Trying to Get Back Our Groove

My kids have been hounding me for a new blog post, and since I aim to please the masses, I figured it was time to attempt to come up with some content.  If we're being real here, though, there's not much of interest to report.  True story.  

So, I'm going to challenge myself to come up with at least some kind of update for each member of the family.  And I'll start with myself, since a picture of me in the ER is literally the only recent photo of note in my phone.  

I do apologize for the lack of pictures in this text-heavy post.

ME:  I'm finally feeling better after the Covid ordeal, but it certainly took a good couple of weeks before that was the case.  And that doggone cough I had got much worse before it got better.  To the point that one day towards the end of the second week, I couldn't take a full breath without a MASSIVE coughing attack being triggered.  It got to the point that I was having trouble feeling like I was getting enough breathing in between the coughing so Scott brought me to the ER.  Even though it took longer than I thought it should have, I finally got taken back and set up with an IV and eventually some meds.  They took all kinds of blood samples and a chest X-ray to make sure I didn't have pneumonia and then I got a nice shot of morphine along with a steroid shot to help my lungs chill out with the coughing.  Long story kind of short -- I was there for a couple of hours and then sent home with some prescriptions to help with the cough.  A couple of days later, it was mostly gone and I was mostly feeling fine!  And that is the end of my tale of Coronavirus.

SCOTT:  Thankfully, Scott is finally feeling better, too, and has even returned to his actual office for work!  He still works from home a couple days a week (at his tiny little desk in our closet) and I'm not mad about it.  :)

ETHAN:  Also better!  He returned to school this week and I think it was a welcome relief.  This entire year has been a huge stressor for this kid who thrives on routine and order and knowing what to expect.  But he has done a heck of a job rolling with the punches and I know that this year's experience will help him in the long run to know that even when life is hard, he can do hard things.  And do them well.

GRACE:  Making life work, one zoom meeting at a time.  Hahahahaha.  J/K, j/k.  Although it DID make me laugh out loud when I walked downstairs a few weeks ago and saw a sign posted on the outside of her door essentially saying "Zoom meetings until 3:50 -- Do Not Disturb."  For the kids who DIDN'T test positive for Covid (ie Grace, Sophie, Jane, and Alex) their 14 day day quarantine from school didn't start until 10 days after the last person who DID test positive, which was Ethan on the 6th.  So, while he was cleared to go back to school after his 10 days of isolation were up, all the other kids were just getting started with their final 2 weeks of quarantine.  It's been something else.  Let me tell ya!

SOPHIE:  When I think of Sophie over the last few weeks, the thing that most often comes to mind is her near daily routine of sleeping until noon and staying up until well past midnight most nights, I'm sure.  The eternal sleep battle with children is that you can put a child in bed, but you can't make them actually go to sleep.  And Sophie (and Grace) are both very much night owls.  It is what it is at this point, and she's been getting all her virtual work done for school, so I'm willing to let sleeping dogs (or in this case, children) lie.

JANE:  Oh Jane.  My precious little moonbeam.  Online schooling has been...hard.  And it's probably made harder by the fact that she stays up later than she should each night and wakes up too early every morning which puts her in a perpetual state of tiredness (even though she vehemently disagrees) and emotional-ness.  We're finding that she has a hard time remembering to check through ALL of her Google classroom subjects every day -- especially the Encore ones -- and has regularly had tons of missing assignments to catch up on that she didn't even know existed.  There is light at the end of the tunnel, however, because the rest of the kids can finally go back to school next Thursday!!!  

ALEX:  It's a toss-up, really, to decide whether Alex or Jane has had a harder time with getting everything done online.  Alex might have the slight edge here, but only because there have a been a few days this month where I've forgotten to give him his ADHD meds in the morning.  Big mistake.  HUGE.  I've taken to writing out all of his assignments for the day on paper even though the exact assignments are listed in his daily To-Do list in Google classroom.  There's something about being able to physically scratch something of the list, though, that seems to make a difference in buckling down and just getting the work done.  Because it's not like it takes all that long to do it once he starts.  (Consequently, I've started writing out Jane's assignments for her, too.  I'm hoping it will help her stay on top of things.  I'm 95% sure she as ADHD as well, but I just haven't been able to get an official diagnosis for her.)

