A Month Into Isolation

Today is day twenty eight of our self isolation. As of Tuesday it has been three weeks since I've worked. I've never really felt that my job was my calling or ever felt particularly attached to it, but three weeks without going to work and I have to say I'm missing it. Mostly I miss my coworkers, from all the different floors I work on, and am extremely worried about the horrible conditions they are having to work under right now. I know they don't have what they need to be protected and I know that they are still showing up and doing what has to be done. I can't say that I wish I could be with them on the front lines of this, as I know that could be extremely dangerous for myself and my children, but my heart does go out to them I'm sending them all the love in the world. This didn't have to happen this way. This country has gravely failed all the first responders and medical professionals that are now being forced to risk their own lives to do their job. Elections have consequences and the last presidential election is proving to be incredibly deadly to so many innocent people.

This was our art project during our creative time earlier this week. The Cub Scouts are sending notes to nurses on COVID units.

Friday I left the house for the first time in a couple weeks. Zach has had to go a few places, but I had been at home/in our neighborhood since St. Patrick's Day. Friday we had a spice disaster, involving a literal train wreck into our pantry door, causing an entire spice rack to come crashing down inside the pantry. So we headed to the spice shop for curbside spice pick up complete with Dean's French Onion dip and Tostitos because Able is the absolute best. The big boys came with me and they had lots of questions. Specifically why did it feel like business as usual outside of our neighborhood. Why were there so many cars? Why were all the stores still open? Why was the car line through Chick-Fila a mile long? These were the questions I had as well.

Of course Oklahoma is completely backward in everything it does, including electing an antivaccer for Governor. This means he's not a huge fan of science and is still, weeks later, refusing to lock the entire state down. All sorts of businesses can apply to be considered an essential business so they can remain open. Also not every county is shut down and people can travel where ever they want. The more rural areas of Oklahoma seems to behaving as if nothing was happening. This is insanity, especially since backwards Oklahoma didn't expand medicare so most of the rural hospitals have had to shut down over the past five or ten years. So when all the rural residents begin to get sick there will be literally no where to go and the major city hospitals cannot contain the entire state. It's all frustrating, terrifying, and just doesn't need to be this way.

Our first trip out was a success. We got loaded upon spices and even braved Sonic with our masks on and Clorox wipes in hand to wipe down every inch of the cups before giving them to my children. Things are weird America.

Monday was the first day of "distance learning" for our kids. The past few weeks I've tried to get them to do various things, but could never nail down a schedule. The school finally sent our resources and assignments which has helped me come up with some sort of schedule. I am trying to approach this with lots of grace for myself and the kids. We'll for sure get the minimum requirements, but I can't promise we will do much more. Monday went extremely well. I had high hopes for a great home learning experience that we could take with us through the summer. 

We started with family exercise time, which included a super easy kids workout video on tv.

Then the boys dove into their online work, while I sorted through emails to various email addresses, since they each have a school email address now to manage. I was trying to get all the actual requirements sorted from the extra resources and alternate assignments that are also being provided. That's great, but I am just trying to make sure we do the minimum amount here right now.

Zane apparently learned about the hottest and coldest places on earth.

While Rowan and I worked on cardinal directions and the movement of the sun, ever so briefly. He also wrote about what he's been doing at home. I feel like distance learning is really lacking in making my children use actual pencils and practice writing, as the rest of their work was all done on various websites and apps.

There is an hour of creative time every morning and Monday we watched the super fun original Broadway cast of  Hamilton do a zoom call singing Alexander Hamilton. Just what I needed.

Then drawing videos, which are daily staple here these days.

Over the weekend, through some possibly not responsible social contact, we acquired a somewhat free, somewhat broken, basketball goal. The boys did a great job digging the hole Monday during their free time.

Contrast Monday's lovely day with Tuesday and Wednesday's battles and I am beginning to hope that we can at least find a happy middle ground some where, with maybe some battles, and some victories. Tuesday morning everyone was whiny and fought our morning walk/run in gorgeous weather. They fought walking, they fought stretching, they cried at the possibility of jogging, they argued, and everyone came home angry. Why must every single thing have to be a battle, is a constant refrain these days. Today's workout time was better mainly because I let Rowan ride a bike and gave Zane music to listen too, but we made it through. Yesterday during morning during writing time I tried to shower and came out to find no one had done any writing, so language arts time had to start over with great complaint. Luckily having actual assignments from their teachers helps me have a leg to stand on when I tell them they have to do things. 

