Social distancing ... day 161

Friday 

None of this was in the baby books. There were no directions on how to move your first born into college... during a pandemic. I‘ve experienced such a range of emotions over the past few days. I’m so exhausted and I still have two children at home to parent. 

It’s tricky to have the emotions of one being gone and the others here. I’m trying my best to allow for my own emotions while also helping to support the girls through theirs. 

We’ve tried our best to run through the usual experiences of sending a child to school but, honestly, it wasn’t really possible.  All the talks of “be safe, don’t party too hard or drink too much” turned into “don’t go to any parties at all. Stay six feet away from everyone”. 

The packing list included thermometers and medicine and so. Many. Masks.  Some parents packed a quarantine survival bag to survive the inevitable on campus quarantine with a positive test. Neither Connor nor I could bring ourselves to pack that for him. It felt too... real. 

Lessons of on campus safety now include things like safe hand washing, social distancing, mask wearing, and how to check for symptoms. 

The tour around school (one we’ve never seen due to the pandemic) included things like “there’s where my classes would be if we weren’t online”. We looked into lots of windows and imagined what it all would look like. 

He’s needing to ask where he can take his ballet and voice classes since he obviously doesn’t have room in his bedroom. Needing to navigate the space to take his classes and how to organize it all digitally is a lot to ask an 18 year old. 

We promised him we would see him at parents’ weekend, all the while knowing there could be quarantine rules in effect which will prevent a visit or, alternatively, we will need to go pick him up before that when the school shuts down. 

It’s hard enough to send your baby away, but it feels earth shattering to do it surrounded by so much unknown. I have to trust that he is going to make all the safe choices, but I even more need to hope that people around him will do the same.

I hope he has an amazing experience, for however long it lasts. 

Social distancing .... day 157

Monday. 

I’ve never sent a child to college. I’ve sent Wyatt to live in residential care; but that was (mostly) fundamentally different.  

We leave tomorrow morning. Today was filled with mild feeling of panic. I spent part of the day running through all the things I didn’t tell him; all the lessons I didn’t teach him; and all the ways I didn’t prepare him. I combated that panic by writing him a letter. It helped me to calm down. I can’t know if it will help him, or even if it makes any sense. :)

The past few days have been crazy around here. On Friday night Connor began not feeling well. He awoke on Saturday wirh a fever and headache. Given that those are symptoms of covid-19 we spent a good lenth of time on the phone with the doctor trying to figure out what to do. We ended up going to urgent care and getting him tested. We walked on eggshells until we heard, tonight, that his test was negative. 

While I know it’s a challenge to send any child to college, it feels remarkably stressful now during this pandemic. Schools all around are seeing an increase in cases. We feel confident that temple is doing all the right things; but still there’s a layer of worry. 

At any rate, the car is packed and he’s as ready as he will ever be. 

Social distancing ... day 156

Sunday. 

I keep wanting to look back and see what I did and how I made Connor’s last summer home special and think about all the amazing fun things we did. Sadly, that wasn’t the summer we had. Instead we’ve had, well, this one. 

But, I really need to be kinder to myself because; honestly, what I did was:

1) Work from home for three months while helping the children wirh school

2) kiss my oldest/third child goodbye not knowing when I would ever see him again after lockdown, and find a way to trust in a system which has let me down repeatedly before. 

3) run the household while trying my best to support my husband in the most stressful/overworked time in his life. 

4) support caring for my father through a few medical concerns... from a distance.... while missing his bear hugs more than I ever expected. 

5) parent my youngest through mental health crisis after mental health crisis and advocate for meds and therapy and all the things. 

6) love on the kids and help them through countless wave after wave of disappointment 

7) attempt to celebrate birthdays and graduations and special events to the best of our ability. 

8) maintain the strictest ideals of social distancing wile also recognizing when I needed to bend them for.... everyone’s sake 

9) tried my best to help my children understand the changing world around them and tried to Instill in them the importance of using their privilege to help those without. 

10) held my children while they cried and understood when they couldn’t. 

11) sat in the stillness with them. 

12) recognize when decisions needed to be made that weren’t what we had planned. And worked with everyone to get more comfortable with fear and unknown. 

13) found joy and humor in long forgotten games and experiences. 

