It's In You To Give

Here is a blog post I created using Gemini:

The holiday season is famously painted as picture-perfect: serene snowfalls, perfectly wrapped gifts, and family dinners where no one argues. But we all know the reality is often chaotic—tangled lights, last-minute shopping panic, and way more food than our stomachs can handle.

Giving back should be the same. We often think of charity as a solemn, graceful act. But sometimes, doing the right thing is a comedy of errors.

I learned this firsthand when I gave blood for the first time last month.

It started with a burst of courage. Actually, it started with a friend’s idea last year. The first reality of giving is that not everyone can do it. If you have low hemoglobin, they know right away and will show you to the door. Don't let the snack cart hit you on the way out. My friend couldn't make it, so I went alone.

I was nervous. At no point during the process did anyone ask me if I was sure I wanted to do this. They just got to work. After the donation, I waited the obligatory 15 minutes, enjoying some snacks and impressed with myself for surviving.

I felt ready to leave. I couldn't stay there forever! I started to feel tired. Was I ready to drive myself home to nap? One quick stop to the bathroom and I would be sure, but when I saw the large piece of tape wrapped around my elbow in my reflection in the mirror, I suddenly felt woozy.

I went back to the room to tell them that I was feeling "a bit spinny" and that was going to wait a little longer. (Full disclosure: I really wanted to go back for the little snack pack of Oreo cookies I saw on my way out and wanted just to grab them "to go.")

But, as soon as I stepped back into the room, the receptionist panicked and called for help. I was asked if I was warm. I was put on a stretcher. Then, in a twist of logic only found in panic, I was told to take my sweater off to cool down—which meant I had to stand up again, remove my iPod headphones creating a massive wire kerfuffle, leaving my purse and snacks in the waiting area as they wheeled me behind a makeshift wall for "privacy." It felt like everyone in the auditorium was looking at me, including the snack lady!

Ironically, they realized I had laid down the wrong way on the stretcher. They couldn't move it until they spun the wheels around—a full 360 degrees. For someone who reported being dizzy, why did I feel like I was being unnecessarily assisted by The Three Stooges?

It was embarrassing. The "First Time Donor" sticker was still back at my sweater and I felt like such a noob at this mobile clinic. I wanted to rest as bright overhead florescent lights shone into my soul, making me regret the desire for those Oreos, but they told me that I couldn't close my eyes. That I had to stay awake. I guess, they wouldn't know if I fainted if I closed my eyes. They took my temperature and brought me some juice boxes. They figured that I hadn't had enough to eat before I came there that day.

I left that clinic ready to call Canadian Blood Services to complain about how I was treated. I was embarrassed, angry, and upset. But then I showed my son the puncture mark and told him that I gave blood today and he was impressed. He didn't understand why I needed a nap, but he was proud of his momma that day.

The resentment still bubbled inside of me and I struggled to visualize myself ever giving blood again. However, when I got a text the very next day, telling me that my donation had gone to save somebody's life, those feelings suddenly evaporated. I felt like a superhero. Like a woman not to be messed with. Take that, snack lady! If I knew that all I had to do was shoot blood out of my arm for 10 minutes to feel like a God, I would do it every day!

It made the spinning stretcher, the headphone tangle, and the wooziness worth it. All mistakes were forgiven.

About an hour later, my brain kicked in and I remembered the science. It takes at least a week for blood to be usable. They have to test for HIV, Hepatitis, and STDs. They separate the plasma from the red blood cells, so you are actually donating much less than the half a litre they pull out of you. They send the plasma to one place and the red blood cells somewhere else. That takes some time.

I realized the text was likely automated. Would my recipient ever know that they received blood from someone who had to go through a "Three Stooges" episode to give it?

Furthermore, I realized that a transfusion usually takes about 3 units of pure red blood cells. That would make my blood only 33% of their new blood. I am not 100% their savior. That wouldn't even be enough to make them start acting like me (which is probably for the best).

