When you’re stuck at home, you start getting creative. As a four year old, you’re also pretty antsy Today’s task? Figure out how to play games, long distance.
Enter two decks of cards, two computers, and Facetime. My brother is seven hours ahead of us in Europe, also on government mandated “stay at home,” “shelter in place,” or “imposed quarantine” (depending on where you live in the world). What better way to fill everyone’s time than with a few games? Once we came up with alternate rules for War (given they couldn’t collect each other’s cards), they got in the swing of things. Seeing Nathan holding up a card to the camera, squealing with joy or moaning in defeat, was just what I needed. The snapshots from this hour sit with me still. Nathan’s eyes twinking. My brother laughing. Nathan whispering as I shuffled his deck again, “Let me tell you something, give me the good cards. Make sure that I have all the good cards, but this is a secret, so don’t tell Uncle Jono. ‘Kay?” Jonathan’s response, “Dude, hey, Nathan! Are you trying to get your mom to stack your deck?” Nathan’s shriek at getting caught. There are so many times during the day I wish we could “go back to normal.” Today, however, I was incredibly grateful for being forced to slow down. Because I’m certain we would never have discovered Facetime card games were we racing through our typical March lives. Boredom breeds ingenuity.
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Materials prepped on his bed, Nathan hunkers down for his hour of quiet time.
“Hey, Mommy, when can we play a game, just you and me?” he asks. I pause, my mind running through all the things we are cramming into the days right now: breakfast, free time, getting dressed and brushing teeth, pre-K work on letters, numbers, patterns and motor skills, carefully crafted activities that allow me time to work, checking in with students, phone calls to parents, a morning walk, lunchtime, story time, naptime for Adam and art time for Nathan and me, rest time for Nathan and work time for me, controlling the afternoon crazies, dinner, family playtime and bed. When indeed? I think to myself. Knowing something has to give, I offer, “What if we did art three days a week and you and me games two days?” His face falls. “But we can’t do that. We have to do art every day. It’s our thing.” And it is. In the five crazy days we’ve been homebound, that hour of art has become our one hour of sanity that seems to carry us through. And while I may have no clue when we'll get our "just mommy and me" game time, I know for certain what we'll be doing daily from 1-2pm. The wild one. Our second child. The bruiser of the family.
He whizzes through the kitchen, a blur of color - orange sport shirt, blue pants and red Marshall Paw Patrol socks that he insisted on wearing this morning. I stand at the counter, responding to as many emails as I can in the 5 minutes it will take for him to get out of control. His giggle tickles the air as he jumps, twirls, dances, leapfrogs through the living room. His body thumps onto the stairs. “Ne-ne!” Adam calls. “Ne-ne, tome on!” Nathan ignores him, choosing to stay in the kitchen soaking in the Frozen II soundtrack (thanks to our library streaming services). Up again, hopping, then galloping down the hallway. He bursts into the kitchen again. “Ne-ne!” he sings. He bumps into Nathan, who continues to ignore Adam. He disappears into the dining room. Off for another lap. I hit send and open another email. Another thump. “Ne-ne! I’m toming!” And he is. Hurtling down the hallway. His footsteps have picked up pace, slamming onto the floor. His body careens around the corner, and he launches his body at Nathan. “Woah!” I step in just in time to catch a now airborne Adam. He bursts into a bundle of laughter and struggles to escape, undoubtedly wanted to unleash himself on Nathan. “Let’s go mister. How about some books?” I ask. “Read! Me read books. Ne-ne tome!” Adam calls over his shoulder. Off we go to read books, my email left open, awaiting the next 5 minutes of uninterrupted calm. He speeds off down the sidewalk, little two-year-old legs pumping back and forth, gaining traction. His bike propels forward, speeding up with every step. I watch his tiny figure head toward a hill and watch to see if he’ll slow down today.
