Mid-Winter Update in In the Meadow

Kayla and Timmy have been back at college for about a month. When they first got there they had to get covid tests and quarantine until they got the results. I check in with them to make sure they are okay, but I don’t hear from them as often this semester. Now that they are better adjusted, they seem to find more to do. They are both still undecided majors. They have each found some classes that they like, but are not sure whether they would want to major in that area.

Since Timmy is in Boston and Kayla is in the Hudson Valley, it has been cold and snowy this month. They have had quite a bit of snow. I did remind them to wear their gloves, but otherwise tried not to “parent” them too much.

Aaron has finished with indoor track. They did not have state championships this year but did have league championships. This is the first year that Aaron qualified for the league championship meet. He had a good time and felt like it was more intense than a regular meet.

He will take the Advanced Placement Exams in World History and Biology this year. They have been doing practice exams. I am not sure how the tests will be administered this year. On Thursday and Friday we had snow. They had remote learning days. He has been very fortunate to be able to stay in person almost the whole school year. He has been able to go sledding at a park nearby. He has also done some cross country skiing.

One of my pandemic obsessions is looking at old magazines and news clips. On his remote days Aaron and I watched some of the coverage of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was amazing how much Gromyko sounded like Trump in saying grandiose things about Soviet capability. The world has gotten quite a bit better since the Cuban Missile Crisis, so hopefully things get better after Trump.

On Friday night I had an incident where instead of taking each of my two medications, I took the same pill twice. I had to call the Poison Control Center. It turned out that I would be fine and did not have to go to the ER That is the first time I have ever called the Poison Control Center. There were some times when the kids had bad reactions to medications, but that was always during the daytime. I figured late on a Friday night there was no one else to call but the Poison Control Center. It gave me a newfound appreciation for the people that work there. It can’t be a picnic spending Friday night listening to people talk about their overdoses. When I was in elementary school I put a “Mr. Yuck” poison control sticker on our telephone (which was attached to the wall.)