With the flip of the calendar right around the corner, I wanted to compare the pressure of giving blood to the pressure of giving gifts during the holiday season. We turn into little balls of Stressmas over the holidays. We want to give the perfect gift that solves all our loved ones' problems. We want to have the perfect ambiance. Now that my son is losing faith in the bearded man, there is extra pressure on me to make the spirit of the season special. We are still going to do Elf on the Shelf, but he will be helping me with it this year and I hope he will finally see how much work went into it, all these years.

But in reality? We are just 33% of this experience. Especially, in my family, where there are just the three of us.

 * We are one contribor to the stack of presents under the tree.

 * We are one voice who belts out Christmas carols in the car.

 * We are one baker of gingerbread cookies (or any other tradion you choose to carry out each year).

Giving blood, like giving holiday gifts, doesn't have to be a graceful, cinematic moment. It can be messy. You might feel woozy. You might get tangled in your headphones. You might only be a fraction of what that person needs.

But that 33%? It keeps people going.

It’s in you to give—even if you’re nervous, even if you’re clumsy, and even if you’re just doing it for the Oreos.

This season, don't worry about being perfect. Just worry about showing up. (And maybe keep your sweater off until you're sure you aren't going to faint).

Ready to be someone's 33%? As they say, donate today!

https://www.blood.ca/en

Much Ado About A Bully

Hello again! Here goes on my annual post. Perhaps I could increase my frequency by posting more than two blogs a year, for once. It is hard to think of meaningful topics that are relatable for most people.

I am currently encountering a topic that is close to my heart: bullying. Bullying has been around since the dawn of time. From the first apes that grew a conscience and created functional tools (and probably bullied the dumber apes) to slavery and Jesus times, we can see notable cases of bulling throughout history.

However, were they ever recorded as bullying incidents? That's what I want to explore here. At what point do we give up on trying to get bullying recognized? Schools have promoted a zero tolerance bullying policy for years. Does that mean that it all of a sudden doesn't exist? When I looked up my son's school's bulling policy on their website, it didn't exist. If there is no process to deal with bullies, because bulling doesn't exist, then if anyone was to report bullying, it would make sense that nothing would get done about it, right? Because, it doesn't exist...

Well, I am sure that any living parent can chime in now to let me know that bullying is indeed alive and well. In that case, my question is as follows: What do we do about it? Here's what I did. You can count my mistakes like a kill count from the Hellraiser movies.

First, I asked the bus driver to report the bullying that had then only been happening for 3 days, that we knew of. Okay, perhaps I should back up here...it will be easier to describe the events if I use fake names for the boys involved: R, DE, and D. Now, DE had been blocking R from getting off the bus every day. We don't know why. We just know that we wanted it to stop. Luckily, R was not too shaken by the bullying experience because he knew this younger kid and had seen him every school day for the past 5ish years. Not a threat, just an annoyance.

We waited for the next week to start. The bullying continued. Was it reported? What was the conclusion? The bus driver suggested that R stand up and get into the aisle before the bus stops so that the kids can't prevent him from getting off the bus. It seems that the senior kids had come together to join DE in his quest to make R the last kid off the bus. What the bus driver had suggested was not a safe solution.

When the bus driver claimed that she reported the incident, I asked if she knew the boys names. She did not! I provided one name but was not aware of the other. It turned out that the instigating bully, D, shared the same bus seat as R! The next day, I had to ask the bus driver for a seat reassignment. She said that would take a few days.

Fast forward to Day 5 of being bullied. The bus driver had a talk with DE and D. D claimed that it was R who started the bad behavior on the bus by tripping kids. D took no shame in letting R know on the bus that afternoon that the bus driver would be speaking to him about his bad behavior in tripping kids on the bus.

Here was my first mistake: I walked over to DE's house to talk to his mom. This whole situation was ridiculous, right? If her boy could just stop taunting my boy, all of this could be long forgotten and water under the bridge. Or, so I thought.

