It has officially been a year since the pandemic began. After very many lows, things finally seem to be at least starting to improve. I've received my second vaccine. My parents are on their way to being completely vaccinated, and my in-laws are done too.
Penny has returned to half days of daycare this week. It's an adjustment, but it's good for her, and she's excited to play with more kids again. Now that she's used to playing with a few older kids who really look after her and got along with her from the get-go, though, I think she's seeing that it's a little more work to play with kids her age. She's used to trying to keep up with the big kids, but now she's got to adjust how she interacts with kids that aren't as quick as her buddies, mentally or physically. It will be interesting to see how her whole cohort does in the next few years, socially and academically.
My extended family is planning its first gathering in a year - an outdoor Easter gathering. We are planning two local trips in the next few months, within Virginia and Maryland. We will have a pool membership for the summer. My work may start up in-person again starting at the beginning of the fall semester. There are finally events to look forward to again, although they will still be mainly outdoors/distanced/masked.
Thinking back to a year ago, a lot of my realizations that things were getting bad happened at the grocery store. Suddenly the toilet paper and paper towel aisles at every store were wiped out. Soon after, other aisles grew bare and stores started rationing, saying you could only buy two of each item, like pasta, rice, and meat. Funny, there was never really a problem finding fresh produce. When Mike and I temporarily moved to Maryland (to stay at our in-laws' empty house while they were still out-of-state), the meat aisle at Giant was completely empty except bags of CHICKEN FEET. When I saw that, I remember thinking, "Well I guess we will become vegetarians for a little while because I don't know how to cook or eat chicken feet". It didn't come to that, but I mentally prepared myself anyway. The next thing was the line out the door of Trader Joes to limit the number of people inside; I probably had to wait 20 minutes just to start shopping a few times. Then, masks were mandated, and I would look around at all the masked people afraid to go near each other, still trying to pile up the food in their carts so they wouldn't have to come back again for a week or two or three. Slowly, the shipments caught up and the grocery stores stopped rationing. Despite the fact that things are pretty well-stocked these days, I rarely leave the store without a pack of toilet paper, even if we don't need it. Just in case.
