When life thwarts the plan, a smile is the plan itself.

I’m totally supportive of Coronavirus social distancing measures and our governor’s dictums. Like everyone I’m bored, sad about missing my special places like New Hampshire’s White Mountains, and annoyed at the strictures on my personal freedom that just keep coming.

My work drives even more flexibility, particularly the past two weeks when Paul’s flu meant no respite help. You can only rejuggle your already topsy-turvy schedule so many times until you want to pull your hair out for getting so little accomplished, except agility. I hear harried parents vent about the pain of working from home with their capable, independent, neurotypical kiddos, and my eye-roll probably screams. Given I’ve worked from home for 28+ years while raising three kiddos, including two with profound autism, I’ve got zero sympathy.

I thought I had it down on Friday when I booked a work call for 10:30 am, aligned the morning schedule accordingly, and diverted Will from flooding Jeff’s brand new iPad in puddles of water from his powder room water play. I even fit in an hour for yoga, thankful to the hubby for feeling better and watching the men. I got everyone toothed/shaved/showered in time, completed the call, and did an hour of structured play for each – an 84-piece puzzle with Will, coloring in the lines practice with Jeff. I was thrilled when the boys picked a long walk for our next activity and figured I’d juice up the reward – McDonald’s for takeout fish sandwiches. One of my guilty Lenten pleasures, the 5.4 mile trek mitigated the tartar sauce calories and we could even make it longer by journeying to the pond beyond it.

Leave it to work to barrage me with hot-potato task just 10 minutes into the walk – with only 15% of my phone battery left. Within another 10 minutes my battery life was down to 4%. I had to either blow off the work, which wasn’t smart, or call the hubby to pick us up in my van with the charging cable so I could at least make a phone call. – Our 5.4 miles was trimmed to about 2.5 miles, and the bright sunshine warming our souls had to wait as I rushed back to attend to my deadline.

The boys dealt with the change fine. After all there were still fries with the reordered order. They even moved immediately into the day’s virtual Dance Party time without indigestion. Then, when my sleep-addled brain needed a 45 min nap following it, they got to practice flexibility again. Work then demanded more schedule rearrangement. By 4:30 pm each of them looked at me with “so – what now?” eyes. Will’s distant discomfort over not knowing what day, time and schedule item he was living was a 5-o’clock shadow I couldn’t deny.

Back to basics once more, I rearranged the daily schedule strip to offer two choices – walk or folding shirts. Tilting his head and one-eyed beaming the way he does when he’s really excited, Will finger-pointed to the Walk icon with a vigor that spoke of pent-up promise.

Maybe it was the soul once denied that realized its time had come. Maybe folding shirts is less desirable than it is with his helpers. Will smiled as if the day finally gave him what he wanted.

Hubby joining us, now fully recovered, we sojourned on the shorter 1-mile neighborhood route. We chatted with an old friend on her bike who we didn’t realize now lived nearby, and waved to distant neighbors. We basked in warmth that wasn’t just sunshine.

We walked through the rest of our new coronavirus schedule, folding shirts, a little disinfecting, yet more laundry. I watched my guys manage half-OK with tolerable levels of their behaviors as we parents cooked Friday’s delights: fresh home-delivered swordfish with garlic and lime, creamy-white clam chowder, stuffed clams, asparagus topped with blue cheese.

We ate more than our fill, and I baked my favorite lightened blueberry pie so we could indulge half-healthily for evening snack. The weather forecaster said tomorrow was another day without clouds. Fake news, I thought. He’s coloring reality so the closures and changes wear a new spring coat. Yet as Will and Jeff watched TV with us, just a little stimmy but calm, our daily walk to fish sandwiches and ponds and change and challenge seemed exactly the right tomorrow.