Boy, was I wrong. She took no responsibility for her son's behavior and put all the blame on R, who was apparently pushing kids on the bus weeks prior. And it wasn't just DE claiming this. It was lots of kids, all having the same testimony, so it had to be true, right? Suddenly, all the confidence and optimism I had walking over to DE's house in my business casual outfit and high heels diminished to me returning home with my tail between my legs.

I decided then, that resolving bullying through the parents is a futile attempt at seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. My only saving grace: I did muster up the words to confess that I had reported the bulling incident to the school. Guess what? She works at the school! So, ha! However, I ended the conversation by telling her that I would have a conversation with R.

When I got home and told R what DE's mom had said, he was in tears. He said, "Why are they saying these horrible things about me?" He said that maybe he did trip someone, once, and by accident. Suddenly, I was taken back to my own school days of being bullied by the popular girls for weeks on end. The teacher pretended that it wasn't happening and I had no one in my corner. The trauma of being treated less than. The anxiety of having to go to school when you know you'll be be taunted all day. And the PTSD that I didn't realize I had, until now...

What more can I say? As I continued to push with the school to record this incident and inquired with the bus driver about how to resolve this already, I realized that I was out of my depth on understanding who is actually going to fix this problem of ours. When I say ours, I mean R's and mine. Similar to how the bullying went for me some 30 odd years ago, you start to see very quickly that no one else cares. Nothing has changed since I was a kid. A bullying situation is for you and your family to muddle through. Everyone just looks the other way. No matter how much you want to get on that bus and tell that bully to stop it, you can't. Your hands are tied.

Of course, after the bus driver spoke with both boys, D, started verbally taunting R at school. The more you push, the worse it can become. Is there a handbook on bullying? Luckily, DE seemed to stop and that meant that the gang of students he had recruited on the bus also lost interest in banding together to stop R from getting off the bus. I have gone through so many emotions over these past weeks of trying to advocate for my son. I wanted to stand and fight for injustice. I wanted retribution. I wanted an apology.

It was not about making it stop as much as it was about making sure that it never happens again. R was really not that bothered by it, as he claimed. However, I couldn't ignore the fact that someone wanted to be mean to my baby. He doesn't have siblings to stand up for him. He's all on his own, except for his friends in the classroom. That is the only thing that gave him confidence through this whole experience. He has friends at school and he didn't "need" these kids on the bus - to like him, be nice to him, or even to care about him. To me, that's not right. If bus parents and kids can't watch out for each other on the streets, what is the point of living in a neighborhood?

We might as well move out to a farm, swear off all neighbors, and hope that our only danger is being hit by a speeding truck on the highway (Pet Semetary reference).

Incident still ongoing, I figured I would write about it while the feelings were fresh. If you have a bullying story, share it. Reduce the stigma by calling out all bullies. This is the only way that we can stand up to them. By naming them. Speaking of which, I hope that I haven't given away any names here, with my details. The bus stop will never be the same for me again. It will always be a source of anxiety. Parents looking at me, knowing that I snitched on their son. What else could I have done? If I don't stand up for my child, who will?

This was not a much ado about nothing experience, if you ask my opinion. If you ask my son, he will tell you that it was nothing. He is stronger than me. I know that now. Unfortunately, bullying still exists and it always will, until we can find a way to take away their power. Speak up for those being bullied. Please.  There are more good guys in this world than bad ones. I still wanna believe that there is good in this world, but maybe it is time for me to take off my rose-colored glasses.

The Meaning of Christmas

The holiday season stirs up a full spectrum of emotions. It's supposed to be a time of joy and peace, like what we wish for others in our Christmas cards. But, let's be real. It can bring about a healthy dose of stress. In fact, I have heard this time of year aptly named "Stressmas" as a result of crazier traffic on the roads, longer lineups at checkouts, and snooty customers grabbing the last sweater in your size without even a glimmer of guilt in their eyes! Where is the spirit of the season? On top of that, you have the never-ending-to-do lists, kids getting restless at home (does anyone really want to build a snowman?), and family visits where you are subject to criticism and judgement for not having an appropriate centrepiece and serving dry turkey.

