Self-Isolation Day #41

Thursday, Self-Isolation Day #41

We request continued prayers for my husband's mother D. She has been sick with COVID-19 for a month (now negative, but still sick), alone in the hospital for nearly that long, and is now on her second stretch of being on a ventilator in order to give her lungs support for longer while they heal.

When David got his hard cast on Tuesday morning, I asked the nurse what to expect about his mobility, as I'd been carrying him in my arms nonstop for a day and a half at that point. She said, "Within two days, you'll be amazed by what he can do!" On his first day home, David learned how to scooch on his bottom and then crawl. By today, the next morning, he learned one at a time to pull up on furniture, cruise on furniture, crawl up onto the bench at the kitchen table, ascend and descend the stairs (on his bottom), stand on his own . . . and then even to walk standing up on carpet. The only thing he cannot do yet is to walk on the slippery wood floors!

On the rare days I shower while the children are awake, the price I pay is a mess like this! Ah well, it is good for the little ones to open up their kitchen activity cupboard and play in a wholesome way and it really does only take five to ten minutes to clean up. (Remind me of that when I'm frustrated!)

I try my best to give early morning attention to my first grader while the older three grades work independently. First grade looks like this right now: I teach subjects to Joseph on my right, and on my left I am "teaching" my four-year-old things like having him put stickers on a piece of paper, then he counts the stickers and puts a circle around them, and then I show him how to draw the number (e.g., 3) and he copies the 3. Meanwhile, the two-year-old is on the ground coloring or whatever he wants.

I try to buy very simple, very independent occupations for little fellas. I used to go on mommy blogs and create elaborate preschooler activities to occupy tiny tots during school hours, but it turns out most of those activities also require mama's attention, which is what I don't have to give. Now I do things like buy a pack of pipe cleaners (~350) on Amazon for $15 and simply hand it over. The boys have the best time: they wrap them in patterns; they make eye glasses, handcuffs, swords, and weird toys; and in the below picture, the two-year-old was showing me his "helmet!" They get super creative and each day, I just shove all the pipe cleaners in a huge gallon bag to reuse: they will last for months.

I love this time of year when I can see big snapshots of progress when normally daily progress seems glacial. At the start of his first grade year, Joseph was still finishing Kindergarten math and was not reading independently. Now he's reading independently, including the word problems in the second grade math book he is starting. I'm so grateful to get to be an intimate part of all of this growth!

Joe took a photo of me holding David during schooltime, me without makeup or brushing my hair after three really hard nights of David waking in pain from his fracture. :) Real life!

Today I was walking in the back yard when I froze in my tracks, having come eyeball to eyeball with this awkward-looking bird only four feet from me. It was a large bird yet appeared to be a terrified baby, with very scraggly feathers and it was not flying away, which made me suspect it was a fledgling. I snapped photos and used the Merlin app to identify it as a juvenile brown thrasher.

Cute boys triumphantly showing me their "rocket" and "office headquarters" built while I was reading aloud to them . . .

Bonus Reading for Posterity:

• Interesting exploration of the relationship of the immune system to the varied reactions to the coronavirus . . . Why Some People Get Sicker Than Others
• 94% of hospitalized patients in NYC had at least one comorbidity, and 88% had two or more comorbidities. Nearly all NYC coronavirus patients had underlying health conditions, study finds
• Preliminary data on antibodies studies are coming out of NYC! "In New York City, 21 percent of people had antibodies for coronavirus, compared to 3.6 percent in upstate New York, 16.7 percent in Long Island and 11.7 percent in the Westchester/Rockland area. The data indicates the COVID-19 death rate in New York is about 0.5 percent." NY releases figures estimating 14 percent of population, 20 percent in NYC, has had COVID-19
• Florida’s DeSantis, Heavily Criticized For Not Implementing Lockdown, Slams Projections That Were Wildly Overstated
• Dave Ramsey is the first person I've seen warning about some of the serious gotchas with all these government programs. I don't know details, but it seems like people need to be very carefully reading the fine print of all government programs and private programs. As I tell my kids constantly, there is no such thing as a free lunch. The Do's and Don'ts If You've Lost Your Job Due To The Coronavirus
• WALSH: When All Is Said And Done, The Lockdowns May Kill Millions More People Than They Save 
• Meanwhile, our state governor today extended our shelter-in-place order while I have numerous doctor and nurse friends whose hours (income) have been slashed to almost nothing or have been outright furloughed because the hospitals stand empty. North Carolina Stay-at-Home order extended until May 8, Gov. Roy Cooper announces