Page 33 - FDCC Pandemic Book

Living in a Pandemic: A Collection of Stories on Coping, Resilience & Hope
into an office. No traveling. Nothing. To be quite honest, it was a welcome change. We may not have realized it at the time, but we all needed a break from the hectic pace.
All of a sudden, we had lots of free time. We did puzzles and played games. We painted. We cleaned out closets. We watched movies. We baked cakes. We cooked good food. We drank wine (well, my husband and I drank wine ... not the girls!)
About 2 weeks in, my teens had had enough of the family fun! The constant refrain that I heard every single day was, “Can we go to lunch with friends?” “Can we go on a walk with friends?” “Can we see friends?” They figured that, as long as they were outside, it should be fine. At this point, some people were quarantining, but others were not. They could see kids together on social media, and they wanted to be a part of it. So there was a lot of FOMO (or fear of missing out) and lots of complaining about wanting to see friends. No one wanted any part of hanging with mom and dad, playing games, or organizing anymore!
After a couple of weeks of saying no, we decided that we would just get out of town and remove the temptation all together. The girls had spring break planned the first week in April, which of course, was canceled. So we decided to take off and go to our lake house instead. When we told the girls our plan, they were not happy. They seemed to think that COVID was going to disappear, and they were magically going to be able to see their friends. We dragged them anyway.
One week turned into 12 weeks. Once we got up there, we all started to realize that we were in this for the long haul. By this point, everyone else was actually in quarantine and their friends were not seeing each other. So they were pretty happy to be able to quarantine with a view of the lake.
My girls started virtual “school” after spring break. When I say “school,” I mean that in the loosest sense of the world. None of us were prepared for virtual school when COVID hit, so everyone was doing the best they could. Their school day consisted of them sleeping until noon, and then doing a few hours of work before deciding to head out to the dock to lay out in the sun or ride around on jet skis. My husband and I would work during the day and then join them on the dock in the afternoon. It was kind of like a vacation - with school and work mixed in. And we were certainly eating and drinking just like we were on vacation ... sunset happy hour every afternoon, lots of grilling, lots of baking.
When my girls had had about enough of only my husband and me for company, we decided to have some close friends up to visit. They lived in Chicago and had been strictly quarantining, so we figured it would be safe. They came for the week of July 4th, and we had a blast. We headed home on July 6th, and my 13-year-old went to soccer practice that evening (the first practice back). Little did we know that we were about to shut down the entire soccer program for 2 weeks!
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