Is there any way to not get frazzled and make this time of year the hap-happiest season of all?! Some would say that it is the holiday where everything has to be perfect. We put in so much effort to keep the magic alive. If you have kids, you are playing off of their energy and excitement to see Santa or the Elf (for 24 days in a row!). But, what is this season really all about? Aside from Linus Van Pelt's touching quote of scripture, "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:11), I often find myself searching for more meaningful answer to this question. I look forward to activities to help me to get into the "spirit." But, after all is said and done, I often feel that it was not enough. Not a feeling of longing or wanting more, but a desire to do it right and know that there was a good balance of holiday festivities and family traditions. Because, after the expectations of Christmas are met and the presents are all opened, should you feel exhausted and unfulfilled? I just feel like going for a long nap - wake me by March 17th! Is there anyone out there who has pulled off a perfect Christmas and not felt drained from all the effort you had to put on to get it? I'm just saying that maybe there is also joy in just half-assing it!

When we remember what Christmas was like, as children, what memories come to mind? I remember sitting in the hallway at school while my Grade 6 teacher played the piano and all the classes sang carols. I feel like my son's favorite memory might be Elf on the Shelf. But, what can we do for our kids that have the most impact yet take the least amount of work? Because, in the end, we just don't have enough time in the day to make Christmas perfect anymore.

I can accept the things that I can't control, like snow for Christmas. However, mom guilt kicks in when a child complains that they are not having a very good Christmas. Besides watching Christmas movies (in my son's case, Christmas horror!) and baking cookies, what else can we do to make this time of year special and magical, the way it was when we were kids? Happiness is fleeting. We may experience contentment during a moment of sipping a hot cocoa at an ice rink and then fear or discomfort when the health, safety, or enjoyment of our children take priority over our own emotions.

Here's my point: take joy as it comes. Maybe peace is a figment of our imaginations, but at least we can remember to experience the small, magical opportunities of the season. Without recognizing that our kids will never be this young again, or perhaps, even this innocent again, we are missing the point. We can give them the opportunities for memories but we can't make them remember this moment! But, we can rememeber...and hopefully, remind them of the time that Santa asked if you like to read.

Christmas is a special time and this holiday is about showing our love. As I have told my son, it is a time for family, sharing, and caring. We spend time with our family because we love them. As the new year approaches, take the time to appreciate all that you've done to make magical memories for others. All the small and seemingly insignificant moments in your past have led you to right here. This moment is yours to keep. It is yours to treasure. Embrace it and don't forget to store it in your memory bank. Merry Christmas 🎄!

Are You A Good Parent?

The idea of this post has been bouncing around in my head for a few weeks now. I wasn't sure if the title could be overlayed as a Part 2 to the different personality types out there. The emotions experienced during the week of the incident were already high due to a different and unrelated event so I could be blowing things out if proportion (again). Here goes...it seems that when you ask a woman if she has children, they take offence when the answer is no. It is as if you just asked them a question that violates their human rights. This situation happened with my dentist and I am sure that it was some sort of miscommunication from the last time I had visited her. Apparently, donning a mask also blocks hearing, as this isn't the first time that a conversation with a healthcare worker seemed strained. Perhaps reading lips is more important in our daily lives than we realize. What happened in this particular conversation is that I remember asking which area the dentist lived in, the last time that I saw her. In the time between visits, I must have imagined her living in that area with her family. At this visit, I continued that conversation by asking which school her kids went to.

She responded by asking me to repeat myself because I don't think she could believe her ears. She said that she didn't have kids and that she still travels back to Toronto to see her parents every weekend. This completely changed my perception of who I thought she was. Was she even married or in a committed relationship? How far off was I from the possibility that she could have kids? I was so dumfounded that I refrained from asking any further personal questions for the remainder of my visit.

