Quarantine and COVID-19 pandemic

I purchased this artwork to hang in our home and forever remind my family of our season of quarantine.  We started tracking the worldwide pandemic flu, COVID-19, in January. 

And over the weeks and months we’ve watched with sadness and concern the numbers continued to go up, up, up. 

On March 30, 2020 i journaled: 

“It’s 1:30 am and I cannot sleep. COVID-19 is sweeping across the world. We’ve followed this pandemic flu since early feb when it was only in China and only had 4K infected. Now there are 723,000 infected with 34k people dead. We are social distancing. School is out. Spring break was canceled. Everything is closed. Church is at home. 

We leave the house to buy groceries and go for drives. That’s it. Cello lessons and counseling are the only things left, and after this week, cello and counseling will also go virtual.  Aaron works from home. I can feel the heaviness of my responsibility to keep everyone safe, sane, fed, educated, quiet while Aaron works, and also keep up with therapy protocols for the twins. And keep the 3 littles entertained (and from being triggered, and from destroying things and from not melting down every 5 seconds so Aaron can do his job without a small human screaming in the background) and help the 4 school kids with their work as well. I’m outsourcing what I can and downloaded Reese’s English literature on audiobook instead of reading it to her myself, have reached out to most teachers to stagger their “face to face” google classroom meetings so there aren’t more than two trying to do life videos and chats at the same time.   

Everyone keeps posting about how bored they are and all this free time they have. I wake up and literally run from child to child for 12-14 hours. And cook. I always cook a lot, but our kitchen is in constant use right now. It’s all very wonderful and exhausting and I hope I can keep up at this pace.  Life is definitely not any slower than it was before, but it is still better because we are home and together.  I need a date night though. Or a few hours be alone when it’s not 1am.”

And here we are today. Nearly 100k deaths. Arkansas is one of only a handful of US states not placed under a Shelter In Place order. But we are staying home. All non essential business are closed. Restaurants are curbside pick up only. Schools are closed for the remainder of the school year and we are doing online education (which is still terrible, by the way. Only one of Reese’s teachers has been even willing to make any adjustments to accommodate her 504 plan, and even that has been an uphill battle.  Quincy received a 2 hour listening assignment just for orchestra class in addition to her regular practice.  Soren only finished his work half the time, avd I don’t care.  Reese wakes up at 5:30am and works for a little over an hour before her early morning seminary class via zoom begins. Then she goes and goes and goes until 9pm on Mondays and Tuesdays. On Wednesdays I force her to quit at 4 or 5, and she finishes by 12 or 1 on Thursdays and Fridays, with only reading left for her English class. I bought the book on audible so she can just listen to it on her kindle while she goes for a walk or sews or does art.  1.6 million people have tested positive but those numbers are WAY higher, as no one except really has had access to testing until this last week. 

Then there were shortages of goods. Hand sanitizer, clorox wipes, hand soap, and Lysol all became extinct.  Toilet paper flew off the shelves and every market across the country looked like this.  Then chicken and beef, pork. Bread, eggs, rice, flour, beans, and bottled water, all difficult or impossible to find.  I was grateful to have a small supply of everything we need but have never longed for my food storage so badly. 18 months ago we had enough dry goods to last us at least 6 months. I had a grain mill and grains, and a deep freezer in the garage stocked with meat and frozen vegetables, butter, yeast, jam, and homemade soups. With a family of 9, my current freezer holds a few weeks of those items. But, being a family of nine I feel very uneasy about not having food laid aside against then unknown so I am grateful to have had what I did have stocked up, and even though it’s not what it was before the fire, I have knowledge. I know how to cook what I do have a small supply of. And we always have toilet paper.  

Arkansas is still one of the very few states not under a “shelter in place” order.  

Everyone is handling it fairly well though.  Especially since they don’t go anywhere. I’ve been to the store and sonic to pick up treats a few times, but other than drives, and an afternoon kayaking at Kasey’s lake, we are at home or up the street at my parents’ house.   My teens/tweens are like baby ducklings. They stay very close, especially once the littles go to bed. 

