Covid-19 Quarantine, Day 27

Wednesday, April 8th, 2020

It’s seven AM, and Ryan and Joel have been talking to each other in our room for a half an hour.  Chris and I tell them to be quiet, they (loudly) insist they are being quiet.  There is a whole lot of giggling (Ryan and Joel, not Chris and me).  There is a little bit of wrestling (again Ryan and Joel).   Then there is some exasperated sighing (ok—that’s Chris and me).

Fortunately, 7 am seems an appropriate time to turn on the TV.  When Ryan asks for the twelfth time if they can watch a show, I say, “Yes!”.  I turn on the TV, mash the ‘volume down’ button with my thumb until it’s barely audible, and hand the Firestick remote to Ryan because it’s the 8th, which is an even number, which means it’s “Ryan’s Day”.  (“Ryan’s Day” means Ryan gets to do all the things.  He gets to pick the first show, he gets to pick where he sits at breakfast, he gets to pick whether he’s Mario or Luigi if they play Wii.  He even gets the first bedtime story and can choose who has their teeth brushed first.  Don’t feel too sorry for Joel.  Tomorrow is the 9th.  Which is odd. Which means it’s Joel’s Day.  You get the idea.)

Anyway, I hand the remote to Ryan, and Joel doesn’t say a word because of my brilliant parenting methods, and Ryan deftly opens Netflix and selects whatever show he’s into.  Yeah.  The boys are four and have been effortlessly controlling both the Firestick and the Apple TV for ages.  I waffle between pride and shame.  At this moment, I just feel relief, because I can go back to sleep for another hour or so.

I wake up again at 8, or maybe 8:30.  It’s really hard to get on a schedule when we have no schedule.  I see the boys have left our room, which means Nicole came to get them and took them downstairs to feed them first breakfast.

By 8 am, Nicole has usually finished all of her distance learning for the day, made her bed, and has just enough time to polish her halo before quietly whisking the boys downstairs for a bowl of cereal, yogurt and gummy vitamins.

When I roll into the kitchen, the boys are happily engaged in “Coco’s Kindergarten”.  Today that involves watching Super Why on PBS kids, but often it involves puzzles, games, reading books, and writing their names.  It’s a good thing someone has taken an interest in their education.

Upon seeing me, the boys immediately remember that they haven’t been fed for ages (15 minutes), and launch into requests for second breakfast.  I microwave them a sausage egg biscuit, and then make one for myself.  I usually try to start the day with a healthy protein shake, but some days are just more frozen meal heavy than others.  This was one of those days.

After breakfast, I set out for my morning walk.  Every morning, I take a 3.3 mile walk around the neighborhood.  I do it partly for exercise, partly for stress relief, and partly so I can be alone for 52 minutes and 30 seconds.  All good reasons.

When I’m walking, I allow myself to think of everything or nothing at all.  I swallow, and pay attention to whether my throat feels a bit sore. I wonder if I have covid-19 every time I cough.   I think about all the things I miss about our old normal and the things I’m finding I love about our new normal.  I step off the sidewalk and onto the street when someone approaches to comply with the 6 foot rule.  I watch out for dog poop, because even in the midst of a pandemic, some people are not responsible pet owners.

The boys are absolutely overjoyed to see me when I get home from my walk.  “Mommy! You’re home!” they yell and bounce around with huge smiles on their faces.

“We can have marshmallows now?!” they scream.

They aren’t actually overjoyed to see me.  They are overjoyed because after I get back from my walk they are allowed to have ‘gouter’.  “Gouter” is a French term I read about in a parenting book a while back.  I believe it actually means ‘afternoon snack,’ but in our house, it’s come to simply mean ‘dessert’.  Each kid can have gouter once a day, but once they have it they are no longer allowed to ask me for sweets every five minutes.  The girls are old pros at this.  The boys are still experiencing a learning curve.  Today, upon being informed they ate all the marshmallows yesterday, the boys both choose fruit snacks.  

Nicole asks me if I want to play ‘PIG’, and because I have absolutely nothing else on my schedule for the day, I can.  We have two hoops on our culdesac.  The one across from our house is at regulation height, and the one by our drive way is at four-year-old height.

