Quarantorture

It’s a glorious spring Friday in Oregon. The sun is out, skies are cloudless and cerulean blue and there’s a gentle breeze ruffling the budding leaves on the lilac bushes. It’s absolutely gorgeous outside and a perfect 75 degrees. We’ve been inside on Corona lockdown all week, so I finally kicked the bigs outside to play in the court. Weather like this should not be wasted.

But my children are dying. DYYYYYINNNNNG, I tell you. As Roo told me: not just a little dying, like a lot. They have no one to play with and there’s no WiFi outside. Clearly, I am torturing them.

Let’s break this down. I made my children two at a time, so there’s always someone to play with. Here, run around rubbing these two sticks together and see if the static generates any bars on the WiFi signal. No? Run faster.

There are things I have patience for and things for which I absolutely do not. Topping the latter list are the words I’M BORED. Bored people get chores like cleaning out the fridge or scrubbing baseboards or pulling backyard weeds. Bored people get to babysit Pook & Boogie while I take a nap. Bored people get un-bored quickly when I start making suggestions.

You know who is most definitely not bored? Adults stuck at home with five kids. Any parent trying to figure out the five different apps needed for online education in the time of COVID-19. Any human sharing 1800 square feet with six other humans. Today I thawed the bananas stashed in the freezer and made two loaves of banana bread, did two loads of dishes, ordered more yarn for crochet projects, booked a hotel for Pook’s July surgery and turned in all of our conference paperwork. I am absolutely not bored. Homicidal and in desperate need of alone time, maybe. Bored, surely not.

We officially survived week one of online distance learning. I’m telling you, if I could drink I’d have earned my Friday booze. I’m praying the weather holds out this weekend so I can send the kids outside and maybe steal a few minutes alone with the person I married. Maybe we can help each other remember why we liked each other enough to create these screamy, perpetually hungry little dirt monsters in the first place. I love my children, I really do. But I would forfeit at least one appendage for a date night away.

Suck it, quarantine.