Day 2: Feeling Very Lucky

 Day two of social distancing went well--although we were probably the most social we will be for the next several weeks.

At 9 on the nose, both kids snuggled in for school. I have been making a lot of work plans and school schedules for friends, and I keep emphasizing structure combined with choice and voice. At our house, the structure is school starts at 9--no ifs, ands, or buts. The voice and choice, though, is that they choose where to start on the work plan and where to do the work. Issa, my type A angel, starts with the first period of her day and claims the futon:

 Buddy is not at all complaining about the extra snuggles with all of us home. Issa works straight through her school schedule, then does her active time, and ends with her chores.

Evan, however, starts with everything he can do on his laptop and sprawls somewhere different about every thirty minutes:

Evan likes to mix up his day: a little school, a little activity time, a little school, chores, finish school, finish activity. 

The work plan helps me keep track of where they are in their day, and we are all doing well. I am so glad we started this way because I am now also working from home for the duration. Meredith moved to all online classes and only people who absolutely need to be are allowed on campus.

Midway through our day, we went to Evan's school to help bag food for families. Weaver Street Market made a huge donation--like pallets of food. A local camp also donated everything fresh that they had on hand when their events got cancelled. I was so unbelievable proud of my kids. They spent two hours hauling and packaging. Evan and one of his friends packaged a gallon of garlic cloves into family sized portions. Issa hauled boxes of everything, helped bag rice and beans, and tried to help organize the massive effort. We ended our day portioning and bagging meat. It was a lot of work, but the end result is over 100 families will have groceries, and that is absolutely worth it.

We all enjoyed Irish stew and soda bread for dinner:

 And Issa and I ended our day with a craft project:

 Frosty was ever so helpful.

Someone in our neighborhood had the brilliant idea of a community activity that everyone could do in their own homes. Every couple of weeks, we will pick a new theme, and people can create an object to hang in their window or door. Our first theme was flowers, so Issa and I made these beauties for the door:

The idea is that as people take walks through the neighborhood, they can look for the items and know we are all still connected. Issa and I are going to go through the neighborhood and take pictures of the flowers and create a scavenger hunt sheet for any families who want to try to find them all!

Issa and I both feel better doing things--even small things--to help people feel more connected. We both need to feel like we are helping, and having the opportunity to do that yesterday was hugely helpful. We are still feeling really good, but this new normal is still very new. We are still having an adventure, and I'm so grateful to be writing a chapter in which good is winning.