Sick kids! First sniffles in 6 months!

So, I am around 5 kids from 4 families/4 different school districts.

Basically, they are my 2 kids, my boyfriend, sister and best friend's kids.

I work from home, so I have 0-5 kids every day depending on their various in-school vs. online school vs. parenting time schedules.

We had to do what we had to do - divorced, working parents have an awful lot of shit to deal with since March.

(Nevermind the my-house-is-safer-than-your-house divorce crap.)

Total madness.

Late last week, one kid who doesn't go to in-person school (hers doesn't open til October 15th or so) was sick with a sore throat, no fever, mild cough and runny nose.

Kid goes back and forth mom to dad, has an infant brother at mom's, and mom works in a doc office. I watched her sick mon and tues, with no other kids. She was feeling better by Thursday. She was babysat by her elderly grandmother Wednesday and home to her baby brother ... no one is quarantining this sniffling kid.

No adults sick. Then, on Friday I had two others. Today, the littlest one is sick - same deal. (Our moms would call it "tonsilitis" I think and that would be it - it's not strep - we know strep.

It's jarring because as a long time mom and aunt and babysitter ... this was the longest ever stretch without a sick kid.

Sick is back - but this can't be COVID. It's a regular cold where you either dose the kid with medicine and send them to school so you can go to work, or you take a sick day that turns out fun because no one is that sick.

The adults have more immunity to this thing going around than the kids.

But now we have a whole list of shit to consider ...

failed temperature checks, mandatory doctors notes, questionnaires ... none of us want to take these kids for COVID tests ...

What will they say when they ask if anyone in the house has COVID symtoms ... We'll be getting calls from coaches, school nurses ...

it's going to be a bunch of crap COVID or not - crap not worth doing - who needs this?

fuck all this nonsense ... they'd all be better off playing nerf in my backyard all year