The Single Parenting Quarantine Marathon

4 words that you probably never would have foreseen going together"

Single parenting quarantine marathon

Our day began at 6:30

"Mama, I want chocolate milk"

"Pablo, you went to bed at 9. Go back to sleep"

"Mama, wake up."

"I will get you milk but you are going back to sleep."

I get the milk. P drinks it, rolls over to face me.

His eyes are rolling to the back of his head, 

Please.  I think.  Go the fuck to sleep.

A little while later, he starts to roll around.  

I pick up my phone. It's 7:57.  I sigh.

"Okay, we can get up." 

We go for our daily walk.  We don't need anything really.

But we need to look like we need something and actually buy something.

So we go to the bakery and get croissants. 

Then we go to the store and buy avocados, peaches, corn and blueberries. 

When we get home, I declare it's exercise time. 

So we take the purple mat and the orange roller and our water up to the roof. 

We stretch and then do some running races together. 

I follow up with a 6 rounds of different jumps

5 rounds of legs and 300 abs, with a run back and forth across the roof in between each set. 

Pablo plays in his Dad's office (currently uninhabited) and pokes his head out the window

pretending he runs a food delivery place and asks me what I want.  

I learn sooner than not that it's hard to count reps and not be redundant with your food orders while playing restaurant / doing leg lifts. 

It's about 10:45 am at this point.  Time for a change of pace. 

We decide to clean.  We clean the kitchen: all the cupboard doors, sweep, the windows 

and then mop the floor.  Then, we clean the devices, because it's been 2 days, rubbing them down with cotton and alcohol.  Then we do some rounds of doctor with Pablo's doctor kit and now, it's about 11:30 am.  Then, something happens (my day has been so eventful and it was also so meaningless) Pablo has a meltdown and gets mad at me.  He also gets his typical wave of boredom/ tiredness and says he wants to sleep.  I tell him to go lie down on the bed and go into join him.  He's sad.  Missing his Dad.  Confused by everything.  Why isn't Vero (his nanny) around?  Why can't we go to the park? Where is papa? Questions that have been repeated at least 5 times a day for the last 48 hours.  

Finally, we become a little more relaxed.  And, we start talking about lunch and I say, "Do you want this or that?" and P replies "I don't want anything." So I get on my storytelling, special voice and say.  "Oh I have an idea" and concoct a long tangent about the best sandwich ever.  We go to make grilled cheese and finish off the meal with a homemade ice cream sandwich.  

My next idea stems from an early childhood group.  We make paint out of flower, salt, water and food coloring.  We do this together and Pablo enjoys the chemistry of putting it all together.  Then, we go out and paint awhile.  Then, I get distracted, as I do often throughout the day with these tasks, and I start to pull the ivy off our walled in yard, which is quite intense.  After an hour later and getting Pablo involved in the process, I am pretty satisfied that I have cleaned 80% of the wall, bagged it up and feel a lot less stressed out.  We also call Abu (Pablo's Spanish grandmother) and get to talk to cousins and aunties too.  As most of you know, Spain is on lockdown too, so 6 of them are cooped up in Andres' sister's house.  

Following this liberating time in the garden, I decide on top of our: exercise, make something, quiet time, grocery/ scooter outings, call someone we love, I must add "gardening" projects to our list of things we do daily to kill time. 

Once that is done, it's about 4:50 pm.  Time for another walk to buy something when the stores open at 5 pm: trash bags, a new dustpan, salt for making play dough tomorrow and ice trays for another painting popsicle project. 

We walk there and walk back, taking our slow time.  It's clear Pablo is trying to procrastinate going back to the house as much as possible with his turtle pace, random stop and observe think alouds and more.  

Upon arrival, it's time for some train play.  We construct houses, a hospital, have bbqs all with legos next to the lego train which delivers fruit and bread to people because they can't leave their houses right now.  Sound familiar?  

Suddenly, there is a "Mama, chorizo" whine which means it's time for dinner.  Pablo gets the fresh dinner of pasta, chorizo and melon.  While mama eats all the leftovers of other meals.  

Bath time, then, 20 minutes of Cars the movie while hair dries,  and then 2 books down, when Pablo says "I want to sleep, mama" even before the book ends.  Within minutes he's down, and now here I am doing my slice of life, looking forward to the guilty pleasure of Netflix series and passing out early because the reality is, I got to run another marathon each day for the next 7 days. 

#SOL20 #day21 #thenewnormal 

It's 12:12 pm.  Day 1 of Quarantine and we have been up since 6:30 am.

Since then, I had an admin leadership meeting.  My son and I went to buy some fruits, veggies and almond milk.  We made chocolate chip cookies.  We talked with our friends in Mexico on Facetime.   We cut up melon.  We did some exercise, running races and 200 sit-ups.    Time is a gift when we can get such a variety

Now, it's a 20 minute tech break for Pablo and I.  I am taking advantage of SOL blogging while he watches some Youtube kids.  I also learned how to block channels and certain videos which was pretty simple and great because I really don't like him watching some of the crap that is on youtube these days.  It's that I never have time to do this when I am rushing in the morning to take a shower and let him have his 10-15 minutes of screen time.  Time is a gift, even 1 minute to just remember to do this simple thing.

