birthday party for Andy at The Jump Yard bounce houses. He was starting to talk more, and we went for ice cream and haircuts as a family. We rearranged bedrooms to give him his own space, and decorated it with Super Mario posters and Spiderman sheets of his choosing. Our baby, Addie, was no longer in withdrawal from being born addicted and slept through the night in an alcove off of our bed area, originally designated as sitting room affording us no privacy, but we were together and more settled. We drove as a family to visit my mom in Florida with the kids, and she fell in love with them too. They call her “GG’’ for Great Grandma.
By fall Andy was walking into an “integrated” public preschool hand in hand with his wonderful teacher, who had a Master’s degree as Childhood Intervention Specialist. Integrated referred to a mix of mainstream with those children with developmental disabilities like our grandson. (The good news was that we were told he had a high probability of becoming mainstream given time.) The bus came to our doorstep because he was on an IEP, Individualized Education Plan. I had a coveted week of vacation coming around Thanksgiving, and Ned broke out a wall to update our 1950’s kitchen with a modern breakfast bar. Three days before my time off, I took care of a patient who gave me a response to my usual question that I ask most people, “What would you be doing today if you weren’t hanging out with us (in the Operating Room)?” He mentioned he was a supervisor of a research facility and had just returned from mainland China where he had dealt with a problem. I know he mentioned a province even though I had no idea where it was or any reason to attach a significance. Three to four days after, I got sick-really, really sick. I never got sick. I hadn’t heard of Covid yet. Much later I’d remember what he had told me-when I learned more from the news on T.V.
I pause here because Asian bashing became “a thing” because of the possible origin of Covid, and I have friends who are Chinese. Chen, my oldest sister’s best friend, supported me emotionally through the pandemic sending me a copy of Psalm 91. I carried that with me and reread it on the toughest times in my career. She also mailed me protective gear I was able to share with coworkers at a time when the hospitals we worked at couldn’t get any. In the beginning, we were reusing the tiny amounts coming in. She got it from China. I love Chinese food, art and culture. I’m not a basher. The common man who is Chinese is as much in control as we are with Presidents Trump and Biden as Americans.
My illness began with what appeared as pink eye, then progressed to major dashes to the bathroom, a fever, and what I thought was a sinus infection. I didn’t want to eat hardly because I couldn’t smell or taste anything. I was careful to disinfect the bathroom (I am a surgical nurse who deals with concepts of sterility daily) and was grateful that since I was on vacation, I didn’t have to call in sick for what lasted the entire week, and get in trouble calling in more than two days in a row. Ned faithfully cared for the kids while our kitchen was completely torn up and redone. On my worst day, he filled a vaporizer with Eucalyptus oil, as I woke to shortness of breath. As a nurse, I knew that was bad especially since all I had done was lay in bed, but was too exhausted to do anything more than roll on my stomach to go back to sleep. When I woke much later, my fever had broken, and I started to get better. My cough lasted for months after. I experienced occasional “brain fog” after as well, but was afraid to admit it for fear that I would be judged doing my job, which I needed. Covid had arrived, but no one really knew much about it yet. It would be a long time before it was recognized as even being in the U.S. at that moment. Shortly after, Addie would be diagnosed with RSV, a virus that made her cough like croup and was common in premature infants. The doctor that saw us, not our regular pediatrician, barely listened to her chest before we were handed a nebulizer and told how to administer albuterol treatments several times a day. RSV was also linked to Covid.
My surgery center closed for a month the following March, deemed “nonessential”, (which had followed a month long closure to update our HVAC system) and I scrounged for work as the pandemic hit full force. Even when it reopened, business was extremely slow. I managed to find all kinds of duties including taking care of Covid patients as a floor nurse. I had never worked the hospital floors-only surgery. I admit it stressed me out, so I looked for other employment within my system. I worked the helpline and listened to coworkers cry as their test results hadn’t come back for over two weeks and they were afraid to return to their jobs. I took temperatures at the main hospital campus’s doors during days-and evenings when I was the only person guarding an entrance off of a major city’s streets. (Don’t get me started with the idiocy of the questions we had to ask. “Have you traveled outside the U.S.?” It was already in the U.S. so why did that matter?)
I observed patients for fifteen minutes after their vaccines-that was my favorite. I got to talk to people and sit down. Fear was as thick as the disease around me, and I was extremely careful to not bring it back to our family. A nurse friend’s husband brought up in court that he should get custody because of the risk of his former wife giving their son Covid while going through a divorce. It was a dark time. People were dying without their loved ones to hold their hands in the hospitals and we were all scared, and then numb. Some were ANGRY.
