Well, the children are back at school and I am able to eat again.

My oldest picked up some sort of terrible stomach bug at his sixth grade orientation last Thursday, something we did not realize until we found ourselves cleaning vomit from the cabin carpet at 2 AM last Saturday.

A few more of us were felled like dominoes as the weekend progressed and as a result, I spent most of the first day of school in bed: hungry, tired, with a painful stomach, and the worst headache of my life. I would have googled “how to tell if it’s a migraine” but even looking at my phone was too painful and it was all I could do to drift in and out of consciousness for several hours.*

My youngest woke me from my strange half-dreams with a phone call demanding that I pick him up immediately from the after-school care program. We finally got him signed up this year so that I can go back to work, and he’s not particularly happy about it. I’m still (f)unemployed, but we don’t want to lose the spot so he’s going for a little bit every day.

It’s a weird year. My oldest rides the bus to middle school now. After years of being at the same elementary school we don’t even bother to read the principal’s newsletters or the parent handbook anymore, but now I’m forcing myself to read everything the middle school sends because we have no idea what we’re doing.

And my kids are at different school. The last time my kids were at different schools was before face masks, and distance learning, and mRNA vaccines. It was approximately six lifetimes ago. So I’m really confused by the fact that they now go to different buildings in different ways on different schedules every day.

And then I’ll go back to work and there will be even more change.

*I just did some research and have concluded that it was not a migraine.