There are so many different areas that could be discussed about this time in history, so as not to just ramble on I thought I would use a common Facebook post as a jumping point...
Gas prices in Kirksville were $1.48
-School cancelled - yes cancelled for the year and had been closed since mid March
-Self-distancing measures on the rise.
-Tape on the floors at grocery stores and others to help distance shoppers (6ft) from each other.
-Limited number of people inside stores, therefore, lineups outside the store doors.
-Non-essential stores and businesses mandated closed.
-Parks, trails, entire cities locked up.
-Entire sports seasons cancelled.
-Concerts, tours, festivals, entertainment events - cancelled.
-Weddings, family celebrations, holiday gatherings - cancelled.
-No masses, churches are closed..Easter Sunday services were all online
-No gatherings of 50 or more, then 20 or more, now 10 or more.
-Don't socialize with anyone outside of your home.
-Children's outdoor play parks are closed.
-We are to distance from each other.
-Shortage of masks, gowns, gloves for our front-line workers.
-Shortage of ventilators for the critically ill.
-Panic buying sets in and we have no toilet paper, no disinfecting supplies, no paper towel no laundry soap, no hand sanitizer.
-Shelves are bare.
-Manufacturers, distilleries and other businesses switch their lines to help make visors, masks, hand sanitizer and PPE.
-Government closes the border to all non-essential travel.
-Fines are established for breaking the rules.
-Stadiums and recreation facilities open up for the overflow of Covid-19 patients.
-Press conferences daily from the President and the governess. Daily updates on new cases, recoveries, and deaths.
-Government incentives to stay home.
-Stateside shelter in place
-Barely anyone on the roads.
-People wearing masks and gloves outside.
-Essential service workers are terrified to go to work.
-Medical field workers are afraid to go home to their families.
-School cancelled - yes cancelled for the year and had been closed since mid March
-Self-distancing measures on the rise.
-Tape on the floors at grocery stores and others to help distance shoppers (6ft) from each other.
-Limited number of people inside stores, therefore, lineups outside the store doors.
-Non-essential stores and businesses mandated closed.
-Parks, trails, entire cities locked up.
-Entire sports seasons cancelled.
-Concerts, tours, festivals, entertainment events - cancelled.
-Weddings, family celebrations, holiday gatherings - cancelled.
-No masses, churches are closed..Easter Sunday services were all online
-No gatherings of 50 or more, then 20 or more, now 10 or more.
-Don't socialize with anyone outside of your home.
-Children's outdoor play parks are closed.
-We are to distance from each other.
-Shortage of masks, gowns, gloves for our front-line workers.
-Shortage of ventilators for the critically ill.
-Panic buying sets in and we have no toilet paper, no disinfecting supplies, no paper towel no laundry soap, no hand sanitizer.
-Shelves are bare.
-Manufacturers, distilleries and other businesses switch their lines to help make visors, masks, hand sanitizer and PPE.
-Government closes the border to all non-essential travel.
-Fines are established for breaking the rules.
-Stadiums and recreation facilities open up for the overflow of Covid-19 patients.
-Press conferences daily from the President and the governess. Daily updates on new cases, recoveries, and deaths.
-Government incentives to stay home.
-Stateside shelter in place
-Barely anyone on the roads.
-People wearing masks and gloves outside.
-Essential service workers are terrified to go to work.
-Medical field workers are afraid to go home to their families.
This is the Novel Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic, declared March 11th, 2020.
Probably the first thing that affected us was schools closing and learning to adapt to distance learning. I got to work making sure we had supplies we needed. I got our old laptop working and ready for Lincoln, got a Chromebook for Ellie and made sure Jackson's was all ready to go. The twins learning was all going to be from paper handouts, so we were good there. Each school was doing things differently, so I took some time to go through all their different expectations and timelines and write down a summary for each kid. Of course this changed as time went on. We had a couple different pick up days for paper packets for the twins, but the older three were mainly able to eventually use Google Classroom for about everything. But then it was decided that for the younger four, they still wanted them doing the work but they wouldn't be graded on any of it. The high schoolers would be doing pass/fail for classes, so if you don't do the work, you fail. We made up our own schedule for a bit and then worked in the school schedule. At this point, they all have a consistent amount of work that I think we can keep up with for the next month. They did decide to go ahead and end the school year on our original date of May 15th instead of making us make up snow days virtually :-). While the twins do whine when we do some of their work, the others have done a pretty good job of getting it done. I've put their Google Classrooms on my computer so I can easily check what needs to be done. Lincoln is good about getting up and just getting going. His teacher has been great about having a good plan for them since the beginning and she's been keeping it pretty consistent. He sets up in the office. Jackson and Ellie's work takes more time and organization, but they've been learning to be responsible with all of it and do what they need to do. Jackson has claimed the chair in the family room as his "desk" while Ellie prefers to do her homework in her room like I used to do. The twins and I work wherever we land-sometimes it is the couch, sometimes the floor, sometimes at the kitchen counter while I work on other stuff. It all works.