ISAAC:  This cute little crazy nut job was able to go back to preschool this week and he has mostly loved it!  The only part giving him pause to wholeheartedly endorsing the experience is that he HATES nap time.  And even though the pre-K class only has to stay on their cots for about half an hour before any non-nappers can get up and quietly play, he still thinks it's a major grievance that needs addressing.  

Well, that just about does it, friends.  We are slowly but surely getting our groove back post-Covid.  Maybe once everyone is back in school I'll have more stories to tell.  Hahaha.  

Quarantining For Real

In an ironic twist of fate, I somehow caught the Coronavirus last week.  Or maybe it was the week before, we're not really sure.  It is especially ironic, because our family has been fairly strict about social distancing and mask-wearing, etc, and yet here I am.  I don't know WHERE I got it, but get it, I did.

Patient 0

In hindsight, my symptoms started last Saturday when I came down with a really bad headache.  At the time, I chalked it up to dehydration/exhaustion after running 7 miles that morning in 96% humidity, so I just tried to drink lots of water (and Gatorade) and attempted to take it easy.  When I woke up the next morning with a sore throat, I assumed it was from not getting enough sleep (ever) because of our resident sleep terrorists {ie Alex and Isaac}.  Monday was Isaac's first day of Preschool, and since I didn't have a fever and thought it was probably just a cold or maybe strep throat, I took him to school and dropped him off.  However, when I started feeling achy, in addition to the other symptoms, I decided I should go and get tested just in case.  Along with Covid, I had them test for the flu and strep throat and was really hoping one of those would be the culprit.  But it wasn't.  And it was at that point, that I knew in my gut that I had the Coronavirus.

First day of Preschool

I went straight home, calling Scott on my way, and set up camp in my bedroom-turned-sick-bay.  While Scott went straight to the preschool to pick up Isaac, I started obsessively googling symptoms to gauge how I was feeling.  The Department of Health requires self-isolation while test results are pending, so I did my best to stay away from everyone else in the house while waiting.  The school district also requires quarantine for students in close contact with a known positive case as well as cases pending results, like mine, so they have had to be home as well.  The older kids were less than enthused to have to go right back to virtual schooling after just a week of in-person school, but it is what it is.

Alex and Jane have taken over the Bonus Room -- I'd say their state of being right now is roughly equivalent to "Lord of the Flies."  Hahahaha.

We were really hoping I'd be the only one hit with the virus, but when Isaac started running a fever on Tuesday evening and threw up, I realized with a sinking feeling that he most likely had it as well.   I finally got my positive Covid result on Wednesday afternoon, and by that point, unfortunately, Scott was also feeling sick, and Alex and Jane claimed to be feeling sick, too.  Scott and the three youngers went to be tested Thursday morning, and when those results came back, we learned that Scott and Isaac were both positive and Alex and Jane were both negative.  The older kids have avoided us like the plague -- literally wearing masks and gloves inside the house whenever they leave their bedrooms -- and even though they've been beyond cautious, Ethan started feeling sick yesterday and went to be tested.  He says he's feeling a little better this morning, so we're hoping that maybe it was just lack of sleep or psychosomatic type symptoms, but we won't know for sure until we get his results {probably} tomorrow.  

