Our Quarantine Life

2020. What a year it has been. And it’s only April.

January 13th was the beginning of an incredibly hard time for our family. After a long 6 days, my Step-Dad went Home to be with Jesus on the 18th. The 24th was his funeral and the 27th was his burial.

February 3rd, Isla and I went house hunting. In the midst of a very sad time, it was an exciting time too.

We found a house that day. And I’m SO glad. My energy for this process wasn’t there. At all. Grief is hard. I also had been looking at houses online for almost a year and I was already exhausted. We were actually supposed to look at the house we bought, a few days before leaving for the funeral in MN. I had to cancel that day and I prayed the house wouldn’t sell before I could get there when we got back…February 8th we wrote up an offer and February 11th was the inspection.

My in-laws came to visit on March 12th and Friday the 13th was the kids’ last day of school. As in, GOING to school. I was originally planning on going to AZ for a 4-5 day trip to get certified in hair extensions and see some friends, so I arranged for Travis’ parents to come help with the kids so that Travis wouldn’t have to use any vacation days. Instead, because of purchasing a home quicker into 2020 then anticipated, I decided this year wasn’t the year to make the investment on that education. Thank goodness I didn’t go. Little did I know that part of the time I would have been away was in the thick of all the coronavirus happenings. Plans were being made AND implemented on having our children do distant learning. Meaning school at home. So Yes. The week I decided to stay back from AZ to instead pack up a house, was the week we started doing some distant learning. It was a ‘light’ week. But still. It was…interesting 🤣 You know the term cluttered house, cluttered mind? Or whatever it is. That was me. I mean boxes were EVERYWHERE. I had sold our table so I brought up folding tables and chairs. The house was completely torn apart! I should’ve taken pictures just for the memories.

Saturday, March 14th we had started using Kleenex instead of toilet paper because there was a toilet paper shortage. But low and behold, we were able to show our in-laws the house we would be buying, and found…toilet paper! (Don’t worry, the house had been vacant for at least a month as the sellers had already moved out of the Country. We didn’t steal their toilet paper 😂)

You really can’t even make all this up.

The following week…Spring Break. And more packing. And closing on the house…March 25th (my sister’s birthday) was the day! Oh, and I almost forgot, after close I had to bring Grayson to the dentist. Of course he developed a bad infection when dentists were closed the previous week and he ended up needing to have that tooth extracted. You know. Just to add a little more excitement to our day! He was a champ through it all. And of course he did well because the dentist told him knock knock jokes through the whole appointment. G-man lives for knock knock jokes. Lol. Anyways…March 28th the movers came. March 30th was the *hopeful* back to school day but ended up being another *Act of God* day, so thankfully, the kids had an extra day off for me to get somewhat organized before distance learning started again. Deep breaths, Mandy. This was now going to be ‘The Real Deal.’

We’re having a dining table made that was supposed to have a finish date of May 1st, so I set up classroom in the dining room. If we are still doing distance learning into May (which my gut is telling me this will be the case) and If our table is done (I have no clue what the schedule for completion is at this point), we’ll move the classroom into the living room…where there won’t be furniture until at least June 😂 I mean, if anything, at least we’ve got options, right!?

Thursday, April 2nd, a surprise showed up! I was outside with the kids (it was beautiful outside!) so I didn’t have my phone on me. Here I had a text and missed call from a handyman that he took down the trampoline at our dear friend’s house and he was ready to bring it over! Kylan and Isla had been begging me all week to call him. I sort of lied because those 2 aren’t really understanding these limits we’re being put on, so I told them I left a message and I hadn’t heard back yet when he can bring it over 🤷🏼‍♀️. I figured with the stay at home order in place, I didn’t want to put pressure on someone if they weren’t comfortable doing a job for me. But man, I sure hoped it would somehow happen. I mean, we are doing distance learning, there’s a stay at home order, and I now have all 4 kids…and a husband who seems to be working around the clock, home. All. Day. Long. Plus needing to unpack and get organized. And who even knows what we’ll eat. Do I SERIOUSLY have to feed my family too!?! Chips for breakfast? Sure! At this point I don’t even know what end is up, so Lord, PLEASE make that trampoline appear!…And it did!

So here we are. April 6th. This past weekend we got through the last of the boxes. Nothing is hung, or decorated, but our life seems a *little* more in order in the midst of the chaos that surrounds us.

