Making the best decisions in a run of not good decision options

I understand people want to return to work.

I understand people need to make a living.

I understand that the economy is tanking.

I truly get that.

But I also understand that without better information and testing, we are making poor decisions.

One day, it might be found that quarantining in itself was a poor decision because it was a decision based on not knowing anything about COVID-19.

How it spreads.

Where it spreads.

Where it currently is.

Who has it.

Who doesn't have it.

Who is immune to it.

Who has minimal immunity versus maximum immunity.

Who is most likely to get it and need hospitalization.

Who has the ability to trace it?

If we knew any of these, we might see that quarantining isn't necessary.
Maybe a huge percentage of the population has already been exposed?

But because we know virtually nothing, quarantining is the BEST option at the moment.

Quarantining is the best of a lot of BAD options.

The worst option right now is lots of death and hospitals overrun.
I would say that tens of thousands of deaths over the course of 4-6 weeks mean we're in worst option territory.

But here is the thing that gets lost in all the arguing about "opening the economy."

Without better information, even if stores reopen, how many people, given the uncertainty, are going to go shopping, especially for big-ticket items, like furniture or appliances (unless it is an absolute necessity)?

If you have a beat-up car, you're probably going to continue to drive your beat-up car because you could lose your job in the next week or six months or one year, depending on how things shake out.

If there are future lockdowns, maybe the economy gets even worse.
If we're dealing with this until 2021 or 2022, maybe I better save money to pay for food instead of spending it on a new couch (even though I'd love a new couch).

How many people are going to swarm the malls and cinemas?

How many people, given the uncertainty, are willingly going to go back to "life as normal? even if the governors aren't explicitly telling them to keep their butts at home?

Even if the governor said today, "Go out there and get' em, tiger," my butt and my family's butts are staying home.

Chances are the economy will not go back to normal because people who aren't willing (and have the means to work from home and stay at home) to take chances with their kids' lives or their older parents' lives are NOT going to return to normal buying, shopping, etc.

So if these people who are protesting are truly making an argument about going back to work, realistically are these businesses going to do much?

Of course, something is better than nothing, I guess.

The people who can afford to not go back to normal will continue doing as they do, leaving the people who can't afford to stay quarantined to be the guinea pigs of what happens when we try to reopen the economy.

People cannot make good decisions without good information, so it is best for governors to make decisions slowly.

To take a step and watch carefully.

But people don't want that.

They want to do whatever it is they want to do. They want to yell "My RIGHTS" with little consideration that others are suffering worse and accepting it as what we all have to do to get through this.

The unexpected learning during pandemic

As I mentioned, I'm keeping low, low expectations during this non-traditional instruction experience.

N is at the end of sophomore year and is pretty self-motivated, so I'm just letting her do her thing.

G and M need more hand-holding--M because he is 10, and G because he is G.

But I discovered last night that they are learning even in the midst of what might be considered "not-real-learning."

On Tuesday in the morning, G did his social studies assignment, which was short and about ancient Greece and city-states.

At night, while I read to the boys, they lie on the floor and smack inflatable globe balls I have (which I purchased for VBS last summer) around their room while I read aloud.

G asked, "Where is Greece?"

So I explained that he should look north from the top of Africa and maybe over to the left a bit. He found it and then asked where Athens was. It was at this point that he handed me the ball. I was able to show him Athens in relation to the islands to the east of Athens in the Aegean Sea.

I used this opportunity to ask him to find Bari, Italy on the ball, which is the site where D and I took an overnight ferry ride to Athens when he and I visited in 2001.

Shortly after, when I was back to reading our book of the moment, Akata Warrior by Nnedi Okorafor, G said, "I found Lagos," which is the city that the protagonist is currently in.

I was pleasantly surprised to see G learning even when he isn't in school for 7 hours a day. 

OCD really likes a pandemic / Thank goodness NTI has begun

G started his exposure-response therapy in December, and he had made significant improvements, but the COVID-19 pandemic has sorta thrown a wrench in that...as it has thrown a wrench in everything.

Everything has been thrown into disarray---
the routine,
the schedule,
the normalcy.

And if there is one thing OCD really, really likes, it is boredom.
Boredom means that OCD has an easier time breaking through.
There isn't enough to distract from the anxiety.

And so if you're my kid, you regress a bit, which is frustrating for you and for your family, who has seen you improve so much over the last few months.

We're doing telehealth appointments with his doctor, and I'm hoping non-traditional instruction provides him some structure that helps him level back out.

Speaking of NTI, it began today, and let me tell you, we are not gonna set the world on fire now or anytime.

But that's ok.

You know how you think that if you had all the chocolate cake you wanted to eat, you would eat it all the time.

But you wouldn't.

You'd eat it for a few meals and then quickly realize that having too much cake makes you feel sluggish and sick.

That's what all this free time has been.

It helps tremendously to have a little bit of structure back into our days.

We don't have to have our lives planned down to every second, which is how normal life often feels, but today feels like a gift to have something to be accountable for to someone who does not live within these walls.

Ear twiddler

I woke up at 5:30 this morning and began a hunt through our thousands of pictures for snaps of M twiddling someone's ears.

This began on accident the other day when I found a picture of him twiddling Nana's ears at her and Pa's surprise 40th wedding anniversary party.

Down the rabbit hole I went.

M always tries to determine which ear is the coldest. 

You can see him in action here with his dad. 

Family remembering time

We have a vacation scheduled for June, but who knows whether we'll actually be able to go.

The pandemic makes me more glad than ever that last year we went three places--Atlanta on spring break, Florida in the summer, and Michigan City, IN/Chicago on fall break.

Last night, I decided that I would take the time to actually scrapbook our 2019 fall break trip, which led me to suggest that for family time after supper, we would look through our family travels scrapbooks.

(Ok, all the time is, technically, family time right now.)

The first trip in the albums dates back to 2009 when we went on our first trip as a family of 5 (although one of us was still in utero on that particular trip to Gulf Shores, AL).
We had gone on another trip to Gulf Shores in 2005, but those photos went into the N IS THE ONLY CHILD album.

The travels in these books are both near and far.
There are half-day trips to Salato Wildlife Center, 2-day trips to Santa Claus, IN, and longer across the country trips to Colorado.

For most of the travels, I have included memorable stories in the scrapbook such as when we went to Edisto Island, SC, and G got his hand stuck in a crab statue. I was convinced we'd have to call the fire department and have them destroy the statue to get his hand out.
(Lotion for the lubricating win on that one.)

On our fall break trip a couple years back to St. Louis, G and I recreated one from when he was a wee boy. The original photo was at our local zoo when he was terrified of animatronic dinosaurs even though he LOVED dinosaurs and begged me to take him to the exhibit.

The recreation was at the St Louis Science Center.

Oh, here is another photo of me packing around G. He wanted to go to Dinosaur World because he loved dinosaurs. He then refused to walk through it, so guess who carried him the entire time?

We have determined that G is a complete sh*t, but if it wasn't for him, our travels would be SO BORING.
We'd have zero memorable events.

There was our trip to Mason, OH to visit Great Wolf Lodge. We still ask M to do his imitation of Wiley the Wolf, which he perfected while there:
"Stomp, stomp. Clap, clap. Ya got that? Let's do it one more time."
(Must be said in a very twangy way.)

And then there were the photos from Battery Park, Charleston, SC. N was sitting on her gigantic pile of turds.

We had a lot of fun spending time reminiscing, and it made me immensely happy if only for a little while.