Five on Friday: Adaptation

I had some scattered ideas for this week’s list but couldn’t find the theme at first. I thought about it some more and realized they are all in one way or another representative of how we are adapting to ongoing lockdown.

 

As we approach the seven-month mark, I am sure I’m not the only one that looks back to our earliest days without thinking “that’s cute how optimistic and productive we all were.” It was so new—we halted everything. Then time passed and there was still seemingly no end in sight, but we began to relive life . . . to adapt. And now, at this point, the adaptations have not only arisen but also evolved. 

 

Some of the items on this week's list are just observations on how life has changed while others  are plans for things that seemed impossible before. All are COVID adaptations for our family, seven months in:

 

1. I've learned to check my email first thing in the morning.  One of my kids is actually getting in to the school building on an every-other-week half-day hybrid schedule (and is going to the school grounds every weekday for soccer practice). 

 

I need to answer the emailed COVID questionnaire for him every weekday morning.  Even though I always wake up before everyone else and sit around with my coffee and social media for awhile, I apparently wasn't always remembering to check my email. Now I do.

 

2. Bittersweet conversation I overheard:

Son who turned 12 in early March: "Hey, I never got my do-over birthday (party)!"

Older & wiser sister:  "Hate to tell you, Buddy, you're probably not getting your *next* birthday either. 

 

3. My husband for the past two months: "So have you thought about how you might be able to hold the MLK Day of Service in January?" 

I hadn't. The thought filled me with dread. But all of a sudden I'm starting to think of possibilities. I took the plunge in reaching out to some other organizers to talk about how we can make it happen. It still seems hard, but doable.

 

4.  After repeated delays in getting our High School Senior’s yearbook (first because of COVID then some sort of typo/s that were so bad they couldn’t bear to hand the books out? We’re dying to know what it was!), it has finally arrived. He actually doesn’t care about it, didn’t even want it but I said I was going to buy it regardless.

Anyway, he has one signature in it. From his sister.

It's funny because neither of them is going anywhere.

5. And perhaps the biggest adaptation of all: I've begun prepping or even packing the kids' lunches even though they are all home all day and are all completely capable. I did say I was here to help them the best I could. Furthermore, I am sick to death of coming home from work in the late afternoon three days a week to discover that nobody ate a proper lunch and would like to do so just as I am deciding what to make for dinner. 

 

So I'm telling the "you're enabling them" voice in my head to shut up. I have begun doing things like making ten little containers of homemade macaroni and cheese and making sandwiches while I sip my morning coffee . . . but only after I complete the online COVID questionnaire.