T figured out how to ride a scooter with one leg this week, which is definitely a highlight. Thatcher also will ride his scooter the entire exercise time now, and wears a different super hero/pajama outfit each day which provides comic relief to all the other people walking.

Yesterday he was Buzz Lightyear.

 

 I am trying to get Thatcher in on the learning action. He has started to enjoy coloring, even occasionally trying to stay in the lines. He knows the letter T and the number three, but that's about it. So I'm trying to get him to do some worksheets, or at least discuss letters and numbers. This ten minute period Tuesday, with the one worksheet, might be the only time we do this.

Yesterday the boys started their COVID 19 time capsule which the school had provided. If they put any effort into this it would be such a neat thing to have as a memory keeping tool. However they insist on writing one word answers to all questions, which doesn't really help give you the whole picture of what's going on. 

A constant during our past few weeks at home has been lots of cooking and baking. Zane loves cooking, baking specifically, so we have done some of this everyday. Rowan, in true younger brother style, has decided he doesn't like cooking/baking or drawing, because Zane does. This is a crying shame. Rowan is equally creative and also needs to know how to cook. Yesterday he asked to make cutout cookies (one of my least favorite things to do) but I did it in hopes of getting Rowan to take part in cooking times. 

 We finally did get all the plants planted in our garden. I think it's going to freeze next week so we'll have to cover it up, but who cares. Praying for some actual veggies this year. My boys were 100% unhelpful in this planting adventure. These two pictures of the boys planting one plant and T helping to water. I have such great hopes of my children wanting to be a part of gardening and it just never happens.

The wheels of all the things fell off yesterday afternoon. The shining highlight was the gorgeous weather and Thatcher attempting to ride this tiny bicycle with training wheels. Otherwise there were lots of arguments, lots of emotions being taken out on the wrong people, tears, all sorts of things.

For dinner we had a hamburger cooking challenge with Zach and Zane going head to head. This picture looks like a great evening full of fun. You probably wouldn't guess that moments before this picture we had crushed all of Zane's childhood memories by admitting to him that we are the Easter Bunny, Santa, the Tooth Fairy, all of it. Zane had been looking on my phone and got into my Amazon order history, finding all the Easter things that I had ordered for Easter baskets this year, given the current situation. He put two and two together and then it just all quickly snowballed into him figuring out all the lies. 

I handled this just about as well as you can imagine I handled this at five o'clock in the afternoon, on day twenty seven of self isolation, during a global pandemic. Not well. Zane seemed to handle it ok, but as the evening went on he got more and more depressed as he realized all the magic was fake and I had no words of encouragement to pull it around. Finally after showers I did have a good conversation with just him about how Santa is really just love. Just like Jesus is love. You can't see him, but we believe in the love and the magic of the Christmas season. Something, I pulled some sort of useful, encouraging words out briefly, that might have helped, but the over arching experience left me so incredibly sad. Zane was the biggest believer of all the believers and it's just an end of an era and I hate how it happened.

 So yesterday was hard. It ended terribly. I went to sleep once again feeling like I had failed at all the things. That is a frequent way that I feel at the end of these crazy days.

My overall feeling after almost a month of this is that there is just too much and not enough all at the same time. Too much together time. Too many resources to go through for the kids when we probably just need two or three. Too many emotions, too many fights, too many arguments, too many worries. And the flip to all of that is there is not enough space, there is not enough work, there is not enough money, there is not enough resources to deal with it, there are not enough words to express everything. Time passes in a whirlwind of crazy and at a snails pass all at once. I love being home everyday, but also desperately need to work. I am exhausted beyond belief, but sleep in restless, stressful, and at times impossible. I want to relax and read, but also can't get my mind to stop racing long enough to do that. I know this is how everyone feels, and we're all in this together, but we're all also in this all alone.