For most, they're about 4 days into the social distancing recommendation. My family has currently been home for one week, with minimal trips out.
Last Wednesday, we got some messages that two people were diagnosed in our city with COVID-19 who were connected with the school system. In response, the schools were closing for two days to do a deep clean.
My husband's job had already made the call to start prepping to work remotely and were working on getting everyone working from home as of Thursday. Since his job may have required him to go into the office to troubleshoot if anything went awry that day, I stayed home as well, since our kid was home.
Thursday night, the call came that they were opting to close the school for two weeks for the time being.
Come Saturday (or was it Sunday? I don't remember, and this is why I should start writing all of this down), the situation evolved pretty rapidly, and Governor Baker made the call that schools should be closed for a minimum of 3 weeks.
During all of this, things were pretty nuts at work. I work in higher education, and so we were scrambling as the situation evolved to figure out what we were doing with the students, how we would teach and assess remotely...all the while trying to ensure that the students who are meant to graduate this year are set up to still be able to do so.
Like many other campuses in the Boston area, ours made the call to have faculty and staff work remotely for everyone able to do so. My whole office has been remote since Monday (while I've been remote since last Thursday, due to school closings).
Businesses have been having to close down temporarily. Few of the shops down the street from us are currently still open and doing business. Other businesses, like where my husband works, have been having to downsize, in what is hopefully a temporary measure until all of this is over. Fortunately for us, the downsizing didn't impact us (yet?), but there are lots of people being hurt by this.
Much of this makes me really angry because part of the reason that it's gotten like this is because Trump downplayed it for weeks, rather than taking proper preventative action. Despite the outgoing administration covering a very similar scenario with Trump's administration during the transition period in 2016-17, they scaled back the CDC's pandemic team. He's been quoted as not wanting to make the numbers rise (in giving a reason for why he didn't want a ship of passengers, some of who had COVID-19, to dock), because his primary concern has been appearances in hopes of winning re-election. I hope that the pain of these past few, and coming, weeks will ensure that he doesn't get it.
Now, returning from that tangent.
My husband and I are both currently working from home. Because of the situation at work, I've been putting in a bit more than my regular hours (though I've been trying not to go over too much for my own well-being, but since I am spared a commute time, it still feels like less time overall, I guess?).
In the meantime, I've been trying to make sure my kid has been doing some constructive things, and I'm rather proud of myself for how productive I've been while finding adequate enrichment and some schedule stability for them as well.
We're using Khan Academy for Math and Grammar at their grade level. Since the kiddo is really into computer programming, we've also added that, and we rotate through some of each in the morning. There have been some really great live streams going around, and so far, they've done:
- Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems
- History of Baking
- ZooAmerica live streams
- Art lesson, making a robot with Cassie Stephens (an elementary school art teacher who has been doing live streams during the day)
On the Zoo America and History of Baking live streams, I've been letting them interact in the Facebook comments to ask questions, which I think is also a good lesson in and of itself on internet etiquette (today's lesson was "do not type in all caps, it is seen as shouting and is considered rude).
Beyond the computer, there's been the usual reading (sometimes on a tablet, sometimes a physical book), and in the mornings, we've been trying to do yoga (skipped today, because I was sore), and we've started practicing our violins a few minutes each evening.
Most of this week, we've gotten out for a short walk each day, just to get air and sun (keeping our distance from others!). Today, it's been gray and rainy, so it's been indoors all day. My husband has made an occasional trip out for necessary errands (shopping, mailing something that needed to get to someone for work), and for coffee (I've been drinking mine at home).
We've kept on top of the laundry, dishes, and other basic household maintenance on top of everything.
Tuesday night, we all stayed up a bit later than usual to watch the Dropkick Murphys live stream (after a dinner of corned beef, carrots, potatoes, and brussels sprouts).
I've definitely felt a lot of anxiety. I've been biting my nails and picking at my skin on my fingers more than usual, and I have not been sleeping well. I've lost about 5 pounds, despite walking about 1/8-1/4 of how much I usually move. Some of it might be that I'm not drinking Starbucks daily, but I was already moving towards that and bringing my lunch everyday for several weeks at work, so I suspect this is stress weight loss. Hopefully I can relax a bit over the weekend, while away from work-related things.
No comments:
Post a Comment