Pomerleau Family Blog: First few weeks of COVID 19 (March 12th-March 21st)

By the middle of the week there were rumors going around that school may be canceled for a few weeks to try to limit the spread. On Thursday March 16th I got a text from my sister stating that the Bay Area had issued a shelter in place. Her and her husband had already been working from home for a few weeks to reduce exposure but my nieces' daycare closed. On Thursday night, we got news that our School district became the first in Oregon to cancel school beginning Friday March 12th until after Spring Break on March 31st. Luckily, I had been monitoring the situation and got a lot of inspections including a serious fire in on Thursday March 16th before I had to be home with the kids.

I remember getting a text message from my friend Brooke on Thursday at around 6:25 PM stating that she heard a rumor that our district had closed school starting immediately the next day. Up North the Coronavirus began up in Washington only about 20 minutes from Dawn's family. That day they had announced that Olivia's cousin Bianca's school was closed for 6 weeks. We were hoping that we may have a little more time but apparently we were not! I remember being in shock and then worrying about my immediate family. My sister texted that she was essentially in a lock down situation in Berkeley as the Bay area poised a much higher risk for the virus. The kids' activities all kept getting canceled-gymnastics, baseball, basketball (Olivia's last game of the season) and later that evening at around 10:30 PM, our Governor Kate Brown went on the news and said that they canceled school now statewide beginning that following Monday March 16th. I went to bed wondering what was going to happen next. Italy's deaths were getting worse, hundreds and hundreds were dying each night. I was so happy that my parents made it home safely from Hawaii with no symptoms of the virus and that luckily the virus had not really made it to Hawaii yet.

I let the kids relax on their first day home on Friday March 13th. We got up and I did a workout (needed it after all the wine I drank the night before!). We were able to go to the kids' schools and pick up some items in the school before it was shut down. Little did we know that this would be our last time in Alberta Rider for this school year. We headed to Costco afterwards and it was nuts there! For 3 miles it was slow traffic just getting to Costco. Luckily I knew a back way and went back through Westside to get to Costco. After battling traffic and parking we finally find a spot after 45 minutes and were able to get into Costco. I ended up buying way more at Costco than I normally do and got a bunch of meat that I could freeze. I spent almost $500! The kids were tired but we still headed to Fred Meyer's to get the rest of the stuff I couldn't get at Costco. Finally, after shopping for 2.5 hours we got back home. It was quite the ordeal putting away all the groceries but I got that done. We headed back to Alberta Rider to pick up Brandon's glasses in his classroom (glad we did that as his other glasses were broken).

A carload full of food from Costco!

COVID-19 schedule was posted all over the internet

To make things even more bizarre it snowed Friday night into Saturday. It had not snowed all year and it finally snowed in the middle of March! They were still figuring out the whole social distancing thing and were recommending at that time groups under 25 so we went over to our neighbor's house and hung out with them for several hours. Little did I know that this would be one of our last social interactions for a while. I spent a large part of the day figuring out the kids' home school curriculum-the school had not provided any guidance as I didn't want the kids to fall behind. There were so many blogs and emergency home school networks on social media that it was super overwhelming. I posted a popular COVID-19 daily schedule. Most of the research indicated the importance of keeping the kids on a schedule. I was able to confirm with our after school baby sitter that she was willing to come and watch the kids 4 days a week for 4 hours in the afternoon. This was costly but a huge life saver and broke the day up for the kids quite a bit.

Snow in the middle of March

Lulu loved the snow

We got about an inch and a half

Olivia and Lulu had fun together in the backyard

The flakes came down so big-so pretty!

The weather was cold and rainy Sunday March 15th. We found out on Sunday what dog we were getting from the breeder. Brandon was so excited because we got the brown boy that he really wanted (we got to watch nest live videos of the dogs and it was his favorite!). We promptly named him Teddy. We were still about 12 days away from getting the puppy but it was so fun to figure out which one we were getting. Brandon rang around the house cheering like he won the lottery. I printed more worksheets for the kids and created a schedule. We played some games inside and I found a fun free teaching piano app so the kids got to start learning how to play the piano.

The first week it just felt like the kids were on a break. We did a few hours of school work a day but we didn't have any direction from the school yet on what we should be teaching the kids. We tried to get outside each day and we got lucky because it was relatively good weather. Olivia and I went on a fun walk for St. Patrick's Day and the leprechaun evaded their traps and left a few little toys for the kids. We saw a car catch on fire during one of our walks which was exciting and we called 911. The kids loved watching the firetruck come and put out the fire. On Monday March 16th San Francisco was the first city to essentially order a lock down and a shelter in place and stay at home order. They were allowed to leave to go grocery shopping, to work if they were an essential worker, and to walk outside as long as they were 6 feet apart from everyone. On Tuesday March 17th our Governor decided to extend the school closures through April 28, 2020-so an additional 4 weeks. The cases were getting worse elsewhere in the United States and the virus was spreading a lot more than people had thought it would. Apparently, the virus was not just transmitted through saliva and droplets like they thought but was transmittable through the air. They were recommending stricter guidelines which included no play dates.

The kids took the school news closure differently. Brandon was having an awesome third grade year with Mr. Hinkle who he loved and he enjoyed his class a lot. He was super sad to not be able to go back. Olivia was actually happy as she had a disruptive class although she missed her teacher Mrs. Lambert and her bestie Teodora in her class. The kids did begin zooming their friends and face-timing them. Olivia really missed Addie and called her a lot. We got cute photos from our breeder of Teddy and I found a fun virtual workout that my Beach Body favorite trainer Autumn was doing live on her Instagram account. The kids had fun making a terrarium too. We were also looking forward to going to the beach for 4 nights in Yahacts as we could social distance there for spring break next week. On Friday March 20th we got an e-mail from our breeder where we are getting Teddy from stating that due to virus she was allowing us to get the puppies early and said we could get them as early as Saturday March 21st (6 days early). I had a bunch of yard work I wanted to do-tree trimming and mowing of the lawn and it was really nice out so we opted to pick him up Sunday March 22nd. I will write a whole blog about getting Teddy and his first week with us next.