Corona Life: What's New
{I wrote this in May and apparently couldn't decide whether I should post it or not. But today is the day, since I can't sleep, I must resurrect an old hobby I love. Consider yourself warned that the updates are a little dated as of now.}
My last cheery post was "A School Year in Review." Besides the obvious fact that I wrote that forever ago, how sad would THIS year's School Year in Review go?
Let's see -- kids having a really rough time at school for various reasons, a bunch of time missed for specialist appointments, followed by a bunch of time missed for snow days, followed by a bunch of time missed for the Ontario teacher's strikes, followed by a global pandemic.
So, let's just say this has been a rough school year.
Oy.
But rather than rehashing all that, I'm going to chat with you about our life in self-isolation: the good, the bad and the baffling. In a What's New format.
Clara
Of course, the youngest members always exhibit the most dramatic changes in the shortest span of time. When I first started this post (it's been sitting in my draft folder for days), she finally took her Fisher Price a-frame walker thing for a spin. Then on Sunday, Mother's Day, she took her first actual steps. I melted.
She now has a very obvious favourite book. She likes to crawl over to the "book nook" (just a forward-facing bookshelf) and pull it off to "read." It makes her seem way more like a toddler than a baby. (The book, by the way, is "Sing a Song of Mother Goose" by Barbara Reid. She just lights up when we take it out to read to her.)
Likewise, she is now saying discernible names for each of her four siblings. I especially loved hearing her say "Elijah" and "Isaiah" considering how those are much more demanding names than just "Anna."
Elijah
Recently, he threw his arms around me and declared in a most affirming, affectionate voice, "Mommy! You're my 'add to cart!'"
Can you think of a more amusing, or telling, compliment?
Another adorable moment happened when I took some of the children out for a drive to get pussy willows from the side of the road to use as our makeshift "palms" for Palm Sunday. When we found them, he spontaneously declared, "Oh thank You, Good Shepherd! You always give us just what we need!"
He loves to act our little "scenes" -- with his plastic animal figurines, even salt and pepper shakers, and so on. Today I caught him doing that with condiment bottles, and he was playing "The Jonas Brother"s. As in, "hi, I'm a Jonas brother! Are you my Jonas brother, too?"
All of them have been enjoying doing Art Hub for Kids videos on Youtube, but Elijah has been reaping the most benefits from it. Prior to these videos, he mostly scribbled on paper. Now he's drawing distinguishable figures and he's so proud of himself. I am too. I love the little faces he's creating, but feel a twinge because it reminds me he's approaching "school-age" this fall, assuming, well, the apocalypse calls it quits and school can actually resume.
Today Isaiah asked if he could use the iPad to play a game, and I said, "well actually I'd rather you did something screen-free right now" and Elijah sweetly informed me, "well, he won't scream if you let him have the ipad." He thought I was saying SCREAM-free.
I love it.
Anna
She's my mini-me in her love for pop music. It's my go-to pick-me-up and now hers as well.
I decided from Passiontide until Easter Sunday, we'd turn off all 'secular' music. Anna took this seriously, but tasked herself with creating an elaborate playlist for Easter Sunday morning to host an epic dance party in our living room. Now we're grooving to the Duck Tales theme song, the Regina Caeli (her idea!), "Don't Start Now" by Dua Lipa, multiple Jonas Brothers tracks, and others. She throws her heart into dancing, proving the apple doesn't fall too far from the Zumba tree.
She is also decidedly taken to her whole Google classroom scene. She loves the fact that she can just type something, have her classmates or teacher read it, but not have to leave the house. It's like she discovered what Facebook is for stay-at-home moms, but she's only six.
Her new favourite audio book is "Charlotte's Web" and she listens to it while colouring endless pictures and daydreaming about seeing her best friend. I also bought some notecards and she's been writing letters to her relatives and simply can't wait until she can go to the post office to drop them off.
It's very sweet to see how much she is thriving at home, getting to be the "big sister" to Elijah and Clara.
Isaiah
He's delighting me with his creative writing and enthusiasm for art and baseline tolerance for Math with a startling level of skill at mental math. For these reasons, he's been doing well at home. Also now that the weather is getting warmer, he just lives for time spent in our yard, digging in our epic sandpit. Also, since we switched our kids rooms around, he has more space in his new arrangements to set up a little desk and get down on the floor and build, build, build with Lego.
