Pandemic Parenting: It's Not for the Faint of Heart

Like everyone else with young kids, I've found the past month to be challenging. For the first two weeks, Rainbow was on spring break and could do whatever she wanted, but as we were both busy with work, she complained that she was bored and felt ignored because we couldn't hang out with her. Now she's into her third week of virtual school, which gives her a schedule and things to do but has its own challenges, often in the form of technology not working as it should or as we want. Late last week, our governor announced that schools in the state would be closed through the end of the academic year, and that brought sadness over the end-of-year traditions she would miss (her school is divided into three levels -- Lower School is preK-4, Middle School is 5-8, and Upper School is 9-12 -- and the last grade in each level typically has a graduation of sorts).

We've been dealing with the emotions as best we can, but then we got another curve ball thrown at us last night. Rainbow had been complaining about her scalp being itchy for about a week, but it wasn't until last night that I spied something crawling through her hair. You know where this is going right? I feel awful that it took me this long to realize what the issue was, but in my defense, I never had lice as a child and wasn't familiar with what to look for. Also, I didn't think it was possible to get lice if you haven't been around anyone else for a month. I suppose my child is just exceptional in every way! In any case, last night I found myself combing through her hair at about 9 p.m., way past her bedtime, because the thought of waiting until morning to do it gave her the heebie-jeebies. (I can't say I blame her, though!)

So today, in between all the work I have to do for that job I still have, I have many loads of laundry to do and will have to inspect her head again. I expect that will become a daily practice as well for at least the next week. And though dealing with this is a pain, I am extremely thankful that it's relatively minor compared to what it could be -- we are all still healthy, after all.

Knitting and crocheting are continuing, as always. Over the weekend, I ripped back a lot of my progress on Rainbow's crochet blanket because I realized that I was increasing too rapidly and winding up with a ripply edge. I'm not quite back to where I was, but I've been working on it at least 15 minutes a day and it's slowly getting bigger. This is a marathon, not a sprint, right?

I got quite a bit of the Newborn Vertebrae done during the Zoom knitting group that Mary hosted on Sunday and finished the body yesterday -- after knitting about two inches more than I needed to because I did not read the directions very well and was measuring the body from the wrong place. At least it's small!

As you can see, I've already started picking up for the front bands/collar; I decided to start it with the last stitch from the bottom hem to avoid having to weave in two extra ends.

Among my accomplishments from the weekend were my first two finishes for SAH Book Bingo. First, I finished listening to Anne of Green Gables, which had been my running listen, and it was just as good as it always has been. I put it in my "Re-read a childhood/YA favorite" square. I also finished an Amazon First Reads book from a month or two ago called In an Instant. It was just okay, but then I didn't expect it to be anything amazing and I mainly only read it because I needed something to read while waiting for my next library hold to come up. That one did on Sunday, and while I'm only in the second chapter of The Ten Thousand Doors of January, gosh, I am really loving it! I also started listening to Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come while I run. As an extreme shy introvert, it seemed right up my alley and has thus far been interesting to listen to.

I hope the start to your week has been less dramatic than mine! I'd love to hear what you're crafting and reading in the comments.