The month was all good and normal until March 9.
Monday morning, the kids didn't have school because the teachers had meetings so they were excited to stay home and play. I went upstairs to work and the kids ran to the basement to go roller skate and play with Gilbert. Right as I sat down I heard Siena yelling/crying that Gilbert was in his cage just laying on his side and not moving. I thought NO!!! But it was true, Gilbert had died in his sleep that night and we had no idea! He had been acting fine, eating, being played with, etc. The kids had said he was 'squirmy' the last few days and come to find out he had been constipated and we didn't know it. The kids were devastated. It was seriously the saddest thing. They were heartbroken and so shocked as I was. There was not a more loved guinea pig. Everyone loved Gilbert, especially these 3 kids. Even their friends and neighbors would come over and immediately want to hold him. So we had a little funeral for him and buried him next to Diamond and then spent the day making little Gilbert stuffed animal pets like their Diamonds. These were a lot of work but they love them and it brings them comfort to play with them.
As if that wasn't enough, the great Covid-19 quarantine started just 2 days later. It was a Wednesday night and we were sitting down to dinner when Jennifer texted the family asking if we were watching the Jazz game. She said they had done player introductions and were about to have tip off when all of the sudden the players all left the court and the game had been postponed. Come to find out Rudy Gobert had just tested positive for the corona virus. This set off a chain of events and by the end of the night Tom Hanks had announced he had it in Australia and the NBA postponed the season indefinitely. By Friday, Utah announced they were shutting schools down and everyone would do online/home school for 2 weeks (which ended up being the rest of the school year but at the time we didn't know that) Church has been cancelled until further notice and everyone is being told to stay home, work from home and do not go anywhere that is not essential (Basically to get food or medicine, etc.) Everything shut down, inside dining restaurants, temples are shut down, the church is bringing home most missionaries in foreign countries, all activities have been suspended from sports to dance to music lessons.
We knew some things were going on and luckily my family had all been texting for a while and stocking up on food, medicine and stuff because when this all hit, people went crazy. People went and stocked up on stuff like it was the end of the world. And as I'm writing this in May, it's still hard to find toilet paper in stores and many other items. So I felt prepared on that end of things but this first week of the pandemic has been nuts. Every day and almost every hour there are new reports coming out of what is going on.
It's been stressful and exhausting trying to keep up with all the changes, trying not to stress my kids out but keeping them busy and entertained since they can't see or play with any of their friends. Trying to keep up with work and now home school, getting groceries, etc.
So Monday, March 16, we started online home school. The teachers have been great and had things up and going very quickly. Things have changed and evolved over the weeks but the first week felt crazy trying to get it all organized, go pick up things from their classrooms, a million emails from the district, principal, teachers, specialties, etc. and then printing and printing pages off of school work for them to do. That first week felt like a year! Some days have been good and fine and other days have been crazy and stressful.
And as if we weren't dealing with enough, we woke up Wednesday morning to an earthquake. I could tell it was a big one because of how long it lasted but wasn't hard enough to do damage. I thought the kids would be freaked out and so I ran into their room when it ended and they were all amazed and then said they thought it was cool and wish they could feel another one. So at least i haven't given them my fear of earthquakes. We felt some aftershocks but were far enough away from the epicenter that it didn't affect us much except my nerves!
Not having church has been an interesting change. I miss seeing all the primary kids but having a break from being primary president has been a nice mental change for me. I've sent out a couple emails to the parents with songs and lessons, etc. but for about 6 weeks haven't done much else. However, having home church has been so different but in a very nice way. Shane has been able to administer the sacrament for us each week. The spirit is always present during our little sacraments. Each week the kids have given a little talk. Each of them has played the piano or violin for one of our songs and then we usually listen to a general conference talk. We still have our home church again the afternoon like we had been doing before and overall it's worked out nicely. This last week (I'm writing this in May) it was fast a testimony meeting and all 5 of us shared our testimonies. The kids shared short but very sweet testimonies and the spirit was so strong in our home that day. I loved hearing the things they had to say and it will be a Sunday I will never forget.
Each of the kids have been doing fine overall. We've had lots of talks with them about this, what it means, how we need to stay home so we can stay healthy and overall things have been fine. All 3 kids play together nicely most of the time but each of them have had their days and times of pure frustration and melt downs. And I don't blame them. It's hard for them to really grasp the enormity of this, they just know they can't play with friends and their mad about that. We've gotten on the marco polo app that lets them record videos to each other so they've enjoyed that and we've seen more movies than we ever thought we could. They enjoy more tablet time each day. But they've also been more creative in their play, playing games with each other and just finding things in the house to do that they wouldn't have thought of to do otherwise. Siena's been doing more crafts and a little sewing and cooking. Aria has turned into a book worm and luckily we found a good online website that she can read book after book as even the library closed down for a period of time. Even now we can pick up books once a week if we place them on hold first. Jaron has maybe been the most stir crazy. He loves to play with balls and will do anything if someone will play ball with him.
I think I'll leave this post as is and start another one now that talks about what else we've actually been doing during this quarantine time.
No comments:
Post a Comment