Quarantined in Westchester: One Mom's Story

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Hi everyone! Andrea here, and by now you’ve probably gotten the news that your school is closed until at least after Easter, and while I’m all about keeping us safe to see summer, OMIGOD HOW AM I GONNA BE TRAPPED AT HOME WITH THESE KIDS ALL DAY FOR THREE WEEKS!!! This virus is #1 on my shit list.

We may just be beginning our homeschool nightmares, but several Westchester moms have already been doing the quarantine thing for a few weeks now. How are they handling it? Well, you shoot for the stars (Mary Poppins-style chunks of enriching life lessons) and then slowly accept that screen time is going to be their teacher until everyone can leave the house. Here’s one mom’s account of the past few weeks at home.

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Quarantine Dreams

My 5-year-old, 2-year-old, and I just endured a 14-day quarantine from a COVID-19 school exposure, so we've been around the block. Not literally, chill. 

For the sake of our species, we paused everything. Having no schedule presented a rare opportunity to ponder self-improvement. I vowed to exercise every day, cut out dairy, teach one kid to read and the other to use the potty. And then… Alas, it turns out quarantines aren’t alternate realities offering additional hours in a day, energy to spare, or delicious enough replacements for cheese. I regret to inform you that no progress was made on those well-intentioned, but deluded, fronts. 

To you newly-quarantined merrymakers: I see your optimistic Day One triumphs: your hopeful color-blocked schedules, smiling young faces in costumes, hair blowing in the backyard. I’m not here to crush your hopes and dreams, nor can I offer you Pinterest-perfect DIY slime bath recipes. I’m simply inviting you to be a fly on the wall in our kooky house, reserving judgement until the end of your respective isolation. 

Our days in a nutshell: 

  • Watching screens. All shapes and sizes of screens. Interrupting screen time for some FaceTime with other quarantined friends. 

  • Crying in shifts when screens get turned off/die/if my youngest eats a banana, whose smell offends my oldest to the depths of his soul, warranting a micro-quarantine within the quarantine.

  • Eating all the food that’s meant to last for weeks. Except, of course, for the old freezer food that we’ve actually been meaning to get to. My spouse calls this future garbage. Seriously though, if you’re not going to eat it in lockdown, are you ever going to eat it? Here’s a tip: call lunch a snack so your kids will eat it.

  • Coming up with schedules for the day that no one executes or participates in (i.e- “Cooking Club” was just me making zucchini bread, which the critics didn’t even like “because it has nuts” even though they eat nuts literally all day.)

  • Taking a daily field trip to the backyard, which is a bit unnerving due to a string of recent mysterious squirrel deaths, hopefully not from eating too many nuts.

  • Art Club: Begging one child to use scissors to strengthen his fine motor skills while begging the other to put down the scissors because he’s not being safe. Finding scraps of paper everywhere for days. Withholding annoyance that all your Play Doh is now one color. It’s fine, really. [eye twitches]

  • Beat A Dead Tree Club. Locate a dead tree. Make sure no squirrels are hiding (dead or alive) and take swings at it with a shovel or bat. The leaves will fall off; it’s uproarious fun!

  • New favorite game! What’s On My Butt? Mom lays on the couch face down. Invites children to place objects on your butt. Half-ass guess the objects until you fall asleep or the kids get bored. Everyone’s a winner! 

  • Least favorite game: How Long Can You Stay Out of Daddy’s Office While He’s on a Work Call?

  • It’s all about the marketing: Cuddle Club. Book Club. Lunch Bunch. Organization Station. Bathroom Bonanza. It sounds exclusive and kids like that. After all, this is Westchester.

Moral of the story: give everything a zany name. Keep your expectations low. Stay at home. Save lives. Look at Instagram for a daily dose of comparing yourself to others and feeling badly about it. Meditate. Reach out to your friends when you start to lose it. Be a good human; that’s all your kid needs. 

Nama-stay home, 

One Tired Mom

Thank you for your story, OTM! I know we’re all worried about the coming weeks, but we can do this! And the most important thing to remember is, this is a marathon, not a sprint. Put on the TV if everyone needs a break. Head outside: recess is a subject too. And maybe at the end of this, we’ll appreciate our teachers a little bit more. After all, they do this willingly, pandemic or not.

That's it for this week! Follow us on Facebook or Instagram. Until further notice our Event of the Day is Social Distancing, but when life resumes again, check out our website for things to do that aren’t cancelled.

Andrea