TIONDS: Part II: The Utter Collapse of Everything

The first thing I noticed, Monday morning, was the dirt under my nails. It's not an uncommon sight in March, but I tend to do a better job scrubbing the farmwork off of myself before starting the week of workwork, at a schoolschool.

Except Monday was not a workday, nor was it a school day, though it was a weekday.

I heard the husband downstairs in the kitchen and started to fire up the mental list of expectations: The kids, me, home all day. Garden, animals, books, online stuff, music, lunch in there somewhere. Usually. The days are a blur of laundry and Miyazaki films. Yesterday, it was the towels and Totoro. Today, kid clothes and, maybe Kiki?

Did the last six years even happen?

Am I just imagining it, or did we all spend a whole lot of a long while getting up early, putting on regular pants, and leaving the house everyday? Backpacks. I seem to remember backpacks, and living life with almost no straw in my hair.

Well, the Importance of Not Doing Something turns out to have have implications reaching way way beyond this dinky little backyard blog. Learning to curb, to self-regulate, to see the value in saying "No," to the eternally soggy-bottomed desire to sink into a habit and ignore its inherent dangers: that's what I was going after when trying to get my kids to spend less time on their screens.

But now, we all have to tell ourselves no, when it comes to just about everything. No school, no work, no public places. Stay home, stay well, and stay out of the traffic stream helping COVID-19 romp around on a global spring break.

And all the screens say,

 Okay, so maybe they are  keeping people employed, connected, informed, and literally fed.

For sure online technology is making it possible for the primary breadwinner in this house to continue working, for the aspiring teachermom to keep studying, and it will be heavily involved in our kids enjoying resources provided to them by the school district.

So, what's the point of even continuing this New Year's Resolution? Is it too late to change it to Spend MORE Time on Screens?

Last week feels like forever ago, but I have a foggy recollection of life back then. I remember wanting the kids to take a bigger role in limiting their screen time. I wanted them to learn to live better by practicing self-regulation. And they did.

 And it was awesome. The end. HAHAHAHA.

Those were quaint times, when we could concern ourselves with such frivolities. Right now, we need to flex our apocalypse readiness and turn this BU out.

I type these words with grubby fingers that spread straw like it was a Thursday morning, 2013. The news came the other day: we're in for a six week hiatus. Six weeks of a life we lived for six years.

 We might just learn something.