This brings me to the question of whether or not we should be asking women if they have kids. Many seem to become defensive when they have decided that they will not bear children. It is as if someone will try to convince them otherwise and they get their defenses up, ready to fight for their right to not have kids. My mistake with the dentist was to assume that she had moved here with a family, but I suppose it was none of my business.

In the future, I will treat this question as sensitive as, "What's your ethnic background? or "What religion are you?" Asking any question regarding race, ancestry, age, creed, disability, citizenship, religion, family, marital status, sexual orientation, sex/pregnancy, income, gender identity, or record of offences in a social setting violates the Human Rights Code. I now realize that asking about family status is a sensitive topic. Yet, how are we to get to know our community better if we can't ask questions relating to any of these subjects? Where does that leave us on topics for appropriate conversation? Back to the weather...

This brings me to the title of this blog: Are You A Good Parent? When we ask people questions that might make them feel uncomfortable, we teach our kids that it is okay to ask these types of questions. I know that kids don't need a lesson on how to become more blunt! However, if we can find topics that don't relate to someone's appearance, personality, age, and now family (!), we can truly alter the art of our conversation where every interaction sparks new ideas and topics, independent of what your kid said at school that day.

Additionally, for women who cannot bear children, bringing up this topic can cause immense insecurity and high emotion. It is a deeply personal question, if you stop to think about it. When other women only want to speak about their kids and how their lives revolve around them, this can quickly become a sore spot for women who have received the diagnosis of infertility. From a woman's perspective, we should build up other women, fertile or not. I vow to never again assume that a woman has kids. Although, where I live, there is a 99% chance that they do. It is imperative that we become more sensitive to the types of conversations that we are having with the people around us, in the likely case where our conversations tend to keep gravitating back towards our kids' lives.

Using my friendly neighborhood AI, I asked what it takes to become a good parent. The answer was obvious:

1) Be loving and affectionate while still providing parental guidance.

2) Be a skillful communicator. Listen to your child and communicate with them effecitvely.

3) Be able to manage stress. 

It is quite possible that women who don't want to have kids have already done this research (without an AI, of course) and have realized that they cannot do these 3 things with a small human that has exited their body. Let's hope that they know something about themselves that we don't because I can't imagine my life without my little human being a big part of it. However, for their sake and for the sake of living in a post-COVID, high anxiety world, let's refrain from using this line of questioning with every person that we meet. Treat the person as if you didn't notice that they were Black, Indian or Chinese and childless...you will become a better parent for it!

On Valentine's Day

Good evening,

Tonight, we will be learning how to cut out a heart and serve it on a platter. No, wait. Why do body parts always have to be served on platters? Let's serve this one on a card. Yes, that's it! Carve out your heart and serve it on a card. That's better. More functional, too!

First, you will need a pencil, scissors, a ruler, glue, and two pieces of papers cut into quadrangles. I'll give you some time to go collect those things. Maybe a tissue as well, because you know - it is a heart!

With the two quadrangles, one will be your card and the other will be your heart. You decide on the colours. Here's an idea: the card can be blue and the heart can be pink. Just make sure that the card is a bigger quadrangle than the heart quadrangle. Fold the card quadrangle in half, lengthwise.

Now for the hard part: open-heart surgery...here we go! Take the heart quadrangle and fold it in half. Cut out half a heart. Do this 4 times. This means 4 different quadrangle-shaped pieces of paper, not 4 hearts cut out on the same paper into tiny little pieces.

Got it? Ok, with your 4 hearts, still folded in half, take one and measure. Yup, that's what the ruler is for. However, the YouTube video would not zoom in to show the very detailed measurements. Therefore, I will take a different angle on the locations of the heart measuring. Imagine that a heart has 4 chambers. If the top chamber has an odd name like perhaps an atrium, then let's call the bottom half of the heart a ventricle. 

Now we want to just make a tick on the right atrium and right ventricle. Somewhere in the middle of each chamber would be great, but the tick goes at the edge of the heart.

