Lauren B. Lentini

January was bleak. I was extremely tense for the first 20 days or so, for obvious reasons. Also, I had surgery. It was very minor, and successful, but it was my first time going under anesthesia. I remember them putting the mask to my face, then waking up in recovery. Then going home and sleeping a lot more.

Part of Jordan’s Christmas was a KiwiCo Koala Crate subscription, and in the photo he’s figuring out one of the crafts from the January box. Some of the stuff I think he’ll like better when he’s older, but there’s always something in each box he’s excited to play with, and he knows the box is for him as soon as it arrives.

February was a blur. It snowed. Jordan liked it. We spent a lot of time inside.

Jordan’s perch in the second photo is not quite as precarious as it looks. It was either this or I had to hold him and dinner would never be finished.

We spent a lot of time outside in March. (Yes, these photos are from March, despite the leaves.) The end of winter coinciding with the promise of vaccination gave me this feeling like the whole world was waking up and coming back to life. It was glorious.

Jordan also helped Dada build a new bookshelf. Notice how Dada has stacked the shelf pieces, and Jordan has helpfully added the cardboard pieces in the same fashion. If you zoom in, you can see that he’s also wearing his “Buildasaurus” PJs.

Finally, Jordan tested the strength of his aunties’ pool cover. It held, thank goodness! And he got to wear his cousin’s UConn PJs and eat strawberries afterwards, so it was all good.

April was eventful! Jerald and I commemorated the 15-year anniversary of combining our stuff by ordering a dumpster and disposing of a ton of said stuff.

On Easter, I was overjoyed that Jordan just barely fit into his seersucker suit. Also that we got to spend the day with some of our vaccinated family members.

Then we got vaccinated! Then we went on vacation! Then we finished getting vaccinated. (Yeah, we cheated. But this was already planned as a socially distanced trip, and we played it as safe as possible.)

We’re fully vaccinated! It’s a brave new world!

Jordan looks like a catalog model posing on the playground, and my mom got to come visit! There’s aren’t enough exclamation points in the world!!!

And that brings us to June. Jordan was a hit at his cousins’ dance recital, just one of many completely normal events that for so long seemed like they might never happen again.

Every time the audience stopped applauding, he would shout “Yay!” in the silent gymnasium and everyone would laugh. The music was loud enough to drown out most of his talking, though. He lasted for almost a whole hour of the 90-minute performance (which was only slightly less time than the rest of the boys from our group).

Jordan has also been getting more comfortable in the pool, but I don’t really want to provide photographic evidence of that because Jerald and I are in pretty much all of the pictures looking positively translucent.