You can't live through a pandemic and not document it. After 2 years of living in shut down, socially distanced, masked and sanitize all-the-time, we had our first experience with Covid. It caught me off gaurd...Eli came downstairs one morning and said his head really hurt. When I hugged him, I immediately knew that he had a fever. His complaints weren't like any other virus, so I gave him a covid test. This is the first time any of the kids have had a test and my first time ever giving one. It honestly feels like a pregnancy test!
Eli had a fever for 3 days and said his head really hurt and was achy. He also had a hard time sleeping for 2 nights.
Ben had to stay home from work for 5 days and Eli stayed in his room for that time, even after his fever left.
It felt very odd to be back in shut down mode. Colin used his time to make a million perler bead creations.
When our time was up, Ben treated Eli to some Facebook marketplace Lego finds! We have been wanting a train for a long time! *We've since added to the train and city..update coming soon.
I wish that was the end of the this post, but 2 weeks later, Alison got Covid as well. She only had a fever for a day, but also said her head hurt really bad and was achy. She said her head felt like she had a migraine and then had a dry cough for several days. I hope this is the end of Covid for our family, but I'm thankful that symptoms were mild and everyone is healthy.
We picked up Chick-fil-A and had a picnic to celebrate.
And Alison finished her Jr. High Language Arts class through CASA. I have to completely gush on her in a minute, but first, we went to the Exchange to do a little shopping (aka the only place that we are able to buy anything other than food).
It is also the only place I can buy clothes right now and these two will not stop growing, so we had to buy some clothes, as well as a few birthday presents, on top of the fun treats they picked for finishing up some classes so well.
{We were required to wear masks to get on base and to enter any building on base}
{Also noting that I filled up the car while there for $2.49/gallon and it was the first time I had filled ups since March}
When we got home, I made Alison triple chocolate chip cookies. I just couldn't get over how proud I was of her.
And here's why.
That morning, we were low on easy breakfast options, so I cooked up some sausage, potatoes and eggs. Right as I was finishing, Alison got up and asked if we could snuggle for a minute so we sat down on the couch. Then she asked what time it was. I looked at the clock and asked her what day it was. I don't even know what day it is anymore!!! It was 8:52 on Tuesday. I jumped up and said, "AH! It's 8:52 and you have your last class in 8 MINUTES!!!" We were both still in our pajamas and she hadn't even taken a bite of breakfast. But, she didn't panic. She just calmly got dressed, brushed her teeth and put her breakfast on her desk to eat when she was done with class. I, on the other hand, was running around crazy, asking her questions...to which she calmly answered all of them. She had completely, on her own, prepared for her last class which entail presenting a book report over zoom. If it had been left to me, she would have missed the class and not had a report ready.
So, my little rockstar starts her class and then, oh yea, Ben gets on his conference call because it's Tuesday at 9:00. This is picture of our weird normal life.
Yes, the boys have been playing more xbox together, because we haven't been allowing them to play outside with the neighbor kids and in efforts to keep them a little quieter while daddy is on calls. Our days have been juggling Ben doing counseling over the phone and us trying to get a little school done and a little bit more complicated food situation and trying to convince ourselves it's not Saturday.
I got a text from Alison's tutor shortly after their class. She said Alison did an amazing job on her presentation, she was very impressed by her work and she gave her an A+. It was a well deserved A+. I literally did not even her report or have her practice her presentation or even listen to the class...it was ALL her and I am so proud of her. Also proud for how well she's done at her first (in a long time) class outside of our home. Okay, gush done.
Just to document living through the Covid-19 pandemic.
I went to Target last week to buy some essential toiletries. This was the store:
Pretty much the entire store is taped off with signs saying that the county has declared these items to be non-essential and you may not buy them. Also worth noting, there is not a person in site. There is now a person standing by the front door, keeping track of how many people are in the store and only allowing a certain number in at a time.
I realized today the importance of making your kids use scissors. Eli was supposed to make geometric shapes for math and got so frustrated. It was one of those moments as a mom, that I thought, "Hold on. Do you not know how to cut? What else do you not know?"
He is brilliant at math...and can't cut out a shape. Good thing for him, he has plenty of time to work on that skill right now.
Apparently, he also does not fully know his address. During grammar, we were working on abbreviations and I asked him to write his address. He said, "I don't know all of it...we move too many times!!!"
No worries, we're working on that as well.
I also realized this week that quarantine feels very similar to deployment. You spend your time trying to figure out a temporary new normal, but really just waiting for the old normal to return. Life feels weird and you just feel off and you spend a lot of energy trying to make the most of it.
I don't think anyone could have foreseen the coronavirus pandemic, but it is yet again another reason I am thankful that we are homeschooling!
Today was one of those days that we all felt a little off. I've tried to relax into these days instead of stressing out that they don't look like "they're supposed to". I had planned to do an art project in the afternoon, but I found these two coloring together so nicely while I was getting ready for the day. It's not very often that Alison has some one-on-one time with the boys, so I didn't disturb them and let this be art for the day. Colin did the best coloring he's ever done, so I would call it a success.
Real life.
At least 3 times a day I have to call Colin in from outside for a subject. Today, he came running for grammar and didn't even bother taking his helmet off because he knew he was just going to run right back outside. He's working on prepositions and doing a great job!
We pretended he was a king on his throne:
Reading today=at the counter while I start cooking dinner, eating cashews and fresh strawberries from a local farm. You can also see his artwork from the day.
2020 will most likely go down in history for the coronavirus pandemic. I can't give the whole history of it, but only document what it has looked like for our family.