Not a chance. If anything, he speeds up. “I’m toming, Ne-ne! I’m toming!” he calls after his older brother. This is quickly followed by shouts of, “I’m running! I’m running!” We’re on what has quickly (in three days) become our daily walk. We plan this 45 minutes around the weather, because there’s not a chance we’re missing the fresh air or the break from the four walls that have become our sanctuary. Down the hill in record time Adam descends. How has he not fallen? I think to myself. And how has he improved so much since Saturday? Of course I know it’s the daily practice. Of course he’ll keep getting better. By the end of all of this, he’ll drop jaws with his bike handling skills. On Monday, Nathan slowly looped around the cul-de-sacs at every intersection while Adam and I crawled at a snail’s pace across the street to meet him on the other side. But today is different. Today Nathan must whip around at top speed, and even then, we beat him every time. “I’m beating you! I’m beating you!” Adam gleefully cheers himself on in what has become his repetitive cadence when excited. A smile tickles the corner of my mouth. This break always releases the tension that has built up in the previous 18-24 hours. I know we’re in this for the long haul, which means the bike practice will continue. Adam will become a speed demon, and I’m certain Nathan will switch over to and quickly master his regular pedal bike. I pause to wonder, what else will these kids champion with so much time for repeated practice? It’s funny how attached we become to routines.
Workout, shower, dress the kids, breakfast, pack lunches, daycare drop offs, morning lesson prep, morning lessons, lunch. Afternoon lesson prep, afternoon lessons, meetings or clean up, daycare pick ups, home. Unpack school bags, play, dinner, bedtime routines, quiet time, bed. Wake up, repeat. And then the routine changes. Home-bound. eLearning. No daycare. No zoos, or museums, or playdates, or parks, or stores. There’s lunch at home. Naptime to work around. Emails that need answering. Meetings that must go on. It’s not a weekend, and it doesn’t feel like one. There are things to do, but the structure is missing. So we hobble through. One day at a time. Until we create new routines, new rhythms, that propel each day forward. And so time marches on. I slept in later than usual this morning and gave myself extra time to myself, which left me in a rush.
I zipped in and out of the shower and quickly got dressed. Passing into my bedroom, I saw the door ajar. He’s up, I thought to myself. He’s up and looking for me. I glanced at the clock: 7:45. Not bad, but it meant child #2 would be close behind. I felt my first coveted hours of the day slipping through my fingers. Wet hair it is. “Hey, Mommy, can I play a game while you finish getting ready?” I turned around to see a bleary-eyed Nathan standing in the doorway. I smiled and passed him my phone (a coveted treasure that is used only de vez en cuando). I hurried to toss some clothes into the washing machine - a job that is quite literally never done. Off to Nathan’s room to sort his clothes for the next load, and then back to mine to hang some clothes up. “Momma?” came the call, quiet at first, and then growing louder. “Momma? Mom-meeeeeeeee!” The laundry would have to wait. I changed course and opened Adam’s door. “Book? Me book. Rock. Sit.” He told me more as a command than a request. My fingers nimbly worked through their routine: pjs off, diaper changed, clothes on. All while entertaining a chattering, surprisingly happy toddler. We moved over to the gliding rocker, and I settled into the expectation for books, books, and more books. “No, Mommy, no. Not you sit. ME sit. A-yam sit. I read. I do it.” His pudgy fingers jabbed into my chest, and he pushed away. Plopping into the seat, Adam cheerfully indicated which books he did (and most definitely did not) want to read. I piled them up and snuck out. Could it be? Were they really both entertained? At 8:00 am? When their tummies should be grumbling? Back into the bathroom I dashed, because time waits for no one. Some mornings the stars align, time is on your side, and you get to blow-dry your hair after all. Today I got a glimpse of summer.
The sun shining, the birds chirping, the backyard filled with toys, the sound of laughter filtering through the air. I love a good spring; but I’ll be honest, this year I can’t wait for summer. This morning, I said I wasn’t going to write about this. And then I pulled into the parking lot.
