Wednesday, Self-Isolation Day #19
Please continue to pray for my husband's mother D. on a ventilator in ICU with confirmed COVID-19. We very much appreciate it, even though we are choosing not to give detailed, blow-by-blow health updates in this public forum.
Today was a bit better and we put one foot in front of the other.
Our country's president has warned us that we are to expect two very bad weeks in terms of rising cases of coronavirus before we can even hope to see the cases going down. I feel more and more weight on my shoulders as a parent and an adult, caring for children who really don't understand and shouldn't be overly burdened, and I imagine I am not at all alone in the weariness.
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| Four-year-old learning to use the yo-yo |
Can anyone identify this volunteer plant? It might be just a "weed," but it's rather attractive as a ground cover and in a wild corner of our yard where it is welcome.
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| Mystery plant |
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| Mystery plant |
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| Honeysuckle |
We enjoyed our first lemonade of the season, which I made for our afternoon read-aloud time of "Boy" by Roald Dahl.
We got outside today, kids played on swings, used their rope contraction up and down, played an invented game of trains outdoors, created an obstacle course in the yard, turned over many rocks in the woods looking for worms and critters, and set out the humane snake trap.
I, for one, needed to get outside of the four walls and do something MINDLESS so I moved rocks. I just moved rocks. We have innumerable large rocks (5+ pounds) in our yard and I moved them all over the yard: I can control almost nothing, but I can control the location of rocks. That felt soothing during this emotionally stressful time.
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| Humane snake trap |
After dinner, we went on a family walk on which not everybody walked. It is surreal to me to see all the roof and brick repairs being made from the tornado last month because it feels like that weather event is a lifetime in the past when we had never even heard of a pandemic.
I had a mama-son date with my seven-year-old in which I read aloud just to him, which is a real treat. Blog readers, are you reading aloud any engaging stories these days?
Bonus Reading for Posterity
- U.S. Intelligence Concludes China Concealed Extent of Coronavirus Outbreak
- Chinese doctor who first raised the alarm over COVID-19 vanishes
My kids know about "the disease" as it is called. They know that is why we aren't going anywhere or seeing our family. It's a heavy burden. Today we were going to all go and get adjusted, but my children were scared to go. It made me sad, but I didn't force them. Honestly, I was scared to go also.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned it already, but we are re-reading the Little House Series. We are on Farmer Boy, although we did go a little out of order and read Little House on the Prairie before it. A favorite picture book right now is the Seven Silly Eaters.
Moving rocks is a good way to work off the nervous energy. My therapist would high-five you for this.
ReplyDeleteI go into "pastor's wife mode" in times like this and just take care of people. The day my grandmother was dying, I made a three-course meal for those who were sitting vigil and edited my church's Lenten devotional book because I couldn't sit still.
If you need some encouragement that the shelter-in-place orders are working, Seattle is starting to flatten their curve, and they have been sheltering two weeks longer than the rest of the state of Washington. Our shelter-in-place order just got extended to May 4, so I'm really hoping it works.
Yes, it is good to hear that encouragement! Thank you.
DeleteMy pleasure. :)
DeleteKatherine,
ReplyDeleteI think your weed might be common chickweed. I love keeping up with your blog. Your mother in law is in my prayers and thoughts.
Ashley
Why, Ashley, I think you're right that it is chickweed! I'm looking at photos online and it looks remarkably the same. Thank you for the prayers!
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