It was an up and down kind of day. In fact, in the morning I was thinking this could turn into another “boy this all pretty heavy” kind of post. But my day was ultimately saved by a couple of superheroes.
More on that later. We had a nice morning walk, but it became clear that all the isolation was really starting to wear on the kids. They each got pretty emotional, asking why we still couldn’t go to Grandma and Pop-Pop’s house. I know plenty of parents out there can relate. It gets hard to answer those kinds of questions over and over again, especially when you can’t give any concrete idea of when it might end.
Back home, we did some FaceTime with Grandma and Pop-Pop and that did lift their spirits. For me, I had been feeling a little worn down and increasingly bothered by what started as a sore elbow, but kept getting worse and spread down my arm. I realized on Sunday that my left forearm was all swollen and I looked kind of like Popeye.
Now I know what you’re thinking: “Cool!”
Yeah, you’d think so, but not so much. While I typically take the “if I just ignore this long enough, I’m sure it’ll go away” approach to self care, fortunately Erin is much wiser than I in this area. She suggested I speak to a medical professional about my freakish, reddening appendage.I really didn’t want to go into a doctor’s office in the midst of a pandemic unless I really have to, so luckily I was able to have a tele-health appointment to get it checked out. Turns out that my wife was correct as usual, I do have an infection and need some antibiotics. Now that I’ve done it, I have to say tele-health was super easy and beats actually going to the doctor’s office. That’s not to say it wasn’t completely without challenge.
All of us working parents know the terror of “how loud are my kids going to shriek when I’m on a conference call?” It is a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads at all times.
I had to cut an initial call with the doctor’s office short because the kids burst into the room in a swirl of chase game insanity that literally almost knocked me out of chair and ended with them slamming into a wall and crying. It reminded me of one of those cartoon fights where all you see is a cloud vortex of chaotic energy.
Fortunately everyone was OK and they settled down to a movie after that. Still, when I was on the phone with the doctor and she was going over the very long list of possible side effects for the antibiotics and things I should be aware of about the infection, Henry burst in, hungry. So what I heard was:
Doctor: OK, so I want you pay particular attention to…
Henry: DAAAAADDDY! I WANT A COOKIE111
Doctor: … and if that happens, you call us right away because we may need you to go urgent care.
Me: Got it.
But I eventually got all that straightened out and I’m pleased (I guess) to report that I’m looking less like Popeye.
Also significantly de-funkifying my day was the fact that for the first time in a while, the kids wanted to play dress up superheroes. I felt tired, but their super-energy and smiles were infectious. Amelia was Super-Amelia. Henry first declared he was Princess Anna, and then I believe some kind of combo of Anna and Superman. I took up the mantle of Captain Daddy, and we set forth on many adventures. Henry and Amelia even patrolled the rooftops, Gotham style.
We set traps for the villains and played outside until it got dark.
Afterward, we let the kids stay up late and watch old Superfriends cartoons for a while. So for me, the lifelong nerd who will always love to pretend to be a superhero, the day ended on a high note. Our superheroes came to the rescue.