There should be 4 ticks in total. Imagine that the centre of the folded heart is the left atrium and ventricle and mark accordingly. Now for the moment of truth: can this art project be completed without visual aids or is that the whole fun of this exercise? To get different results!

The final step is the gluing. According to the video, you just need a slit of glue on each of these 4 tick marks. I would call it the 4 corners of the heart if it wasn't folded. Once the slivers of glue have been added to one folded heart, attach the back of a second folded heart on top and press. Repeat. I'll repeat, in case the last step wasn't clear. Add the thinnest later of glue at the 4 points marked on the 2nd heart you cut out and press the back of the 3rd heart against it. Repeat once more. In the video, it seemed like there was a left and right heart, but I don't think it matters. As long as you can attach all 4 hearts together, at these 4 points, back-to-back, the effect should work.

The final, final step: mark 4 more ticks on your final heart, front and back, and glue to the inside of your card. If you have instant glue, like in the video, the pop-out heart will look amazing upon opening the card.

However, if you don't want to undo the last hour of your hard work, you can carefully double-check that you did not miss any glue at the 4 corners, add any more specks of glue that you think you might need, and let it dry overnight.

I am sure that there are many variations that can be done for this design. Different colours, sizes, or shapes, but the big red pop-out heart-in-card Valentine's gift just seems classic!

I hope you have a romantic evening planned with your loved ones. If anything, it will be fun to see this 4-chambered heart pop out of someone's chest, er, I mean card...make it one to remember and maybe we will get an early winter...

While I'm at it, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Happy Hanukkah and Kwanza, Martin Luther King Day, and Rosh Hashana. Oh, and Happy Groundhog Day.

References: https://youtu.be/vItZ24Pheu8

A Few Good Years

It is halfway through summer vacation, and while I worked from home last year as well, this summer felt more urgent in terms of spending some quality time with my 7-year old son. This week, he finally figured out the physics of riding his bike and can confidently balance without needing mommy or daddy to hold him up anymore. Along with that, and the fact that he rode his first double loop de loop roller coaster this summer, he really is growing up so fast. He wakes up and reads for hours. He can make his own breakfast, and he's not afraid to play in the basement alone...

This brings me to my point. With every passing year, he becomes more independent, responsible, and mature. This is something that any parent would be proud of, of course. It just makes me wonder, how long until he really doesn't need us anymore? Another 10 years, maybe? There are those who say that a kid will always needs their parents. If I look back at my own childhood, my parents were always there to help with homework, projects, and to drive me to school. Then, as an adult, they helped me move into my campus dorm room, year in and year out. I know that there will be many memories to make with my son in the years to come.

What I am afraid of, is the evolution of the relationship. When he was born, he needed us. He didn't know anything else. Because we were constantly adapting to his next life stage, it felt like he grew up too fast. Before we knew it, he was talking and walking. But then, the personality showed up...

Perhaps this is my real concern. At 3, he was a great listener, except when it came to nap time. As soon as school started, the powers of influence changed from listening to what your parents say to listening to what your teachers and friends are telling you. I was warned of this change. As much as you want to keep your child sheltered from learning inappropriate behaviours, there is not much a parent can do prevent a child from picking up less than desirable habits.

Anyway, I digress. The personality that my son has developed seems to be the dictionary definition of the Scorpio: loyal, smart, and stands by his beliefs. He is also argumentative. As we can deduce from my first paragraph, he is brave, but can be sensitive. If he gets discouraged, it takes a long time to convince him to 'Try, try again". Knowing all this, I am not sure how I feel about entering the next stage of his development.

While he is young, he is still holding onto at least 50% of his innocence. He ask us questions like he is starving for information, and he still calls us mommy and daddy, which is cute but won't last long, as he gets peer pressured by his new friends in the fall.

In conclusion, I am holding onto the summer of 2022 as the year of innocence. He will never be this young again and I don't want to lose a second of it. It won't be long before he becomes a moody pre-teen (he is already showing signs of that!) and talking to your mom becomes uncool. Three weeks left. Here we go...!

