face masks for kids

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Pandemic Randomosity: Equal Parts Despair and Retail Therapy Edition

Apparently day four is the day when my careful less indulgent eating meal plan falls apart and I beg my husband to pick me up a frozen pizza from Target.

Listen, it’s possible that I could have made it longer if this were a typical year. But we are right back in the thick of Pandemic Living (worst idea for a magazine ever – headlines include “The Best KN95 Masks NO ONE Knows About (Yet)!” and “7 Best Ways to Ensure You and Your Loved Ones Won’t Need to Be Seen in the Emergency Room” and “Is Eyebrow Bling the New Lipstick?”) and I am not drinking alcohol during the week (for now) and so I prescribed myself some medicinal pizza for dinner last night. And some randomosity for today.

  • We continue to be very, very lucky. The family members who have had Covid have fully recovered. The rest of us have somehow avoided it so far. Everyone is vaxxed (with the possible exception of my vaccine eligible niece but I DO NOT WANT TO KNOW) and boosted. My part of the world is fairly pro-mask, so most people in the few public places I visit are masked. I have been able to get my hands on rapid test kits and masks. My daughter’s school continues to take Covid very seriously, and has a mask mandate for everyone and a vaccine mandate for the faculty and staff. We are so, so lucky.
  • I know it’s just luck. I mean, as with a lot of “luck,” some of it is privilege. Where we live and where we send Carla to school being two stark examples. But it also seems so easy to fall into the belief that we haven’t contracted Covid because we are careful. I’m sure that’s helped, but I also know that LOTS of very careful people have been hit by Omicrom. We have either avoided it so far because we are super lucky, or it’s possible (I think) that we’ve had an asymptomatic case without knowing it.
  • Despite being SO LUCKY, I have been filled with despair all week. Early Pandemic-level despair, which I have been fortunate to avoid for many months at a time over the past yearish. The news – which I have been trying, semi-successfully to avoid (except when my husband texts me a particularly upsetting news item THANKS HUSBAND) – is so full of doom and gloom that I feel like I can sense my blood pressure shoot up with every headline. And we have been remote all week, which is a nightmare for my particular brand of child and her particular brand of mother. Plus, there has been the possibility hanging over our heads of another week of virtual learning, which is giving me a stomachache. I mean, there are LOTS OF GOOD REASONS to have virtual learning! Lots and lots! And I am grateful that I am not the one who had to make the decision, that’s for damn sure. But there are also, obviously, MANY BENEFITS to having one’s children physically in school, learning from a human instead of a screen, doing actual math instead of a video game (seriously) and interacting with friends in person. (Not to mention the benefits of in-person learning for the many, many parents who do not have the ability to work from home, or the bandwidth to work while supervising a child during remote school.)
  • We don’t know whether we will have virtual learning next week, too. I have been refreshing my email constantly. I don’t know what to hope for. That we continue to stay home and help drive down the number of Covid infections? Not that our school’s numbers were ever that high. That we return to in-person school for the sake of the children and the working parents and my own sanity? I think I will rejoice/weep at either outcome. Right now, I just want to KNOW so I can PREPARE MYSELF.
  • Possibly due to an urge to soothe the pandemic angst, or possibly this is just my typical post-holiday M.O., I have ordered a few lovely things lately. I got this gorgeous sweater from Nordstrom with a gift card. It is SO SOFT. And it’s totally different from what I normally wear – which tends toward casual and butt-covering. I recently bought a pair of these high-waisted jeans and I think the sweater would look very cute with it. But also… I can’t tell if the sleeves are TOO balloon-y? They are MUCH more balloony in real life than they are on the model. Do they emphasize my arms in a stylish way, or a cartoonish one? Do I look like Popeye after pandemic stress and despair forced him to give up his weight-lifting habit? The jury is still out. We shall see. On the Stay-at-Home Clothes front, I purchased a zip up hoodie that I’m hoping will cover my buttular region. It looks like it will cover my buttular region, based on the photo. But I share nothing in common, body-shape-wise, with the person modeling the hoodie, and I suspect my region is vaster. The hoodie hasn’t arrived yet, but it has “amazing” right in the name, so I have high expectations.