Yikes, I thought to myself. What on earth is going on? The half-empty parking lot I had been in a mere 2.5 hours ago was now packed. Every single parking space filled with a car. Several dozen more cars looping, waiting for a spot. Baffled, and frankly grateful I didn’t actually need a space, I pulled over and parked in front of the auto shop. “Of course,” I said, looking up. “There’s a grocery store over there.” This morning, I said I wasn’t going to write about this. And then I saw the line. A line, easily 40 people long, stretched along the front of the building. Each person had a shopping cart. And then it hit me - these carts were empty. This was the line just to get into the grocery store. This morning, I said I wasn’t going to write about this. And then I drove past the entrance to the store. Completely baffled by how long this line was, I wondered how it was they were waiting to get in. Why not just walk in? Did that mean there was literally a line snaking through the store? One giant single-file line from the entrance, through the aisles, to the registers, and then back out the door? I craned my neck and saw the answer: a police officer. Standing in the vestibule between the two doors was a police officer, donning a mask. If this isn’t the stuff movies is made of… This morning, I said I wasn’t going to write about this. And then I couldn’t get it out of my head. How did we end up here? To a place where individuals hoard toilet paper and hand sanitizer? When did people, in the face of a directive to wash our hands, to stay home as much as possible, and to practice social distancing, start to interpret that as an all-call to go buy groceries for 2 months? How does standing in a line 40 people deep keep you any distance from anyone? This morning, I said I wasn’t going to write about this. And then I realized the panicked masses aren’t listening. The goal of social distancing is not to prevent COVID-19 from spreading. The goal is to slow it down, to flatten the curve (how high we peak), so that we don’t overload a health system that isn’t prepared to handle an exponential influx of patients. But this only works if people actually practice social distancing. I worry that the line today is a small representation of what our hospitals will look like over the course of the next month, because as a society we are not using our common sense. This morning, I said I wasn’t going to write about this. But tonight, it’s the only thing on my mind. Yesterday I decided to put my nutrition in check. I committed to eating healthier long term (my very specific goal for the next week being to cut out chocolate and ice cream).
Today our district announced it will be closed for a minimum of three weeks. Well played, Universe. Well played. Somewhere, stored away, I have a picture that used to be in the drawer of my nightstand growing up.
It’s one of those old-school Polaroids - white around the edges, bold picture square staring out from the middle. In it, I’m wearing a bright yellow T-shirt from our favorite family resort up in Traverse City, Michigan. “Look what I caught at L’Da Ru!” The font boldly proclaims as a sky blue fish jumps at the end of a fishing line. My long, white-blonde hair falls in tangles down my shoulders and my straight 90’s bangs brush my eyebrows. My sun kissed cheeks are pinched into a tight smile, and tears well up in my eyes. I am six. I am sitting on my dad’s lap at the top of the blue-carpeted staircase in the house I grew up in. The house where all my memories, pre- and post- this Polaroid are gathered. I can close my eyes and see this very image of my dad: his sandy blonde hair, his horseshoe mustache, his tanned arms. As a child I always focused on his smile in this picture, but as a grown parent myself now, I see a different truth in his eyes. There are some pictures about which you end up wondering, Do I actually remember this? Or have I turned the picture itself into a memory? But this is not one of those pictures for me. I remember everything about this night. The creaking of the house. The strength of my dad’s arms. The pitch of his voice. The utter heartbreak. The inability to catch my breath. The stinging in my puffy eyes. The need to somehow have this night captured in a Polaroid. The hug he gave me. The reassurances that couldn’t be kept. I remember this night, because for me, this is the night time stood still. It’s the night I watched, teary eyed, as my dad picked up each one of us, hugged us close, posed for a picture, picked up his bags, and left. It’s a night I don’t often think about as an adult, because it’s so far behind me. And while it no longer defines me, it is still a definitive part of who I am. So from time to time, I actively choose to call it to memory. It’s raw, and it’s real, and it reminds me why I’m strong as an adult. Above all, it is evidence that the world does not end, even when it feels like everything is crashing down around you. |
AuthorHeidi. Archives
March 2022
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