Pandemic Motherhood Diary, Entry 20: Praying It Was Not the Virus Again

What does an entire week of your youngest toddler fighting various illnesses look like while COVID-19 is still a real threat? It looked like a 4 a.m. run to the nearest 24-hour pharmacy after various panic calls to the 24-hour nurse line. It looked like debating whether to test him for the virus. It looked like retracing our steps and rereading the COVID-19 symptoms. It looked like checking his temperature all day while praying it was not the virus again.

I found myself on the living room couch at 3 a.m. with our youngest, who was in and out of sleep. His crying had become so intense that I had to move him to another part of the house so our oldest could remain asleep. Depleted and defeated, I felt like a failure who could not quite figure out what was wrong with my child. After beating up on myself and shaking off my exhaustion, I put on my mothering cap and decoded what the issue was. I noticed that his cries were different. They sounded like he was in agony.

I started thinking logically. Could he be teething? Is something hurting him? I felt around his neck and noticed a small knot near one of his ears. After explaining to the nurse over the phone what I was speculating and then an early morning doctor’s appointment on two hours of sleep, we got answers. It turned out to be an ear infection that was keeping him from sleeping.

Before the earache, our toddler had a stomach bug, and shortly afterward, he had an eczema flare-up. He had one of the worst weeks of sleep, excluding the night he was given Benadryl to help with his itching. After back-to-back concerns, I realized that we will never exist in a world where we don’t have to worry about COVID. That made me sad. Having a vaccine is great, but the reality is that people are still dying from the virus. Our country has become one huge tombstone over the past three years, with a death toll that seems unreal at times. As much as I would like to run from that fact to quiet some of the paranoia, I cannot. 

Nowadays, we find ourselves trying to better navigate the conspiracy theorists, the hostile anti-mask wearers, and public spaces that no longer mandate them. During my son’s doctor’s appointment, I noticed signage that “encouraged” wearing a mask, but it was not mandatory. As I stood at the check-in window with my son on my hip, I noticed the receptionist wasn’t wearing a mask, while the one at the check-out window was. It made me uncomfortable, considering it was a health facility. Ultimately, I realized that’s where we are today in the pandemic. There are those who are still cautious and those who no longer care. Nowadays, it is frowned upon to even wear a mask in public. Our society is obviously fighting so hard to go back to normal.

Unfortunately for us, parenting during a pandemic has changed so much in how we approach everything. Trying to return to normal doesn’t appear realistic when our children have never experienced what “normal” was. 

Melissa Menny is an author with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism. She is a poet and a writer in all aspects. When she is not working, she enjoys painting, music, and spending time with her husband and two sons.