To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate, That is The Question...

You know the part in the movie where you realize that the hero is going to die? Well, that's how I feel after 2 years of fighting this war against coronavirus. Ok, maybe I'm not gonna die, but...I definitely feel defeated! Movies like Braveheart, Looper, and Ghost give us hope that if we read the signs, do what we think is right, and follow the advice of the experts, we might get a second chance at a new life. Unfortunately, like the main characters in these films, we've tried everything that we could and, now - all we can do is wait for our inevitable ailment... 

"Canadians are being urged to ditch certain types of masks in favour of ones experts say will provide more protection against the new, rapidly spreading Omicron variant." - Global News

"Currently, it is unknown how efficiently the Omicron variant can spread from person to person. The replacement of Delta by Omicron as the predominant variant in South Africa raises concerns that the Omicron variant may be more transmissible than Delta, but due to the low number of cases in South Africa when Omicron emerged, it is unclear if this variant is more transmissible than the Delta variant. Further, the relatively small number of cases documented to date makes it difficult to estimate transmissibility. Analysis of the changes in the spike protein indicate that the Omicron variant is likely to have increased transmission compared to the Delta." - Science Brief: Omicron Variant.

"Omicron COVID variant 105% more transmissible than Delta, French scientists find", as of Jan 7, 2022. So, here we go again...on March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was delcared a global pandemic. As of January 7, 2022 a total of 2,437,823 confirmed cases caused by the novel Coronavirus COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) and 30,584 deaths were reported in Canada. Worldwide, 5.48 million have died. Today, there are almost 14k new cases of COVID-19 in Ontario and there is no evidence that the round of vaccines we received last year is working against this new variant.

So, what we do know is that completing a primary series of two-dose vaccine is preventing death and hopsitalizations. And, let's be honest, the government doesn't really care about our personal health or well-being. They just want to make sure that we keep the hospitals from becoming overcrowded. I guess that means, we all need to get vaccinated, ages 5 and older.  

According to the Government of Ontario website, SARS-COV-2 epidemiology in children aged 5–11 years showed that children are at least as likely to be infected with SARS-CoV-2 as adults

– Over 1.9 million reported cases

– Infections in children less likely to be reported as cases than infections in adults

Also, children 5-11 years of age are at risk of severe illness from COVID-19

– >8,300 COVID-19 related hospitalizations as of mid-October

– Cumulative hospitalization rate is similar to pre-pandemic influenza seasons

– Severity comparable among children hospitalized with influenza and COVID-19, with approximately 1/3 of children 5–11 years requiring ICU admission

– Post-COVID conditions have been reported in children

And finally, secondary transmission from young school-aged children occurs in household and school settings.

There we go. The writing is on the wall. I guess I'd better call my local doctor to book a shot for my son. I just wish I could look 20 years into his future and know if my decision for his life was going to cause him long-term side effects. There is a side-effect reporting website provided by the US government (VAERS), but it just too hard to navigate! Once these vaccines started to roll out, everyone either jumped onto the vaxxing or antivaxxing side of the tracks. It seems to all be going too fast and decisions are being made haphazardly. When we see statements from government officials changing by the day, who are we to trust? What are we to do to keep ourselves safe? How can I trust mother's intuition when doctors are telling me to do the opposite?

Can we just make domes to keep ourselves quarantined for the next 4 months? Patent-pending copyrighted idea!! I came up with this during final exams in my first year at Waterloo...but, back to the isolation in progress: what happened to the waves, where we just had to "ride it out" to see the other side of the rainbow? Last week, the premier told us to expect a tsunami of new cases. Who survives a tsunami?!

Side note: I just came across this OACAS website: Max The Vax. Perhaps this will be the answer to all my questions!

To my readers...stay safe in 2022 and let me know if you would vaccinate your kid without knowing what was in the mix. I'm hoping to stay in the house now until 2025...