VIRUS DIARY: Thanks to COVID, an 'anti-first day' of school

MAPLEWOOD, N.J. (AP) — Three days before the first day of school, a text message delivered the blow: the babysitter had exposed our three kids to COVID. Robotically, I began ticking through what the next several days would look like. Stocking up on Tylenol, and temperature checks. Hoping we get through another day without a spike. Tests on day five. Wondering if every sniffle is a symptom.

I know this routine well now. Pandemic parenting created it. A lack of vaccines for the youngest kids forces us to sustain it. I was staring down another pandemic pivot, and this one felt different. I am tired of pivoting. I am tired of figuring out how to make everyone resilient. And I had to say something out loud to these three.

It wasn’t just the first day. They would all miss the first two weeks of school.

On my social media feeds, the first day pictures keep coming. Kids in newly pressed, pleated uniforms with crisp white shirts. Middle schoolers posing in trendy new outfits. Fresh haircuts. New sparkly backpacks. Avengers lunch boxes. Unscuffed sneakers and smiles.

Our school shoes are still in their boxes. Our backpacks are packed, but there’s nowhere to go. Our uniforms still have their tags.

We are NOT smiling.

Text messages from the soccer and softball teams share scores of games we didn’t get to play. We wave at friends walking home from school through windows. I imagine kids sitting at COVID-shielded desks, writing “about me” essays and drawing self-portraits. Will they all go up on the wall, and will our kids be missing? Will they look up at that wall all year, remembering when the world moved on to fall while they were stuck in summer?

Three days pass, and we still haven’t heard from a teacher. “Don’t worry,” I’m told by the office. “Not much happens in the first few...