  • Retail therapy is fun even when the purchases aren’t for me. I also ordered this napping kittens calendar for Carla. We’d scrolled through many, many options and this was her favorite and she was obviously correct. I also got my husband another Magic Puzzle puzzle; I’d given him one called The Happy Isles for Christmas, and he loved it. I don’t even LIKE or DO puzzles and I loved it. My husband wouldn’t even let me help (my version of helping with a puzzle is finding one piece and then leaving), and I loved it. It is seriously so adorable, with a million fun things to look at, and even a list of things to find, like in a Where’s Waldo? book. Plus, there’s the “magic” aspect of the puzzle, which was really cool (but I can’t reveal that part because it is magic). If you are a puzzle lover or know one, this MUST be on your puzzle purchase list.
  • Did I tell you about my new salt and pepper shakers? It’s not a new purchase, but looking for those links reminded me that I got them in early December. We had been using one of those Costco pepper grinders for all our peppering needs, but the Costco salt grinders have never worked well for us… so for the last Costco-sized-salt-container-amount-of-time, we’d been salting our food with a Costco-sized salt container. Ridiculous. My husband’s family aren’t a salt and pepper on the table family, but even so, when they were here so often this past fall, I kept feeling so awkward about not having a proper set of shakers for the table. And my family ARE big salt and pepper at the table people, so I was feeling really anxious about it in advance of their visit. My neuroses are many and varied. The result is that I finally persuaded my non-salt-or-pepperer husband that I NEEDED these and I love them. (He does not love them. He only ever uses salt, and the salt grinder grinds crystals of salt that are, to be fair, bigger than your average engagement ring diamond. But it does not seem that you can buy a matching set of pre-ground salt and grindable pepper shakers. And they always [right?] come in a set.)
Looks like we need to get ANOTHER giant salt container.
  • My computer is driving me crazy. the keyboard is not working correctly, and when i try to capitalize things, it either doesn’t work or it WORKS TOO MUCH. As when i am trying to emphasize VIa CApitalization, when the shift key gets over-enthusiastic and capitalizes two letters in a row. I have left the capitalization in this bullet as my computer wants it, for an example. It is Very ANnoying. YOu wouldnt believe how often i have to delete and retype. BLARGH.
  • Speaking of calendars, which we were, a few bullet points ago: if you use a physical calendar, what kinds of things do you fill it with? I do NOT use a physical calendar, even though I love calendars. I have tried many times in the past, and somewhere around February I forget about it and then don’t look at it again until June, when I make a renewed effort to use it… and then forget about it completely until I see Swistle’s annual calendar post and start drooling over all the fun and beautiful options out there. If you think I could resolve this issue with a daily calendar rather than a monthly one, you would be incorrect because I forget about those too. If I didn’t know this about myself, I would own Benjamin Dreyer’s day-to-day grammar and style version. What was the point of this bullet? Oh, right.
  • Speaking of calendars, again, still, I want to populate Carla’s calendar with important things, but I’m not sure what those THINGS should be. Obviously, I will add the birthdays of family members. And I think I can safely add the first day of spring break, the last day of school, maybe even the first day of school for next year if the school has posted that information already. But… what else? Do I add weekly things, like swimming lessons (which we are resuming this month yay/eek)? I WANT to add upcoming trips, of which we have two planned. I WANT to add summer camp (which we had to register for in early December do NOT get me started). But in Year Three of the Covid-19 Pandemic (I started to type “of the Current Pandemic” but that sounded much too bleak), I am wary. So wary. Do I put them on the calendar anyway, as a nod to hope and optimism?

