It's Monday March 8, I'm counting down the days until Spring break, all the chatter during lunch breaks are the destinations everyone has planned. I am planning with my parents what we will do with the kids in Seattle. The biggest question at that point in time for me whether we could hit up Red Lobster, the Cheesecake factory and the buffet at the Tulalip casino on our trip.
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| Cheesecake factor spring break 2019 |
Whoa-48 hours and everything changes. It's Friday March 13 now and I'm not superstitious but this Friday the 13th seems especially gloomy. The host from the AirBnB place in Seattle warms us not to come to Seattle and that the city is shut down. The Zoo, the aquarium, restaurants, basically all the places we would want to go are closed. I also learn that if any staff member leaves the country, including crossing the border, means 14 days of quarantine in isolation after. Ugg. That does not sound fun. We reluctantly cancel our Seattle trip and our travel insurance.
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| the last haircut |
The first weekend of Spring break and it feels like a tsunami is coming and we can sense it in the horizon. We go to Big Sister's dance recital and there's a part in the dance where she hold hands with another girl. The parents joke about how they are still allowed to hold hands and we all laugh. After the dance recital, Big Sis and I have a mother-daughter date at the hair salon. Who knew this was that salons would be ordered to shut down days after?
On Sunday, we find out we can't go to church anymore. BC has banned gatherings of more than 250 people and we host church at our house with friends from our community group. Who knew that would be the last time we would have them over?
Week of March 15-21
I admit, I was sulking a bit. I should of left for Seattle yesterday and I should be at the zoo or eating amazing cheesecake right now but I am not. A social visit always cheers me up so I invite a bunch of Big Sis' friends and their lovely moms over for a play date. And later this afternoon, we scheduled an impromptu ski play date with our friends so today is actually shaping up to be pretty good. Trudeau is supposed to make some sort of announcement from his house about this virus thing. Trudeau's speech is about international travel and warnings about crossing the border. The moms joke that it's good the kids get together because it could be their last play date (who knew it really would be?!). We also find out in the afternoon that all local ski resorts are closing for the season so our afternoon ski at Seymour is not going to happen. I sulk and pout some more. Why are they closing the mountains so quickly? We are all wearing gloves and balaclavas, only the tip of our nose is exposed on the mountain. I think this is quite the overreaction.
The next day, I drive over to my parent's house and we take the kids to a park in Abbotsford. The playground is still open, there are kids in spring break camps running around. The radio announces that the BC government declares a state of emergency and schools are going to be closed indefinitely. In my mind, I am thinking maybe that means an extra week of Spring break?
Whoa in another 48 hours the whole word seems to be changing. The headlines are reporting about Covid19 as a global pandemic. Over 200 people in BC have Covid-19 and 7 people have died. My head is spinning with all the news and statistics. I go from actively searching for articles on Covid19 to purposely not reading anything about the virus. Reading about the death rates in Italy are alarming. Are we going to have a death toll like Italy or Spain or China? City of Vancouver has declared its own state of emergency. Grocery stores suddenly have people walking out of the stores with cases of toilet paper, Lysol, hand sanitizer and wipes. Panic hoarding is upon us.
It's the weekend but each day is the same so I can't really tell it is a Saturday. The border between Canada and US is now closed to all non-essential travel. All playgrounds are closed now but there are still tons of people out. My social media shows my friends out at beach, parks and tops of mountains with captions like "Glad social distancing can look like this..." while others are venting about the line ups at Costco and their unsuccessful attempts to acquire toilet paper. The kids are loving directed drawing videos. I spend $65 US dollars for a year long subscription to Art Hub since it looks like the kids won't be going to dance or soccer after Spring break.
I feel disappointed that we can't celebrate my sister's birthday with a family meal together. We go to Centennial Beach and attempt a socially distanced bike ride but it's hard to talk to someone who is biking 6 feet away from you, I couldn't give her a birthday hug or take a picture together (but we are creative and the birthday girl makes an appearance 6 feet away). As for Sunday, House churches are a not an option anymore, we just watch the sermon online from our living room. The world is changing and I am not sure what I think about this...