We play on the regulation height hoop first, and I win because I’m still quite a bit taller than Nicole.  We then play on the short hoop, and she wins, because she has this shot called her ‘lucky shot’ that she hardly ever misses.  It’s straight back from the basket and out of my range.  It’s only in her range because she shoots it granny shot.  I even make farting noises when she bends down to throw it (just like Nate Andrews did for me during Odyssey of the Mind basketball breaks back in 6th grade).  It makes her giggle, but it doesn’t make her miss.  We go back inside because it’s 85 degrees and we are weenies.

It’s about eleven o’clock when Allison emerges downstairs for the first time.  “Hey!  I have an oldest daughter!” I shout exuberantly, and then I stare at her bangs.  Because they are defying gravity.

“Don’t say anything about my bangs,” Allison says. “I had bedhead.”

Nicole and I laugh mercilessly about Allison’s bangs, but at 12 she is already more mature than I’ll ever hope to be, so she acknowledges us with nothing but a smile and a slight eye roll.  She and her bangs make a bowl of Lucky Charms.

Allie and I spend the next hour or two trying to figure out all the different online platforms her teachers are using for distance learning.  There is google classroom, clever, smart music, Kahn Academy and schoology just to name a few.  A lot of great resources, but it’s hard to keep them all straight.  I’m relieved when she decides to take a break.

Nicole is taking her turn at the computer, working on a not-required-by-me-or-the-school penguin report, when Chris emerges from his corner (of our bedroom) office for a break.  He looks at Nicole and taunts, “Hey, you want a pig rematch?  You know…if you want to lose again!!”

Nicole half-smiles and says, “Ok.”  She pauses thoughtfully for a moment. “I’m not very good at trash talk.”

Nicole and Chris go outside, and I decide to give my sister in Washington a call.  You’d think with both of our schedules opening wide up due to the shelter at home orders, we’d have plenty of time to talk.  But with seven kids between the two of us and nowhere for them to be but home, there is never a quiet moment. 

Laura answers our FaceTime call.  She is holding my two and a half month old niece, Elsie, and my four year old niece, Nora, is hanging on her arm.  “Nora, please stop playing with my hair!” she says before turning to the camera, “Sometimes, I just don’t want to be touched, you know?!”

I laugh, not out of unkindness, but because I do know.  That’s when my two year old nephew, Neal, sits on Laura’s other side, effectively covering her completely with children.

Ryan and Joel join the fray on our end, both wearing nothing but orange boxer briefs.  We play a game of “guess which boy this is” where Nora and Laura attempt to guess whether Ryan or Joel is sitting next to me.  They are right more than 50% of the time, so they aren’t just guessing.  Probably.

This game is followed by “guess which boy is under the counter”.  Laura guesses Ryan and Nora guesses Joel.  They are both right.  Then comes a round of “guess which Claussen kid is under the counter” (it’s Allie) and finally a round of “guess which Claussen is under the counter” (it’s Uncle Chris).  

Fits of giggles ensue in both St. Louis and Seattle, and after we win the game “guess whose feet are sticking out from under a couch cushion” (Neal’s), both households have dissolved into states of chaos that are no longer conducive to FaceTiming.

We say our good byes and good lucks, and the Claussen kids all decide to have lunch.  Fortunately, our weekly grocery pickup was yesterday, so we still have 4 of the 8 lunchables we bought.  I am grateful that lunch today is simple.

The boys eat their Oreos then decide they are full and should save the rest in the refrigerator.  This is mostly because it’s one o’clock and thus time to play their superhero game.  Every day from one to three is playstation time, also known as mom’s rest time.  I like to use this time to read, nap, and not make snacks.

I’m eating lunch when Allison starts showing me videos of her and her classmates playing music for band.  I congratulate her on a job well done, then remember that she likes a boy who is not in band.  

“Well how do you know this boy if he is not in band or choir?” I ask.

“He’s in my pre-AP English class and pre-algebra.  He was also in 1st and 5th grade with me,” Allie responds nonchalantly.

“Is he nice to you?” I ask.

“He’s nice to everyone,” she answers.

This is more information than I have ever been given, so I head gleefully to the library to pull out the girls’ yearbooks.  Allison follows me into the room, but does not help me find the correct years.

