Parenting in the time of a pandemic

I knocked on Sloan's door and asked him to do a house chore, but he told me that he was still in class.

"But you're listening to music," I pointed out. 

"Yeah, I'm listening while answering my exams," he answered. "Bawal ba yon?" 

I was stumped. It's not allowed in school, but what is the rule in this kind of a set-up? I was going to say that he wouldn't be able to concentrate, but he knows that I listen to music a lot when I am writing so it wasn't a viable route for me to take. 

Thinking that I might ironically end up disrupting his concentration if we discuss further, I decided to just let him be, trusting that he's got it figured out. I think it worked out for the better, but I guess I'll know for sure when I see his grades lol. 

Minutes later, I was in a Zoom meeting when approached me and started pointing to his closed mouth. 

"What's happening?" I asked after ensuring that both my mic and camera were closed.

It turns our that his problematic tooth, which we haven't been able to consult the dentist about given ECQ Season 3, split when he bit into the fried chicken. I quickly told my teammates that I was logging off from the meeting as I needed to find a dentist for Sloan.

The good news is there are three small clinics in our street. We were able to get a slot in the second one we went to. There, Sloan underwent an extraction not just for the tooth that split, but also for the one beside it which had been loose for a while now.

It was over in under 30 minutes and it was quite a relief to have it over with quickly.

Haaay. This pandemic nga naman - disrupting parent-child dynamics since 2020.