It’s been a wild week here, trying to juggle work and kids. Two weeks ago, we hired a local woman to babysit the kids each morning from 8-12, which worked well enough. Whether or not it was technically allowable for her to be over here during the shelter-in-place ordinance, I’m not quite sure. But it was a fine arrangement. Lauren, required to work from home for the foreseeable future, and I, who already worked from home full-time, would at least get a solid four hours of work in each morning. At noon, the sitter would leave and the kids would eat lunch, then Edie would go down for a nap from around 1-3:30 while Johnny got TV time. After that, we just split up the last couple hours and it was more or less a full day of work for each of us.

But then Edie’s preschool/daycare called last weekend saying they were reopening in a limited capacity after having been closed for a couple weeks. Kids whose parents work in essential industries were welcome to return for shortened hours. Lauren is in the grocery biz, which is considered essential. Not everyone sent their kids back, but we felt Edie would benefit from being back. We also trusted her preschool quite a bit, which is a fairly high-end place with a waiting list.

We continued with the babysitter for John on Monday, but she called in sick with pink eye on Tuesday, leaving John home to fend for himself. We came up with a schedule for him and he did a very good job entertaining himself with workbooks and some moderately educational stuff, so we decided to cancel the sitter and just do that every day, which John was thrilled about. Of course, Wednesday through Friday, he seemed progressively less eager to learn each day and by the end of the week wound up just hovering around my desk complaining of boredom the whole day. Maybe we should get the sitter back…

When it’s been nice out, I had been taking Edie on long stroller walks, trying to explore new parts of our neighborhood, but it’s actually proven to be tough. There are only so many places we can go on foot without crossing a major highway. The residential streets here do not fully connect, so there’s no possible way to push Edie’s stroller the full four miles to her daycare from our house. Otherwise i would try it! Lauren is trying to stay active by doing an hour of yardwork each night. The yard has never looked better! But now we’re experiencing major storms all weekend, so we’re trapped inside.

I hope this ends soon. I was never one to stay home in the first place.