Social Distancing

First of all--man I can't believe I forgot this. The day life as we know it came to a screeching halt, last Thursday, Sarah got her glasses! What an innocent morning this was. Who knew what was to come that evening and the next day.

A day and half of seeing the whiteboard and then she's home and doesn't need them.

I took her to the grocery store with me (back when stores were normal) before taking her to school. I wanted to see her see things. She kept lifting them up and comparing. "Whoa, I can see that number 11 way over there." "I forgot about powerlines." It was awesome.

And then that night the sky fell.
If you would have told me two weeks ago what my life would be like now, I wouldn't have believed you.

Saturday night Justin took the girls out to Culver's for a daddy-daughter night and I took the boys to Macey's for our mom-sons night. Life felt so weird, unpredictable, jarring. And we can't even do this anymore.

After a few days of mourning all the losses (school, church, Primary activities, after school clubs, visit to family, Aspen Grove overnighter, piano lessons, eating out) I've come to a level of acceptance that just about everything is out of my control so I better look for the positive. But I'm never going to stop doubting the effectiveness of social distancing and being critical of how this is ALL being handled. There's got to be a better way!

Anyways, back to our little world. Wednesday was the weirdest day, you know with the earthquake and all. It felt like a train at first but it just kept shaking and no train came. Plus it was stronger than a train. I thought someone was shaking my bed to wake me up. Any other time our lives it would have been the biggest story for a week. But not this week or month. It was nothing more than a diversion---another crazy event that made us pause and wonder, "what the heck is going on" and then got absorbed into the craziness that is March 2020.

By far the biggest change for the Dyes is home-centered, school supported learning. Monday and Tuesday we were left to our own devices so I required math online and reading a book from my kids. Wednesday we had our materials and instructions from school so we started in earnest. I set up a table in the basement for the biggles' Chromebooks so keep the kitchen and living room as normal as looking as possible.

 

I thrive on routine but can't do schedules. The thought makes my anxiety level rise. I don't like a clock dictating my life. But I think things need to be in an order so I made this list. It's evolved a little and gotten simpler. My kids work at different paces and this allows that. The only thing that is scheduled is food because I'm not getting called back into the kitchen multiple times for when it suits them. Eat now or forever hold your peace.

Monday

Friday

Sarah's teacher, Mrs. Hunt, has been using google classroom all year so Sarah already knew how to navigate to find her assignments. It's been an easy transition for her. The biggest learning curve was to remember to not video call her friends until after all her work was finished.

Henry has taken to being on the Chromebook more very well. Too well. It's hard to keep him focused when he thinks he can open up games or YouTube. After a couple of frustrating days of getting after him for getting off track, I finally ruled that he can open his google classroom to see what workbook assignments he has and then close it while he does all his "offline" work. Then he can open it up to do his math assignments and math games. And then I check his work for potty humor and make him fix it before he reports back to his teacher that he's done.

For Erica, Mrs. Chidester gave us a folder with work pages stapled together by day with a cover page of instructions. All the pages are familiar to Erica so it's been pretty smooth. Next week I'm to introduce subtraction and it will be the first real teaching but I taught her everything first so it will be fine.

We send Mrs. Chidester a text each day to say she's done and we add a picture because I have it in my head that Erica is her favorite and misses her the most.

 

James likes having everyone home to play with. He does not like being left home while I go to the store by myself. But nothing made him more sad than when Costco stopped free samples.

Justin has been working from "home" from his parents' house. They have better internet. And I told him I would make no effort to keep the kids quiet here. Plus it feels normal to have him leave and come home every day and I like normal.

I have been taking my responsibility to feed my family very seriously without being a hoarder. At first I was just trying to buy enough food in case we had to quarantine for 2 weeks and the kinds of food that my kids could feed themselves if I got sick. But then the schools closed and suddenly I need more of everything because they are home more. And then I bought another bag of flour because there was only one bag of flour and everyone has a bag of flour in their cart except me and do they know something I don't know about the world's supply of wheat?!

And then upon realizing I didn't have another jar of yeast in the freezer like I thought it did (to go with my flour panic buy), and when I saw that Macey's and Costco were out, I raided my mom's pantry. I found this:

They don't make cans like they use to. This thing nearly broke my can opener.

It's very possible my mom took this can came from my grandma's pantry when she died in 2000. It's very possible this can of yeast is 50 years old. I opened it. I proofed it. It was no good.

I've had to rethink my food buying so many times. But we're good now. I am not hoarding more than we'd eat in a few weeks. Some of everything. Plus I grab a new bag of Cadbury Mini-eggs every time I see them but that's just good sense.

What will life look like in another week? Another month? Will my kids see the inside of their classrooms again? Will we have a family Easter egg hunt? Swimming lessons? Shadow Mountain camp? So many things came to a screeching halt and so many others are up in the air.

But I know no matter what, we will still have these normal-for-us moments like yesterday when James shoved a hotwheel car into his jar of Nutella and couldn't get it out. Any other time of my life it would have made me mad but yesterday I found it so comforting that we are still us.

Erica was the one to retrieve it. It was her car he jammed in there. She does not like Nutella.