Day one
Although this is technically day four I’m counting it as day one. We got the news that our kids are on an extended 3 week spring break on Thursday March 12th. My kids got off the bus and I told them the news and you would have thought they won the lottery. All of the neighborhood kids were SO excited. I mean, do you remember how excited we would get for ONE snow day?! Could you imagine 3 weeks of snow days?!
Friday was like a free day and everyone played in the culdesac. The weekend was… well the weekend. Lots of downtime and snuggling.
But here we are, Monday, March 16, 2020 and I am setting up a homeschool environment for my kids. Something I thought I would never be doing.
I worked on a schedule last night because I needed some kinda normal. I don’t do well with no direction because I end up just doing nothing but sitting in front of the TV binge watching Netflix. Plus, all the mental health stuff I’ve been reading surrounding the coronavirus, said to get into some type of a schedule to help calm your nerves. Well my nerves are fried, so it’s worth a shot right?!
Take one. We started out with a Bible reading. Now let me just say I am SO grateful to have this extra time with my kids so that we can do something like that. I try to put God before all, but sometimes the busyness of the day gets in the way and that just doesn’t happen. To be able to start the day with all of my kids around a table reading the Bible is an awesome feeling.
So we are all around one table, but after 10 minutes I realized that couldn’t happen. Too loud, distracting, he is looking at me… you know the drill. So one of them went to my kitchen table, another at the dining room table and the other in the office.
Don’t get me wrong, I know how blessed we are. Just to have the space to have three kids working in three separate areas, electronics, the World Wide Web where we can access any kind of educational activity that my kids would need. I am a stay at home mom so I am not trying to juggle working from home with a demanding job and educating my kiddos. That’s all great and I am SO thankful for all of those blessings. But, I looked at my kids learning from home and thought to myself, how am I going to do this?!
I’m not a teacher. I suck at math. I don’t have patience. HOW am I going to do this?
O.k. Take two. Then we went into learning mode. They grumbled and complained, but I went from one kid to the next and somehow we survived the next hour and a half.
Free time and lunchtime were next. They were busy building Legos. Very thankful for the 30 day Lego challenge because it gave them something to work towards and they built an awesome amusement park roller coaster! The time is passing slowly, but I feel accomplished. Although internally I am falling apart, we made it through half the day without any major battle wounds.
Lunch is where it started to get crazy. They would take a bite of food and then run around playing tag or dance party. Then the fighting ensued. Lots and lots of bickering, loud playing and lots of energy. By the end of it, I screamed at the top of my lungs for everyone to get in their rooms. I mean, I SCREAMED. I felt horrible, but honestly the stress of the last week and not knowing where our country is heading… it just all came out. #notwinning
Our schedule was supposed to lead into movement time and then more learning time, but we got an email from our school saying that if you needed a Chromebook for online learning, you could come and pick them up, so that’s what we did.
It was so eerie to walk up to Mason High School, which is like a college campus. It is ALWAYS busy, packed full of students and teachers. Today, there were a handful of cars in the parking lot. Papers taped to the doors stating school was closed.
By the time we got home, we ended up taking a bike ride around the neighborhood, which was good for all of us. The kids then played outside while I made dinner.
Dinner was normal and then we showered. We spent the evening coloring St. Patrick’s Day coloring pages so that my kids could decorate the window for our Shamrock shuffle in our neighborhood. Everything seemed normal. I didn’t look at my phone for the latest updates or worry about what the next press conference would bring. I just enjoyed our family time.
Now that everyone’s in bed, I just keep replaying how this last week has went. Two weeks ago we were just discussing whether or not we should go to California for spring break because coronavirus had just started being talked about in the states. I never in a million years would’ve thought that we would be sitting here, two weeks later with no toilet paper or milk on the shelves, no school anytime in the immediate future, restaurants, bars and many other local businesses being forced to close and watching press conferences daily from my state governor and the President of the United States addressing our nation about social distancing and how we can flatten the curve.
Every single day there’s something new and I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I do know that I’ve been trying very hard to let my faith be greater than my fear. I believe in God and know that he will get our nation through this. I pray that I have a positive attitude to show my kids that we will find the good in everything that is happening. We have a home, our health, faith, family, food in the kitchen and SO many luxuries. I am grateful for this time to slow down and just BE with my family. I can memorize their little hands and kiss their soft cheeks all.day.long. I don’t have to share them with anyone else.
But, can I be honest? My fear is definitely taking over and there are moments I’m just not sure how we will all get through this. I am sitting here in my quiet house, looking at the walls and thinking… when will this end?! I guess I just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.
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