He is chief in charge of managing my beloved Pio Plant. I got this cutting from Elijah's godmother who got a cutting from his teacher who died, who in turn got it from a friend who visited Italy and took a cutting from... wait for it... Padre Pio's actual garden. So, it's like a third class relic, in a charming six-degrees-of-separation way. Anyway, Isaiah says "Oh, I think Pio could use a good watering" in the same way he might sweetly, but honestly rebuke me when Elijah is throwing a fit (which is few and far between) and he says, "Mommy, I think he just needs some attention."
Empathy is his middle name.
He described this whole isolation experience as like being a really long road trip, because you're trapped in the car and there's no end in sight. I thought that was brilliant and also really sad. I know he misses his dear friend, I know he does well with the routine of school. I know especially he misses attending Mass.
We've been enjoying doing art videos from Cassie Stephens on Youtube. She is 100% the Miss Frizzle of art teachers, and has videos with simple instructions with materials you would actually have in your own home. It's delightful what he's been producing.
We've been enjoying doing art videos from Cassie Stephens on Youtube. She is 100% the Miss Frizzle of art teachers, and has videos with simple instructions with materials you would actually have in your own home. It's delightful what he's been producing.
Noah
We just celebrated his 11th birthday! It's amazing and so delightful to see how grown up he is getting.
He's devouring books and burritos at a breakneck pace. Alas, no public libraries for the foreseeable future! It's expensive to keep up with his reading, given 'social distancing.'
He's enjoying Lego these days and destroying / rebuilding cardboard into weird things, so he functions the same as he was as a five year old, just taller. Lately he's also gotten into making Rube Goldberg machines, which is quite entertaining for us all.
He and Isaiah got a joint Lego robotics gift for their birthday and so that's absorbing lots of their time and energy. He also has taken a keen interest in watching "Some Good News" with me (actually all of the kids). So it's fun to share things with them that I actually enjoy myself.
Patrick
He's tired but doing well.
We watched the series "The Chosen" together recently and we both love it. I highly, highly recommend it as a beautiful way of sharing the life of Christ in a touching, non-cheesy manner.
He seems very in tune with how long and demanding my days are right now, so if I send an email to his work account and say, "I could really use..." (a hug, some wine, some time to myself), he jumps to help me on that front. He remembers well how homeschooling almost did me in years ago, so he's very, very helpful as a protective, preventative measure.
But did I mention he's tired? Apparently I don't have the corner on insomnia anymore.
Moi!
Oh my, I have vacillated during any given day to delighting in the cosy home-y-ness of it all, wanting to hide in the bathroom, ACTUALLY hiding in the bathroom, feeling content and grateful but also guilt-ridden because I am content and grateful, sobbing because the world is falling apart, and being mad because we're being gaslit into being put on house arrest based on loose predictions and educated guesses. Oh and stress eating. See Emma Stone gif above -- ice cream doesn't cure anything, but it's a tasty distraction from the apocalypse.
I mean, for the most part, my daily life has not changed substantially. I have always been a stay-at-home mom, and there has always been a kid or two under foot. Patrick has always worked from home. I've been making bread since I first became a homemaker (now seriously, though, what is this obsession with sourdough?!). But the very few ways my daily life HAS been changed have had a decidedly negative impact on my daily life. Not being able to run errands with a kid in tow, not being able to have tea with my friends, not being able to take Elijah to his playgroup or the library, oh yes, and not being able to send my kids to school.
I love them.
I love, love, LOVE them. But I am horrible at teaching them anything besides table manners and pop culture references.
Of course, the biggest difference is not being able to go to Mass. The first Sunday that we had to livestream our liturgy, two of my kids were acting out (which is normal behaviour) but instead of me taking them to the back of the church, I brought them to their room, where they played with their own toys. And I cried -- hot, bitter, resentful tears, knowing full well this would stretch on for weeks, and believing it would always be that bad when I was trying to participate in the Mass.
We later decided that our own parish's Mass had unreliable Internet streaming, and so we started watching (I cringe as I say "watch") Mass from the cathedral in Toronto. It has been very professionally produced and so easier to follow. But especially lovely is that Cardinal Collins always has at least one other priest there, so there isn't this awkward, poignant silence when the priest says something and the congregation is supposed to respond.
Things are far from easy for so many of us. I suppose I have shied away from sharing much of that because I worry I sound rather tone deaf in my experience of suffering. In many ways, our situation is so privileged. In fact, in most ways. Thus, complaining about what I do find hard reminds me of the "ring theory;" we are on the outside of other people's tremendous, unimaginable pain.
For what it's worth, I hold all these intentions in my prayers, and in my teeny penances given over for those in need.
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