Friday March 13 to Wednesday the 18th

The night before everything was coming to a head for Utah and the Corona Virus or Covid-19... This means a lot of worry for a family with kids who have weak immune systems. This is called immunocompromised as well as Co-morbities... which means they have more than one illness present. Alex has a heart transplant and issues with his liver, and May with her rare lung disease and spinal issues... I just couldn't take a chance.. I had already received information from the Transplant team trying to help us start navigating what we should do... Jeff was so smart and decided we should go out and get some supplies to stock out fridge and pad our food storage. We can eat from food storage, it was just lacking in a few things... The kids did SI school that day... or social distancing school, it consisted of Reading, writing in their journals, art, playing with each other, math on prodigy and starting the process of cleaning the house. Not many families needed to stay home yet. Twenty four hours later and the rest of state was closing down all schools. Things began changing so rapidly that it made our heads spin. The number of cases grew pretty quickly and people were freaking out. There was a made dash to stores to stock up on food and supplies. Shelves at the stores were so bare it looked like they had been robbed.

This is Asher's hand, so sore from washing and washing. 

The kids extra activities began to shut down, cancel and postpone so quickly. It was disappointing on so many levels.  Alex's Willy Wonka play, The girls Sussical play. Church activities, school field trips. All the sudden we had all this time together and we weren't rushing off to the next thing. Church leaders also called for all church meetings to be cancelled. I cancelled appointments in my home so that nobody would unknowingly bring it to us. We Threw out toothbrushes and started fresh with new. We changed and washed all the beds. We Cloroxed the light switches and doorknobs. It really brings us back to the time right after Alex's heart transplant. At first I felt like the world was just coming up to my kind of crazy. I was worried about germs all the time. Now the world felt like I did... I am not sure if I felt validated or more crazy... anyway... Wrestling with Daddy was not cancelled.

 Monday and Tuesday we continued to work, play and learn at home. We were preparing for big changes on Wednesday as that would be our first official day back at school online. I had taken each child's information about what they would need to accomplish in a day, what was expected, where to find the information to complete these expectations and put them in one notebook. Ry's schedule would be the hardest because she has 7 classes and it's the end of the quarter. The rest of them were going to be a bit easier except it was still pretty tricky because of French and my lack of the language. I think there really is something important to the immersive program. It is much harder to make that happen at home. I took the kids to fly kites.. That is way harder than it looks. Each kid wanted their own kite and I could simultaneously help May and Asher, so I would get one in the air and hand it to the kid and the other one would come down and I would just get that one handed back and the other kid would need help... But they ran all around and had fun anyway. 

We also made marionettes.. We need to do some little songs in french or a little thing about three little birdies... and puzzles and reading.... 

Wednesday morning we were jolted awake, I sat up straight and grabbed onto Jeff. The whole house was shaking. The sound was something that is hard to explain. The best I can do is say that, it sounded like multiple people running in a room over your head. You could hear it before it started rocking. Okay it sort of reminds me of that scene in the original Jumunji when the Rhinos are running....I was terrified that the kids had fallen out of their bunkbeds so I jumped up and ran out of the rooms, Jeff checked on the boys, while I ran downstairs to check on the girls... We all ran upstairs and sat on the couch. It was over in just a few seconds but it felt like so long. Our brand new canvas  family portrait fell off the wall and broke, a picture frame fell and broke but didn't break the glass,  a Christas fell and broke the head off, and we had some of our stones fall off the house. The after shocks were just as scary as the earthquake. Even today we felt a really big aftershock and I am still trembling. This was definitely a wake up call. We thought we were prepared, but we certainly could be better. 

Every day feels new and we are trying to make the best of this very different situation. 

Ashy probably won't even remember this. May might remember some of the feelings she had but not exact details. Maybe Eden if she writes things down. But Ry and Alex should remember parts of this.

The kids have reacted well and we hope they continue to be amazing adaptable humans. We do have our moments....