Reopening

I live in a state where things are slowly starting to reopen.  It's actually hard to keep track of what is opening when, however. I know last week we started with allowing restaurants to open at 25% capacity, parks opened, and I think movie theaters w/ appropriate social distancing measures in place. I'm not sure about retail that's not Tar.get, or gyms, etc.. Things feel a bit blurry w/ what's opening and when. Another thing that seems blurry (and frightening) is I reread over my last several posts and at one point my state hadn't had any confirmed deaths and we now have over a thousand.  The U.S. death total was at one point 20,000 and now it's close to 80k, if not over that already. How quickly it's happened. I read a particular newspaper that updates several times daily and I do my look through probably twice a day to see 1) U.S. cases/deaths 2) Our states cases/deaths...and look at the curves to see how they are trending. Was hoping for a dramatic mountain looking curve, but clearly that's not happening....when our state reopened, cases started increasing again, which clearly isn't a surprise.

I've tried to figure out what any of it means for my family and honestly I'm not sure. I've read a few articles on, So, can we go the park now? Can we hug our friends? Will schools open in the fall?  It seems that there's a different opinion depending on what specialist is answering. What I've gathered is yes, things are reopening but it's a matter of risk vs reward and is what you want to do worth it to you?
I tried that out last week.  It's been 6 weeks since I've eaten in a restaurant. I had our nanny over this past Thursday and had some ME time. I weighed in my mind whether I should even try it, but I decided to go to my favorite Mexican restaurant, see the set up, and then make a decision.  I was pretty impressed. There were 6 ft places to wait if it was full, tables had signs on them that showed 'closed', all staff was wearing masks and gloves, they handed out paper menus and paper chip containers, bleach spray bottles at the ready. Once I saw the set up I decided to try it. The food tasted SO good. BUT, I could not stop thinking about infection. Was I touching a part of the table they didn't disinfect. Were the people 10 ft away from me healthy? Was the cook wearing a mask? I tried to quiet the voice, but it just didn't work. I was worried almost the whole time I was there.
AND, not only worried when I was there.....but afterwards I kept thinking that if this was the one activity that got me/us sick, I would have a hard time being ok w/ that.
Result: Not worth it to me at all.

We will continue our take out and eating outside every now and then...not playing on any playground equipment, I'll be wearing masks/gloves at the grocery store--a friend mailed me some gloves, thankfully. And we will continue doing what we've been doing.  The kids know the parks are open and have asked to play but I've let them know I'm just not comfortable yet. They see other kids all over the equipment and of course want to, but just not yet. We will continue w/ our bike rides, playing in the driveway, and cul-de-sac for now.

School is almost over. Technically it finishes next Thursday May 21, but for some reason they had us do the drive by to the school today to turn in any books/equipment. Once you drove up w/ your bag labeled w/ your child's name, grade, and pick up number in the trunk they swapped it out w/ a bag from her classroom of anything that was left for the year. We did it this morning and it literally took only two minutes--they were very organized w/ this.
Now, they could still finish this week w/ school assignments, but because they asked for devices to be turned in today/tomorrow, they couldn't assign 'MUST DO' work this week anymore. There is a list of the 'MAY DO' but my daughter already has said she doesn't want to do it.
In a way, the academic part of the school year is over for her.  She finished her last assignment on see-saw last night.
I exhaled.
Home school has been really challenging for her/me. In the beginning it was because of all the technical difficulties we had, but after I bought the ipad it go so much better. Then, it turned into a lot of resistance and attitude. Some days I pushed us through and other days I just said nope.
One week she hadn't turned in anything by Thursday and I got an email from her teacher asking if we needed more support. Sure, if you can tell me why my daughter has completey melted down over the last month, then ok. It was nice of her to check on us, though, and I've been keeping her and her other teacher aware of the issues at home w/ behavior, etc.. Both teachers offered to do one on one zoom calls which I took them up on. In some ways it was helpful in that they could actually teach her....but with the technology and the 'mom, can you come here'...it wasn't a break by any stretch.
I think the last zoom class call is this Thursday and she'll have a last one on one w/one of her teachers.  One day I even forgot about the zoom call when I was at the restaurant, but then checked email and the teacher was willing to still do it. I thanked her profusely and she emailed back that it was no problem and she loved my girl.  That was just so nice to hear.

As much as I'm not in love w/ her school, I do feel like they did the best they could in these circumstances and really showed effort in keeping my girl connected (they also emailed when they noticed she wasn't joining zoom for awhile).  They provided a lot of support and some pretty good structure to help us through.  I think I'll be glad when it's all over-over for this year. It's been a load to carry. However, without doing school we will have to find other things to fill time!

