Because I am married to a Math Man, we talk numbers a lot in our family. I mean, maybe not everyone would agree with my quantitative qualifies, because I am clearly the word nerd in the group, but for real, it seems like a LOT.

Since COVID life started for us in mid-March, we started keeping track on the calendar with just how many days it has been because honestly, how else would we keep track? And somehow, today is day 79. Seventy-freaking-nine of not seeing grandparents or friends in person, of playing at parks or participating in school and activities. I may not be a numbers expert, but it sure feels like that’s a crap-ton.

And again, because, Math, I also happen to know that today marks 79* days until school starts again in the fall. That means we are really only at the halfway point of this bizarre, unwanted extended summer that really doesn’t feel like summer because we don’t feel comfortable doing pretty much any of the things we’d normally do outside of our own yard in “the before times” summer.    *He tells me that it’s somewhere between 79 and 80 between tonight and tomorrow and oh my gosh are you kidding me, so many numbers and math! 😉

And that is a lot to process because, as those of you living with small armies of dependents you are responsible for raising/creating whilst existing in the midst of the most uncertain and stressful time any of us have ever experienced, we’ve sort of already reached our max of Together Time.

Are you feeling that, too?

In case you didn’t know, I’m a quiet person who likes quiet time and my house is never ever quiet anymore (not even when the children are on screens; in fact, sometimes when they play video games, they are louder in both celebration and frustration than when off them). And it seems that none of us is ever getting a real honest break or time away to do our thing. The closest I’ve gotten is driving to pick up groceries or grade papers off-site and neither of those tasks are vacation-like in any way!

Normally during summer we’d have a week or two when we’d be all home without something scheduled, but otherwise it would be this kid here for that camp or that kid there for something else, and goodness, without any outliers to break up the days, the constant togetherness is overwhelming. And we are still 79ish flipping days away from a real change in that.

Sidenote: I would be freaking the freak out if I wasn’t with my kids right now. That is not my wish at all. I am glad that we are privileged and able to be together during this time. And also, it is a lot to handle. Both things are the truth.

I keep trying to figure out how we can split things up a bit better but so far I’m still coming up blank as to how to make it happen. My latest approach is to let them pair or group up naturally to go off and play whatever and not interfere as long as it stays relatively peaceful. Sometimes that works (until it doesn’t), and then we try again. I don’t know how much that is different from pre-COVID life, actually, but all the same, I wish we had some better ways to shake things up (and spread the heck out from one another).

The way most days go, at some point (or ten) they end up in a prickly cluster in which they literally will not separate even though they are clearly not getting along (see image below). We are fortunate to live in a town with yards and a house with multiple rooms and not an apartment in a city where we’d be really really stuck together, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference to this crew – they still gravitate to one another and bicker.

As it is, we’re just going to keep our fingers crossed and our hands washed and our masks on and hope against hope that all of this (and by “this” I mean the many, multiple, multifaceted layers of HARD that was this week in our country, but that is another blog post for another day) improves.

We’re willing to do the work to make it so (even if one of those “this”s means being on top of each other for another 79+ days).