Raising you (my children) in a global pandemic

Love you three but not those future wrinkles
you will give me during this pandemic.

I started this blog for all of you (my little people that is). I wanted you to have a place to get a glimpse of the adventures of your childhood. Let's be honest, I'm pretty terrible at keeping up with it anymore these days. 

But now. This. A global pandemic. They say you will ask me questions about this when you're older. They say I should blog about something like this. They say you will want to know what it was REALLY like to live through a pandemic that brought the world to its knees, isolating us all while simultaneously bringing us together in a way that only a wartime experience might be able to do. They say you will want to know how did we possibly survive, a family of five, in a two bedroom unit with limited opportunities to get outside. The jury is still out on the answer to that question...

You most likely will remember very little of it, I'm just praying what memories you have are fond memories. Memories of silly games, creative learning, time as a family, exploring nature (for as long as we are allowed). But let's be honest we're still in the early days now as we sit in Australia watching this virus make its way across the world like The Wave does in a baseball stadium. Waiting for it to really hit hard here. School and most of our regularly scheduled activities have really only been closed (and moved to online programming) for around a week. It was challenging last week as we learned our new normal, an influx of communications, and no doubt will continue to be challenging this second week. Maybe by week three we will hit our stride of this new normal.

You each are aware of these changes at different levels. Emma you understand it pretty well, but thankfully you also have perhaps the most "routine" still at your fingertips with an amazing online curriculum (thank you teachers at Neutral Bay Public), ability to write and facetime your friends, and curl up with a book when you want to forget about your troubles. Morgan, my heart hurts a little more for you as you understand your normal routine, that you've worked so hard to learn this year, is gone, but you don't fully understand why, other than this hard to say "coronavirus" word. And Charley, well even the littlest person can feel the change too, but let's be honest you still run around with the same reckless abandon most days, just with fewer of your friends and perhaps a mildly safer terrain at home. Yet, however small, your level of awareness, I still see you expressing the pain of this change.

I could start my positive outlook list now, all the great things that we should be happy for in this pandemic season... extra time together, daddy being home more (all the time), the safe place that is our home, daddy being home so he can help me cook dinner (and lunch), the extra cleaning and organizing we can get done at home, the goggle wearing and swimming lessons that will now take place in the bathtub, the craft extravaganza already taking place on my kitchen table (which will now become collateral damage), less concern about who you will get lice from next, this list can go on and on.

But we're also going to spend some time grieving now. The trip to the US to see family and friends for the first time in 15 months gone (I'm still not going to tell you about the planned trip to Disney), all of our "normal" activities gone, no playdates, a new, different, online church, no longer being able to buy more than two tubes of toothpaste at a time (really? I don't know if I should feel glad or sad that these is also an unknown toothpaste buying frenzy, or is there something I'm missing? we're a family of five with different toothpaste needs how do I prove this to the cashier?), this list can also go on and on.

None of us know how or when this will end. None of us know what it is going to look on the other side. None of us know if we will lose loved ones, lose incomes, lose our mental health, or lose our own life. So for now, I'm going to pray for all of us, but especially for the three of you. Unfortunately aside from staying home there strangely isn't much else we can do right now. So I'm going to pray that you won't fear, pray that you will be adaptable, pray that you will show me a whole lot of grace, and of course pray that we and our loved ones stay well. 

I heard a great quote today during our online sermon from our senior minister, unfortunately I missed who said it, "What will you become as you wait?" I wonder what each of you will become as we wait. I wonder how this will forever change you. I never imagined this is how we would start a new decade. I never imagined I would have three kids living in a small apartment under likely soon to be quarantined rules. I never imagined the weight of being a parent and making the "right" decisions for you would become even more difficult than they already were. So let's be strong and courageous in this wait together.