The Things I Didn’t Do

Sitting on the back patio reading and supervising children, I overheard a conversation my four-year-old son had with a stuffed Care Bear he brought outside. He was jumping on the trampoline and tossing the bear as high as it would go before he scooped it back again. At one point, he miscalculated his throw and the bear landed in the bark around the trampoline. My son rushed down the ladder and scooped him up. 

“Are you ok?” he whispered, holding it close. 

“No, I’m not.” This was the bear talking back. 

Holding the bear at arm’s length. “Oh yeah, you’re hurt. Can you fly?” 

“I can’t. If I bend my wings, they hurt.” (Apparently the bear has invisible wings.)

My son hugged and cuddled and whispered sweet nothings to his bear, gently carrying it back up on the trampoline to toss into the air once again. 

Imagine invisible wings on our Care Bear, here.

I had high hopes for this quarantine business. Not having to go anywhere or have our time dictated by outside commitments and extracurricular, I knew I could fill it with fun and exciting things to do at home. The opportunity to have all three of my children at home at once to learn and play was exhilarating. We were going to accomplish things. We were going to soar.  

The children normally receive a daily checklist of responsibilities to accomplish throughout the day. My first grader (who I’ve homeschooled for a couple of years now) has academic responsibilities listed, such as sitting down with me to do her math and reading lessons, etc. The younger one has preschool activities, and the older one who usually was at school all day, only had her chores listed. Since they were all three going to be home, I updated the checklists for all to include more, more, more. 

We were going to have so much time without all the driving from here to there, without the sports and church groups and scout groups. We were all going to learn a foreign language. We were going to follow along with workout videos. We were going to do cool science activities. We were going to learn to do watercolor painting, and take up hand lettering so we could write pretty posters. We were going to be pen pals with all our friends and have movie nights so we could watch movies from my and my husband’s childhood. Oh, we were going to. 

As for me, quarantine would be the perfect time to write the novels floating around in my head. To update my blog and get it on a regular schedule. To deep clean the house from top to bottom. To purge all the clutter bogging us down. To cook healthy meals and bake more and read all the books sitting on my bookshelf and finally make the baby books and the family photo albums.

I had plans, is what I am saying. 

Two months into the stay at home shelter in place whatever you want to call it quarantine, and I can assure you we did nothing of the sort. Sure, the kids kept up on schoolwork because of course, but all the extra that I planned didn’t pan out as anticipated. We did Youtube workout videos for a week, and we randomly followed new art classes on Facebook and found a couple of pen pas, but my vision was far from our reality. 

Instead, we settled into sort of a rhythm. The kids are waking up at sunrise to check off the schoolwork they’ve been assigned. Then they play together and jump on the trampoline and get lost in hours of audiobooks and I don’t have the heart to pull them away to do formal art lessons or learn a foreign language or anything else I might have thought would be fun to do. We go on daily bike rides in our neighborhood before lunch every weekday, yelling hello to whoever we might see. The kids have taken up cutting and coloring and pasting and displaying their creations on the walls of the dining room. They build forts and cuddle kittens and interact with each other all day every day, more than they ever have in their entire lives.   

My husband and I filled a spot in our garage with items to purge, but we could still do so much more. I updated my blog, but haven’t figured out a regular schedule, or what to even write without sounding like I’m repeating everything else that’s out there or feeling like I’ll be judged for not focusing on the bigger issues in the world today. My floor is constantly messy and my house would certainly not pass a white glove test. My novels are still floating in my head, and I keep finding more books to read and buying more things on the internet than ever before. 

As the states contemplate their phases of reopening, I could wallow in the fact that I wasted my quarantine. The checklists weren’t completed, the kids aren’t concert pianists fluent in Spanish and selling high-quality watercolor masterpieces. My novel isn’t on the New York Bestseller’s list and my house isn’t sparkling clean. 

But did I really waste this time? 

My son whispering sweet nothings to his teddy bear tells me I haven’t. We haven’t. It’s not about the things I didn’t do. Not at all.