It’s Day 14 of self isolation and day 9 of homeschooling. Here’s how self isolation as a family is going for us.
A lot of this feels relatively Normal
After having 4 kids in 4 years, including preemie twins, I am no stranger to isolation. On top of that, I suffered from a bad MRSA infection after my first c-section and one of our preemie twins also battled a horrific MRSA infection when he was less than 2 weeks old. To read more about our NICU experience click here.
Being aware of germs has been a way of life for us for a while now. Washing hands, limiting house guests, avoiding gatherings and any contact in general is nothing new to me. I’ve felt this feeling of being on lockdown before. I’m used to not leaving the house for sometimes days on end. Until this year, only 1 of our 4 kids was in school.
I’ve been avoiding stores and ordering everything I can online for years now! You think I can afford to run low on something like toilet paper or wipes, HELL NO! A quick run to the store is a luxury I do not and have not had in quite a while. I use Amazon subscribe and save…I have at least 30 rolls of toilet paper on hand at any given time…and paper towels…and wipes. That is just a fact of my life. So, a lot of what’s going on right now feels relatively normal.
Until those moments it doesn’t
On Day 14, when my kindergartener watched a video from his teacher, it hit me right in the gut how not normal this is.
I don’t know if it was the way his face lit up when he saw her and heard her voice. Or maybe it was the way I could see how much he actually missed his teacher. Maybe it was the way she was smiling and trying to make this seem ok for her students or the way I could see how not normal this was for her. But something about the whole thing just made it all sink in.
I am so glad that my son was intently watching that video and didn’t notice that my eyes were welling up with tears. Tears that I couldn’t even fully understand where they were coming from. At that moment I felt so sad, so scared and a huge weight of responsibility.
It’s my job to keep these little humans safe. It’s up to me to make the right decisions. And now it’s also up to me to make sure they keep up with their school work.
Guys, this is so stressful
These are such strange and scary times for every one of us. All of us parents are struggling with this. We are struggling with this weird reality of being terrified and worried about our entire country and world but also trying to keep our cool for our children at the same time. We are handling the stress of self isolation during a pandemic on top of the stress of trying to homeschool our children on top of work stress. Whether you’re like us and have no income coming in due to shut downs or you’re trying to work from home or you’re one of the few that is still leaving the house for work and having to worry about bringing something home to your family. It’s insane!
And I saw it play out right in my dining room. Our dining room has been turned into a “classroom” where my kindergartener and my second grader try to keep up with their classwork while school is shut down. We had a few days that went pretty smooth and I felt like we were getting into a routine. Then Day 14 (Day 9 of homeschooling) came. It was a rough day for us. And in a moment of frustration I walked out of the room. With my son crying and squirming on his chair and my daughter crying at my laptop. I needed to walk away.
Then, I hear a scream. I rushed back in to find that blood was pouring out of my son’s face. Once I figured out where it’s coming from, making sure that none of his teeth were missing, he tells me his sister hit him. She hit him so hard that his nose was gushing blood.
We were all frustsated from this self isolation
I sent her to her room but to be completely honest I couldn’t put all the blame on her. We were all frustrated. Neither of them understand why they have to do all their work at home or why they can’t see any of their friends or their grandparents or cousins. They don’t understand why they are seeing their teachers through videos or why they have to do all their work on a computer now. We reached a boiling point and, unfortunately, my son’s nose paid the price.
The funny part of this whole story
Funny part is, the assignment my son was crying about doing was to write about his friends. And then as soon as his sister came down the stairs with an extremely sincere apology he grabbed his pencil and wrote on his blood stained paper “My sister is my best friend.” And then we all hugged.
So, the moral of the story is.
We’ll be fine. Our kids will get through this just fine. Let’s be kind to each other. Let’s do our best to keep our patience with the people we are stuck in the house with. And let’s be patient with ourselves. No matter how much it might feel like it, the weight of the world is not actually on us. All we can do is do our part to all follow the guidelines put out there, practice our social distancing, let the medical professionals do what they have to do and STAY THE HELL HOME…we will get through this.
To see some of the activities or videos we are enjoying during this crazy-ass time check out my other post Activities for Kids When You’re Stuck At Home
