Sunday, 1:30 pm. Make toddler her own meal since she didn't want to eat what the rest of the family was eating. She sneezes right onto the food, the countertops, and you. Carry on like nothing's happened. Figure you'll save money on a all-at-once family cremation in about a month's time.
Monday-Friday 9am-6:30 pm: Trot out a video for the five year old of favorite musician singing kid songs, videos of kid zumba, videos of Mo Willems (sorry, Mo, we gave it a good run), videos of EVERY SINGLE EDUTAINMENT OPPORTUNITY ON THE PLANET and be met with such resistance, you would think she was being offered a newly eviscerated human kidney on a plate. All these "educational resources"? They're not resources if the kids don't want to have anything to do with them. Thanks for the suggestion. What I need is another set of arms, another functioning adult who isn't grouchy and overstretched about being indoors, and perhaps a robot to get us milk and eggs because the stores only let us buy two cartons at a time, and we need much more than that in a 30 day span, which is how often we're trying to go without groceries because we're all trying to do our part to stay OUT of stores right now.
Oh, and a maid would be great, while you're taking orders, since I don't really have time to clean anything except pee from the carpet.
Saturday, 2pm-ish: Allow kids to make "dolls" out of pieces of styrofoam and old screws found on the garage floor because, really, who cares anymore? Marvel at their ingenuity, cry for your collective despondency. Try to emulate the blocky smile beaming up at you from the front steps, where this monster reposes. Try to maintain a chipper attitude while your kids take "bird baths" in the pea-gravel-studded puddles at the foot of your driveway in their leather mary janes. Remember to log the ensuing real bath as "a fun time you'll recall down the road", and also while you pick endless amounts of wet grass and rice out of your washing machine.
I'm sorry. My brain has given up remembering the endless, endless days of this quarantine in some kind of order and/or with a theme in mind. It's all lists and snippets of conversations and a thousand points of entry on how to relate all this stuff happening in our house.
Overheard while the girls were playing "family" together:
Beaversons: Okay, mom, time for your nap.
Bobo: No, honey, moms don't take naps. They cook food and wipe down the counters and fold the laundry and do other stuff.
DAMN STRAIGHT, SISTER.
Went for a run, and I mean run, to the grocery store today. Needed to get more fresh food. The store was nearly out of fresh food. There were only a dozen loose carrots in the carrots section. There were exactly three boxes of salad mix left. No large sized tubs of yogurt. Maybe a dozen or two cartons of eggs. Mind you, this is a WAREHOUSE of a supermarket. It services the largest town in our county. The produce aisle isn't a cutesy artisanal stack of Russet potatoes and a peck basket of apples. This is a gauntlet of produce, a veritable boulevard of produce, and today there were NO cucumbers, and NO tomatoes and NO garlic. Like, not even garlic husks. Nothing.
Me and my avocado problems, huh? Such a Quarantine Karen thing to complain about.
Except the governor is telling us to REALLY buckle in during these next few weeks and now I'm glad I visited the Supermarket Before Two Major Holidays During Quarantine, even if I did have to go to a second supermarket for garlic. We're being told parks are going to be closed, and all non-essential construction will be shut down, which means the blast site that is our backyard will remain that way until Mr. Burdy and I can find ten spare minutes to grab a shovel and beat the six inches of mud flat so our kids have a place to play. As I write this, Mr. Burdy is finishing up the paint in the spare bathroom so the sewer guys can come back and attach the toilet that's been hanging out in our garage for two weeks.
Speaking of toilets.
Last night Bobo woke up just as I was putting the finishing touches on some face masks I was sewing (which, no doubt, the CDC will issue new rules about the second I strap one to my terrified face). She bonked into me as I met her halfway to her room, so I steered her into the bathroom, which is where I presumed she needed to be. Then I saw she'd left a trail of wet footprints, so I grabbed a towel and some cleanser (a general kind, and not a disinfecting kind, because the stores have been out of ANYTHING disinfecting for nearly three weeks) and traced the footprints back to her bed, felt around for wetness, and pressed the towel into the carpet where I found the offending puddle. Meanwhile, Mr. Burdy intervened as I took the soaked towel to the laundry room.
When I got back, Bobo was in her bed. While in the bathroom and still mostly asleep, she had taken off her size 6 pajama bottoms and thrown them in the toilet.
Hours earlier, Beaversons, having soaked through a fifth pair of pants (seriously, why am I even pretending like she's potty trained anymore?) was walking around naked from the waist down when she bustled into the bathroom holding her ass. It was too late, of course, the man-sized turd sliding from her tiny butt just as she crossed the threshold.
I have to go potty, she yelled as she hoisted herself onto the toilet.
Yeah, kid. Looks like you already did.
I considered throwing the stool, the toilet seat, and her socks, all covered in poop, into the shower and letting it run till about 8 am, seeing as how we're low on bleach, and none of the stores near me have bleach or anything stronger than a bar of Ivory soap on the shelves.
I washed my hands about 8 times, stress-ate my way through a quarter bag of potato chips, some pretzel sticks, and some dark chocolate like some sad, Covid-19 issue The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and then I went to bed in a bed where no one had peed, and I was none too happy when I woke up this morning and knew I'd have to do it all over again.
Comments
Sounds like a win if no one peed in your bed. It’s a quarantine luxury!