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.

Home

The last day I went to work was Friday, April 10. On Thursday, April 9, my doctor sent a letter to my place of employment stating that as a former cancer patient, one who'd been through chemotherapy and radiation, it was his medical opinion that I should self-quarantine for at least two weeks.

So I'm home. And I'm SO LUCKY that I'm currently home with full pay. Please know that I realize how lucky I am. SO LUCKY.

The stress level in our house went from explosive to manageable that Thursday night when I got home and told my family that I was going to be at home with them for the next two weeks.

Things had gotten rough in the days before my doctor's note arrived at my work.

Olivia and Tom were at constant odds over school work.

I'd get home from what felt like eighteen hours at work and before I'd even put my purse down, Tom would be informing me that he needed my help with O's schooling. She'd need my attention, Alyssa would want to show me a TikTok.

It was hard for all of us.

I've been home for six full days and things have settled into a routine. We had our best, most productive 'school' day yesterday.

We're doing our best, just like everyone else is.

And I know that we're some of the lucky ones. We have income, even though we're all at home. We have money for food, we can pay our mortgage. We aren't sick. We have each other and even if that sometimes feels overwhelming, we're so lucky.

I've made masks and we wear them if we have to go out into public. Alyssa wears one to work each time she had to work. Tom wears his to the post office.

My 80 year old dad is NOT social distancing. He goes to his local gas station every single day to buy a newspaper. My brother and I have had to tell him point blank not to come to our house.

I made my dad a mask. He drove to our house and I met him in the driveway to give it to him. He went to his nephew's house for Easter dinner. Sigh. That nephew is NOT social distancing either. He's 70 years old and says, "If I get it, I get it."

What the actual hell, Phil!?!

Okay, so if YOU get it, you get it but you know what? If you're going out and about after YOU'RE infected, YOU are not the only one getting it, dumb ass.

It makes me so angry because those of us who are trying so hard to flatten this curve are being sabotaged by idiots like him.

I'm so glad to be home. I'm go grateful that I can be here, helping Liv with her school work, watching TikToks with Alyssa. Feeding my family, both with actual food and with the spiritual, emotional support that we all need.

I just wish the idiots out there would get it together and stop thinking that this isn't a big deal.

It's a BIG FUCKING DEAL.

The Children

These are trying times, no?

Yes. Yes, they are trying.

The governor of Ohio closed schools for the first time on March 12. The last day the girls were in school was Friday, March 13. They came home with Chromebooks.

That first ‘closing’ was supposed to be for three weeks. The tentative restart date was April 6.

Unless you live under a rock (can I move in with you?) you probably know that that date has been pushed back to May 1 and there are murmurs about it school not resuming at all for the rest of this school year.

We’re all under a ‘shelter in place’ warning. Of course, that doesn’t mean a thing to me, I go to work every single damn day anyway.

And guess what? I’m not a doctor or a nurse. I’m NOT important and yet here I am.

But my family is at home and that television is on all the time. And it’s all news, or rather, it’s nothing new. It’s all about death and destruction and illness and scary shit and Olivia is losing her mind.

I recently got home on a Tuesday and she was drawing at the kitchen table. Which is nice. She was wearing a purple one-shouldered dress. She looked lovely and yet…she’s haunted right now.

By 6:30, she’d worked herself into quite a lather.

She wanted to write her Gram a letter but didn’t know what to write. She is bored and tired and stressed and at 13, she doesn’t know how to handle her emotions.

I fed her some dinner. She cried.

I ran her a bath. She cried.

I washed her hair. She cried.

We called her Gram. She cried.

I gave her some hot tea and a cookie. She felt a little better.

She’s scared. She’s young and fragile and scared. She doesn’t want to die. She doesn’t want her mom or her dad or her sister or her Gram to die.

I hugged her and told her we’re doing all we can so that none of us will die.

I finally asked her if she’d like to me to take a couple of days off work to spend with her.