Week of March 22 - 28
Oh my goodness, I don't even know what day of the week it is anymore. I can not keep up with the amount of emails that are coming in. I am getting emails about EVERYTHING BEING CANCELLED. Big White Ski resort which daily had been boasting it was still open and there's nothing like fresh Okanagan champagne powder abruptly closed mid week. We had planned a ski vacation with friends. Cancelled. The BMO Vancouver Marathon. Cancelled. I had dreams of completing my first marathon in May of 2020 and had been waking up at 6:30 am every Sunday since last year in preparation for the biggest race of my life. All the kids activities are canceled as well - soccer, dance, kids triathlon - pretty much our entire social life for the next several months have been deleted. I miss my friends. They miss their friends. I realize I really am an extrovert. I am not used to this much time apart from the people in my life.
On the positive note, all this time at home has inspired some much needed house cleaning and creative art projects for the kids. The kids loved doing a Pinterest inspired chalk mural, designing Playmobil Land and I taught Big Sis how to make a friendship bracelet.
Also Amazon Prime is the best. I ordered new board games and disco light for living room dance parties. Covid19 also seems to be inspiring everyone else to channel their inner creativity and my highlights in the day include watching parodies about being in quarantine, songs about social distancing, disney songs about the virus, or funny memes like this:
I only go out once a week to get groceries. After hearing the horror stories of Costco and Superstore line ups, I want to get online groceries but the wait period for pick up at Superstore is over 2 weeks. It takes an hour to load up my virtual shopping cart for Save-on, there is so much online traffic the page keeps crashing.When I go to pick up my order they don't have milk or bread. I only go to the little grocery story by our house and I am horrified that even at Buy-Low, the hysteria is real and there is no bread on the shelf. I was going to buy bread to make grilled sandwiches but there is no bread. My friends tell me that it's a miracle to find yeast as well. I've never experienced barren grocery shelves before...I guess at least I have lots of other food?
Oh my goodness, I don't even know what day of the week it is anymore. I can not keep up with the amount of emails that are coming in. I am getting emails about EVERYTHING BEING CANCELLED. Big White Ski resort which daily had been boasting it was still open and there's nothing like fresh Okanagan champagne powder abruptly closed mid week. We had planned a ski vacation with friends. Cancelled. The BMO Vancouver Marathon. Cancelled. I had dreams of completing my first marathon in May of 2020 and had been waking up at 6:30 am every Sunday since last year in preparation for the biggest race of my life. All the kids activities are canceled as well - soccer, dance, kids triathlon - pretty much our entire social life for the next several months have been deleted. I miss my friends. They miss their friends. I realize I really am an extrovert. I am not used to this much time apart from the people in my life.
On the positive note, all this time at home has inspired some much needed house cleaning and creative art projects for the kids. The kids loved doing a Pinterest inspired chalk mural, designing Playmobil Land and I taught Big Sis how to make a friendship bracelet.
Also Amazon Prime is the best. I ordered new board games and disco light for living room dance parties. Covid19 also seems to be inspiring everyone else to channel their inner creativity and my highlights in the day include watching parodies about being in quarantine, songs about social distancing, disney songs about the virus, or funny memes like this:
I only go out once a week to get groceries. After hearing the horror stories of Costco and Superstore line ups, I want to get online groceries but the wait period for pick up at Superstore is over 2 weeks. It takes an hour to load up my virtual shopping cart for Save-on, there is so much online traffic the page keeps crashing.When I go to pick up my order they don't have milk or bread. I only go to the little grocery story by our house and I am horrified that even at Buy-Low, the hysteria is real and there is no bread on the shelf. I was going to buy bread to make grilled sandwiches but there is no bread. My friends tell me that it's a miracle to find yeast as well. I've never experienced barren grocery shelves before...I guess at least I have lots of other food?