One big negative of school being out was is that there a lot of kids who aren't getting food they really depend on. Plus you add in all the parents that are now out of jobs or experiencing a loss of income, and the chance to get some free food is much appreciated. So, I volunteered to help distribute meals. I initially started out thinking the kids could help me, but then it became apparent that they should stay at home as more restrictions were put in place. They started out handing out meals everyday at 15 locations around town and then eventually changed it to just three days a week, but handing out food for the extra days to limit the contact everyone has. We ended up having to wear masks and they roped off all the playgrounds. So at this time, I hand out meals on Mondays and Wednesdays at Jaycee Park. I started walking around the park to help stay warm and pass the time and continue to do that. We had one week of nice weather but the other ones have been chilly. I found myself starting to pray as I walked for all of those who were picking up meals-I've seen all different kinds-a boy that walks over by himself, a group of kids wandering around, some you know who are probably abusing the system but you let them because you know they probably need it, families the kids have played with at soccer, older siblings driving their younger siblings, and on.
To elaborate on the store/supply situation, it has gotten kind of crazy. There was definitely an initial rush on toilet paper, cleaning supplies and food in general and it is still kind of hard to find some stuff. A lot of stuff have quantity limits on them now and other items seem like they could be out of stock for a while. I feel like I need to be frugal with my use of the Clorox wipes I do have. Actually, one of the first times I went to the store soon after all of this started, I got there a little before Aldi opened and the parking lot already had tons of cars in it. Then people started lining up outside the door. I knew I would be annoyed with everyone slowly walking into the store, so I waited until they actually opened to head in. Then it felt like an edition of Supermarket Sweep. I went a different direction of the general crowd and went for the items I knew were hard to get, but I really wanted-chicken and pasta first, followed by dairy and produce. Then I filled in with the other stuff. I felt like I needed a button that said I have five kids so I wouldn't be judged for the amount of groceries in my cart. And once more restrictions were put in place as far as earlier closing times, how many people could be in a store and needing to go certain directions down the aisles, I decided to try more of the online shopping. I had already been doing Wal-Mart, but it was becoming harder to reserve a pick up time and a lot of times they were out of what you needed. So, I caved and started using Instacart with Aldi and doing HyVee pick up. It was like a game trying to figure out when you could get a spot with each of them and what you could get where for the cheapest. I plan on going back to Aldi again soon, I just wanted to avoid having to stand outside the store in a line waiting to get in.
Some big buzz words of the pandemic are social distancing and essential. We were supposed to be practicing social distancing which meant just hanging out with our family in our house. The kids weren't even supposed to play with their friends in the neighborhood. We let them play with friends initially. Ellie even went to Kansas City to help watch the Brawners while they moved into their new house in Leawood. But again, more restrictions came and you definitely didn't want to be judged for not caring enough about people by allowing your kids out of the house or letting them play with friends. We did have some Zoom video chats and Google Hangout Chats with friends. Lincoln had a group of friends he did them with a few times. I set up one with the twins and their friends, Jack and Noah (he moved away last summer and they have missed him so much). Jack even sent a couple letters to the twins and they wrote back. My sisters and I somehow ended up on a Messenger video chat with our dad. No one knows who started it :-). But, we just stuck to ourselves for a while. At this point, 6 weeks in, the boys have started playing again with some of their friends outside. But, this was the good part of all of it. We were able to spend a lot of time together as a family without the stresses of a busy schedule. We had a lot of movie nights, movie days, and as the weather got nicer, more time outside. The kids put their hammocks out on the ninja course and spent time reading in them or just hanging out. There was a lot of soccer and some basketball and baseball along with seeing how high they could get on box jumps. We would go to the Truman track and Andrew would put them through some track workouts. We went out to the ranch and did some burning and hiking. Jackson spent more time out there working with Andrew and earning some money. We stayed up late and slept in (except for Andrew as it is hard for him to sleep in). We did some cooking, Ellie made us chocolate chip pancakes. We had a lot of family dinners, roasted s'mores, did cleaning and yard work and Ellie and I repainted the kids' bathroom and I put down vinyl tile stickers to cover the flooring in there and around our fireplace. Andrew and Ellie worked on a little project together and made a wood organizer for her vanity. A lot of good family time that will be cherished. There was definitely also irritation and stress, but it will most likely be a time with family we won't have again.
