Well, hello.


What’s up? Anything new? Is all calm and peaceful in your neck of the woods? 

Wouldn’t mind being quarantined here.

We spent last week recovering from a very intense sickness we picked up while on a cruise. St. Thomas souvenir germs if you will. The beginning of the sickness coincided with when coronavirus started to snowball downhill which was not comforting. It felt like bronchitis plus strep throat plus a sinus infection. I have not felt so sick in years. It was MISERABLE. I told Christopher he could not get what I had because I wouldn’t be able to handle that level of manflu. We would need to quarantine for the sake of our marriage. I went to the doctor and tested negative for the flu, strep and was told I didn’t have bronchitis.  That left coronavirus which was also negative. Apparently, I had another much less hip and trendy virus that my cocktail of Benadryl, Claritin, cough drops, Advil and inhalers barely touched. I have documentation to prove I don’t have the virus which I almost pulled out yesterday when I was at Sprint and coughed into my elbow. It was a normal tickle, not the cough of someone on the brink of death, but the Sprint lady looked horrified and as if she wanted to douse me in Lysol. 

The first week of staying home was a much-needed rest. We had just come home from the trip and were sick so we didn’t want to leave the house anyway. Today I looked at the calendar to see how many weeks we’ve been home after the week we were sick and I truly thought we were coming to the end of our second or possibly third week. It’s only been one. I’m a homebody so staying home and having free days hasn’t been too hard for me so far. I miss going to church, the playground, the library and having playdates but other than that our daily life hasn’t changed too much. It is harder in some ways because we don’t have any of our normal activities to take up time and sometimes I struggle with keeping us occupied and getting to the end of the day with happy hearts, but we could be struggling so much worse. We could be Anne Frank stuck in an attic for 25 MONTHS with no access to a real bathroom. We can deal with being stir crazy and/or bored. I do feel bad that AB is missing swimming, ballet and the homeschool group (and therefore I’m missing a couple hours of alone time) but she’s been content to play at home. She’s been extra clingy but she’s bouncing around like normal and thrilled that she has an even more captive than normal audience to talk to. The part that’s hardest for me so far is not knowing how long this will go on. Whether it would be easier or harder if I knew this would go on until July 1st I don’t know, but I would feel better if there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m so grateful it’s been nice weather because neighborhood walks are the saving grace at the end of the day. 

Annabelle turns 6 tomorrow which is very rude. I’ve told her over and over again to stop growing! Enough of this nonsense! Actually, I’ve had to cut down on telling her that because she’s gotten VERY upset about having a birthday. She’s cried about it multiple times so I’ve had to talk up how great it will be to be 6. It will be so fun! She’ll still be able to live at home with me and Daddy! Life won’t change very much! The hardest part might be that she’ll need to use both hands to show her age. I think her hesitation about turning 6 is part of why she’s been more clingy. I appreciate that she loves me but sitting outside the bathroom door is not necessary at this point in either of our lives. She wanted to spend the night in a hotel instead of having a birthday party but obviously that can’t happen now. She also wanted a playdate with her friends but that will have to happen in a few weeks/months/years. I’m going to turn the living room into Hotel de Annabelle complete with chocolate on the pillowcases. I will be the front desk worker, maid and chef who provides the morning buffet. So basically it’s business as usual for me. 


Time to go cry into my pillow over the child who is practically a grown up blow up balloons for the birthday girl.