  • Ah, hope. I have an aerogarden in my dining room, and I have been growing a tomato plant for many months. It has been disappointing, to say the least. I think we have harvested maybe six tomatoes total. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Some of the leaves are yellow; I go in and trim, but branches keep dying. Even so, the plant keeps growing, and keeps putting out these little hopeful blossoms… and once in a while, a baby tomato emerges like a promise kept. I kneel on the floor every morning to inspect the plant, to remove dead leaves, to whisper words of encouragement to the blooms. Many of them spread their petals into a bright reassuring star, only to disappear during the night. It is so discouraging, and it all feels like a metaphor.

  • My husband and I just finished all the Succession there is to watch. It is SUCH a good show, and i spend every episode marveling at how I can be invested in so many people I find abhorrent. We are looking for our next TV show to watch together. I think the two we are deciding between are The OA and Sex Education. I feel like we have watched EVERYTHING, but of course that isn’t true. If you have suggestions, new or old, I am waiting eagerly to hear them.
  • My husband and I have started, but not completed, two satisfying projects. The first is, of course, the basement craft room makeover, which has been paused during the work week. The second, which we did on a whim, was to cull (most of) bookshelves. My husband and I are both avid readers and, perhaps more so, avid book buyers. We also both believe in owning books, which has its benefits and disadvantages. This means that we tend toward keeping every book we buy, when not every book is one we NEED to own. It makes me sad to get rid of books, but really: if I read a book and didn’t love it, and my husband isn’t going to read it, and it isn’t autographed, and it wasn’t a Special Gift from a dear friend or family member… then I think it would be better off going to the library, where they can sell it to someone who really wants to read it. I am very pleased by the stack of books we were able to cull (and the number of spaces we have opened up for NEW BOOKS). Now I just need the libraries to re-open so I can donate them and get them out of my office!
  • Our library system, by the way, is pretty awesome. Even though the branches are currently closed to visitors, you can still order books and pick them up at the drive-up window. Plus, they often give away free rapid test kits. Carla and I went to the library to drop off a stack of books the other day and there was a police car parked at one end next to a sign that said “enter only.” I kept driving to the other end, which is where I usually turn into the library parking lot, but it was blocked by another police car and a sign that said “exit only.” I had to turn around to get back to the new entrance, and then followed a winding path through the parking lot, demarcated by construction cones. At the other end of the parking lot were two people standing next to big stacks of boxes. They seemed to be stopping each car that drove through the lot, so I rolled down my window to find out what was going on. One of the people asked how many members are in my family, and when I said “three,” he handed me three Covid test kits. I took them, because you don’t look a test kit horse in the mouth, and then I dropped off our library books in the drive-through lane. Then I texted everyone I knew that the library had a supply of test kits to give away. One friend replied that she would head to the library immediately, and then she noted that her new supply of Kn95 masks had arrived. I cheered and told her I was excited for the new masks I’d ordered to arrive… and immediately felt a sense of dissociation. THIS is what we text each other about now? THIS is cause for excitement? Free Covid tests and mask delivery? Eeeesh. Welcome to the new world, I guess.

  • These are the masks I got for Carla, by the way. We got a small package, just to try. They are quite expensive, but I saw them listed on a bunch of “best masks for kids” articles and I have some friends who use them and like them. (I have a referral code that can get you $5 off, if you want to try them. It’s not much, but it covers shipping and a teensy bit extra.) They shipped very quickly, and should be here Monday. I hope they fit and that Carla likes them.
  • On the way home from the library, I asked Carla what she thought she would remember about this time, when she is a grown up. She said she thinks her kids will probably think we mean party masks when we talk about masks. (I think she is thinking of the kind of masks that people wear to masquerades.) I laughed and agreed, and oh how I hope that’s true. I hope that masks (and rapid tests and virtual school) aren’t a necessary and regular part of life from this moment on. I hope that she can look back on these pandemic years with a veil of fog, because it was such a small, insignificant part of her childhood. I hope the next pandemic isn’t worse. I hope she grows up. I hope she has kids.
This is the bleakest photo I have on my camera roll. But it’s hopeful too. Those black, empty branches are part of a living tree. Someday soon they will have buds, then blossoms, then leaves.
  • Life is so up and down. It’s always like that, always will be. But the downs – right now – seem so much deeper. I don’t know what I thought, back in 2020. That the pandemic would be temporary? That we’d wear masks for a year, deal with Covid for a year, then be done with it forever? I feel like I always knew it would be a longer-term thing. But thinking something, knowing something, are different than believing them. And maybe I didn’t believe that this would be our way of life for many years, possibly forever. It’s a hard thing, to come around to the truth.

