Today is the two week mark after I received my second COVID shot, so I'm officially fully vaccinated. I'm definitely excited for the opportunity that represents for our coming summer compared with how things were last year.
While I am excited about things opening up, I am one of those introverted people who genuinely enjoyed many things about being locked down. Being able to work from home, having an excuse not to go out and do too many social things, and having more time in general around the house was wonderful, especially early in the pandemic. I enjoyed it enough that I felt some guilt, since I know this pandemic caused serious health and economic problems for so many people, and because so many people lost loved ones.
The one big issue that this caused for our family is that NJ had a very hard time dealing with things getting cancelled, and with everything about the year being different. We tried to allow the kids as many safe social opportunities as possible, but his autism makes him an extremely routine-driven person, and having everything about the routine of the year last year change caused quite a bit of distress.
I can't tell if the year has been hard on CD or not. She has actually been more social with kids at school than she has been historically, but she has been less social with people at church. We'd probably prefer it be the other way around. She excelled academically this year, and we have gotten far more family time than any prior year. I hope she feels she had a good year.
We actually did keep pretty busy last summer, but we have more things scheduled for this summer, just due to more opportunity and less danger. I think the rest of the year is looking up.