14) tried to instill in my children the understanding that it’s okay to be afraid and it’s okay not to know but it’s never okay not to communicate. 

15) loved on the children so hard I was in danger of smothering them.

This is uncertain times. The emotions of each and everyday have me constantly second guessing myself. I long for a typical summer and I long for memories of normal things like camping and day trips and the ocean. But I need to remind myself to celebrate all the things we’ve done as a family. We’ve thrived during this time. We’ve gotten closer and we’ve learned how to communicate. We’ve learned things about each other we couldn’t have known before now. 

I’ll always be sad that this final summer couldn’t have been what I wanted it to be, but I’ll give myself permission to celebrate what we had. And what we had was lots and lots and lots of love. 

And also ice cream. 

Social distancing graduation style

Connor finally had his graduation. (8/7/20) They waited until August hoping that the state would be in phase three so we could graduate the whole class as one unit. That continued to be the plan until a few days easier when supposedly a few parties happened leading to a hot spot of cases. Given this news the graduation was virtual. It was frustrating but the silver lining was that more people were able to participate and watch the graduation ceremony. 

Regardless of iow it was done we are beyond proud of you Connor. 

Social distancing ... day 150

Monday. 

Parenting feels always like you’re just not doing enough. Working? You’re not home enough. Home? You’re not working enough. it constantly feels like finding the balance between all sorts of things 24 hours a day 7 days a week. This has been even more relevant during this pandemic. I’ve been home with the kids since March, but was working March through June. It felt like I wasn’t available enough to them. June and August I was clearly not working but still things have been crazy so again, feeling like I’m not meeting everyone’s needs. It’s a constant feeling of just not doing enough for everyone. It’s exhausting. 

When we started work on our deck a few years ago I made one demand that it be finished in time for connors high school graduation. I envisioned a big party with all of our loved ones enjoying time together on our deck. It’s been crushing to me that we were unable to make this happen. We had a small gathering with our bubble of friends but it wasn’t what I pictured. For some reason that’s just bothering me. It’s just one more thing that’s been different in this pandemic. 

As Connor gets closer and closer to leaving I keep punishing myself with thoughts of all the “could have beens” and “wish had beens”. I wish I had made it a super fun summer, I wish I had created more lasting memories, I wish, I wish, I wish....  I have to remind myself of all the things we did so and all the memories we tried to make and how happy Connor is. I’m generally not super upset about this pandemic and don’t tend to dwell in the sadness/awfulness of this whole situation. I’m generally very lucky. I have not lost anyone I love and I’m not sick. But today, I felt really sad about this summer and just wished that it had been a regular, fun summer. I’ll miss Connor so much. And I hope I created enough wonderful memories for him. 

Social distancing ... day 141

Saturday

Yesterday al and I went shopping and then went to eat dinner. We ended up inside a restaurant. It was a little unnerving. But it was also nice. I haven’t been I side a restaurant since March. 

The menus were all online 

They were at half capacity and anytime you left your table you needed a mask. Interesting night. 

Social distancing... day 140

Friday

The girls and I took a quick trip to the farm today. It was really the first time we’ve done anything like that. Siobhan was not in a place where she wanted to do pick your own, but she was willing to go to the farm stand so we did. We had a great time! 

Social distancing... day 126

Friday

Aislings sixteenth birthday!!

I honestly cannot believe Aisling is 16. It’s gone by so fast!! On the one hand I can actually totally believe it. She’s mature and amazing. On the other, it seems like just yesterday she was turning four and having a tea party in a fancy new dress. 

I think that being in social distancing actually worked out well for Aisling. She isn’t one for big parties or social engagements and we were forced to keep it small. It felt like a perfect day. 

She had three friends over for a social distancing lunch in the backyard.  They played board games and stayed until about 6:00! A lovely time together. 

Then we did cake and gifts in the evening. We watched some television outside and really had a great time. It was a nice quiet day to celebrate this amazing young lady! 

AiLing is usually gone or between summer events on her birthday. It was wonderful to have a slow paced day to celebrate just her!

The highlight of her day was the arrival of her new irish dance dress! 

https://youtu.be/lTwiafujRbg

Overall I think it was an amazing day of celebrating Aisling.