The Saturday 7: Pandemic Edition! (And some other stuff.)

What an insane week. I'm going to go sequentially . . .

1. First of all, thank you so much to everyone who reached out after my last post. So many of you offered encouragement, prayer, resources, and commiseration. I have the best friends and it means the world to me! Lena struggled most days, but definitely improved as the week went on. (I can't imagine the damage this quarantine is going to do to the progress she's made! 🤦)

2. My nephew and niece-in-law decided to take advantage of a last minute coronovirus cruise deal, and I agreed to watch Nova a few days. Plus I had Ruby on Monday and Wednesday as usual, Levi had preschool testing on Tuesday, I helped out in the childcare for Bible Study on Thursday, and I had a VBS meeting in there. I finally wrote it all down so I wouldn't forget a kid somewhere. Haha.

I actually only ended up watching Nova for half a day on Tuesday, but we had fun that day!

Storytime

Nash thought it was funny getting his hand traced.

I love this kid.

Play-doh time!

3. Levi had his long-awaited preschool testing on Tuesday. I was nervous that he'd be in one of his uncooperative moods and would refuse to do what Mrs. Ellsworth asked of him. But he was in a great mood, took her hand and walked down the hall without me no problem (can I just say again how different he is than the girls???), and apparently cooperated beautifully. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall so I could see exactly what he did. He told me that he walked on a balance beam, threw little pillows into a basket (bean bags? haha), wrote his name, did shapes and letters and numbers. Mrs. Ellsworth said he did great. She was impressed with his letter recognition and his vocabulary (during the test, a teacher in the classroom next door turned on a movie and Levi said, "I think that is going to distract me.") He was supposed to have a second round of testing (the social readiness test) in early April, but that's been canceled and won't be rescheduled. (Whew! Dodged a bullet on that one. Levi does not always play well with others. Lol.) We'll get notified soon whether or not he's in.

4. And now for the Cornovirus update! This is probably totally inappropriate, but I'm actually geeking out about it a little bit. "Social distancing" and quarantining to this degree is totally unprecedented! I think it's so cool that we get to be a part of history . . . as long as it doesn't ultimately result in our death or a second and even greater "Depression" that cripples our economy. I can't even begin to fathom the long term ramifications of schools and businesses shutting down like this. It's also been so interesting to watch the facebook reactions. At first, everyone on my feed was calling the precautions ridiculous and the result of media hype and politics. But as more and more news came out of China and Italy about mass casualties, overrun hospitals, and extreme quarantining, people slowly started to change their tune. (This is why I rarely express strong opinions about anything. 🤣) Truth be told, though, when I heard that colleges were closing I brushed it off as overly-cautious and outright ridiculous. But on Wednesday, my friend Kara shared this article. It's a little too technical for me, but I got the gist and it set me on a research path that kept me up until midnight that night. I started googling "flatten the curve" and "social distancing" and looking at the statistics from China and Italy and realizing that maybe there was something to this!

5. So Thursday morning, before any real restrictions were in place in our state, I decided to get ahead of the game and go grocery shopping. I wasn't panicking. I didn't clear any shelves. I just figured I should stock up with a couple weeks' worth of waffles and frozen pizza and dinosaur nuggets and the three other foods my kids will eat. Our school administrator had been very clear that he felt school was the safest place for our kids, but I fully anticipated that there would be mandates that overrode his opinion. I also got gas while I was out, because look at these prices!!!

I don't understand why the prices aren't skyrocketing with all the chaos in the world, but I'm not complaining!

I saw plenty of people like this at the store.

I didn't get any toilet paper (I got a huge package from Sam's 2 weeks ago before we realized the extent of this craziness!), but I stocked up on necessities!

I also ran to the library because I assumed they'd be closing indefinitely in a matter of time.

I made it just in the nick of time. I didn't get anything for myself because I have shelves full, Kindle Unlimited, and access to the library's online system. I've been preparing my whole life for this!!

6. I watched the press release live Thursday night when our governor ordered all K-12 schools to close through April 6. I saw it coming, but was shocked by the length of time. Our spring break was already scheduled from April 6-13, and we've since gotten an email from school saying that the dates won't change, so my kids will legitimately be out of school for a solid month!! I got an email from Lena's teacher late Thursday night asking me to come in Friday morning to help put together homework packets. Those poor teachers were scrambling, but they did an amazing job of preparing our kids for 3 weeks of homeschool. I can't believe we're back to this. 🤦Next month's tuition payment is really going to hurt . . .

I've seen both sides on social media: "Yay! I love spending time with my kids! We're going to have so much fun!" and "Forget toilet paper! I'm going to need wine to get through this month!" Lol. As usual, I'm settling somewhere in the middle. It's not necessarily having my kids home all day that will be hard, it's having them home and not being able to leave home. The libraries are closed indefinitely, the play spaces are germ cesspools that we're supposed to be avoiding, even church is closed! So we're just going to sit at home and try to enjoy each other! Lol. This is when I'm grateful that I didn't buy into the minimalist/Marie Kondo hype. Our house is full to bursting with puzzles and games and toys and play-doh and craft supplies and Legos. We're going to get it all out over the next 4 weeks!!

7. A few more pictures . . .