This afternoon, we'll probably go out again.  Some friends might sneak over when "they are out shopping" for margaritas and we want to have snacks to entertain.  Time is a gift when you can make the time you need for one another because you aren't busy being busy.

#SOL20 #day20 #11moredaystogo

A Messy But Beautiful World

Things just got even more real in Argentina.

We are on lockdown until March 31, 2020.  Waiting for official news to see the implications but not a good situation. 

Just watched an Indigo Girls concert that attracted 60,000 fans via facebook.  The world is messy but there is still so much beauty.

Ordered 12 bottles of wine today and made a cardboard bus out of the boxes for my toddler.

This is the time to let your creativity flow and relinquish control.

#SOL20 #day19 #wow

Oopsie. Rascalish Moments from Pablo

As we were eating pizza and watching Pup Academy, a Friday night activity that has somehow made it to the middle of the week, we were giggling and Pablo grasped on to a new dog, called Oopsie. 
He asked "What's oopsie?" And kept repeating it frequently like it was being repeated in the episode. 
I said "It's kind of like uh-oh."

And then, Pablo said, oh "like shit."

And I said, "Yes" but "Oopsie is what you say, not shit." 

To which he jokingly replied "Oopsie. Oopsie.  Oopsie."

And to which I grinned, sheepishly.

#SOL20 #day18 #Oopsie 

When It's Over

When It's Over, I want to go on a trip to a beach and drink margaritas and build sandcastles while splashing around in crystal clear water.

When It's Over, I want to go to a discoteque and dance, hard, up and down, joyfully jumping, laughing, screaming and raging like I am 22.

When It's Over, I want to take my son to 4 different parks in one day and let him jump in the ball pit, and eat popcorn and live.

When It's Over, I will have upskilled my online learning skills but will probably want to use tech as little as possible in my life.

When It's Over, I hope we can preserve how we stopped and examined our lives carefully for seconds because we had time.  Time is a gift and is important.

#SOL20 #day17 #tired

80s Moment Magic: A Comedic Flashback

Once upon a time, many years ago, on a frigid October evening in Upstate New York, my friends Hannah and Isabel and I were sitting around in their dormitory, finishing up our dinner and debating what lay ahead for the evening.  Do we bear the cold and go out to a party?  Do we hunker down and drink wine and watch a trending comedy?   A few silly drinking games later, Hannah and Isabel convinced me to go to a sorority's 80s party.  We did a bit of a dressing room parade before we secured our outfits and there I was, ready to go, with liquid courage and little enthusiasm except for quality time with those too.  Adorned in neon green ruffles with a top ponytail, we climbed aboard the school's shuttle and headed towards the 80s party located in the ever so classy, Bundy Dining Hall. 

As we walked through the doors, it was as if 80s paraphernalia had exploded everywhere: crimped hair, jean jackets, rainbow and neon colored tutus all to the lulling calm of Tiffany and Debby Gibson.  I looked at Hannah and Isabel horrified and tried to bolt for the door.   They grabbed me and said "Let's get a beer."  We went to the bar which was luckily slow and ran into some other friends and chatted to them. 

When all of the sudden, a girl with too much blue eyeshadow, combined with too much Budweiser, cruised up to me, and goes "Are you Heather?" And I said, yes, curiously.  And the boppity, beer drinking random girl, continues while pouring a beer on my top ponytail.  "This is for making out with my sister's boyfriend." And then ran away hysterically, while I stood, stunned, slightly soaked in my hideous green dress.  My friend, Molly responded with more speed then me, running over and starting to kick the culprit.  I felt like I had been doused in clarity and walked calmly over to the accuser and her sister. and said "I'm sorry but I didn't know you were still dating, and let's look at this situation, he made out with me, while he was dating you.  Who is the bad guy here?"   The girl whose boyfriend I had apparently made out with, was clearly shocked that I had continued this whole very 80s movie exchange but acknowledged my point.  She didn't say sorry but nodded and that was enough.  Enough for me to have peace with the moment,  enough with me to have my miserable and ridiculous 80s movie moment and enough for me to end my evening of drinking and proceed to my dorm's charming shower stalls.  

#SOL20. #Day16 #comicreliefincorona 

When... #newnormals

When all is unwell, we draw rainbows and red cars and bushy trees on our wall outside and listen to the Greatest Showman soundtrack, dancing in shorts that resemble jams from the 90s but cut off mid thigh.

When all is unknown, we make Easter bunnies from our cotton normally reserved for removing nail polish.

When we can't go to the park, we build forts, big ones, with 2 sofas pushed together and 5 blankets as rooftops, and 3 different rooms: one for Pablo, one for mama and one for Mona, the stuffed monkey.

When there's not much new to do, we invent things, like cleaning the windows or cleaning Papa's room he'll be quarantined in when he moves from his airbnb to home in a few days.

When we are disconnected, we end up talking to loved ones more often, and appreciating them and loving them much more then we often do but as we should.

When we go to the grocery store and the pastas, beans, rice are all but gone, we decide, maybe it's time to actually stock up our freezer instead of living our typical European day to day, shop for what you'll cook/ need lifestyle.

When you are tired at the end of long day #can't count anymore and you still need to blog, this is what you get.

#SOL20 #day15 #newnormals