I’ve honestly felt like the worlds worst mother during all of this. While I’m seeing families cooking. And baking. And bike riding. And writing with chalk on neighbors driveways. And having game nights. And doing all the things. I’m just trying to keep my head above water. Sunday afternoon Trav and I finally played Uno with our oldest two while Kylan and Isla were destroying the newly organized toy room! You read that right. We have never had a toy room with a door. That you can shut. You know, so toys are contained to ONE room. And because it’s technically a bedroom, it has a closet for games, and dress up clothes. And allllll the things contained in ONE space. Until they’re not…

But it’s still exciting. Because I can have them clean up and they don’t have to ask me where it goes. It’s the small things. And this one might be life changing. Thank you, Jesus.

Honestly, it’s not even the distance learning that has seemed like a lot. It’s everything on top of the distance learning.

Talan, Mr Wise-Beyond-His-Years, has been doing his work and logging into google classroom all by himself. I got an email tonight that he has no missing work! Thank you, Jesus, for my self sufficient, easy, 1st born child.

Grayson…it’s been so fun working with him! Man he gets side tracked easily and needs to constantly be re-focused. But the kid cracks me up. And the excitement he has doing little activities is just the best! This is his Suit of Armor he created for a religion activity. Thank you, Jesus, for my 2nd born’s sense of humor. He’s the most like his Mama.

Then there’s our Kylan Jack. A little background on the most recent with him. The first week we ended up doing distance learning (before Spring Break), I was supposed to have a meeting to increase his Literacy minutes from 30 minutes per day to 60 minutes per day. With going into 1st grade, and really diving right into reading, they would hate for Kylan to still be trying to figure out his letters while everyone else is reading. We know Kylan’s AWESOME brain works and processes differently, and slower right now. So his wonderful resource teacher just wants to give him some extra help then what has been already getting. But then a stay at home order and distance learning was in the works and we couldn’t have a meeting. I started to panic internally. How am I going to keep up with helping 3 kids with all of their work, PLUS not make 1 of them fall further behind!?

Side note: I’m the mom. Which means I get the brunt of every emotion this kid has. Every. Single. One. Let’s just say, he’s a perfect little angel and puts on his Kylan charm for everyone, and then let’s loose on his Mama. But I get it. And we’ve been learning together how to best cope with this. But now I have to do school with him?? Jesus take the wheel.

Anyways, he has been blessed with the best teachers and his resource teacher has set up time to do sessions with him every single day. Again…thank you, Jesus!

Travis and I have the understanding that I do the best I can with him, and then Travis can *hopefully* work with him in the evenings, if time allows. He’s better for Dad. Even if it means he ends up putting together a lego set, it’s still using his brain and concentration, right? 😉 Thank you, Jesus, for our stubborn and extremely hard working sweet number three.

Last but not least…Isla. Oh Isla. I knew she liked being naked but you don’t realize how often she’s actually naked until you have to keep her out of the background of classroom zoom meetings. And this house has more windows. So there’s that too 😂🙈 She actually doesn’t seem phased by having her brothers back home with her all day. Every day.

Thank you, Jesus, for blessing our family with even more entertainment. And sass. And sparkles. And songs. And dancing. This is our Isla Amelia Lynn.

I can’t forget Travis. The one behind the scenes who really is such an important guy in our lives and in this quarantine life that is right now. I mean, when else will I ever be able to write about him working in a closet? In our new house, he’s no longer in a closet, FYI. Although it worked out really well! This, in fact, is our 2020.

This has been our quarantine life. 2020 has been painful. And hard. And in between the pain and the hard, it’s been a beautiful mess. And even though I’m up writing way past my bedtime right now (it’s now actually April 7th), the past couple weeks I’ve been able to sleep through full nights again for the first time since the night of January 13th. (If you know me, you KNOW I need my sleep!) Thank you, Jesus.

Even if I haven’t been able to create the most amazing experiences for them, our kids are happy. And healthy. And safe. And Grayson says he never wants to go back to school and would like to just continue doing it this way 😳 He loves sleeping in. Going outside when he needs a brain break. And probably really enjoys being able to tell me any random thing that pops into his head at that VERY moment. I’m hoping now that things seem a little more ‘settled,’ we can get to some of those creative activities I’ve been seeing you all doing. (I’ve been taking mental notes!) We’re taking one day at a time. Doing things the best we can. And never forgetting to count our many blessings and remembering to say so many bold prayers for the hard everyone is going through. We will get through this. Together. ❤️

~XOXO