Over the course, we adapted in healthcare, and loved ones started FaceTiming with their family so as to avoid isolation. Technology grew. I saw acts of heroism on the part of my coworkers as they worked extra hours to cover the need. I never considered unemployment insurance as an option, but someone applied in my name and I quickly reported it. Conspiracy theories were rampant within my extended family, coworkers, and on the television. People were actually fighting over the reality of Covid and fought wearing masks in public-especially in my little town. They picketed at gas stations and marched down our Main Street in protest. None of that mattered to me. I saw the sickness and it wasn’t a fantasy. I had been wearing a mask over thirty years and had never suffered an ill effect from it. I do remember vaguely that it had been something to get used to when I first began working in the Operating Room, but people’s exposed noses over their masks cracked me up with laughter over the futility of it all.
The school Andy attended decided to go virtual to protect and isolate. “Zoom” preschool was in session for the remainder of the year. We had never even heard of Zoom before. Ned wasn’t a computer person and class happened while I was at work. We needed help, and an iPad, which I purchased at Best Buy from the Nerd Squad in refurbished condition because of the high price tag.
(Angel Chorus heard.) Karrie is Ned’s former girlfriend before me, and can “Zoom”. She is fabulous finger painting and making macaroni frames. She also has the patience of a saint. She and Ned raised her boys from a former abusive husband, and the younger even asked Ned to adopt him as an adult (which he did). The two and a half hour in-person class was condensed into a one hour virtual class on the iPad.
Pause here for a moment and picture preschoolers sitting for one hour in front of a computer-NOT! This was an exercise that was carefully orchestrated by dedicated teachers doing the best they could under the circumstances. It was the beginning of the iPad in our home, used by our children for years to come. Imagine getting a four year old with ADHD to sit still and focus on the tiny screen that was his new classroom. (We actually paid to do this since preschool isn’t required.) (Ed paid “Aunt” Karrie as well who worked twice the hours she was compensated for because she had compassion.) Thank you, Aunt Karrie. It takes a village.
Quick flash to a day closer to the present: Addie, with her early above average reading skills, learned to successfully hack into my code secured iPhone watching a YouTube video that she searched for. (Her plan had to have extended over two days. Day one she snuck the how to hack video when she had access to play ABC Mouse, and day two to break in when she had no access.) She was four when she first did it using the microphone icon in the iPad search bar (no need to type even!). I learned to secure the phone from her in the same way, searching the answer on YouTube. She used Siri or Alexa, (I get them confused.) somehow from the Lock Screen with voice activation which I had to turn off and is less useful but more secure. Who knew? Her motive was to watch a YouTube reality vlog (video blog) featuring NinjaKids. Pretty smart, but then, her mom had always been good with computers. (Could that be genetic?)
ABC Mouse gave us a seriously discounted yearly rate when I called them directly (1-866-779-1872) to inquire and explained our situation. It is a huge factor in Addie’s early reading in addition to Aunt Karrie. The app is proof that there is merit in allowing children to use computers. Much can be gained from this amazing tool, but it is a lot like my Dad and the lawnmower.
Andy, after in-person school returned, was in Kindergarten, and forced us into a first name basis with the head of the IT department, Jerry. During a class when he had a substitute teacher, our boy told the teacher that HE was the teacher, not her, and threw work papers into the trash she was handing out. (This was the reason we were contacted by the principle.) Somehow he also managed to lock five of his closest friends’ and co-conspirators’ school issued iPads that day. The school only knew about two of the students, but he confessed to me more, and there was one parent who called us as well. He had attempted to hide that they, more probably he, downloaded a video game that they could compete against each other as car drivers in a race. Needless to say, students are not allowed to download on school iPads, but his behavior in chasing away any future substitute teachers was legendary. Yes, we have our hands full. (At the end of this school year, first grade, he received an award for respect, integrity, dignity, gratitude and giving his all everyday, and is now completely mainstream, with better anger control.)
It’s not easy to be a parent. It’s even harder today than it was when I first raised my biological kids. Technology has EXPLODED! I don’t know about you, but we had the game “Pong” on a tiny black-n-white TV screen with a big box housing it that got four channels when the wind blew right as I was growing up. We were our parents remote changing the channels. Today, children are killing themselves in response to threats and social media, so how can we keep our kids safe?
I do believe it’s our responsibility as parents, so how can we enjoy the good and fight the bad parts of the internet?
Read on in two weeks for internet security 101 and how the beloved addicts in our lives faired during Covid…