Week of March 29 - April 4
The best of of this week is April Fool's day. I snuck into Big Sis' bedroom and drew whiskers on her face and wrote MEOW on her arm while she was sleeping. Then I snuck into Lil Bro's room and managed to wrangle him into a pink tutu over top of his PJs while he was sleeping. He actually sat up and I thought I was busted but I able to get him lie down and go back to sleep without realizing what I had done. The morning when Lil Bro woke up in a pink tutu was priceless...
Our house has turned into a bakery. We are going through eggs, butter and sugar so fast. Cleaning our the pantry also led to the discovery of almost a dozen packs of jello so the kids made jello for days. I have started back at work and had to let the kids bake shortbread cookies unsupervised. I only partially regretted this after the flour explosion.
I also braved Costco and it wasn't as terrible as I was preparing myself for. I waited less than 20 minutes in line before I got inside. Once inside though, the social distancing police are fierce. You can hear them from every corner of the store, constantly reprimanding people to stay 6 feet apart and if you spent more than 10 seconds deciding whether or not you should buy the 36 pack of sausages, they would tell you to move along.
My head is spinning with all the online meetings. We have to launch an online schooling program for next week and I am trying to orchestrate remote support for kids with special needs. Husband is still going to work every day, apparently the limit of 50 people in a gathering does not apply to construction sites. He was thrilled that for the first time in his life, there is a working sink on site with actual soap. It only took a global pandemic for construction workers to be able to wash their hands
The best of of this week is April Fool's day. I snuck into Big Sis' bedroom and drew whiskers on her face and wrote MEOW on her arm while she was sleeping. Then I snuck into Lil Bro's room and managed to wrangle him into a pink tutu over top of his PJs while he was sleeping. He actually sat up and I thought I was busted but I able to get him lie down and go back to sleep without realizing what I had done. The morning when Lil Bro woke up in a pink tutu was priceless...
Our house has turned into a bakery. We are going through eggs, butter and sugar so fast. Cleaning our the pantry also led to the discovery of almost a dozen packs of jello so the kids made jello for days. I have started back at work and had to let the kids bake shortbread cookies unsupervised. I only partially regretted this after the flour explosion.
I also braved Costco and it wasn't as terrible as I was preparing myself for. I waited less than 20 minutes in line before I got inside. Once inside though, the social distancing police are fierce. You can hear them from every corner of the store, constantly reprimanding people to stay 6 feet apart and if you spent more than 10 seconds deciding whether or not you should buy the 36 pack of sausages, they would tell you to move along.
My head is spinning with all the online meetings. We have to launch an online schooling program for next week and I am trying to orchestrate remote support for kids with special needs. Husband is still going to work every day, apparently the limit of 50 people in a gathering does not apply to construction sites. He was thrilled that for the first time in his life, there is a working sink on site with actual soap. It only took a global pandemic for construction workers to be able to wash their hands
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| staring contest with auntie |
Week of April 6 -11
I took the kids to school with me today, it was sad that the hallway was not bustling with commotion and excited chatter of primary students. I set the kids up in an empty classroom while I met with other teachers and the principal in other rooms of the school. I brought my baby video camera so I could keep an eye on them no mater which room of the school I was in. It all feels a bit too surreal. Is this really what 'normal' is now? Writing a list of tasks for my kids to do and hope they can do it all unsupervised while I work?
That was the only time this week I needed to be at school. The rest of the week was continuing to figure out how I get work done trying to facilitate home schooling at home. Luckily, we have a spacious house, the kids are set up on their laptops downstairs and I am working in the office space upstairs but every time they have a question, it interrupts what I am doing and I run downstairs and help the them click the right link, load the right page, print the worksheet, play the math game, post on SeeSaw and so no wonder my calf muscles are quite defined now. I am running up and down the stairs a million times a day. Today during an online google meet, my kids were supposed to be doing PE outside in the front yard and I look out my window and Little Brother is dancing on TOP of my car. Seriously. ON TOP OF MY CAR. Big Sis was inside the car pretending to drive it with all the doors wide open. Who are these children? Who are their parents? Good thing there is a mute button because there were certain words yelled out that window.