While we had some great family time, the outside world was shut down. Some restaurants went to delivery or pick-up only while others just shut down all together. Stores and businesses deemed non-essential shut down. Hair salons and barbershops were ordered to close. That was a huge deal to some people, but something we handled fine. I thankfully just get my hair cut and colored 2-3 times a year and Andrew was able to cut everyone elses hair including his own. Most businesses were experiencing loss of some kind. While some hospitals in large cities were overwhelmed, many hospitals, including in Kirksville, were stuck with canceling all non-essential procedures and surgeries and limiting the amount of people allowed in. As of now, there has only been one patient in the hospital with COVID-19, but all the precautions have caused it to have a dramatic decrease in activity, thus affecting employees. Even my dad's office saw at least a 50% decrease in patients seen daily and went to closing early and having employees take turns taking the day off. Andrew said it was like crickets at his office. He still saw some clients, but business was definitely down. The stock market was crashing and comparisons were made to the economy not being this bad since the Great Depression. The government tried to provide some relief for small businesses with the Paycheck Protection Program. We decided to through US Bank to do our application and there were so many issues that the program ran out of money before they processed our application even though we submitted everything as soon as we could. We have since learned that those who went through small banks had better luck, while there was also a big story of Ruth's Christ Steakhouse finding a loophole in the system and acquiring 2 $10 million loans. They are still trying to get more funding for the program, but it is stuck in Congress as they all fight about it. We also are supposed to be receiving stimulus checks, but we haven't been able to get ours yet because of flaws in the system.
As I mentioned, races and sporting events were canceled. This included all of the Classics bike races Andrew loves to watch while the Tour de France and Giro de Italia are postponed. Big tennis matches like Wimbledon and the US Open were canceled. March Madness didn't happen and colleges and high schools alike didn't get any of their spring sport seasons. The NBA suspended the rest of their season. The MLB season canceled the rest of their spring training and opening day is postponed indefinitely. The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokoyo have been postponed until 2021. We are still waiting to hear about the Half Ironman in Des Moines, so I continue training. I even got a daffodil from a passerby when I was out on my run one time. All of their races up to this point have been canceled. They've even started Ironman Virtual Club where pros along with age groupers can do virtual races. Such unprecedented times.
A couple big events happened during these first 6 weeks. Jackson's 16th birthday and Easter. Just as more of the restrictive shelter-at-home orders were starting to take effect, Andrew and I drove to Morton, IL, near Peoria and bought a truck for Jackson. It was a 2012 F-150 and was in great shape for a good price. It was dark when we got home, so we pulled into the garage to surprise him. He took us on a quick drive around the block and drove us some more the next day. He was very happy with it and it already protective of getting it dirty. Sadly, he won't be able to get his license for a while because at this point all testing centers and DMVs are closed until the end of April. But he has still had a few little life lessons in responsibility. Andrew taught him how to wash his truck at the hand wash bay and I taught him how to use the ATM to deposit money. He's also had some practice at parallel parking. And we had an original plan of doing a bigger party for his birthday as it was the Thursday before Easter and a lot of the family were coming home. Then it became that we weren't even sure if grandparents could come as there were restrictions on meeting with groups 10 or larger. I made an "not invited" invitation to commemorate the event. And then Andy suggested doing a VidHug video for him. I had never heard about it before and it ended up being great. We sent out an invitation to make a birthday video message for Jackson and we had some great responses. We had the simple, sincere and creative. For Jackson's actual birthday, I decided to decorate more than I usually would. We had balloons up everywhere and Ellie blew up a bunch of balloons to put in his room. Bennett stayed up at night and draw him a Mandalorian picture. We ended up taping them up around his door and the stairs. We had Jimmy Johns for lunch and had my parents and Andrew's parents over for Jackson favorite dinner that night, lemon chicken. We had dinner, opened presents (he got gift cards and cash from the grandparents and a Samsung smart watch and emergency car safety kit from us), had Dairy Queen cake and then turned the video on for him. I could tell he really appreciated it. It is so hard to believe he is 16, but he does it well!
Easter was definitely different this year. We were looking forward to family being in town and that couldn't happen. The first part of Easter morning looked similar for us-kids waking up and searching for their Easter baskets. The Easter Bunny did a good job of hiding them as it took a while for them all to be located. But instead of getting ready to go to church, we just got comfortable on the couch in our sweats and watched the Easter service. That evening we still went to my parents for Easter dinner and their Easter egg hunt. While the day was nicer, the weather went downhill throughout the day. The kids ended up having the egg hunt in the cold, blowing rain. Jackson came out on top with finding the gold and silver eggs. He immediately wanted to take the cash to the ATM.
And to just add to everything, we had snow just this last week. We were actually under a Winter Storm Warning. While we did get snow (and some of the biggest snowflakes we had ever see), it thankfully didn't stick to the pavement and it was gone pretty quickly.
So there you have it, my attempt at documenting our first six weeks of our experience in the middle of the COVID-19 global pandemic. A lot of rambling, but it replicates life right now-just not sure where we are going or how we are going to do it. It will be interesting to see how the next 6 weeks go. By that time, we will be done with at-home schooling and waiting to see if any summer sports will occur.
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