These are weird times, and sometimes I wish I could’ve raised my kids under different circumstances. Don’t get me wrong. The kids are healthy and happy, but I’m observing behavior and patterns, especially in my toddler son, that are certainly not normal.
The other day I was sitting on the couch, zoned out a little. My son was sitting on the floor, playing with his Duplo. He’s got a bunch of figures, and a couple of cars. So I’m just looking at him, observing, as he’s playing with his stuff. He’s two year and four months, and he’s starting to make shit up, starting to have some form of imagination. Getting a little creative. It’s pretty cool to see how he’s pretending to drive around in a truck, and he pretends to pick up garbage bins. That’s how it often goes.
This time, though, he’s taking the driver out of the car and pretends to walk towards a house. “Man goes to get test,” he says, followed a couple of seconds later by a “but test negative.” I’m looking at him a bit perplexed. He looks back. “Man not sick, Papa.”
It’s probably harmless, but I can’t help but think it must somehow affect him at this age already. We have had to get official tests six times in a month or so. He’s getting antigen test swabs three times a week. This god-damned pandemic. It’s just so present in his young life already. I can deal with this whole situation on a personal level, but seeing my kid play pandemic scenarios, I get somewhat sad…
Robin Heinen 