It's been a lot harder to balance being a mom full time and working full time.
Then some days I try extra hard to be a 'good mom' and we squeeze in a walk around the park near our house and I try to be extra engaged in the time I am can give them. Sure let's play Uno again. Oh yah, another round of Bean Game! Yes, of course I want to hear about Mario Bros. Meanwhile the whole time I am thinking, "Why does it take you 15 minutes to re-tell the 3 minute game? And what is a Water Bro? What is a Hammer Bro?
The encouraging thing is that this mom guilt is just all in my head because my kids say they are actually quite enjoying doing school at home. For them, other than missing their friends, what's not to like? They get to sleep an extra hour, Big Sis stays in her PJs all day, Lil Bro doesn't have to pants...they get to play XBox Kinect Sports for PE and spend more time playing together. I am so thankful they actually like each other. I pray that after this is all over they still like each other.
Week of April 12 and onward because who knows what day it is anyways....
It's so surreal. The weekdays go by so fast and so slow at the same time. There are endless emails to respond to and Google meetings to attend along with the kids school and the messy house makes my waking hours feel chaotic and scattered. By the time Husband gets home, I can't look at another screen and I am so thankful to have an adult to talk to in real life. Everything we had scheduled on the weekends are canceled. We need something more than just the next episode of Tiger King to look forward to so the weekends we spend time looking for places in nature that aren't closed. When we find some place our family can be outdoors, we are all so ecstatic and pray it doesn't close by next week.
Super-Dad has also got the kids interested in gardening. They have spent many afternoons planting flowers in the front and vegetables in the back yard. I hate gardening so I am so glad that my contribution to gardening is just watching the three of them digging in the dirt from the window inside.
We got invited to our first drive by birthday party. It was so fun to actually put something on the calendar instead of deleting everything in April. We blew up Big Sis' giant flamingo and put it on top of the truck. The kids held a banner that said "Happy Birthday" and we drove by our friend's house honking and cheering. There were a ton of other friends there too. The parade only lasted about ten minutes but it was so exciting to just see our friends briefly.
I wonder how this pandemic is going to affect our kids. They are definitely hold enough to remember it. Big Sis talks about what she thinks of the virus...
I wonder how all if this physical distancing is going to impact their friendships? We went for a hike with our friends and I had to keep telling Big Sis she was hiking too close to her best friend, at times she would reach out to hold her friend's hand and I would yell, "Nooooooo!"
Our other friends biked past our house and we raced outside like it was raining money outside. It was so exciting to talk to another human being in real life. I had to restrain Little Bro from tackling his friend and wrestling like lion cubs like they usually do. I hope that at the end of all this whenever that is we are all a little more grateful for the things we take for granted. Going to the grocery store without worry or stress. Eating a meal at a restaurant. Giving a friend a hug. Going to church . Hiking in the provincial parks. Neither Husband or I drink coffee but my caffeine-dependent friends have shared their woes about the closure of Starbucks.
Easter felt different this year. We didn't gather at the Stanley theater for Good Friday service and no big Easter service or family dinner...but it was also a good reminder that He who conquered death is bigger than all of this. For Easter dinner, we couldn't go to my parent's house like we usually do so we had a great idea (stolen from the internet of course) to transform our house into a fancy restaurant and Dad would be the server and Mom would be the cook. The kids were SO into this. Server Dad had a hilarious English-British-sometimes Scottish accent as he entertained our VIP guests. Sometimes the simplest things are the best things. This was definitely one of those things. Hopefully we will get a good review on Yelp.
