Damn you global pandemic, March was a month of cancelled plans. We had planned a wonderful joint birthday party for all 3 boys, renting out a bounce house place here in Salt Lake. The week before the event, we, and likely half of the country, were faced with “Should we cancel our plans?”. The decision was made easier for us as Jason was instructed to work from home, the LDS church stopped holding Sunday church, and shortly thereafter schools closed and the state of Utah started effectively staying home full time. Being responsible citizens, we ALL stayed home full time for about 6 weeks save for the occasional masked and gloved grocery pick-up or errand. Perhaps surprisingly, my anxiety over the whole ordeal decreased significantly once we decided to just hunker down with our little tribe. Before I get into this post, it may be worth mentioning I have read how we should all be journaling during this time of stress and pandemic, as contribution to the historical record of this time, but quite frankly I haven’t felt like writing sh*t. When I’m particularly stressed or angry, words just don’t flow out the way I’d like, and there’s been an abundance of those feelings over the last couple months. At least weekly I’ve thought “I should catch up my blog”, but I haven’t felt like writing until now.
As already stated, we stayed home all together for about 6 weeks. I love my little zoo, but I’m really not cut out to parent full time without using daycare and sending the kids out to school. It turns out I really really cherish my alone time. Every day started with the same 3 goals: feed everyone, get the boys through their home-school materials, and get my work completed. As it turns out, on any given day getting 2 of those things done was pretty easy and the 3rd left me wishing to end it all. Okay, maybe not “ending it all”, but it’s a close approximation to how it felt sometimes. Nothing like endless days together to bring out the best and worst in everybody. 
Let’s start with Jason and I.
He’s my person. He’s still my person after all this semi-forced together time, but when he could disappear to the downstairs office to actually focus during work conference calls for hours at a time, it left me feeling a little resentful. I’ve discovered that while he is downstairs working I create an idealized version of him in my head, only to find out when he comes back upstairs he is the same goofball I married. We’ve had a good laugh about that a time or two and the joke always ends with “man I wish you’d go back downstairs to the office”. He’s under a lot of stress at work right now too, so I try to hold my sanity together for his sake.
William has been dealing with all the time at home okay. Initially I was a bit surprised he didn’t miss his friends more. He had Christopher to play with, which seemed to satisfy that need. He is old enough to understand why we needed to postpone the birthday celebration until it’s safer. He was initially much more resistant to schoolwork than I anticipated. I pointed out that I didn’t like teaching him at home any more than he enjoyed learning at home. In reality, both boys would be fine next year if we just started summer break early, but I feel like school is currently their only job and I want them to see how we prioritize their learning. I also know the teachers have put in TONS of work creating online content, and the participation across the board is not good, so we’ll do our part. After the first 4 to 5 weeks of home learning William had some kind of epiphany where he realized that he could click through most of the material without help, and get through it fairly quickly if he just stopped complaining and got to work. Amen. The other somewhat shocking thing that happened about halfway through this new normal (we’re on week 10 now), is that Christopher seemingly got sick of all the forced playtime with William giving directions. We’ve had a bit of heartache as William wants nothing more than Christopher to play with him, and we’ve had to explain you can’t force someone to play with you if they need some alone time.
Christopher has spent his time perfecting the art of blending into the background. He’s gotten quite good at silently disappearing to watch hours of Pokemon in the basement rather than do homework. I hate to admit it, but as long as one less kid is talking in my ear while I’m trying to meet my daily minimums for transcription, he gets away with it. He (by far) is the most likely to play happily on his own for an extended period. He’s not super demanding and therefore stays under the radar for the most part. The problem is as the weeks have gone on, he’s become more accustomed to being off the grid so to speak, and is then more and more agitated by anyone asking him to do ANYTHING–including his schoolwork. It’s funny that as the weeks have progressed, he and William seemingly switched positions regarding who is the most resistant to online learning. Thankfully he’s developing into a very proficient reader. For his 6th birthday I bought him the entire collection of Gerald and Piggy books, and he will happily read them to anyone who will listen. He’s also apparently learning to compare and contrast. The other day in the car he went through a list of ways Jason and I are different. Then he got to “Dad is skinny, and mom is …” *screaming in my head DON’T SAY IT* “…fat.” He was my favorite kid for a minute before that. I’ve eaten a lot of snacks during quarantine but do we have to talk about it? Besides, you try being the skinny one next to Jason. *sigh*.
Andrew…oh Andrew. I worry that the longer he’s been left to our parenting, the more messed up he’s gotten. He’s not quite old enough to understand what’s going on. He’s gotten left behind in a way. He doesn’t have schoolwork to keep himself occupied with, and he has two older brothers that leave him out of all their best games. It’s a case of six of one, half a dozen of the other. The more Andrew demands attention, the less attention he seems to get. I’m mostly preoccupied frantically trying to get work done during the first half of the day (in between his demands for a dozen different snacks of course), and his brothers are either busy doing schoolwork or happily preoccupied with some sort of screen, leaving him to entertain himself. Therefore, Andrew has taken to getting attention in whatever way he can find it, and usually this means being naughty. He’s becoming an expert name caller, “you stupid idiot”. He also tends to repeat back anything his brothers say, nothing makes a 6 and 8 year old mad more quickly than a 4 year old who repeats their every word. “Stop it Andrew!” “You stop it William!” *cue fight* I can see it from both sides. I see Andrew’s frustration with getting left out and I can see how his brothers aren’t overly motivated to include the one that hits, scratches, and calls names. Thank goodness he’s cute. What. A. Dude.
