What I didn't miss with COVID lockdowns

There have been some good things and some bad things that have come out of the COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, the ability to work remotely has been embraced by many employers. Even for someone like me, who doesn’t mind being in an office environment, I can still have one day a week working from home rather than having to battle the commute into the city.

It did shut down travel for quite some time, which meant that I haven’t gone overseas as much as I would like to, and I didn’t get to take my daughter to Hong Kong Disneyland.

Although, I was a bit worried about going there if I’m honest. When I mentioned the trip to my daughter, she seemed reasonably happy, and then I said, “You can meet Mickey and Minnie Mouse”. The reaction to that statement, however, was quite unexpected. My daughter started screaming, “I DON’T WANT TO MEET MINNIE MOUSE!”

I don’t know what Minnie has done to my daughter in the past, but she had made her feelings clear I felt. So, when we had to cancel that trip, I will admit that I breathed a small sigh of relief.

Lockdowns meant that I had a convenient excuse to not have to go to things I didn’t want to go to. Yes, I am intimating that I would use a global pandemic to my own benefit on occasion. Oh, I have a scratchy cough, I don’t know if I should go to dinner with the in-laws tonight.

I even got to use COVID to keep people out of my house. I was happy.

A downside was my daughter was just starting school and had to do a lot of that through remote learning. Not an easy thing to do, especially for an only child. She really needed that interaction with other kids (aside from her big kid Father that is). But then you look at the positives, we weren’t getting all the flu and other bugs that normally come home with kids from school.

Here we are now, in October 2022. A lot of things are now back in person, masks are a rarity, and kids can play together again.

So, yesterday morning when my daughter said she wasn’t feeling well I thought it was an excuse to get out of school. But she had a bit of a temperature and wasn’t as energetic as usual, so I agreed to her staying home. After all, my wife and I were both working from home and could easily keep an eye on her. I had an interview for a new job, so I was happy to be at home and prepare for my interview in comfort.

Then at about 10 am, I heard what no parent wants to hear.

It started with my wife yelling, “Oh ok, ok, over here, over here”. There was definite panic in her voice, and what sounded like my daughter trying to say “blur” repeatedly. I walked out to witness the carnage.

There was a sea of vomit over the couch, the living room floor, and sadly my daughter.

She looked at me, with the saddest eyes a five-year-old could muster as spit and vomit rolled down her chin. “Dad, I vomited on the couch… and myself”. In any other time or place, I would have just said, “Yeah I can see that”. But she clearly felt bad.

We took her to the shower and cleaned her off. We hadn’t had a gastro bug in the house for over three years. So, we had to refresh the protocols. Most of which involved lots of washing of hands and everything my daughter had touched, oh, and of course all the couch cushions.

I got her an ice cream container and named it her new best friend. “Make sure you take your new best friend with you everywhere”, I told her, hoping to avoid too much spewing on the floor. The poor kid couldn’t remember vomiting before, so this was a new experience for her.

We weathered the storm and came out the other side. Fortunately, nobody else has succumbed to the tummy bug. But now we know that we can get back to all those charming little things that kiddies bring home!

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