That brightened her up.

We made plans for those days. We planned to go outside and draw on the driveway with chalk, go to the school and pick up pies that had been ordered months ago for the prom that will probably not happen (have I mentioned how glad I am that I didn’t buy a prom dress yet?) After we pick up the pies, we planned to take the ones my mom ordered to her, maintaining our distance, of course.

The, the next day, our big plan was to go through the McD’s drive-through in Montpelier. Mama needs her coke and Olivia needs to get out of the house, away from the house, even if for a little while.

Tough times, indeed.

Please Leave Your Babies at Home!!!

Everyone in the entire world is on lockdown, right?

Or, we’re supposed to be, right?

My place of employment is still open and so I’m still going to work. Sigh. I feel guilty every single day as I drive away from my home.

I’ve gone to the grocery store once a week, right after work, since this all began (two whole weeks ago…has it really only been that long?)

The first week, right after Ohio closed schools, my mom, Olivia and I went to lunch and the grocery store as usual. We also went to Hobby Lobby for some sewing supplies.

It was insane; not Hobby Lobby, that place was the epitome of calm and collected.

Applesbees wasn’t too bad either. They’d taken all the advertising tents and condiment trays off the tables for cleaning and business was kind of slow but it was only 11:30, so who knows how much busier it got that day.

But Walmart…OMG. Seriously.

The shelves were picked over. There was no pasta, no ramen, no potatoes. Obviously, there was no toilet paper. We didn’t even need toilet paper and yet…it was daunting to know that it wasn’t available had we needed it.

I got most of what we needed and we went to Meijer to see if they had potatoes. They did. We got a small bag. Oh, Meijer also had toilet paper that day. We didn’t actually need any, but I bought two 8-roll packages anyway. Oh. Wait. Does that make me a toilet paper hoarder? Yikes.

The next week, I went to Walmart on Friday after work. Well, wait. I actually left work that Friday at about 3:30 in hopes of beating any rush.

My early departure was in vain. There were STILL no potatoes, ramen, pasta or toilet paper but also, there was no bread whatsoever. Milk and eggs were plentiful but the Country Crock shelves were empty as were the Pillsbury biscuit shelves.

I went to Meijer AGAIN, this time for the bread. Again, Meijer had plenty of bread and they had three packs of toilet paper. These were labeled as ‘RV toilet paper.’ I have no idea what that means. I did NOT get toilet paper that day. Look at me, letting go of my hoarding ways.

Anyway…

This past week, week two of the girls being off school but it feels like we’re heading into week three, if you know what I mean, I went on our grocery run on Thursday after work. I kind of wanted to see if the shelves are different on a Thursday than they were on Friday.

There were potatoes! And toilet paper! Oh, and pasta and bread were on the shelves too. Alas, still no ramen. What the hell?

Ahem.

So I got my usual groceries.

As I made my way through the store, getting the things on my list, I came across no fewer than three families, FAMILIES, in that store.

And by family, I mean, there were two parents and AT LEAST two kids. Two of these families had a toddler and an INFANT with them.

What I want to know is WHY COULDN’T ONE OF THOSE PARENTS HAVE STAYED HOME WITH THOSE KIDS? I know. I need to calm down and stop screaming at you.

But people, seriously!

I’m so freaking resentful that I, and I alone, have to go out and work and buy groceries. I would give anything to be ‘sheltering at home’ with my family.

But I’m out there, going to work, buying groceries, getting gas for my car, blah blah freaking blah and these people are taking their BABIES out in this. Why? Why would you do that?

Sure, we’re all going a little stir-crazy. (Okay, I’m not but that’s because I don’t get to be ‘stuck’ at home.) But is that really reason enough to take your INFANTS out to a place like Walmart where germs are crawling all over the place, people are coughing and sneezing and it’s just GROSS.

Those poor babies!

Why, yes, it does appear that I’m becoming a germaphobe.