How We Quarantined

L & L,

I’m honestly not even sure where to begin. Recollecting the events of the last few months is still hard to even wrap my brain around. We are on the tail-end of the COVID-19 or “Coronavirus” Pandemic – also hopefully on the tail-end of the cirrhosis that we all brought on ourselves as a result of it.

It is so odd to imagine that you will probably learn about this in school a bit down the road. Lila you’ve just turned five (three birthday parties this year, even during a pandemic by the way), and Lennox you are about to be three, so it’s likely that both of you won’t remember anything about how radically our world changed over the last three months.

This is not your history lesson, this is the story of how our little family rode the struggle bus through this insanity all written down (my version, of course) so that someday you can tell your kids about it.

I first really remember hearing about Coronavirus in late January / early February (2020). It wasn’t even a blip on my radar. It was some weird SARS-like virus over in China and that was about as far as I got.

Cut to March 5th and I was on the way to a work training in Miami. The virus had made it’s way to the US and I remember seeing on the TVs in the Jacksonville airport that we now had 116 confirmed cases. Big whoop I thought, and rolled my eyes at people who were nuts enough to wear masks on the plane.

I don’t remember the exact date that everything went completely insane, but it was shortly after I got back from Miami. Phrases like “quarantine”, “flatten the curve”, “slow the spread”, and “social distancing” started popping up like little wildfires everywhere. The only thing on the news was “THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC”.

By the week of March 20th we decided to keep you out of school. Concerts and sporting events were cancelled (still so pissed we missed TPC), nail salons, barber shops, salons, retail stores, and all “non-essential” business were closed. Restaurants were mostly closed, but some were open for carry-out with the “six feet” rule in place. Everyone was wearing masks and gloves. Most people were staying home entirely. Unemployment skyrocketed, the market crashed. Essentially overnight our entire world changed.

From March 20th until May 10th, 2020 (ironically Mother’s Day), you were home from school and your Dad and I were home from work. I would be lying if I didn’t say that when I first figured out that we were going to be quarantined I didn’t lose my absolute. fucking. MIND. Thankfully – and I mean incredibly thankfully – we did not have to worry about our jobs or income, so all that was left to worry about was how the four of us would put our lives on pause and survive under one roof with essentially no escape for an indefinite period of time. I just didn’t see how it could happen.

Much to my HUGE surprise, I can honestly say that I will look back on these last two months as one of the best times we’ve ever had.

Our routine looked a little like this:

8 a.m.-ish: Get up begrudgingly after a crappy night of sleep (one or both of you usually got in the bed sometime in the middle of the night – neither one of you believe in personal space).

8:30: Make coffee, put on cartoons – Shimmer & Shine is your JAM at this particular moment in time – dish out some cereal and try to get some work done.

8:37 a.m. – ask for snacks.

10-12ish: Your Dad was the designated grocery-getter, so at some point he would retrieve us provisions and one of the two of us would dish out something that you guys agreed on for lunch. Not that it mattered, because you never ate it anyway.

12:03 p.m. – more snacks.

2-5 p.m. was a splattering of trying to bathe and put on actual clothes while responding to emails, answering phone calls, and fetching MORE SNACKS. We also sprinkled in the occasional outdoor activity. I chalk-painted a table and you guys “helped”. We drew on the driveway with sidewalk chalk, you guys swam in the hot tub, played in dirt in the backyard, and learned how to ride bikes in the cul-de-sac. Except for the occasional meltdown, you both played so sweetly together with all of your toys – you played Frozen and Princess and kitchen. I forced you to play with my hair. You colored.

5-6:30 p.m. – the dinnertime charade of preparing something that, again, you would not eat.

6:32 p.m. – snacks.

6:45ish – until?… in the evenings you would demand that we go on a golf cart ride, and that usually led to both of you running free on the golf course. Thankfully the rules for the golf course went right the hell out the window for the pandemic and you could run your little hearts out and catch all the lovebugs that you wanted. On one of our golf course walks I took of my shoes and said I was “Earthing”, well you both thought this was the best thing ever and took it as an immediate excuse to throw your shoes and sock in the wind and “get your Earth on”… that is now one of your favorite phrases. Option B in the evenings was to ride around in my car listening to music while you both hung your heads out of the sunroof. That got us a few dirty looks, but you both absolutely loved it.

9 p.m.-ish – bedtime. Sometimes it was later than that, but hey, we did our best.

Against all odds we got into a routine and I joked that it was like maternity leave but without an infant. And sure enough, even though you were ready to go back, it felt like leaving my babies all over again when I drove away from dropping you off at school yesterday. I even cried.

There is no way that I could have known it when our quarantine first started, but this monumental “life-pause” would be exactly what we needed.

We got to celebrate Easter dying eggs and with three egg hunts and a huge neighborhood Easter parade complete with the Easter bunny and a panda. Lennox you liked the panda more than the bunny.

We got to spend time playing Wii bowling and Jackbox TV games with Uncle Caca and Uncle Gary.

We celebrated my 38th birthday.

Lila we had multiple birthday parties and two cakes for your 5th birthday – including one that we decorated together and another $75 forty-two pound Little Mermaid cake from Cinnotti’s. We also rented a 20′ water slide for the occasion, which ended up staying at our house for a total of five days.

And finally, this past Sunday, we got to wrap it all up with a nice little bow with a perfect Mother’s Day celebration.

Albeit temporarily, this virus (“Enolavirus” as you like to call it Lennox) allowed us to get rid of a lot of the external bullshit that – as it turns out – really doesn’t matter, and we got to put things in perspective. We got to learn about each other, we got to enjoy quiet moments doing absolutely nothing, and I feel pretty confident those quiet “nothing” moments that actually mean everything will be a rarity going foward in our lives.

Hopefully this will all make more sense to you when you read this years from now, but just know that I am so grateful for this unexpected time with you, to enjoy life just as it is right now, just where we are right now, in just this exact moment.

I love you both more than I can ever explain.

xo

Mom