  • We just got an email from Carla’s school. They are back in person as of Monday. Cue the relief. Cue the anxiety. I think I’ll go have some leftover medicinal pizza.
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Pandemic Randomosity: Turns Out This Is Mostly About Groceries and Masks Edition

First of all, I love you, Internet. Thank you for understanding. Secondly, turns out I am not yet in the mood to talk about cake. Instead, I have some randomosity.

  • Today was my twice-monthly grocery store run. I didn’t see anyone without a mask. Nothing seemed to be out of stock — plenty of pasta, beans, sauces, cheese, frozen pancakes. The green pepper situation was atrocious, which is disappointing to me because they are one of my favorite vegetables, but I don’t think that has anything to do with the pandemic. I am aware there is a graham cracker shortage, based on my previous grocery store run, but I have enough for my family’s limited graham cracker needs. Fortunately, pickles were well stocked. This is relevant to me because I just purchased the sixteenth and seventeenth jars of pickles since the pandemic has begun. Maybe this doesn’t seem THAT outrageous. Until you realize that the only person who has eaten ANY pickles at all is Carla. Since she still barely eats anything green – peas, occasionally green beans, very rarely broccoli – I am counting pickles as a vegetable.

Pickles

I have no idea why this picture is so off kilter. I tried to adjust it so it didn’t look I was standing sideways and no matter how I did it, it looked odd.

  • Probably I should buy THREE jars of pickles every two weeks. Carla would certainly eat them. But considering I am one of the few shoppers who seems to be filling her cart so full that the baggers automatically go and get me an extra cart when I pull up to the checkout, I think we are doing okay with two. Also, there has to be a limit to how many pickles a person can eat. We may not have reached it, but we are certainly VERY CLOSE.
  • I have stopped keeping the pickle jars. My husband helped me recycle a bunch of the jars I had saved and I have since been – woefully, regretfully – recycling each new jar as it is finished. The only thing that has helped me let go of these beautiful, beautiful jars is that they NEVER stop smelling like pickles. I have run them all through the dishwasher multiple times, I have cleaned them out with boiling vinegar and baking soda, I have handwashed them with Dawn, and they still reek of their former occupants.
  • Another pandemic food milestone we have reached – if you can count “sixteenth and seventeenth jars of pickles” as a milestone; frankly, I am counting each new jar as a milestone in itself – is that we have finally reached the end of our frozen chicken supply. Way back in February, when there were murmurings of needing two weeks of food, I started buying extra packages of chicken and ground beef so our freezer would have two weeks’ worth at any time. I have continued to buy one or two packages of chicken and ground beef each time I go to the store, freezing extras, so it took a long time to go through it all. But this week we ate the very last package of frozen chicken. Today, I bought enough chicken for the next two weeks, but not beyond that. (Again, when I’m already buying So Much Food, it feels really weird/greedy to be getting extras, even though there is no limit on number of packages anymore.)
  • Instead of a freezer full of meat, we have moved onto a freezer full of frozen fruit. While I have in general stopped drinking alcohol during the week (except on days when our governor holds a Big Press Conference), I am making Fun Cocktails on the weekends. Pina coladas, strawberry daiquiris, frozen vodka lemonade, frozen mango margaritas, frose. This afternoon I am making frozen palomas; I will report back.
  • Speaking of milestones: Carla finished first grade! Maybe I will say this with every grade she completes, but it feels like first grade is the End of the Small Child Years. Second grade seems so… BIG. Maybe because second grade is the first year of which I have real, distinct memories. I have little clips and memory shorts of kindergarten and first grade, but second grade I REMEMBER. I don’t know whether to hope the same for Carla; second grade for her, after all, is building up to be memorable in very unpleasant ways. Anyway: we got to say goodbye to her wonderful, wonderful teachers – to whom I am so grateful because they are kind and loving and did their absolute BEST to make remote learning worthwhile for the kids and less of a burden on the parents – and we got to say goodbye to endless hours of arguing over work Carla didn’t want to do and I didn’t know how to teach.
  • Carla’s teachers came over to say goodbye in person. It was so sweet. They sat in the grass on our lawn and chatted with Carla while I valiantly held back tears. The import of the moment didn’t really hit Carla – she loved seeing them, but didn’t get upset at all about saying goodbye which is unusual for her. Her biggest takeaway was that they arrived together in one car! Together! In the same car! TOGETHER! This pandemic is really screwing up our kids, isn’t it. We gave her teachers s’mores cupcakes and I wrote each of them a rambling and tearful and effusive letter about how much they meant to me and to Carla. (I also contributed to the class gift; why I feel compelled to stress this point, I don’t know.)

