Missives from quarantine: Week 5
A little family goes a little nutty
We went into self-quarantine on March 14, 2020. No one knew how long it would last, or how intense it would be. We just knew we had to lock it down and wait. Throughout our quarantine, we kept track of our day to day—what else was there to do? Here’s our family log of our first 60 days in lockdown, with pictures and the occasional audio interview.
Days 29-30
Somehow I made it through the entire Easter celebration without taking a single photo. Oof. But it ended up being a lovely little day. We decorated the house. Had Easter baskets ready when the girls got up (plus Grandma's baskets she sent ahead of time). Got all dressed up. Did the egg hunt thing. Rocked a ham and some deviled eggs (and then rocked it again for dinner, and again for lunch on day 30). Video chatted with some family.
The next day (Monday, day 30), it was back to business as usual, or as usual as things can be at the moment. The kids do seem to have adjusted pretty well at this point. Less fighting usually. They have a bit of a groove to their days, and they seem to have moved past the point of feeling sad/angry at what they missed out on. Leen is tackling the school stuff with them, and they seem to be acquiescing more to it.
So that's good. But when you think about how school is officially toast for the year, and that means at best if the kids go back to school in August, that means they will have had a six-month gap in classroom time. Six. Months. That makes me feel like Essie's hair looks in this photo.
Moment to moment, things are quite nice. Day to day, they're fine. It doesn't seem useful to think much beyond that, though.
Fortunately, Es is a wonderful human being who is funny and entertaining and endlessly creative (and in this picture is just cheezin' for the camera).
And Camille just keeps making music, including this improv.
And sometimes we just idly chatter:
Day 31
It has been one month.
One.
Month.
An unrelated question: How much wood could a wood chipper chip if a wood chipper could chip wood?
Answer: [whispers] All of it. All of the wood. At least one acre's worth. Chip chip chip chip chip.
Days 32-33
It's to the point where you lose days, innit? The date stamps on the pics on my phone are the only thing helping me track what day it is.
What was day 32? Wednesday I guess? The girls had piano lessons (over Zoom), so it must have been. I otherwise have no recollection of that day that I can think of. Creepy.
Today (Thursday) was just work and such. But in the evening, we laid down some tracks for church music this weekend. Some overdubs made up for the lack of mics and plethora of girls who wanted to sing *and* play an instrument.
Ended the night losing to Essie at SkipBo. She wanted me to post a picture of her astonishing discard pile. (It grew by one “5” card before she used it all to bury me in a blistering run.)
Days 34-35
Friday was rough. Fridays are always a little rough—I’ve never understood people who wanted to go out and party late on Friday nights, when all I want to do is knock back some takeout and lay quietly on a couch until it's an appropriate-enough time to lay in a bed and sleep—but the kids seem to be having some high control needs. So it goes.
Saturday was much lovelier, though it had its moments of child rebellion. The weather was great, and we all spent a good chunk of time outside. Camille became enamored of the creek in the woods and spent some good time mudding it up (this is her resting on a log bridge).
Also, I downloaded all of the original NES games for the Switch and fired up Punch Out. Oh man. Time machine.
