The Day It Was May

Hello world! It has been a hot minute...I can't believe it is May already. Nine more days til our 'stay home, stay safe' order expires. It feels like I have my quarantine game down strong now. We have a rhythm of sorts. It plays along a pretty bipolar melody of highs and lows....there is no middle of the road here in Larive Land. We either have strong, productive, fun days....or we sit around in our pajamas and eat Cheetos all day missing our tribe. Or maybe that is just me. But in all honesty, it does seem like days feel extreme right now - everything flows together and I get work and school and parenting and cleaning done all together....or nothing clicks and everything pulls and tugs all day leaving me feeling like I have fought wars in the length of a day.

Members of our household have developed odd habits and interests in this strange time. My now six year old daughter has developed a very cavalier attitude toward clothing - creating the need for the new house rule that we must have underwear on before video calling anyone in the morning. When she does get dressed, her clothes are all inside out. To be very clear - they are NOT inside out in her closet. She puts them inside out and then puts them on. She just started it about a week into quarantine...no announcement, no discussion....she just walked down the stairs one morning and shrugged when I asked her, stating 'she just likes it this way now.' A few weeks later she started wearing just one sock - on purpose. Unless we had to put on shoes. Last week, she started wearing two socks again but BOTH ON THE SAME FOOT. Double socks. One foot. Other foot - bare. She insists on doing her own hair by putting as many barrettes and random pieces of string she can find in there. I am not sure how her re-entry to society is going to go, to be very honest.

My seven year old son keeps rearranging the living room and dining room knick knacks and pillows and what not. Our piano bench is now covered with an afghan and is serving as our 'coffee table' with coasters on it. I came home from the grocery store and the wooden lazy susan that sits in the middle of my dining room table had three empty plates balanced on it. Normally it holds the caddy for pencils and crayons and random school-at-home stuff. That was sitting to the side of it and just three empty plates were arranged on it. I still have no idea why.

My husband has gone through approximately ten pounds of candle wax in his melt warmers. I say 'his' because all I do with them is remember to turn them off at night when everyone else has gone to bed. His morning routine consists of coffee, feeding the fish, and picking out the scent of the day. Tomorrow he does get to go back to work so I can reduce the budget in that column now though.

I have just dug my heels hard into my existing rabbit holes...puzzles, gardening, thinking of projects to cajole my husband into helping me do. We got a lot of things done while he was off because he just does not sit still. So he rocked out a lot of things on the list with the unspoken understanding that I would school our kids while he kept himself busy- which made both of us happy. Marriage win. We have really leaned hard into...bird watching. Yup. Middle age is upon us. Stay with me...this gets good...we got a new feeder with a feed mix of nuts and berries and seeds and nature exploded! All of a sudden we have birds besides sparrows - black birds and woodpeckers and even a pair of finches. We also have a pair of blue jays that keep trying to peck through the roofs of all the neighborhood houses. Scared the crap out of us one day as our flue liner kept echoing this jack hammer noise. Dumb blue jay. We have seen him attempting the same thing at several rooftops since. Apparently he wants to be a house blue jay. I talk to them now...as I walk around the yard talking to my plants. Yup. Crazy nature lady or burgeoning Cinderella? You decide.

Our house flips around again this weekend as we get our big kids back under our roof. The littles are very excited to see their counterparts. Apparently they are bored of Mom and Dad. Dad will be back at work, which means getting up early again - which is definitely going to hurt him a bit the first week. That means the house gets quiet earlier again - which is definitely going to hurt me as I tighten up the bedtime leash, which has gotten pretty slack. I have a coronovirus to-go kit set up for the husband to keep in his work truck, since I definitely don't trust a construction site to be super strict with social distancing. He has Clorox wipes, homemade masks, and a big bottle of sanitizer all ready to go, right next to his lunch box. I let him know he would have to strip naked in the backyard before he can come in the house - he refused for some reason. Weird. We compromised on an immediate shower while I washed everything he wore or used all day in hot water. We are as ready as we can be for sticking a toe back out into the world. I will let you know how it goes - stay safe out there my friends...