The routine seems to be normalizing.

The morning calls for work blend with a little TV time for kids, then between meetings we’re able to spend spurts of time with them, and they’re settling into playing well together.

We’re trying to work very hard to not simply abandon the kids to the television so that we can stay involved with our jobs. It’s hard, though, when two leaders have teams to lead at the same time.

Today we were met with a new set of invitations for the older kiddo to participate with classmates electronically. She already chats with them on Roblox, which we araen’t doing during the day, and she finds frustrating on her tablet, and I haven’t cleared a spot for her to have her own Mac yet... Today we’ve gotten some Facetime connections and now Zoom invitations. Here’s hoping that this new avenue for the older one doesn’t frustrate the younger.

The younger one has become a better participant in my team meetings. I’ve given him a mechanical keyboard that splashes colors when the keys are hit, as well as allowed him to greet meeting participants on my behalf, and wave briefly in video chats. He’s missing his friends, too, though, and it’s tougher to explain to a four-year old why we’re staying inside all of the time (especially after mom made a dash to the store without him yesterday).

It’s only day three of the twenty planned, but we’ve also received hints of new infrastructure from the school, for the older one, for when distance learning becomes a reality after spring break ends. So our twenty planned is very likely to become more. I forget where I mentioned it, but my company has a “through April” work from home guidance, currently. The talks from the government have shifted from “weeks” to “months.”

Observationally, I understand this is reaction to the apparent skyrocketing of confirmed cases. As a math geek, I recognize that while there are surely increases in cases, it’s a statistical problem because it’s only now becoming the case that we can confirm them. There have surely been more than we’ve known about for longer than we’ve believed it was possible. Given the evident two-week incubation period, it’s likely a tremendous number of people have been afflicted, and are only now showing symptoms. That’s the scary part, because we’ve all been walking around together, slightly farther apart and with cleaner hands than normal, for months while this has been happening.

There are still shifts in where people are allowed to go and what they’re allowed to do. Restaurants, bars, theaters, a lot of small stores and businesses, and places where people normally gather are all closed or with greatly reduced services. We’re trying to help by curbing our inate need to consume and participate, which has made some interesting conversations. Thankfully, weve been “just order it” kind of people for a while, so our urge to dash to fetch any little thing is easy to avoid.

As we’re trapped in our house, especially since it’s cold and raining today, we’ve been spring cleaning, finally getting to some of those things. This has brought up a new wave of considerations, like do we have enough furnace filters (we can do without if needed) or water softener salt (also can do without). We have enough dish, body, and laundry soaps. We’ve collected the various collections of medicines throughout, and found we’ve got an abundance of symptom remedies, but are short on Band-aids. We’ll have to be careful not to get cuts.

We’re all still healthy, and well-stocked. Tensions are easing, and play is more cooperative.