On Staying At Home

Quick note: I feel a little uncomfortable using the term "quarantine," given that no one in my family has had to truly quarantine. It seems I shouldn't use that word flippantly, as there are so many people I know who actually have to quarantine, which is far more intense than anything our family has been doing. I know it's the easiest/most accepted word, but I try not to use it when talking about COVID things.

Our COVID Confinement, essentially, started on Sunday, March 15, which was the very first time that our church had absolutely nothing in-person on Sunday morning. Even when we have snow and ice, the 11:00 service ALWAYS meets (Southerners, you know that this means that, basically, nothing can cancel our church meeting on Sunday in some fashion.) Duke was on the very front end of shutting things down. Harvard was the first to start closing things down, and Duke announced a few hours later that they would be following suit. Of course, at first, we thought that canceling the next three weeks sounded CRAZY. Oh, how innocent we all were then...

Dance had ended just the week before, and our homeschool co-op canceled for the week, as well. Given that we were already a homeschooling family, our day-to-day routine didn't change much. We continued our normal schedule (well, minus my being sick): the girls would get dressed everyday, do their chores, Claire did school work, they played and had their usual screen time. It was nice that our kids didn't have any super abrupt changes that we needed to guide them through, outside of church and co-op once a week. So while we grown-ups were trying to wrap our minds around things, the girls were able to be normal.

Playing dress up/staging a "parade"

I realized early on that we were living through a historic moment, so I tried to capture snippets of our days so that I could document it. We jumped on the Cosmic Yoga train to help get our wiggles out:

She really tried hard to keep up.

We really enjoyed using this during particularly cold days that weren't well-suited for playing outside.

Our church, like most others, quickly put digital options in place for staying connected during these unusual Sundays. We did our best to make Sunday mornings at home as special as possible. It was really difficult to be at home for the remaining Sundays of Lent. Those are days we particularly missed our church family. 

Pictures I took of the girls on our first structured Sunday at home. Please watch the progression of Brynnie's facial expressions.

Her face in this one kills me.

Church at home required some extra snuggles.

Our children's ministry at church has done an amazing job of taking care of our kids. We get a weekly video leading the kids through songs, verses, church calendar/liturgy, and Bible stories (including creative visuals), and for extra important days (Palm Sunday, Easter, Pentecost) they swing by our houses and drop off supplies for crafts and hands-on activities. We are so thankful for them!

Family hymns

A few weeks before Easter, they delivered supplies for us to plant Resurrection Gardens.

Watching Mrs. Beth's lesson

Durham's mayor actually put a stay-at-home order into effect a few days before the state of North Carolina had one statewide. Given that all of the things we regularly participated in had already stopped meeting in person, this didn't change too much for us, personally, but it did solidify for us that this was going to be a much longer process than anyone originally expected.

Brynn watched the press conference with us.

At this point, the girls were no longer tagging along on grocery and Costco trips with Brad (which are usually highly enjoyed outings for our little social butterflies), and things like doctor and dental appointments were canceled (excluding my OB appointments). The girls started noticing that we weren't able to see friends anymore, and that started to wear on them a bit. I started thanking the Lord that we have several children who can all play with and entertain each other. I felt so much sympathy for parents who only had one child and were therefore the entertainment source, as well as all the parents who never intended to homeschool and found themselves facilitating school work with no preparation. I seriously lucked out on both of those fronts.

I also lucked out in that my mother-in-law is incredibly generous and came over to Durham to help us (specifically me, as I kept having migraine-vomiting-dehydration issues and was desperately trying to stay out of the ER). She came and did childcare, cooking, laundry, and generally kept things running so that Brad could get his work done and I could just be sick (not sick and responsible for the children). The weather also turned very nice, and the girls could play outside.

We live in a townhouse community, so our personal backyard space is limited. However, as the only family with kids in a neighborhood that is comprised largely of retirees...we kind of have free reign.

Quality time with Gran.

Trying out some crafts. It didn't last as long as I'd hoped, but they had a good time.

And because 2020 is the Year of the Meme (and other graphics), I've included a few that were favorites early on in the process:

That's how our March started out. Obviously, things have morphed and changed over the months, but I'm thankful we were able to ease into things a bit. And that our children are really quite flexible. Proud of them.