It is always a tough balance: staying informed and protecting one's own mental health. Pretty much ever since the Orange Nightmare was elected, I've had to be selective about how much news I watch. Wanting to stay informed also involved feeling furious, personally attacked, stressed, and overwhelmed. But now, oh now, I had no idea...
It is so wrong to want to take a break, to ignore it all for a few hours, and pretend like everything is OK? For the sake of the kids, I feel like this is what I'm kind of doing anyway. Trying to keep routines stable, not be totally panicked in front of them, not let them see too much alarming news...but then when I get moments alone, like driving to the farm stand to re-stock on maple syrup today (yes, cue another Vermont cliche, but I really did this today), I feel my eyes well up with the enormity of it all, and I'm just not sure I can keep it together.
But in the moments with family, we had a nice, and productive, day. My brother and sister-in-law and their niece who is the same age as M live just a few blocks from us. My sister in law is an administrator in my school district, and my brother in law works with my husband doing carpentry. We do a lot of co-parenting with them (honestly I don't know how we'd survive without them, even more now that we've forbidden grandparent help). They came over for lunch today, and we've decided that our two families can create a little "enclave" and help each other out. We'll trade child care so that we can all work at least part of the week, but outside of our two families, we won't allow play dates or enter other people's houses. It was a relief to get some logistics organized and feel a little less overwhelmed by this working from home thing. It was so nice to have them over, have people inside our house. It felt like we had so much to talk about, there is just so much right now: Our school systems, homeschooling, childcare, how the schools might go about providing childcare for essential workers, meals being delivered by the school, health care, why the shortages are so bad, our family members who work in hospitals right now, our parents, how to keep our parents safe, the elderly, the outbreak at a nearby nursing home, New York City (which has about half of the cases right now), all the city people with second homes fleeing to Vermont...not to mention all the regular stuff like weather and spring coming and politics and toilet paper, lol!
I tried to stay away from the news all day.
Then here is me, when I finally worked up the courage to watch the news tonight:
It is so wrong to want to take a break, to ignore it all for a few hours, and pretend like everything is OK? For the sake of the kids, I feel like this is what I'm kind of doing anyway. Trying to keep routines stable, not be totally panicked in front of them, not let them see too much alarming news...but then when I get moments alone, like driving to the farm stand to re-stock on maple syrup today (yes, cue another Vermont cliche, but I really did this today), I feel my eyes well up with the enormity of it all, and I'm just not sure I can keep it together.
But in the moments with family, we had a nice, and productive, day. My brother and sister-in-law and their niece who is the same age as M live just a few blocks from us. My sister in law is an administrator in my school district, and my brother in law works with my husband doing carpentry. We do a lot of co-parenting with them (honestly I don't know how we'd survive without them, even more now that we've forbidden grandparent help). They came over for lunch today, and we've decided that our two families can create a little "enclave" and help each other out. We'll trade child care so that we can all work at least part of the week, but outside of our two families, we won't allow play dates or enter other people's houses. It was a relief to get some logistics organized and feel a little less overwhelmed by this working from home thing. It was so nice to have them over, have people inside our house. It felt like we had so much to talk about, there is just so much right now: Our school systems, homeschooling, childcare, how the schools might go about providing childcare for essential workers, meals being delivered by the school, health care, why the shortages are so bad, our family members who work in hospitals right now, our parents, how to keep our parents safe, the elderly, the outbreak at a nearby nursing home, New York City (which has about half of the cases right now), all the city people with second homes fleeing to Vermont...not to mention all the regular stuff like weather and spring coming and politics and toilet paper, lol!
I tried to stay away from the news all day.
Then here is me, when I finally worked up the courage to watch the news tonight:
Yup, big bowl of Ben and Jerry's to get me through. And don't worry, last I read, their plant here in Vermont is still operational! Phew. At least we still have ice cream, for now. (Covid 19 can't survive in the freezer, right?!?*). I managed to watch some news, but the news was not good.
But I do have some actual good news: my bitters are ready! A few weeks ago, before I knew any of this was coming, I embarked on a homemade bitters project so I could make fancy cocktails! They take about 3 weeks, depending on the recipe, and today was the day to strain and bottle them all. Perfect timing for quarantine cocktails!
Tonight I tried the blood orange bitters, and made some blood orange Negronis for Mike and I.
Sipping that now while writing. I was determined to put two brain cells together and write a few lines about how I'm really feeling, but middle child S is being a total a-hole and won't go to bed and is keeping his siblings up. We've been battling for a while, and now at 10:15 at night, he is sitting on the couch with us watching Tommy Boy. Yeah. I guess that is how I'm feeling. Negronis and Tommy Boy with my kindergartner at 10:15pm.
Saturday March 21st
US Cases: 24,000+
VT cases: 49
*Edit to add: I found out some corona viruses can live up to TWO YEARS in the freezer. Yikes.
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