We survived Day 5

We survived Day 5 of Corona Shut-down. How did we do that? Play-doh making, spelling words, practicing, playing outside, more mulching and yardwork. Some college students who shall remain nameless are beginning to think that their father encouraged them to work from home for the sole purpose of gaining free labor.

Why do you think we had children, people?

Oh, and we also continued our reading of the Little House on the Prairie Series. I began it a few months ago with fear and trepidation. Mr. Victor has very clear opinions on "girl things" and "boy things". He will not enter The Pink Room because it's, well, pink...

And here we suspend our regularly planned blog for an explanation of the room and its name. A long time ago, we were like every other sensible family. We had "Mariana's Room" and "The Boys' Room" and "The Little Girls' Room". Even after we shifted things a time or two we still had "Eden's Room" and "The Boys' Room" and "Mary's Room" and "The College Boys' Room" and Hope's Room" and Victor's Room". But now that things have changed so many times, the older kids were confused as to where they were assigned when returning home. So they gave each room a name, like in a Bed and Breakfast. We have the "Springtime Room" due to its bright yellow theme and "The Pink Room" because one of its former inhabitants preferred that color. We have the "Art Studio" (guess who lives there?). Two rooms with a bit more history are now referred to as "The Holy (think: hole-y) Room" and "The Escape Room"... And now, back to our regularly scheduled blog post..


He will not use the pink stamper because it's also pink. You get the picture. I was afraid that a book with all female offspring would quickly be lumped into the "girl" category. But no, he loves the descriptive writings of Laura Ingalls. For someone who is visually impaired, she makes the difficulties of pioneer living come to life. He also loves the suspense of the escapades of Pa and Laura. And who knew, that at this point in history, while reading The Long Winter, we would find that we have so much in common with the Ingalls family?

Just last night we read in Chapter 15,

It was not worth while to get up in the morning...Another Corona day was roaring, screaming, and swishing around the house. There would be no school.

Everyone was sluggish and half awake. They would rather sleep than wake up to such a day. But Victor called, "Get out of bed! I need breakfast!"

Quickly, because of the cold and the virus and the fear of the 6 year old's wrath, Ma put on her dress and her shoes and followed him down the hallway...

"Now everyone," Ma said kindly. "You must not be so easily discouraged. A few viruses more or less can make no great difference. We will hurry and get the work done, then you can study...Nothing keeps you from learning."

"This is the worst yet, I do believe," Pa said while he held his stiff hands over the stove... "I'll go over to Fuller's right after breakfast and stock up on toilet paper, boxed mac and cheese, and Instant Ramen Noodles." He ate quickly and while he was putting on his wraps again Ma went upstairs to check the toilet paper supply and to remind all of the children to wear their face masks and gloves while keeping their hands under running water all day for maximum cleanliness."

The room was so crowded that Ma could hardly wash the dishes without bumping into someone. Then she unscrewed the lid from the last gallon of bottled water. The last clear drop poured out from the spout of the plastic jug...

Pa had not come back, but surely he could not be lost, in the grocery store...

"There's no toilet paper at the lumberyard," he went on. "People burned through so much in this nasty virus and Aldi's didn't have much on hand. He's selling newspapers to wipe with instead at fifty dollars a thousand sheets."

"People are foolish to pay it," Ma said gently. "Trains are sure to start running again before long..."

"By the way," he said, looking up, "school is closed until toilet paper comes."

"We can study by ourselves," the children said stoutly...

The virus grew worse. It was by far the most violent virus that they had ever heard.

It's amazing what you can do when you replace every reference to "blizzard" with "Corona" and "kerosene oil" with "bottled water and toilet paper". So relevant to life today.

But never fear, we have plenty of kerosene oil and hay for the horses here. We'll be fine.