Three Years Ago Today- A Day in the Life of COVID Quarantine
Today a Facebook memory popped up, and I wanted to share my post.
For perspective, we were maybe a week or so into quarantine. Social media was blowing up with people who were learning crafts, doing fun home projects, deep cleaning closets and drawers and doing other amazing stuff. Baking and cooking and playing games and hanging out. I couldn't take it any more and felt the need to share a dose of reality - or at least a dose of what our reality looked like.
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Facebook Post, March 27, 2020
So everyone is posting all this lovely stuff. Showing their clean homes, working out, and playing with family. Happy kids sitting at computers doing their schoolwork in pajamas. Parents jokingly frustrated at having to be a teacher while working from home. Everyone is doing crafts and projects. Home repair. Painting a room. Going for a run. Spending family time. Sanitizing their already immaculate houses.
Have I baked bread? Yep.
Have we been taking long daily walks with the family? Definitely, and it is a treat.
Family dinner every night. I can't recall the last time this happened more than 1-2x/week.
Is it in concept great to have the family together? In CONCEPT yes... I love my three guys, but...
...but there's the flip side to all of this, and I'm willing to put myself out there and be honest.
My house is a mess. It is too people-y in here and the dust is piling up. The mountain of laundry I'm trying to get through right now would bring Sir Edmund Hillary to tears. I'm behind on vacuuming, and the clutter is making me twitchy. The kids' school papers all over the house and I can't get them to stay organized.
School from home doesn't work. Period. At least the way our school system is doing it. There's no formal instruction from any teachers. We have to go to a website and the kids are supposed to do their work from there. Packets and worksheets are what we get - maybe a link to a website to help them understand the lesson, and a "post" here and there to encourage them to keep up. Maybe a 2-minute video once or twice a day, but there's absolutely no direct interaction between teacher and student. For Ryan it is worse - we were keeping up with the work based on the assignments from the district website. Last night I discovered (2 weeks in) that the teacher is also posting some work on Class Dojo (different site/app), and OTHER work on Schoology (a 3rd location). And she doesn't need the students to do some of the assignments on the district website because they haven't taught any of that yet. At 10 and 8 my boys can't stay on task without a teacher, and Hari Sharma and I are both WFH full time.
Fortnite/YouTube: DEAR GOD - someone please blow these two up. My kids have zero discipline and they have to get assignments and submit assignments using a computer/phone. But nearly every time they go online I catch them watching some FREAKING YouTuber playing Fortnite. If I ever meet Ninja I'm going to kick him in the shins. Hard.
We are all stir-crazy. My coping mechanism for stress is the gym, which is closed. The boys normally have 1-2 hours a day (minimum) of sports/activity. Now they might have a walk once a day, or a little workout if we can squeeze one in. It isn't enough.
The kids won't stop bickering. Or if they do it is to act like baboons on crack. Or they're eating or asleep. And for about 36 seconds every day the need hugs and reassurance, and tell me they love me.
My poor dog has been walked so much she was developing a rash from her harness.
Is "shelter in place" easier than having to be on the front line with bombs dropping overhead? Of course. And we're fortunate to live in a country where we have enough food and other supplies, and fresh water. And power and Netflix and books. But the crushing pressure of trying to work, be a mom/dad, be a teacher, figure out what your kids are supposed to be doing, all while keeping my house clean, hoping that the economy doesn't collapse and we all survive.
While seeing everyone out there with the appearance of making Martha Stewart look like a slacking waste... well, I just can't.
I dare any of you to share some reality.
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| Colin, hard at "work" |
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| Mount Laundry |
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| Even more laundry |
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