Smores cupcakes

  • We celebrated the end of remote learning (“end” — ha – we’ll see about that, won’t we) with a fancy tea party in our living room. Carla was so delighted by it that I wonder why I don’t do it more often. It takes very little effort and brings her so much joy.

Tea party

Fancy child’s tea set from my own childhood paired with my grandmother’s china. Makes mini PB&J sandwiches and chickpea salad and lemonade that much tastier. And once again I do not understand the camera angle here and why everything looks slightly wonky. Also, I do not iron tablecloths for Thanksgiving or Christmas so I definitely do not iron tablecloths for tea parties.

  • Summer has been okay so far. I was very, very sad that camp couldn’t happen this year. But Carla and I are making do. We are still Staying Home as much as possible – for us, things haven’t really changed since March/April, except that fewer people seem to be doing the same thing. I have been planning some lessons for us to work on each day – some are a bigger hit than others – and we have been doing a LOT of bike riding/walking and scootering/walking (I am the one doing the walking) and a LOT of screen using and a LOT of playing in our backyard and a LOT of collecting bugs. It is a quiet, sometimes lonely summer, but I think it is going better than I anticipated.

Sow bug 1

You cannot see them, but there are sow bugs in the little tupperware. We found them under a big rock in the backyard. Carla put the container in the planter so the sow bugs could have “some beautiful flower scenery.” She didn’t believe me when I suggested that the sow bugs probably preferred their own dark, moist under-rock scenery, but maybe they enjoyed the change.

  • It has been a quiet, sometimes lonely summer, but I think it is going better than I anticipated. In fact, some days are really good. Some days Carla loves the projects I have assigned her, and/or we spend most of the day outside making obstacle courses with chalk and running through the sprinkler, and/or we cuddle up on the couch and eat popcorn and watch movies old together (I’m talking original-Jumanji old, not Casablanca), and/or we have picnics and popsicles under the tree in our front yard, and/or make baked goods together. Some days, though, we have door slamming and very pointed signage.

Mom keep out sign

That, if you have not already guessed, is me.

