Locked in the house with rain obscuring the sun, my co-pilot tipped off the family platform, and I teetered to right it and us. What the ****?
How dare the gods of Corona virus! After so rudely bringing rainy skies on the first Thursday of the crisis – ruining the one physical release the boys have of their daily walks – the gods struck my pilot off our little life raft.
At 8:45 am, after nursing his morning java for an hour while looking half-dead, the hubby admitted he felt awful. No fever, according to our 20-year old digital thermometer, the only one in the house so it had to suffice. No fever to the touch of his wife’s soon to be washed hand either. But he was dizzy and green under the gills. He self-banished, virtually assuring I’d get zero business-work done given how squirrely and off Will was. I couldn’t live with myself if we gave this bug to the two respite helpers, so I got to pretend I was supermom.
The bad news is yes I got zero business work done.
The good news was hidden, but there – glimmering beneath the surface. Dad appeared to have some GI bug and never developed a fever. I never felt so glad for a throw-up virus. He still worried me greatly – emerging from his room twice all day, looking awful but sleeping a ton. While I groaned thinking of managing multiple nonverbal men tossing cookies, at least the hubby didn’t spike a fever, or show other Coronavirus affect. Although I came to check on him at around 6:45, and exhaled relief when he stirred as I opened the door.
The men and I survived. I may get canned by my work friends, and I’m perpetually amazed at how long it takes when I force the boys to be independent at bedmaking or table-setting or skills we’ve been working to develop for 10 years. Surprise, I barely got to any of cleaning and neatening chores on the voluminous Get Ready for the Remodelers list. With each passing day I see a crisis unfolding because I have til Monday to clear out two bedroom closets, including my office with 27 years of whatnots preciously saved there. The pressure clutches my throat when I think about it too much.
Yet at 4:00 pm we had this blissful 90 minutes where Jeff painted on the kitchen table, Will puzzled, and I navigated our happy little life raft so there were smiles from everyone. Where I took a break from worrying.
Always the eager helper, Will helped me sanitize and vacuum one room in preparation for the big upstairs cleanout.
We’re eating well – homemade pizza with full-moons of ricotta cheese floating on grainy semolina-olive oil crust. One spread with red-sauced and pepperoni, and my favorite, pesto with ricotta and plump grape tomato halves, a froth of melted fresh parmigiano-reggiano somehow attesting that I had it within me to make my own life raft out of little nothings.
If I look at the glass half full, it’s frustrating. With Jeff’s bed making I had to prompt 5 times to jump-start him from one task in the sequence to the next. Will’s misbehaviors are flowering like the crocuses along my back walk from all this rain. Every few hours he “organizes” the magazine that he and the staffers neatly sorted on Tuesday so that I could pitch some and save others, giving us “opportunities” to practice re-sorting multiple times a day. Since I obviously have extra time.
I’m not where I want to be with anything. At 7 pm, while serving dinner later than planned – I guess homemade pizza-making takes time, surprise – and without a hubby to help, I had to do listen-in mode with my writer’s group conference call as Jeff chanted and I supervised pizza grabs. It was yet another way I’m adrift, dipping my toe in the sea I’d rather swim like a porpoise who bobs up from the depths.
And yet, as I watched Will try a body-sock to self-soothe at night, something he’s never done – and saw Jeff automatically begin to rinse off his dinner dish to put in the dishwasher – and I felt the pleasure of orderliness reclaiming even a few rooms of the house – I knew I’m exactly where I need to be.