COVID Parenting Dispatch: Issue 1

At work as a nurse. The mask hides my double-chin; nice perk.

Hello from approximately day 38 of sheltering in place! The number of days are, of course, a ballpark. When I finish my rotation of jeans, sweatpants, and leggings I know it's been three days, but otherwise?!?!? I've been trying to keep a routine (and a grip on reality), but now the school has informed us that we are still observing Spring Break... ha ha AS IF!

Well, Happy Spring Break ya'll. 

While our state has been under lockdown for about 21 days, we have been going longer because my 80 year old mother-in-law was living with us. We sent her home on March 17. We all remain healthy.

Things are changing so quickly. The news, yes, but also my outlook. Last week I was romanticizing all the quality family time. This is what I had started writing:

Here's the thing about the quarantine that I dare say out loud: I Am Loving It. I cringe to put it out like that, knowing that so many people are truly in crisis- health, emotional, financial. I do grieve and stress for them; believe me, going to work as a nurse is not easy right now. But I cannot stay in grief while two little people depend on me to filter this new normal for them. So I focus on the good tidings that this quarantine has brought, and there are many. I love that the girls can learn at their own pace. I love the family time. I love cooking meals together at home. I love walking the dog more. I love pulling out the games and crafts that we never get to. I love being bored and creative. I love puzzling!  

I had time to finally get my side garden in order.  

Our lawn art got a fresh look.

This week, not so romantic. Maybe it's just the three days of rain, but I also finished my puzzle, logged about 20,000 hours of Netflix, exhausted every doo-dad I could find for the kids to paint, ran out of wine, eaten entirely too much sugar, switched to working mostly from home, have a child that desperately needs to expend energy and another who has developed a fear of being outside, and find Zoom meetings to be incredibly awkward.

Sigh.

Children meet virtually

Cookie gets cheeky with her homework. I don't blame her.

But, I'm still on board with all the happy parts. I count myself very lucky to enjoy the perks of having two parents at home. And the kids, with the simple lure of earning a sticker, are getting along beautifully. We have meaningful work, plentiful food (about 10 rolls of toilet paper), warm beds, dog therapy, a green garden, and lots of love. Oh, and we all dyed our hair purple, so there's that.

The driving range was an awesome idea. I could have stayed there all day. Cookie, not so much. 

Neighbor kids practice their distancing.

I better fire off this post before things change drastically again. Who knows what next week will hold! Today's big plans: paint more fairy houses (we've surreptitiously created a Fairy Garden in the park) and host a virtual Girl Scout meeting. I'm excited to present a "Get Outside Challenge" to the troop.

Stay safe out there. I leave you with my unravelling subconscious, aka my weird COVID dreams.

Fairy house prep

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My weird COVID-19 dreams:

It's a lovely day. I am swimming in a bay with W and the kids, as well as my mother-in-law. They decide to get out and go home, but I decide to swim to meet them down the road. Cookie stays with me, riding on my back. Happily we swim in the warm water towards the meeting point, but then the current picks up and a riptide is pulling me towards a flowing damn. I find the strength to swim out of it, but now my only option is to swim to the open ocean. I round a corner/wall from the bay into the ocean, and, dismayed, see that the shore is now miles away. We won't be able to make it. And when I turn my head right, I feel a wall of heat. In between waves, I bob up to see a grim scene of multiple oil tanker ships on fire! There's no way we can swim into that. I decide to risk it with the damn current and head back. We make it, and I drag us on-shore. Lying there on my belly out of breath, I see that we had landed in the middle of a quiet, gated condo community and no one has any idea of the ordeal we just suffered. Nug & W stroll up, unaware, and I don't say a thing.
My interpretation:
I'm still going into work, risking exposure and my health, while everyone is now working from home.

I'm traveling alone in an Asian country, maybe Thailand. I go out on my first night and make a couple of new friends. One of them points out that there's some kind of translucent ribbon on my head. It's like a soft, skinny tape, drawn in loops, coming out of my scalp. Then W shows up- she's there on a work trip and I had no idea, but I'm glad to see her. I show her the tape, and when I pull my hair back we realize that a whole swath of my scalp is desecrated. It's not painful, but it's red, like a burning crater, and the skin is loose. I'm suddenly worried that it might pull entirely off. W and I look at each other and realize that I have a tapeworm in my scalp!
My interpretation: 
I have a ticker tape of COVID news & numbers running through my head! I'm also reading a book about the Chernobyl disaster, which talks about radiation burns. Yes ok, I should probably stop reading it...