Kiki is just confused about why her nap-time on my desk during my normal work time has been completely turned upside down. She spends a lot of time napping downstairs or hanging out in the roses these days. At one point I noticed she had picked a new nap spot downstairs only to discover a box of magazines had tipped over on her normal napping spot. You know why? Because along with a global pandemic, the Salt Lake Valley had its first significant (5.7) earthquake in decades. Yes. A f*cking earthquake in the middle of a global pandemic. Excuse me while I take another dose of Xanax. Turns out I won’t have any problem explaining my increased frequency of Xanax dosing to my general practitioner the next time I see her. Long story short, the aftershocks have stopped and Kiki’s bed has been reclaimed from the spilled magazines.
The only people who have been allowed in our house over the past 10 weeks were a crew of window installers from Idaho. Months before realizing we’d be in the midst of a global pandemic, we ordered new windows for our living room. The installers were slated to be at the house for about a day and a half, and we figured we could camp out in the basement with the kids if needed. As all good projects go, something was mismeasured and it took them the better part of 4 days to get it all finished up. Thankfully we are very happy with the finished project and no one gave anybody COVID-19…or if they did, we were all 100% asymptomatic. Before and after pictures below, we went from 2 doors to one door and so far I’m really happy with how it’s worked out. I purchased a flower planter to make use of the extra set of steps and am loving having flowers right outside the new window.
Let’s move on to the meat of what we’ve been occupying our time with. Turns out the good part of 
being stuck together all the time is you find new interesting ways to keep occupied. We planted a garden and a variety of spring plants like every year. (Admittedly I broke quarantine after about 4 weeks to mask up and shop for plants). I’m forever thankful coronavirus hit us in the warm, sunny, spring instead of the dark, cold, winter. On the worst days, seeing plants come up and flower that don’t give two craps about COVID-19 helped my mood. We planted a new crabapple tree and tasked it with growing big like the ancient apple tree that is on its last leg. We’ve played with giant bubbles, tie dyed shirts, painted, walked to the school to pick up sack lunches, and baked way too many treats. We invested in a new picnic table and have really been enjoying lunches outside. We’ve finally managed to get a bike for each of the boys and William has become a proficient rider. Christopher on the other hand may never learn, as to me he looks like Ray Charles riding a bicycle…sunglasses on, head and bicycle swaying back and forth. There’s a shocking lack or coordination from that one sometimes. Perhaps being left handed in a right handed world is messing up his brain development. Andrew is still happily camped out on his tricycle even though we bought him a bike with training wheels and I’m pretty sure he’d be fast to learn. We thought he’d want to go faster but he’s just not convinced he wants to try something new. Maybe next month.
I’ve opened up my own corona-cuts hair salon. Thankfully I’ve been buzzing the boys’ hair every summer for a while now, and they sit still better now that they’re a little older. I practiced doing a fade exactly 4 times before cutting Jason’s hair for the first time. With everything to tackle in this challenging time, haircuts were the least of our worries. In hindsight, investing in a clippers years ago was a really good idea. Andrew is the first one of the boys who has let me play with his hair, including a request for a haircut that was “a little bit ugly”, he let me talk him into a Mohawk. When I tried to do this with William a couple years back he told me “I’m not that kind of kid”. Apparently Andrew IS “that kind of kid.” It makes sense really.
In happy news, it only took 7 years, but thanks to forced pandemic stay home time we finally re-arranged the office downstairs and got my craft area unpacked and set up. Jason’s work space is hands down the nicest in the house, including custom wall art made by the kids.
When I wasn’t working, homeschooling, breaking up fights, and handing out snacks, I spent some time sewing masks for our family and a few friends. I also ordered some wood Sola flowers to play with, and tried my hand at sewing a cute little girl purse (previews of Christmas presents perhaps?!?). So far this year, two out of three boys got custom made birthday cakes. We have the idea for William’s birthday cake but are saving it in the hopes we can have an actual 8th birthday party before he turns 9 next spring.
I’ve found that the things I miss aren’t pedicures and going to restaurants. I miss seeing my friends, letting the kids play with their friends, walks to the library, and playing at the park. I’ve gotten accustomed to doing yoga with a background soundtrack of fighting kids, and found I terribly miss having a good solid chunk of the day where I’m not in charge of feeding the kids or breaking up fights.
I’m going to end this lengthy post with three cheers for all our healthcare professionals out there putting themselves on the line to keep us healthy and save lives. I for one, do not have time for anyone’s conspiracy theories and find it really disappointing that politics are getting in the way of critical public health decisions. I’m going to continue doing my best to keep my chin up and the rest of my face covered with a mask in an effort to protect all of you. I hope you’ll be doing the same for me.
Take Care!
S.~