The last week of February, talk of the virus started floating around. Ben came home from work one day and said that he saw one of the buildings on base getting set up to be a place of quarantine for people coming back into the states from overseas. That same week, while on the women's retreat, there was a great debate among the women if it was actually necessary to start stocking up on food. I shared that Ben believed schools would eventually be closed down, to which everyone was shocked. Only one other woman there thought any precaution were necessary. Within a week, the virus talk started to increase and people started stocking up on food.
(The beginning of March ) I went to Trader Joe's, which was completely normal at the time, and the cashier told me that other Trader Joe's in the area were starting to have their shelves cleaned off. I ordered groceries that same day from Costco and the lady dropping them off told me that the lady before me nearly lost her mind because she couldn't get her requested 2 packages of Clorox wipes (that's 8 giant packages!). She said Costco was insane and people were going crazy over water, toilet paper, clorox wipes and hand sanitizer. When she mentioned what was in high demand, I was immediately SO VERY THANKFUL. By providence, not knowing what was coming, I was already well stocked in all those things. It also helps that Alison is currently in love with Bath and Body Works and has over 50 hand sanitizers in her collection.
I spent the following week doubling up every meal that I cooked so that I could freeze one; ensuring we had meals for later on if a crisis occurred. That was our last "normal" week...Alison had Language and Spanish class, I took a meal to Miss Erin and got to meet baby Kailey, went to a class at the Y and I went to the dentist.
We had planned to go up to San Luis Obispo for Ben's birthday (the 14th), but decided to postpone because of the rainy weather. Again, we were so very thankful that God sent the rain to keep us home. His birthday was simple, but we were able to go out to dinner. I made a last minute run to Walmart Marketplace for groceries since we hadn't planned on being home for the weekend. It had such a weird vibe inside. I had to scour the parking lot for a cart. People were in a frenzy and filling their carts with pasta and canned goods. Looking back, I wish I would have bought more on that trip, but I got everything that I needed and was pleased to come out with my sanity.
The day after Ben's birthday, everything started closing down. The restaurant we just ate at, closed. Alison's classes, homeschool group and basketball, all closed. The public school system closed for an unknown amount of time.
Within a short week, our state was in complete lockdown. Church is closed. The Y is closed. The dentist and vet called and said that we can't come in for our appointments. We can't go to the park and play at the playground. We can't even go for a hike if it's in a national park.
As a homeschooler, this is a very unique time in history. Right now, the entire world is homeschooled. For a brief time, the entire world is getting a taste of my world. For a little bit, I am not the odd man out, but the rare person who has already been doing what the world has been thrown into the this week.
Grocery shopping isn't easy anymore. Ben was home 2 days this week and we made up a plan for our food. I went to Sprouts right when they opened one morning; they had zero bread, eggs, milk, canned goods, frozen produce or poultry. There was a worker stocking some roasts while I was there, so I grabbed a couple. He was so friendly and assured me that things would calm down soon and there would be plenty of food for everyone. Now stores are limiting how much you can buy, which is reasonable considering we're in this shortage from everyone stocking up on food, but I'm feeding a family of 5. The cashier told me that they got a shipment of milk in the day before and there was practically a stampede for it. It was so bad that they almost had to call the police! I ran across the street to Grocery Outlet and was able to find milk and picked up some lunch meat just in case. Ben went to the Commissary. They were also out of bread, but he was able to get milk, eggs, 2 pork butts, and everything else we needed plus a lot of fun snacks for the kids. It was nice to have some treats when everything else felt restricted.
A few of the things Ben came home with:
I tried my very hardest this last week to keep our days as normal as possible. We continued to follow our school schedule and I think it helped our days feel like they had purpose and going along quicker. I told the kids that I would like to use this time wisely. The world has stopped, but our school can still keep going. In fact, we have been given the gift of time. Our days are wide open now and if we continue to work hard, we can finish our school year early and take a break when we can actually go somewhere. I suggested we plan a fantastic trip to celebrate the end of the pandemic. Planning trips is therapeutic for me and I asked the kids where they would go if they could go anywhere. Alison said Scotland. Eli and Colin said Joshua Tree. I think we should go to Hawaii!
I also told them that this is the time to do all the things that we've said we were going to do and haven't because we're "too busy". Busyness was taken away. What we have is eachother. The only thing they could think of was I said we would go to the beach and do school, but it's too chilly for that right now, so I don't feel so bad about that. I do know a big one for me; I always say I want to write more. What better time to write. I looked back on our blog one night, trying to find how we survived Yuma summers. That was basically quarantine. And we did it 3 times! Surely I wrote about what we did and what helped me get through. Nope. You know what I wrote about? What we did to escape; trips to San Diego and Flagstaff were mostly what filled the feed. I was so bummed. Even for school. I don't want to forget the little things of our days. They seems silly now, but they sure won't in a few years. So, here's hoping for more quarantine writing!
Unfortunately for us, it's also been pretty cold and raining. I shouldn't complain, as the rest of the world is staring at snow right now. When you live in California and you get slightly chilly, you bundle up and turn on the fire. We.are.spoiled.
Grammar by the fire with Eli:
I know there will be blessings that come from the hardship. I see glimpses of God working everyday. Our open schedule has given us time to fully do each thing. Real reading time has come back. Up until now, I would work with Colin for a little bit, but he has yet to really sit and read on his own. Until now. It just melted my heart hearing him reading in his bed.
One afternoon, I pulled a full Charlotte Mason and turned on some classical music, lit a candle, pulled out some classic artwork and we drew with oil pastels. I'm not a Charlotte Mason person, but the kids all said this was their favorite.
