covid diary: day 132

July sky

Today, a baking failure for Henry: he tried to make brownies using chocolate chips (because he said the first batch he made was too bitter), only he forgot to melt the chocolate before mixing it in, so he ended up with ... almost like chocolate chip cookie bars. They tasted fine, but Max professed to be too scared to try them, so he missed out. Sucker. As for Henry, I explained that failures really are learning experiences, especially in baking, and that sometimes you end up making delicious discoveries that way. I'm not sure he bought it, even though it's true.

In other news, I heard from the athletic director at school that they're currently reevaluating whether to let kids do sports if they choose the virtual option for school. We should know in the next day or two, and then we'll be able to make our final decision for the first nine weeks. And listen, I know how much stress I am under as a parent with this. I cannot imagine how much stress this all must be for the school administrators and teachers, and yet everyone I've talked to has been friendly and considerate. To be fair, I think those are baked-in traits for Mr. D (the AD). He has always been very friendly and helpful every time I've interacted with him, and I remember way back to Liam's first summer of tennis when he was 8, and Mr. D made a point even then of remembering Liam's name and greeting him every time we ran into him.

We have three days left to decide about school.

Mo Willems might be the finest living children's
book writer, and he seems like a fine human being
too. P.S. Knuffle Bunny makes me cry every time.

I know in the grand scheme of unidentified federal agents pulling people off the streets of Portland and shoving them into unmarked vehicles (coming to you soon, Chicago!), this isn't a big deal. But to me, it's a lot.

Nationwide cases: 3,858,686. Deaths: 141,426.