Spring Break 2020: Reality versus Fantasy

Right now much of the country is "self-isolating" and "social distancing" and, well, staying away from anyone with a pulse who's not in your immediate family. Coincidentally, this past week was also spring break. We weighed our options (and weighed them and weighed them) and reluctantly decided...that we'd hunker down and isolate ourselves from others...in Florida. Our family had literally been counting down the days for spring break. And we knew that we were going to a condo (not a hotel), so it wouldn't be too tough to be antisocial...and, thankfully, it wasn't.

At 4:30 a.m., there were very few people in CVG. We wiped down the entire inside of our plane with bleach wipes and then watched the sun rise as we flew south...

We (talked to no one and) exited the airport; (got near pretty much no one and) picked up our rental car; and then drove to Publix for all the groceries we would need for our trip. The grocery store was packed (WTF, Southwest Florida at 10:15 on a Sunday morning!?), so we got out of the there as fast as we could.

After we got into the condo (and washed our hands and wiped down everything with more bleach wipes, including our groceries) and unpacked, we headed straight outside for the perfect weather (oh, the glorious sunshine!), pristine waters and silky sands of Ft. Myers.

 

We didn't talk to folks at the pool or the beach (though we saw people socializing in big crowds--guess they didn't get the memo??) and we cooked and ate every single one of our meals in the condo--but it was still extremely stressful and you felt like everyone around you is an enemy. As social creatures (especially our kids) who usually love to socialize, it zapped a lot of fun and energy out of our trip. Nonetheless, we were very lucky to have exceptionally gorgeous weather and the beach and pool time were fabulous.

We cooked several yummy meals!

Ate al fresco out on the screened-in patio. The temperature was perfect with a light breeze...

Made our requisite 7-11 run for Slurpees!

Went for long walks on the beach after dinner...

Played beach volleyball as the sun set...

Tried to bury Samuel so he's no longer the tallest...

And made every effort to really, really relax. It was hard, but we tried.

We also celebrated St. Patrick's Day...with pasta (hey, we're Italian!). 😉

Took in our final sunset...

Wrote a little bucket list... 💙

And then we changed our flight to head back to Ohio two days early. With Miami's and Ft. Lauderdale's beaches closing and restaurants and bars closing, too, we felt like it was only a matter of time before domestic travel would be affected. We didn't really want to drive our rental car home. 😲 Lucky for us, we chose seats on our plane that weren't near anyone else...literally rows and rows from the next person.

And now we're home. And settling into a new normal of being home for weeks. Since I work from home, this is not so crazy for me, but Tony's never worked from home and the kids are still wrapping their brains around not going back to school tomorrow.

Since we did spend the second half of spring break at home, we tried to keep things light and play lots of games, read books, write books, do lots of art projects and knock out 80's movies. We started with Back to the Future--it was a huge hit!

 

Samuel and Brie had their first online piano lessons, too. They went fine!

And Bas and I baked. We'll be doing a lot of that over the next few weeks...

 

Also, one of our neighbors who's a teacher organized an online/at-home scavenger hunt for the kids. They could all see each other thanks to Zoom. Our neighbor would call out an item and then the kids would run and find it, hoping to get back first.

This one was, "Find the fluffiest thing in your house." They had a blast.

Last night the kiddos had a sleepover in the basement...more fun times and good memories.

The kids have also been tackling Lego creations, reinventing some space in the basement for their purposes, and finding ways to virtually chat with friends. So hard when you're as social as they are.

A few thoughts:

• I can now say that this is the first time in my life that I've actually felt the physical byproducts of stress and anxiety. Fluttery heart, throat closing in... I was nervous before I first moved to Japan almost twenty years ago, but those feelings were negligible compared to my worry about my kids, husband, family and friends getting sick from the virus;
• On the same note, traveling this week really made me think hard about the things we do FOR our children that might not be best for them. I'm still on the fence about whether our antisocial trip to Florida was wise. I never would put our children at risk unnecessarily, but it's hard not to feel like we might have...even for a few days;
• There's a joke going around about the "Virus 15," as opposed to the "Freshman 15." I find it hard to be hungry. Definitely a symptom of worry...
• I'm currently reading the fabulous and intriguing book The Last Best Cure. The author Donna Jackson Nakazawa chronicles her year of incorporating meditation, yoga and acupuncture into her life to help her with multiple nerve-related, muscle-related, auto-immune conditions. Her story and research are extremely compelling. The next few weeks may be our family's best opportunity for learning meditation and its benefits. (Luckily, the kids already love yoga!)
• I feel immensely grateful that we fit SO much in in the last few weeks and months--a conference with 5,000 people, our favorite family retreat, the Purim Shpiel... In some cases, a difference of a week would have meant they were cancelled. 

Is there a silver lining to all of this? Or multiple?

• Tony has never worked from home because lab work doesn't allow it. Now he has no choice but to operate at and manage his lab from home. Maybe it will bring new perspective, ideas and, frankly, some much-needed, no-choice-but-to-embrace R&R;
• Time to tackle the honey-do list? We do have some projects around the house that we've been putting off. This really should be the time to start checking off some of that list;
• Together time! I already know that--barring another cataclysmic event like this...gosh, I hope there's never another in my lifetime--this will be the most together time that the five of us will ever have. As the kids age, they'll want to spend less and less time with us and as a family. In just seven years, Samuel will be off to college. Things will accelerate. They won't be small anymore. I really hope this is our time for bonding that will last forever.

So that was Spring Break 2020. It truly was unlike any I could or would have ever envisioned. We pretty much survived it. And now we're embarking on remote learning at home with three children. We're all going to be different from this experience...