more staying home

i wanted to write about this sooner - maybe i was waiting it out a bit, maybe just lazy. you can't write about quarantine fresh on the first day. well, i'm not really convinced you can write properly about it at any time, but people everywhere on facebook and medium and their own blogs and so on are surely trying! bonus, everybody suddenly has the required free time to tell me what lessons from a global pandemic "we" should take to heart - so, i've been rolling my eyes a little over here.

it's just that for me it's business as usual. minus taking one metro and two buses each way every day, and plus a pretty tantrumy two year old chasing me all over the house. i am a passive small cog in the system. i have side-stepped a whole bunch of full-on involvement with the system throughout my life. this doesn't excuse anything, nor explain much, but, yep, my life has not SO drastically changed in the past month. also, sadly, the epiphanies that people seem to be having, i am simply not having to the same extent. i'm staying home and trying to not make it worse. as soon as i can go back to some working and dropping my kid off to daycare, i will do so, with the requisite anxiety.

in the meantime, i won't save more, cook more, use more leftovers, appreciate nature more, love my fellow humans more. i don't feel heroic, historic or full of potential. and knowing this about myself seems to keep me about as out of sync with the world as i usually was. no tips for maximizing this time seem to work for me, but i'm here clicking on the links.

yes, i am scared. i have had a cough for at least 2 months, but this is sort of how i know it's not coronavirus. no fever, occasional headaches but not on a regular basis. but apart from that, of course, i don't want my family to get it. every time i hear my kid cough (from way before corona times) my heart breaks a little. my parents are in romania (lack of medical equipment and proper conditions in hospitals blah-blah), my father is 70 with preexisting conditions etc.looking at numbers, i don't see why we of all people should get out of this uninfected. plus i confess i don't trust my disinfecting skills.

so now that ranting is out of the way, some details on our routine, with the help of toddler pictures, because these are the only kinds of pictures we take nowadays.

first actual day after school closing, which approximately coincided with b. starting to work from home (at that time it was optional for their workplace, now obviously mandatory). going to the store. also the last time all three of us entered a store together. it looked pretty much as any usual day, just with all the pasta and toilet paper gone.
also i swear the weather was the same as now, 5 weeks later. i don't understand this spring at all. it seemed to start earlier than previous years, but then it's back to some snow, some rain, some nights below zero etc. 

we don't wear masks outside, this is just rada's idea of putting on a hat+ scarf (it's actually a neck-warmer). this is her preparing to go to the store after dark, with bag and everything. no wait, that time she said she was going to the hospital to bring us some muffins. very thoughtful.
practically she repeats everything she's ever heard us say, but in  slightly different combinations. my favourite is when she punishes her toys because they took their socks off.  also, showing me some scribblings: "mama, i wrote a poem here."

i think it's confirmed that small children have a thing for playing inside cupboards. rada started later than some others i've heard of, but she took over this cupboard with conviction and persistence. now she has a stash of socks, small dishes, building blocks and letters there and pretty much does her "cooking" while we work or sit around in the kitchen or dining room - then she comes to make us taste it.

addressing the baking craziness - i am actually trying to restrain myself to baking once a week, because more than that makes no sense for our family. i've only made the basic staples - banana bread of course, cookies, scones, muffins, and these apples pictured are part of my filling for an apple cake. when i have to really cook, i.e.something  that involves more than mixing or heating stuff , i put her on the counter and it works out for about 15 minutes. 

mornings involve re-reading a fairly small selection of books A LOT of times, also playing with letters and eating snacks out of miniature/toy pans and bowls .
favourite stories right now: "rapunzel", "the musicians of bremen", "the ugly duckling".
on the pillow, her attempt at spelling out her name (pretty good, considering we only have one of each letter in that set)

new toys to feed an old passion: building stuff with legos. also putting them in the least imaginable places, such as inside a pillowcase, in the plant pots, in the bags we use for shopping, inside my boots - ouch!
the story of how we got the legos is very funny: we're walking to the park singing a romanian children's song, and pass by the probably only house in this neighbourhood inhabited by a romanian family - the guy and his 6 year-old were  out front doing some gardening. so we walk on, and after like 3 minutes the guy comes running after us: "excuse me! do you speak romanian?" he had some bags of toys left over from his kids that he wanted to get rid of. so we came back with b. to pick them up - seriously a lot of toys!!!! we're always happy to get second hand toys and use them, but i was so stressed that day re: proper bag disinfection.

wearing her father's t-shirt, fresh from the dryer. she actually managed to put on two shirts one on top of the other, but it was hard to walk with them both. makes me think, this is a good idea for quarantine summer: just put her in old holey t-shirts of mine and let her run around in them...excellent for potty training, also for feeding herself soup with a spoon or drinking from cups (where at least half the liquid goes on her shirt).

when it's not raining, we go out walking every day, usually before lunch, for around 30-40 minutes, depending on how cold it's been. sometimes b. comes along in the evenings for essential shopping, or on weekends. it's still a bit boring because we stick to the same basic routes: to the park, or to the river, or just around the 3-4 neighbouring blocks on either side. also there hasn't been much vegetation to show her , except small new flowers (but not many). trees are just budding now, so we'll have nicer views next month, but it's a truly long wait. also sometimes in the middle of our walk it starts snowing all of a sudden.
the streets are pretty empty/quiet, i mean for a neighbourhood that has the second highest rate of coronavirus infection in THE coronavirus hotspot of canada. people wear masks, people cross the street when they see us at the other end. for a couple of days i was pretty indignant to see a group of about 10 kids playing in the schoolyard at our corner, then i realized they probably were children of essential workers or some such scheme (they had an adult with them).
anyway: in this picture rada was running away from us, with the stated intention of going to visit her friend m. (we have no idea where m. lives)

one sunny weekend day was all we've had since isolation. 11 degrees and sun means we actually took our jackets off after about half an hour of raking leaves and dry grass (me) and splish-splashing everything in sight (radz). b. did one better and took the big beach umbrella out of the shed and installed it above our table outside (he put it back 2 hrs later lol).
now (after much more rain) the grass is greener and one can actually see the new grass come through. we even have some violets in a corner.