Today was the first day of "school", which was not without its fair share of frustration and yelling. For Jacob, he was frustrated by what he had to work with, but seemed to get through it relatively quickly anyway. For Carter, one platform isn't really ideal to work with, and with my work it's hard to have time to get creative to work around it. Our one attempt at a "fun" extra activity didn't go particularly well since Carter thought Mo Willems was "boring". He loves Mo's books, but apparently his Lunch Doodle (which half of the parenting universe is so excited for) doesn't do it for him. I agree Mo is a bit low-key, but I'd have been all over learning about that stuff. I grew up on stuff like Reading Rainbow, though, and learning how things worked was really cool to me. I guess we'll try Pete the Cat tomorrow? I have an old Pinterest board with a couple projects I think might be fun and there are still a ton of online resources I haven't even looked at, but we seem to have all the time in the world to explore. If we can get through Carter's daily reading, math, and writing for school, I think we're doing okay.
Work for me is going well enough. Yesterday was great but today was harder. I need to have a project to focus on. Now that I have my monitor, keyboard, and a full workspace (cramped though it may be), if the kids leave me alone I can focus pretty decently.
Yesterday I made good progress (all things considered) because I had a specific file to work on. But today I had a data project that was last minute with a whole lot of unknowns, and there were a million random interruptions and hold-ups. I didn't want to get immersed in another project for fear of missing important emails, so I spent most of the day waiting for new information on a few different things. Between email and chat, it kept me pretty busy, but it was all confusing and generally unproductive. I'm not sure I can keep all this up for a month or more, but I suppose some of it is better than expected.
Behavior-wise the boys have been challenging as expected. They've had some decent moments, like when they tried to play LIFE the other day. But most things dissolve into a mess before long. Hopefully by the end of this they'll find ways to entertain each other, but apparently not yet. So, a lot of yelling in the meantime. The boys and Craig have spent a lot of time outside despite it still being pretty cold. Based on my feed, a ton of people have been going outside doing nature walks, but they're just doing basketball. Tomorrow's weather is going to be a bit better, and Friday will be downright warm, but then the rain and winds come and I fear more than ever for the hoop because we NEED it right now. At least we know P.E. is covered for now.
We've had to run some quick errands over the past few days, but I am really trying to keep us home. Wegmans will be a must within a couple days for more milk and bread, assuming they're in stock, along with a whole slew of other things we've either used or that I've decided would be helpful while we're stuck here. Things still seem to be out of stock, though, so it may not go as planned. Way too many people are still out and about, which is frustrating. Over the past few days the state shut down gyms, theaters, casinos, and all dine-in eating. Some retail stores have shut down and others have reduced hours. The mall is closed other than anchor stores. Slowly but surely people are running out of things to do, but when I see news footage of busy beaches in Florida or hear about kids hanging out together at homes or playgrounds, I sort of want to smack people. That is not social distancing, folks. We're going to have to do this longer if people don't get on board now. I don't know if people aren't paying attention to numbers, or don't think this applies to them, or what, but we're headed in the same direction as Italy more than a week ago, and that's not good. Our area is up around 20 cases now, but tests are still limited. Buffalo is closer to 30, and they've run out of tests. New York leads the whole country because it seems to be spreading like wildfire downstate. You can't know if someone is sick and not showing symptoms so the only way to prevent it completely is to stay home and stay away from others. It kills me every time the neighbor kids are outside and Carter wants to play with them, but we need to isolate and hope for the best. It won't be easy for the kids (and definitely stinks for us--God knows I didn't need any encouragement in the introvert department), but we need to try.
We did have a fun moment yesterday. Carter was eating his lunch and all of a sudden exclaimed that his tooth came out! His ham sandwich claimed his other top tooth, just like that! So now he has a nice big gap...
Pretty cute, huh? He was excited for me to send a picture to his teacher, and she loved it. We also Facetimed with Grandma and Grandpa, who only knew about tooth #1, to surprise them with tooth #2. So, he cleaned up pretty good this week from the tooth fairy!
To be fair, not all of this is bad. I'll admit that I haven't missed my super early mornings or the commute. I don't miss rushing out the door or trying to get home in time for dinner before our evening activities. I also like that I don't have to do full hair or makeup (I do enough to not look unhealthy), let alone even shower every day. A 20-minute commute from bed to desk isn't so bad. But Jacob is desperately missing basketball practice and I will miss my bible study crew. Even still, it's nice to know we just have a lot of home time to chill. My diamond painting is a nice distraction and we now have a trial of Disney+. Screens have remained quite popular, but I have a feeling it's a losing battle. We'll just have to get creative outside of that. I'd feel a lot better about things if I didn't have to work all day, or if I just had to work and didn't need to keep the kids actively learning. Doing it all is hard! I'm glad Craig is here, but it's also hard to focus when they're off having fun.
It still all feels really surreal that this is our life right now, and will be for a while. Events into May are getting canceled and the world is just a crazy place right now with constant press conferences (local and national), news updates, and sweeping societal changes on a daily basis. We'd never have thought a couple weeks ago that we'd be stuck in our houses, toilet paper would be scarce, and most public places would be extremely limited in operation. Even a week ago when we knew it could be possible, the reality of it is still jarring now that it has happened. Who'd have even thought we could shut society down to this extent? Schools closed for at least a month, many people working from home, hospitality services at a near standstill? Insane. The economic toll of this (stock market mess aside) is going to be immense and long-lasting, but hopefully we all emerge from our cocoons ready to inject new life into the economy, and we'll be more grateful, kind people to boot. One can only hope we learn something from this mess. We should be more appreciative of our options and freedoms, but memories may be short. I just hope we can get back to normal by summer at this point, but the months we lose are saddening me a bit right now. Life is short and spring is awesome, but a lot of cool things like Easter, the Lilac Festival, and Jacob's travel season could be lost. Seniors in college and high school are missing out on things like prom, graduation, and spring sports, not to mention time with their friends, and that's time you can't get back. But we don't seem to have a choice but to hunker down and make it work. So we will. And pray that neither we nor the people we love get sick. It's overwhelming, but this is our life now.
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