As I write this now (at the end of April), 109 people have died from Covid19 in BC and 3,082 deaths in Canada. 61,700 deaths in the United States, 27,682 deaths in Italy, 24,543 deaths in the Spain and 228,057 deaths world wide. The numbers are staggering. We have tickets to fly to Ontario in July. The plan was to visit my 98 year old Grandma. It's not officially cancelled yet but I am trying to prepare my heart for this trip not happening. Unlike ski vacations, AirBnB rentals, bike races, marathons and everything else that is just moved to 2021...I am not sure if what my Grandma's health will be like in 2021 when she is 99 years old. There is so much uncertainty about the future that my Type A let's-plan-everything personality is struggling to wrestle with but it has also challenged me to be still and remember that I am not supposed to be in control. God is.
So with that I leave you with this Lil Bro speaking his mind about Covid19...
That was the only time this week I needed to be at school. The rest of the week was continuing to figure out how I get work done trying to facilitate home schooling at home. Luckily, we have a spacious house, the kids are set up on their laptops downstairs and I am working in the office space upstairs but every time they have a question, it interrupts what I am doing and I run downstairs and help the them click the right link, load the right page, print the worksheet, play the math game, post on SeeSaw and so no wonder my calf muscles are quite defined now. I am running up and down the stairs a million times a day. Today during an online google meet, my kids were supposed to be doing PE outside in the front yard and I look out my window and Little Brother is dancing on TOP of my car. Seriously. ON TOP OF MY CAR. Big Sis was inside the car pretending to drive it with all the doors wide open. Who are these children? Who are their parents? Good thing there is a mute button because there were certain words yelled out that window.
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Most days I feel like the worst mom ever because I am neglecting the kids most of the day. If I managed to feed them and they didn't get seriously injured between the morning and when Dad gets home, that seems like quite the win. One day I had several meetings back to back and I didn't realize til after that they did nothing but play Mario Kart for 3 and half hours. Uggg. Parenting Fail. I also didn't have time to read through their online schooling platforms the day it was launched and I realized mid-week that there had already been lots assigned that they didn't do yet. There just aren't enough hours in a day!
Then some days I try extra hard to be a 'good mom' and we squeeze in a walk around the park near our house and I try to be extra engaged in the time I am can give them. Sure let's play Uno again. Oh yah, another round of Bean Game! Yes, of course I want to hear about Mario Bros. Meanwhile the whole time I am thinking, "Why does it take you 15 minutes to re-tell the 3 minute game? And what is a Water Bro? What is a Hammer Bro?
The encouraging thing is that this mom guilt is just all in my head because my kids say they are actually quite enjoying doing school at home. For them, other than missing their friends, what's not to like? They get to sleep an extra hour, Big Sis stays in her PJs all day, Lil Bro doesn't have to pants...they get to play XBox Kinect Sports for PE and spend more time playing together. I am so thankful they actually like each other. I pray that after this is all over they still like each other.
It's so surreal. The weekdays go by so fast and so slow at the same time. There are endless emails to respond to and Google meetings to attend along with the kids school and the messy house makes my waking hours feel chaotic and scattered. By the time Husband gets home, I can't look at another screen and I am so thankful to have an adult to talk to in real life. Everything we had scheduled on the weekends are canceled. We need something more than just the next episode of Tiger King to look forward to so the weekends we spend time looking for places in nature that aren't closed. When we find some place our family can be outdoors, we are all so ecstatic and pray it doesn't close by next week.
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| Drive birthday parade |
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| Easter presents |
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| Upscale restaurant "Little Meow Cat" |
As I write this now (at the end of April), 109 people have died from Covid19 in BC and 3,082 deaths in Canada. 61,700 deaths in the United States, 27,682 deaths in Italy, 24,543 deaths in the Spain and 228,057 deaths world wide. The numbers are staggering. We have tickets to fly to Ontario in July. The plan was to visit my 98 year old Grandma. It's not officially cancelled yet but I am trying to prepare my heart for this trip not happening. Unlike ski vacations, AirBnB rentals, bike races, marathons and everything else that is just moved to 2021...I am not sure if what my Grandma's health will be like in 2021 when she is 99 years old. There is so much uncertainty about the future that my Type A let's-plan-everything personality is struggling to wrestle with but it has also challenged me to be still and remember that I am not supposed to be in control. God is.