I find them without her help, eventually, and yell up the stairs for Coco to come help me.  Allison rolls her eyes at me for the second time today. “Mom.  You are so desperate.”

“Wrong!” I answer indignantly.  “Not desperate.  But I have all kinds of time right now.  All kinds.”

Nicole and I spend a few minutes cross referencing boys who appear in both Allie’s 1st and 5th grade classes, but after Allie denies liking any of them, we give up.  Really, I know the boy she likes is nice to everyone; that’s enough.

We move on to Nicole.  She shows me the boy she had a crush on in kindergarten, and the boy who annoys her by talking out in class.  She shows me pictures of all the boys that like her.  She is either very popular or she tends to misread signals.  Maybe a little of both.

But it’s not about the boys of course.  It’s about Allie, Nicole and I having a moment that feels normal.  We look through the old yearbooks, pausing to remember favorite teachers, friends who have moved and marvel at how much all the kids have changed.

I use my remaining hour and a half of quiet time to read and nap, then reluctantly tell the boys to turn off the playstation at 3 (ok, closer to 3:30).  Allison and Nicole are outside playing with their homemade sprinkler.  Apparently Chris threw away our actual sprinkler, but Allie rigged one with the spray nozzle on the hose.  She used a lego and a rubber band to keep the water turned on, then propped the hose up in the yard using croquet wickets.

All four kids enjoy an afternoon of running through the water, interrupted by nothing but a constant request for snacks.  “I am not a snack wench!” I mutter as I bustle around the kitchen slicing apples, putting goldfish in baggies, and looking, for all the world, exactly like a snack wench.

When it becomes clear that snacks alone are not going to cut it, I pop some chicken nuggets and french fries in the oven (I told you this day was frozen food heavy), wash up some grapes and slice cucumbers onto four paper plates.

The kids eat their dinner on the porch while sitting on wet towels, their plates propped on their knees and their cheeks rosy from their time in the sun.

I take this moment of relative quietness to fold and put away the load of laundry that has been sitting on my bed since the morning.  I grade the two weeks of distance learning worksheets Nicole has finished.  I learn the rules of how to split words into syllables.  It matters if the first vowel is long or short; it matters whether there are one or two consonants.  I do not remember learning these things in grade school.  I’m still not sure how to correctly split the word ‘orange’ into syllables.  I decide to give Nicole the benefit of the doubt and assume she’s right.

I move on to prefixes and suffixes, and find three whole pages where Nicole clearly did not understand the concepts.  I use a purple marker (not red, because according to the education class I took in college, red is discouraging) and highlight whole pages. I write “please redo” on the top of each one.

I grade the math pages.  I love math, but I don’t like grading math.  I take a moment to miss Nicole’s third grade teacher and respect the time it must take her to grade all 25 students’ work each day.  Luckily for me, Nicole is good at math.  It is mostly correct, with the exception of a page on subtraction with double regrouping.  Almost every problem is wrong.  I mark them all in purple and finish just as the kids start trickling back inside.

Joel and Ryan come first, and I tell them to put their towels and swimsuits in the washer.  Joel strips down right in the mudroom, then runs nakedly though the kitchen in his quest for clothes.  Nicole opens the door, looks at her brother, and says, “Ew.”

Ryan comes downstairs a few minutes later, wearing his wet swimsuit over his underwear.  “This is not my swimsuit anymore it’s my shirt, and I want to wear it!” he announces.  I allow it, because it’s not that wet and twelve years of parenting have taught me to choose my battles.

Nicole looks at the pages of corrections she has, and is immediately overwhelmed.  “There is so much!” she whines, “I’m never going to finish it all!”  I tell her she doesn’t need to do it all at once.  I tell her that a lot of the English pages are the same concept and she will catch on quickly.  I do not tell her that she doesn’t have to correct it, because we all know that practice makes permanent, not perfect.  I'd rather her not do the worksheets at all than do them incorrectly.

She fixes one or two of the pages, then starts crying.  “It’s just so much, and I have so much to do!”

I tell her again that she can take a break.  She doesn’t have to do it all at once.  But she is my daughter, and she does have to do it all at once.  I get it.  I was the kind of kid who cried over schoolwork too.

