Mike worked today, I was home with the 3 kids. This is how far I got through my coffee this morning before two things happened:
1. All four us had cried, and,
2. The remaining coffee got spilled all over the floor.
The morning started with the news that my niece, the kids' cousin (with whom we planned to share child care) would not be coming today or for at least another week due to a potential exposure. The kids were so sad, particularly my oldest M who is in third grade with her. There were tears, and it snowballed from there. I cried through a heart to heart timeout with 5 year old S, hugs were exchanged, I made some more coffee, and we pulled ourselves back together. We didn't get too much done for academics today, but it felt like one of those mornings where emotional needs just had to come first. M was gloomy all morning and was grumpy about all his assignments. S got to do some Lexia online and was pretty happy about that. E's preschool teachers sent home a whole care package with puzzles, beads and string, and play dough. Her teachers are just amazing! She sat and played with that stuff all morning.
Moods were lifted considerably when we pulled this out of the oven for morning snack:
M helped me make the dough last night, and I rolled them up and let them rise while the kids were doing academics, they were ready about 10:30. They helped! Then I kicked them outside in our new 6 inches of snow until lunch. S was still grumpy and hung out inside with me while I got some school work done.
After lunch I enforced some silent reading time before I plugged them into a movie so I could do my office hours for my students and catch up on google classroom and emails! I had luck exploring a new platform/online textbook that is normally pricey but is being offered for free through June because of Corona.
Then the kids played some more, spent some time outside, and generally got along well until dinner. Half way through making dinner (pizza night! E's favorite, she is a pro at rolling out the dough), our Governor came on the air and, starting at 5pm tomorrow, mandated the "shelter in place". All non-essential businesses must close. I thought maybe we would get until the end of this week, but here we are. So Mike's last day for a few weeks will be tomorrow, the crews will be rounding up all their tools and trailers, they'll be tying up all the loose ends they can before 5pm tomorrow.
I guess that means we are officially in quarantine. It doesn't feel all that different from what we've been doing already since school has been closed. but it is sobering. Cuomo gave a fiery press conference today, the situation in NY has gotten quite bad. It is scary to think about how our hospitals will be so overrun...I don't even want to think about it. Everything happening in Italy seems like it will repeat itself here, and Trump is already talking about relieving the social restrictions to help the economy. This whole thing sucks. I am hopeful medical professionals and local governments will continue to do what is best and not put lives at risk unnecessarily. I guess there is thinking that a great recession could in itself create a worse public crisis...but putting the economy and profits before people's health is what got us into this mess in the first place. We need a much bigger restructuring, a better distribution of wealth, and more care for our most vulnerable populations. Corona is scary for me, but I am an upper middle class white woman, still getting a paycheck, with my basic needs being met. I can't bear to think of how this virus will rip through prisons, effect the homeless, and rampage lower income families with little or no access to health care, paid time off, and/or no wages during the shutdown. The inequality has always been unjust, but a crisis like exposes and magnifies those injustices in a way that, hopefully, can no longer be ignored.
March 24th
US cases: 53,655
VT cases: 95
Comments
Post a Comment