On April 2 I posted the following pic on Instagram with this commentary:

“I’m used to having 3-4 tiny humans attached to me by day, but being the bringer of food and entertainment means I’m quickly growing in popularity for company with the teens/tween as well. These three shadows give in to my magnetic pull and jump in for second shift to make sure someone is sitting on my face at all hours of the day. 🦆🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥🐥”





Corbin is missing his routine. Here are some of his school journal entries:

I took this pic of him last week when he said, “mom, I miss my life.” 

He’s been busy and working hard though! He mows our lawn and my parents lawn for commission and the last few days he and Soren have been shoveling dirt to clear a path in my parents yard and spreading rock. He counts up his dollars every day. 😂 

We’ve all been busy in free moments making PPE masks. Kasey came over to teach us how and the past couple days Reese, Quincy, my mom and I have really taken it next level. Reese is especially getting very confident at the sewing machine and it’s really something amazing to see.  My mom donated her fabric stash and set up a sewing station and assembly line in her living room and we have joined the worldwide battle against this nasty virus. 

As soon as school work is done they skip up to my moms to sew. So they finish working hard, and then go work hard.  They have given masks to the nursing staff in Jay, Oklahoma, to their uncle working at a hospital in Utah, two family practice docs in Bentonville, to the ER, nursing staff and radiology techs at Mercy, to the twins’ therapists, to a therapist friend, and to several neighbors and friends.  Today, they participated in a worldwide fast and prayed for relief from COVID 19, and they pushed up their sleeves and provided 20 masks for Area 1 Arkansas DCFS caseworkers.  There is so much hope for the future because it is in the hands of these young, faithful, industrious and compassionate thinkers and doers. I think that years and decades from now, when they remember this pandemic, they will not focus on the problem, but instead will reminisce that they were active participants in solutions, prevention, and recovery.

There is so much everyone can do. 

In the worldwide fast we were asked to pray for everyone affected, the economy, and for life to return to normal.  It was a rich experience. I thought a lot about how I can help. And I pondered what “normal”  means and why the prophet declared it to be important.  While I dislike schoolwork overload and I miss church and friends and hugging everyone and having people in my home, I do like most things about our new normal. I’m honestly a little thankful for the chance to “skip spring madness”.  Of course I’m sad for all of us missing the things they love: soccer season, orchestra, March madness, piano lessons, preschool, friends, YW, seminary, and the list goes on. There isn’t really anything there I wouldn’t put back into our schedule when life returns to normal. And doing all the things virtually is still an appointment and often leaves much to be desired. The work needs to go on though. temples need to reopen. Saints need to gather to worship and fellowship.  Courthouses need to reopen. Business need to not fail.  We need face to face interaction and ministry.   So that’s the normal I hope to restore. 

 But today is a respite from the typical pace of April and I’ll take it, even though I’m still running in circles most of the time. Similar pace, different track.  

Snapshots

Our Spring Break plans were foiled, as we are carefully and courteously joining the world in staying at home to “flatten the curve”, and reduce the spread of the COVID19 pandemic coronavirus that is sweeping across the globe. We have friends and family all over who have tested positive and it’s really just an interesting time. 

Kasey have the children a color-your-own cardboard pirate ship.  Mutiny was immediate and the older children quickly enforced directions on what color everything should be. They worked on it more than the young ones! I colored with them—super satisfying. They say coloring is a relaxation technique...haha perfect timing, K!  Thanks for the fun! 







It’s gorgeous outside. Our faces are pink to prove it. It feels wonderful outside and what a blessing the timing of this gorgeous spring warm spell is.  We are watching the world green up again right before our eyes. Temps are perfection.  We explained to the kids that THIS was the weather for 75% of the days were like for us growing up in CA. The children cannot wrap their brains around it. Really, it’s been so long since I’ve been to California, I hardly believe it myself, and wish I had not taken it for granted.  We are definitely doing the weather justice this week by spending every moment outside and soaking in those golden drops of sunshine.  



Muffin Mania: 

Move over, “freshman 15”....we’re going for golf and gaining the “COVID 19” by baking all the things. We started with homemade soft pretzels, and then moved onto muffins.  We’ve made banana chocolate chip, cran-bran and blue-bran, so far. Gwen’s famous pumpkin cream cheese will be next! 

