Well, we watched Tiger King on Netflix. It seemed like everyone else was doing it, and I was curious. Let me tell you: no matter what you have heard, or think you know about this series, or can imagine about these people, you have NO idea. Every single episode (there are 7) brought new levels of jaw-dropping shock. I’m still not over it. I might watch it again, just because I require more processing time, although Sir Monkeypants might literally die laughing if I do, because he almost did the first time through – not from laughing at the people in the show, but at me and Gal Smiley for our weird obsession with truly bizarre people and their bizarre world of Big Cats.
Trust me, if you watch it, you’ll get it. It’s a train wreck you can’t look away from.
***
In other news, we continue to be doing just fine, and yet I sometimes find my worry level to be spiraling out of control. I’m not worried about survival, or supplies, or someone getting sick. Well, at least I FEEL like I’m not worried about someone getting sick, but I keep having nightmares about zombies and witches breaking into the house and then creeping up on me in my sleep, and it doesn’t take much to see that dreams of this nature are a thinly veiled reference to COVID-19. As the Captain would say, “Symbolism, am I right?” and then sigh at how his English teachers have ruined his ability to enjoy the world on a surface level.
Really though, I am worried about the kids and how they will remember this time, and how it will change who they are. I feel like every parent is worried about this kind of thing right now. I saw something on Facebook that talked about how very young children will just remember this as a glorious time of getting lots of parental attention and playing all day, but I suspect they will struggle with understanding why they can’t go to the park or see friends, and may remember it as a time full of tension and anger and lots of use of the word NO.
My kids are older and I worry about what will happen to their school years, and whether or not they will still have any friends by the time this is over, and if they will hate us the more they are stuck in the house with their stupid parents. Sir Monkeypants and I went for a walk today with the Captain, who is coping pretty well; he’s had some conference calls with his teachers and also with a group of friends he studies with, and then other open calls on Discord to play video games together. Gal Smiley has been doing a lot of sneaking her phone into her room at night (WE ARE ON TO YOU) and chatting with and messaging friends and so far she seems okay although she’s not too happy with us when we make her get up in the morning (TECHNICALLY – 11:55 is still morning, right?) and do homework. But I think both of them will make it as long as they manage to salvage the semester and we don’t hound them too much about it.
Little Miss Sunshine is our real worry right now. This is totally the worst time to be turning 13, which she will be in a couple of months. Her time at home so far has been full of a lot of stomping, and eye rolling, and very sad sighing. She doesn’t want to do anything with us, but she resists our suggestions to call friends or set up group chats. She doesn’t want to do homework or exercise and will look at us with horror if we suggest either. She doesn’t want to watch a show with us or play a game with us or literally be around us at all, and yet, here she is. She’s stopped saying “love you” when I leave her room at night for tuck-ins.
It’s probably pretty natural 13-year-old behaviour, and frankly, we had it good with the older two, who were very little trouble and still enjoy hanging with us (within reason). But for the Little Miss to be trapped in the house with us while she’s feeling like her family are her least favourite people in the world is probably going to leave a mark, I imagine.
It’s a worry.
In the meantime, we will continue to work our way through the entirety of Netflix (after some time to get over Tiger King) and we have discovered Jackbox games, which allow us all to play silly things that are kind of like Pictionary or Balderdash in a digital way (the main game plays on our TV through our AppleTV, and we each join the game with a phone or tablet as our drawing/typing tool). That’s been cool, and I hope it’s enough to make this not the WORST time of everyone’s life, at least.
TurtleHead 
Aw hang in there – you’re a wonderful mom. Kids will be kids, and we see the world not as it is, but as we are. Some kids will remember this as a great time and others will remember it as miserable, and that’s more a function of memory rather than the actual events. Have I ever told you about post-traumatic growth? 🙂 Here, as you might have seen me rant on Facebook, the kids sleep until whenever, get up, maybe shower, maybe eat. I’m working full-time from home with little time to manage them during the day. Am I encouraging them to become more independent or am I negligent mother? Probably a bit of both, but who knows what they believe, because they don’t really talk all that much. We’ll get through – it will be fine. Kid#2 here was asking what we’ll be doing for his 16th birthday in 3 weeks. I don’t know at all. But it will be what it will be.
Both my kids celebrated milestone birthdays last week (19 and 16). We celebrated by letting them select all the meals for that day, plus what type of cake they would like. They had to tell me in advance so that I could have the ingredients on hand.
Eldest went with eggs benedict, nachos, mac and cheese and a skor cheesecake.
second born went with hash brown breakfast sandwiches, fruit filled crepes, pizza and chocolate/vanilla cake. They are both Celiac, so everything is gluten free. I made it all from scratch and it was a fun way to celebrate them on their day.
Neither celebrated the way they had original planned, but were happy that we did something.
Our nearly 13-year old has been surprisingly lacking on moodiness … possibly becasue she knows if she gets too cranky we will cut her screen time down. She misses her friends, but also absolutely refuses to pick up the phone or initiate group chats with friends. (Thank goodness for the class Meets facilitated by the teachers!)
Meanwhile, her social butterfly little sister loves video chats and dance parties with her besties.