  • This stage of the pandemic seems to be centered largely around acceptable risk. (I wrote “reasonable” but then erased it, because while I cannot see someone hosting a large, mask-free get-together as “reasonable,” I can see it as acceptable to that person.) I feel sort of a grim determination to stick to my own low level of risk-taking. The only not-my-home building I regularly enter (every two weeks) is the grocery store. I have been to Costco, wearing a mask, twice since February. I have been into Barnes and Noble once, wearing a mask, to get Carla her free birthday cupcake, and she and I went into an empty donut shop, wearing masks, to get a donut. I have also been into the post office two or three times, wearing a mask, to swiftly drop off my pre-paid packages and get the hell out of there. I have been to the doctor once, and then to the lab. I have also been briefly inside a couple of restaurants, to pick up takeout. And inside the gas station, twice, to refill our propane tank. All while wearing a mask. These very infrequent and short-term visits seem acceptable to me, although I fret about them before and after.
  • Other people so CLEARLY have a different, higher tolerance for risk. And there is such a wide range! From hunkering down at home and ordering everything to be delivered and then disinfecting every item, like a friend of mine continues to do, to going pretty much back to business as usual but with a mask, to completely denying that there is a pandemic at all. The gas station where I get propane for our grill, for instance, is some sort of local crossroads for anti-maskers. The first time I went in, I was the only person in the entire place wearing a mask. The second time, after our city made mask-wearing mandatory, only one person was without a mask. But ALL five of the staff had their masks down around their chins. (And the person who took my propane tank order could not understand me!!! While it is most likely that he was just hard of hearing, part of me wonders if he was doing it on purpose, to goad me into removing my mask. I held firm, repeating myself more loudly and slowly. Fortunately, the unmasked construction worker next to me helped me out by saying, “She wants to exchange her propane tank.” Phew.)
  • Carla and I have not been wearing masks when we go to local parks for bike rides. We are so rarely in the proximity of others, and even then, it’s for such a brief period. And we are outside, which scientists seem to agree makes it tougher to contract Covid19. So for me, it is an acceptable risk to leave our masks in the car. (Well, I carry one for each of us in my fanny pack just in case.) But… I still feel anxious about it. Also, when we encounter other walkers/bikers who ARE wearing masks, I feel guilty. “I wear masks too!” I want to assure them. “I’m not one of those people who thinks it’s ridiculous!” Instead, I try to give them as much clearance as possible, and to communicate with my smile that I am WITH them, not against them. But I wonder if, after they pass, they whisper amongst themselves or complain on their blogs about how so many people DON’T wear masks when out riding bikes/walking, what is WRONG with them?! And I don’t blame them. We all have our personal levels of acceptable risk and it’s hard not to feel weird when you encounter someone with a different risk threshold.
  • I have engaged in four social outings, three with the same family. One occasion, we all went on a bike ride with family friends. One occasion, I brought a bottle of champagne to my friend’s house for her birthday and we sat in her backyard on opposite ends of a table and put the bottle of bubbly in the center alongside a bottle of hand sanitizer. (I also brought my own glass.) On two occasions, I brought my husband and daughter along to that same friend’s house. These family friends are being VERY careful, and they are very close friends, and we’ve been outside each time. We sit at least six feet apart. We haven’t shared any meals (although I may be getting closer to being okay with doing so). We haven’t used their bathroom. It’s been very nice to get together with other adults. And I think Carla has loved playing with their kids.
  • Speaking of kids: we have had a couple of accidental playdates. With people we know; they just weren’t planned and I would not have agreed to them had we discussed them in the first place. But I have not been able to figure out how to reject a playdate once it’s sort of already in action. Like if someone shows up at your house to drop something off and then the kids see each other and are so delighted about the opportunity to hang out that you just don’t know how to disentangle yourself. (Especially because you are Staying at Home, so there are no reasonable excuses.) One of the families has a wildly different idea of acceptable risk than I do, so I have been trying really hard to prevent any more accidental (or planned) playdates from happening with them. It’s easier to decline when I am being specifically asked to do something. The thing is: kids are BAD at social distancing. No matter how many times I remind Carla, in advance and in the moment, she can’t seem to remember/understand the six-feet rule. I keep seesawing between wanting to tell her the playdate will end immediately if she can’t keep her distance… and not wanting to give her a complex. It’s so hard.
