Six Weeks

I'm going back to work on Tuesday.

Yes.

I'm...apprehensive and yet...I think I'm ready.

School is done for the year. Alyssa is officially a senior and Olivia is a seventh grader.

I am no longer 'needed' at home to facilitate school work.

I need to make a living.

I have been home for six weeks.

When I first started this part of the quarantine, I was planning to be home for two weeks.

Then, on the Thursday of my second week, someone at my work tested positive for the virus. That lead to my being home another four weeks.

There have been no more positive cases at work.

I wear my mask whenever I'm in public. I wash my hands and stay six feet away from everyone.

I am not an advocate for opening the states fully as some seem to be but I do understand the need to get back to some semblance of normal.

I have no desire to be around people again, though. Please don't thing that. Good heavens, I haven't suddenly become sociable or anything like that.

No...it's just time.

So away we go.

Masks

The other day, FB alerted me that my brother had responded to a mutual "friends's" post. This post was a rant about the insanity of being FORCED to wear face masks in public.

My brother agreed with the asshole 'friend' who declared he would NEVER wear a face mask in public because that's a violation of his rights.

HIS RIGHTS, I tell you. How dare the medical community ask a red-blooded American citizen, A FREE HUMAN BEING, to wear a mask over their nose and mouth when they're in public?

I rarely get political on FB. I know I'm not going to change anyone's mind and they're only going to be asses so, what's the point?

But this time, I replied.

I replied to my brother's comment rather than to the original post.

I simply said, "I'm not trying to start an argument but I wear a mask anytime I'm in public. I wear it to protect other people. My 'freedom' is not more important than someone else's life."

I wanted to say to the original poster, "Okay, so you won't wear a mask. So I guess that means you think no one else should, right? Well, then, pick the person in your family that you're going to sacrifice so that you don't have to wear a mask."

Is that extreme?

No.

It's not.

People are dying. Maybe not someone in your family. Maybe not in my family but people are DYING and those people have families and they don't deserve to die any more than you or I do.

What the actual hell, people? So you wear a mask and save a life. Is your freedom that freaking important that you aren't willing to save lives!?!

Are masks comfortable? Of course not. But I'm betting it's way more uncomfortable to have Covid-19. It's also was more uncomfortable to have to bury your loved one and not even get to have a memorial service for them because of social distancing.

People are picking the WRONG things to get all pissy about.

One Thing

Each night, I go to sleep thinking of everything that I could accomplish the next day.

I'm always so motivated when I'm on the brink of sleep.

Of course when I wake up the next day, and the hours loom before me, well, nothing ever actually gets done.

Oh sure, I wash the dishes every single day. I also put away the clean dishes. I make sure the girls eat at least twelve times a day and I stuff my own face probably twice that much. It's disgusting around here.

I've vacuumed a few times. I do laundry as needed. Heck, I even sweep the kitchen floor.

But I haven't really DONE anything.

But last night, I cleaned one toilet right before bed and I felt like I'd accomplished something.

I kind of figure if I manage to get one thing done each day, even if that one thing is helping Olivia complete that day's school work, I'm keeping my head above water.

I'm not decluttering. I haven't painted any of the rooms in this house. I don't have bags of things ready to be taken to Good Will once this is all over.

No.

I'm treading water and trying not to drown.

And I'm starting to think that's okay.

We don't have to thrive during this time.

We just have to survive.

So yes, I'll end up coming out of this as a chunk and my daughter can be the hunk. I don't think any of us will be a drunk and I'm counting that as a win.

Schooling At Home

I can't say we're homeschooling around here. That's not what's happening. I am not making lesson plans, figuring out how to grade those lessons, finding ways for the girls to learn outside the home, blah blah blah.

I love that homeschool is an option for those who want it.

We don't want it.

We never did.

But again, that's not what we're doing around here.

We're going online each day where Olivia's teacher has posted assignments and we're completing then. Then O's teacher will grade them.

Each week we meet with O's teacher via Zoom. Olivia types message during these meetings because even at home, she won't talk to her teacher. Sigh.

Reading can take anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour. It just depends on the day and how attentive Olivia is.

I try hard to keep her on task, which she takes as rushing her. I do not rush her. I just try to keep her focused.

You guys? Her teachers and aides deserve so much more than a stupid box of chocolates each Christmas for putting up with her.

I don't know. Maybe she's more beastly with me because I'm her mom but she can be a nightmare.

And yet, there are days when she's fine.

At least she has a sense of humor about her own quirks. Recently she said, "At least I can't scribble on the Chrome Book."