UPDATE:  Ethan IS positive for Covid.  :(  

Poor Maxwell doesn't understand what's going on.  :(

And that brings us to the here and now.  I can't even begin to thank all of the people who have offered help and brought us meals, and Gatorade, and all kinds of other accommodations.  It has been heart-warming and awe-inspiring to see such service and goodness in action.  We are so very grateful!!!  At this moment in time, I'm feeling...okay.  Ish.  This is the weirdest sickness I have ever had.  In the first few days, it felt kind of like the flu, but not exactly.  The headache and sore throat and muscle achiness were almost gone by Thursday, but since then, I keep getting hit by waves of exhaustion/extreme fatigue along with muscle aches and random joint pain.  And I have a much worse cough NOW than I did at the beginning of my sickness.  But, I have also had moments in the last couple of days where I feel completely fine and like I've finally kicked this virus to the curb!  It is so strange that the same virus can create such varying reactions in different people.  It would appear that Scott's trajectory is roughly following mine, but neither one of us ever had a fever, whereas Isaac DID run a fever for a few days and also threw up 4 different times during that period.  Isaac has been running around like he's totally fine since Friday, while I've still got random lingering symptoms and Scott is still actively sick.   It's all just super strange.  

A goody bag someone dropped off for Isaac, with stuff to keep him busy and occupied while in quarantine.

I really hope that we can keep the sickness contained, but if not -- at least we've had lots of practice over the last 6 months of being homebound with each other.  Hahahaha.

In happier times, we went to Isaac's Open House/Meet the Teacher at his Preschool a few weeks ago.

I'm not sure why this is still his go-to pose.  Hahahaha.

Jane is 11!

True story -- I keep thinking Jane is still 9.  Hahahaha.  Seriously.  I don't know why I can't keep it straight in my brain that she's actually 11 now!  Especially since Alex is the one who is actually 9.  So strange, I know.  Jane's birthday was on Friday, however, and she is most definitely 11 years old.  :)

Since everyone was home on Friday (all the kids have virtual/online school that day), we decided to go ahead and celebrate Jane's big day that afternoon/evening.  Of course, things are never perfectly smooth around these parts and Jane had a bit of a rough start to her morning, but thankfully the day ended on a much higher note than it started.  {Unfortunately, she ticked off the WRONG person the evening before when first she hit Grace as hard as she could and then -- for some inexplicably CRAZY reason -- threw a cup of water at Grace.  It didn't go over very well, as I'm sure you can imagine, and there was some residual animosity present on Friday morning.} 

Jane was so excited about the Avatar necklace that Grandma sent...

...and she loved the new birthday outfit that Granny bought her when she was here a couple of weeks ago.

Things had begun to mellow out by the afternoon, thank goodness, and while Scott took Alex with him to Target to pick out some presents and I started making the requested Avatar cake, Jane and the others partied upstairs with the "Just Dance 2020" game she had been gifted earlier in the day.  Once the cake was done and the presents were all wrapped, we gathered 'round the dining room table and sang to the birthday girl and then she ripped into those gifts.  She was genuinely pleased with everything the kids picked out for her {or -- more accurately -- everything that Scott picked out for the other kids to give her}, and after everything was opened, they skedaddled back upstairs for some more "Just Dance."  Ironically, the Avatar cake -- which she LOVED -- didn't even get cut into or eaten until Saturday afternoon.  As Ethan commented, I think we've all OD'ed on cake since the quarantine started.  Hahahahahaha.  {If you'll recall, making cakes was an almost every day occurrence at the beginning of our lockdown.}

Getting their "Just Dance" on.

"Water, Earth, Fire, Air"

I accidentally put 12 candles on the cake.  It would appear that I really can't keep her age straight at all.  Hahahahaha.

Now that Jane's birthday has come and gone, we have exited our August birthday alley!  Maxwell's birthday is next week (our little pup-pup will be 2), but I don't think we'll be doing anything all that big to celebrate.  Hahaha.  The next family birthdays on the horizon are Grace and Isaac in November.  It's so hard to believe the year is beginning to wind down!  

We're in a Rubik's cube phase right now.  Hahaha.  Jane has mastered the 2x2 cube and is ready to move on to the big leagues with the 3x3.

These Airheads were a bigger hit than you would think.

This was probably the biggest hit.  She legit let out a shout of joy when she unwrapped it and saw what it was.  Also -- this is the one present that WAS actually picked out by a kid.  Alex got it at Target when he was there with Scott.

Stay tuned for a check-in on how school is going now that it's in session...