Despite the sun shining and the warming temperatures, there are days when I feel as if I've stepped out of the real world and into an alternate reality, a version of our world with a slightly more dystopian setting. University and college courses have all gone online. K-12 schools have been cancelled for the remainder of the school year. Restaurants and bars have been shut down unless they can provide a walk-in/walk-out food service. Small businesses have shut their doors, laying off employees until the world rights itself. Social gatherings of any size and for any reason have been banned by handful of governors across the nation and its expected more will follow suit.
Birthday parties: cancelled.
Retirement parties: cancelled.
Bridal showers: cancelled.
Friday night card games with friends: cancelled
Bachelorette and bachelor parties: cancelled.
Weddings: cancelled.
Baby showers: cancelled.
That last one hits close to home. This coming Sunday we were supposed to be hosting a baby shower for Allie. When Governor Whitmer announced the Stay Home, Stay Safe Executive Order, we made the difficult decision to cancel the shower. Instead of gathering with friends and family to celebrate the anticipated arrival of this new addition to the family, gifts have been arriving steadily from concerned friends and family members that want to make sure the new parents and their little bundle of joy have everything they need. There were so many deliveries that I actually felt a bit guilty and decided to put together a little something for the USPS, UPS, and FedEx drivers; I included an explanation and thanked them for their service. Maybe they won't think we're complete jerks that are simply passing our time at home by shopping online..
While none of this may be happening the way we envisioned, the most important thing is that the little man (yes, it's a boy!) arrives happy and healthy. And stays that way. That's the mantra that gets us through the disappointment that things aren't happening the way we had originally planned.
Healthy baby, healthy mama.
That's what's truly important.
Given that we are expecting a little bundle of joy to enter our lives sometime in the next four weeks, we are doing our very best to honor the Stay Home, Stay Safe order. Ken and I have been working from home for two and three weeks respectively. Gage had just started working as a busboy at a nearby brewery and was laid off until normal business resumes. Allie took a voluntary layoff from Subway. The only one working outside the home is KC because he's considered an essential worker; he is an aide at a residential facility.
Trust me, as soon as he walks through the door, I'm on him to strip out of his scrubs. While he goes to take a shower, I throw his clothes into the washer using hot water. I don't bleach them, though, because they're black and I don't think he wants to wear gray scrubs because of his mom's neurotic need to disinfect.
Trust me, as soon as he walks through the door, I'm on him to strip out of his scrubs. While he goes to take a shower, I throw his clothes into the washer using hot water. I don't bleach them, though, because they're black and I don't think he wants to wear gray scrubs because of his mom's neurotic need to disinfect.
Maybe I should use bleach anyway. Is hot water and soap enough?
While KC is at work taking care of those that depend on him and his coworkers to keep their world as routine as possible under the circumstances, the rest of us are doing our part. Ken and I work off our laptops. Allie does homework. And Gage sleeps away the daylight hours, saving up all his energy for late night gaming sessions with his friends.
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