I help the boys pick up the magic track they’ve been playing with and send them upstairs to get ready for bed.  Since they are no longer in school, they no longer take naps.  Which makes bedtime a thousand times easier.  Not easy.  But easier.

I follow them up the stairs and ask, “Who has gone pee and put their pull-up on?”  I already know the answer (nobody), but I ask anyway.  The boys are hiding in the same place they always hide when it’s time for bed.  Under the desk in Chris’ corner (office).  Sometimes I ask, “Where did the boys go? I can’t find them anywhere!” but tonight I’m not in the mood.

I tell the boys to get out from under the desk and go pee and put their pull ups on.  Ryan peeks his head out from behind the chair. “Hey, how did you see us?!” he asks, legitimately confused.

The boys finally get ready for bed. I brush their teeth and send them into their room to pick out stories.  Ryan chooses the Peter Rabbit pop-up book and Joel chooses a book that plays music.  We read Peter Rabbit first because it’s still Ryan’s day.  Both boys help paper Peter squeeze under the gate.  Both boys push and pull the tab that makes Mr. McGregor hoe his onions.  I stifle a yawn and try to push down the frustration I feel at reading Peter Rabbit for the 15th night in a row.  Why can’t Peter just be a good little rabbit like his sisters and pick blackberries down the lane?!

The stories are finally over, and I tuck the boys under their blankets.  Yes, I tell them, I will leave your lamp on if you are quiet and have your heads on your pillows.  Yes, I tell them, I will read in the hall while you fall asleep.

I didn’t used to read in the hall while they fall asleep.  But they haven’t reached that moral milestone where they do the right thing whether or not anyone is watching.  If I’m not watching, they talk and laugh and jump back and forth between their twin beds.  They make pillow and blanket forts and get all the stuffies out of the drawer and throw them at each other.

So I sit on the floor in the hall, reading a book I enjoy.  When I reach the end of the chapter, I open safari on my phone and refresh the New York Times corona case map.  I scroll through the states and feel a small sense of relief when I see states who are managing to slow the spread of the virus.  I haven’t opened any other sites or posts related to covid-19 in over a week.  It causes too much stress, too much anxiety, too much fear.

When I’m certain the boys are asleep, I go back downstairs.  Nicole is happy again, having finished her corrections.  It turns out she does know how to double regroup in subtraction.

I wash dishes, load the dishwasher, and wipe off the counters.  I vacuum the floors, rehang the hand towel in the bathroom, close the toilet lid and flush for whichever little boy forgot to do it himself.

The girls eagerly ask if it’s time to watch “Good Luck, Charlie.”  We started watching over spring break, when Chris and the boys were visiting his parents.  The three of us go down to the basement, and even though we have a strict eat-only-in-the-kitchen policy, I let them bring bowls of cheerios or goldfish with them.  We watch a couple episodes together.  At one point, I make Allison pause the show for a minute because I can’t stop laughing when Nicole asks me if I used to be a cheerleader in high school.

At nine o’clock, I head back upstairs.  I tell the girls they can stay up until 10, but that they better not wake up the boys when they go to bed.  

Chris and I finally have some time alone together.  He reads his comic books, and I read another couple chapters in my book.  I work on the crossword and check the corona virus case map one more time.  

It’s eleven-twenty pm when we switch off our lamps, eleven-thirty when the sliver of light coming from our cracked door widens to a boy-sized arc.  Ryan and Joel walk in, pillows, blankets and waters in hand.  One of them closes the door, and they both lie down on the floor where they will sleep until morning.

My family is unfathomably lucky.  Chris and I can both work from home. We have groceries delivered once every two weeks from Costco and use Walmart pick-up once a week.  So far, our immediate family, our parents, our sisters and their families, and our extended families are healthy.  Staying home all day every day is inconvenient.  It’s a far cry from what we are used to.  It’s frustrating and overwhelming and everyone in our household has big emotions at one time or another.  But we will continue to stay home.  Even if it’s for another month, even if it’s for three more months.  Because not everyone can stay home.  So many people are working to provide essential services, putting themselves and their families at risk, and all they are asking is that those of us who can stay home, do.  It’s such a small thing, really.  Just stay home.  As much as you possibly can.  Because when we finally can come together again, we don’t want anyone to be missing.  #WeStayHome.