Pfizer Pfamily

 

I am so incredibly relieved that I had my second dose of the Pfizer COVID vaccine in February, Tod was able to get his second dose this week, and Reed and Amy both have had one dose. It is so amazing to know we've got protection from the worst of this awful disease. At first vaccination spots were hard to come by. I was able to get it because my agency, CSB, was designated as a health care provider and even though I don't do direct care, I could still get it. Then Tod was able to get it in April due to preexisting conditions. Very quickly it was opened up for Reed to get it, and then finally they lowered the age down to 16 and Amy got her first dose.

Maybe we can begin to put this awful thing behind us now.

Movie guy

 

For the last few years, Reed has been really into the lead-up to the Oscars. Two years ago, he and Tod even went to a special screening of some of the short film nominees. This year because of COVID, nearly everything was available to watch online. He watched most all of the major movie nominees, including foreign films. I had him fill out this ballot from the newspaper – he included what he thought would win and what he wanted to win. 

In other big news...

Reed has decided to attend James Madison University this fall. Yay! Harrisonburg is about two hours away, which seems like just the right distance – close enough for a day trip to visit, but far enough that you wouldn't want to do that too often. 

He was also accepted at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, with a $4,000/year scholarship, but after a visit to the campus he decided that wasn't the place for him. He was waitlisted at Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. UVA offered him the option to do his first year at their campus in Wise, Virginia (in coal country, down in the southwestern corner of the commonwealth, near the borders with Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee) and if he had at least a 3.0, then he could transfer to the main campus for his second year. But again, after visiting the campus he decided that wasn't what he wanted to do. He was rejected from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. – their loss!

In all honesty, Reed doesn't really seem too excited about JMU, but he's also just not generally a kid who gets excited about a lot of things. If he's anxious about it, we will do our best to make the transition smooth – there's an onboarding session over the summer that will hopefully help. He told us the other day that so many kids from Freedom go to JMU that they refer to it as "Freedom University" – I knew lots of Freedom kids went there, but not that many! 

Tod and I aren't the best guides about what college life is like. Tod never set foot on West Point's campus before he showed up for basic training the summer before school started, and while there are some aspects of West Point that are like "regular" college, it's definitely not the same. And I have very few memories of my one semester at Radford, so my frame of reference is very small. We will learn together, and do the best we can.

I hope JMU is a terrific experience for Reed, I'm excited for him! 

Retired!

Last Friday, I wrapped up more than 31 years of service to Fairfax County. It's pretty hard to believe that I worked there for that long and even harder to believe that I'm all done!

Sheesh, I'm a month behind! – Amy is SIXTEEN!

I guess things have been hectic because I failed to write about this!

Amy celebrated her second pandemic birthday...thankfully the situation is a bit better this year so she was able to have a small celebration with her friends Molly, Annika and Riley. They came over and spent several hours together doing tie-dye shirts and just laughing and having fun. It was a happy sound and we are so grateful it could happen!

Then on her actual birthday, the whole Mitchell clan got together and did this for her – it even matched the tie dye theme (though would you expect anything less when Wanda is involved?!).

Amy has weathered a tough year of virtual school, and managed it pretty darn well. It's been a lot to ask of these kids to be on their computers all day every day, and then she has extra time for virtual rehearsals too. Her grades have been mostly excellent, though she has definitely not enjoyed in-class participation over the computer. Very much looking forward to a somewhat normal school year next year.

Amy still keeps her quirky interests (random podcasts and bands), which don't overlap with many other people she knows. The lack of Broadway productions for more than a year has been a real bummer for her and we can't wait to get back to in-person shows. She has kept up with her best pals despite not being able to see them much – we encouraged her to arrange more get-togethers but she hasn't wanted to do that. Amy continues to talk louder the more interested she is in a subject (as the person who sits next to her each night at dinner, that's fun!) and she has VERY strong opinions about most things (hint: a lot of things are "dumb"). Her vocabulary is something that tickles us, she uses so many words that many 16 year olds don't even know the meaning of – all that reading as a kid paid off. Wish we could get her to do more reading, but that hasn't been happening for a while now. If she's not at school or rehearsal, she's either drawing on her iPad/tablet or lately she's playing Minecraft. 

