End of Innocence

It was Spring Break for all the school systems around here this past week.  Because of that all our activities were cancelled, which proved to be a good thing with the coronavirus going around.  Half the people said not to freak out and carry on as usual.  We had mainly been in that camp.  The problem has been that the people in the freak-out camp were buying up everything.  At the beginning of the week, all the stores were emptied of toilet paper, paper towels, soap, and hand sanitizer.  But as the week progressed, people were buying up all the meats and milk, eggs and produce.  Even the laundry detergent and dishwasher detergents were gone.

Friday morning I went to the grocery store.  I arrived at 5:55 a.m. hoping to avoid the craziness.  I stood outside with 25 other people waiting to get in at 6:00.  In those five minutes, car after car was parking in the parking lot.  It was NUTS.  There were no apples/bananas/carrots/meat/eggs/paper products of any kind/bleach/laundry detergent/liquid soap.  Fortunately people had not bought up the frozen vegetables, so I got all our favorites.  Todd was able to find some produce at a different store Friday evening.  Since we were only getting piecemeal at each establishment, on Saturday morning Todd got up early to go to a different grocery store.  He got there at 6:00 a.m.  (when they're usually open).  He said there was a line the entire length of the entrance with a sign on the door stating they wouldn't open til 8:00.  So he left.  All he was looking for was milk and eggs.

The grocery stores have gotten wise to the hoarders and this afternoon we checked out one last grocery store in search of eggs.  They had them.  Everywhere there were signs limiting each household to 1 or 2 of each item.  When I got in line to check out, I was third in line.  The first guy who was checking out tried to buy 8 things of fresh meat.  They wouldn't let him.  He only could get two.  Then the guy directly in front of me had a whole case of black beans.  They let him buy three cans.  Same with rice.  He was able to buy up to $10 worth of rice.  No more.  The cashier's computers wouldn't let them even scan any more.  So, we are very grateful for the restrictions for the time being which allow everyone to get some food.  We are pretty much stocked with our normal groceries at this point.  But it took 4 shopping trips to find it all.  Plus, I was able to find some toilet paper online.  Thank you, Office Depot.  We'll have a case of rough office-issued toilet tissue delivered next week.

Caroline found the time to decorate her matryoshka dolls that she got from Aunt Claire.  She loves these dolls and really enjoyed deciding upon their different styles.  Often, she plays with the ones we brought back from Russia, so I'm glad she has her own set now.

Since it was Spring Break, the neighbor kids were around a lot more.  One day, all three kids were playing with one of the neighbor boys, who we'll call Dan (who is 9 or 10).  Dan was chatting with our boys and Caroline felt that what he was saying was inappropriate.  She even brought in a piece of paper because she thought he was saying curse words and she wanted me to see it.  On the paper was the word, "sex."  Great.  Now we had to talk to the boys about it to make sure they had the correct information and not just Dan's interpretation.  Todd had already had talked to Josiah about it, but he still talked to him again just to reiterate correct information and doing things God's way.  Josiah kept his eyes firmly pointed down, completely embarrassed, during their short talk.  Then came Henry.  We hadn't talked to Henry about anything because he's nine and we shouldn't have had to yet!  We asked Henry if he knew what the word meant and he said he thought it meant wearing a lot of make-up.  Maybe in certain situations... Todd proceeded to tell him about the birds and the bees.  He told him about how the baby is made with parts from the man and the woman.  Henry was not embarrassed.  He was full of questions.  He kept saying, "So let me get this straight."  Then he'd proceed to explain it all with zero words and lots of hand motions.  Some of which made sense and some which made no sense at all.  Here were some of his best questions:
"So when it happened with me, did Josiah watch?"
"So how do they get there (sperm)?  Do they float through the air?"
"Where do you find the time to do that?"
"So, do you wear shirts?"

I did have the chance to talk to the neighbor kid.  I showed him the piece of paper on which he had written the taboo word, told him it was totally inappropriate and if he did it again I'd talk to his father.  Please, God, let that be the end of it.  Not cool that Caroline even knows that word yet.

Right now we're just laying low and staying home.  We live streamed our church service this morning, which was nice.  Our CC group has cancelled meeting for the next two weeks.  We are going to try to do it through video apps, though we'll see how that works.  Locally, all the school systems have shut down for at least another week.  Our kids are overjoyed that they are homeschoolers and life will remain much the same.  Yay school.  I think one of the funniest satires I saw was an article entitled:  Homeschoolers to Continue Quarantining Themselves From Everything Like Always.  Really, though, we are going to miss seeing all our CC friends.  To keep from going stir crazy we'll have to start walking the neighborhood and going on bike rides.  Stick to the open air places, lay low, get our schoolwork done, avoid neighbor kids.