Indeed.

For posterity, Alyssa's schooling is great. She's self-motivated, attentive and competitive. She does the work as soon as her teachers assign it. She has even lamented that each teacher only assigns work one day a week. I think she'd like to have each teacher assign a little more because she's bored.

She is working out daily, which is obviously more than I can say. She declared one evening this week, "I better come out of this quarantine buff."

Ha.

For what it's worth, the last day any assignments will be posted is Friday, May 15th. The week after that is Right to Read Week and then it's the official last day of school. So we really only have one more week of school left.

That's a relief for all of us. Bring on the Summer of Quarantine. Can you tell I'm kind of over 2020? I do realize that I'm not alone in this sentiment.

Back Story

So the other day, before all my angst of needing just an hour of alone time came along, Olivia and I were leaving the house for a rare trip to the grocery store. We needed AAA batteries for O's book light. She uses it to light the way to the bathroom at night and let me just tell you, AAA batteries are cheaper than Pull Ups.

Yeah.

As we were leaving, I said to Tom, only half joking, "Don't enjoy the quiet too much."

See, he's either alone in the house or alone in his trips to wherever he needs to go.

Ahem, sorry, that's already been lamented.

When O and I got back from the grocery store, Tom was acting odd.

Apparently, my comment got to him.

I said I shouldn't have said anything.

He said he wants to know how I feel.

I said well, I was telling him in that moment and yet...he was upset about how I feel.

Whatever. We're all tense around here. We're tired and yet not getting out enough. We're eating too much and not exercising enough. We're going crazy around here.

Tom tells me I shouldn't feel guilty for wanting a little time to myself. But when he says that, it makes me feel awful.

It's all a stupid circle and I cry and he feels bad and everyone's unhappy.

I need to remember that self care is not selfish and if being alone for a little while each day is what I need to not lose my mind and end up sobbing over the dryer at 1:30 on a Friday afternoon, well, then, I need to make time for that.

I will be back to work soon...I hope.

not because I hope to be away from my family but because I want this world to get back to some semblance of normal. I know that the normal we knew back before March 2020 will probably never be regained but some kind of normal is necessary for everyone's sanity.

On-line school assignments only go through next week. They're due May 15. After that, it's Right to Read Week and then...summer break, such as it may be. By the end of next week, I won't be needed at home the way I am now.

I'll head back to work, however that looks and we'll figure out our next new normal.

Let's just hope it with fewer tears than these last couple of weeks have seen.

Division of Labor

There are two sides to every story. Or, as the case may be around here, there could even by four sides of every story.

We're smack in the middle of my fourth week at home with Tom and the girls.

It's...okay.

I mean, it's fine, it's obviously stressful and we're all experiencing some degree of cabin fever but it's fine.

Except when it's not.

On week days, Olivia and I get up at 10 to start the day. Some days we shower, some days we don't. Since it take Liv at least 20 minutes to gather her 'treasures', ie, the items she sleeps with and yet will NOT leave in her bed each day, we are never downstairs for breakfast before 10:30, even on non-shower days.

We usually start school work by 11:30am and it's never taken us beyond 1:30 to finish it for that day.

Then, obviously, it's time for O's lunch.

Recently, I've felt a sense of martyrdom, that I'm doing the bulk of the work around here with regards to keeping house and caring for the girls.

We know that the other side of this story would say differently. I know that Tom works hard. I do. I also live inside my own head, where I'm the center of the universe and in my universe, I'm tired of never, ever being alone.

So on recent Tuesday (of course it was a Tuesday) I mentioned that someone was going to have to make a fruit run. We were out of apples, bananas, strawberries, and cuties.

I told Tom that he had a choice. He could either go to the nearest grocery store (a ten minute drive) and buy fruit or he could put together lunch for the girls.

Now, there were several options in this scenario:

1. I make lunch, he goes to buy fruit and the girls go with him.

2. I make lunch, he goes to buy fruit and the girls stay home with me.

3. He makes lunch, I go buy fruit and the girls go with me.

4. H makes lunch, I go buy fruit and the girls stay home with him.

He chose to go buy fruit.

Guess which option, 1 or 2, happened.

Obviously, the girls stayed with me. It was never actually an option that they'd go with him. But then again, if I'd gone to get the fruit, it never would have been an option that they'd stay home either.

Sigh.

I know this is my fault.

I could insist they either go with him or stay home with him. But insisting is so much work.

It's so much easier to just be a martyr.

But then I'm resentful and they sense my resentment and everyone is miserable.

We'll get through this. Together.