She took the PSAT in the fall and that started the endless stream of mailers from colleges – just when we finally were wrapping up Reed getting five million pieces of college mail! She doesn't know yet what kind of college she might want to go to or what she might want to study. She is still aggrieved that chores like doing the dishes and mowing the yard started earlier for her...dreaded "second child" syndrome (been there, done that, got the t-shirt!) meant we ended up having both kids do those things at the same time, despite Amy being 2.5 years younger. That's what she gets for being mature enough to handle it! (sorry!) Driving has taken a bit of a back seat (see what I did there?) since she's so busy with theater stuff, but she gets in practice from time to time and is really looking forward to being able to drive herself to school in the fall.

Our baby girl is sixteen! We are so proud of you, Amy!

Our worst parenting decision, ever

These plates....when the kids were little, we bought some divided plates.

"Let's get some fun, different colors!," I thought. 

What a terrible mistake that caused daily heartache for waaaay too long. These kids fought and complained SO much about these freaking plates! "I want the blue one!" "No, I want the blue one!" Oh. My Goodness.

If I could time travel, I would definitely go back and tell myself to buy just ONE color of divided plates and save a lot of trouble! We also had some small plate/cup sets with Nemo, the Backyardigans and other fun things. Those also caused endless squabbling.

We finally stopped using these plates a while back, but I wasn't emotionally ready to get rid of them since they were such a factor in our dinner times for so long. So they sat in the cabinet until this week, when I posted them on our local freecycle site and got a taker immediately. I didn't warn the lady the trouble she was inviting – I wish her luck!

A year later

Last March 11, a Wednesday, we received a phone call saying school would be closed the next day, and until further notice. They missed those two days, then two more weeks before online school began. I began teleworking that following Tuesday, and have only returned to the office a handful of time this year. The kids have chosen to stay with distance learning, even when offered the option to go back two days a week starting a few weeks ago. Tod is the only one who has mostly gotten back to normal, going to the office every day. But even that isn't completely back, since they've got everyone spaced out for safety. 

It is still astonishing to me what's happened in the last year. I never would have imagined people wearing masks everywhere they go, here in America. (An aside: It's do disappointing and infuriating that because of politics, some people have refused to take such a small action.) The year has felt like a total blur, unlike anything I've ever experienced. It's hard to know what day it even is - the new term "Blursday" totally fits. 

Some good things have come out of it - lots more time with the kids, I'm walking about 4 miles a day, we're not running off to in-person meetings or volunteer activities - but so much has been lost. This should have been Reed's time to grow and shine in his senior year. Amy should have been spending lots of time with her pals at theater (thankfully, that's started to come back a little bit, with in-person rehearsals that started a month ago with very small groups). They haven't really been able to socialize much, and school is definitely not up to par in a virtual format. 

Because of where I work, I was able to get the vaccine, which was a real relief but hasn't changed much about my behavior - still wearing masks, still not really going many places beyond the grocery store. Tod is on the waiting list due to his weight (hey, one time when being on the heavy side actually gets you something positive - that's never happened before!). They're starting to chug through people now and hopefully he gets the call soon. Reed is on the waiting list but it'll probably be a bit longer before they get to healthy young people - I really hope he can get it before he leaves for college! They're working through age regressions in testing the vaccine, so hopefully it won't be all that long before she's able to get it too.

I'm trying to be hopeful that sometime this summer things will be semi-normal, but mostly I'm hoping that the next school year will be as close to normal as we can get. We've all sacrificed and lost so much - even our family, who has been beyond fortunate in this whole mess - I can't wait for it to get better.

At some point we started thinking...hey, they don't want county employees to come back in the office any time soon...and we realized I might retire without ever returning to the office. And that's the way it's going to happen, since I'm going to retire on April 23. Just wild.

The whole world has gone through such trauma, with so many lives lost - more than 500,000 Americans. It is unfathomable and a tragedy of a proportion that's difficult to understand. I'm so grateful that we've come out so well so far, and so sad for all the families who've lost loved ones and suffered financially.

P.S. There was another bit of good news for Reed...he was accepted to JMU! It's wonderful to have a second option. Still waiting to hear from GWU, and for a final answer from VA Tech and UVA.

P.P.S. Other good news is that I recently finished my five radiation sessions, and it was completely uneventful! Now I will take Tamoxifen, a medication to prevent recurrence, for five years, but the treatment part is all done.