Be like the Scandinavians.

Today was a day of learning and figuring out what to hide.

After a day of self, self-quarantining, I woke up feeling better than I have for days. Sometimes a cold is just a cold. I felt very lucky to have just had a cold.

It’s one of the challenges right now. There are people with allergies, with colds and even a few with the seasonal flu, but everything is seen through the lense of Covid19.

The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World did heroic duty yesterday, so good, in fact, that I thought about saying I was still sick so I could be waited on hand and foot. But I didn’t. And with the extra energy, I managed to get some jobs done around the house.

Outside the house, Tim Hortons is now only doing drive-thru, some ferry sailings have been canceled, and cinemas are shut down. But some banks are now offering deferred payments on mortgages, so at least that’s some good news in a sea of bad news.

Inside the house, we decided to make it a learning day. The-Oldest was taught how to properly clean and disinfect a bathroom. He worked hard and if there’s a germ left anywhere in that room, I’d be surprised.

The-Youngest was taught how to use Excel. Not that he had a great burning desire to be an accountant, but hes ‘planning an epic rollercoaster vacation for when the crisis is over. In the past, he had to redo all his calculations but now, oh boy, he can simply input something, and it automatically updates. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone so excited to use a spreadsheet (except maybe The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World, who gets all gigglie even just loading up the program.)

Then, just for laughs, and because if may become important, “we played, what can you make with this?”

Basically, we made supper from 3 days of leftovers. There wasn’t enough of any one thing to make a meal, so we had to mix and match a lot to make it work.

I don’t think the boys had fun. They looked at their plates like we’d told them to eat live larva covered in cat poo. But we’ve had the privilege of not having to worry about food before, and so this is all new stuff for the boys. No more pizza nights, even if they do deliver, we simply don’t have the money for it.

With luck, things will turn around, heck, China is reporting no new cases today, but we in the land of freedom have a long way to go before we reach that point, I suspect. It’s the problem with freedom, there are a lot of people who believe this isn’t a huge problem and so, it will be.

As for what we learned to hide in our house… well, now, let me be honest with everyone and say that part of quarantine is not being driving insane by your children (or, The-Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World would argue, your husband.)

My advice. Hide all recorders, trumpets, drum sets, whistles and accordions. Hide darts, hockey sticks and hockey balls, dead things, and anything that can shoot anything . Hide the passwords to unrestricted internet access. Hide sugary drinks, candy, and potato chips (though this one might be for me as well.) Hide (or ban) anything that will drive you nuts.

Trust me on this, unrestricted access to those things will likely result in parental insanity. We had no idea how bad it could get until The-Youngest, while bored and prowling through the house, found a box of old musical instruments.

Oh the horror. The horror.

Anyway, thanks, again to everyone who’s sent notes to us, worried about us and passed the blog along to others. I hope that by writing these posts, I can touch on things we all have in common, things that terrify us, or things that inspire us.

We will get through this. Like I said yesterday, this will be our finest hour.

Oh, and in case you have someone infected… look here.

Advice for caring for someone infected