If I think about this entire situation too much, I might cry.

Our school district has decided to close down for up to two weeks due to COVID-19.  While kids are not particularly susceptible to being hit hard by the virus, older adults are.  The superintendant is in an unenviable position, but has elected to close down in favor of online school while the virus runs some of its shelf life.

This meant that I was scrambling to put together plans this morning, testing out Zoom as a meeting feature for the kids, picking up a Chromebook from Tad’s school for him to use, waiting for word from Rerun’s school that his Chromebook was ready, signing up on Google Classroom for Thumper, and generally just trying to not hyperventilate.

I don’t know how this is going to work for special ed, and frankly, neither do the boys’ teachers and paras.  I might know more tomorrow, as I’m making contact with more of them – and holding Thumper’s IEP meeting over Zoom in the morning.

Any and all prayers you can offer on our behalf would be most welcome.  We are all healthy and I’m telling the kids that I plan on living as normally as circumstances will permit us to do so.  And Rerun’s birthday is coming up on Sunday, so we really do have to make an effort to be as normal as possible for his sake.  Who wants to have a birthday in these circumstances if you can’t do anything fun?

Today was a great big smelly mess of a day.

It started with all the kids BUT Rerun going back to school (which he was happy about).  But Ane missed the bus (not good), and the Webmaster was concerned that the laundry room toilet wasn’t draining properly.

And then the toilet in the main bathroom wasn’t draining properly.

And as we were trying to figure out what was going on, my eyes were drawn to the bathtub, where raw sewage was coming up through the drain.  OH CRAP.

So the Webmaster made some phone calls and started digging to open up the access points to the septic tank.

However, the tank was neither over-full or malfunctioning.  It turned out there was a blockage in the main pipe from the house to the septic tank.  Once that was cleared, everything drained properly.  We then opted to have the tank pumped anyway because it was open.

Rerun and I then went to run a few errands, which included picking up some Scrubbing Bubbles foaming bleach spray for the bathtub.  I then spent a solid hour bleaching the tub and letting it sit, then scrubbing it clean.  I wore gloves the whole time.  Eww.

However, the Webmaster’s, um, overzealous plunging of the laundry room toilet had resulted in him knocking it off its wax seal, and it was now leaking all over the floor from the base.  Fortunately, with the help of Gichan, he was able to get the toilet up and reseated on a new seal, and now everything is hunky dory again…

… at least until the phone call came in late tonight that SCHOOL IS CLOSED FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS???

Rerun’s school was closed on Monday to wait on a COVID-19 test for a staff member, and for the school to be cleaned. He relished the fact that HE got to stay home without his siblings while they had to go to school.

The charm wore off pretty quickly when I set him to doing his daily reading and some math homework.  This was not just a vacation day, and I was hoping (at the time) that he would be back in school the next day.

He then had to go with me to the grocery store before we picked Rerun up for ABA in afternoon – and was clearly unimpressed with my routines and just adulting in general.

Rerun: (in the grocery store parking lot) “What else are you going to do today?”

Me: “Do the grocery shopping, pick up your brother, make dinner.”

Rerun: “Oh.” (pause) “I thought you did more interesting things.”

The kicker is that ALL the schools are closed today for a teacher inservice day, so all the kids are home now.  We’ll see what happens next…

We would read your books anywhere.  In a car, in a tree, they are so good, so good, you see!

Thumper is proudly sporting this T-shirt today, while Rerun happily stays home with me because now HIS school is closed.  Oh the joy.