LEGO competition—Corbin made a jumbo version of a lego stack. 

We’ve made two trips to sonic this week for our big outings. That’s it. Just hours and hours of each other and the sun. That’s what spring break is all about, anyway. 

Now, if Reese finishes her English essay that’s due by midnight tonight, we should be free from school work until Monday! 🙌🏻

Stay safe, everyone. 

And STAY HOME/away from other people. 

Meg Reads

This was a quick, fun, read. Not really any new content, but good reminders and ideas to reinforce the self reliant concepts I’ve been teaching/offering to my children for years. 

A few things:

Corbin expanded his lawn mowing business to include our yard. I debated over whether to pay him for this, but since this chore lies outside of regular contributions, we are offering him a (small) commission.

Reese and Quincy are about to experience what economic crisis looks like.  Everyone on quarantine = no one needs a sitter and their source of income has come to a screeching halt.  No work = no cash flow.  

Reese still has her bathroom cleaning business and picked up a second client on the lane to start up this summer.  I’m hoping this economic stall generates some creativity and ingenuity for them.  They begged me to get chickens again yesterday. I think they do not remember the part about raising chicks and waiting 4.5 months until they begin producing eggs.  My car desperately needs a detail and I’m just waiting for a bored child to jump on the opportunity before them. 

We spent hours in the garden and greenhouse, yesterday. Thanks to my dad, the lights in the greenhouse are up and running. My neighbor, Mr. Terry (who built those beautiful dressers for us) collects donations for the Shriners and gave us bunch of long fluorescent bulbs a couple years ago, that they had no use for. They’ve been sitting in the greenhouse collecting dust since then, but yesterday, my dad helped me change the bulbs out and hang up the fixtures.  

The kids each joined in with other work and the result was 98 peat pots of seeds started. We just used what we had lying around out there...the pots are old and dry, and the seeds are so old, who knows how many of those old seeds will actually germinate, but if they come up, the return on the children’s time-only investment will be pretty great. 

Quincy found a 6+ year old bag of mammoth sunflower seeds and worked them into the “soil” along the back fence line.  The boys moved rocks that the restoration company dumped into our lawn back into

The rock beds (because evidently, the restoration company is not coming back to finish the complete mess they made with that).  The littles scooped potting soil. Reese sorted out a bin of seeds that was pulled from our garage shelves after the fire, but boxed up by the restoration company, but boxed up upside down so all the seeds fell out of their packages and mixed together. It was fun to test the kids’ knowledge of seeds. They recognized peppers, beans, corn, peas, cucumbers, watermelon, and carrots seeds (yes...they were all mixed together 🤦🏻‍♀️ but all of the squashes are too similar. So Reese packaged them up in a mixed bag of squash seeds that she labeled, “Mysterio Seeds” 😂😂  

Everyone contributed and I sang a Mother Mantra, “Willardsons are hard workers!” enough times that I hope they all believe it as gospel.  Great job, Willies. 

Me Want Cookies

This is what Reese wore today. Quarantine/Social Distancing is not for everyone, but Reese is definitely making her best life with the circumstances! 

Sloane Rides a Bike

Sloane has been zooming around all over the cul de sac on her balance bike for well over a year, but recently has been working hard to figure out pedals.  We all have worked with her, and today, I told her to get a running start and just balance on the pedal bike. She kept trying to start pedaling from a standstill. Soren patiently circled the island with her over and over.  But after an hour at it, I offered her $1 if she could circle the island twice without putting her feet down. Well of course she couldn’t do THAT without just getting a running start and trying to coast all the way around, and when she started to wobble, she decided to try out the pedals while already moving and it finally clicked! Off she went! Great job, Sloane! Best $1 ever spent. And great job Big Brother Soren for guiding and teaching her how fun it is to ride a bike! 

Quarantine Education

I wish I was a homeschooler right now.  

The district kindly sent home chrome books for all of the k-12 students so they can do online education. 

Truth be told, I hate it so much. I wish I was homeschooling. I wish I was coming up with our own curriculum. My kids are SLAMMED with schoolwork.  Completely underwater in assignments.  

I received 32 emails from teachers and the district yesterday. Passwords and logins and QR codes.  

