[sterlingice]

You know who also had their 5th birthday yesterday? My kid.

My parents had thrown out the idea of going up to their house (they live on the other side of Houston, about an hour away) and doing stuff outside. We had lukewarmly thrown out the same. But we never really came up with a plan that worked on a 95 degree day with limited access to restrooms. We saw them a couple of weeks ago, socially distanced, on the beach so everyone's still pretty happy with that. And we'll probably do it again in another couple of weeks. So, instead, we were on a video chat with Facebook messenger with them a couple of different times yesterday - while we were working on the cake, doing candles/cake, and presents. We talked to a couple of sets of neighbors from across the street and one brought us handwritten cards from their kids but we were always a few feet away, just to be safe.

This sucks. It really does. But, the situation just is a bad situation and we're trying to make the most of it while limiting our risk. The sort of stuff you describe above is why I can't, in good conscience, put our kid in Kindergarten in a couple of weeks. One, they're kids, and, two, I know there are tons of people who aren't taking this seriously and I don't want to pay for their callousness. I really want him there, not for the academics (honestly, at his age, we might do a better job as he'll get more one-on-one time with us) but for the social situation and just to give us a break. But it's just not going to happen.

SI