  • Also, I feel constantly judgmental. Saying that I have this very low-level of risk acceptance – and not doing the things that are above that threshold – just makes me seem like I am questioning your choices. And, okay, sometimes I AM judgmental; if you are the manager of a pizza place and you remove your mask to tell me how things are backed up because it is super hot in the restaurant and everyone has to wear masks at all times, I am going to judge you. (I am also going to feel sorry for you, because it must be super uncomfortable to be wearing a hot mask while working around super hot pizza ovens. But wearing a mask means WEARING the mask.) But usually I am NOT judging you and your choices. Carla has a friend whose parents seem much more relaxed about things – they are operating more in the vein of “social interaction trumps social distancing” and I GET IT. I do not think badly of them for engineering get-togethers for their kids, even though I am uncomfortable joining them. I am not judging them. I am just feeling grim. I wish I felt like I could take more risks. I wish I could be more sanguine about where we are with this pandemic. I wish I wasn’t so full of fear and despair.
  • I am avoiding writing anything about the upcoming school year. It is all horrible.
  • Oh here is something school-related that isn’t quite so awful. Well, okay, it is heartbreaking in its own way, but it’s PRACTICAL and we can DO SOMETHING about it. That is: Masks. Carla has been practicing wearing masks. (I have joined her so she doesn’t feel singled out.) (This makes it sound like her choice; I am FORCING her to practice wearing a mask.) We have been doing it roughly every day for a week or so now, increasing the duration by five minutes a day. It is going okay. I like that I can be there to note when her nose pops out so I can remind her that her nose has to be covered. And I like that I can see the masks in action.
  • To prepare for school, I have been trying to stock up on masks for her. I estimate she’ll need at least one for each day of the week (this is assuming she goes to school in person and for five days in a row — I am such an optimist! both about there being this option and about my comfort level in having her attend!), because I don’t want to wash masks more than once a week. And that she will also need extras because kids lose things. But it’s hard to know what the RIGHT mask is. Right now, she has five masks from Hanna Andersson, which are in cute, bright colors and seem well-made and have a little pocket for a filter. (I haven’t yet figured out filters.) She also has five masks from Old Navy which are also pretty cute, but are wider than the Hanna masks. They don’t have a pocket for a filter. I also got five of the Old Navy ones and I like them just fine. But they don’t fit Carla well at ALL, so I’m really glad we are practicing now so that we can find something that works. I also ordered two face masks from Guess (I had a gift card that has been in my wallet for nearly twenty years and I FINALLY used it to buy masks which was the perfect way to spend it), and the kids’ one is ENORMOUS, even after washing and drying. A friend of mine is sewing face masks for her family and offered to make a couple for Carla, which I gladly took her up on. (I ordered some curbside pickup fabric from Joann Fabric, and also provided my friend with an old, soft pillowcase for the lining.)

Kids masks

Kids’ masks: Hanna on the left, Old Navy on the right, Guess not pictured because it is unwearable.

  • The biggest problem with the kids’ masks is the ear loops. Way back at the beginning of the pandemic, I ordered a couple of masks from Etsy that had the ties that go around your head. Those are so much better for Carla – they just fit her face better – but she cannot tie the ties herself and I am certain her teachers will not want/be able to help her. But the ones with elastic loops that go over her ears… well, the loops are too long and keep coming off her ears. There was a video going around online that showed a way to adjust your mask, but that didn’t work for Carla’s masks. So I think I am going to order some ear loop adjusters from Amazon and see if those help. If not… I guess I will hope that my friend feels up to sewing ten masks for Carla. (Just kidding.)
  • To end on a truly random note, my favorite pandemic food (currently) is this vodka pasta that is attributed to Gigi Hadid for reasons I have declined to care about. It is SO delicious and decadent.

 

Okay, that’s enough babbling for today, Internet. What’s up with you?