Thoughts from self-isolation (Day 21)
Day 21 counting from March 13 but...since we're restarting this for another 30 days I guess it's more like day 4. I think. All of this self-isolation has highlighted a few stark and startling realities for me (some funny and some not so much).
First, if you do not have children this is a very different experience for you. You may actually catch up on TV more than normal, you may workout more, you may establish some new routines. For this crew the kiddos may be watching a little more TV than normal (well, some of them...Jamesey doesn't watch TV), working out more - well, suffice to say I'm getting my steps in chasing the rascals, new routines - not so much. We have kiddos that benefit from and miss their routines. Now that we're finding newish normals they're starting to adjust but you can believe they miss their schedules.
Second, I'm pretty confident that we're coming out of this with some better habits than we went in - whether we planned it or not. It's been affirmed that no, Target doesn't miss me but maybe my credit card company does. We've tackled a few smaller projects around the house and isolated a few more that we'd like to do before baby girl arrives but overall it's been more of a systematic purge and it has been helpful. I'll say this too, projects with our 'helpers' tend to take 3 times as long as they normally would. Given that projects already take 3 times as long as they 'should' or are estimated to we're looking at exponential expansion of time investment here. Seriously, projects are taking 9 times as long as we anticipate. Funny not funny.
Thirdly, there are BIG emotions during self-isolation. The drama when Lincoln logs were accidentally knocked over, or a sandwich had a smidge of strawberry jelly in the honey - whoooo boy. And the kids are feeling it too. We've crafted and Pinterested and we're making the most of this time, but there are bumps in the road. Anna told me today - - this really doesn't feel like summer and I felt like that was a good analysis. It's not summer, it's not an extended snow vacation. There's schoolwork to be done, parents are working from home, there are conversations about virus' and isolation and that's big stuff for little hearts. We've talked at length about how it's different than summer. We've designed bucket lists of activities designed to distract - but the honest conversations have had to happen too.
As week three has happened for us and the county around us, it's been interesting to observe that a bit more of a dip in attitudes has happened. People perk back up, but patience might prove to be a little harder to come by, the tears might be a little closer to the surface, the chunky monkey ice cream might surface a little more frequently...we're all handling this in different ways.
First, if you do not have children this is a very different experience for you. You may actually catch up on TV more than normal, you may workout more, you may establish some new routines. For this crew the kiddos may be watching a little more TV than normal (well, some of them...Jamesey doesn't watch TV), working out more - well, suffice to say I'm getting my steps in chasing the rascals, new routines - not so much. We have kiddos that benefit from and miss their routines. Now that we're finding newish normals they're starting to adjust but you can believe they miss their schedules.
Second, I'm pretty confident that we're coming out of this with some better habits than we went in - whether we planned it or not. It's been affirmed that no, Target doesn't miss me but maybe my credit card company does. We've tackled a few smaller projects around the house and isolated a few more that we'd like to do before baby girl arrives but overall it's been more of a systematic purge and it has been helpful. I'll say this too, projects with our 'helpers' tend to take 3 times as long as they normally would. Given that projects already take 3 times as long as they 'should' or are estimated to we're looking at exponential expansion of time investment here. Seriously, projects are taking 9 times as long as we anticipate. Funny not funny.
Thirdly, there are BIG emotions during self-isolation. The drama when Lincoln logs were accidentally knocked over, or a sandwich had a smidge of strawberry jelly in the honey - whoooo boy. And the kids are feeling it too. We've crafted and Pinterested and we're making the most of this time, but there are bumps in the road. Anna told me today - - this really doesn't feel like summer and I felt like that was a good analysis. It's not summer, it's not an extended snow vacation. There's schoolwork to be done, parents are working from home, there are conversations about virus' and isolation and that's big stuff for little hearts. We've talked at length about how it's different than summer. We've designed bucket lists of activities designed to distract - but the honest conversations have had to happen too.
As week three has happened for us and the county around us, it's been interesting to observe that a bit more of a dip in attitudes has happened. People perk back up, but patience might prove to be a little harder to come by, the tears might be a little closer to the surface, the chunky monkey ice cream might surface a little more frequently...we're all handling this in different ways.
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