My son was interesting....he watched a few of his teacher's lessons on the app and really didn't care for it. My biggest challenge was keeping him occupied so I could try and help my girl. Thankfully he really liked doing the worksheets and since the printer worked, I printed out all those I thought he would like. He loves the cutting, gluing ones so we have some new caterpillars and butterflies in our house. His handwriting could use some work but honestly, I'm just not worried about it. He can read, he can do math, he knows his letters, etc...he'll be just fine. He'll be ready for kinder in the fall.
His school driveby is this Thursday. We will go pick up his end of year 'stuff' and I think they are trying to do something w/ caps and pictures in the car, but not really sure.

As for me, the past two months have been so mixed. I went from being a corporate America mom w/ a full time nanny to a stay at home mom w/ kids here 24/7 and no nanny in a matter of 15 minutes on March 24th (although the kids had been home from school already from spring break as of March 9th). I had to learn how to put a schedule in place, learn how to plan for meals, cook meals, turn into to super-mom mode very quickly. I learned a lot over the last few months like trying to keep an organized house at all times is fruitless. I now just pick up along the way and when it gets too much, we have a clean time. It's OK to leave it for a few days. Burn out can happen just as easily at home as it can at the office.  Big lesson.
We've had some real challenges w/ my girls attitude, mood, and health. We are still working on that w/ her Dr.'s and not sure direction. She was diagnosed w/ bronchitis last Monday, but the medicine last week just didn't seem to help. In addition, her fatigue is one of the hardest nuts to crack, and one that we've been dealing w/ for a long time. It's made these last few months pretty tough at times.
We all needed a break from each other and having nanny come back part time (still working on what that looks like) is working out well. For now, she will come 10-15 hours a week: all day Tuesday since I found that shorter days allows me just enough time to run around and get errands done. Kind of defeats the purpose of a break for me. Then, she'll come Friday from 1-6 so I can finish anything I need to do, etc.. She is looking for full time, of course, but until she finds something else, I'd really like for her to continue coming over here. I  have no idea about summer camps and even if they had them, I'm not sure I'd be comfortable w/ that.

Some really good news is that I feel like I'm coming alive again! I move around all day (mostly) and I've noticed some really positive changes in how I feel in that my stamina is coming back, I'm sweating less! I've continued to not drink caffeine although last week was a bit of a slide w/ 4 days in a row. But since I just felt so sluggish by the 4th day it's a good reminder that I need to just quit. Addictions are hard, aren't they? I'm continuing to meet w/ my therapist via telecon at 9-10pm every Tuesday night and she's been great in helping me stay on track and help navigate our new normal. Sometimes it's more about talking through what's going on that week or that day even and how to maintain my sanity. Also, she's been great at challenging my thinking and helping me see things differently. As an example, I had been saying my girl is having 'tantrums' and she said maybe that word isn't helpful i.e. what does it connotate when you say someone is having a tantrum? It can bring up negative feelings like, here we go again/they are throwing a fit to get something, etc......But, that's not at all what's happening w/ my girl. She's having 'breakdowns'  (or whatever word I choose) sometimes and she needs my empathy. When someone is acting out it is hard to dig up that empathy, but it's so true....she doesn't want to feel like she is and act out.  But, it's in those times when my daughter needs me to be supportive of her the most and to remain calm. It's really been a lightbulb for me in reframing my own thoughts and actions.

Overall, it's not been easy by any stretch. I've learned a lot over the last few months and am beyond thankful that I am not working right now. We will stay the course with our safety precautions and keep watch until I feel more comfortable to do more.


P.S. Mother's Day was yesterday. My son made me a card, gave me some change....my daughter gave me some nice back massages (she's actually really good!), and my neighbors Ms Jan and Mr Don gave me some beautiful flowers. All were very appreciated. All of the nice things made up for the tough day we had w/ some attitudes and behaviors.

P.S.S. yes, it was inst.cart that I tried. Pretty disappointing, but was worth the try.

P.S.S.S. My son learned how to ride bike w/out training wheels. It took him 3 days and he was SO determined. The only reason he stopped each day was because I said he needed a break. Time after time of falling, etc. he just kept getting back up and trying again. He was adamant to do it his own way i.e. anytime I wanted to give a tip he would say 'Mom, I want to do it my way'. Even Mr. Don tried to tell him to use the curb and he told him, 'Nope. I'm doing it my way'. I was beyond impressed with how much he wanted this and kept working and working at it.  Some grit and determination living in that boy.  Yes!