The COVID-19 Diaries: Updated Schedules & The Things That Keep Us Going

Well we've had a few tweaks in our schedule that are making for an improved quarantine sanity saver for daddy and mommy. The kids are doing pretty well in this situation, probably because they're 5 & 3 and their whole world is home. 

I've only had two instances when Alice asked about going to someone's house and I had to tell her we can't and she didn't really understand why not. But she didn't cry or fight me more. The most heartbreaking moment was on Earth Day though. Her school was giving away seeds and seedlings and we drove through to pick them up safely and since we were out, we decided to drop off a few ladybugs in a jar to our friends who needed them for their garden and we left them in their patio and they both emerged to say hello. But Alice went to our gal friend and hugged her and both of us were partly touched and shocked by the action. I told her Oh Alice, we're not supposed to hug people right now and she was crestfallen. I cried after that just from the feeling of I don't know, just how devastating it is to be a kid and not understand that we can't touch people right now, how devastating it was that our friends were right in front of us and we had to leave as soon as we could. My friend texted me later that she just started bawling when the door closed. This is the sort of general feeling that hits me now and again about this whole thing. That hits a lot of us now and again. 

We were spending any pleasant day we could where else but our backyard. It had been rainy and then pretty chilly and then it was pleasant and then it was summer hot. Hope you enjoyed those three weeks of spring 'cause it's miserable now buddies. The kids don't seem to mind. They love scooting out there, playing basketball, we got a new kid pool thanks to Jill... it's great.

So the latest update to our week is that Matt is teaching homeschool now too. After about 3 weeks Alice's school started distant learning and has been sending us assignments weekly via Google classroom. On Monday mornings I get the new assignments (roughly 5-6 English Language arts and 5-6 math assignments) and then distribute them over the course of the week amongst Matt and myself. Matt teaches TTh I do MWF. The glory of that is on the days when the other person teaches we swap the free time hours so I get the mornings off on TTh vs how we were doing it before where the afternoons I was always off. Having those mornings off has led to my making those moments be my quiet time moments where I eat breakfast outside and write in my journal or (eventually) read a spiritual book, or sometimes just stare up at the peach tree. I've been working this year on having more alone time or silence or just doing one thing at a time. Our multitasking society is not good at prioritizing the simplifying of time, space, and solitude. This pandemic is giving us all the opportunity for just that. I have lots more to say about that, probably a whole blog post worth.

The other good thing about the break is that on TThu when I'm not teaching, I get to just be fun mom and play with them during my shift instead of how I always have to just be frustrated about home schooling going sideways and then be ready for a break. Matt approaches the assignments very seriously and makes sure they get done. I am way more loose with schedule and try to make home school be about a more loose learning situation, arts, science, history. Things that are more my jam. I should add more structured learning into it because I need this girl to practice writing and reading. 

Schooling children from home is a whole blog post in itself too. We have learned so much about the best way that Alice learns. Alice's love language is Quality Time and I noticed that whenever we have videos for her to watch from school, she responds best when she sits on my lap and we watch the video together interacting the whole way. I used to cast the videos to the TV but then she just approached it like she does other TV viewing and would get distracted. Whenever I have a handout for her, I sit with her and do it with her. And giving Alice opportunities to show us what she's learned is essential. She demonstrated subtraction right away with her brother.

Remote socialization. With Zoom calls being the new what's up we've had a few. I have every other week scheduled Zoom calls with my church women's leadership group where we all dish on how we're doing and cry together and pray together and figure out what to do. It's nice to have that time with people but it is hard being constantly reminded that this is our new normal. We had a few double/triple cocktail dates that were pretty great. Alice has had a few video facetime hangs and she doesn't really get it or thrive in that environment. It helps when there's some sort of game plan like how her teacher made each classmate bring a stuffed animal and talk about it. Quick too, a few seconds per kid and boom. She read them a book and Alice barely paid attention, which made me feel better knowing her teacher even has a hard time keeping attention! One that worked well was we had a video Lego date with cousin Jarah. Have them do something instead of just talking.

A friend who misses the kids came by to drop off coffee one day and that was really special. Having the physical fence made the kids understand she couldn't come in and they talked to her easily from afar and so did we. We had one interaction where there was no fence and Alice ran to the friend and hugged her and it broke our hearts to bits. We didn't know what to do. We cried. 

Arts and crafts have become a regular feature around here. I made a full on teacup ride. I want to do a few more crafts that are for me and not them and ordered some supplies under the guise of "Mother's Day Gifts". I already owned way more craft supplies than I thought I did and am thankful for them!

Other good sanity savers are early bedtimes. The public libraries near us are both offering free library rentals to our devices and I've been able to introduce the kids to new books instead of reading our books over and over. They love I Need a New Butt and Chicken Butt (my kids love butts and poop) and Pete the Cat books. Alice has figured out the Hoopla app so well that she can chose books to read to her all by herself. I've found her choosing that over games on the iPad sometimes which is nice.

One mildly controversial pivot is that we've begun being quarantined with the people that live in our guest house. We hang out together and have brunch together Saturday mornings. We just figure it's impossible to keep totally away since we share a laundry room and backyard space and it's been really a nice change to have other people to spend time with. The kids love having a new adult face to ask questions to and we have had a few great dinners that go for hours outside.

We took a family drive last week all the way to see the ocean. The drive to Santa Monica took 30 minutes which has NEVER happened before. Matt was skeptical but once he hit the road to a clear freeway and the sights and sounds of our city he loosened up and we all felt the weight of being isolated lift ever so slightly. It felt strange and emotional and familiar. 

The kids fell asleep at some point which was nice too! I feel like the drives are really important to sanity. I went to get Little Cesar's Pizza by myself one day and wondered if I even remembered how to drive and secondly I cried a bit. It's so weird. I can't explain it. But a drive is good for the soul.

It feels like such a time to keep asking "How are you doing?" and hear what everyone's doing to stay sane during this unprecedented time. I have days where I feel like everything is great and we're doing the best we can. I have days where I can't focus on anything and want to lay down and forget everything. Some days I am happy to be home and never want things to change and others where I can't imagine one more day of this, so done! 

This is hard. Even under the best circumstances. It's emotional and heavy. Hold tight together. Reach out. Breathe. Rest. There's no manual, do what you need to do.