Quarantine Days

Checking in from the end of our fifth week of quarantine. How are you holding up?

Most days we're pretty good. I'm prioritizing my mental health and happiness because I know it flows down to the kids. This means very little homeschooling. I know Eloise will remember this time and I want her to remember playing a lot, not me yelling a lot and forcing her to sit at the dining room table. It's just too much with our family dynamics.

I've had so many people say to me things like "I don't know how you're doing it!" with four young kids, but truthfully I feel like I couldn't do this without them. They keep me present and busy. If I were left to my own devices I would be overthinking it all and would be an anxious mess. The times I do crumble are if we've had a particularly bad night's sleep (and unfortunately Alice's four-month sleep regression has coincided with this pandemic...but also it's somewhat fortunate since I don't have to get up early and get ready) or if I read too much news.

Easter was a hard day. One of my children woke up on the wrong side of the bed and proceeded to make the day difficult for everyone. My expectations for holidays have come way down since having kids, but the combination of the fussiness plus being separated from family on a major holiday (and my favorite holiday) was tough. I held myself together until 11pm when I broke down sobbing and cried myself to sleep.

I miss my family. I miss Eloise's amazing kindergarten teacher. I miss church. I miss having a somewhat clean house (and I miss not being responsible for that cleaning, if we're being honest about our first-world problems).

I do not miss: Nick's commute. Rushing anywhere. Waking up early and being hurried. The gym.

Some quarantine MVPs: being outside all day every day. Supporting our awesome local businesses. Cosmic Kids yoga for when we need to be inside. Our wonderful neighbors and community. Wine! I look forward to my daily glass from pretty much the moment I wake up in the morning.

Much of quarantine life is extremely conducive to having young kids. I am generally nicer and yell less. In many ways I don't miss normal society. How will we ever go back?

I do think once society opens back up, whenever that may be, my germophobia and related anxiety will go through the roof, which seems to be the opposite sentiment to most right now.

I read recently that Winston Churchill was famous for saying "KBO" which stood for Keep Buggering On. This has been a useful thing for me to repeat to myself on the hard days, although I'm fairly sure that's a British vulgarity so just don't look it up. KBO: It's all we can do! One day at a time.

My focuses have truly honed in to the very basics: keeping us fed, which is a major preoccupation and full-time pursuit, and keeping on top of the laundry. I had a dream last night that there was a food shortage and I woke up very stressed. So grateful for a local catering business that has converted to a food provisions business model for the time being and is delivering us groceries once or twice a week. I can't imagine the stress of not being able to stock up.

Our days are busy but simple and "easy" in the I-have-four-kids sense. There is very little pressure. I am not using this time to get fit, or get organized, or get ANYTHING done really. Just KBO.

I think the pandemic is showing many of the fault lines of modern life and society and it will be really interesting to see how society changes as a result of this time. Because it definitely will change.