Oh – the sun is shining today – the birds are chirping, the sun feels warm…but it’s a trick! It’s 20 degrees. It’s the middle of March, but this year in Minnesota, that doesn’t mean a thing but snow and ice and freezing cold weather. Last year was a totally different story: we played horseshoes for the first time on March 11. We had 6 record high temperatures; it was 80 on St Patrick’s Day! At this time last year, my garden was cleaned up, turned over, and planted with cold weather crops like kale, spinach, brussel sprouts, and lettuce.
Today, the garden is covered under a foot of snow…and there is more coming!
I am so over this winter!
And I’m so over being on lock-down.
People often ask “what is lock-down?” And to that I will answer: torture! (But I know it’s the best thing for Jax, so that makes it somewhat bearable.) This has been the worst cold and flu season in a very long time, so we’ve been extra cautious. Jax has met his cousins twice. He doesn’t go anywhere but the doctor. No Target, no grocery stores, no nothing. When his grandma or grandpa come here, they wash their hands the second they walk in the door; we disinfect immediately when they leave. When I had a cold this winter, I wore a mask for 15 days straight. We have taken every single precaution we could to keep Jax healthy.
But now, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s time to switch from “better safe than sorry” to “let’s see how he does.” It’s time to break free from lock-down!
Jax’s first real party will be this weekend! Grandpa Mike (my dad) is turning 60 years old! My family is somewhat famous for our “wailers” and this will be the first wailer since the night before my mom died. (For those of you who don’t know the story, my mom requested a “living wake” and asked us to throw a huge party for her while she was still alive. Mom wasn’t responsive, but I know she felt all of the love from people who came to say goodbye that night. She died the next morning; she always did love a good party!)
OMG – we are bringing Jax to a house full of people!
I’m nervous and scared. We’ve been trained since the day he was born to keep him away from germs. Hand sanitizer is a way of life for us. Whoa.
We’ll be safe. We won’t be passing him around. We won’t let people touch him. We will have a bottle of sanitizer near him at all times. (People, please, if you are sick, do not come near us!!!!)
But we’ll also have fun! Jax is going to love meeting the rest of his family: his great aunts and uncles, his second cousins, his great-grandpa (hopefully), his friends, and people who have been rooting for him since he was born. I hope my dad is ok with being upstaged on his birthday…because I just have a feeling that Jax might steal the show! 🙂
And then, we’ll wait and see if he gets sick. And if he does get sick, how he handles it. Will we have to break out the oxygen again? Will we take a trip to the ER? Oh God – this is scary! But at some point, we have to do it. We have to let Jax (and ourselves) out!
Freedom, here we come! We can’t wait!
An Early Start 