Yesterday after school the kids got their second round of vaccine shots. Small sigh of relief in the house.

There was nary a flinch, and few words of fear or discomfort. They took their shots knowing the promise of protection, and the related opportunity to visit friends and places. The biggest is the timing that allows visiting grandmas in a couple weeks, which is right around Christmas. They're really in it for the grandma part, which is awesome.

After the shots, there's a period of observation, of course. So while we sat waiting for our time to pass, we filled out some "I got my vaccine because" cards. We looked at some on the wall, and there were lots of "health of self or others," a bunch of "kill the virus," and many "see someone" notes. The big little put "to see grandma" on hers. The little little put "I'm not scared" on his. After the observation and more snaps at the photo banner, we fetched the kids some favorite fast-food and settled in for a little mid-week movie watching.

We had talks about how there's still two weeks for the vaccine to reach effectiveness. And how this doesn't mean we can take off our masks everywhere, but how it does allow us to be a little more open in bigger groups of vaccinated people. We also talked some about the variants, like the still-crushing Delta, and the new concerning Omicron. And we had a little chat about the weirdness of the Greek alphabet...but that interest waned really fast when dad started talking about math, and how he only really knows a handful of the letters, and their use in math...

A nice milestone day in our household. As we've learned from polio and small pox and a few other things, this is how we can "beat" this thing. It might never be eradicated, as we've done with polio, but maybe is simply reduced, as with the flu. While I'm not sure any of those diseases is completely gone, and the control we have over them is mostly a safe reduction in the severity when afflicted, either of those is preferable to the impact and hospitalization that results simply from breathing at the wrong time.

Everyone's healthy.