Can’t they just read a book?   I wish I was the mom posting videos of kids doing yoga or go noodle for pe time or reading charlottes web together, or playing an online  model UN or mock presidential election designed to teach civics to children. Nope. 

Reese spent 9 hours doing assignments yesterday. 

Yesterday was the day “off” to prepare for the week.  Instead, we watched their little google classroom workload pile up with an eternal checklist. and more work arrived today. Soren in first grade and has been going strong for 2.5 hours. He has to submit video answers to conversations, photos of assignments, and comments on group discussions. 

I’m busy keeping the 3 little ones engaged in one room away from the front guest room where Aaron is working from home, and bouncing between children who all have assignments to “show this presentation to a parent” or “do this creative activity with a parent” or “have your parents watch this video and answer questions with you.” I finally just stepped away long enough to record my feelings on this cuz I’m already over it. And there are 2 kids at my door asking for me. 

I love teaching. But I feel zero control over the education my children are getting right now. That’s all good and fine enough when I’m not the teacher. 

But if I’m going to be “home” schooling I would love to legit homeschool and come up with our own schedule and learning agenda.  Everyone keeps losing free websites and resources for at home learning. Ummmm there’s seriously no time for that. They’re slammed with assignments and the sound of my email notification causes a visceral reaction because it’s another teacher assigning more assignments to “keep the kids busy”.  

We don’t want to be busy. We want to bake cookies and prepare dinner together. We want to read books and plant the garden and have all the “freedom” that homeschoolers brag about. There’s no time for anything because we are spending hours on accountability.  It’s over scheduled and way over managed. Like PE. Can’t they just go outside and play?  Nooooo they had to create an exercise log and document that they’re doing an approved fitness activity for 60 minutes. Normally PE is like 20 minutes long. I’m an educator at heart and a homeschooling mother at heart. Why not research this illness or the benefits of social distancing since that is why they are quarantined. Have them learn about shh stores are out of products and the economical effects of pandemic flu. Learn about vaccines for crying out loud. If we are going to “drastically change our learning” let’s actually do that for the better.  

This isn’t better. It’s horrible. 1st graders having to check in with video commentary every 15 minutes is not ok. Or maybe it’s ok for some people but it an education I choose. 

Give the children time to play. They will learn. I’m not saying do nothing all day or to treat home learning like a snow day/vacation. I’m just saying that the kids are 100% focused and not even 1/4 of the way through their work loads and we are approaching 1/2 way through the school day. No one has taken a break yet. And poor Reese still has a pile up packed on from yesterday to catch up on because I forced her to stop and eat dinner and eventually just made her go to bed. 

We are on day 2 and I went into this with so much hope and excitement to see my children more and be a  part of their learning.  Wind in my sails is gone. I hate this. It feels like busy work. Full time busy work. Except for the math and one if Corbin’s writing prompts....the rest is just vomiting back information into quizzes to check a box that they did their work. It’s not learning. 

I’m already hating this so much I’m giving it 2 weeks to work out the kinks and then pulling at least my younger two from public schools the rest of the year because this is not sustainable. I have an entire spreadsheet just for logins and passwords for the 40+ programs we have to navigate. Nope. 

Gotta go.

Hail Hail the gang’s all here

Family Scripture study was interrupted this morning by LOUD banging of rocks against the house. 

Hail. Large hail. Lots of it!  The thunder and lightening freaked Quincy out and she wailed from under her blanket that it was the end of days. 

Aaron delightfully reminded Q that lucky for her, her mama hasn’t been called a doomsday prepper for nothing, and we are TOTALLY PREPARED mentally and physically for a disaster. Bring on the storm! We turned out the lights to read by flashlight with the hope that embracing the storm would reel the children back in from the sea of distraction they were immersed in. 

Sometimes a patent casts a net and it just comes back empty. Quincys wailing continued to compete with the sound of thunder and quarter sized hail pelting the windows and siding. It was so loud that we were shouting to be heard over it and finally gave up. The kids ran to the French doors and out to the back deck to explore. Reese filled a cup and Q exclaimed, “a blessing from heaven! It’s raining pebble ice!” 😂

And with that we began our day. By 2pm it was 72* sunny and just gorgeous outside.