- My son is nine months old and therefore not eligible to receive the COVID vaccine.
- We pulled him from daycare in the days before the holidays out of fear that he would contract the disease.
- He has been home now for more than three weeks, which is the longest time we have been together since he was born.
My second dose of Pfizer was only two weeks away when my son was born. My wife and me received boosters in early fall. We kept our faces hidden. Omicron then arrived in our Brooklyn neighborhood.
Restaurants and bars shut down almost overnight as they wait for test results or staff to be available. The lines at testing sites stretched around entire blocks. While we had been cautious, our greatest vulnerability was the baby’s daycare.
We decided to keep the baby home for the week leading up to Christmas. We were unable to avoid the virus that we had been trying so hard to avoid until now. After a positive test, our neighbor was able to isolate the virus. The husband of the bar owner became sick and the bar closed.
My in-laws from Florida offered to help. The daycare contacted us the second day of my return to inform us that a parent had come back positive.
Our decision had allowed us to escape exposure.
We fled the city because of the increasing numbers
Brooklyn continues to see an increase in positivity. Our neighborhood was home to some of the highest rates within the city. Although the sirens were back, there was a general calm. The hot summer party crowds of hot vax had vanished. We ran to the Cape Cod summer cottage of my parents to celebrate the New Years in isolation.
Friends started reporting cases over the holiday week. One family reported their school-aged child, who was vaccinated, brought it home. We know of a mother who tweeted that her toddler had contracted it even though she didn’t attend daycare. It was everywhere.
We stayed in the cottage. We skipped the first day of daycare so that sickness could not develop before we returned. Comparable to our Brooklyn apartment the cottage had ample space for the baby and allowed him to walk more safely.
Daycare received a Tuesday message from the parent who had just been diagnosed with cancer.
Our apartment felt safer that daycare
Our Brooklyn apartment was filled with many other ways that a toddler could injure themselves: bookcases full of books, Metro Shelving containing heavy Le Creuset pots and a metal staircase to the bedrooms. We decided that chasing our baby around to avoid harm was better than getting COVID from his classmates so we brought him back.
We were close to breaking point. The baby was out of daycare for nearly three weeks. Since his birth, we hadn’t had this much time with him.
While I was on the ground beside the baby, I used my phone to work. He enjoyed putting foreign objects in the baby’s mouth, and he was able to pass his time. We swapped roles and my wife sent him emails while balancing on her knees. We discussed when we would send he back.
Another parent was positive.
The baby was napping on my arm as I wrote on my smartphone He snorted, and his chest was heaving upward and downward. It was idyllic. It was a cherished memory between fathers, but we are now in the middle a pandemic. Halfway through writing the draft, daycare sent an email: A teacher in his classroom had passed positive.
We want to send him back to daycare.
The hardest two weeks were the ones following his birth. Each month grew easier — he slept through 4 am feedings, the unexplained crying faded, and we found equilibrium in the daily rhythm.
It feels like we are back at the beginning, keeping him away from daycare, but we can’t ignore our instincts to keep him safe and healthy.